31-10-2015: getting over the fear of failure in testing

it's always an interesting question when it's time to pivot, call it quits, part or whatever is the relevant idea. if you end it too soon, people will always wonder what was next - what never happened. if you keep going, people inevitably begin to whisper about relevance.

frankly? bluntly? i think this is actually pretty good timing.

i've never been explicitly interested in hip-hop; i've always been more of a punk, although that's repeatedly brought me to the fringes of hip-hop primarily through the medium of industrial music and "intelligent techno". but, i've been pushed repeatedly to make hip-hop (instrumental or with them) by friends who can hear the potential, and i've always had to sort of agree: the potential is there. it's just not at all where i'd direct myself, it would have to be collaborative. so, it's always been a j away from happening, but never has.

i'm in detroit - i'm a long ways away. but if you think you can use me for something, let me know.

he's right.

except it's crazy, because the americans would flip.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2311715/stop-bombing-isis-support-assad-canadian-military-expert/

proportional representation is not on the table, and the media is being irresponsible in continuing to suggest that it is. the liberal party has been clear that it supports preferential voting.

nor is it the case the preferential voting will help the liberals everywhere. it will only help the liberals win in ridings where they poll second and the ndp poll third. similarly, it will help the ndp in ridings where they poll second and the liberals poll third.

functionally, for much of the country, what this actually does is convert elections into a race between the ndp and the liberals as to who can get first choice status, as conservatives cannot break 50% in most of the country. eliminating the fear of conservatives winning will allow voters to focus more on individual mps and less on parties, which is the way our system is meant to work.

nor am i convinced that the ndp would have been better off in the previous election under mmp than under preferential voting. they would have clearly increased their seat count - at the expense of the conservatives - in british columbia, alberta and saskatchewan. i'm not guessing about quebec. but, you're easily looking at 70 seats, which is actually where they would be at strict pr, which no sane person would even consider.

the loser in the preferential vote is the conservatives, who would have been reduced to around 50 seats - and no doubt third party status. this is what you can actually expect. it's really actually not at all clear that the liberals are better off than the ndp under the preferential ballot, but it's absolutely clear that it throws the conservatives into a crisis situation for the foreseeable future.

what it would do is convert *every* election into an "everybody except conservative" election.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-electoral-reform-first-past-the-post-1.3292694

enrgyblogwalter
it was in their released platform to the public during the election. 18 months after winning they are to supposedly form a committee to make suggestions then implement.

jessica murray
but, the reality is that the preferential voting system has been the party's official position since 2006. it was most recently voted on at the party convention in 2012.

this stuff about forming a committee to study it is really just a formality, and even partly a political thing. it's the correctly empirical way to go about it. but if you're aware of where the party stands on this, there's really no ambiguity and hasn't been in a very long time.

regarding reaction, i actually think that this is the most likely system to pass a referendum. advocates of proportional representation talk big, but the truth is that popular opinion is really not at all onside with the ramifications of any kind of proportional representation - things like party lists, and creating mps that really don't represent anybody. as pointed out in the article, any type of pr system will fail a referendum. it's actually one of the reasons i got a little queasy about the idea of the ndp forming a government, even though i've voted for them repeatedly when they were clearly the third party. pr, senate reform, 50%+1 and a few of these other structural changes that the ndp has held to for years may be popular in the core of their base, but they're well outside of the mainstream of the country. we're not going to see a movement to the ndp on this; it was a part of the reason (certainly not the only one...) that people moved away from the ndp this year.

here's the thing: stephen harper made a public issue out of his desire to destroy the liberal party. he failed. now, the conservatives have very little rhetorical space to stand in in arguing against something like this. is it explicitly designed to destroy them? absolutely. but, they made their bed.

what the liberals have proven over the last ten years is that they need to be perceived as "progressive enough" to swing ndp voters, and if they aren't perceived that way then the vote splits and the conservatives win.

the same pressures for the liberals to remain left-leaning will continue to exist under a ranked ballot system. it may even amplify it, as less people will be afraid to vote for a good ndp candidate because they won't have to worry about splitting the vote.

so, suppose trudeau takes a 360 in his second term and starts imposing austerity measures. in order for the ndp to win a sweep in toronto, all they'll have to do is get more votes than the liberals - which could be as low as 30%. and, people will be more likely to make this voting choice, because they won't be afraid of accidentally electing a conservative.

so, that pressure remains.

i'd stop worrying about this - it will benefit the left more than pr will - and start making sure mulcair isn't converting the ndp into the country's new moderate conservative party. the ndp lost almost everybody in caucus that could have hoped to prevent this. you *do* have an existential crisis in front of you, but it's not this - it's in the direction of your own party.

the purpose of this change is to destroy the conservatives, not to hurt the ndp or even to really cement the liberals in place. it is really not at all clear that it benefits the liberals more than the ndp. but, it is crystal clear that it places the conservatives in third party status for the foreseeable future, and changes the entire political narrative to issues that exist on the center-left. elections in most of the country will be fought between the liberals and the ndp for position on the ballot, with the conservatives reduced largely to a fringe western protest party.

it should be supported. it's better than pr.

it's crude, but the conservatives would have won 59 seats with a cut-off at 46% (which is generous to the conservatives), which would have gained the liberals 30 seats and the ndp 10.

http://rabble.ca/news/2015/10/anything-first-past-post-not-answer-to-canadas-electoral-problem

again: this is another thing the liberals have been veering towards for a while, and is both already written and has already been tested. it's just a question of formalizing it. and, if you think they won't do it, take a look at their past senate appointments - as well as their past supreme court appointments. the truth is that these have not been partisan patronage appointments from the liberals in quite some time.

i doubt that harper would have sent in hugh segal, for example. nor was that a decision that came out of nowhere. it was made on recommendation of an advisory committee.

i do, however, think that he's going to have to move quickly to fill those vacancies, just out of simple pragmatism. he can appoint them as independents if he'd like, but they're not going to get any bills passed unless they make this a priority.

and, given that this is a pragmatic necessity, i think it's a great opportunity to reach out to the chretien supporters that were pushed out in the "martin purge". john manley. sheila copps. brian tobin. allan rock. martin cauchon. it's a new majority, let's all move forwards...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/trudeaus-proposal-to-appoint-senators-on-merit-looks-promising/article27060268/

it's just a little bit of bullshit though.

the last guy slashed taxes too far, which created a structural deficit problem. it's the "starve the beast" thing. then, when there's deficits, he has to sell stuff and cut services. but, he went out and campaigned on tax cuts and balanced budgets. obvious contradiction, but we know that a lot of conservatives just aren't that bright. on top of that, oil just crashed, which has created a further revenue problem because he sent everybody else up the creek to create a petro dollar.

what trudeau (or the liberal party - trudeau is not a prime decision maker in the party, he really is mostly a good looking front person) did was look at the situation and realize that there was no possible way anything but a deficit could happen. yeah, it's true that harper was campaigning on a surplus, but he was just flat out lying about it.

faced with the reality of structural budget deficits, and a desire for infrastructure spending, they made the choice to approach the situation incrementally - which meant going into deficit in the short term to reverse this "starve the beast" stuff. that meant setting an expectation of the need for deficits, so they didn't get nailed on it for the next however many years. but what that means is that it was as much about painting the conservatives as fiscal imbeciles as it was about anything else.

the liberal party actually has a history and reputation in canada of superior fiscal management (much as the democrats do in the united states), and would have certainly preferred to campaign on balanced budgets. it's just that it was an impossible thing to follow through on, and they decided it was politically better to be transparent about it.

OroborusFMA
His last great album.  Funny how talent can evaporate when it smells the pop music money.

deathtokoalas
+OroborusFMA
i don't think he ever made a weak record. and while i'd agree that us and so are near the bottom of his output (i'd argue his second record is his weakest), i'd also place his soundtrack work after this at or near the top of it.

Shioumenato
+OroborusFMA I think that So was meant to be an album that sold well, I mean, something that gave the mainstream public what they wanted, not what Peter himself wanted. Maybe he needed money, more fame, or maybe it was just an experiment to show that he can do that. Its one of the reasons some people think the title album stands for Sell Out

deathtokoalas
+Shioumenato
so is really a very strange record. it had some successful singles, but it stands up well as a record, creatively. us maybe a little less so.

i guess i didn't live through it, so i don't know what that was like. but, looking at it from a distance, it's an entirely rational stepping stone in artistic evolution.

i just challenge the question of integrity. i think he grew into himself, rather than out of himself.