Why you should vote for MMP tomorrow

So I was out with friends on the weekend, and between the third or fourth round (it gets fuzzy) they started talking about the referendum tomorrow, and how they weren't sure which way they'd vote. And then one of my friends said, of me, "he's a real MMP partisan."

See, the funny thing is I'm not, really -- at least, not a partisan for MMP in particular. Over the years, I've been a fan of pure list proportional representation, Instant Runoff Voting, and all sorts of other systems. I'm not really picky in the end as to which system we choose, so long as we arrive at some measure of proportionality. Don't get me wrong -- I think MMP is a good choice, and better than some of the other possibilities, and I'll be voting for it happily and enthusiastically.

What's really animated me for the last few weeks is not, however, my enthusiasm for MMP. Rather, it's been the sloppiness and stupidity of the anti- side. I've already smacked around Murray Campbell and his idle thoughts about MMP bringing about an Islamic government. And, though this is clearly more arguable, I think I've presented a decent and honest argument for why List MPPs would be at least as legitimate as some of the current MPPs, who frequently win their seats with only a few thousand votes in a province of over 10 million people.

I don't want to rehash all of the arguments for MMP and against the status quo, but the Toronto Star ran yet another editorial today against MMP. The last line of the editorial is really the only thing you need to read:

Tomorrow voters who care about good government should vote to retain the existing first-past-the-post method. Our system does not need a "fix," because it isn't broken.

Amazing. The Star has run any number of editorials complaining about many different Ontario governments, I'm sure. But it's apparently never occurred to the Star that, if the system keeps producing bad results, regardless of the party in charge, that maybe, just maybe, the system is flawed. Nope. The system isn't broken -- at least, not for the people on the Star editorial board.

It's said that journalists should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Today, the Toronto Star has thrown it's lot in with the comfortable, and would prefer not to be afflicted thank you very much. It's laziness of the worst kind -- Ontario politics is broken, but the journalists of the Toronto Star get paid whether it's broken or not I guess. Journalists are supposed to highlight the flaws of the way we do things, and supposed to show us how they can be improved (in any sphere, not just politics.) The Star, apparently, can't be bothered. Or worse, the Star thinks it's job is to hide our flaws, to keep sunlight away from dark places, and to keep criticism to a minimum. Whatever that is, it's not journalism.

Frankly, I can't wait until the next Conservative government in Ontario, and to listen to the Star's mewling supplications then -- Please, Premier, don't hurt us! If they only had a minority...

What's most infuriating about all this is the simple refusal of the anti-MMP side to deal with the reality of Ontario politics: a vast majority of voters simply do not matter, myself included. In my riding, I can either vote for the incumbent, and simply pad his victory margin, or I can vote for another candidate and not be counted at all. And that's it. Those are my choices, once every four years. If you read the Star or the Globe, you'd think this either a) didn't matter (I am a smelly hippy, after all) or b) isn't true (I'm a figment of my own imagination.) As Greg Morrow has pointed out, the outcome of this election is going to be determined by about 75,000 people -- that's it. Or, to put it another way, if you're one of the 98.5% of Ontarians who didn't get a golden ballot tomorrow, and you'd like that to change, then vote for MMP tomorrow.

There's one other thing I'd like to deal with in the Star editorial:

Consider Ontario's case. Where would McGuinty have to turn for enough support to govern, if the proposed new system were in place today, and he won less than 50 per cent of the vote and half the seats?

He could form a "grand coalition" or cut some other kind of deal with John Tory's Conservatives. But they have made funding religious schools a big part of their campaign.... Alternatively, McGuinty might try to make a pact with Howard Hampton's New Democrats, whose program is progressive and far closer to the Liberal one. But even there, the New Democrats oppose investing in new nuclear reactors.... The point is, even with like-minded partners, deal-making does not always deliver the best policies.... And where would McGuinty be forced to turn if both the Conservatives and New Democrats balked? To the Green party?

My usual thing here would be to take the latest poll numbers and show that, if they hold, McGuinty could form a coalition with not just one, but any of the three potential opposition parties. (For political and mathematical reasons, I think the NDP would be the best bet.) This puts McGuinty in the perfect position to make the Greens, Tories, or NDP moderate their positions and demands, not pull the government away from it's core decisions.

But that's not really what's bugging me about that passage. What bothers me is the Star (and other people) seem to want to make all the political divisions in Ontario seem insurmountable. We need a less democratic system, they're saying, because otherwise we can't govern the rabble. I think it's insulting to be told that, despite the success of MMP in places like Germany, the voters and representatives of Ontario just aren't smart enough to work through their differences. More than that, it shows that the main ingredient in the anti- side's cake o' inaction is fear. They can't win unless they scare you about the future. My God! We could be as poorly governed as Germany, what with their huge manufacturing exports, better health care and excellent environmental policies! Die gasp!

Be not afraid, the Book says. (It says it over and over again, in fact. And yet we're still afraid all the time.) If we approve MMP tomorrow, we'll have 4 years to work out the kinks, and 4 years of medicore Liberal government to soothe your jangled nerves. Ontario will keep working, and even after we bring MMP in, we're not going to all become too stupid to run the Province properly. Calm. Down. Be not afraid.

We vote for these governments once, and then spend years complaining about how they don't listen to us. And then, when we think of changing the way we do things, suddenly we're told "stability" is a virtue. The press lets them get away with bald-faced lies about how "dangerous" these changes are, or worse yet the press lies itself. And we still don't do anything.

At this point, you've basically got a choice: either vote for MMP tomorrow, or stop complaining about government. You've got a chance to make it better. This isn't like the weather, you -- yes, you in the chair -- have a chance to actually make some good come out of this waste of time we call an election. Or, you can do what the Toronto Star would prefer you do, and simply endorse the status quo, and everything that goes along with it. If you wished you could have punished McGuinty for raising your taxes, or Mike Harris for throwing your kids out of school, or Bob Rae for, well, anything he did, you've got a chance to change things now. Don't throw it away.

Can we call these people terrorists yet?

I mean, I know they're not Muslims, but by the time you're stalking and threatening a family with sick children, you're well in to Cape Fear territory.

Oh, and as for the protests that this is just "citizen journalism", give me a fucking break. You want to ask these people questions, fine -- call them on the phone and ask. Stalking is generally considered the mark of sleaze, even among journalists.

The nightmare scenario

"Iraqis say Basra quieter after British troop pullout".

I know we've all been girding for some bloodletting when the white people British soldiers leave behind those savages innocent Iraqis, but it turns out that even Arabs can bring things under control if there isn't an occupying Army providing a target and motive for every crazy who "inherited" a few pounds of plastic explosive.

Of course, to some this is the nightmare scenario: if the Iraqis can bring things under control after a withdrawal of UK/US forces, it's possible they might be able to... do exactly the same thing elsewhere. That would seem to mean the last reason to stay in Iraq -- for the Iraqis own good, don't you see? -- is so much hot air, just like all the others.

Don't worry though, I'm sure Will Kristol can find another reason to stay.

Look, insanity in print!

William Kristol thinks America should bomb Burma to help democracy there. In a column titled "Talk is Cheap", he ends with this little nugget:

In his second inaugural address, President Bush, quoting Lincoln, put "the rulers of outlaw regimes" on notice: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it." Couldn't the Bush administration do more to give that just God a helping hand?

Um. Sure, if that's where you want to go. There's an old precedent for this kind of thinking, and it's variously translated as "Cædite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius," or "Slay them all, God will know his own." Bush is Texan, so he might know it better as "kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out." Time and again we've seen that aerial bombing lacks the precision needed to separate the innocent from the guilty. Hell, the Catholic Church has been judging sinners a lot longer than GPS or laser-guided bombs, and they still protect the occasional pedophile.

I mean, what are we supposed to make of this man? Nobody treats him like the unmedicated mental patient he so clearly is -- quite the opposite, he's given space in the Washington Post to advocate bombing a nation of buddhists. And he continues to show absolutely no conception that the US military has limits. Limits, I hasten to add, made necessary by the various wars America is already in, and which he advocated for and continues to.

You mean, pregnant women have their own free will?

I was shocked, when Vicki's sister was pregnant, at the number and intrusiveness of the bizarre restrictions on her diet/behavior that family (and total strangers!) felt free to suggest. Some of it was well-intentioned but silly, and other stuff was basically just weird. (This intrusive do-gooderism continues well after pregnancy, of course!)

What was really funny was the unanimous consensus among elders that there was going to be a baby boy at the end of nine months. 9 months later: a healthy baby girl! So much of the "suggestions" were offered in the spirit of "folk wisdom" or whatever, that generations of women have passed down, etc etc etc. Well, sometimes your annoying and silly ideas are just annoying, silly, and wrong to boot.

Anyway, I thought about this a bit more today after reading Natasha. It might occur to us one day that women not only are intelligent actors with their own agency, but that they remain such even after they've been impregnated.

Energy links!

Engineer-Poet, always one of my favourite bloggers for coming up with, uh, unique notions on how to solve energy problems, proposes we mine fluoride waste for it's silicon content. The result: 112,000 tons of silicon per year, enough to make 48 gigawatts (10% of US demand!) at a cost of about $0.35 per watt, or competitive with your current roof's shingles.

And I keep paying attention to Focus Fusion -- one of the hydrogen-boron fusion proposals out there -- for reasons that really escape me. But if you'd like to listen to a physicist talk for about an hour about what he thinks they can accomplish for a few years' and $2 million worth of effort, the head of Focus Fusion gave a talk at Google recently.

One of the interesting things about FF is they don't require any water input for their ongoing electrical production (just a bit for radiation shielding, they say.) One of the many, many limiting factors on expanding our electrical generation if we only stick to status quo technologies is where we're going to get all the water we need to power nuclear or coal. Already, power plants make up a substantial fraction of the water that gets used by human industry every day.

Or, if this guy's right, maybe we're all doomed anyway.

The Coveted Dymaxion World Endorsement!

If these numbers are right, any non-Conservatives out there who live in Carleton-Mississippi Mills should probably vote Green. NDPers who want to stick it to the Liberals can do so, while sticking it to the NDP and the Tories at the same time!

It's like the Lunar Eclipse of Ontario Politics -- a rare confluence of events, which come together in perfect harmony.

Welfare for white folk

Here. Basically, white kids still get more money from universities (for being the kids of alumni, or whatever) than browner folk.

Now, here's a predicament for me. I'm a white man, and getting substantial funding from my university. The evidence seems to show that this is at least in part because the University is betting on me becoming a success, and giving them a bunch of money in turn later in life. (Also, my marks from undergrad kicked ass.) So, if I've been given an unfair advantage (possible) because the university expects a certain result (success, money for them) what is the proper response for me, from a social justice viewpoint?

Can I strike a blow for class equality by becoming a lifelong mediocrity? Can I attribute a life of sloth and indolence to my righteous refusal to bend to the will of the class hierarchy? Or should I simply choose to never give a single red cent back to my particular institution?

THD on feedback

Thomas Homer-Dixon on global warming, and feedback loops:

his summer’s loss of Arctic sea ice indicates that at least one major destabilizing feedback is gaining force quickly. Scientists have also recently learned that the Southern Ocean, which encircles Antarctica, appears to be absorbing less carbon, while Greenland’s ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate.

When warming becomes its own cause, we might not be able to stop extremely harmful climate change no matter how much we cut our greenhouse gas emissions. We need a far more aggressive global response to climate change. In the 1960s, mothers learned that the milk they were feeding their children was laced with radioactive material from atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons and that this contamination could increase the risk of childhood leukemia. Soon women organized themselves in the tens of thousands to demand that nuclear powers ban atmospheric testing. Their campaign largely succeeded.

In response to the new dangers of climate change, we need a similar mobilization — of mothers, of students and of everyone with a stake in the future — now.

Hard-core

Yowza.

DUBLIN, Ireland – Dan Keating, an IRA member and the last surviving veteran of Ireland's 1919-21 war of independence from Britain, has died, his nursing home and fringe political party said. He was 105....

Keating spent his entire adult life committed to the most hard-line branch of Irish republicanism on offer. He said Ireland should never be at peace until the border dividing the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland – both states he considered illegitimate – was eliminated and the island united under one government.

In 1970, he switched his allegiance from the "Official" IRA to a new, Northern Ireland-based faction called the Provisional IRA that spent 27 years trying to overthrow the British territory.

When the Provisionals called a 1997 cease-fire and supported Sinn Fein politicians' push for a negotiated settlement, he switched support to a breakaway faction, Republican Sinn Fein, that opposed compromise and continued bombings. He became honorary patron of the fringe party in 2004.

Republican Sinn Fein president Ruairi O Bradaigh said Keating was committed to the cause "to the very day of his death and an inspiration to all true republicans.''

Keating opposed the existence of the Republic of Ireland so much that he refused to accept the state's old-age pension. In 2002 he also refused a $3,500 award from President Mary McAleese that is offered to all Irish citizens who reach age 100; Keating argued that she wasn't the real president of Ireland.

I think I need to go listen to "House of Orange" a few times...

To the polls we go, I guess

I agree with Greg: this kind of behaviour is bizarre. How does it serve Harper to broadcast early that he's going to slip unacceptable language in to the Throne Speech?

OTTAWA — Federal Conservative organizers say they have been told that their election campaign offices should be ready for opening on Oct. 20 and that candidates should begin canvassing constituents immediately.

They also say campaign chairman Doug Finley told candidates in a conference call yesterday that there will be four or five items in the Throne Speech that will be absolutely unacceptable to the other parties. And they say Mr. Finley told them the Conservative brass is currently trying to decide between three different election dates.

Or let's put this another way: What, exactly, could Harper put in the Throne Speech that would be totally unacceptable to the other 3 parties but not unacceptable to the 65-70% of voters they represent? I suppose there's been some electoral success in heightening the contradictions, but not when your party is stuck at 30-35% and has been for a year.

I would want to be very, very sure that I could wallop the hell out of Dion before I made a move like this. And I don't see it -- neither the Conservative attacks nor the Liberal feet-shootings over the last little while have moved the poll numbers significantly. Dion would have to screw up hugely to hand the election to Harper, and meanwhile Harper's caucus could always choose to de-muzzle on some issue like abortion or teaching creationism. Elections, in short, are terribly risky things.

Oh, and there's the little fact that Canadian voters seem to show an incredible amount of agency -- every time Harper gets to within a few % of majority territory, his number bounce like a superball off the ceiling.

You're kidding, right?

"One Cent of the GST" would provide Toronto with approximately $400million per year, funding that would be dedicated to transportation, maintaining infrastructure and helping Toronto keep pace with the pressures for City services brought about by growth.

The Royal Canadian Mint, a corporation of the federal government, has now demanded that the City of Toronto pay $47,680 for the public education campaign. Included in this amount is a request for $10,000 for the use of the words "one cent" in the campaign website address (www.onecentnow.ca) and the campaign email address (onecentnow@toronto.ca), and an additional $10,000 for the use of the words "one cent" in the campaign phone number (416-ONECENT). The remaining $27,680 has been assessed against the City for the use of the image of the Canadian penny in printed materials such as pins and posters. (The Mint has come to this amount by taking the total number of materials printed divided by the approximate population of Toronto, and then using a percentage of that number to arrive at a dollar figure.)

So now we've got a federal crown corporation suing a municipal government for infringing copyright on the penny. Brilliant. Maybe Joachimsthal should sue the US Mint for use of the word "dollar", while we're at it. I suspect they could collect quite a bit more...

Happy Sputnikaversary, everybody

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia on Thursday celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch that opened the space age, with officials seeking to revive the glory of the Soviet program, although some experts worry about a loss of momentum for new missions.

Goose-stepping guards and medal-bedecked space veterans laid flowers at the tomb of the father of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolyov, at the foot of the Kremlin wall.

"We are rightly proud that it was our nation that opened the way to stars for the humanity," President Vladimir Putin said in a statement marking the launch of Sputnik, Earth's first artificial satellite, on Oct. 4, 1957.

The launch of the beachball-sized satellite caused a global furor and prompted the U.S. to build up its own space program quickly, entering a race it ultimately won when Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in July 1969.

I'm sorry, exactly who just abandoned DRM?

Microsoft starts selling DRM-free music tracks. As Cory Doctorow writes, "In other news, Satan just sent out for a snow-shovel."

The collapse of industry support for DRM has been even faster than I'd imagined it would be. On the other hand, Microsoft had their own people telling them years ago that DRM wouldn't work, so it's not like they deserve a prize.

I've been Kinsella-ed!

Not that it's had any impact on my traffic or anything.

Oh, Warren, no need to beg, you can have a link...

An Israeli historian on the settlements

An important point about Israel-Palestine:

Beyond that he had the striking observation that since Israel signed on to the "road map" and thereby committed to dismantling "unauthorized" settlement outposts (i.e., the ones that are illegal under Israeli law) only nine houses have been removed. Meanwhile, he said that while just two percent of the Occupied Territories are actually under settlement control, a much larger swathe of the West Bank is now off-limits to Arabs, either because it's been set aside for further settlement expansion or else because it's part of the network of no-Arabs-allowed roads that connect the settlements, etc.

And, if you take a look at a map of the West Bank, you'll see that Israeli control extends up and down the actual west bank of the Jordan River -- nobody expects this control to be relaxed, so even if the rest of the West Bank were released, the Palestinians would be fundamentally at Israel's mercy.

This is a pretty elemental fact, but somehow we keep expecting the Palestinians to meekly accept this without resorting to violence. I wonder if we'd be so sanguine if the Americans seized our side of the St. Lawrence.

Only real leaders shoot themselves in the foot with such vigor!

Okay, enough beating up on Ian Urquhart. He thinks he knows why John Tory adopted the laughably self-destructive policy on religious schools:

...Tory's policy can be traced back to his bid for the provincial party leadership in 2004.

His two opponents – Jim Flaherty and Frank Klees – were in favour of restoring the tax credit for private schools, an initiative of the previous Conservative regime that the Liberal government had killed.

Tory felt the tax credit was vulnerable to attack by the Liberals on two grounds: 1) it would go to parents who send their kids to elite schools like Upper Canada College; and 2) it would be funnelled to schools with uncredentialed teachers and dubious curricula.

But under pressure from the Harrisite wing of the party, Tory agreed to bring the tax credit back in one form or another.

This, I think, is the real body-blow to Tory's claims that this scheme wouldn't hurt public school funding: the policy was put together for the sole purpose of appeasing people who want to hurt public school funding. To put it another way, the prime lesson of Bushism is that interests (and interest groups) matter: if you're not interested in, say, making sure that prisoners of war aren't tortured, then watch out what happens. If you don't take civilian deaths seriously, you can end up with a bloodbath on your hands. And whatever fringe benefits your policy may have, you can't escape the paternity of it's creators.

Just one more reason to not vote for him: despite all his talk of leadership, he wasn't man enough to tell the base to go pound sand.

Da only Bybill I reeds is Revalayshuns

This is a form of Christianity that I'll never understand.

Christians have a biblical mandate to be "good stewards of God's creation," Ms. Paynter says she told the Rev. Frank Brown, pastor of the Bellmead First Baptist Church here in the county where President Bush has his ranch. So, Texas Baptists should demand that controversial plans to build a slew of coal-fired power plants be put on hold.

Mr. Brown was not impressed. God, the pastor said, is "sovereign over his creation" and no amount of coal-burning will alter by a "millisecond" his divine plan for the world. Fighting environmental damage is "like chasing rabbits," he recalls telling her. It just distracts from core Christian duties to spread the faith and protect the unborn.

I'm not sure what's more depressing -- the incredibly narrow view of what a "core Christian duty" is, or the incredibly narrow conception of "protecting the unborn." Does it not occur to the minister that protecting the unborn might, I dunno, include making sure the world is worth living in when they emerge from their mothers?

As always on religious matters, Jerry Falwell had a sense of balance and moderation:

Shortly before his death in May, Virginia Baptist preacher the Rev. Jerry Falwell denounced the clamor over global warming as "Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus."

So if any of you Christians out there thought the articles of your faith included anything other than the following: who's having sex with who, what the results of that sex are, and whether those people should be allowed to marry each other, well, Jerry Falwell wanted to set you straight, but the good Lord took him to a better place.

Of course, Falwell thought Jesus would drive an SUV. I think he'd walk. We'll see who was right when I die, I guess.

On the margin

So Ian Urquhart wrote a column last week -- and yeah, I double-checked the name this time! -- that was headlined "How MMP could sneak to victory". In short, his column was all about how the pro-MMP side on the referendum could eke out a win due to a number of factors. Sample quote:

Yet when the votes were counted, the proposed new system came within three percentage points of reaching the required 60 per cent threshold. The reason why, according to one post-referendum analysis, is that voters in B.C. were impressed that the new system had been recommended by "people like us" in a citizens' assembly.

So Urquhart is worried that a momentous political change could happen if -- and only if -- 60% of Ontarians vote for it, with at least 50% support in 2/3 of the ridings. And his editor decided the appropriate headline was about "sneaking" to victory.

Meanwhile, yesterday, the Star endorsed keeping the status quo, where 37% of voters got to form the government in 1990. But, you see, that's a manly margin of victory -- a whopping 5.2% difference between the NDP and Liberal polls led to the NDP winning twice as many seats! Not like those sneaky reformers, sneaking in with their sneaky 60% margins of victory. Those dirty sneakers.

Ah yes, I recognize this feeling....

Hm. It's 1:30 am, but I'm over-caffeinated and can't get to sleep.

Oh, I remember now. I'm in school again, and have an assignment due tomorrow.