gdp's Comments

Angry in the Great White North : Another gutless Liberal whines

Tue, 3 Jan 2012 04:03:44 +0000

But it is about individuals. You did not restrict your comments to broad organization issues and reporting structures. Your words, not mine: "mercenaries", "professional cadre", "everyone wants to be a big fish", "power base for a few skilled operators", "people ultimately care about is themselves and their own space". These are people -- the ones who run the commissions that you said should be "toast". These are the ones who will resist -- tooth and nail -- any effort by the likes of you to tear down their "fiefdoms" and "power bases". But you think lobbing a vague airy reference to nameless operatives will somehow frighten them into submission? Really? And just what Liberal member is going to be inspired by your vapid piece? After all those words, nothing that approaches a concrete plan, no targets identified, no goals or timelines. Just a suggestion that these powerful Liberals be taken down a notch or two for the good of the party. Which Liberals need to go? You won't say. Who's going to take them down? You don't seem to be volunteering. And that's what makes this a gutless piece and a waste of space. And I have worked in organizations -- smoothly functioning ones and others not so much. Changes happen when people identified, in detail, the things that need to be changed, by whom, and by when. Anyone who offered the platitude "We need to refocus on the bottom line" and nothing else would get frogmarched out of a meeting for wasting everyone's time. So redeem yourself. Name the commissions, specifically. Name the structures, and the people who occupy positions in those structures, as being a drag on the party. Identify how these organizations, led as they were by the people who are in charge, hindered the Liberals in the last election. Speculate how things would have been different if those organizations that you would "toast" had already been dismembered. What resources would have been available to make a difference in the campaign? How could the people who ran those organizations contributed in a constructive way during the last election? Or maybe you can't imagine any way in which this "professional cadre" could fit in the Liberal Party you envisage -- they just need to go. That would be interesting. And potentially helpful for the Liberals.

Angry in the Great White North : Not-so-nice thoughts regarding Nycole Turmel

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 17:07:18 +0000

LOL

Angry in the Great White North : Not-so-nice thoughts regarding Nycole Turmel

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 17:07:10 +0000

Someone had to.

Angry in the Great White North : Liberals need to stop listening to Jean Chretien

Wed, 7 Sep 2011 20:36:45 +0000

I think he wouldn't mind seeing the Liberal Party disappear as a formal party by way of merger knowing he'll be remembered as the last great Liberal prime minister. Liberals need to be wary of his not-so-hidden agenda.

Angry in the Great White North : When will those irrelevant Liberal bloggers fix their banner?

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:36:21 +0000

I have a cold, so I'm in a nasty mood. But I think the effect of bloggers is waning. Two elections ago, bloggers were the hot thing. Last election, sort of. This election? Frankly, blogging seemed to missing in action. Twitter and Facebook seem to have eclipsed blogging. It makes sense. Blogging was always something that was done by talented amateurs, despite such generally available services like Blogspot. Movable Type? Wordpress? Even more complicated. But anyone and everyone tweets, and everyone seems to have a Facebook account (except me). So yes, blogging is slipping in influence and importance (though social media as a whole is increasing).

Angry in the Great White North : The election is an amplifier, not a reflector

Sun, 5 Jun 2011 12:12:35 +0000

Actually, that is exactly what the democratic process is about. If you want to merely reflect the electorate, you would just hold referenda all the time. Think about Switzerland as an example. Everyone votes on everything. If that's what you want, then you should just ask for it. PR is a form of filter, but a weak one. Allocating 300+ seats based on the distribution of 10 million votes cast clearly results in a less than perfect reflection. Also, most PR proposals include a minimum vote to filter out the smallest parties. See? Filtering. Of course, that level is set to just below whatever was the support earned by that PR advocate's favorite party. So if we accept that filtering and amplification is acceptable, and you have to accept that if you are advocating for anything short of direct democracy, then it becomes a matter of degree. PR does a poor job of filtering, in my view. FPTP does a signal spread, which is very useful. Imagine that the vote in an imaginary country turned out to be 39%, 33%, 20%, and the rest. Plot those points on a line from 0 to 100. In FPTP, imagine grabbing that line at say the 60% mark and stretching it so the 60% point is now the 100% point. The points for the parties you marked stay where they were, but they get separated by a larger and clearer margin. If that #1 party was far enough ahead, it's new spot on the line is over the 50% mark and you get a majority. If not, you don't. To me, that seems to be a very useful part of the process to convert the results into a functioning government. Jack Layton will support PR until such time as FPTP awards him a majority government. I can say with near complete confidence that this is the case, though in all likelihood Layton will not be leader of the NDP at that future point when this is put to the test. His support now is nearly meaningless in a majority situation since he can say anything he wants. At least I've supported FPTP consistently, win or lose, because I think functionally it does a great job of processing electoral signals.

Angry in the Great White North : The Liberal Party and the useless middle choice

Wed, 18 May 2011 23:17:17 +0000

Heck no. Tried to delete by email, but it looks like I had to turf this one in person.

Angry in the Great White North : The Liberal Party and the useless middle choice

Tue, 17 May 2011 13:16:28 +0000

To have the opportunity to make a good choice means having the opportunity to make a bad choice. And an election results in an NDP government one day, then that's what the voters want to try. I'm convinced that the NDP would crash and burn, but I'm not the only voter.

Angry in the Great White North : Optimism for the future

Tue, 3 May 2011 14:15:45 +0000

That's going to be one the most fascinating stories over the next four years.

Angry in the Great White North : Election blackout: Commenting will be moderated

Mon, 2 May 2011 19:08:19 +0000

"As of 5 p.m. ET Monday, comments on all cbcnews.ca stories will be closed until all polling stations across the country have closed at 10 p.m. ET." http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/s...

Angry in the Great White North : Election blackout: Commenting will be moderated

Mon, 2 May 2011 19:07:04 +0000

Good point. I was reading the times off the CBC story without really thinking about it. I'll double check it.

Angry in the Great White North : Jack Long-Shot Layton

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:10:25 +0000

Sorry about that. I've been trying to delete that post remotely but it was still there when I finally got back to the keyboard.

Angry in the Great White North : The fundamental merger problem

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:51:57 +0000

Social conservatives are an interesting point. There are social conservatives who want to enlist government in enforcing their world view. A theocracy, essentially. Guess what? Those aren't conservatives at all. Their attitude towards government is entirely at odds with conservatism. Indeed, they are actually progressives in that sense, but their philosophy is alien to progressives, so they aren't welcome there either. Thankfully, there are few social conservatives of this sort. I suspect most social conservatives are conservatives in that they want government to vacate areas of morality. They don't want the government defining (or redefining) marriage, or funding abortion, or what have you. When they argue against these things, they are arguing against the government defining its role to be involved in the first place. That puts these conservatives into the same camp as other conservatives, converging on the same point of smaller limited government, but focused on specific areas in which they think government involvement is especially egregious. That's ok, because as I've argued, every flavour of conservative has his own focus on where government is doing the most harm.

Angry in the Great White North : Convergence and a Sign of Concern

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:39:58 +0000

In favour of EKOS: It is most recent, so it might be showing something that the older polls haven't picked up yet. Against EKOS: The biggest surprise in EKOS is that they've stopped predicting a Liberal minority. That has to tell you something. Some more food for thought: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/04/25/wh... Finally, this paragraphs appeared in http://ipolitics.ca/2011/04/15/debates-hold-littl... **Despite the wildly inconsistent results that have come out of other polling organizations, we are very comfortable with our numbers and the well-behaved patterns that have emerged.** What polling firm starts off by saying they think they're right despite the rest of the polls?

Angry in the Great White North : Not a good sign for the Liberals in the 905

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:37:21 +0000

There is also Ignatieff's appearance on Tout Le Monde tonight.

Angry in the Great White North : Positive Feedback

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 01:05:42 +0000

To be fair, Marc Garneau did run the CSA from 2001 to 2006, so to characterize his life as having been on some shuttle flights then sitting in his armchair in his fuzzy slippers for the rest of the time is really not fair. Plus it underestimates him, and you must never underestimate your opponent.

Angry in the Great White North : Baghdad Dhalla

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:53:04 +0000

Correct about Derek Lee. I should have caught that. The point remains that spending time in Liberal seats is less time gaining new seats.

Angry in the Great White North : Fake But True

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:09:50 +0000

Then I'm flattered. :)

Angry in the Great White North : Fake But True

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:03:30 +0000

The OLO assigned "Gayle" to me. She must have done something bad to draw this miserable assignment. Told the truth maybe? So I try to give her stuff to chew on, so she can look good to her boss.

Angry in the Great White North : Desperation

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 19:32:38 +0000

To be fair, I'm not sure that John Turner is in the best of health these days.