Unite Europe

Filed under: Politics

Some more uniting Europe propaganda I like.

Another Life

Filed under: Politics

What if you were born in another country, to another family. Would you still have the same views, the same values, the same outlook on life? Would you still be as innocent or as cynical as you are today? How would you feel about this? Would you prefer to be in said life, or do you like your own one more? These are the questions that I’ve been asking myself recently. Even though your life may be better/worse would you want to give up everything you see before you today? Your own beliefs and ideals possibly? For example, would I want to give up my left-wing socialist views to live in a better country such as France or Germany and in return live a life of extreme conservatism? It’s really quite interesting to think about, try it.

Rick Mercer Debate (hilarious)

Filed under: Politics

Watch it… really. Do it now! Screw your homework/tests, watch the damn video!!!

On Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem and Canada’s FPTP System

Filed under: Politics

This is yet another one of my rants against Canada’s FPTP system, explanation of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorm, and an idea for an alternative in Canada. Thanks to Habbit for valuable discussions, ideas, and random stuff which I didn’t really need to know.

Canada and “The Old Ways”

If you’ve read some of my old posts (or even visited Fair Vote Canada (maybe if you were high or something)), you would know about my explanations of Canada’s FPTP system. Nevertheless I’ll re-spew it in a shortened form. Canada has a system called the First Past The Post system (or plurality, or FPTP as I shall call it). This system basically states that a country is divided up into districts and each seat = 1 district. So for a X Party candidate to win two seats, they need to get more votes than any other party in that district, e.g. In this case The B Party wins with 40% of the vote.

A Party: 30%

B Party: 40%

C Party: 30%

Seems fair enough when presented like that for one seat doesn’t it. But when you enlarge that by several hundred seats, it is hardly fair. Take for example in 1993 when Kim Campbell of the PCs won two million votes nation wide, yet only won two seats. This was because in no place in Canada was she higher than the other competing candidates. She won around 16% of the vote, but got 50 less seats than the reform party who won 52 seats with 18% of the vote. Very fair (if you’re a retarded twat).

Now what I mean by Canada’s old ways, is that most countries have moved to another system rather than staying on a plurality system in hopes of making votes count more (with the exception of the UK). There are two main classes for electing a MP - single-member and multi-member. FPTP, plurality, two-round (often for Presidents, Chancellors, etc.), and Condorcet are all single-member system. Meanwhile proportional representation (including d’Hondt, Sainte-Lauge, Mixed member, STF (single transferable vote) are all examples of multi-member. What multi-member does is it attempts to make the percentage of votes close to the percentage of seats one. Here’s an example of the 1993 election (sorry for picking on you Kim Campbell). The first number is the amount of seats with the FPTP system, the second is the d’Hondt method (a form of PR) and the third is the percentage of votes.

Liberal Party: 177 | 127 | 41.24%

Bloc Quebecois: 54 | 41 | 13.52%

Reform Party: 52 | 57 | 18.69%

NDP: 9 | 21 | 6.88%

Progressive Conservatives | 2 | 49 | 16.04%

Well now, 47 seats is quite a lot isn’t it. Especially when you consider that only 295 seats were up for grabs that election. In this situation the Liberals did not achieve a majority because they did not have 51% of the vote, and the PCs did not achieve 2 seats because they did not have <1% of the vote! In a FPTP system, its quite easy to get a majority even with 40% of the vote, but with the PR system, that is never the case. Now, on to Arrow’s good old Impossibility Theorem.

Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem

Also known as Arrow’s Paradox. This Theorem basically states that no matter what electoral system is used, democracy shall not TRULY be democracy where every single person’s voice is heard. Take for example an imaginary election in the land of Pommeraniacansuckmyass. They are holding a presidential election between three candidates, it is the first round, here are the results.

Biteme: 36%

Merrdicksucks: 22%

Asdf: 42%

So Merrdicksucks was eliminated (I wonder why…).

Biteme: 51%

Asdf: 50%

Now they voters who supported Merrdicksucks have to choose between two candidates who they do not care about. Therefore 22% of the voters did not truly get to choose. And the voters who choose Asdf are not happy, because originally they had more votes, and due to the Merrdicksucks demographic, they lost out. Therefore only about 36% of the people are truly happy, and votes actually counted. Even in a pluarlity system not EVERYONE’s vote can be taken into account.

Take a Page From the Book of Germany

So Nikola, if no election system works, why bother? Nothing works so lets go with the best system, the PR system! Woah there, slow down you dumb twats. There are problems with the PR system, such as the case in Spain, where the MPs are loyal only to their party, rather to their constituents, resulting in something that is not really representation (thanks Habbit for the help!). Well, the best thing to do then is to combine both systems! The FPTP system where MPs are loyal to their constituents, while a further amount shall be elected via the PR system, making everyone’s vote count! How great! Now what I recommend for Canada is the following. 120 seats elected via the FPTP system.

40 in Ontario

29 in Quebec

14 in BC

11 in Alberta

5 in Saskatchewan and Manitoba

4 in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

3 in Newfoundland

2 in PEI

1 in Nunavut, Yukon, NWT

That’s about 308/2.6 = 120. That’s how I got the number (rounded from 2.5). The rest of the seats shall be distributed through the provinces via the PR system. That means that 188 seats shall be distributed via the provinces and a PR system.

65 in Ontario

46 in Quebec

22 in BC

20 in the Atlantic provinces (combined into one electoral district)

17 in Alberta

17 in (a combination of Saskatchewan and Manitoba into one electoral district)

2 in the Territories (combined into one electoral district)

Why I decided these numbers. Well, I believe that something similar to what Germany is doing, a distribution of seats between loyalty and fairness to the voters is the best thing. I choose a proportion a bit different from their method, simply because I felt that more seats in the PR system would be necessary in Canada considering the fact that there are large territories and provinces and even small parties can win a few seats.

Well that’s my rant, bye everybody!

Thanks for reading! (if you read to here, otherwise, screw you, damn twats).

NDP As Official Opposition?

Filed under: Politics

Angus-Reid released an official poll asking Canadians on how the NDP would handle being the next official opposition (opposed to the Liberals being the next opposition). The results are shown here.

Just shows you that if a party does such a bad job they can fall so far as to become lower than the official opposition (erherm that’s a warning to you wanks over at the Labour Party). Personnally I do hope that the NDP become the official opposition, because that just means that when the Conservatives screw up (and trust me, they will dig a pile of dog shit out of the hole and pile it on top of Canada, or something to that extent) the NDP are far more likely to become the official government. Yes, you heard me. See what you have done Liberals! You have made a party that has its base as being a third party, have a chance to become the official opposition and then the Government! I hope you are happy with yourselves.

Disclaimer: Several parts of this post were meant to be satiracal. Nevertheless the point is the Liberals messed up by choosing Dion, and will likely lose this election (badly) to the Conservatives and maybe even become a Third Party (yay! Go NDP)

Fair Vote Canada

Filed under: Politics

I’ve been fairly interested in Fair Vote Canada recently. After seeing this video, I just had to mention it on my blog, it’s hilarious, but true. It’s a site on electoral reform, and the video features an actor in Royal Canadian Air Farce (the comedy TV show).

Following The Vote

Filed under: Politics

I have a new blog focused on elections and election results! For more information visit Following The Vote. Features past election results, upcoming elections, and public opinion polling data from Canada, UK and occasionally France and Germany.

Will Georgia Allow Annexation of S. Ossetia?

Filed under: Politics

Officials in South Ossetia have stated that their goal is not to declare indepence, but rather, to join Russia (along w/ North Ossetia which is already part of Russia). The Vice Speaker of Georgian parliament said this - “The regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should think about the fact that if they become part of Russia, they will be assimilated and in this way they will disappear.” Yet, while in the USSR there was no South and North Ossetia, there was simply Ossetia. It was only when Georgia declared independence that Ossetia split up! If anything, with Georgia’s independence South Ossetia was an attempt to be assimilated into their culture (hence the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia). North and South Ossetia are historically home to people of Iranian descent who call themselves Ossetian. So now, the question is will Georgia allow Ossetia to be annexed by Russia, which Ossetia hopes will happen in the next several years? Hugo Chavez, president of Columbia, stated that “Russia has recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We support Russia. Russia is right and is defending its interests.” But who knows what will happen when America gets involved because it seems quite obvious that Georgia will continue to whine to their mother, America. And then there’s the whole problem with the American president. Whoever it is, they’ll likely stir up more crap for America, and attempt to break up larger powers grasp on the world so that America will maintain power (i.e. Tibet situation - China’s power, Kosovo - Europe’s power, Ossetia - Russia’s Power). In general, America and Americans are scared of the world, and its because of them that countries which historically had ties with other places, or were independent, are not allowed to do so or remain so.

NDP Minority in BC?

Filed under: Politics

The current polls in BC show the following: (see source at bottom)

New Democratic Party (NDP)	41%
BC Liberals	38%
Green Party	14%
Other	7%

Basically, the NDP are winning. So if an election were to happen in BC, would that mean the NDP would win? I think not. In the past the NDP were huge in the polls, several times higher than 40% (nationally), but in the end, when it came to general or provincial elections, they faltered. Even under Ed Broadbent (in 1988), with national polls at 40+%, the NDP won a mere 20% of the votes, and 43 seats. This is because of the FPTP (First Past the Post) system that Canada uses as their “democratic” system. Let’s take a look at the 1988 Federal Election. Here are the results:
Brian Mulroney (PC(Progressive Conservative)) - Votes: 5,667,543 | Percent: 43.02% | Seats: 169 (57.29%)

John Turner (Liberal) - Votes: 4,205,072 | Percent: 31.92% | Seats: 83 (28.13%)

Ed Broadbent (NDP(New Democratic Party)) - Votes: 2,685,263 | Percent: 20.38% | Seats: 43 (14.58%)

Alright, those were the results. Hmm, somehow the PCs won a majority gov’t with under 51% of the votes! Quite interesting! On the other hand, the Liberals, with 1.4 million less votes, won less than half of what the PCs did! This is the flaw of the FPTP system (as I previously ranted on about in an earlier post). No matter how much the people like you, when the electoral systems makes it so that you win one seat when you have the most votes in that region. So no matter how much the people like the NDP in BC, they had their votes spread out too thin last provincial election (unlike the Liberals, and several Conservative “strongholds”(in federal elections)), they will still achieve less seats (if an election were to happen currently). Maybe if the NDP achieve a 10% lead, they may have a chance to a minority, maybe even a majority gov’t.

Poll Source: Angus Reid Strategies
Methodology: Online interviews with 802 adults in British Columbia, conducted from Aug. 21 to Aug. 25, 2008. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/31602/ndp_edging_ruling_liberals_in_british_columbia

Western Media

Filed under: Politics

Over the last few years, the western media has made issues like Kosovo, the situation in Tibet, and currently, the Georgian attack on South Ossetia (or as it is commonly known in the west, the Russian invasion of Georgia (and/or South Ossetia)). The Western media has perfected this form of right-wing, hypocritical “journalism” over the last few decades, and now are merely alientating their people from the rest of the world, mainly Europe, Asia and S. America in many cases. I would go so far as to say that the Daily Show is a tenfold better news program than Fox News, NBC, and any of those other stations which say they bring the news to you. I shall give you an example on the South Ossetian issue. Fox news has time and time again said that the Russian aggression against Georgia will not be tolerated. Meanwhile they state NOTHING of the fact that Georgia originally invaded South Ossetia (due to the whole independence thing). On the other hand, the Daily Show reported that in response to the Georgian government’s occupation of South Ossetia (at least it’s better than Russian invasion) Russia had invaded South Ossetia. They also mocked this (’cause it is a comedy show after all), BUT they did what Fox News and NBC fail to do - QUESTION what the government response is. Bush and Rice both stated things like “This is not the 60s” and “You can’t overthrow a government and bring in a puppet regime.” (erherm IRAQ WAR - as the Daily Show joked at). Generally, even though the Daily Show proclaimed itself as “the best fake news show” it does get the point accross, and (if I find the article, I’ll link it here) has even been dubbed as one of the most reliable news sources in America.

Edited: Here is the link I mentioned

Note that CNN wrote it so I’m not sure how reliable it is heh, but when CNN admits that they suck more than the Daily Show, they may well be right.