It was unusual to see "the newz" airing a bit of the truth about its worthlessness, particularly around election circus marketing act "campaigns," but it was long ago and I saved it for just before the election fiasco, because nothing would print it now; too much money to lose selling ad space, doing exactly the below; which they do right in this article, citing experts who claim to know that experts are worthless. Among other citings.
I could re-quote the article, parts of it, again with my "thoughts" (rarely; they come from real sources, such as can be published for free to the general public) but instead just stuck them in brackets [] in italics. And I added some bolding and underlining and the obvious for certain points (the "newz media" doesn't use phpBB2 emoticons).
______
The real election experts? Our bored voters
Dec. 10, 2005. 01:00 AM
JIM COYLE
In The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the C.S. Lewis classic opening this weekend as a movie, four children — Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy — famously travel through a wardrobe into the otherworldliness of Narnia and its mouth-watering Turkish Delight.
In the national political exercise now underway, adapted from a similar yarn of 18 months ago, four men — Paul, Stephen, Jack and Gilles — have ventured into the otherworldliness of their campaign bubbles and hunger desperately for a taste of the Ballot Question.
It's even money which of the spectacles will produce images more fantastical — the former with its eye-popping Hollywood gadgetry, or the latter with its jaw-dropping political image-making [a.k.a. marketing, a.k.a. BS/lies].
To many, it will be easier to believe in a resurrected lion than in Conservative Leader Stephen Harper as a tender-hearted kiddie cuddler, easier to accept the notion of talking fauns than of Prime Minister Paul Martin riding into the troubled precincts of Toronto's Jane-Finch to scoop up all the handguns, easier to imagine the White Witch's perpetual winter than a Jack Layton government.
For today, however, let us leave the movies to the entertainment pages. As for the political performance, the early reviews are not promising. As pollster John Wright told the National Post this week, no leader has engaged the public, no issue has galvanized the campaign, "nothing's moving out there." [Dec 10. And it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ... no kidding, bonehead.]
Why would that be, do you think? [Because no one wanted an election over the christmas/whatever/holiday/whatever-time because ... more and more don't give a rat's arse at any time of the year let alone when all the partying is going on; well the christmas/whatever/holiday/whatever-time excuse to party; and have wonderful times at the malls too] and should be voting in force for "None of the above" instead of "low voter turnout" to send a very clear message that the "newz media" cannot sell ad space speculating about. Is everyone really as stupid as they are? Their ratings aren't very good either and they might want to speculate about that too; or take some phone calls to find out from someone other than a speculative muttonheaded pundit.]
Is it possible we're embarked on a dubious process :shock:, commented on by experts of dubious insight :shock: :shock:, electing members to a place of increasingly dubious value
, through a system [a no, it's an insult to the word "system"] that provides little [a no, make that buried ten miles underground; nothing to do with the spare change from the "Québec" ad campaigns and a few missing invoices; we had a better scandal at Toronto city hall, nothing to do with "ethics" at all -- around the confederates -- just the total irrelevance of pointless nothingness] incentive to voters while producing outcomes that rarely [a no, never; here] reflect the will [what will? Where is "the will of who from where" reported, in any way that matters? It has to be built into "the system" or it's just a sick, irrelevant joke, to sell ad space for as much money as possible with sensationalism to the oblivious target demographic fools again] of those who do trouble themselves to cast ballots?
[It's no trouble casting ballots. We just all have to vote for "None of the above" until they figure out what it means, before we're forced to tar, feather and send them to Baffin Island instead. They sure as hell won't be operating in South Ontario, not with a million bandages applied to anything confederate that exists, in 10 years or maybe even 5 and neither will the alleged "Ontario" feds; as is in both cases not that we just dump governments altogether, which would be a bit difficult ant a lot stupid. This business of the confederates being irrelevant, "of dubious value," struggling to remain relevant, so many ways of putting it, is all over the place; but they don't seem to have the faintest clue; which is good. The last thing we need is for them to wake up and figure out which century it is, before the rewrite and marketing for it is done (it only has to get through the thick skulls of South Ontarians) and they're sent home in a daze to proclaim whatever they want to; to themselves.]
As it happens, all these disturbing propositions have been made recently in one form or other and, in combination, may help explain the apparent electoral ennui.
[en·nui
n.
Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom: “The servants relieved their ennui with gambling and gossip about their masters” (John Barth).
__________
[French, from Old French enui, from ennuyer, to annoy, bore. See annoy.]
Source: Dictionary.com
Gambling, huh? That's not a bad idea. A lottery, write down the date the confederates are finito, sent home and build up the pot and everyone who guesses the right date splits the money. Too bad the "Ontario" (uh huh; which one?) Lottery and Gaming Corporation thinks it has some Crown. We don't even have a Squire let alone a palace, let alone some crown in a palace. See United Republics of Canada or at least Republic of Canada, but nothing will be able to pull any singular republic off anymore and they won't be real republics anyway; no border checkpoints allowed, no independent military, etc., in the new union constitution.]
For starters, it's long been conceded by most involved that modern election campaigns are absurd exercises :shock: — the sealing away of the campaigners in buses and planes that transport them from one staged event to another, conducted entirely in front of the converted, the highlight a mid-campaign televised shout-off. [Oh no, it was much less worthless than that this time due to the lack of shouting we got to see, yet again for anyone who bothers to tape CPAC and watch it in the evenings instead of Seinfeld and such, to see the fiascos going on, how none of them have the faintest clue; other than Duceppe.]
Because such behavior is so foreign to the day-to-day lives of most Canadians, this preposterous carry-on is typically explained to the masses during writ periods by purported experts. But before anyone turns an ear to the panels of pundits, they might do well to obtain a copy of Philip Tetlock's new book Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? [Promoting another pundit to renounce pundits? Hmm. Okay. It's a worthy cause but is a bit hypocritical.]
The Berkeley psychiatrist has apparently made a 20-year study of predictions by the sorts who appear as experts on TV [but not on radio or in newzpaper newz, of course; like right in this article] and get quoted in newspapers and found that they are no better than the rest of us at prognostication. :shock: [Um, who is "us" coming from a journalist ... really its editor then marketing dept. to figure out what ads to stick where around it; after it was edited for marketing purposes by who knows who?]
Not only that, "when they're wrong, they're rarely held accountable, and they rarely admit it either," writer Louis Menand says in a recent report in The New Yorker. :shock: :shock: [Is this actually "newz" to anyone who bothers reading "the political newz"? The only "newz" was actually seeing it in print; from them.]
Not only that [there's more? It can't be...], the better known and more frequently quoted they are, the less reliable are their guesses about the future.
"People who follow current events by reading the papers ... ... :lol: and newsmagazines :gag: uke: regularly can guess what is likely to happen [nothing; more and more talk and talk and talk and acting, badly, and it'll be quite entertaining when confederate mound is turned into a hotel dinner-theater for hilarious re-enactments and endless scripts right from Handards. "Did people really used to think that this meant something? Did people really buy this steaming mad cow dung? They must have been very easy to sell anything to." (As the landfills also prove.)] about as accurately as the specialists."
And while mulling that over, consider this. Two American authors [more expert pundits? And nameless ones too?] who recently wrote a book on economics and the hidden incentive of things had a piece recently in the New York Times magazine saying that — all public-minded exhortations to the contrary — the rational individual would abstain from voting.
[No, the rational individual would do everything possible to destroy the existing insults to the words (political) "systems" and "structures" ... particularly political "families" and their ridiculous election circus act marketing campaigns; and would show up to vote in force, specifically to spoil ballots to make all elections invalid to force re-writes of everything (starting with ludicrous "leadership conventions") -- unless "None of the above" is an option to vote for -- to send a very clear message that NOT voting does not send. NOT voting leads to pundits who know nothing, for the purpose of making money from "the newz" that does nothing but sell ad space for as much money as possible to the target demographic morons who actually suck it up ... which I don't think is true anymore so they need a good smack upside the heads too, they need total reform and new legislation and particularly around election circus act marketing campaigns ... to speculate as to why "voter turnout was so low" -- which is a very different topic than "Why is everyone spoiling their ballots and/or voting for 'None of the above' in every confederate and 'provincial' election and increasingly in municipal elections, particularly in the cities?" Then, "You ["newz" media] have to ask WHY, you pinheaded dimwits?" And then we may even get a "news media" that means something.]
Voting, they said, costs time, effort and productivity. But the odds are "very, very, very slim" that anyone's vote will affect the outcome of a given election. [No, they're equally what they are per electoral district; but NOT voting to spoil ballots (which is against the law, so do it discreetly so you don't get arrested; they still have to be counted and just take a magic market with you and write "None of the above" across the ballot where you'd make a selection, then write "Put 'None of the above' ON the next ballot!" as your vote; fold it up and drop it in the box in a way that no one can see the writing on it or you could get busted; which is totally outrageous. We need "None of the above" on ALL election ballots; provincial and municipal and it's up to the confederates to pass that legislation to force it on the provinces/territories and all municipalities, like it or lump it.) Close elections are, history shows, exceedingly rare. In fact, "your chances of winning a lottery [what kind of lottery? The date that we fix everything or the date we send the boneheads packing?] and of affecting an election are pretty similar," they said.
[TOTAL BS. There are organizations around that make sure their members get out and vote and if you're not in one, you're not fighting exactly what those organizations count on -- you not showing up to vote, thinking that you're just "one vote"; which is true so what do you do about it? You organize is what you do about it and organizing to show up specifically to make a very clear statement, en masse, voting for "None of the above" instead of NOT voting or even worse, knowing that you're not getting what you want or anything close to what you want, "settling" on the "best of the worst" with "oh well" when you can only think about trusting candidate "None of the above," the only logical choice to anyone with a working brain cell.
THAT is the only "campaign" we need. If it makes an election invalid before the confederates are run off of OUR land and out of OUR buildings (not union services; they'll have their budgets set and they operate just fine without the pinheads on confederate mound, as is being proven right now, is proven on every "Christmas break" and "Summer break", then it forces new "leadership conventions" because "None of the above" have been voted for and then we go after those; "None of the above" again, and again; there is no mistaking it for anything but total "dissatisfaction" with the whole ridiculous election process from the "leadership conventions on"; at minimum.
Lots of other forces for real change that actually means something are at work but they do need examples to cite, they need "the people" to be behind them. Who/what "they" are is the topic of a forum that doesn't exist on this site yet, but that hasn't been suggested yet either.
You could start with the Atlantic [Canada] Institute of Market Studies (AIMS), or could start by downloading the free Adobe Acrobat Reader given that almost all documents worth reading are in PDF (portable document format), with this (RIGHT-click, then "Save target/link as..." to your "Most important files on the planet" folder on your desktop):
PDF: Help that Hurts”, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies web site. and feel free to check the mountains of research that goes into their documents and try to argue with the sources, not them, let alone anyone who simply relays and clearly marks sources ... and this:
PDF: “How to Fix Equalization to Encourage Growth”, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies web site.
Atlantic Canadas for Market Studies home page.
Please note that documents in PDF (the F stands for format so stating PDF format is stating Portable Document Format format; much like Personal Identification Number number; PIN number, the N stands for number so there's no need to repeat it) are clearly marked as such and please do the same as I did above if you use (url=...)Some document(/url), because no one wants Adobe Acrobat starting up inside their web browser. It takes quite a while to start and is a full application that needs all the screen real estate it can get. It should never be opened inside a web browser and it really pisses people off when PDFs are not clearly marked and they have to sit around waiting for Acrobat to open, worthlessly, in their web browsers, only to save the PDF, then hit the back button, to try to get Acrobat OUT of their web browser. You might as well open MS-Word(r), Excel(r), etc., inside your web browser.
If you live in the Ontarios, head for the Ontario forum, look for the $23 billion gap thread and download/read, not only the documents, tail-end summaries of the recent documents but take a look at everything CITED in, particularly the document from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and if there isn't a direct link to the document, there is a name for it. Enter the name of the document in Google, inside double quotes, and you will find the document that one sentence, etc., was quoted from. They assume that you have already read every single document they refer to and if you want to argue with all of their sources -- go to it.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce backed it all up, among other things, and the only one who stood up for the Ontarios after the insane "Atlantic Accord" blew the lid off the entire mess of the transfer system and particularly "equalizatio" (which South Ontarians pay for 100% of) in the last ridiculous "parliament" was Duceppe and the Bloc; with the same objectives we have, based on the same realities. They don't wan to separate from Canada, they'd go bankrupt with a stand-alone economy and the debt some version of Quebec, if if could be created, would be buried alive under.
They just have this "strange" believe that the confederate insult to the word "system" is broken beyond repair and that we're overtaxed; but that's no legal reason to sucede from anything, it's grounds for "democratic reform" but how do you get that done with insults to the words political "systems" and (certainly in the Ontarios) "structures?" You don't. You get rid of the insults to the words political "systems" and "structures", which is not a matter of "reform" as Canadiana would have you believe "reform" means: nothing. It means a total rewrite and it's done. Well it's never done, it's constantly improving and will remain that way, but that's another book or ten.
So you're a worthless voice in the winds of a hurricane trying to argue against any of it; and we don't care about your arguments, those who know the facts, have checked the sources; go ahead and argue with Statistics Canada, federal laws that the confederates totally ignore and every number from every Department of Finance in the Canadas calling them, and particularly the confederate department of Finance, a.k.a. "Finance Canada," frauds -- which will only help to bring the mess down faster and open your eyes faster, expose you to all of the lies you used to believe were true faster, get on with a real country faster. As a no one, you can really be a someone, totally buck the "system" by voting for "None of the above" in less than a week; which is major and makes you a someone, shows that you have a working brain cell.
And no, I don't expect what barely amounts to the circulation of a high school newspaper, just check the read hit counters on threads here, to change anything, let alone with less than a week to go for those with a working brain cell to email everyone they know, tell everyone they know, to vote for "None of the above." When the real campaign starts, you won't have to look on any web chat board for it; no offense, but it's what it is. And the best one I've seen yet (for general chat regarding the Canadas and even other things) but it's still not going to change anything; as is, so please don't post some public reply telling me what I already know and contradicting yourself by pretending that your post means anything either. It's tiresome and boring and save the Canadiana for someone who is ignorant enough to swallow it, without making assumptions, being a pundit, pretending to think that you know about what I mean by Canadiana or much of anything else: because, believe me, you have no clue unless you're, well I won't name handles. Very few, but certainly all moderators, and whatever the 2006 Board is (as in I don't know what its real structure or function is; yet) and Andem and any other agent of the Canadian Content.net forums.]
The payoff to voters is less in affecting the outcome, they speculated, :lol: [um, I'm laughing because they are denouncing SPECULATION from alleged experts in this very article ... if you missed it] than in being seen to have done one's civic duty, and the community approval such behavior [spelling correction: behavior not behaviour; North American English standards; not mandatory to anything/anyone in the private sector, just around bills/legislation, "government," court transcripts and such in the new union constitution. This is not Britain and the U.K. is nowhere close to being an important trading partner of these country, let alone the most important] brings.
In Switzerland, where voter turnout was traditionally high, turnout actually decreased upon the introduction of mail-in ballots — which one would have thought made voting easier, but, in fact, robbed it of the visibility that provided its chief reward.
[Much like showing up to many alleged god-buildings, not all, with one or more god marketers in them; for visibility, to be seen and to have, usually quite wrong assumptions made about what is being seen and what it doesn't mean, showing up to some man-made "god building." If you don't understand or like the comparison between those who show up to god-buildings (the least discriminatory term I can think of for them; particularly being from Toronto) to create public impressions of themselves, to those who show up to confederate elections to vote for "MPs" they often don't know a thing about, but to create public impressions of themselves; then come up with your own comparison.]
Be that as it may, no less a worthy than former NDP leader Ed Broadbent :!: [a very worthy pundit; in the context of pundits here], retiring from politics this go-round after a brief comeback [hooray! Now we just have to get ALL of them to do it; but much larger entities are taking care of that], apparently told the National Post recently that the parliamentary system is a waste of time anyway, intellectually bankrupt in large part because of a [political propaganda: what the NDP socialists, oddly at the beginnings of the industrial revolution, but oddly environmentalists, need if they're ever going to be able to lie and cheat and play the worthless games on far less than worthless confederate mound in any way that matters; just more political marketing/politicking for short, that changing FPTP will certainly not fix] first-past-the-post system that distorts outcomes. [Translation: Never gave Broadbent a good enough shot at pretending that the "waste of time parliamentary system that is intellectually bankrupt," by design, it's built right in, a crack at being a bigger crackpot. So let's fix that ... for Ed the pundit.]
And whatever the voting model, an Ontario judge recently threw out a complaint by someone offended that a government had reneged on an election promise, saying it was naïve for any citizen to take such campaign seductions seriously.
[If it was about the McGuinty "family" claiming to not raise taxes, they not only broke an election promise but THE LAWS they swore to uphold, then urinated, deficated, spat all over then laughed at, the "Ontario" Taxpayer Protection and Balanced Budget Act, which they broke both parts of, raising taxes without a referendum and producing a deficit budget, when they won a majority dictatorship. All they had to do was repeal the thing first to avoid breaking the law, not just an election circus marketing campaign promise; which is a minor problem with ridiculous 'parliamentary' systems, just one of many: elected dictatorships that no one/nothing can do anything about when they break laws they swear to uphold.
It was also quite stupid on the part of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) to even hand a piece of paper to a politician to sign and wave about as though it meant something. McGuinty signed a contract with the CTF "promising" to ABIDE BY THE LAW (do we really need contracts for such things? It's one of many reasons they're toast, the whole mess is a worthless heap of steaming crap) and the CTF should never have given a politician a piece of paper to wave around in the first place, as though it meant something. Their bad/stupidity. So they sued and then the McGuinty Liberals repealed the Act to avoid having to pay the fines out of their salaries ... and if you're going to try to penalize pond scum (politicians) in an Act, the CTF came up with it, it MIGHT be an idea to attach recall legislation to it and force it into a provincial constitution in a section that does not allow the Act itself to be amended or repealed without a referendum. DUH. Idiots.]
Which, when you think of it, brings us back to Narnia.
"I wonder if there's any point in going on," said Susan.
"I mean, it doesn't seem particularly safe here, and it looks as if it won't be much fun either. And it's getting colder every minute, and we've brought nothing to eat.
"What about just going home?"
_________
Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. www.thestar.com online since 1996.
Going home? Who'd have thunk it. Go home, Paul, Stephen, Jack and Gilles and send the rest of your pinheads on their way. President None of the above will preside, no problem, as usual, the departments are running just fine, we'll install the new union constitution an economic charter(s), it's our land, they're our buildings, then hold the first real elections this planet has ever seen, and other things calling themselves "democracies" won't be able to help but make fools of themselves.
In less than week and in between, emailing and talking to those you know, you can actually do something real for a change and stand up for the Canadas and whatever other oh so snappy political marketing slogans are out there: vote for the candidate with the mostest, the candidate with the only platform that makes any sense, the only candidate that can't let you down: Candidate "None of the above."
It's time. (This message was brought to you and personally approved by candidate None of the above.)
I could re-quote the article, parts of it, again with my "thoughts" (rarely; they come from real sources, such as can be published for free to the general public) but instead just stuck them in brackets [] in italics. And I added some bolding and underlining and the obvious for certain points (the "newz media" doesn't use phpBB2 emoticons).
______
The real election experts? Our bored voters
Dec. 10, 2005. 01:00 AM
JIM COYLE
In The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the C.S. Lewis classic opening this weekend as a movie, four children — Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy — famously travel through a wardrobe into the otherworldliness of Narnia and its mouth-watering Turkish Delight.
In the national political exercise now underway, adapted from a similar yarn of 18 months ago, four men — Paul, Stephen, Jack and Gilles — have ventured into the otherworldliness of their campaign bubbles and hunger desperately for a taste of the Ballot Question.
It's even money which of the spectacles will produce images more fantastical — the former with its eye-popping Hollywood gadgetry, or the latter with its jaw-dropping political image-making [a.k.a. marketing, a.k.a. BS/lies].
To many, it will be easier to believe in a resurrected lion than in Conservative Leader Stephen Harper as a tender-hearted kiddie cuddler, easier to accept the notion of talking fauns than of Prime Minister Paul Martin riding into the troubled precincts of Toronto's Jane-Finch to scoop up all the handguns, easier to imagine the White Witch's perpetual winter than a Jack Layton government.
For today, however, let us leave the movies to the entertainment pages. As for the political performance, the early reviews are not promising. As pollster John Wright told the National Post this week, no leader has engaged the public, no issue has galvanized the campaign, "nothing's moving out there." [Dec 10. And it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ... no kidding, bonehead.]
Why would that be, do you think? [Because no one wanted an election over the christmas/whatever/holiday/whatever-time because ... more and more don't give a rat's arse at any time of the year let alone when all the partying is going on; well the christmas/whatever/holiday/whatever-time excuse to party; and have wonderful times at the malls too] and should be voting in force for "None of the above" instead of "low voter turnout" to send a very clear message that the "newz media" cannot sell ad space speculating about. Is everyone really as stupid as they are? Their ratings aren't very good either and they might want to speculate about that too; or take some phone calls to find out from someone other than a speculative muttonheaded pundit.]
Is it possible we're embarked on a dubious process :shock:, commented on by experts of dubious insight :shock: :shock:, electing members to a place of increasingly dubious value
, through a system [a no, it's an insult to the word "system"] that provides little [a no, make that buried ten miles underground; nothing to do with the spare change from the "Québec" ad campaigns and a few missing invoices; we had a better scandal at Toronto city hall, nothing to do with "ethics" at all -- around the confederates -- just the total irrelevance of pointless nothingness] incentive to voters while producing outcomes that rarely [a no, never; here] reflect the will [what will? Where is "the will of who from where" reported, in any way that matters? It has to be built into "the system" or it's just a sick, irrelevant joke, to sell ad space for as much money as possible with sensationalism to the oblivious target demographic fools again] of those who do trouble themselves to cast ballots?[It's no trouble casting ballots. We just all have to vote for "None of the above" until they figure out what it means, before we're forced to tar, feather and send them to Baffin Island instead. They sure as hell won't be operating in South Ontario, not with a million bandages applied to anything confederate that exists, in 10 years or maybe even 5 and neither will the alleged "Ontario" feds; as is in both cases not that we just dump governments altogether, which would be a bit difficult ant a lot stupid. This business of the confederates being irrelevant, "of dubious value," struggling to remain relevant, so many ways of putting it, is all over the place; but they don't seem to have the faintest clue; which is good. The last thing we need is for them to wake up and figure out which century it is, before the rewrite and marketing for it is done (it only has to get through the thick skulls of South Ontarians) and they're sent home in a daze to proclaim whatever they want to; to themselves.]
As it happens, all these disturbing propositions have been made recently in one form or other and, in combination, may help explain the apparent electoral ennui.
[en·nui
n.
Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom: “The servants relieved their ennui with gambling and gossip about their masters” (John Barth).
__________
[French, from Old French enui, from ennuyer, to annoy, bore. See annoy.]
Source: Dictionary.com
Gambling, huh? That's not a bad idea. A lottery, write down the date the confederates are finito, sent home and build up the pot and everyone who guesses the right date splits the money. Too bad the "Ontario" (uh huh; which one?) Lottery and Gaming Corporation thinks it has some Crown. We don't even have a Squire let alone a palace, let alone some crown in a palace. See United Republics of Canada or at least Republic of Canada, but nothing will be able to pull any singular republic off anymore and they won't be real republics anyway; no border checkpoints allowed, no independent military, etc., in the new union constitution.]
For starters, it's long been conceded by most involved that modern election campaigns are absurd exercises :shock: — the sealing away of the campaigners in buses and planes that transport them from one staged event to another, conducted entirely in front of the converted, the highlight a mid-campaign televised shout-off. [Oh no, it was much less worthless than that this time due to the lack of shouting we got to see, yet again for anyone who bothers to tape CPAC and watch it in the evenings instead of Seinfeld and such, to see the fiascos going on, how none of them have the faintest clue; other than Duceppe.]
Because such behavior is so foreign to the day-to-day lives of most Canadians, this preposterous carry-on is typically explained to the masses during writ periods by purported experts. But before anyone turns an ear to the panels of pundits, they might do well to obtain a copy of Philip Tetlock's new book Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? [Promoting another pundit to renounce pundits? Hmm. Okay. It's a worthy cause but is a bit hypocritical.]
The Berkeley psychiatrist has apparently made a 20-year study of predictions by the sorts who appear as experts on TV [but not on radio or in newzpaper newz, of course; like right in this article] and get quoted in newspapers and found that they are no better than the rest of us at prognostication. :shock: [Um, who is "us" coming from a journalist ... really its editor then marketing dept. to figure out what ads to stick where around it; after it was edited for marketing purposes by who knows who?]
Not only that, "when they're wrong, they're rarely held accountable, and they rarely admit it either," writer Louis Menand says in a recent report in The New Yorker. :shock: :shock: [Is this actually "newz" to anyone who bothers reading "the political newz"? The only "newz" was actually seeing it in print; from them.]
Not only that [there's more? It can't be...], the better known and more frequently quoted they are, the less reliable are their guesses about the future.
"People who follow current events by reading the papers
... ... :lol: and newsmagazines :gag: uke: regularly can guess what is likely to happen [nothing; more and more talk and talk and talk and acting, badly, and it'll be quite entertaining when confederate mound is turned into a hotel dinner-theater for hilarious re-enactments and endless scripts right from Handards. "Did people really used to think that this meant something? Did people really buy this steaming mad cow dung? They must have been very easy to sell anything to." (As the landfills also prove.)] about as accurately as the specialists."And while mulling that over, consider this. Two American authors [more expert pundits? And nameless ones too?] who recently wrote a book on economics and the hidden incentive of things had a piece recently in the New York Times magazine saying that — all public-minded exhortations to the contrary — the rational individual would abstain from voting.
[No, the rational individual would do everything possible to destroy the existing insults to the words (political) "systems" and "structures" ... particularly political "families" and their ridiculous election circus act marketing campaigns; and would show up to vote in force, specifically to spoil ballots to make all elections invalid to force re-writes of everything (starting with ludicrous "leadership conventions") -- unless "None of the above" is an option to vote for -- to send a very clear message that NOT voting does not send. NOT voting leads to pundits who know nothing, for the purpose of making money from "the newz" that does nothing but sell ad space for as much money as possible to the target demographic morons who actually suck it up ... which I don't think is true anymore so they need a good smack upside the heads too, they need total reform and new legislation and particularly around election circus act marketing campaigns ... to speculate as to why "voter turnout was so low" -- which is a very different topic than "Why is everyone spoiling their ballots and/or voting for 'None of the above' in every confederate and 'provincial' election and increasingly in municipal elections, particularly in the cities?" Then, "You ["newz" media] have to ask WHY, you pinheaded dimwits?" And then we may even get a "news media" that means something.]
Voting, they said, costs time, effort and productivity. But the odds are "very, very, very slim" that anyone's vote will affect the outcome of a given election. [No, they're equally what they are per electoral district; but NOT voting to spoil ballots (which is against the law, so do it discreetly so you don't get arrested; they still have to be counted and just take a magic market with you and write "None of the above" across the ballot where you'd make a selection, then write "Put 'None of the above' ON the next ballot!" as your vote; fold it up and drop it in the box in a way that no one can see the writing on it or you could get busted; which is totally outrageous. We need "None of the above" on ALL election ballots; provincial and municipal and it's up to the confederates to pass that legislation to force it on the provinces/territories and all municipalities, like it or lump it.) Close elections are, history shows, exceedingly rare. In fact, "your chances of winning a lottery [what kind of lottery? The date that we fix everything or the date we send the boneheads packing?] and of affecting an election are pretty similar," they said.
[TOTAL BS. There are organizations around that make sure their members get out and vote and if you're not in one, you're not fighting exactly what those organizations count on -- you not showing up to vote, thinking that you're just "one vote"; which is true so what do you do about it? You organize is what you do about it and organizing to show up specifically to make a very clear statement, en masse, voting for "None of the above" instead of NOT voting or even worse, knowing that you're not getting what you want or anything close to what you want, "settling" on the "best of the worst" with "oh well" when you can only think about trusting candidate "None of the above," the only logical choice to anyone with a working brain cell.
THAT is the only "campaign" we need. If it makes an election invalid before the confederates are run off of OUR land and out of OUR buildings (not union services; they'll have their budgets set and they operate just fine without the pinheads on confederate mound, as is being proven right now, is proven on every "Christmas break" and "Summer break", then it forces new "leadership conventions" because "None of the above" have been voted for and then we go after those; "None of the above" again, and again; there is no mistaking it for anything but total "dissatisfaction" with the whole ridiculous election process from the "leadership conventions on"; at minimum.
Lots of other forces for real change that actually means something are at work but they do need examples to cite, they need "the people" to be behind them. Who/what "they" are is the topic of a forum that doesn't exist on this site yet, but that hasn't been suggested yet either.
You could start with the Atlantic [Canada] Institute of Market Studies (AIMS), or could start by downloading the free Adobe Acrobat Reader given that almost all documents worth reading are in PDF (portable document format), with this (RIGHT-click, then "Save target/link as..." to your "Most important files on the planet"
folder on your desktop):PDF: Help that Hurts”, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies web site. and feel free to check the mountains of research that goes into their documents and try to argue with the sources, not them, let alone anyone who simply relays and clearly marks sources ... and this:
PDF: “How to Fix Equalization to Encourage Growth”, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies web site.
Atlantic Canadas for Market Studies home page.
Please note that documents in PDF (the F stands for format so stating PDF format is stating Portable Document Format format; much like Personal Identification Number number; PIN number, the N stands for number so there's no need to repeat it) are clearly marked as such and please do the same as I did above if you use (url=...)Some document(/url), because no one wants Adobe Acrobat starting up inside their web browser. It takes quite a while to start and is a full application that needs all the screen real estate it can get. It should never be opened inside a web browser and it really pisses people off when PDFs are not clearly marked and they have to sit around waiting for Acrobat to open, worthlessly, in their web browsers, only to save the PDF, then hit the back button, to try to get Acrobat OUT of their web browser. You might as well open MS-Word(r), Excel(r), etc., inside your web browser.
If you live in the Ontarios, head for the Ontario forum, look for the $23 billion gap thread and download/read, not only the documents, tail-end summaries of the recent documents but take a look at everything CITED in, particularly the document from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and if there isn't a direct link to the document, there is a name for it. Enter the name of the document in Google, inside double quotes, and you will find the document that one sentence, etc., was quoted from. They assume that you have already read every single document they refer to and if you want to argue with all of their sources -- go to it.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce backed it all up, among other things, and the only one who stood up for the Ontarios after the insane "Atlantic Accord" blew the lid off the entire mess of the transfer system and particularly "equalizatio" (which South Ontarians pay for 100% of) in the last ridiculous "parliament" was Duceppe and the Bloc; with the same objectives we have, based on the same realities. They don't wan to separate from Canada, they'd go bankrupt with a stand-alone economy and the debt some version of Quebec, if if could be created, would be buried alive under.
They just have this "strange" believe that the confederate insult to the word "system" is broken beyond repair and that we're overtaxed; but that's no legal reason to sucede from anything, it's grounds for "democratic reform" but how do you get that done with insults to the words political "systems" and (certainly in the Ontarios) "structures?" You don't. You get rid of the insults to the words political "systems" and "structures", which is not a matter of "reform" as Canadiana would have you believe "reform" means: nothing. It means a total rewrite and it's done. Well it's never done, it's constantly improving and will remain that way, but that's another book or ten.
So you're a worthless voice in the winds of a hurricane trying to argue against any of it; and we don't care about your arguments, those who know the facts, have checked the sources; go ahead and argue with Statistics Canada, federal laws that the confederates totally ignore and every number from every Department of Finance in the Canadas calling them, and particularly the confederate department of Finance, a.k.a. "Finance Canada," frauds -- which will only help to bring the mess down faster and open your eyes faster, expose you to all of the lies you used to believe were true faster, get on with a real country faster. As a no one, you can really be a someone, totally buck the "system" by voting for "None of the above" in less than a week; which is major and makes you a someone, shows that you have a working brain cell.
And no, I don't expect what barely amounts to the circulation of a high school newspaper, just check the read hit counters on threads here, to change anything, let alone with less than a week to go for those with a working brain cell to email everyone they know, tell everyone they know, to vote for "None of the above." When the real campaign starts, you won't have to look on any web chat board for it; no offense, but it's what it is. And the best one I've seen yet (for general chat regarding the Canadas and even other things) but it's still not going to change anything; as is, so please don't post some public reply telling me what I already know and contradicting yourself by pretending that your post means anything either. It's tiresome and boring and save the Canadiana for someone who is ignorant enough to swallow it, without making assumptions, being a pundit, pretending to think that you know about what I mean by Canadiana or much of anything else: because, believe me, you have no clue unless you're, well I won't name handles. Very few, but certainly all moderators, and whatever the 2006 Board is (as in I don't know what its real structure or function is; yet) and Andem and any other agent of the Canadian Content.net forums.]
The payoff to voters is less in affecting the outcome, they speculated, :lol: [um, I'm laughing because they are denouncing SPECULATION from alleged experts in this very article ... if you missed it] than in being seen to have done one's civic duty, and the community approval such behavior [spelling correction: behavior not behaviour; North American English standards; not mandatory to anything/anyone in the private sector, just around bills/legislation, "government," court transcripts and such in the new union constitution. This is not Britain and the U.K. is nowhere close to being an important trading partner of these country, let alone the most important] brings.
In Switzerland, where voter turnout was traditionally high, turnout actually decreased upon the introduction of mail-in ballots — which one would have thought made voting easier, but, in fact, robbed it of the visibility that provided its chief reward.
[Much like showing up to many alleged god-buildings, not all, with one or more god marketers in them; for visibility, to be seen and to have, usually quite wrong assumptions made about what is being seen and what it doesn't mean, showing up to some man-made "god building." If you don't understand or like the comparison between those who show up to god-buildings (the least discriminatory term I can think of for them; particularly being from Toronto) to create public impressions of themselves, to those who show up to confederate elections to vote for "MPs" they often don't know a thing about, but to create public impressions of themselves; then come up with your own comparison.
]Be that as it may, no less a worthy than former NDP leader Ed Broadbent :!: [a very worthy pundit; in the context of pundits here], retiring from politics this go-round after a brief comeback [hooray! Now we just have to get ALL of them to do it; but much larger entities are taking care of that], apparently told the National Post recently that the parliamentary system is a waste of time anyway, intellectually bankrupt in large part because of a [political propaganda: what the NDP socialists, oddly at the beginnings of the industrial revolution, but oddly environmentalists, need if they're ever going to be able to lie and cheat and play the worthless games on far less than worthless confederate mound in any way that matters; just more political marketing/politicking for short, that changing FPTP will certainly not fix] first-past-the-post system that distorts outcomes. [Translation: Never gave Broadbent a good enough shot at pretending that the "waste of time parliamentary system that is intellectually bankrupt," by design, it's built right in, a crack at being a bigger crackpot. So let's fix that ... for Ed the pundit.]
And whatever the voting model, an Ontario judge recently threw out a complaint by someone offended that a government had reneged on an election promise, saying it was naïve for any citizen to take such campaign seductions seriously.
[If it was about the McGuinty "family" claiming to not raise taxes, they not only broke an election promise but THE LAWS they swore to uphold, then urinated, deficated, spat all over then laughed at, the "Ontario" Taxpayer Protection and Balanced Budget Act, which they broke both parts of, raising taxes without a referendum and producing a deficit budget, when they won a majority dictatorship. All they had to do was repeal the thing first to avoid breaking the law, not just an election circus marketing campaign promise; which is a minor problem with ridiculous 'parliamentary' systems, just one of many: elected dictatorships that no one/nothing can do anything about when they break laws they swear to uphold.
It was also quite stupid on the part of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) to even hand a piece of paper to a politician to sign and wave about as though it meant something. McGuinty signed a contract with the CTF "promising" to ABIDE BY THE LAW (do we really need contracts for such things? It's one of many reasons they're toast, the whole mess is a worthless heap of steaming crap) and the CTF should never have given a politician a piece of paper to wave around in the first place, as though it meant something. Their bad/stupidity. So they sued and then the McGuinty Liberals repealed the Act to avoid having to pay the fines out of their salaries ... and if you're going to try to penalize pond scum (politicians) in an Act, the CTF came up with it, it MIGHT be an idea to attach recall legislation to it and force it into a provincial constitution in a section that does not allow the Act itself to be amended or repealed without a referendum. DUH. Idiots.]
Which, when you think of it, brings us back to Narnia.
"I wonder if there's any point in going on," said Susan.
"I mean, it doesn't seem particularly safe here, and it looks as if it won't be much fun either. And it's getting colder every minute, and we've brought nothing to eat.
"What about just going home?"
_________
Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. www.thestar.com online since 1996.
Going home? Who'd have thunk it. Go home, Paul, Stephen, Jack and Gilles and send the rest of your pinheads on their way. President None of the above will preside, no problem, as usual, the departments are running just fine, we'll install the new union constitution an economic charter(s), it's our land, they're our buildings, then hold the first real elections this planet has ever seen, and other things calling themselves "democracies" won't be able to help but make fools of themselves.
In less than week and in between, emailing and talking to those you know, you can actually do something real for a change and stand up for the Canadas and whatever other oh so snappy political marketing slogans are out there: vote for the candidate with the mostest, the candidate with the only platform that makes any sense, the only candidate that can't let you down: Candidate "None of the above."
It's time. (This message was brought to you and personally approved by candidate None of the above.)
