Hello, if you follow(ed) this blog, I’m in the process of resurrecting it. The new location for the tech, CI, content management types of content is http://www.knowfore.com/blog/ and the RSS feed is http://www.knowfore.com/blog/feed/ The politics and other posts will continue at http://www.phydeau.org/politics http://www.phydeau.org/politics/feed/ Thanks for following. … Continue Reading →
Continue readingAuthor: Joshua Chalifour
Thus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: “Strategic” Voting Weakens Democracy
“Strategic” voting is a bad idea. Organized “strategic” voting improves nothing. Worse, “strategic” voting creates an illusion of trust where there are no possible checks and balances. It’s a scheme just asking to be gamed. Participants in “strategic” voting schemes will get taken advantage of and lose their voices. The
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Timeline of Conservatives’ Deeds Against Science
In the Confessions of a Science Librarian blog, John Dupuy writes about the Harper Conservatives’ war against science. He’s logged and linked activities from 2006 to 2013 that show how the Conservatives have muzzled, cut budgets, and otherwise attacked Canada’s scientific research programs. The article is good, the situation is
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Compilation of ConMem.ca Politics Past
I logged a timeline of public news information about the deeds and direction of those leading our Canadian federal government from 16 October 2008 through 2012. That log was on my Web site named Conserving Memory (conmem.ca). I hoped to maintain an archive in critical blog format for public memory,
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Should the NDP Renew Itself with a Shoot of Green?
Before our last federal election in 2010, I’d proposed a rationale for the NDP and Green Party to merge (from an NDP perspective). With the NDP leadership convention operating at full speed, now is a great time to reconsider this idea. In fact, one of the NDP’s recurring debate themes
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Time to Establish a Green Social Democratic Party (GSDP)
Why is there both a New Democratic Party (NDP) and a Green Party? Examine them, really read their positions and philosophies. The two parties are essentially the same and where they’re not, they’re frequently complementary. In the following, I’ll present why I think the two parties must merge and what
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Conservatives to Ignore the Canadian Copyright Consultation in Favour of DMCA?
The Conservatives still appear to be steering Canada toward a DMCA-like future: one that enslaves our culture to a few controlling (mostly foreign) companies, stifles science and freedom of expression, and anchors Canada’s economy to the digital dark age rather than propelling it toward what could be an incredibly innovative
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: First Take on the Public Domain Manifesto
Communia published its Public Domain Manifesto. The manifesto identifies the public domain concept with respect to historical development and more urgently, its relevance to culture today. I think it makes an important statement, in terms of offering a level, common understanding that could be used widely across society, government, and
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Angus Asks for Answers to ACTA Secrets
Charlie Angus (NDP) penned an open letter1 (.doc) (26 January 2010) to Peter Van Loan (Conservative Minister of International Trade) regarding the ongoing secretive ACTA negotiations and Canadian copyright issues. Considering the ACTA negotiations have occurred largely in secret but collide head-on with copyright issues widely discussed over the last few years, it’s reasonable to expect
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Secret Copyright Negotiations Disregard Canadian Consultation
Because of recent leaks, the public has learned that the minority Conservative government is engaged in at least two sets of secret negotiations to bring forward new copyright and “intellectual property” regulations without the consent of Canadians. The Conservatives got their first two attempts at copyright change wrong. Later, the government set up
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Response to Canadian Copyright Consultation
The government set up public consultations and a web site for discussion and formal submissions of responses to questions concerning copyright reform. The web site posed five questions, which I thought about for a bit and then hastily wrote some responses today. I’ve been away travelling for a while–there’s nothing
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Rip Movie
Just saw the film, Rip, last weekend. The movie explores most of the present day struggles with copyright and notions of ownership of “intellectual property.” I thought it was interesting in how it presented a US government decision in the 90s (through interviews with those responsible) to definitively shift its
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Ephemera and the National Memory
I continue to be concerned with what I once called digital cultural amnesia. Though in reflecting on the word “amnesia” I no longer think it’s the best way to express the problem. Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, writes about the phenomenon in The Observer. Too many of
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Coalition! I Was Wrong about Being Wrong
In my last post, I said that I was wrong about Dion’s political strategy in the last election. It turns out that while I wasn’t exactly right, I also wasn’t wrong. I’d imagined a scenario in which the conservatives were unable to win a majority, thus putting us back in
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Polishing Up the Political Remains
Looks like I was wrong about Dion’s political strategy. Even if I was right, it didn’t turn out as I thought. I waited until today to proclaim my wrongness because I thought the last likely possibility it could unravel as I theorized would be with the speech from the throne.
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Vote Swapping Breaks Democracy
I’ve always thought the concept of vote-swapping was problematic. Not only is it flawed in its own right but treating it as an acceptable strategy is like snuggling up to the idea that one party can function as a spoiler and that somehow, certain parties are entitled to votes. This
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Unravelling Dion’s Political Strategy
Though my attention is tuned to our federal election, this post doesn’t continue the IP political issues I wrote detailing a stance against certain sorts of “intellectual property” regulation (NDP seems to address it best, though Dion provided a reasonable response to my letter). I’ll go on a tangent today:
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: What Would Happen if You De-occupy the Cognitive Surplus?
The “West” is known for its consumers. Much of the rest of the world is trying its best to head in that direction too. Reading Clay Shirky’s recent blog post, Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, got me thinking about the stance of the passive consumer. I’m wondering if the new
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Some Notes on the Canadian Digital Information Strategy Draft
I’ve been reading the draft consultation version of the Canadian Digital Information Strategy. The strategy proposes strengthening content, ensuring its preservation, and maximizing its access and use. These are important for many reasons the report addresses regarding culture; the report also has some anchors in industry, stating that “nations that
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Copyright Reform and the StatsCan Report
Michael Geist posted about the politics in the debate on copyright reform. The point stems from dissonance between the recent Statistics Canada report and a reform-oriented bill expected to introduce more restrictive copyright policy. The report showed some nice Canadian recording industry profits where similar industries in other parts of
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