Ok, some somebody doesn’t know what Tyranny means or actually, what democracy means. That somebody today is Scott Armstrong. Here’s the quote from the Globe and Mail article regarding this week’s committee about obtaining government estimates of spending: Fellow Tory Scott Armstrong suggested opposition parties are abusing their dominant position in a minority Parliament, making unreasonable […]
Author: Mark Crowley
Pop The Stack: Tyranny of the Majority
Ok, some somebody doesn’t know what Tyranny means or actually, what democracy means. That somebody today is Scott Armstrong. Here’s the quote from the Globe and Mail article regarding this week’s committee about obtaining government estimates of spending: Fellow Tory Scott Armstrong suggested opposition parties are abusing their dominant position in
Continue readingPop The Stack: The Ministry of Silly Invasions
The best part of the recent story about the British special forces mission to Libya is that at some point in the past few days the following conversation must have taken place somewhere in Whitehall. Here is my transcript, which some artistic license as performed by Monty Python. Imagine the General and Officer as Graham […]
Pop The Stack: Write your MP about the Electoral Reform Motion
This is an email I just sent my member of parliament. If you care about electoral reform you should too. You can find your MP here. Here is the debate that took place in the House on it last week. Hello Joyce, I get a lot of your fliers in the mail and I am […]
Pop The Stack: Go to the Dance
I’ve got an analogy for the Conservtive party’s stance over the possibility of a coalition. They’re just clever bullies, and they should be treated appropriately. Think back to high school. Lets say there’s this bully who likes the same girl (or guy) as you. They don’t want you to go to the dance because you’ll […]
Pop The Stack: BC Throws Down the Crazy Vote Gauntlet
When it comes to politics and crazy in Canada, you just can’t beat British Columbia Tomorrow I will voting in a provincial election with no more than 90,000 other people. The votes will be ranked. I can must rank at least two choices and can choose to rank all four candidates. The votes will be […]
Pop The Stack: This is the worst attack on our democracy since…
The recent refusal of International Development minister to resign after lying to a parliamentary committee seems an afront to the principles of democracy. I find myself searching for another event so outrageous, and I find I don’t have to look back far. So, for posterity, and to be continually is the your list of democratic […]
Pop The Stack: What does a single vote weigh?
So I’ve got a comment on an arcane voting procedure issue for a current party leadership contest…sounds exciting huh? Everybody gather round! The party is the BC Liberal party. The issue is weighting a votes by riding. The current rules say that each party member will get one vote towards the leader. The new rule […]
Pop The Stack: Sure science is great, but how does it make you feel?
A new study indicates that high school teachers in the US overwhelmingly softsell evolution in biology class. Beyond the 13% of teachers that actively teach creationism, apparently around 60% of teachers encourage students to treat this foundation of modern science as a moral belief. The ‘controversy’ around evolution has been exaggerated to such an extent that teachers who […]
Pop The Stack: In Which I Get Outraged at…Oshawa?
If you read me regularly you may have noticed I’m writing less, well, regularly, recently. I’ve promised myself to cut back on political blogging while I try to finish my thesis so the bar is pretty high for a political/democracy story to force me to comment with a full blog post. I have to say, […]
Pop The Stack: In Search of New Years Eve In Vancouver
Oh Vancouver. Vancouver the beautiful. Vancouver the warm. Vancouver the wet. And Vancouver the no-fun city. It doesn’t have to be this way. I just spent New Year’s Eve in Vancouver. It’s the first time in the 7 years I’ve been here that I haven’t gone to Seattle or Toronto or been at a friend’s […]
Pop The Stack: Happy New Year 41 U.E.
In just about four and a half hours it will be New Years in Greenwich,UK. You know what that means, time itself will be 41 years old. That is, it will be the 1293840000 seconds (ignoring leap seconds) since Dawn of the Unix Epoch on Jan 1,1970. The moment most computers use as a reference […]
Pop The Stack: I’m Dreaming of a Drenched Christmas
I’m dreaming of a drenched Christmas Just like the ones I used to know Where the sidewalks glisten, and children listen To hear rain-gear squeak below I’m dreaming of a drenched Christmas With every Christmas card I write May your days be merry and bright And may all your Christmases be dry I’m dreaming of […]
Pop The Stack: The Future is Full of Moderate Possibilities
So it sounds like Iggy is building up the courage to strike out on his own and risk sending the country to an election in the spring. Well I say, it’s about time. After three years of Conservative disregard for the institutions of democracy, embarrassing delinquency on climate change and international diplomacy, debasing of rational, […]
Pop The Stack: The First Annual Holiday FFriend Shout Out
Cross-posted to Computationally Thinking This is the time of year when we all make a little effort to send a gift to our family and close friends. Other friends get maybe card and no gift and that’s fine too, we aren’t all made of money and getting good gift for people we know really well […]
Pop The Stack: He Leaks Me, He Leaks Me Not, He Leaks Me…
The unrolling of the US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks over the past week is a fascinating event that may be unparalleled in human history, so far. I’ve had difficulty deciding if this is a good or a bad thing over the past week as the news has come out. See my other article here over at Computationally […]
Pop The Stack: Faretheewell to the Prime Minister of Newfoundland
So Danny Williams the premier of Newfoundland and Labrodour for the past ten years is stepping down because he feels he’s been there long enough and its time to move on…imagine that. He should give BC premier Gordon Campbell a call to advise him on how to exit politics gracefully. Anyways, after hearing this news […]
Pop The Stack: The Abdication of Gordon I
BC Finance Minister Colin Hansen was talking this evening to the always awesome Stephen Quinn on CBC Radio and said something funny. He said that they had to suspend the 15% tax cut that His Highness Premier Gordon Campbell had announced just weeks ago because they were in an “interregnum period” between leaders and shouldn’t […]
Pop The Stack: Hypocrisy Has a New Definition in Senate Defeat
OK, I thought I was just going to read a little news, have my coffee and get back to work. I was fine until I saw this on twitter: @stephen_taylor Speaking of unelected… @elizabethmay has an opinion about all of thishttp://bit.ly/a1VIQK #cdnpoli Of course I have to stand up to defend Elizabeth, so I go […]
Pop The Stack: Another Poll, Another Disclaimer
I’d just like to point out once again the most important thing missing in analysis of the latest poll is how little the amount of support relates to power in parliament. Here are the number of seats won in the last election. The results would be a bit different but nothing has fundamentally changed: Filed […]