LIV Voters Are The Feature, Not The Bug.

If you can't sell your vote, it's not really yours.  Twenty two countries including Australia and most of South America make it illegal NOT to vote.   That's because your vote is money in someone else's bank.  A big reason you and I have a vote is precisely because most of us are LIV.  Universal suffrage empowers new elites to compete with the traditional potentates.  

From Wikipedia

The old got their position through family ties, violence and wealth.  The new got influence  through OPM (other people's money) but not as much as they wanted.  This includes political parties and the civil service,  the tenured,  the people who find themselves running companies but not owning companies, all meta-jobs, and the new highly educated class whose opinion of their merit can exceed their accomplishment.  In my view, these very smart elite people weren't doing us a favour with near-universal suffrage. They were making it easier for themselves to steer the ships of state, adding the threat of our uninformed disapproval to their wisdom.

A feature, not a bug.

Is this too simple a story, a progression from a dominant warlord, to a magna carta cartel of regional strongmen to all propertied gentlemen, to all men, to all men and women over 21 years of age, to all over 18 years of age?  Why stop at 18?  Why not 12 or 6?  There is some residuum of common sense.
If most of us become well-informed voters, the present party system of government will be disabled.  LIV voters are a foundational building block for the status quo.

Lizzie May Is Back

The signs are clear: Elizabeth May will be back in parliament with more votes.  For the first three weeks in Saanich-Gulf Islands, hers were the only signs on private lawns and public intersections.  Lots and lots of private signs right from the get go.  Was the Green Party the only one reading the papers about the coming election call?  The Also-Ran parties have signs up now.  You think the conservatives, at least, would have been ready.  At a wonderful weekend on one of the Gulf Islands (Galiano), May signs owned the stage as if Green was the only party in existence.   I've seen some vandalized signs but none were green.

Seven weeks in, the Green Party still has the most private lawn signs up.  They use photos in key spots. This appears to be a technical breakthrough others haven't heard about.  Based on the sign below, I'm predicting the Greens will grow their vote share in the entire Victoria area.

Great (photoshopped) ad conjuring up a team for the Victoria region.
Elizabeth has a cheery smile and doesn't make herself look like Numero Uno.

Your vote: If you can't sell it, it's not really yours.

Votes are rationed, one each. If it's yours, how come you can't sell it?  The surface story is that votes are rationed to protect voters from themselves because voters will make stupid deals with their vote. The real issue is power, not trust,because voters who group their votes or sell them up will push a candidate to represent them and not the party.  Politicians say "Trust me" to make deals but this is about protecting party power, not trust. They fight with party troops, selectively target voters with propaganda and promises, and give tax discounts to anyone who will fund their deal making.  I want to sell my vote.

We're lucky in Canada that parties aren't evil incarnate and do a bit of good. A little listening happens.  But they play to win and they win at the expense of you and me having someone to speak for us instead of the party. When's the last time you were polled or consulted by your MP?

Utlimate Tree Of Life: First appearance of everything that ever lived on earth

Ten thousands of DNA branching charts have been integrated for the first time to show a timeline of all life on earth.  Each branch point is the "last common ancestor".  The middle of the chart is the beginning of time and the perimeter is today.  The passage of time runs counter-clockwise, starting at Archaea near the centre.  It's an arbitrary graphic choice to force this into a single flat image that runs 360 degrees and puts our recent emergence next to Archaea.

Another graphic from 2008, less accurately detailed with a comma shape, more labels and some major extinctions noted.

Source

Much Better Than The U.S.A. Vote Conservative to keep Canada that way.

Canada looks pretty good when Gallup polled us about freedom from corruption.  We stand 13th in the world while the USA has drifted to 25th.

Gallup corruption poll
Click to read.

Three quarters of Americans are pretty sure government is corrupted while only 46% of Canadians have that opinion about our own operation.   (46% isn't good enough.  In Sweden almost everyone thinks government plays by the rules except for the 14% tin hat brigade).

P.18 Fraser Institute report|
on Economic Freedom.
Click to read.

Considering Economic Freedom measured by the Fraser Institute in 2015, we are at #9 and the US at #14.  (Page 18 at the link).

P.25 Happiness Survey
Click to read.

And under a third criterion, "How happy are the citizens?", we look good. (Page 28 at the link). Canadians rank 5th while Americans rank 15th.


It's a pattern.
We're better.
Vote Conservative. Keep what we have.

Down on Low Information Voters? Suck it up.

One adult citizen= one vote
means LIV and HIV types count the same.
This is a rationing solution.
Suck it up unless you have a plan B.
Plan B is to make voters unequal.
You can make a market so voters who want something the most pay the most to get it.  Or make a rule that smart people like yourself should have more votes than conservative retards.  Or use state controlled schools and media to change voters from LIV to approved High Information Voters.

Say "Goodbye" to democracy.

The superior sort of person explains things.

Give me the marketplace of ideas.  Let "high information voters" persuade "low information voters".   We're all ignorant of stuff until we see the point in learning. 
Motivate me.

Falling Prices Should Be The Norm

If I'm prospering as the first guy in this part of BC to build 4x2 floor trusses, pretty soon my competitors will be selling them too and the price has to drop. If prices aren't dropping over time, something's wrong with the market.

From John Mauldin: "Ever-lower prices are the natural result of a market economy. As people learn to produce more with fewer resources, competition, especially in the form of Schumpeter’s creative destruction, forces prices downward.  In a truly free and competitive market, it is only the debasement of the currency that allows the conditions for prices to rise. All things being equal, if the price of something is not falling over time, it raises my suspicions about competitiveness."

There you have it.  Every year the dollar will buy more in a healthy economy. When it doesn't, your government is siphoning off spending money by debasing the buck.  (Tweaked by fractional reserve banking and the speed of money).

Hello. My name is Ken and I am a Trumpaholic.

I'm addicted to the Donald.  Pundits warn me but I don't want to quit.  I'm getting a buzz from freedom of speech that drowns out balanced budget.

I'd like one more drinky poo

Liberty is my drug of choice and if a swig of Donald will damp down the suppressive chorus for prescribed opinion and bicycle helmets on everything, I'm for a weekend bender.











He's an ice breaker.  An ice breaker gets the party rolling by starting the conversation.  An ice breaker cuts paths through frozen seas.  Trump fits both roles.

I don't like him and may have a hangover.  Here's to Donald!

Ice-breaker signature
Goes through, not around.

Follow this link for comic relief

Do lawyers have a special sense of humour?  Follow the link to Powerline for more.

You vote party, not representative.

Since when did I think my MP was in any way my voice?   In forty five years I've voted party line all but once.  Parliament wants us to vote for representatives but mostly we vote party.   The ballot never offers a party. It offers a man who supports a party.  That means the system as designed and the system as used don't match.  Most of us want to vote for Prime Minister.  It's on our mind when we X the ballot.  
Unless you live in the PM's riding, you will never get to vote for Prime Minister. Something's wrong when the structure is ignored by the users. I think the party system, while natural, is a kind of infection on the body politic.  If you get rid of parties however, they will find a way back in. The idea of representative government is a great one, just not one we live under.

Is your vote designed to be heard or be course adjustments for the people who like to run things?

Trump principle: Handle paper once. Respond.

I like the samples of Trump's writing. The many examples on Google have this in common: Each time a piece of paper came across his desk, he made a decision how to get it off his desk in plain English. He didn't make copies or use a secretary.  If you read "Up the Organization" by Peter Townsend, you'll know his advice is to handle paper only once.  Assign it or do it but don't dither.

Is this signature presidential?

Ben Carson

Here's how ten would-be presidents and Obama himself make their public mark. This is how they show it was really them that authored a statement and not someone else.  Obama's signature has ballooning shapes, indistinct and large, Trump's is like a fortress and sharply detailed too, Bush is low energy and conventional, Carson is nice-guy-with-zip-and-a-flourish,  Clinton is reserved, stylish, but without flow, Cruz is big-picture with a larger-than-life splash. Walker has so trimmed his public persona it's hard to see what's left.

Barack Obama

Carly Fiorina

Jeb Bush

Ted Cruz

Marco Rubio

.

Hillary Clinton

Joe Biden

Bernie Sanders

"With a face like that". Trump polling about to rise.

His latest crime is to say aloud what you probably thought about Carly Fiorina.  "Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?". That's an impolitic remark but she does have a funny look.  Back in the day I was keenly for Preston Manning and was stunned my mother could never vote for him because his voice sounded funny.  She didn't know his policy but she sure knew his voice didn`t sound quite normal.

One of my favourite new US
politicians and her face
looks a little funny.

Trump goes on to half-ways apologize, saying "I'm not supposed to say bad things" about a woman. Lettered idiots took to the press and airwaves this morning to declare Trump doesn't like women because the full quote goes like this:`Ì mean, she`s a woman, and I`m not s`posedta say bad things." Horse-puckey.  They can nail him for having a few shards of old-fashioned chivalry but not for misogyny."   And what`s with phonetic hick spelling instead of saying "supposed to"?  If a mid-westerner says "haow" for "how", do the press need to go phonetic to write the story?  We both know what's next: another bump in the polls for Donald Trump.

And for a treat, I remember Peter Gzowski of CBC fame sending out his team of stalwarts on a scavenger hunt. One of the finds was to be a "Two Year Old Canadian Wine".  The best submission was a clip of Preston Manning saying "Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker!` in a whiny tone.  (Sadly, this gem doesn't show with Google).

UPDATE: Scott Addams, creator of "Dilbert" makes the same
point and adds detail.

Trump treaty will have side deals

The GOP insider team got Donald Trump to sign a loyalty pledge.  He's too much the deal-maker not to have un-published side clauses.  One will be that the Insider Team must not play favourites or get up to dirty tricks before the nomination.  They must back him publicly if he takes it.  Deal is off if the rules are broken.

Stand off

Google may choose our Prime Minister

“We estimate, based on win margins in national elections around the world, that Google could determine the outcome of upwards of 25 percent of all national elections.”  (Robert Epstein).  Or, as WIRED puts it, "Google's ranking algorithm for search results could accidentally steal the presidency".     "Accidentally" may not be the case since Google has its finger on the scales a little bit to damp down climate change deniers and such.

I'm glancing at the margins of my open web pages and note that Google is advertising to me a trip to Iceland, shirts to order on line, compact dishwashers, and a hotel on Galliano Island.   Google's got me in an echo chamber with ads tailored to me and Google wants to tailor the answer to my questions about the world too.   You know they cannot resist tweaking things a teentsy bit to improve my outlook.  It's the same reason governments always print a little extra money because a little inflation is good for the system and it's so easy to put the extra in their own account first.

Migrant Selfies versus Selfless Marines

Young male migrants made the news, snapping a selfie to celebrate their progress into Europe.  The famous photo of Marines raising the Stars and Stripes at Iwo Jima has a similar composition but the opposite message. The young guy with the ciggie managed to bring a selfie stick on his trip, while the team of marines spilled blood to raise their nation's flag.  The former celebrate by looking at themselves while the latter look to the job.

I know there are distressed refugees by the thousands as well as economic migrants and I know the Iwo Jima photo was "Take two" and soldiers aren't saints.   But a lot of young men are suddenly "Syrian" as they drop drivers' licences for Iraq and Bangladesh and Pakistan at the border.

There's a gif here clipped from the original film that shows the Iwo Jima photo is not a pose but a swift action.

Voting: For Mommy and Daddy or a Voice in Parliament?

Does government stand "in loco parentis", usurping an oversight role we never gave them or is it just doing what we asked for?  My wake-up call came on Saturna Island when I saw this warning sign. Apparently just going for a walk without a babysitter is hazardous.  "Natural Terrain" means "the world the way you find it".

Some time ago I was out walking with nieces who were growing up urban.  When I stepped off the road through some knapweed to a pond, they were aghast, as if I had asked them to join Crocodile Dundee walking on the backs of live alligators.  Lovely young ladies but not prepared to go where the rules didn't go.   Don't blame the politicians for giving us thousand page rule books and a safety net so egregious that it is unlawful to scuff your knee on playground dirt.

Future of Food Will Be A State Of Mind

In the future all food will made from Quinoa-Bean Curd but fine dining will be on the menu as pills.  A $7.59 tablet will get you 1200 calories and the experience of a Lime Slurpee with a side of Tacos and Cheese.   $13.50 and a pellet will supply 1100 calories and the impression you are tasting Filet Mignon (medium rare) with Rosti and Arugula salad.

Re-read Leacock's short story "The New Food" when baby ate the pill that was to be thanksgiving dinner for the whole family.

Dog Tech Put Man On Top.

Fire, pointy things and language gave man an edge but dog tech put us over the top and wiped the Neanderthals. Those natural born killers now have blankets and chew toys and sleep in our homes.

Early man formed an alliance with wolf-like dogs to take down big prey like mammoths and then to protect the meat from lions, hyenas and the rest. The Neanderthals had close-quarters weapons but our breed had arrows and throwing spears.   Mass mammoth kill sites show up when our breed shows up and with them  are these wolf-like dog bones. Pat Shipman's  book describes how this works:  The agile wolf dogs found and harried the game and the less fleet humans killed from a short distance away without having to grab the beasts.  There's evidence that mammoth bone huts were set up at these kill sites.  It would be dangerous to live next to a ton of prime red meat unless you shared guard duty with wolf-dogs.

We had a German Shepherd that grew from puppy-hood without playing with his peers. One day we saw a deer in the snowy forest and I lost control of Nicky.  He came back ten minutes later with blood in every footstep in the snow.  I tracked back to a fence onto some private property where the deer had escaped with its life.  A single naive dog has the ability to supply my family with meat for a couple weeks and skin for clothing,  horns and bones for implements.  Our smart ancestors would have trained these dogs and used them in packs.

Wolf dogs hunting buffalo, from
National Geographic article.

Those cuddly dogs were warriors first.
After the big game wolf dogs came:
Feists and curs trained to tree small animals.
Terriers trained to dig out badgers, otters and rats
Hounds trained to track by smell and by sight.
Hog dogs that hunt in packs and take down nice fat pigs.
And junk yard dogs encouraged to kill intruders.
These natural born killers have baskets with blankets and chew toys and sleep in our homes.

Trump looks at the future in 1987: "Motivating good people to do their best work"

I just finished "The Art of the Deal" (1987) to get a handle on Trump's prospects.  Before talking about the future he first makes clear:
   Do everything on time and on budget.
   Be neat as a pin.
   Be outstanding in a striking way.
   Please your customers (especially rich ones).
This isn't a clown car show. He is a boaster but no an idle one.
He meets one-on-one with the people who make decisions.  This is the opposite of Obama's ex cathedra style which rarely deigns to persuade and meet.  This style is mostly non-partisan, a simple assessment of who has the power to make a deal.   There may be policy hodge podges under a President Trump but congress will be less divided.  Though I didn't admire President Johnson, he was the last one with a reputation for knowing how to get people lined up for a vote.

And the future?  The last page of the book from the pen of a 41 year old:

1987

  " I've spent the first twenty years of my working life building, accumulating, and accomplishing things that many said could not be done.  The biggest challenge I see over the next twenty years is to figure out some creative ways to give back some of what I've gotten.
   ... It's easy to be generous when you've got a lot, and anyone who does, should be.  But what I admire more are people who put themselves directly on the line.  I've never been terribly interested in why people give, because their motivation is rarely what is seems to be, and it's almost never pure altruism.  To me, what matters is the doing ...
    In my life, there are two things I've found I'm very good at: overcoming obstacles and motivating good people to do their best work.  One of the challenges ahead is how to use those skills as successfully in the service of others as I've done, up to now, on my own behalf."

2015

Twenty seven years after writing "The Art of the Deal", he has found a creative way to give back something and if it motivates good people to do their best work, it will be worth it. (What a blowhard!).