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Thursday, November 26, 2015
Riding results with a preferential ballot
82 comments:
Good analysis, but your article says "In all, the Liberals would have either placed first or lost on the final ballot in 76 per cent of ridings, compared with 45 per cent for the Conservatives and just 26 per cent for the New Democrats." That doesn't add up.ReplyDeleteReplies
Would the public accept has to be the BIG question ??ReplyDeleteReplies
I can't imagine why they wouldn't. The public already accepts the FPTP results, which are no more proportional, and preferrential balloting by definition comes up with a result that the majority of people are satisfied with, even if it's not their first choice.Delete
Reassigning actual results is a pretty meaningless exercise, though, since the biggest impact from preferential balloting is on the first ballot. More support for smaller parties, and a complete elimination of strategic voting. You always know that if your first choice doesn't make the grade, your vote for your second choice still counts. Under the current system, many people put their single vote into their second choice because it's better than the alternative.
Really? The experience in France is that votes for smaller parties become almost meaningless as they don't form enough support to get even close to the 50% mark. Than interest plummets in the 2nd round as people either reluctantly compromise or not bother at all.Delete
This would turn Canada into a two party system(though one that would tilt to the left as a whole). The Liberals would become the centre left option with the Conservatives shifting towards where the old PC's were or maybe even left of that.
I think this idea would be entirely dead in the water as lot's of people who didn't vote Liberal will easily see it as a cynical ploy for the LPC to retain power.
Agreed that small parties wouldn't really be players, since they'd largely disappear on the second round, but they would get more first round votes than they currently do.Delete
I think it's hard to see this sort of reform as a "cynical ploy," as you put it, when they told us that was what they were going to do before they were elected.
My expectation would be under transferrable ballots that all parties would push more to middle-ground positions and reflect more differences of personality than differences in policy. It's not clear to me that we would have a CPC/LPC 2-party system, given that a majority of voters prefer either the LPC or NPD, and a much larger proportion of them reflect a willingness to support the other. I would expect the result to be a power rotating between the two left-of-centre parties. CPC would be relegated to permanent opposition, though usually the largest opposition party, and the LPC in particular would push further to the right in order to attract 2nd-choice voters from them.
But when it comes to voter satisfaction, I think this would score quite high. The party elected would always be the first or second choice of a majority of voters, and the LPC pushing for 2nd choice of CPC voters would make them satisfactory to many moderate conservatives.
"I can't imagine why they wouldn't. The public already accepts the FPTP results, which are no more proportional, and preferrential balloting by definition comes up with a result that the majority of people are satisfied with, even if it's not their first choice."Delete
So by that argument, the majority voted for Quebec to separate in 1995? A majority voted to separate in 80 of 125 ridings in 1995, but that wasn't a majority of voters overall. There were only 2 options - so FPTP and a ranked ballot in single member ridings would have had the same results.
That's what I think you and other supporters of a ranked ballot fail to understand - a majority of the vote in a majority of the ridings only guarantees the support of 25% of the public overall. And that's not only first preference support, but a combination of first, second, third, etc.
Also, it most certainly does not eliminate strategic voting. Nor does it even guarantee majority support in each riding for each MP - we used this system in BC, Alberta and Manitoba, and barely half (50.1%) even bothered to rank anyone second. I'd suggest you and other supporters of such a system take the time to do your research before trying to tinker with our democracy. The Political Studies Association of the UK has a pretty good briefing paper on AV (the UK name for this system) which is very even handed and worth the read for people an both sides of the issue.
DouglasEdward makes one of the best points here in my opinion though. A preferential ballot or a two round system in single member districts has been shown to create a very rigid two-bloc system. Australia, France, Louisiana - nowhere have these systems worked well.
In fact, the formation of an opposition bloc is exactly what ended the use of ranked ballots in Alberta and Manitoba. When the political spectrum finally coalesced into opposition vs government, the use of ranked ballots stopped benefiting the government, and so the government abolished their use.
Which makes it a very useless tool for keeping a government accountable, since governments can and would just revert to FPTP if the ranked ballot started to disadvantage them.
You're missing the point, Ryan - I don't think anyone who knows about it says AV will churn out a proportional vote, they just say its better than having someone win in a single riding with only 29% support and it also helps that its probably going to be wildly more acceptable than PR has been so far - at least its some sort of reform, and at least it has some advantages over the current system.Delete
Also, every system has created a two-bloc system everywhere, PR or no PR... that's just the nature of voters, concerns over that ring tremendously hollow.
The beauty of an IRV system is that if the public doesn't like it, they don't need to use the mechanism for "2nd votes" and thus it automatically reverts to a FPTP system. While it might not always be a majority, it does reveal the candidate/party with the broadest appeal/acceptance.Delete
The ability of the government to change the rules of the game needs to be restricted regardless of any type of reform, possibly a constitutional amendment so that the provinces need to agree to any fundamental changes.
Canada's new Minister for Democratic Institutions, Maryam Monsef, was interviewed by Peter Mansbridge. He says "People want the system changed. How are you going to go about that?" She replies: "Yes, Canadians voted for real change, for a government that puts their needs ahead of the party's. A government that celebrates our diversity, and not takes a divisive approach. . . . I hope that Canadians will be proud of their politicians and their country because of the kind of work we do and the respectful manner that we go about it."Delete
"Sunny ways" will, I trust, include respect for Canada's political pluralism and diversity. Maryam Monsef's heart is in the right place, like many in caucus.
Many Canadians who voted Liberal want assurance that never again will a Stephen Harper win 100% of the power with 39% of the votes. And never again will voters have to vote against something, or vote for a less-preferred candidate to block the election of one even less preferred.
Only proportional representation respects Canada's political diversity, while the preferential ballot in single-member districts alone is nothing but a partisan scheme to favour the Liberals. I cannot believe most Liberal MPs will support it.
Look folks this whole discussion is about a party ensuring it will remain in power.Delete
So don't change FPTP as it is the only one that leaves real power with the public.
Any form of PR only respect the diversity of political parties. PR produces fragmented legislatures and while there is some guarantee that more parties will be represented in the House of Commons, there is no assurance that diversity in gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, height, weight, income will occur. Indeed, since political parties will themselves hold more power under PR we may see diversity among M.P.s decline.
I don't understand the objective of electoral reform. I think the objective should be to choose an electoral system that produces the sorts of government we want, and all I see PR and transferrable votes doing is giving us a milquetoast government that appeals to no one in particular.ReplyDeleteReplies
I'm curious about exactly what sort of government you thing "we," collectively, want. I think we can agree that Canadians will always have disagreements on what an ideal government looks like. Governments that accurately reflect these disagreements will by necessity never appeal to anyone in particular. The current electoral system expresses these disagreements as swings in how the government operates, so that the "in" group gets exactly what they want for a short period, and is then replaced by another "in" group that pulls the government in a different direction, again to the delight of their fans. Since governments don't turn on a dime, as long as political change happens every two or three elections, you end up with a middle-of-the-road operation that pleases no one in particular. (But have vast mood swings amongst which part of the electorate are happy and which ones are upset.)Delete
Electoral reform gives us an alternative. The two systems have very different outcomes though: PR gives us perpetual minorities, asking us to vote for our ideal result, and then having our ideal politicians hash out compromise positions that they can agree on. Transferrable ballots instead ask the electorate to come to a broad agreement on which politicians hit that middle of the road position, and then letting them run the government, likely as a majority. They produce much smaller swings in government policy, and, if successful, give most of the electorate a constant "I'm not thrilled, but I'm reasonably satisfied" feeling about their government.
The PR solution you propose should present constant gridlock, like we see in the US. Most people get the representative they want, but as a group those representatives can't get anything done.Delete
The transferable vote grants democratic legitimacy to the compromise candidate, allowing them to act as if people actually like them.
That dissatisfaction FPTP gives us when the other guys win is an important part of our process. We should want that. That reminds us that we don't want the government making decisions for us all the time. This is much like how the GST was hated when it was introduced - it was hated because it was visible, and that hatred was a strength of the tax. The people should hate their taxes. And they should fear their government getting too comfortable.
I'd much rather we devolved power to lower levels of government, giving smaller communities the chance to govern themselves as they saw fit without having to compromise with those from different communities.
I disagree with you that people should hate their taxes. Taxes are essential to government and society. It should be that people should hate excessive taxation, whatever that may mean in a certain situation.Delete
I can argue that taxation are prerequisite to a functioning government where government is dependent on people being productive and paying taxes to operate, and people care about their government because they want their taxes to be spent properly. The alternative is what we see in Middle East and Africa where governments rely on natural resources like Oil or Diamond, It creates the imbalance where goverment would kill its own people (less people to give resources to) and people don't care about their government because they have no taxes to pay and care. It leads to dysfunctional governments.
When we complain about governments in developed countries, it is just marginal improvements and the problems pale in comparison to problems in other non-developed countries.
"The PR solution you propose should present constant gridlock, like we see in the US. Most people get the representative they want, but as a group those representatives can't get anything done."Delete
You should read up more on PR Ira. Change may be more incremental under PR, but it's also more lasting, since it isn't constantly getting reversed whenever a new government turns in.
And lots of countries with PR have very productive and stable governments. People in Sweden, Germany, New Zealand and Ireland all live under very productive governments elected by proportional representation.
You suggest PR countries are incapable of bringing in value added taxes like the GST that benefited society as a whole - but do you know what the GST rates in those countries are?
Sweden - 25%. Germany - 19%. Ireland - 23%. New Zealand - 15%.
If PR countries are incapable of implementing policies like the GST, how did they manage to implement them anyways?
They managed to convince people across the political spectrum that value added taxes are a smart and efficient way to raise revenue. Mulroney didn't, but that's as much because Mulroney didn't have to try.
Those countries have outperformed us on economic growth too - by an average of 1% per year. Your preference on electoral system is costing 1% of growth because it promotes policies that benefit a narrow section of swing voters rather than society as a whole. I'd like to stop giving that 1% away for nothing.
My preferred system would be a PR Senate and IRV House. The Senate portion would express the "outrage" of people that only tangentially support a party's platform. The House portion would change how our political parties work by expanding the target audience.Delete
I would say that the FPTP system works best in a two-party system, as a divided vote allows "the other side" to gain power with a minority of voter approval. As such, we lose parties that cater to specific groups, such as the differences between Reform and PC.
In 2015, I voted Liberal, because they were the best placed alternative, but under IRV they might have been 3rd or 4th on my list: Libertarian, Green, NDP, LPC.
Germany manages to run efficient systems no matter what they do. Their healthcare system is a byzantine web of payments and refunds that wouldn't work anywhere else, but in Germany somehow it's excellent.Delete
I dispute that the governments of Sweden, New Zealand, or Ireland are particularly productive. I don't see them making significant changes over the past 30 years.
Regarding VATs, the special thing about the GST is that it's visible. European VATs tend to be hidden.Delete
Ireland's government is pretty much a disaster but, 80 plus years after independence they are still trying to incorporate becoming separated from their largest trading partner into a modern economy. It is a good reminder to separatist Quebeckers that the financial, cultural, economic, linguistic and familial bonds are much harder to sever than political union and that the impacts of such a dissolution are long lasting often generational and come with a high cost. In the case of Ireland the economy grew very slowly from 1922-1991 and it took a paradigm shift- European Monetary Union for the economy to grow at more normalised European levels.Delete
You may wish to investigate what is sometimes dubbed "the curse of oil" an economic theory which stipulates countries with a high dependence on non-renewable resources tend to have lower economic growth and overall development.
- Anonymous26 November, 2015 11:50
Interesting, but the major shift from NDP to LPC in the last stage of the campaign can largely be ascribed to soft NDP voters deciding that voting LPC was the most certain way to give Harper the boot under FPTP.ReplyDelete
In a way these soft NDP supporters did their own preferential transfer of votes when they marked their ballots LPC.
I would be interested in polls that asked 2015 voters which party would have been their first choice in a preferential system.
I think that during the campaign the "Preferential Results" moved from an NDP majority to a Liberal majority. The Conservatives have not done well for second choice for the past five years.ReplyDeleteReplies
This is true. The NDP were very close to majority territory under a preferential ballot in single member ridings when the writ dropped. Just because Liberals prefer the NDP to the Tories and visa versa doesn't mean they want their second choice party to govern alone though.Delete
The flaw in this analysis, of course, is that people's voting strategies would likely change if the ballot is preferential. There would be less fear of a vote being wasted, so there would be less incentive for the anti-Conservative voters to concentrate their vote with the Liberals, as they appear to have done (except maybe in BC). I would expect a boost for the NDP and Greens in an election with preferential ballots.ReplyDeleteReplies
If people are already voting strategically though, that means less change from the introduction of a preferential ballot in single member ridings. So Eric's model is probably an overestimate.Delete
It's still useful though. It at least tells us the direction of change over all.
In Éric's defence, he did mention that.Delete
Eric, in your tv presentation you also showed results for PR. In those you had 12 seats for the Greens. I take it that you presented the PR option as a straight result with no minimum % needed to achieve seats? Don't PR systems have a minimum threshold before winning seats?ReplyDeleteReplies
They usually do. In this case, I set the threshold below the Greens (so, 3%).Delete
If the threshold was province-by-province, and assuming the Green vote doubled once every vote counts as the Greens seem confident it will (and I agree), they would pass a 5% threshold in every province but Saskatchewan and Newfoundland (with only 14 MPs and 7 MPs they might need more than 5% there anyway), and Quebec where they got only 2.25%. But I expect they could pass 5% in Quebec too. So your projection is realistic in that sense.Delete
Paul - the threshold is an optional and controversial part of some PR systems. They reduce the number of parties, so theoretically they add stability by making it easier to form coalitions.Delete
However, they reduce the very point of PR (making every vote count) and reintroduce strategic voting (why vote for a party that might not make the threshold?) The 5% threshold in Germany was thought necessary due to its prewar instability, but now that Germany is a stable democracy it seems strange that almost 15% of the votes got no representation in a supposedly "PR" system in 2013.
The Green Party would definately change their electoral strategy if there was a minimum national/provincial vote percent to gain seats. Under the FPTP system, they are concentrating on a getting a few ridings very high rather than "wasting" resources on votes that won't result in an electoral success.Delete
I think PR on a provincial level is better than the national level, although they give nearly the same results.
National 134 LPC, 109 CPC, 67 NDP, 16 BQ, 12 Green
Provincial (No floor, 2.3% vote in QC wins 2 seats & 6% vote in PEI wins none) 137 LPC, 108 CPC, 67 NDP, 16 BQ, 11 Green.
Even with Provincial PR the Green Party would still likely focus on only a few ridings. Why campaign in Prince George or Calgary that have low potential Green voters? Probably a more effective use of resources is to focus on areas more amenable to the Green's message and try and maximise your results in them.Delete
PR on a provincial level would mean different thresholds for entry, basically all of the smaller seat provinces would be a write-off for the party, and they'd focus on BC, AB, ON, and QC.Delete
Looking at the 2015 AB results, the Green Party received 48,747 votes (enough for a seat depending on rounding conditions). Of these, 14,569 were in Calgary ridings, so ignoring Calgary would probably be a bad choice. The ideal strategy for small parties would be to cover urban areas and the cost of ignoring rural areas.
Thanks for posting this Eric. As a Liberal, I dearly hope that my fellow Liberals realize that just padding out our majority is not the Real Change people voted for.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous26 November, 2015 15:42
I'm interested in the preference flow estimates you used. One of the pollsters published some second choice data which one correspondent sent to me as preference estimates, but I thought the data suggested too high a rate of voters preferencing..ReplyDelete
In Australian states that use optional preferential voting , roughly half of ballot papers exhaust their preferences before reaching one of the two final candidates, and this in a country with a century of use of preferential voting.
In Australia it is unusual for more than 10% of contests to produce a different winner than would have been elected on first preference. The higher the rate of exhausted ballot papers,the fewer the number of contests where preferences would change a result.
On the other side, Canada has many more seats where the simple majority winner had less than 35% which opens up more seats where preferences could have an impact.
Whenever this "proportional representation vs preferential ballots" discussion comes up in Canada I'm always amazed that everyone seems to assume preferential ballots have to be used in single-winner ridings. They do not. In fact, with multi-winner ridings and preferential ballots you can get closer to a proportional result the more seats you include in a riding.ReplyDelete
There's also the fact that these two systems are not mutually exclusive. You could have a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system that uses a preferential ballot. You vote for a party and rank the candidates in your local riding.Replies
Ontario did not love an idea similar to MMP. I don't know why the country would be enamoured with it. Preferential ballots are a minor change but change enough. I have hope for Trudeau but not that much hope that he could get a majority of Canadians behind a complicated new system.Delete
It's not really an assumption as much as a preference. If you dislike larger electoral districts then MMP and STV aren't appealing.Delete
I don't think proportionality is valuable or even desirable. We're not running a national election. We're running hundreds of local elections.Delete
I wouldn't be opposed to different parts of the country using different methods to elect their representatives, but I think we need to remember that we're not electing a national government. We're electing local representatives who then form, all of them together, the national government.
These comments sort of validate my point which is that people would rather take sides than have an honest discussion about the fact that there are more options and variations on the options than everyone talks about.Delete
Here's to hoping the discussions by the folks with the power to make the change are more open and honest than the discussions that have been taking place thus far.
I'm not sold on a need for change. I want to know what they think the objective of a general election is.Delete
In my opinion FPTP is in fact a preferential vote system !! You vote for your preferred candidate. If they don't win then your preferences are wrong, eh ?Delete
I'd agree with a mixed approach to the federal elections. However, the premise that we aren't electing a national government is not a requirement for our system. If we are changing how we elect our representatives, we can change what we are actually electing. Rather than local faces to national parties, we could have our say directly about the parties involved as well.
The issue with putting all the options and permutations on the table is that they make any consensus choice less viable. IRV isn't my ideal solution, but it is the one I believe is most viable for being implemented.
The analysis of the 2015 election is interesting, but not completely enlightening. In the highly polarized ABH environment, the first and second preferences of many voters were likely to be Liberal and NDP in either order, even amongst voters who actually wanted a Green MP. The polling question wasn't phrased in the context of preferential voting, so respondents would have replied with multiple lines of defence as opposed to what was in their hearts.ReplyDelete
For the same reason, the projected Green numbers under PR are artifically low. It was very clear during election-day Get Out The Vote calls that a massive amount of strategic voting by Greens was happening.
What's the *real* Green level of support? We won't know unless and until we go to PR. Pollling respondents will think strategically until then.
My guess, if there are had been this system in the last election, because the vote would have spread out more between the three left of center parties, the Conservatives would have been in the top 2 almost everywhere as opposed to to the about half this chart shows and the liberals in fewer. Therefore the final winner count would be changed.ReplyDelete
I disagree with the idea that the Liberals are the huge beneficiaries with preferential balloting. Did you know that BC went to a preferential balloting system in 1952? And guess what, it totally backfired, and defied all predictions.ReplyDelete
The Liberals and Conservatives (the two main parties) did it to destroy the 3rd place NDP, thinking that their party supporters would put the other down as their second choice. What ended up happening is that voters voted strategically to keep the other main party from winning and to such a degree that the tiny socially conservative Social Credit party took everyone's second place votes in such high numbers that they formed the government!
Think of it as if a party as small as the Greens in the polls ended up forming the government.Replies
Actually, that's not what happened in 1952.Delete
Social Credit actually beat out both conservatives and liberals for the first round of votes. If the election had been FPTP, there would have been 21 CCF, 14 BCSCL, 9 LIB, and 3 PC, and 1 LBR. 7 seats changed during the counts, giving us 18 CCF, 19 BCSCL, 6 LIB, 4 PC, and 1 LBR.
The conservatives and liberals actually did list each other as second place fairly consistently, but they also listed social credit as a third choice to keep out the CCF. The CCF listed social credit as a second choice, all of which gave social credit five extra seats, and in the end that made all the difference.
So, not the scenario you describe is not quite what happened. However, the general point is true. Very dramatic things can happen with a different voting system and the results can easily defy all predictions.
Socreds formed the Government but, they only had 1 more seat (19) than the CCF (18) to the Coalition Government's 10 and one Labour. That is what we can probably expect with preferential voting-hung parliaments.Delete
That's seem an unwarranted extrapolation. What makes you think this would be a typical result?
Common sense Winston, common sense. Look at Ireland, Australia, The Australian state parliaments, New Zealand-any system that uses any type of PR will produce more hung parliaments than FPTP-that is the purpose of the system to ensure better representation of minor political groupings thereby creating a higher probability of no one party winning a majority.Delete
Common sense Winston, Common sense. The purpose of IRV or preferrential voting is for the House to better reflect party performance. Consequently since, it is rare for one party to receive 50% of the popular vote in Canada occuring only twice out of 42 general elections or roughly 1/20 or a 5% probability. Therefore, It is not much of a guess to opine, that majority governments will become rare under IVR and indeed, if we compare with Eire, a country that uses IRV in multi member ridings we see that out of 31 general Elections since, independence only 8 have resulted in majority governments this equates to roughly 26%.Delete
What you say is certainly true for proportional representation. But IRV isn't proportional representation. Parties can easily form a majority under IRV without a majority of the popular vote, see BC 1953. IRV doesn't really make the house reflect party performance.Delete
Thanks, Winston Ewert, for the correction. I was going from memory of what I had read in the past, and evidently, my memory is not as good I think it is. I had forgotten that Libs and Cons voted Social Credit as their first choice.Delete
If what you write is correct why doesn't it happen in Ireland? IRV usually produces small majorities in Australia but, since, one of the two major parties is itself a coalition, I would hesitate to call them "true majorities". Even when Labour wins in Oz support from Greens or others is often required either in the Senate or House. It is not impossible that IRV will produce majorities but, as I stated above it will become unlikely, just as it is in many Australian states and Eire.
Winnipeg General Striker,Delete
Ireland uses STV, or multi-member alternative vote. That is a hybrid between the preferential ballot and proportional representation. As far as I'm aware those advocating preferential ballot in Canada are supporting single member AV which isn't a proportional system. So, yes Ireland doesn't produce majorities, because they are in fact using proportional representation.
I'm not claiming that IRV won't the incidence of majorities, I was just objecting to drawing the conclusions based solely on the conclusion of the 1952 BC election.Delete
IRV is proportional! if not in theory at least in practice-otherwise why have it? If it is the same as FPTP then why would you want change?Delete
Why Winston when it is obvious that is the most probable outcome of such a change?Delete
We just have to look to our Australian cousins where a third of state legislative assemblies are run by minority governments. Juxtaposed against the 12 (Canada, the Yukon and 10 provinces) majority governments in Canada.
IRV produces less majority governments than FPTP. As in Eire minority governments are likely to be the norm and so the 1952 example demonstrates a very probable scenario should such change occur for election to the House of Commons.
Winnipeg General Striker,Delete
No, IRV isn't proportional. It also isn't the same as FPTP.
In a proportional system, a small party like the greens would win more seats. If they had 5% of the vote, they'd get 5% of the seats in parliament. But look at the greens in Australia. They got 8.7% of the votes, which would have gotten them 12 seats in a proportional system, but they got only 1.
What IRV does compared to FPTP is eliminate the problem of vote splitting. So, for example, let's take the last Canadian election where it seems many NDP voters voted Liberal to keep out the conservatives. In a IRV election, they could have ranked the NDP candidate first, and the Liberal second. That way they can still support their favorite candidate, but still prevent their least favorite candidate from winning. But it doesn't really help small parties win seats as a proportional system would.
So, IRV attempts to resolve some of the issues in FPTP without going to PR. That's why some people support it.
Vote splitting is a fallacy. How some people vote strategically has little impact on how others vote. If some people want to vote strategically fine but, there is little evidence such action does any good or even achieves the "vote splitter's" aims. Vote splitting is not a problem unless one has pre-determine favoured outcomes to future elections.Delete
I will also point out the ASustralian system is based on state division therefore, The Greens would be awarded seats by state and your guesstimate of 12 seats is far too high. They would be lucky to win 1 seat per state.Delete
What is the point of voting if one does not have a pre-determined favoured outcome(s) to elections? Vote splitting is the consequence of having more than one acceptable choice, but realizing none of those choices due to an alternative receiving a plurality of votes. Reform and PC merged as they had a plurality of votes between themselves in many ridings, but allowed the LPC to govern due to splitting the conservative vote. A similar statement could be made for the NDP/LPC during most or all of the Harper years, so both sides of the political spectrum have suffered the consequences. The issue is if we want a two-party system that swaps between conservatives and liberals or a multi-party system that allows for more representative government alternatives.Delete
The difference between IRV and FPTP is the choice to vote for your most favoured party (and more) or the choice to vote against your most hated party.
Winnipeg General Striker,Delete
At this point its clear you simply have no idea what you are talking about. You claim that IRV is proportional when it's not, and you claim that vote splitting is a fallacy, when its clearly affected multiple Canadian elections.
When has voting splitting effected a single Canadian election? Do you have any data or only anecdotal hearsay?
Why do the results for Calgary-Skyview only add up to 96%?ReplyDelete
Why would you use the term preferential ballot, when you obviously did IRV or AV? There are LOTs of ways to count a preferential ballot, please use proper terminology.ReplyDelete
Many here see IRV as a cynical LPC ploy to retain power, but the main consequence is a reduction of CPC potential (under their current structure).ReplyDelete
The CPC has both stronger support amongst its base and less secondary support amongst other parties. On the other side of the fence, LPC/NDP/Green voters are more fluid, and the quantity of Liberal "first choices" will most likely go down under IRV, but they would most likely remain on the ballot.
Thus IRV is a system of "everyone vs. the CPC" rather than resulting permanent LPC rule. Beyond which, it would fundamentally chance how our political parties pander to our needs.Replies
Given that the CPC has stronger support among its base, and further given that its base seems to be at least 25% of Canadians, do we really want a political system that marginalizes them in perpetuity?Delete
The threat of a CPC victory does a lot of good for the country, even if they don't win. I would argue that the strong fiscal management of the 1990s was largely a result of the rise of the Reform Party in opposition.
A political system that largely eliminates the possibility of a CPC victory is one that weakens us all, and creates an echo chamber that only reinforces itself.
Why would the CPC be marginalized in perpetuity? LPC voters are almost as likely to split right as split left, and the CPC just needs to shift back towards what the Reform Party said on transparent governance and what the PC Party said on social values. Unless they are going anti-immigration, comments like "old stock Canadians" will do more to marginalize the CPC than the political system.Delete
I think Ira is saying a system that is disproportionately beneficial to a particular political party is bad for democracy.Delete
Winipeg, that is the Conservatives choosing. They could easily come back to the rest of Canada, and could be the preferred second party by next election. That's up to them, and would certainly then negate the Liberal advantage.Delete
You and your ilk think vote splitting a problem because you are prejudiced toward a certain centre-left outcome for all future elections. Since, you are opposed to any other outcome; a system whereby two popular centre-left parties split 60% of the electorate sometimes produces Centre-right government. You think vote splitting a problem because you favour a near dictatorship of the Liberal Party.
At the end of the day IRV will make it far more difficult for Canadians to change governments. This has been the experience in Australia and Eire. I think it a poor choice to increases the difficulty by which voters can enforce electoral change.Delete
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Tue, 30 August 2011
Home repair advice from creative Iowans...could set back property values a couple of decades. Then, exactly what and who in Iowa did the Obama stimulus package stimulate? Then why can't we be more like the Japanese?
Plus, here's a video from Tarek Fatah....a Pakistani born Muslim who speaking in Canada, blasts multiculturalism's corrosive effect upon sound judgment. Brilliant!
Direct download: mickelson-2011-08-30.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:24pm CDT

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Marines vs. aliens war story that is Battle: Los Angeles may not be a modern classic, but it does do one thing that's unusual (even admirable) for action movies, particularly scifi action movies: it takes its premise absolutely seriously.
Now, make no mistake: Battle: Los Angeles is not a great movie. But the movie's basic idea — that this is a realistic depiction of what would happen if aliens invaded — is a strong one, and a lot of what goes into this movie actually supports that conceit. Jonathan Liebesman's direction captures the aesthetic of embedded footage from an actual war zone, there's plenty of technical and strategic discussion about how to hold Los Angeles from the invasion, the aliens and other effects mesh well with the real actors and locations, and none of the performances are showy or over-the-top. Basically, the whole thing feels realistic, at least to a viewer like me who isn't a military expert.
Battle: LA is played completely straight, and that means the Marines don't drop badass quips as they kill the aliens, they don't make any knowing wisecracks about how even an alien invasion can't remove LA's traffic jams, they don't trade witty banter during their downtime, and certainly not during combat…the movie completely eschews any comic relief whatsoever. This is a big ridiculous action movie without any jokes, and that immediately makes it feel different from the rest of the genre. And, insofar as it helps establish the movie's gritty, realistic tone and sense that this is how it could all really happen, the absence of comic relief works brilliantly.
But comedy does have a very particular purpose in sci-fi and action movies. It's a safety valve, a way for the movie to help soothe the audience's suspension of disbelief. After all, Battle: LA might want to be realistic, but on the most fundamental of levels, it isn't. Aliens aren't going to launch a massive invasion any time soon, and such an event is so completely beyond our comprehension that, frankly, there's no way we can actually judge if Battle: LA is a realistic depiction of something we can't even really imagine.
After all, if this was a completely realistic depiction of a war between humanity and a space-faring (and presumably interstellar) race, then there wouldn't be a movie, just our complete and total destruction. Any intelligence that has the technology to travel between stars should be able to wipe out humanity without much trouble, as Stephen Hawking suggested in his famous comparison of aliens to Christopher Columbus. But that doesn't fit with the requirements of making an entertaining action movie, and as Jonathan Liebesman explained to us, this required substantially powering down the alien army to give humanity a fighting chance.
The point is, there's a fundamental tension here between Battle: LA's realistic aesthetic, the need to craft a satisfying action movie, and the very real chance of annihilation if an actual alien invasion ever happened. That's where even a little comic relief would go a long way, just to give us some sense that Liebesman and screenwriter Chris Bertolini aren't taking this premise completely seriously, that they don't actually think this movie is a sober depiction of an actual alien invasion. Science fiction is the most reliant of all genres on the audience's suspension of disbelief, and Battle: Los Angeles demands we buy into the movie's premise completely.
This comedy doesn't even have to be cheesy one-liners (which Arnold Schwarzenneger's entire career is pretty much built on) or goofy side characters (which reached its borderline racist nadir in Revenge of the Fallen). Consider Battle: LA's most obvious spiritual predecessor, District 9, a movie possessed with a wicked sense of humor and razor-sharp satire. Indeed, as a science fiction take on South African Apartheid, we know from the outset that District 9 takes place in a heightened reality, that this is a sci-fi reflection and extrapolation of something that actually happened. We don't have to worry so much about realism because that isn't the main point of District 9.
Battle: LA, on the other hand, is almost entirely satire-free. There's no coherent attempt to link the alien invasion of Los Angeles with, say, the war in Iraq - which is a very good thing, because there's no way this movie could have pulled off something so bold and controversial. There are some talking heads and stories on the news ticker which in most other movies would have a more blatantly satirical edge - but apart from a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to all stock trading being suspended in the wake of the invasion, there's nothing here that could even vaguely be considered social commentary.
Now, none of this has to be a bad thing — science fiction movies don't have to be allegorical, and they certainly don't need to crowbar in comic relief. But if you want the audience to accept a fantastical scenario that's presented in a completely realistic manner, you're going to need an absolutely amazing script to pull that off. There aren't many movies that even try this - off the top of my head, I'd put forward 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and maybe the original Terminator as movies that succeed without any comic relief, and all three have strong scripts and virtuoso directors.
Hell, even a humor-averse Christopher Nolan gives Michael Caine some good quips in The Dark Knight and lets Tom Hardy give a slightly larger-than-life performance in Inception. It's not much, but at least it's a little something for audience members who need a little relief from all the seriousness. Yes, to some degree, Battle: Los Angeles is more self-serious than The Dark Knight, which should tell you pretty much everything you need to know.
It's in this completely humorless devotion to its premise that Battle: Los Angeles falls down, as do most other recent sci-fi action movies that attempt this. Just ask Terminator Salvation or Tron Legacy, both of which tried the same thing and ended up being ponderous, boring, and, yes, sometimes unintentionally hilarious.
I'll defend the direction, acting, and effects work in Battle: LA, but this movie is seriously let down by its screenplay, which is a couple shades below workmanlike. There are no actual characters in Battle: Los Angeles. The most well-developed character, Aaron Eckhart's Sergeant Nantz, is just a bunch of hoary action movie clichés strung together – for goodness sake, the man is actually a week away from retirement.
When you're knee-deep in yet another clichéd, cheesy, and unbelievably earnest speech about patriotism and the Marine Corps way – both noble sentiments that the script is utterly unable to convey in an interesting way –- it would be really nice to have a little comedy, a little wink at the audience that the movie isn't taking this drivel completely seriously. Strictly speaking, this isn't directly related to the movie's science fiction aspects, but it's part and parcel of deemphasizing good storytelling and strong characters in favor of spectacle, convincing special effects, and desperately trying to make all the science fiction stuff seem vaguely realistic.
And that, of course, is where the lack of humor works to the movie's serious detriment. That's the nice thing about comedy: used properly, it can paper over almost any faults. Hell, just look at the man who, more than any other actor, fused the science fiction and action genres together over the last thirty years. Arnold Schwarzenegger was barely an actor – indeed, in his earliest roles, he barely spoke English – but his carefully crafted movie persona always seemed to be aware of this.
Movies like Predator and Total Recall are brilliant not because they have perfect scripts — Predator in particular has plenty to criticize — but because Schwarzenegger and the creative team around him knew when to take the premise seriously - when Dutch was on the hunt for the Predator, when Quaid was confronted with the possibility that his entire reality was a lie — and when to wink at the camera, which includes any scene in which Schwarzenegger was required to emote. The man went from Austrian bodybuilder to international movie star — not to mention Governor of California — because he never asked anyone to take him completely seriously, and in the process he even managed to make Commando kinda awesome, which really should be impossible.
The lack of comedy doesn't kill Battle: Los Angeles like it did Terminator Salvation or Tron Legacy — the movie is still well enough directed and acted to work as a rousing, brainless action movie. But the movie set out to accomplish something that only the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott have managed, to take a ridiculous science fiction premise and play it completely straight.
For the sheer audacity of what it tried to accomplish, I'd call Battle: LA a noble failure. But when even a little comic relief or self-awareness could have improved this movie dramatically, and when the screenplay fell so dramatically short of what it needed to be for an entirely serious movie to work, I can't help but think they would have been better off just giving Aaron Eckhart some cheesy one-liners and calling it a day.


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YWOC's Teen Fest; Belinda G. Jones honor
Teen Fest set for Saturday
Joyce Clark, executive director of the Young Women�s Outreach Center, and Brenda McLamore, YWOC community specialist, recently accepted a Teen Fest & Teen Pregnancy Prevention Proclamation from Mayor BJ Murphy.
Teen Fest is from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Lenoir Community College for youth ages 10 to 19 years of age. Murphy issued the proclamation to recognize the work that non-profit organizations like YWOC do for the area�s youth. He said that Kinston, like other Eastern North Carolina towns, faces problems with gangs, homelessness and poverty that trace their roots back to teen pregnancy.
For more Teen Fest information, call the YWOC office today at 252-527-7844.
Kinstonian earns All-USA status
Belinda G. Jones of Fort Drum, N.Y., a student at Jefferson Community College in Watertown, N.Y.,has been named to the 2013 All-USA Community College Academic Team of Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society of community colleges.
Jones was one of only 20 students selected from a pool of 1,800 nominations nationwide to earn this designation. She is the first JCC student to earn this honor. Judges consider grades, academic rigor, growth and the students� use of their education to benefit their schools and communities. This team is presented by USA Today and Phi Theta Kappa and is sponsored by Follett Higher Education Group.
Formerly of Kinston, Jones was presented the honor April 23 at the Awards of Excellence Brunch held during the American Association of Community Colleges convention in San Francisco. She was accompanied by Betsy D. Penrose, JCC�s vice president for students.
Jones began her studies at JCC in 2010. She has received an associate of science in human services and soon will graduate with an associate of arts in liberal arts � humanities and social sciences. With a 4.0 grade-point average, she has earned president�s list honors every semester, is a member and past treasurer of JCC�s Tau Xi Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, and has been named to the All-New York Academic Team for Phi Theta Kappa.
She has been a leader in the classroom and with co-curricular activities; is in the Honors Program, establishing a baseline score for the Go Green rating scale for the school�s Campus Care Center; is vice president of the Human Services Club and human services curriculum assistant; was named Outstanding Human Services Student by JCC�s liberal arts division in 2012; is student representative on the Faculty Student Association Board of Directors; has served on several campus committees; is president of the SGA; and volunteers with Relay for Life and the American Heart Association.
She and her husband Casey have been stationed at Fort Drum since 2010 and have two children, Adam and Abby. She plans to transfer to ECU to earn her bachelor�s in social work and pursue a career in the human services field as a childcare center licensor.
As an ALL-USA team member, Jones received a $2,500 scholarship and special medallion. She was featured with fellow All-USA team members in the USA Today newspaper April 23.


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Some time ago, I wrote about Karate Refinement. Generally, the idea in Karate is not simply to learn more, but to refine one's movements and understanding.
However, I think it is important to state that refinement is appropriate when the student has become fairly advanced. During the beginning stages of learning (which last quite a long time), the student is continually learning, building up the curriculum of the style he is learning.
Karate is somewhat like a school system. Here in Hawaii, children might go to pre-school, kindergarten, elementary school, intermediate school, high school, undergraduate school, and graduate school. This might cover about 20 years of education.
It wouldn't make much sense for kindergarten students to be refining their A, B, C's. In elementary school, students are still learning the basics about many subjects. The same could be said about intermediate school and high school. Each year builds upon the last. Even in college, students are learning in a cumulative manner. It is only in graduate school, for many students, that refinement becomes possible, because it is only then the that students have learned enough -- reached a critical mass -- that truly creative and introspective work is appropriate.
Of course, no two people are the same and some people learn more quickly than others. Bu the point is that beginners are really not in a position to refine their knowledge.
So what about Karate? I do not award kyu ranks or belts, but using that terminology, a yellow belt is really not in a position to be refining his Karate. He is still learning the nuts and bolts.
Michaelangelo's David must have started as a block of marble. No amount of polishing would have turned that block into the David. First you have to sculpt.
I am bringing this up because the knowledge level of Karate instructors and students varies greatly. Some people have a deep curriculum and some have a shall0w curriculum. Forget about rank and titles -- concentrate on content. A low ranking black belt in one school might know more than a higher ranking black belt in another school. In such case, who should be refining his movements, the lower ranking black belt or the higher ranking black belt?
And what happened when Karate was introduced to the school system in Okinawa? That curriculum certainly was not the full Karate curriculum as it was specifically designed for children who would only study for a limited time. Then that form of Karate took on a life of its own and largely became the basis for the modern Karate curriculum. As Karate spread to Japan and other parts of the world, this reduced, simplified and generic curriculum became the norm.
I do not mean any disrespect. But if you compare the pre and post 1910 (or so) curriculum, you are largely comparing apples and oranges. Many Karate students who learn the "post" curriculum, spend a lifetime trying to fill in the gaps.
This is all relevant when we speak about refinement in Karate. We probably can agree that it does not make sense to refine a third grade education but we all probably have our own ideas about the stages of our own curricula.
My own experience from meeting many fine instructors over the years is that a Sensei who has refined a complete Karate curriculum does things easily that appear to be impossible. On the other hand, a student who has learned an incomplete curriculum, will always seem to struggle. If it works, it takes effort -- and you can see what he is doing.
So this is my way of saying that while we should refine our Karate, we should first make sure that have enough to work with. We must sculpt before we polish.
Charles C. Goodin
Refine What?
Some time ago, I wrote about Karate Refinement. Generally, the idea in Karate is not simply to learn more, but to refine one's movements and understanding.
Posted by Charles C. Goodin on Friday, April 30, 2010
I have thought of a new acronym that might save people time when they are writing about Karate people: "TDH." Can you guess what this stands for?
OK, it is "10th dan, Hanshi." It seems that this is used quite a bit now so we could just shorten the title to "TDH."
Of course, you could add "M," "GM," or "GGM" ("Master," "Grand Master," and "Great Grand Master"), plus any number of other titles. Don't forget "S" for "Soke", "Shihan" "Sensei," or perhaps "Sempai." Since that is confusing, perhaps we'll have to make those "Sk", "Sh," "Sn," and "Sm."
I am still content with "D" and "GP" ("Dad" and "Grandpa"), but that is just me.
Charles C. Goodin
Posted by Charles C. Goodin on Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Hawaii Self-Defense Laws -- Online Video
Remember my post entitled Hawaii Self-Defense Laws: What You Can and Cannot Do, a panel discussion which was held on Thursday, April 1st, 2010, at the William S. Richardson School of Law? Well, the talented folks who organized the presentation have posted a video of it online. I highly recommend that you view it as it covers critically important information for martial artists here in Hawaii -- and general information that will be useful outside of Hawaii too.
That night, I only saw my friend and senior Sensei Richard Young, so all other Hawaii Karate instructors should really watch this. Please see:
One of the most important things that was stressed at the presentation, is that given the chance we should "Just walk away." I could not agree more! As Karate instructors, we have nothing to prove and quite a bit to lose if we injure someone. Just because we practice self-defense does not mean that a court will find that our actions were justified and will be considered as a defense to charges that may have been filed against us as a result of our use of Karate techniques.
Thank you very much to Mickey Knox for inviting me to the event and for this video link.
Charles C. Goodin
Posted by Charles C. Goodin on Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Yelling Kata Name
Someone recently asked me why some people yell out the name of the kata before performing it. I have come up with a multiple choice test. Is the reason:
- To scare away potential attackers
- To make sure that they know what kata they are about to do
- To scare away wild animals
- To invoke the spirit of the kata maker
- To comply with international copyright laws
- To show that they know the name of the kata
- So that judges will know what kata they are going to see
- Because if the kata is done at night, it is good to let potential attackers know where they are (wait, that must be wrong)
- Because everyone else does it, so it must be right
- All of the above
- Some of the above
Charles C. Goodin
"Mrs. Sensei"
I mentioned recently that I sometimes call my Sensei's wife "Mrs. Sensei." The Sensei I am referring to is my Sensei here in Hawaii.
Actually, if I do this I am sort of joking. I usually call her "Aunty."
But if I were to address the wife of my Sensei in Okinawa, I would say, "Mrs. Shinzato." I do the same for the wife of my friend, and senior, Sensei Pat Nakata. I refer to her as "Mrs. Nakata." No matter how many times she asks me to call her by her first name, I don't and won't.
You might wonder why I refer to the wife of my Sensei here in Hawaii as "Aunty," rather than Mrs. Shimabukuro. This is interesting and I cannot quite explain it. I cannot call her by her first name (this would be disrespectful) and it feels a bit too impersonal to refer to her as "Mrs. Shimabukuro" as I have known her and my Sensei for over 35 years. If I were to introduce her to someone, I would say, "Mrs. Shimabukuro." But on the phone, I might say, "Aunty."
Also, my Sensei here in Hawaii and his wife are less than 10 years older than me, while my Sensei in Okinawan is about 10 years older than that. This does not make much difference, but it seems that as the years go by, I am catching up in age!
What is most important, however you call your Sensei's wife (or husband for that matter), is that you are being polite and respectful. The use of the term "Aunty" here in Hawaii connotes respect and closeness.
I have to also say that when I address my own Sensei (both here in Hawaii and in Okinawa), my feeling is both "Sensei" (as in my instructors) and also "Uncle" (as in a close personal relationship marked by respect). I do not use the term "Sensei" in a strictly formal sense when I address them.
This also makes me think about the term "Juku." The feeling of the use of that term in "Kishaba Juku" is a family group. It connotes closeness, a personal group of like minded people, unlike an association or organization per se.
If the structure of your Karate is strict and formal, your movements will be too. Rigid thinking leads to rigid movement.
Charles C. Goodin
These are stories.
A student visited his Sensei with a long, sad face. "What's the matter?" asked the Sensei.
I was practicing kata in the park and this old man came up and said that my Karate is terrible," answered the student.
"That old man is wrong," commented the Sensei.
"So my Karate is good?" asked the student.
"Your Karate is excellent," replied the Sensei, "it is just that you do it terribly."
You see... the Karate is good.
Same story with a different twist.
A student visited his Sensei with a long, sad face. "What's the matter?" asked the Sensei.
I was practicing kata in the park and this old man came up and said that my Karate is terrible," answered the student.
"That old man was not very considerate," commented the Sensei.
"He should not have said that my Karate is terrible?" asked the student.
"No," replied the Sensei, "he should have explained why."
It is easy to criticize someone but to offer constructive criticism takes effort.
Same story with a different twist.
A student visited his Sensei with a long, sad face. "What's the matter?" asked the Sensei.
I was practicing kata in the park and this stupid old man came up and said that my Karate is terrible," answered the student. "I wanted to punch him in the nose!"
"That old man is my Sensei," commented the Sensei.
One minute someone is an old man that you want to punch in the nose, the next he is your Sensei's senior, his own Sensei. Sometimes a person who criticizes you is a friend or compassionate senior.
I often feel that my own performance of "my Karate" is terrible. As soon as I feel that I am improving a little, I am dissatisfied and uneasy. I feel that I have to work harder. Nothing will hold you back more than complacency or feeling that you are pretty good. The best Karate instructors I have ever met are far more demanding of themselves than they are of their own students and other people.
If an old man (or woman) tells you that your Karate is terrible, you should thank him politely and ask him (or her) how you might improve.
Charles C. Goodin
Perfect Bowling Afternoon
Today I went bowling at Ft. Shafter with my three sons and my daughter. My wife, mother, and granddaughter came to watch.
We played teams: my sons Charles and Cael against my son Chris, daughter Nayna and me -- raw total again raw total. Charles can break 200 so those two against us three is pretty fair.
We played three games and if you can believe it, for two of the games, we were the only ones bowling in the entire alley! Just the five of us on two lanes. It was pretty amazing.
My daughter bowled a new high score and my oldest son Chris did well too so our team won two out of three games! Sweet.
And, of course, as the father, I win! If one of my children gets a good score, I do too because I am their father. I had two strikes back to back once today. But having my four children all together is like four strikes!
My Sensei here in Hawaii is a bowling coach. When he was giving my children pointers the other day I heard him say, "Don't worry about hitting the pins, just concentrate on good form. If you have good form you will be able to hit the pins."
What a perfect lesson for Karate students!
Man, having a whole bowling alley to yourself (with all your children), that is something to remember.
Charles C. Goodin
When my friend and senior, Sensei Pat Nakata, calls me, he says, "Sensei, this is Pat."
I reply, "Hi Sensei, how are you?"
I never call him "Pat" (it is even hard to write this) and he never calls me "Charles". This is also the way that Nakata Sensei addresses other Sensei. So if there are several of us present, it can become confusing if you were just listening to the conversation. But from the body language and eye contact, you could easily tell who was addressing who.
There is a little difference that would be hard to observe, but you still could if you were alert to it. When I address Nakata Sensei, I say, "Sensei." When I address someone my age, I say "Sensei." It is not the volume or tone of voice, it is just a subtle thing. When Nakata Sensei and I address our friend and senior, Sensei Bobby Lowe, we say "Sensei." (In this regard, the way we say this would differ in that I am younger and less mature in Karate than Nakata Sensei -- but we both hold Lowe Sensei in high regard.) (For people on Facebook, I size of the word Sensei has changed, grown larger the more senior the Sensei is. I am not sure if this will be picked up in Facebook from the original Blogger post -- CCG)
Again, it sounds exactly the same. But there is a difference.
And none of the Sensei I know would ever refer to themselves as such.
Do you notice that I close these posts with my name alone, not with any titles? If I wrote "Sensei Charles C. Goodin" I would probably hear it from my senior friends! I would seem so full of myself.
Charles C. Goodin
That Looks Okinawan
I have been emphasizing to certain students that it is critically important to do each movement correctly -- to pay attention to the details.
Just trying to do the kata and movements faster and stronger won't do any good -- in fact, it will just ingrain and magnify errors. I feel like telling some students, "That was a very strong and fast performance of innumerable errors. You did the wrong things extremely well!"
Concentrate on the little things -- how your weight shifts, when your hand twists, the angles of your movements, your breath, etc. Concentrate on the details.
When the student does the movements correctly, even if it is not done with much power or speed, it looks good. I often tell a student, "That looks Okinawan."
By this I mean that the movements where done with attention to detail. I find this to be a characteristic of Okinawan Karate. A proper movement is proper whether done powerfully or lightly, or slowly or quickly. Proper is proper and wrong is wrong, even if it is wrapped up in a powerful and fast package.
So it is better for students to focus on being correct -- on the fine points. If a student does movements correctly, power and speed will come. The student will be building upon a good foundation. Success is guaranteed.
Also, correct movements are not subject to inherent limits. A wrong motion, done with power and speed,will fail. It will also have natural failure limits -- like a car racing down the freeway shaking and spewing smoke. You know something bad is about to happen.
Do it right and then you will get better and better.
I should add that Okinawans are just as capable of doing movements wrong (or right). The Okinawan approach to Karate, at least in the old days, was not mass production, but rather the creation of masterpieces -- of full optimized students. A great Karate master might only teach a few students in his life. Outside of Okinawa, the emphasis largely shifted to larger and larger groups. However, attention to detail can be a characteristic of anyone. One of the most skilled Karate Sensei I know is Chinese. And I would say that his movements "look Okinawan" because of his attention to detail.
Charles C. Goodin
Still a Puppy
I was speaking to one of my senior friends today, a Sensei of Aikido. At some point, I mentioned my age (52), and he said, "Sensei, you're still a puppy."
It is great to practice something in which being 52 makes you "still a puppy." In so many sports and other activities, people are old at 30 (or even younger). But in the martial arts, we are still puppies, still learning a lot in our 50s. We continue to learn and improve in the martial arts as long as we practice.
My good friend and senior, Sensei Pat Nakata, often says that we must refine our movements. It is not just practicing the same thing over and over -- it is to constantly seek improvement.
Charles C. Goodin
This is Sensei...
I received a telephone call recently which began something like this, "Hello, this is Sensei John Doe." Of course, this was not the caller's name, but he did introduce himself as "Sensei."
You can imagine what I was thinking. I want to remain positive so I will just say that when someone addresses you as "Sensei," this is a sign of respect and honor. But when a person refers to himself as "Sensei", this is something quite different (I am being nice).
I knew a young boy once who lived near me. Whenever he spoke about his Karate class, he would recite his instructor's name and all of his black belts (in different styles and arts). This must have been something the class was taught, because the child could do it really well! It was like an advertising jingle.
Forget about titles when you introduce yourself. If you use them improperly, you will look like a child. And as I always say, with skill, titles are unnecessary, and without skill, titles are irrelevant.
The two titles I am most proud of are "dad" and "grandpa".
Charles C. Goodin
Posted by Charles C. Goodin on Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Double Jackpot!
This only happens once in a great while -- only one student comes to class. That is a jackpot. The student gets the attention of the Sensei for an entire class.
Tonight was a double jackpot. My son Charles and I came to class tonight and there was only one student. So one student had the complete attention of two instructors for an entire class.
You might think we were wondering about the other students. Not at all! We were focused on the rare opportunity to concentrate completely on one student.
If you ever have the opportunity to be the only student at class -- congratulations! Take advantage of it, remember everything you learn, and apply it to all of your movements. One day you might be the Sensei who has only one students for a class.
Charles C. Goodin
Posted by Charles C. Goodin on Monday, April 19, 2010
5 Stories -- Bad Foundation
This is a story.
A 5th degree black belt in another style of Karate visited a Sensei and asked to become his student. The Sensei was reluctant and said:
"Imagine that each of your dan levels is like the story of a building."
"So I would be like a 5 story building?" asked the student (looking a little proud of himself).
"Yes," replied the Sensei. "So you see the problem?"
"Well I don't know," answered the student, "it took me many years to earn my 5th dan and for my age I'd have to say that I am pretty skilled."
"Perhaps," said the Sensei, "but the problem starts in your foundation. It is easy to lay a good foundation -- it is exceedingly difficult to remove a foundation and replace it when there already is a five story building above it."
"I see" confessed the student.
"Do you?" continued the Sensei. "With an improper foundation, the first story is also incorrect, as is the second, third, etc. Really, you should remove the first story, and the second, and the third, etc. If the foundation is wrong, everything built upon it will be wrong too."
"But I am a 5th degree black belt," declared the student.
"Let's just take one problem at a time," said the Sensei.
The End.
There are several aspects to this story. First, forget about rank. If you want to learn, be willing to start from scratch.
Second, when you think you know something, that itself is part of the problem. A beautiful looking building will be weak if it is built on sand. And if the foundation is weak, the rest of the structure will almost certainly be weak too. A contractor who is foolish enough to build a weak foundation, will probably do an equally poor job on the rest of the structure.
This is one reason that I generally prefer to teach students with no Karate experience, unless they are exceptionally willing to learn and work hard on themselves -- without attachment to what they had already learned. Such students are exceptionally rare.
This story also has a happy side. If as student has a good foundation, his Karate will certainly be good as well. Good basics lead to good advanced techniques, and good advanced techniques cannot exist without good basics. So if you can do one technique really well, you should be able to learn to do all techniques really well.
Charles C. Goodin
Posted by Charles C. Goodin on Monday, April 12, 2010


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sku: 29022
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Shirley Kurata's Los Angeles Home
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Eastern Wake News
With planting season, slow-moving farm equipment returns to NC roads
It's planting season for farmers, and they have a request for drivers: Please, be patient.
Farmers must use highways to move large pieces of equipment more than ever, as competition forces them to work more fields that often are separated by subdivisions. Tractors, combines and sprayers might top out at 20 mph on the road and stretch up to 18 feet wide, often extending well into oncoming traffic.
There have been about 200 accidents a year involving farm equipment on North Carolina roads in the last decade, according to the state Department of Transportation. In the past three years, those crashes resulted in 15 deaths and 330 injuries.
Accidents with farm vehicles are especially dangerous because of the difference in speed and size of the vehicles involved. Picture a 4,000-pound car going 55 mph and coming upon a 20,000-pound tractor.
Randy Edwards, who farms in the Archer Lodge area of Johnston County, says that in spite of precautions such as flashing lights on his tractor, drivers seem surprised to see him.
"They just run right up on you," Edwards said. "They don't realize that farm machinery is not moving but 20, 25 miles per hour. And they end up just going fast."
Edwards raises cattle and grows soybeans, wheat, sweet potatoes, tobacco and hay. He says parts of Smithfield Road near Archer Lodge and Covered Bridge Road near Wendell are particularly dangerous because so many people use them to go to and from work. He's been lucky, but he expresses frustration at the lack of patience people often have with equipment.
"They just need to slow down and respect the farming equipment, 'cause we have to produce the food and the product," Edwards said. "We don't like to move it, but you have to move it to get the job done."
Farmers are working more land than ever to survive. In North Carolina, the average farm size has grown from 67 acres in 1950 to 160 acres in 2007, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"To meet the economies of scale where it's feasible for an operation to continue, you need more acres," said Dennis Durham, chairman of the Johnston County Farm Bureau. "You just have to do more volume to stay in business. I don't see that trend changing."
Finding those additional acres, though, means spreading out, said Tim Britton, agent with the N.C. Cooperative Extension in Johnston County.
"They're having to go further to find farmable land," Britton said. "A lot of the available land was taken up for housing development."
Farmers could once farm all they needed within a 5- or 6-mile radius, Britton said.
Now they must go as far as 15 to 20 miles. Britton knows farmers who had to travel more than 100 miles to buy farmland in South Carolina.
Farmers say they take precautions against accidents, including the flashing lights and triangle warning signs on their equipment. They'll try to pull to the side of the road periodically to allow cars to pass, but sometimes it's hard to find a safe place to do that.
Britton said wide equipment can be hard to pass even when the farmer pulls over.
"Even with the attachments pulled tight to the body of a tractor, many are over 20 feet long and 18 feet wide, and moving off to a narrow shoulder does not give much space for a car to pass," Britton said.
Farmers say they try to move equipment only during the safest times. In other words, not during rush hour.
"We realize they have a job to do, and we try to stay off the road during that time as best we can," said Tom Vinson, a Clayton farmer.
Vinson, who raises beef cattle, soybeans, wheat, hay and tobacco, has been hit once. "A guy was behind me, and something got in his eye and he hit me from behind," he said.
Drivers frequently don't know how to deal with the slow vehicles.
"Some of them top out at 15 miles per hour," Vinson said. "A lot of people don't realize that when they come up behind you, especially if they're talking on the cellphone."
In a 2003 N.C. Department of Labor study, Regina Luginbuhl found that 65 percent of farmers thought most people would obey traffic safety laws if they knew them and suggested posting "slow-moving vehicle" signs along roadways to remind people to watch and slow down for farm equipment.
In addition, 40 percent of farmers surveyed put "widen the shoulders on given roads so I could get out of the way" as their top suggestion.
But many farmers agree that if people would stop using their cellphones and pay more attention, things would go more smoothly.
"If everyone would just be patient, then I think we could get along fine," Durham said.


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Thursday, July 31, 2008
Head-to-Knee American Apparel, Paris
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81 comments
little blue dress!
its very nice.
the girl is like a tulip!
Her shorts are, perhaps not surprisingly, rather similar to the longer satin shorts Madonna has been sighted in, and for which she has received criticism. I think both ladies are up to something, trend-wise. I like that this is an easy look, and it looks comfortable without being frumpy. Love the Tom Fords, I think they're some of the best shades around right now, and am thinking of shelling full-price if I find the right pair. Jorge from W Palm Beach
American Apparel on the Sartorialist?! And this woman actually looks chic and not like a greasy soft-core porn star who hasn't slept in 2 weeks.
Good job, once again, Sart!!
Nice to see my good ol' AA somewhere outside of Brookyln ;)
Great look!
pretty colors and shapes however the hem is not done well amd makes the garment look cheap.
what's wrong with AA??
never been one to diss it, quite on the contrary!
love their tee's and cardigans in every color possible.
or is it a cultural thing as I happen to live in Europe?
in my opinion it's just how you choose to present them.
such as this lovely lady here.
stunningly good work gear I say.
I'm sure this lady was also photographed in Grazia magazine or maybe thelondonpaper? Exact same outfit near enough altho Sart's photo is more whimsical. Maybe I dreamed the whole thing….I'd better go and look in the recycling.
We have AA in Nashville now, I don't think the locals know what to make of it. This girl looks good though. Very effortless.
Great look. Simple, yet refined. It's all about attitude though, and she's got it. You go girl!
The roping on the pocket seam and hem spoil these pants for me….
Jorge, sorry to say those aren't shorts, but a tulip skirt. Still very cute though.
its actually a skirt, not shorts:)
It's amazing to see one of those plastic American Apparel skirts actually completing an outfit instead of ruining it.
I wasnt much crazy about the shorts. But the color, I loved!
american apparel is what's wrong with fashion. its great for 15 year olds getting into the dressing well game but for the most part we would all look better without there lacking colour palette
i love how she can wear all american apparel and look classy doing it!
I'm impressed this outfit looks so good! I like American Apparel for tee shirts. But some of their other clothes I find tacky. I think with this skirt you need a slim figure, small waist and hips. This lady pulled it off really nicely.
It's all about posture!
She was on Garance Dore awhile back. Is this an old photo or just her go-to outfit?
American Apparel is the most effortless way of looking good. which is why I hate it so much.
Sorry, skirt looks horribly cheap, like my little brother sewed it.
wow, i love that sweater + colourful skirt look. http://www.thedailyalygator.blogspot.com
what's she got on her feet???
mmmm, what a delicious look!
A beautiful woman, possessing a poised yet casual style until…..that godawful skirt.
This looks like the crazy around-the-house shorts I wear while primping for the day. The sort of thing you don't mind getting creased or covered in pet hair because you would NEVER wear it out in public and your proper skirt is in the closet; safely, patiently waiting to be put on just before leaving the house.
Actually, my blue, paint splattered shorts fit much better. I do love the purple though.
I am loving this mix of casual pieces into these sophisticated looks.
yawn, american apparel. Los Angeles is overrun with girls dressed exactly like this. That's a lovely expression you've caught on camera though, Sart.
The colour is lovely, cheery and vivid and she wears it well. Yet, like all American Apparel clothes, this skirt looks poorly cut and shabbily stitched together – like a Home Economics project.
That skirt is so fabulous! The color, the length, everything is perfect about it! And the girl donning it is such an exquisite beauty.
AA has a "lacking colour palette"?? Are you serious?
Never mind the girl – check out the dude in the right of the photograph! He looks awesome – is that a leather bow-tie? I want to have a Guinness and talk about Flann O'Brien to that guy.
She is def in this weeks Grazia magazine. Funny thing is they would never put an outfit like this together in an editorial. Their street style page is so random compared with the clothes they feature.
You should probably have just posted a picture of the guy standing in the right of the photo. I feel that American Apparel has gotten even more overrated and ironically only goes to show America's overwhelming need to consume.
I was in Paris in early May and AA is the rage among young and trendy. I like how she combined her AA pieces.
AA clothes are nicely done. it's more the image/attitude they've built up in recent years that i don't find appealing. i can't even walk into their stores or look at their ads without getting queesy.
i do have quite a few of their concert ts circa 2002 and earlier from various bands. i have to say the fit and quality is impressive.
i liked that she went earring-less. i would have loved to see her sunglasses straight on!
only the french can make american apparel look chic. well done.
I have that blue "sweater" and I sleep in it. Kind of funny. Well, now I can see a new use for it! Nice.
She's a very beautiful girl and I love that she's got her own thing going. The simple necklace works well and I dig the shirt, and the pulled-back hair is lovely.
While I love the color of the skirt and the idea of it, this particular garment is sewn so badly and looks so cheap that it's a little painful to my eyes. It doesn't do her very elegant manner justice.
The casual raglan, mixed with the high waisted tulip skirt is a really comfortable look! That skirt looks great with heels or flats, chemise or tank top, and she pulls it off very well.
Forget about the AA for a second, I love her pendant necklace and little pony tail!
i like the shirt, but i am just not feeling that skirt or shorts, whatever they are. but i'm not all that into those elastic waistbands, either. but her expression is great, and overall she pulls it off.
i think your photograph is giving way too much credit to an otherwise hideous outfit!
I like AA. It can be too ironical sometimes, the new summer shirts, for example. But they sell high quality basics in a huge range of colors for an affordable price. For people (like me) on a budget, it's a great resource. I especially like their polos.
American Apparel is sad because the CEO is a notorious sleaze and won't allow his workers to unionize because he figures he's already being generous enough by paying them an actual living wage.
Brightly colored solids are nice, but AA certainly isn't the only place that carries them.
And as most of the other comment-ers can attest, if you're wearing something from there, the whole world knows it.
well, at least it's good publicity for american apparel.
that tri-blend raglan sweater is possibly the most comfortable thing i own, without compromising style that is. it's a great way to counter anything that would otherwise be too precious or feminine.
Urgh…like the color of the skirt, but hate the two colors together.
um, no one has mentioned that this skirt is like the number one over worn garmet of the summer… it's all over Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick and the East Village.
Seriously go for a walk, I bet you, you'll see at least 10 of them.
I often feel like I'm the only one who is turned off by AA, and not only because Dov Charney is a massive creep. I think the clothes look ostentatiously trendy on even the chic-est of dressers. Very little of what they sell can be an accompanying piece – it seems to me they all vie for attention in such a boastful and irritating way that they distract and annoy, rather than complimenting.
I totally agree with the previous comments about the poor stitching at the hem. AA needs to look into this this. There are other affordable brands, like UNIQLO, that doesn't compromise the quality of their workmanship.
On the positive side, I admire AA for their bold choice of colors.
AA is a good as a portion of a look, rather than good as the sum total of its components.
I'd always thought that meant using a few apparel pieces as staples, but pairing them with more interesting items whenever possible. This woman's effortless and piquant air, though, is almost enough to convince me that (though I still believe a little goes a long way with AA) sometimes, all you need to pair it with is your own expressive nature.
I wonder if the comments would be different if you had not identified the clothing as American Apparel. It seems as if the majority of comments were biased against AA.
this is exactly how every girl at my california college dresses. a little boring, i think. I would love to see what shoes she is wearing though. a good california girl would have on some strappy sandals and complete the look with a headband worn rambo-style.
Yeah, she was on Garance Doré a while ago, where you learn that she's actually italian, not french.
Anyway, I like how your photo seems to show a totally different person from the smiling girl that Garance shot.
You're really good, it's such a cool photograph.
awesome! i have that skirt! haha
Why are so many people quick to did American apparel? It's quite a good store in my opinion a lot of things you get there can be put into a great outfit as shown in this great example. Thanks sart!
that's very casual-chic! the purple's awesomely cool!
I have this skirt and am so excited to see it featured here! American Apparel is really good for finding cheap things that can be made into a chic outfit!
It's all about how you wear it!
she certainly worked it out with american apparel!!
Seriously all american apparel??
that's really good..
she definitly made it look very chic.
kudos to her.
"cheap" doesn't have to translate "horrible sewing"! seriously, the shorts are really bad. one could purchase a pair of cheap shorts from H&M that is at least sewn properly! AA's pieces just look really cheap!
This girl was in Grazia.
I like the look over all, but I agree that some of AA's pieces are really bad quality.
In response the the person who wrote 'AA has a "lacking colour palette"?? Are you serious?':
The color palette is lacking in quality, not in volume. sure, they have lots of choices, but 90% of the colors look totally garish on anyone. The problem with AA is that ironic clothing expires after you turn 23 or so. I will admit that they have some t-shirts that really fit amazing and finding a decent 50/50 shirt anywhere else is impossible, but the place is so packed full of neon 80′s monstrosities I find myself clinging to the tiny heather grey/pastel rack wishing it were just a bit larger.
lovely outfit..casual, smart&stylish.
would look even better with a long plain gold chain-perhaps even 2 chains- and a huge ring!
Listen, I don't personally buy anything from AA, but I think it's a wonderful idea if it's all you can afford. I mean, if you can look this great, who cares if the clothes fall apart in a couple of months. This is, single handedly, the most beautiful female outfit I've seen on The Sartorialist. She got it ALL RIGHT. So impressive. I guess I need to start shopping at this place!
It looks like she's going to the gym or out for jogging. Personally I don't like this outfit at all. Colours are nice but still.. Beautiful woman thou.
anonymous 9:28 –
it IS cheap, so I don't think you can really expect good stitching on those shorts…
This girl looks lovely, although I do agree the skirt would look cheap on most people. That is my problem with AA- its like the poster-child for why outsourcing manufacturing isn't always a bad thing (esp for those on a budget). Everything I've bought there has lasted less than 1 yr, very poor workmanship
oh, im totally in love with her outfit , love everything about it , thaknks for the great insperation ! :D
AA meets AA (accessories and attitude). They're quite a pair.
Can you tell me which shoes is she wearing?? Thanks!
I have AA shirts and dresses that fit just fine and are still intact after 2-3 years wearing them. Their 50/50 shirts are so comfortable. Though I must admit it seems their lines are starting to go down a little in the quality of their stitching.
This woman manages to make AA look devastatingly chic. I personally have nothing against AA, and I actually sort-of like that purposefully "cheap" look at times. It's a nice contrast to flawless accessories.
I really admire anything who can put together a t-shirt, and shorts (of any type), and carry it off so elegantly. I think the pulled back hair, and sunglasses and the simple accessories work with this, and the colours are also very important. Good eye Sart, and I appreciate your ability to find style in the simplest choices.
i really do like this!
mainly, probably, because i love wearing longsleeved and SIMPLE shirts with high waisted skirts!
and the necklace is absolutely perfect with it, this girl certainly has style.
:) mr sartorialist, you're my favourite.
i love her style. and i'd love to wear this kinda style :) simply lovely.. :)
I Love it it soo simple and style
I love it. One thing that I really find interesting is how a grownup, sophisticated lady like this can wear such "young" clothing so perfectly, not in the least looking out of step with her age group or higher level of style.
nice colour:)


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Are packaged applications becoming less relevant?
Or are they the only way of keeping up with demand?
The imminent death of traditional packaged applications for dealing with ERP, CRM and other core business requirements has been proclaimed in many quarters recently. Whether it's SOA purists telling us that we'll all be self-assembling solutions from components, enthusiasts of modern development environments wanting to build everything from scratch, or the SaaS evangelists saying it's all going to go into the cloud anyway, it is trendy to dismiss application software packages as being out of touch with the needs of the 21st century.
Even if you take the disruptive rhetoric with a pinch of salt, however, there is no denying that some of the underlying points being made by the challengers touch a nerve. Most of us can probably think of at least one instance of a packaged application doing a great job initially, but ultimately becoming a straightjacket on the business. All too often, organisations have become constrained by packaged applications that couldn't be adapted quickly or cost effectively enough to keep up with changing requirements.
The significance of such historical rigidity is contrasted by a lot of the language we hear today surrounding IT in general. It's almost impossible to listen to a sales pitch or browse a supplier website without having words such as 'flexibility', 'agility' and 'responsiveness' thrust at you.
This is not just because people have been burned in the past, but also an acknowledgement that both the IT and business sides of the equation are becoming much more dynamic in general. As technology advancement enables businesses to do things more quickly and in different ways, this perpetuates the need for even more efficient and effective IT in order to keep up, and so the relentless spiral of need continues.
Another couple of words that frequently crop up today are 'empowerment' and 'productivity', underlining the increased emphasis on that most valuable and costly of resources – the workforce. Sometimes this boils down to providing employees with the information and access they need to innovate and generally make better decisions. But it could also simply be about broadening the reach of systems so more people can participate electronically in important business processes. In practice, this takes us into areas such as business intelligence, collaboration, mobile/remote access, and so on, all areas that have received a lot of attention over recent years.
The upshot is that the old days of static packaged applications serving the needs of selected groups sitting behind the firewall in a very prescriptive way are probably over. But is it a case of driving everything back to more of a DIY approach, as the challengers suggest? Well here we have to consider some practicalities.
While application packages may have had their issues, many organisations actually have more of a problem with custom built applications. In lots of environments, the maintenance of bespoke legacy is not only tying up valuable budget, but is also effectively a dead-end in terms of migration.
As we look to the future, do we really want to carry on reinventing wheels and potentially creating even more burdens of this kind? Indeed can we afford to, as the automation footprint expands from the back office to the front office and even to the field and the employee's home? Throw in the need for collaboration, coherent and pervasive business intelligence and further functionality and that's a lot of software to design, build, test and integrate if you don't take full advantage of pre-built software suites.
While this might sound like volunteering to get tied up in even more constraining ways, the good news is that the packaged application business has not stood still. Most modern solutions are designed and built with a lot more flexibility in mind. Today, 'configuration' is the watch word, allowing a lot more tailoring of functionality without the need for coding.
From an architectural perspective, componentisation and SOA have then often been embraced to allow easier interfacing, reuse and substitution of components, reducing the cost, time and risk associated with integration. And in terms of user empowerment and productivity, the hooks are generally there for extension of functionality and access, either via standard options or third party solutions.
So, are we all sorted then?
Maybe in some cases, but the truth is that both vendors and their customers can only move so quickly, and while the latest incarnations of ERP, CRM and other packaged applications promise a lot, migrations and new implementations consume both time and resources.
With this in mind, we would be interested in your thoughts and experiences. How are needs evolving in your organisation, for example in the areas of analytics, collaboration, broader access by non-traditional users, etc? And if requirements are changing, how are packaged applications and/or the teams looking after them being stressed as a result? Looking forward, do you then have any tips on how to strike a balance between packages and custom solutions?
It would be great to have your views in the comment section below.


text:
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text:
|Find the best surf spots
Friday December 28 2012 09:45:00 AM
Session's Rate:
Wind direction: Offshore
Wind Strength: Established
Nb waves ridden: 25
Length of the surf session: 120 min
Surfboard ridden: 5'11"
Weather and water temp: Air : 9°C. Water : 12°C
Waves height: 1m-1.2m / 3ft-4ft
Waves Quality:
- Fun
Waves Shape:
- Walls
After my failure at Nez Bayard, I cruised along the coast and went to Jx, a semi secret spot. I have heard about it since several years but never saw it worked. It was a big target for me. When I arrived, I discovered a fun pointbreak (in Normandy !). What a surprise !
The wave isn't very difficult and very fun with long walls. It breaks along the point. The landscape is great. Waves were only 1m but they were enjoyable. I think the wave can be very good at 1,5m height with a tube at the start.
I got plenty of waves as I was alone. My best memory this year in Normandy !
The video : https://vimeo.com/56500099
Yes it was a good session !
Created: Sunday December 30 2012 05:20:26 PM
Modified: Sunday December 30 2012 05:20:26 PM
Hits: 3284


text:
On April 23rd 2012, the Microsoft Evangelism team on the West Coast will join together and present on the topic of Windows 8 and how to start developing for the new platform. Be sure to follow all the action with this twitter hash-tag #win8appdev.
For more information about this event, check out this blog post from Scott Kerfoot.
Here is a simple JavaScript RegEx pattern for extracting any URL that begins with http:
<script type="text/javascript">
// example string, looks like a tweet to me :)
var str="Awesome resources for HTML5! http://bit.ly/palermo4html5 #HTML5";
// UPDATED 2012-07 thanks to ArthurDent69!
// could also be written as:
// var regexUrl = new RegExp("https?:[^\s]+", "gi");
var regexUrl=/https?:[^\s]+/gi;
// if a match is found, the return type is an array of matches
// output of above line of code:
// http://bit.ly/palermo4html5
Curious about the changes in HTML5? The W3C recently published an online reference to easily define the deltas. This reference has been added to the popular HTML5 resources on this site