Our Constitution can accurately be described as the envy of the world, but then again the world doesn’t really get to see us gawking at each other in open-mouthed confusion over embarrassing gaps like this one. The key features of the 1982 Constitution were hammered out in smoke-filled hotel rooms by men who intentionally refused to record their discussions and who have never ceased arguing about exactly how they went. The various Canadian governments built the frame in haste, were late to begin talking to each other, never involved the public, and left the structure consciously half-finished. It’s a wonder it hasn’t yet come down on our heads.
Colby Cosh, “Mind the constitutional gap”, Maclean’s, 2013-09-09
September 9, 2013
QotD: Canada’s constitution
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Kafkatrapping
Christopher Taylor on the way to shut down an opponent’s argument by accusing them of a thoughtcrime:
Another nifty trick is to accuse someone of something because you don’t care for what they think or say, then if they deny it, call that proof of their evil. It’s called Kafkatrapping, and it works like this: “if you start anything with the words ‘I’m not racist’ well that’s proof you are.” Don’t like someone’s position but cannot factually or rationally refute it? Just Kafkatrap them.
The term Kafkatrapping comes from the book The Trial by Kafka in which the victim is accused of undefined crimes against humanity and destroyed by his denying them. It works like this:
Person A: Its sad that men are raped so much more than women in America.
Person B: You’re a sick sexist for even suggesting that.
Person A: but its true, see this report from the Obama administration? I’m not sexist, I’m just telling you the facts.
Person B: Your refusal to admit your sexist nature is proof of it.
Just denying your guilt is called proof of it and all rational discussion breaks down because it has become pointless. The argument is not based on facts, truth, reason, or intellectual inquiry, it is a schoolyard argument from the 5th grade which has nothing to do with truth. Its about destroying your opponent, keeping your position intact, and making the other person look bad.
And its inevitable that when people reject reason and objective truth, they’re reduced to childish arguments from emotion and strength. Its all you have left, and all you can use. The more this becomes predominant in a society, the more effective it becomes because people are less and less equipped to even begin to debate rationally.
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New South Wales “accidentally elects” libertarian senator
Australia makes it a legal requirement to vote in elections, which pretty much guarantees that a fairly high proportion of voters know little or nothing about the people they cast their mandatory votes for. Add in the fact that (at least in some jurisdictions) the order on the ballot isn’t in either alphabetical or party affiliation order. In New South Wales, this meant a Liberal Democratic candidate got votes that may have been intended to go to the Liberal party’s candidate:
The man elected to take one of six Senate seats in New South Wales says allowing the general public to carry weapons is one way of curbing gun crime in western Sydney.
Voters in New South Wales have chosen Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm for the Senate after the party appeared in the top left hand corner of ballot papers.
The seldom-mentioned party gained 8.89 per cent of the initial vote allocation, ahead of the Greens’ 7.77 per cent.
The party, which believes in social libertarianism, a free market economy and small government now joins a key group of minor party and independent senators set to hold the balance of power after July next year.
[…]
Mr Leyonhjelm accepts his party probably gained votes in error, with voters thinking they were choosing the Liberals.
The name has been raised as an issue before — in 2007 the Liberal Party objected and they ran as the Liberty and Democracy Party.
Mr Leyonhjelm admits the massively-long NSW Senate ballot paper may also have pushed votes to the Liberal Democrats.
“Oh yeah, we think there are three reasons why our vote was as high as it was,” he said.
“There are some people who voted for us because of our policies and they like what we stand for and we would like to think that that was all of them, but I don’t think that is the case.
“There would be some people who voted for us because we were first on the ballot paper — there is always a sizeable number of people who don’t care and vote for the first one on the paper, and with such a big ballot paper that was probably a factor.
“Then there are some people who mistook us for the Liberals, probably the Liberals, but they could also have mistaken us for the Christian Democrats or even the ordinary Democrats.”
In the 1980’s, we nearly had this happen in an Ontario election: the official Liberal Party candidate was disqualified after the deadline for submitting candidate names to get on the ballot, so the Libertarian candidate got a lot of votes that clearly were from people who thought they were voting Liberal … but not enough to win that riding.
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Vikings start season with bad outing in Detroit
The Detroit Lions did just about everything they could to be good hosts: they kept providing the guests with opportunities to take extra advantage of mistakes, miscues, and assorted errors, but the Vikings seemed equally determined not to take advantage. The first half ended with the Vikings in the lead, but Detroit having demonstrated that they could move the ball pretty much at will and only bad luck and individual player errors kept them from being at least a touchdown ahead.
The (very) short list of Vikings who looked like they came to play football on Sunday included Jerome Simpson (who had his best receiving performance since he joined the team with 7 catches for 140 yards), Jared Allen, Harrison Smith (but more in the second half), and Blair Walsh … that pretty much rounds out the top ten. The rest of the team ranked somewhere between “adequate” and “cover-your-eyes awful”. Even the NFL MVP from last season had a relatively pedestrian outing. If you take away Adrian Peterson’s first run (78 yards for at touchdown), he didn’t even manage to average one yard per rush after that (15 yards on 17 carries). None of Minnesota’s three first-round draft picks had a memorable day (Sharrif Floyd was in the rotation at defensive tackle and had a pass deflection with those tragically short arms, Xavier Rhodes had a couple of penalties at corner, and Cordarrelle Patterson was given few opportunities to return kicks on special teams and had only one reception).
Reggie Bush, Detroit’s latest running back addition, had a great game both on the ground and through the air (90 yards rushing and 101 receiving). The absence of Kevin Williams at defensive tackle gave Bush lots of opportunities to showcase his elusive running style. As noted by a few commentators, the lack of Antoine Winfield on running downs was quite apparent (in two games against Detroit last year, Winfield tallied 20 tackles). A partial explanation for the poor defensive outing may be that they spent most of the first half on the field, but that doesn’t excuse the overall performance.
1500ESPN‘s Judd Zulgad and Jeff Dubay have a rant:
Christopher Gates of the Daily Norseman:
Truth be told, if the Lions could have stopped shooting themselves in the foot in the first half, this game probably would have been decided significantly earlier than it was. They botched a field goal attempt on their opening drive, had what looked like a touchdown catch by Calvin Johnson overturned (on what was the right call). They had a touchdown taken off the board thanks to a personal foul penalty on Ndamukong Suh on what should have been a pick-six by DeAndre Levy off of a deflection by Simpson. Detroit wasn’t really that far away from putting up a 50-spot in this one. . .the Vikings were relatively lucky that things were as close as they were, given the circumstances.
It was an ugly loss for the Vikings on Sunday afternoon at Ford Field, and it was truly a group effort. Hopefully this team can get themselves together before next Sunday at Soldier Field. . .a place that, incidentally, they pretty much never win at. Getting into an 0-2 hole not just in the overall standings, but in the division, after the first two games of the season is going to be a pretty tough hole to dig out of.
Can the Vikings learn from this loss? Sure, they can. Will they? Unfortunately, we have to wait seven days to find out.
The Star Tribune‘s Jim Souhan is losing patience with Christian Ponder:
Let’s cut through the enabling fog: Ponder cost the Vikings a potentially important victory Sunday, and he should have taken full blame.
At the helm of an offense featuring the NFL MVP, an excellent offensive line, a Pro Bowl tight end and a dramatically improved receiving corps, Ponder filled the role of neither inspired leader nor adequate facilitator. He didn’t make winning plays, and he didn’t avoid losing plays.
Facing a defense intent on stopping Peterson, he threw three interceptions. One would have resulted in a defensive touchdown if not for a despicable personal foul by the NFL’s dirtiest player, Ndamukong Suh. Ponder was saved from a fourth interception and another touchdown return when Lions defender Bill Bentley dropped a Ponder pass with nothing but fake grass between him and the end zone.
Don’t believe what Ponder’s apologists will tell you about the team sharing blame, and don’t look at the stat sheet, which showed 18 completions on 28 attempts for 236 yards. Perhaps the scariest aspect of Ponder’s performance was not his oh-no-he-didn’t throws. It was that even his completions looked shaky.
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When politicians meddle in defence matters
An interesting report in Herald Scotland by Kate Devlin illustrates some of the problems created when politicians make decisions without adequately consulting with the civil service:
The man in charge of equipment at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has warned officials offer “opinion” not fact on defence programmes, including the aircraft carriers being built on the Clyde, because of pressure from ministers.
In recent years the department has become notorious for overspends and procurement problems. But Bernard Gray said that civil servants in his department had “their arms put up behind their backs” to produce hasty costings for projects.
Earlier this week Mr Gray revealed that in 2010, when Tory MP Liam Fox was Defence Secretary, officials were given just hours to estimate the cost of changing the planes to fly from the carriers.
Mistakes in that process led to a humiliating U-turn by Mr Fox’s replacement Philip Hammond last year and have cost the taxpayer at least £74million.
Appearing before a separate committee of MPs, Mr Gray said officials should have been given six months, not a day, to complete the work. He said what was eventually provided was “opinion”.
“People (within the MoD) come under pressure, with people saying, ‘Everybody wants to know, we have to have an answer today,'” he said.
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