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Canada’s (New) New Government

The Liberals and New Democrats signed an agreement Monday to form a coalition government, ousting Prime Minister Stephen Harper from power. If they are successful in forming their coalition, they have a pledge of support from the Bloc Québécois for the next 18 months.

A friend of mine wrote his entire contact list with this plea:

Putting Partisan politics aside for a moment. This coalition is not what we voted for 6 weeks ago. Please consider for a minute and think if you could be happy with a coalition that has to be supported by the Separatists Bloc Quebecois in order to survive. What is their price? I think that it could end up costing us our great nation. That is too high of a price. Even if you hate the Conservatives sign this petition and then go down to www.rallyforcanada.ca in your various locations on Saturday. We need to put partisan politics aside for the sake of our country. This is one of the most dangerous times since the 1995 referendum in my opinion.

A few points I’d like to make. First, when was the last time you heard the Bloc talk about separating? They are a mainstream party now, no longer focused on separating, but as being a uniquely Québécois party.

Honestly, I’m not sure a coalition government really is THAT bad. It worked here in Canada during the hard times of World War I and it will work during the hard times today.

Don’t fall for Harper’s fear mongering. The world isn’t going to end with Dion leading the way. And come May we’ll likely have Ignatieff leading the party, someone whom I’m much more comfortable with as a leader—mostly because Dion stumbles on his English, but the same can be said of Harper’s French.

I’m mad at the conservatives because they refused to tell the people their plans until a week before the election. Silly voters that don’t pay much attention to politics didn’t punish the conservatives sneaky methods instead they just voted for the status quo.

But pulling funding from the other parties is truly a sneaky, unjust, power hungry move that needs to be punished; you can bet Conservatives would be outraged if the shoe were on the other foot.

Harper’s made his bed, now he’s going to have to sleep in it. I don’t think we’re in danger at all, in fact I think Canadians should be excited at the prospect of getting leadership by a majority of MPs. They may not be from the same party, but they are MPs that a MAJORITY voted for.

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Malcolm Gladwell on The Advantages of Disadvantages

In preparation for the release of his new book, Outliers, next week, Malcolm Gladwell has published an article, The Uses of Adversity, explaining that sometimes disadvantages come with unexpected advantages.

Writing about the piece afterwards, Gladwell expounded the approach that being an outsider, having a disability or coming from a social-economic disadvantage, can sometimes be exactly what one needs to succeed.

From Gladwell’s blog:

If dyslexia can—under certain circumstances—be advantageous, what are other disadvantages that can have the same effect?

In the article, I mention, in passing, the question of class size, and the data on class size is really quite fascinating. Time and time again studies fail to show any significant advantage to reducing the size of classes—except in the case of very poor children in the very earliest of grades.

This, of course, defies common sense. We know that teacher feedback is a big component in learning. So why wouldn’t learning be enhanced by lower teacher: student ratios? One answer might be that large classes are a disadvantage with advantages: that in coping with the difficulty of competing for teacher attention, kids learn something more important—namely self-reliance. This might also explain why the highest achieving schools—those in places like Japan and Korea—tend to have much larger classes than in the United States.

Aside from the many, many variables that might make comparing class sizes across nations and cultures difficult, I also wonder if teachers instructing inconsistently large or small classes might not be changing their styles to meet the particular needs of a particular class size. It stands to reason that one would teach a class of 10 quite a bit differently than a class of 30—however it’s also very understandable that teachers tend to teach the same way from lesson to lesson and stick to it—regardless of class size.

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Polling the World of Warcraft

I suppose there are going to be selection bias issues when polling players in the World of Warcraft, but nevertheless, the results are interesting and as election day is upon us, let’s hope that the election polls match all of the other polls we’ve been hearing about.

Hit play or watch Election Duel! at Youtube.

Oh and if you’re an eligible voter in the US elections, and have not voted today, STOP READING THIS WEBSITE AND GO VOTE!
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Bob Dylan in Lethbridge

Thursday night Bob Dylan performed at the Enmax Centre here in Lethbridge. He played a lot of songs that I didn’t particularly recognize and a few that I only JUST barely recognized.

I’m left to assume that after 40 years of the same songs, he tries to mix it up a bit. Personally I would have preferred to hear more of my “favourite” Bob Dylan songs (the ones that come up on my iPod for example) but having said that, it’s a rare and exciting event to see a living legend.

Bob Dylan and His Band

Update: I just read on wikipedia that after Bob Dylan’s 1979 conversion to Christianity, he decided he would no longer play any of his old material.

From the article: “Dylan refused to play any of his older compositions, as well as any secular material. Though Larry Myers had assured Dylan that his old compositions were not sacrilegious, Dylan would say he would not ‘sing any song which hasn’t been given to me by the Lord to sing.’ Fans wishing to hear his older songs openly expressed their disappointment. Hecklers continued to appear at his concerts, only to be answered by lectures from the stage. Dylan was firmly entrenched in his evangelical ways, and it would continue through his next album, whether his audience would follow or not.”