29Mar 2012 by johnastapleton

Funeral Blues Toronto 2011

Blog
Funeral Blues Toronto 2011   Turn out all the lights, cut off support to the wading pools. Prevent the library from opening with free subway newspapers Silence the advocates and with muffled drum Bring out the Budget, let the mourners come. Let citizens circle warning the watershed Shouting the message “Our City is dead” Put Ferris wheels round malled harbours of monorails Let workmen downsize as safety fails. Gaze to our North, the South, our East and West, Our working week and our Sunday rest Our noon, Our midnight, our talk, our song; We thought our town would last forever, we were wrong. The Star is not wanted now; throw out every one, Pack up the Globe, the Post and dismantle the Sun. Tear away the commons and gather the…
Read More
29Mar 2012 by johnastapleton

‘Denominator Neglect’ Rules in Bob Rae Attack Ad

Blog
‘Denominator neglect’ rules in Bob Rae attack ad In the recent Conservative Party attack ad concerning Bob Rae, the ad shows a ‘Welcome to Ontario’ sign with a typewriter animation  revealing ‘1,200,000 welfare population’  scrawling on the sign. The audio in the background intones in a jovial mocking tone that “Premier Rae turned Ontario into the Welfare Capital of Canada”. This is yet another claim in a long line of examples of ‘numerator’ politics. This is where you have a numerator and no denominator; a factual number without a context. In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman calls peoples inclination to make foolish choices ‘denominator neglect’. Rob Ford does it with the number of city employees. The 53,000 which he considers way too many is a numerator, a factual number.…
Read More
29Mar 2012 by johnastapleton

Be Careful what you wish for….Conrad Black should keep his Order of Canada

Blog
After following the debate closely, I do not believe that Conrad Black should be divested of the Order of Canada. The temptation to remove  him from the Order is palpable. He is a convicted felon in the US. He renounced his Canadian citizenship. And now, he has written yet another tome where his self-serving weaknesses are bared for all to inspect. He is not a very likeable fellow when viewed from afar. His personal history reads like the prayer book in the church of bombast. His language is circumlocutory and tortuous. While the rest of us move from the dining room to the parlour, Mr. Black “repairs”. He is not the same as you and I. Worse, he appears to think that he is better than us....clearly no plan to…
Read More
29Mar 2012 by johnastapleton

Welcome to our relaunch!

Blog
[caption id="attachment_25" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="(click to view)"][/caption]   Welcome to the relaunch of the brand-new OpenPolicyOntario.com. Last June, Yahoo Geocities, my web host, decided to freeze all websites that used Microsoft Front Page because Microsoft stopped supporting Front Page. No warnings - no nothing. So it has taken me until now to relaunch and there is much new material. Watch this space for more comments, opinions and items of interest.
Read More