The election is over - anybody notice it in the...

2007-10-16T06:32:00.000-04:00
The election is over - anybody notice it in the first place. What a bore and snoozefest. So what can we expect in the next four years?
Nothing that hasn't happened over the last four, in other words bland and boring politics that will ignore the real issue of our area. -- Ben Burd

Wally Keeler:
The sharks are circling; they smell the blood seeping from the killer issue of rising propertytaxes. Yep that’s the crack-cocaine of political issues that will divert the general populace from their reality-show mainlining and hip pain.

Politics is bland and boring because people are generally comfortable with their lives. My 60years of life in southern Ontario has been one of freedom and prosperity unprecedented inhuman history; I expect it to continue and improve.

Julian Simon (1932-98) renown Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland asserted,”the material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today’s Western living standards. I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse.”

In the days prior to my vanishing virility, I used to travel into the communist dictatorshits ofEastern Europe on assorted smuggling operations and performance/exhibits. The politics wasnot bland and boring – politics was exciting because it was dangerous. The stakes were high – loss of freedom (such as it was) and possible loss of life. To be fair, my freedom and life, was hardly in jeopardy, even when I was there – the worse I could expect was to be slapped,punched and then tossed out into the free world.

I took these risks because I was a Boomer, a child born into freedom and prosperity, and Ienjoyed freedom for free – I never paid a price for it. So I love this world where the killer issue is property tax and where people wax apoplectic over bozos at traffic lights. There are hundredsof millions of people throughout the world that would be willing to risk life and limb to suffer from such issues. All too often our politics is a gregarious whine; “There’s a fly in my crepe suset.”

Ben Burd said:
This should upset people: MP Garth Turner has published here a story about the Conservativeparty's data mining operations. Very interesting and bit freaky, the Harpercrits making enemies lists and noting info about joe blow. Another instance of 1984 coming around to haunt us.

Wally Keeler:
This is hardly an issue. Horrors! Big Brother is watching. Yep, sure is. I am sniffing paranoia inthe air. Well, here is the reel news, Little Brother Watches Back. I can data mine to my heart’scontent. The general public can do the same thing. This is a good thing. Transparency. The young are the Wizards of Pod. When cell phones cheaply broadcast to a world audience, and the world stashes the images on millions of hard drives for all sort of subversive purposes, this is a good thing. When wrist watches can broadcast the indiscretions of politicians, priests,police, and blog meisters, we are well-informed.

I can dive into the data mines of human rights orgs, Facebook, Youtube, and other assorted minefields of personal and impersonal records. Shakespeare asserted that all the world’s a stage – in the 21st century all the world is a tv studio and everyone is a potential papparazi. Can you feel the digital love?

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The election is over - anybody notice it in the...