Free-for-all, Easter Weekend of April 11-12, 2009
Posted April 11, 2009 by Sacha Peter - Link
Category: Irrelevant and Irreverent
Comments (12)
This is the “weekend post”, which is intended to be more for general conversation.
This weekend’s conversation starter will be: What features can this site implement to make it better over the next month? The last couple weeks have seen a dramatic increase of visits to the site. I had one suggestion to add the links on the top bar (“About”, “Candidates”, “Platforms”, etc.) on the right-hand sidebar, and I will likely implement this. What else would you like to see on this site to make it a more comprehensive election resource?
Suggestions are appreciated, although note that due to my own personal time constraints that implementation may not occur.
Feel free to post your comments on any topic dealing with provincial politics – it can be off topic as well and you will not incur the wrath of moderation unless if you post outright spam.
You site is already one of the best (there are not that many though) on BC politics.
As indicated, going bigger on “reference links” will be helpful.
How a bout an “issues” section. There is already one in the Categories – but it does not due service, as it is intermixed with tags and non-issues.
Basically the direction I suggest is to go heavy on reference, issues, and debates. And in a sense becoming an “aggregator” and central clearinghouse of issues – i.e. linking to issues on other blogs.
Sort of a blog of blogs, or a super-blog.
The idea is that if I wish to find out all I can lets say on the IPP issue as it relates to the election, I can come here and find all I need.
Lots of debates are taking place on the net. But it is hard to get basic information on the facts underlying the issues, and one can’t keep on visiting multiple blogs to find out what is happening etc.
A study by an international expert on greenhouse-gas emissions predicts the NDP’s environmental platform would eliminate 60,000 jobs around the province.
http://www.theprovince.com/Business/environment+plan+would+cause+losses+Study/1485957/story.html
Jaccard has been a Liberal Party hack for a few years now.
Chris,
Please substantiate your claim.
Mark Jaccard is a world renown environmental economist sitting on such boards as the IPCC and The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.
I imagine that he has been an advocate of market wide carbon pricing long before the Liberals brought it in.
Chris – you dont make sense. Just because Jaccard called the union paid liar “Prof.” (my behind) John Calvert a “propagandist” does not mean Jaccard is wrong.
BTW, Marc Jaccard has a Nobel prize – while John Calvert goes and sucks ice.
Remember people – attacking the author does not mean what he is saying is incorrect.
Here is his paper:
http://www.sfu.ca/pamr/files/spring2009/BC_NDP_Climate_Policy_Apr_10-2009.pdf
My quick take is that there isn’t nearly enough information in his paper for a third party to objectively construct a “model” to indicate the results he is claiming.
I’d be inclined to agree with those that think this report was a political smear job. I might write on this later.
i like how jaccard claims to have won the nobel peace prize, the ipcc as a group won the prize, not the individual members, he’s as much a nobel laureate as i am—quote from someone else
Jaccard might be a smart guy, but what he is publishing isn’t science, it’s politics. No serious scientist would single out a political party during an election. I understand he favours a carbon tax over cap-and-trade, and that’s a reasonable position to take. But his study (released days after the NDP’s platform was released) was an attack on the NDP, not cap-and-trade. At the same time, Jaccard hasn’t said a word about how woefully inadequate the $10/tonne carbon tax has been at reducing C02 emissions in BC, or how the Liberals continue to fund massive highway expansion projects (hello Gateway) that will lead to sprawl, auto dependence, and increases in C02 emissions.
That is why I can’t take the man seriously.
I think a carbon tax is a good idea, but it needs to be increased substantially or the money needs to be put into public transit (not income tax reductions). As is it is as good as useless. Show of hands: who has decided to leave the car at home (even once) because the 2.4 cents/litre gas tax?
Chris,
Thank you, this is much clearer.
You may be right that this article was written with a unnecessary partisan slant, but I wonder how much of this was Jaccard’s or the media’s slant.
I agree that the current carbon tax is not effective, but I agree with it in principle and I would not like to see it scraped; I would like to see it improved.
And I agree that some money from the tax should go into green infrastructure, but we also need to boaster the effects of a carbon tax by reclining the money back into the economy by lowering income tax.
Both by building green infrastructure (facilitating green lifestyle options) and offering more economic mobility to those who choose to use less carbon we will start to see a shift to a carbon use level which is manageable in the long term. And we should be investing in green infrastructure anyway, the carbon tax is only one way of many to help fund these projects.
Cap and trade would cut down on Co2.
A tax is a tax, which go to Gordon Campbell’s pet projects.
The rich win, the poor lose and the Liberals (CONSERVATIVES) made
should of it.
Another Mustel poll out this morning showing the Libs with a 17% lead:
Lib: 52% (+-0%)
NDP: 35% (-1%)
Grn: 12% (+-0%)
Other: 1% (+-0)
http://www.mustelgroup.com/pdf/20090414.pdf
Basically, Mustel’s poll results have been stable compared with their last two polls (16% spread, 14% spread.)
Compare Mustel’s current results with the same period in 2005 showing a 6%/8% spread and 5% spread in favour of the Libs just before voting day (and that result was bang-on), one can extrapolate that the Libs have a 10% higher spread this time around. Not much changed during the 2005 election and we will see if thzat’s the case this time around.
http://www.mustelgroup.com/pr/20050510.htm
In response to Glass’ first comment.
I tried putting up the “reference” links, but it looked “wrong” from a design perspective to have duplicate links. I think the top links will have to have more emphasis and that means I’ll have to play around with the site template (which I’ve already completely gutted from what it originally was) to do this.
However, your suggestion about an “issues” page is excellent. I will adopt this and try to keep it updated. We’ll see how it works.
The user interface here is very hacked together, if I had more of an artistic sense I could make it look better, but I don’t.