hmm

yummy railroad dust =D

@O0oO0oOO0ooO Haha, wow!

That's fantastic.

Too bad it has already become a bit of a tourist attraction.

why would they open a market right next to a railroad?

they cannot sell anything to passengers on trains

Because it's the only open space nearby?

Or as an act, to attract tourists?

I guess so

I love Asia!

Although I have only spent about an hour of my life there...

I like trains

and especially Thomas

I hate Korea because if you do not go to military

(like my brother) they do not treat you same as other koreans

and tell you to go back to your home country even though I am Korean

North Korea [edit]
North Korea in 1993 had a mandatory military service, for all men, of 120 months as normal troops and 156 months as special forces.

that sucks =(

120 months!!

@Cerberus This. I fully expect something like this only not in Windows 2000. If you ever order fries in a restaurant, your health insurance premiums go up. You're already being tracked, this is just the logical (and logically absurd) extension.

@O0oO0oOO0ooO Huh, I thought you were South-Korean? Now what is your home country?

@Robusto Yeah, exactly.

If you let insurance companies set their own prices (which is luckily not really allowed here).

@Cerberus I am, but I was just looking at how many years do North Koreans have to serve in military

Ahh OK.

do you know Erlang stands for Ericsson language

?

so @Kit I am now into E2M2 of Heretic. it barely looks familiar to me.

Finally, the mayor of Toronto admits to using crack cocaine

> The name "Erlang", attributed to Bjarne Däcker, has been understood as a reference to Danish mathematician and engineer Agner Krarup Erlang, and (initially at least) simultaneously as a portmanteau of "Ericsson Language".

hey cornbread how goes

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Should I be shocked?

@Cerberus did you watch the video?

Not yet...

also have you heard of this little story?

@video Hah. Hah.

I have not?

By the way, everybody sniffs cocaine here and pops pills.

Well, not everyone, but I know many perfectly normal people.

And they don't do it every week.

And I believe the prosecutor's guidelines say that personal use is not prosecuted.

But anyway.

Is the little story about the silly use of the phrase "crack cocaine" by your mayor?

so the story is, a couple of local drug dealers have been shopping around a video of the mayor smoking crack and being an ass. (the latter is not so surprising). They wanted $200,000 for it. They showed the video to two reporters from the Toronto Star, who declined to buy it, and to the editor of Gawker, who started an Indiegogo campaing to raise $200,000 (called Crackstarter, and it did raise the money)

no, crack cocaine is different than cocaine.

Is it injected/heated?

I always forget which is which.

it is smoked.

I don't know all the details.

So heated. In a joint thingy?

anyway, here cocaine is illegal and if the mayor were on video smoking it he would probably be convicted of a crime and forced to resign.

So anyway, why would Gawker want this video?

since then, his failure to address the allegations in a meaningful way have been rather hilarious to watch.

Yeah, smoking it on video wouldn't be a good idea here either.

Gawker wants to publish the video I guess.

But what are the allegations?

but they cannot get a hold of the drug dealers.

The video is a joke, so...?

No, the real video of him smoking crack, which 3 people claim to have seen.

Ohh!

I see.

2 toronto star reporters, and the gawker editor

I thought it was that video you showed. OK.

That's a pretty weird story. Why would he let himself be recorded?

The other day the mayor issued his one and only statement about all of this, which boiled down to "I do not use crack cocaine" and "I cannot comment on a video which I have not seen or does not exist"

He's an ass, that's why

I see. He looks pretty awful.

He's a spiteful bully.

Also fairly useless as a mayor.

If those reporters have seen him smoke it, then it's probably true?

Anyway, the story gets weirder. in the last week 5 of his top staff have quit or been fired.

Huh.

@Cerberus yes, but now, nobody can get in touch with the drug dealers.

Also, there are allegations that he told several of his staffers that he knew where the video was.

How could he know?

he is reported to have specifically mentioned apartment 1701 and 1703 in a certain (unreported building) on Dixon road.

which is pretty fucking specific.

So the gawker guy has $200k he wants to give to the drug dealers for the video, but they can't be reached. meanwhile the mayor's staff are fleeing in droves and the mayor is trying to pretend that nothing is happening.

Why are the staff fleeing anyway?

The story doesn't make sense.

Has anyone investigated the address?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Are you sure?

Hello.

I'm not an expert, but I don't believe one smokes crack.

The mayor spins this as just another attack from the Toronto Star. (It is a left-leaning paper and he is hardcore right-wing). But the mayor's brother is also a city councilor, and those two are like joined at the hip. So funny enough, a right-wing paper just this week published a story they'd been working on alleging that the councilor brother used to sell drugs.

Actually, "crack-smoking whore" sounds like a familiar phrase.

@Cerberus yes, apparently those appartments are a sort of open-house where tons of people hang out.

Oh, and I have just checked wikipedia and it disagrees with me.

Sorry, but that's what came up.

I will go back into my hole and shut up now.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I see.

@DavidWallace Well, the allegations are that he was smoking it. in a crack pipe.

Yes, I understand now. Thank you for educating me in these ways.

Very sincere.

His lawyer said "well, assuming the video were real, who knows what he was doing in the video? He could be smoking tobacco". And then Jon Stewart added "or crack. yes, it could be crack."

Who is Jon Steward again?

anyway it's a pretty hilarious story, except for the fact that it means that toronto city hall is even more disrupted than normal.

Not that American comedian?

@Cerberus the host of the Daily show

@Cerberus yes. This story has gone international.

I have never seen it, that I know.

OK.

At least 3 US talk/comedy shows like that one have made fun of the mayor.

He's an easy target.

It truly is a bizarre story.

A certain animal comes to mind.

It's so bizarre that it doesn't even make sense.

@Cerberus oh, gods yes. He is such a buffoon. If he had just admitted to smoking the crack, this probably would have barely registered on the scale of dumb-ass things he's done.

Another question is, could the video have been doctored?

Like, someone once asked him if he'd ever smoked pot.

he said no.

Then it was revealed that he was arrested for a DUI in Florida and found to have pot in his car. He claims he forgot.

AND HE WAS ELECTED ANYWAY.

Heh.

bunch of fucking idiot voters.

To be honest, I couldn't care less about his drug use: he should have been fired for being a bad mayor...

Or not elected, for being a liar.

Or whatever one does with mayors.

@Cerberus Well, see, there were several events lately where it was alleged that he was drunk, or otherwise impaired, and yet he denied having had any alcohol. dun dun dun!

he was convicted of a conflict of interest which should have had him removed from office, but he got off on a technicality.

So why is he so popular?

It's like not only is he fat on the inside, but he's covered in oil so that nothing sticks to him.

Heh.

Fat on the inside?

Is that like, inside this skinny girl, there's a fat girl trying to get out?

@DavidWallace Of course one shouldn't lie, but I would say that is the least of his bad qualities.

@Cerberus he's popular with idiots. unfortunately, nothing he does reduces his popularity with them. he could be murdering prostitutes and eating their dead faces, on camera, while driving and texting, and his supporters would claim he's cleaning up the city.

WHILE TEXTING!??

@DavidWallace fat on the inside of his skin. cuz he's pretty fat. Which I don't really hold against him, though he is pretty fat.

Oh, my.

It's funny how we don't feel guilty for discriminating against people only if we already hate them (I'm no different).

If I'm going to vote for a mayor, I would like to believe that he/she will keep his/her election promises. Knowing that the person is a liar doesn't exactly help with that. Whereas I can forgive the occasional foray into alcohol or drug use.

@Cerberus yeah. Actually he's been caught on camera driving while using his cell phone, which is illegal here, but the police are ignoring him. He was also caught reading while driving on a major highway, at speed, and one police officer posted on the police facebook page "Mr. Ford, please allow the city to hire a driver for you before someone is killed", but then that post disappeared.

@DavidWallace He has actually kept one election promise, which is to reduce the city budget. That he has done. But it's like if a weight-loss expert promised to help you shed 50 pounds, and then he hacks off your legs.

@DavidWallace Well, everyone is disingenuous once in a while. And politicians are rarely able to carry out the programmes on which they were elected, owing to many different reasons.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Umm and what do the police say?

Yes, but publicly saying something that is provably false goes beyond simple disingenuity.

He has no ability to lead or inspire people. He basically plays the role of the opposition to the city council, which is increasingly against him. He can't get his own things through council because they're asinine, so he just tries to force council to do nothing at all.

@Cerberus The police officially haven't said anything of substance. They are reportedly looking into the drug thing, but who knows how hard.

@DavidWallace Yes, it ventures into stupidity...okay, it's pretty bad, but that conflict of interest Mr Shiny mentioned would be worse.

Perhaps. We don't know what it is.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And the driving while calling?

Driving while texting is somewhat more disturbing.

And reading the paper.

=D I love when I am able to read things like

mamedev.org/devwiki/…

The conflict of interest was really stupid. He runs a football charity: you can buy gear so that underprivileged kids can play football (instead of join gangs, I guess). He was soliciting donations from lobbyists on city letterhead. That is forbidden by the rules and he continued to do it despite being told not to do that. Then, council voted that he had to repay the money. Then he organized a vote against that decision, spoke out on his own behalf and voted on his own behalf. That is illegal.

@DavidWallace Is telling a lie when forced to speak so much worse than concealing the information and not speaking?

while most of my Korean friends cannot read them =D

---- except that council exceeded their authority in forcing him to replay the money. So the vote didn't matter because it was moot.

I am so glad because like 3 or 4 years ago I could barely speak English

So he didn't get kicked out of office, because even though he violated several rules including the conflict of interest rule, it was for a moot conflict.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Again, why has nobody reported him, and why isn't he prosecuted?

@Cerberus It depends. We are speaking far too abstractly for either of us to be able to answer that yes or no.

I thought the council thing was your technicality.

@Cerberus no, he was convicted in court.

@DavidWallace I suppose.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 OK.

he never learns. he feels like the rules don't apply to him.

the guy lies about everything. anything. makes up stuff. whatever.

but there are so many mayoral candidates that the vote splits and he won with a plurality.

and it could happen again.

How does that work?

well, the candidate with the most votes wins.

How can the vote split?

If there are a million votes?

This is why STV is the best voting system. He wouldn't stand a chance.

like, if rob ford (the mayor) runs against two good candidates, and 35% of the city support ford no matter what, that only leaves 32.5% for each of the other candidates.

@DavidWallace Quoi?

@DavidWallace yeah, well, electoral reform is a pipe dream for now.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ah OK. There are no second and third rounds if no candidate gets 50+ %?

@Cerberus right

I see.

And no secondary votes?

No elective alliances, for lack of a better word?

no, just first-past-the-post. you tick of a box of who you want.

Odd.

the system is very basic.

@DavidWallace check it out now if you'd like.

@Cerberus Single Transferable Vote.

and for municipal government we don't have things like parties, etc. everyone just runs on their own.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Ooh, OK, Kristina, I will.

(Here, parties in Parliament can agree to give excess votes (more than they need for x seats, but fewer than for x+1) to an allied party, if they have fewer excess votes than the other party.)

@DavidWallace Ah, does that work with secondary and tertiary preferences?

@Cerberus interesting

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Even for councils?

well, our municipal elections are very basic. there is a council, and the mayor, and that's it.

That's all?

there can be any number of candidates for the councilors or the mayor.

No aldermen, or whatcallyouthem?

um, we also have school-board trustees, but who knows who those people are.

Why don't the national parties try to get elected in councils?

aldermen?

The "executive" body of the city, headed by a mayor.

er, our "aldermen" are called "councilors". that's all.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Did you check how it works in a narrower-than-normal window?

We have a council with councillors, who are elected, and they pick a few aldermen, I believe. The mayor is appointed by cabinet, in most cities, but not all.

@Cerberus I'm not sure why there are no parties. Frankly I prefer it with no parties. keeps it simpler. also the structure of city council is typically such that a party system would just get in the way.

You could say it's overkill.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Maybe parties are bad in city councils, I haven't thought about it.

@Cerberus hm, your mayors are appointed? I find that strange.

But how do you determine whom to vote for then?

@Cerberus Yes. Suppose 40% vote for Ford as their first choice; 32% vote for Chrysler as their first choice, Buick as their second choice and Ford as their third choice; 28% vote for Buick as their first choice, Chrysler as their second choice and Ford as their third choice. Then Buick gets eliminated and the second choice of the 28% gets counted. So Chrysler ends up being mayor, not Ford.

@Cerberus most cities probably don't have such large councils.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, yeah? Why?

@Cerberus I dunno. I'm used to them being elected. I don't like them being appointed. I guess it depends on their role.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I think most cities have ehh maybe 20 or 40 councillors here? I really don't know, actually. Maybe at some point aldermen were/are a few senior councillors.

It solves the problem of the anti-Ford vote being split among multiple competitors.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What kind of different roles could they have? I don't know what to think about elected mayors. Maybe it could be better? Do you feel it works well in general?

@DavidWallace Right, that's what I was thinking of. It certainly could be a good option.

The only thing is that we simply don't have elections for a single person.

It works for any number of candidates.

I mean, for any number of seats.

The "alliances" of our parties are much like that system, except that here, the party determines your secondary vote, not you.

@Cerberus Yes, I think it works well in general. But it really depends on how cities work. For example, at any council vote, the mayor only gets one vote here. he's like a councilor that represents the whole city. But then he also has some special powers that nobody else has. I don't fully understand it.

@DavidWallace But it is much less important if you have 150 seats.

Umm, I am using terminology badly.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Wait, your councillors represent parts of the city?

@Cerberus yes, the city is split up into different wards.

so I get to vote for one council seat and the mayor.

I see. We don't have that either.

We have no districts in any elections.

so larger cities have more councilors.

oh, haha, all our elections have districts.

Suppose your city is just a single electorate that will have the top 10 candidates of 50 appointed as city councillors. You can still use STV. You continue eliminating people and reassigning their supporters' votes until 10 are left.

But our big cities do have more councillors.

that's one reason why it's so hard to get representative elections. because of gerrymandering.

How do you mean?

I know what g. is.

@DavidWallace Yes, sure. But it makes much less of a difference.

well, the point is, nobody in power wants election reform, because that keeps them elected, because of gerrymandreing.

Yeah OK, in that vein.

and even simple election reform which helps reduce vote splitting in a single riding doesn't help with national imbalances in votes.

Electoral reform should always be subject to a people's referendum.

s/national/multi-district/

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How do you mean?

@DavidWallace I suppose that's a good principle.

The only problem then is you get lobby groups who influence the public towards whichever system THEY prefer. In New Zealand, in 1996, we introduced MMP for our parliamentary elections, because it had the strongest group of people pushing it; not because it was the best available option.

MM Who?

@Cerberus well, right now we have one strong right-wing party and at least two strong left-wing parties. So STV in a single district could de-split the left-wing vote and elect the more popular left-wing candidate over the right-wing candidate... but it doesn't address the fact that a party might, nationally, have a significant fraction of the voters and still end up with no elected candidates.

Mixed Member Proportional Representation. And the way it was implemented was a complete disaster.

Our two major parties (centre left and centre right) ended up with about 45% of the seats each, and the third biggest party (centre crazy) were left to choose, with their 8% (or thereabouts) which party they wanted to go into coalition with. So their leader held the entire country to ransom for several months, while he got the leaders of the two big parties to take turns trying to bribe him.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, the only way is to make sure no geographical unit in the system has a winner-take-all system. So no districts with a single candidate each.

@DavidWallace sounds like it is working as intended.

@DavidWallace I don't know how MMP works, but...why couldn't the two big parties collaborate, as in the previous German cabinet?

we used to have a centre-right party. They were okay. Now they are gone and replaced by a right-crazy party. they are homophobic as a party line but at least they are not the Golden Dawn.

@Cerberus The whole point of democracy is that you can choose left-wing or right-wing, is it not? If there's just one governing group that is both left and right, whom can you vote for to get rid of it?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The Greek party?

@DavidWallace No!

@Mechanicalsnail It shouldn't be about left and right at all!

@Cerberus What is this No! party?

That's what happens when you don't have proportional representation: it boils down to left and right, and you have less choice.

In New Zealand, people who don't want a right wing government vote for a left wing party, and people who don't want a left wing government vote for a right wing party.

Since we have one large party on each wing, this is easy for everyone.

How about if they voted for a party that wanted most of the things they wanted, instead of a semi-choice between only two molochs?

anyway canada's problem is that is different layers of government are somewhat imbalanced. eg our toronto government's budget is bigger than some provincial budgets.

I hate to propose the system of my own country as an example, and it has its problems, but look at this:

@Cerberus It doesn't matter who people vote for; it matters who gets elected.

@Cerberus What coalitions?

@Mechanicalsnail Certainly, and that is part of the same problem.

@Mechanicalsnail What do you mean? Those are the parties in our lower house.

OK, but our parties don't look like that.

Because you don't have proportional rep.

@Cerberus The problem is that the government is formed by a party. that implies that you need a party in order to get stuff done. getting elected is hard, and expensive, and so there aren't many parties. and since there is no proportional representation, voting for new parties is usually futile.

@Cerberus well, they do now.

Interesting plot: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dutchparlseats2.png

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, so that's why I am advocating prop. rep.

We have a big blue one, a big red one, a handful of tiny ultra-extreme blue ones, a handful of tiny ultra-extreme red ones, a moderate-sized green one, and a handful of centre side-with-anyone ones.

@Cerberus oh, sure, lots of people want it, except those who have the ability to make it happen, i.e. the government, who by definition got there with the current system and are happy with it.

@Mechanicalsnail Pretty, huh?

like, the Canadian Green Party would probably love electoral reform. They can't get a break at all. their first MP (the party leader) was finally elected last time. since she is alone, she doesn't even get party status and is officially "independant".

@DavidWallace That's not so bad.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah that can be a problem.

@Cerberus Correction: It doesn't matter who people vote for, nor does it matter (much) who gets elected. It matters what policies they enact.

I guess it's OK now that our green party is saner than it used to be.

But before that, we used to always hope that EITHER the blue vote OR the red vote would be big enough to win the election; rather than splitting evenly and allowing the centre lunatics to decide which side they favour.