flaschenpost

The countdown

Here's another advantage to a simple plurality system in a country of many time zones: it makes for pretty exciting election TV. In particular this year when for the first time stations are allowed to report on eastern results before the polls in the western provinces close. No complicatin' calculatin' necessary before results can be announced. Just quick and easy counting. Riding per riding. I can barely look away from the TV apparatus it's so captivating.
Also, let me note that this is an election day of few clouds. The CBC shows reporters in Halifax, Toronto, Montréal, Calgary, and Vancouver, and everywhere it's just as sunny and gorgeous as you can imagine.

Electoral systems

Today is election day in Canada. Questions about electoral reform were part of the discussion over the last few weeks. TV stations and newspapers have talked and talked about young-voter apathy. Some parties have asked Canadians to vote strategically, while many voters expressed their unhappiness about that. On a few occasions I've tried to explain how I think the German electoral system works better in regard to these issues, but I don't think I did a particularly good job. Let me try to do better here.
In German federal elections every voter has two votes, i.e. makes two crosses. They are called the first vote and the second vote (see image: Erststimme, left, and Zweitstimme, right). The first vote goes to a candidate in one's riding, the second to a party. That means that parties have two ways of nominating candidates: one is to nominate candidates in specific ridings (called direct mandate), the other is to draw up a province-wide list with your party's most important people. To maximize the outcome, the candidates on the party list will also run in their ridings. But if they don't win their ridings, they can still get in provided they are high enough on the list.
The second vote is the more important of the two: if a party gets 20% of the second votes, they'll also get 20% of seats in parliament. But how are the numbers of first and second vote counted together? That's the complicated part which contains lots of rules and draws lots of criticism. Here's a simplified explanation. (1) The number of seats in parliament is divided according to the percentages of the second votes, i.e. divided proportionally. (2) Parliament has more seats than the country has ridings. In fact, there are twice as many seats as there are ridings, 598 to 299. Everyone who gets a direct mandate through first votes has a guaranteed seat. That fills half the seats in parliament. The rest of the seats goes to candidates off the partys' lists. It's essentially a system of proportional representation: the number of seats each party gets is determined proportionally (through the second vote), while the distribution of those seats within the party is a mix of first-past-the-post (first vote) and proportional representation.
The second vote gives German parties a number of advantages compared to Canadian ones. It's a way to insure that your key politicians don't have to fret over whether they'll get elected in their local ridings. It won't happen that a party leader has to run his/her faction from outside parliament, as happened recently to Joe Clark, and a little longer ago to Preston Manning. Or, someone like Anne McLellan, as a key minister and deputy prime minister, wouldn't have to worry about whether she'll manage to get a few votes more than the Conservative candidate in her riding.
The two-vote system also gives more influence to every voter. In many Canadian ridings today's race is between two main candidates, with an additional two or three other candidates who don't stand a chance to win. Those who'd like to vote for one of these candidates won't elect anyone to parliament. Instead, their vote will indirectly support the candidate who's going to win. In some polls, the Green Party is predicted to get 5% of the popular vote. But they might not get any seats. In that case, those who voted for the Greens don't have anyone of their party of choice representing them. In Germany, a party which gets over the 5% hurdle via second votes can send list candidates to parliament. 5% of the popular vote amount to 30 out of 598 seats. Technically, your party goes to parliament if it gets either 5% of the second vote or 3 direct mandates. But as we can see in the case of Canada's Greens, it's easier to get 5% than to win 3 seats.
As for vote-splitting and strategic voting, let's assume you really like the Green Party, but there's no way your Green candidate is going to win his/her seat. Also, you want to make sure that the Conservative candidate doesn't win in your riding; you'd rather the Liberal candidate gets elected. In Germany, you could divide your vote. With your first vote you could vote for the Liberal candidate in your riding, with your second you can vote Green.
An increasing number of German voters votes just like that. In the 2002 election the Greens, for instance, got 5.6% of all first votes but 8.6% of all second votes. Voters tended to support the direct candidates of the two big parties with their first vote because they were more likely to win the riding seat (41.9% for the Social Democrats and 32.1% for the Christian Democrats). However, the two big parties got fewer second votes (38.5% for the SPD and 29.5% for the CDU) because that's where many voters support smaller parties.
As a voter, I like the German system better. It gives me more options and makes my votes feel more relevant. It might even make young or apathetic voters more willing to vote. But it's got its problems too. For one, the German election code is hopelessly complicated and produces all kinds of weird effects (such as overhang votes and negative weight of votes). Also, systems of proportional representation tend to produce too many minority governments. For instance, the current German government is involved in a whole number of coalition issues and debates, and as a result rather incapable of putting through some of the more serious reforms.

You know you're from Vancouver if...

I have to get this out of my system. Yesterday, I wasted quite a bit of time by following Wolfangel's instruction to search for a "you know you're from..." list. She has two, one on Canada and one on Quebec. I found two Vancouver ones that have been copied and linked many times. But they're really written for people outside Vancouver. To make fun of us. Nothing wrong with that (and list #1 has some very funny parts). But as a result, my mind has been preoccupied with finding insider info that short-term visitors wouldn't be likely to know or even understand. Something more in the spirit of Lil's list on Jersey. Ah, take it away from me:

1) You know what these acronyms mean: PNE, VPL, VAG, YVR.
2) You know the names and locations of at least three beaches, and could give a speech on the cultural difference between Wreck and Kitsilano Beach.
3) You know what a binner is.
4) If you hear that someone is doing the Grind, you know they’re not at work.
5) You've had California roll for lunch.
6) You can tell the difference between fresh, previously frozen, and farmed salmon, and you have a philosophy about them.
7) You don't even listen when the forecast announces "chance of showers."
8) If there's a day of snowfall, however, you consider not going to work.
9) You know that West Vancouver, the West End, and the Westside are three different places.
10) You know what an orca looks like.
11) The phrase "someone's shooting in the alley" doesn't make you think of guns.
12) You can't imagine what a front yard would look like without green grass and green leaves.
13) You had a barbecue at the beach.
14) You've strolled along the Drive.
15) You can always tell where north is.

You tell me which one's you don't like and what you'd add.

Fake degrees

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a long article on people who run unaccredited universities, often off-shore, to sell fake degrees. Diploma mills, in other words. The upsetting thing is that a couple of their prime culprits are professors themselves. Business profs, to be precise. Their home institutions emphasize that it's got nothing to do with them, it's just a private hobby of one of their faculty. They don't seem to be particularly bothered. Nor are some of the people who employ people with fake degrees. Very surreal.
There are hundreds of professionals with fake diplomas, and in high places too. Such as Michael Davis, member of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, Charles Abell, Assistant Secretary of Defense, Patricia Walker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. Universities Diaries mentions even more famous names: Isaiah Berlin, and possibly Albert Schweitzer and the Pope. But she doesn't say where she got her information, and I couldn't find any news sources.
Ah, to what has the world come. Here we are, thinking serious thoughts and working away at pages of carefully written text. Slogging honestly toward hard-earned degrees. There's some hope, though. Oregon, for instance, has established an Office of Degree Authorization. In Oregon it's illegal to use a degree from an unaccredited institution as a credential for the purposes of employment or professional reputation. Fake degrees cause inequity as many people with honest accomplishments are passed by when fake-degree holders get jobs and promotions, says Alan Contreras, the head of the office.
For commentary, see also Little Professor.

Shake

Paul shook Chantal Hébert's hand, just a couple of minutes ago at a luncheon. I'm envious. The commentary by her and Allan Gregg on the National is our favourite news feature. Can't really speak about her columns, don't read the Toronto Star. But as a political commentator on TV she's marvelous.

Turtle post

Very funny. Via Brian Leiter:

Now I wonder: does this mean that some Texans torture turtles by putting them on posts? That wouldn't be funny at all.

Inventive Gardening

We had a very warm day today. The snapdragons on our balcony are now in bloom. So, how about some reports from the world of higher gardening.
In the photo you can see Daniel Spoerri. He's standing in his garden in Tuscany which one can visit. It's 80 km south of Siena, at the foot of Monte Amiata. Actually, it's more like a park. Full of work by him and by other contemporary artists--landscape art, installations, sculptures. If you're not going to wander around Tuscany soon, you can do a tour of the park online, look at images of the sculptures, and read about the artists.
Then there's the poison garden that's scheduled to open this summer at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland. Some of the plants will be in a kind of cage so visitors can't touch them. Some might be hard to obtain. Many of them are illegal, and the Duchess of Northumberland is apparently negotiating with the Home Office for permission to import and grow these plants. The garden might feature plants such as belladonna (deadly nightshade), henbane, mandrake (mayapple), opium poppies, nepata, monk's pepper, darnel, castor oil plants, marijuana, poison hemlock, coca, and laburnum (golden chain). I don't know half of these, but there are some good places to find out about them.

How was my day, you ask?

Busy. And many things are still to do. But I'll use some time to reflect on some of my adventures. About time I wrote another blogpost anyway. I attended UBC's e-learning conference today. I listened to a panel on using online tools for collaborative writing assignments in engineering, and took away some ideas for doing similar things in an English class.
Then I heard my colleagues Mike, Tyson, Karen, and Elizabeth speak about their experiences with using weblogs to facilitate class discussion in first-year English. They put together an excellent presentation, which spurred a lively discussion. They use weblogs in a straightforward way: posting questions and suggestions for discussion on their blogs, and asking their students to comment. Nothing as technically challenging as setting up each student with his/her own blog. And they've seen very good results. There's been a vitalization of class discussions; discussions branch into topics that could not be covered in the classroom; and teacher and students get to know each other better.
It was interesting how often questions about copyright came up in the discussion after the presentation. There were also questions about how to ensure that, if the post is signed with, say, "Molly," it's really the person by the name of Molly who's taking your class. One audience member asked: if you had the choice between WebCT (where posting and reading would be limited to students enrolled in the class) and a weblog, which would you choose? Suggesting that WebCT protects the instructor from worrying about the copyright of students' comments, or about comment spam, hoaxes, or trolls. It's sad that these questions are such a big issue. They're just comments, you know. They're short. It's unlikely they'll contain patentable theories. I like it when classroom discussions move into a bigger world, away from the password-protected course website. It's good that the act of discussing something in writing becomes less of a jump-through-the-hoop exercise for the sole benefit of the person who does the grading. And if it takes the odd anonymous comment to remind students of it, so what.