Desensitizing youth with first person shooting games

What role do first persons shooting games like 'Call of Duty' play in desensitizing our youth to real-life violence? I came across this YouTube clip of Call of Duty juxtaposed with the real-world footage and audio that was released by WikiLeaks. Very disturbing.

Representation in Canada for 2008 General Election

This is a follow-up to Friday nights post, I thought this visual would more clearly demonstrate the voter representation.

• The label is the percentage voter turnout in each province/territory
• The size of the circle is representative of population
• The colour indicates how well the voters in that province were represented by having the candidate of their choice elected. Green is better (>50%) and red is poorer (<50%) representation. The darker the colour the more extreme, so a dark green would be the preferred good representation.

Somewhere on my to do list is to collect this information for several general elections and view it over time.

Do we have representative democracy in Canada?

In a true representative democracy, all Canadians should have equal access to power with every vote carrying equal weight. Unfortunately we appear very far from that situation. My analysis below is based on the 2008 General Election as that is the most recent full data set. I did not use the recent by-elections as the turnout for them was considerably lower than the general election. Most of the data is presented in pairs purple/blue, where the purple is generally getter a better deal than the blue.

• Richard Nadeau (Quebec-Bloc Québécois) won the riding of Gatineau with only 29.2% of the votes (15189 out of 52098).
• Kevin Sorenson (Alberta-Conservative) won the riding of Crowfoot with 82.0% of the votes (39342 out of 47958).

• Leona Aglukkaq (Nunavut-Conservative) won the riding of Nunavut with the least votes; only 2815 votes, which represents 34.9% of the popular vote in the riding.
• Jason Kenney (Alberta-Conservative) won the riding of Calgary Southeast with the most votes; 41425 votes, which represents 73.9% of the popular vote in the riding.

• The riding with the largest population is Brampton West in the province of Ontario with 170422 people.
• The riding with the smallest population is Labrador in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador with only 26364 people. 
• That is a ratio of  6.5:1.

• The riding with the largest number of registered electors is Oak Ridges--Markham in the province of Ontario with 136755 electors.
• The riding with the smallest number of registered electors is Nunavut in the territory of Nunavut with only 17089 electors. 
• That is a ratio of  8.0:1.

• The riding with the smallest percentage of registered electors is York West in the province of Ontario with 57.4% electors.
• The riding with the largest percentage of registered electors is Québec in the province of Quebec with 85.4% electors.

• The riding of Labrador in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador had the fewest valid ballots cast, with 7721 ballots. It was won by Todd Russell of the Liberal Party, who received 5426 votes, or 70.3% of the popular vote in the riding.
• The riding of Oak Ridges--Markham in the province of Ontario had the most valid ballots cast, with 75821 ballots. It was won by Paul Calandra of the Conservative Party, who received 32028 votes, or 42.2% of the popular vote in the riding.

• The riding of Fort McMurray--Athabasca in the province of Alberta had the smallest turnout, with only 35.8% of the electorate voting. It was won by Brian Jean of the Conservative Party, who received 17160 votes, or 67.1% of the popular vote in the riding.
• The riding of Verchères--Les Patriotes in the province of Quebec had the largest turnout, with 71.9% of the electorate voting. It was won by Luc Malo of the Bloc Québécois Party, who received 27602 votes, or 50.8% of the popular vote in the riding.

• 48.7% of the electors had their candidate elected to office, which means that 51.3% of the electors are not being represented in Parliament. That extrapolates to 78.5% of the population is not represented in our Parliament.

Looking at the provinces, I have graphed the results below. I have organized the provinces from West to East so I could overlay them (roughly) on the map. It is interesting to see some of the trends. The Territories are on the far right, also in a West to East order. Some things I noticed are:

• As you travel from West to east the percentage of electors (electors/population) generally increases. The low ones here are British Columbia and Ontario.
• A similar trend is also seen with the voter turnout, as you travel east the turnout increases. There are two significant exceptions to this trend: British Columbia and Newfoundland/Labrador.
• The final trend shows the opposite. This is the percentage of population within the province that is represented by the candidate they choose on the ballot. It starts high in Alberta and declines throughout Central Canada with a very slight increase in the Maritime provinces. Again there are two significant exceptions to this trend: British Columbia and Newfoundland/Labrador.

Public debt of Selected Countries

Following the bailout of Greece and Ireland there has been talk about trouble in other European countries. I have taken a look at the public debt trends in these countries over the past 50 years and contrasted it to Canada and the United States. Public debt may be only one factor, but it a very important one. Here is what I found.

All those countries have experienced sharp increases in public debt over the past couple of years, but so has Canada and the United States of America. It is clear that Greece was already having significant problems similar to what Canada experienced in the early 1990's, but they have been unable to to anything about it. Ireland on the other hand made great progress over the past 15 or so years.

Public Financing of Canadian Federal Political Parties

The debate on the per-vote subsidy for federal political parties has been simmering since Finance Minister Jim Flaherty proposed eliminating it in his fiscal update of November 2008. It was that update that almost sent Canadians back to the polls, mere weeks after electing a minority Conservative government, because it lacked a stimulus package to spur the slumping Canadian economy.

Flaherty proposed elimination of the per-vote subsidy to ensure there is "no free ride for political parties”. He went on to say "This is the last stop on the route; there will be no free ride for anyone else in government, either," and "Canadians pay their own bills, and for some Canadians, that is getting harder to do. Political parties should pay their own bills, too, and not with excessive tax dollars.". What Flaherty overlooked are all the other direct and indirect taxpayer subsidies that political parties benefit from.

A lot has transpired in the intervening months, but the per-vote subsidy issue has remained on the back burner; occasionally being raised as is was by Tom Flanagan and David Coletto of the University of Calgary in January, and Jeffrey Simpson in the Globe and Mail on August 11^th. The day following Simpson's article, Alice Funke (who runs PunditsGuide.ca ) pointed out political parties rely on four sources of revenue: the per-vote subsidy, party fundraising, as well as riding association and candidate fundraising. There are also two additional sources of revenue: leadership contests, and Elections Canada's 50% reimbursement on election expenses. Registered political parties that obtain at least 2 percent of the total valid votes cast in a general election, or 5 percent of the valid votes cast in the ridings where they have endorsed candidates, are entitled to a reimbursement of 50 percent of their actual election expenses paid. In keeping with Flaherty's assertion that political parties should pay their own bills, not with excessive tax dollars, it is worth considering all tax dollars the parties benefit from.

The per-vote subsidy, has already been well reported. The reimbursement of election expenses is published by the Receiver General in the Public Accounts of Canada in the year following an election or bi-election. The final figure is the indirect taxpayer rebate that individual taxpayers receive when making any federal political contributions. This can be found on line 410 of the federal worksheet. This indirect rebate ends up in many cases being the most significant taxpayer funding of political parties. Being indirect, and hidden, it is easy to ignore. The Canada Revenue Agency keeps this data confidential so there is no way to calculate the exact value without their cooperation. Reasonable estimates however can be made, as I have below.


All parties emphasize this tax rebate when soliciting donations with statements like “your contribution in any one year may entitle you to generous political tax credits on your next tax return”. They talk about getting 75% back on your contribution up to $400. Supporters of this rebate often counter that donations above the $400 do not benefit from the full 75% and use this argument to dismiss the significance of the rebate. With the majority of political contributions below $400, that is not a solid argument. It is worth exploring what the effective rebate would be on higher value contributions. The following graph illustrates the effective rebate in dollars and percentage on donations up to the $1,100 maximum.

As illustrated, even at the maximum $1,100 donation level the effective rebate will be just under 54%. Lacking detailed accounting from the Canada Revenue Agency we need to make some estimates on what rebates would apply. Funke has started some related investigation, she looked at the 2009 contributions from individuals based on detailed reports from Elections Canada and groups them into amount per individual contributor. Contributions vary by party, and from year to year. For the purposes of this analysis I have selected broad categories to reflect an approximate average between the parties. 55% of the contributed funds are assumed to have the full 75% rebate, with the next 15% at the $600 rebate, and so on according to the following table. With fewer donations, and those being higher in value, the Liberal party is probably benefiting slightly less from taxpayer dollars than this average and the converse for the Conservative Party.

Contributions	Value	Effective rebate
55%	<= $400	75.00%
15%	<= $600	66.67%
5%	<= $800	61.46%
5%	<= $1,000	55.83%
20%	<= $1,100	53.79%

I have calculated the average annual contribution to each federal party based on the returns from Elections Canada for the past 5 years. It is now possible to estimate the average annual tax rebate on contributions that benefits each federal party with a range of minimum (53.79%) to maximum (75%) covered by the hashed area, and my estimated value is represented by the vertical line and value.

To complete the model, tax rebates attributed to candidates, riding associations. and leadership campaigns need to be taken into account. Far less information is available on these to make reasonable estimates. I have included a very rough estimate of the public component for candidates and riding associations at the end of the next two charts, assuming a low rebate of 40%. We now sum up all these taxpayer contributions to the political parties and get a more complete picture of federal party financing from the public accounts. The following chart illustrates for each party how much funding they are receiving on average annually from the taxpayer (based on the past 5 years). The non per-vote subsidy ranges from a low of 44% of total public financing for the Bloc Québécois to a high of 69% for the Conservative Party of Canada.

One final view of the public funding is from a popular vote perspective. The original intent of the per-vote subsidy was to ensure an even playing field for public funding of political parties. The more votes the party received, the more funding it would be entitled to. In an ideal world the average annual per-vote funding should be even across all parties, but this is clearly not the case. Here is the total estimated annual public funding divided by the number of votes received in the fall 2008 General Election.

Looking at the average election cycle of 3.58 years (40^th Parliament, 143 years) we can get an estimation of how many public dollars each party consumes for each vote received. Some parties are over twice as efficient in their use of public funds as others for their electoral campaigns.

If Jim Flaherty is truly interested in “no free ride for political parties”, then he needs to consider the entire public funding spectrum. Today our federal parties together have an aggregate annual revenue of about $95 million. My calculations demonstrate that 80%, or over $70 million, is from the taxpayer. The per-vote subsidy only accounts for slightly over one third (36%) of that public funding. It is a fallacy that any of the parties are self sustaining and pay their own bills.

In a democracy it is important to have strong candidates and healthy parties, and public funding helps achieve that goal. The per-vote subsidy is a fair system that levels the public funding between all parties and strengthens our democracy. Expense reimbursement and individual contributor rebates distort it.

It is time to bring accountability and fairness to public funding of federal politics:

1. Request that the Canada Revenue Agency start reporting on total tax rebates (Schedule 1 line 410) relating to each federal party, candidate, riding association, and leadership contestant. We need full transparency to understand where our tax dollars are going.
2. Eliminate reimbursements and individual political contribution tax rebates (step 1 will then become obsolete).
3. Maintain the same overall level of public funding of political parties as today by increasing the per-vote subsidy to cover the current average of funding across all parties.
4. Explore public funding alternatives for candidates, riding associations, and leadership contestants.

Copyright © ?Impact - Questionable Impact, 2010

Was that really a missile?

On Monday November 8, 2010 the KCBS news helicopter captured some spectacular footage of what they thought was a missile launch. This story quickly went viral.





It really appears to be something spectacular when you look closely at the footage. The apparent vertical launch profile of the missile, the plume of smoke, and the light flashing from the solid fuel rockets as some people claim.

The Pentagon and NORAD denied any knowledge of a missile. That simply added more fuel to the fire and gave license to the conspiracy theorists. The story went viral. There were many of us who accepted the official story that it was probably an airplane contrail, and knew that all we needed was the exact location of the helicopter taking the footage, direction the camera was facing, and time it was shot. Thanks to the work of blog writer Liem Bahneman we now have a very credible explanation. There are two possible commercial flights that were in the area at the approximate right time, they are US Air flight 808. and UPS flight 902. The most likely candidate is the US Air flight, as shown in the map below.

A more detailed map shows the coastline of California, and where it passes over Santa Catalina Island.

I extracted the flight details for both of these and put them into Google Maps. The airplane icons represent US Air flight 808 which is the most likely candidate, and the smaller triangles are UPS flight 902. If you click on any icon you will get details about the time it was at that location and altitude, speed, heading, and if it was in level flight, climbing or descending and at what rate.


View US Air Flight 808 in a larger map


It's up to you to believe in secret missile testing, or show of strength from North Korea or whatever theory grabs your fancy. I believe there is sufficient evidence to explain this is simply a contrail from US Air flight 808. I have provide all the links to the details you need. The rest is up to you.

Political Attack Ads

It appears that modern politicians have nothing on those of a by-gone era.