IntenseDebate - John Geddes

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Scoring tonight's lead... · 0 replies · +1 points

As with the cricket guy below, I thank you, and have absorbed your expertise into the post.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Scoring tonight's lead... · 1 reply · +1 points

Jolly good. Will tend to that. Would Tommy have known.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Surprise random mailbag · 0 replies · +5 points

Scott,

I've heard that you are a champion of the little guy and that you refuse to get caught up in the vortex of phony Parliament Hill stories that preoccupy self-proclaimed "experts" and political elites. Is that true?

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Harper's talent for tu... · 0 replies · +2 points

Well, whatever you think. But "malevolence" adds a dimension that I wouldn't have thought was implied by "brazen." My Oxford Canadian defines "brazen" as "flagrant and shameless," which describes manner rather than motivation. The phrase "brazen it out," which I also use in the post, is defined by the OCD as "facing (censure) in a defiantly unrepentant manner." Both those definitions fit what I was getting at. Malevolence is something else again.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Harper's talent for tu... · 0 replies · +3 points

I'm not sure the spelling has been standardized. Some write "spinarama," others "spinnerama," and I accept your "spin-o-rama" as a possible variation. But when I dropped the term into this posting, my fear was not over spelling, it was about aptness. After all, the classic spinnerama takes the player not in a new direction, but rather, after a complete turn, back towards his original aim. So maybe I should have resisted the urge to put it in at all. Such a great word, though. I miss Danny Gallivan.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - The paradox of drink · 0 replies · +12 points

And here I thought the "paradox of drink" was identified by Shakespeare in Macbeth—"it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance."

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Recommended books I co... · 1 reply · +1 points

Thanks, McC. Corrected that in the post.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - News will never be the... · 2 replies · +11 points

Actually, I had in mind an early skinny-tie, sharp-suit, short-haircut aesthetic:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=675951536...

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Reforms we can learn from · 2 replies · +2 points

In my defence, I did not say AV = PR. I said "step toward." Indeed, analysis by the British Electoral Reform Society of showed that, under the AV system, the outcome of last Thursday's election would have been, in key respects, about midway between the FPTP status quo and full-blown STV. AV would have returned fewer Conservative MPs and more Lib Dems, but wouldn't have swung those seat counts as far in the PR direction as STV would have. Doesn't that fit my description of a step toward PR?

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