Once, there was a house called Toronto. It was a big house with a lot of diverse families in it. It was well equipped with all sorts of useful amenities and people enjoyed them. The most controversial thing for the residents was the basement – there were some unsightly columns and pillars which were unpopular, but remained because some felt that the house could not stand without them. There was the vehicle registration pillar, the land transfer pillar, the property tax pillar, and so on.
One day, a contractor came and told everyone they could get rid of all these foundations. Some were skeptical, but he promised them that everything they loved about the house would stay the same.
After he had knocked down the first column, he told people the house was not stable – it was going to collapse. He assured them this was a pre-existing issue and not his fault. “Don’t worry,” he said, “the problem is just that your house is too heavy”.
He went about solving this issue by first selling the fridge and the stove. The people who cooked were outraged, but those who didn’t said “Why should we suffer so you can cook? We prefer to eat in restaurants.”. Then he sold the tables and chairs. More residents became outraged, but still there were some who said “We can just stand.”.
After all, the contractor had not yet eliminated the land transfer pillar. The residents had now forgotten that they were promised no major changes and he convinced them that furniture was a small price to pay for all of this improvement.
He announced that he wanted to get rid of the television, the shower, the laundry machine, the toilets, and the beds – they were all too heavy. Now more people were starting to get upset. They told him they wanted to keep these things, but the contractor answered “This is what you told me to do. We have a four-year contract!”.
The families were now scared of what might be left after four years. “What is even the point of living in a house without these things?” they asked. They decided to stand up to the contractor. They hoped desperately that it wasn’t too late to save the home they had spent so long building. They also worried that waiting and hiring a new contractor wouldn’t be enough – after all, it is much easier to destroy something than it is to rebuild it.
Nevertheless, they were going to try. They didn’t know if they could avert catastrophe, but their house meant so much to them, they couldn’t just sit around and wait.
Excellent.
(Source: Rolling Stone)
The Alternative Vote Explained by C. G. P. Grey
(You might want to watch The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained first.)
Brilliant.
A dangerously patriotic group now has weapons.
The guy is preparing for the next election.
(Source: Washington Post)
So infuriating.
“What I learned about Hugo Chávez’s mental health when I visited Venezuela with Sean Penn.”
- By Christopher Hitchens
So worth the read.
James Zogby: Frightening GOP Behavior (via robot-heart-politics)
Is this talking about Hugo Chavez or the Republican Party?
