TV Ontario - The Death Of Big Ideas

An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed Of Procrustes, p. 3

It has been the Saturday routine of the Oracle of Ottawa for over a decade to tune into TV Ontario at 5:00p.m. on a Saturday evening and watch Big Ideas. It was all pretty dangerous stuff, as the truly greatest minds alive in the world today discussed very dangerous social ideas and proposed radical social experiments to actually realize them. There was Chris Hedges, Northrop Frye, and Noam Chomsky to mention only a few.

Big Ideas - Dead in Ontario...

Then out of the blue sometime last winter, it was announced that the low budget format show was being cancelled due to government funding cutbacks, which would in turn allow the provincial public broadcaster to save a paltry two million dollars. The show was to end at the end of last March. But there must have been serious blow back, since the last episode ran last Saturday, not on the last Saturday of March 2013. Ah, the power of social media!

What was even more depressing was that Saturday last was also the last Saturday Night At The Movies which has been a TVO institution since back in the 1970's. But surely Big Ideas would be replaced by something of equal value? Well, not exactly, in the place of Big ideas there was another rerun of the ever sickening Battle Field Mysteries. Whereby some pathetic wanna be goes and retraces the path of Canadian Forces in the battle fields of Europe to remind us all that Canada was just sooo close to being an imperial power just like the United States is today. It made the Oracle of Ottawa want to puke. But it was right in keeping with the Prime Ministers Office directives from the internal department of the Ministry Of Truth.

TV Ontario - A Dangerous Social Experiment...

Now we all know that a show like Big Ideas was certainly not a very expensive show to fund. They were simply tapes of left leaning lectures that were already paid for by other institutions such as the University of Toronto. And the people that spoke on Big Ideas were not the kind to demand a huge price to let their ideas be heard. As a matter of fact most of the speakers spoke for travel fees and living expenses! There was no dealing with Canadian production companies that run on a profit basis such as the provider of Battle Field Mysteries. So why would TV Ontario cut it's two most popular and cheapest format shows? Has TV Ontario been lying to us when they report how successful the recent fund raising has been?


 If TV Ontario is cutting it's most popular and cheapest format shows due to the shortage of a paltry two million dollars, how is that the likes of the ever sickening, scrotum licking likes of Steve Paikin able to get a brand new elaborate set, that resembles the studios of Americas Fox News? How is it that there is money for that? How is it that the sickening likes of Allan Gregg ,  the erstwhile conservative fart catcher and father of the negative political campaign in Canada always has a set that is posher than anything that the CBC can produce? Well? How is that?

Well, let the Oracle of Ottawa explain to you Dear Reader. It all has to do with the corporate dismantling of Canada. Shows like Big Ideas do not instill the core values of the New World Order, as implemented by the Illuminati, upon the directives of the Bilderberg Group as carried out by the Prime Ministers Office. The core values of a citizen of the New World Order are: Consume, Conform, and Obey. Any radical talk or thought is and will be suppressed at all costs with extreme prejudice. Do you understand now?

It was last winter that the Oracle of Ottawa called his lawyer and had his will changed, that big bequest to TV Ontario has vanished like it was never even their. Since the writing or the lack of same is on the wall, the Oracle of Ottawa ponders why his left leaning tax dollars should have to subsidize the likes of the new TV Ontario? The Oracle has even gone to the very rare extreme of dropping the channel from his remote's favorites. The greatest thing that Kathleen Wynne could do is pull the plug on all Ontario Provincial funding to TV Ontario and let it seek funding elsewhere, like Sun News....

Noam Chomsky Delivers Sermon On The Mount

To form a clear idea of any thing, is an undeniable argument for its possibility, and is alone a refutation of any pretended demonstration against it.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, p. 89

It was a great relief for the Oracle of Ottawa, as we live in the end days, that we got one last chance to see in public media, in Canada, the greatest living voice of left wing dissent. I am of course referring to the legendary Noam Chomsky. The occasion was a lecture that he gave at University of Toronto, Hart House, Great Hall on or about April 07, 2011. The Oracle of Ottawa got to see it on TV Ontario on October 29, Saturday last. I am in the habit of always watching this lecture series on Saturday. But to see the great Noam Chomsky was indeed a very special event. I am only in my fifties and already I hate traveling, it must be way worse when you are in your 80's!

Noam Chomsky

Now correct me if I am wrong. But there have been lessor people of the far left who have been refused entry visas to Canada lately, a certain British Labour MP comes to mind, it perhaps must be that Mr. Chomsky is an American citizen  that allowed this memorable event to even happen? How long do you think this will go on? The Oracle of Ottawa soaked it up. The way things are going in Canada today I couldn't help but think of that popular T-shirt design of the 1970's of the little mouse giving the diving eagle the "finger"! The last defiant act.

Are we living in the time of the death of
the Social Contract?

Noam Chomsky slowly and masterfully delivered the complete playbook and all foot note hidden agenda's of the New World Order, and the 'Harper Government', that are soon to come or have already taken place. At several points the Oracle of Ottawa must admit, that he felt that all was already lost. What gave this lowly word pecker great cheer was the rapt faces of the youngsters and the oldsters that were in attendance. Forgive me, but, the event of the Sermon On The Mount came to mind over and over! Perhaps all is not lost! It appears that not everyone has sold their immortal souls for an M.B.A. degree and a lifetime of corporate maze running possibly ending with possession of the "corner" cubicle.

There is just that one bit that won't get out of my head. The key to the whole neo-liberal globalizing algorithm. And that is, first, to underfund what you want to destroy, wait for the complaints, and then privatize it all! It is just like what is going on in Canada at this very moment! It seems that the ancient and great tradition of the Social Contract is slowly being broken down ever so slowly right before our very eyes. One can not but help to think of Jane Jacobs and The Dark Age Ahead.  

The "gold" starts at 45:00...

On Doctor Hans Rosling And The Joy Of Stats

"Simplicity and economy of thought can be achieved by adhering to a few standard tools,"
William Feller, An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications, p. 26

It is not often that the Oracle of Ottawa see's something on television anymore that is uplifting. And when it does occur, it must be commented upon and praised. The rare occasion was provided by TV Ontario on Sunday night, last. The show was entitled The Joy of Stats and it was hosted by a most optimistic and enthusiastic Hans Rosling. A show that was about the history and power of statistics! Compared to the drivel that TV Ontario has been running in the last years, this must be in total error! Why it was like TV Ontario in the 1970's! Perfectly produced and esoteric. Why, just the way I like my television!

The Joy of Stats - really...

It all really reminded me of John Kenneth Galbraith, and his wonderful series The Age of Uncertainty, which the Oracle has seen countless times and still hopes for the BBC to release as a digitally restored box set! It all started on location in Sweden and the good doctor Rosling is simply spellbinding in the telling of the tale of the history of statistics. It truly is a fascinating story, and it is interesting, and it is powerful, and most of all it is very important! It was the fastest hour of television that I have enjoyed in a very long while. The show would have been a total winner with this viewer even if it just told that wonderful "boring" story of the history of this very important science. But it was even better than that...

Towards the end of the show the doctor presents statistical data in a way that I have never seen before. As he made his point the data set moved and had upon this viewer a most profound and powerful effect. You have to check it out for your self since my descriptive power would not do it justice. You can check it out at gapminder.org. Which is a very slick site full of down loadable goodies, but be very careful, you will learn something!

Why even the thickest Conservative Party of Canada back bencher could understand this...well maybe...

Irvin Studin: Canada Population 100 Million, Math Lesson?

An empty sack cannot stand upright.
The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, Third Edition, p. 220

Come the time of the biggest long week-end of the summer, the Oracle of Ottawa knows that you have really got to pay attention. You got to pay attention to your TV set, and to your old fashioned mailbox. The time before a big holiday in a democracy now run by fart catchers and spin doctors is the best time to let out the sneaky, slimey news that you hope no one will notice until you actually start acting on it!

HP12C - Irvin Studin doesn't know how to use this?

Well this year is no exception! There were three Canada Day sneak outs this year. The first one was the sale of AECL  to  SNC Lavalin for a mere 15 million dollars! The Conservative Harper government has given away over 1.5 billion dollars of Canadian tax-payers money to a corporate ho' in Quebec for mere cents on the dollar, with the cover story that the government has no business in the nuclear reactor business! The second sneak out came in my mail box from Ottawa Hydro telling me that if I use electricity on peak hours, (and these hours now being specified by Ottawa Hydro), that that will cost me ten cents per kilowatt hour! But the Ontario McGuinty government recently spent a gizillion dollars installing smart meters to every consumer in Ontario so that "we could take advantage and pay the market rate" for electricity! All I can say is that Premier McGuinty had better call home to his old law firm in Ottawa and tell them to clean off his old desk, cause he is going to need his old job back after election time this fall!

The third attempted sneak out I caught was on Steve Paikins The Agenda on TV Ontario aired on Canada Day eve. It was the interview with Irvin Studin entitled Canada at 100 Million, How do we get there? The studious and stern looking little Irvin was going on about how important it is for Canada to grow to 100 million people by the end of this century! (4:40) He claims to have got this grandiose idea from an (unsourced) quote from Winston Churchill! (First Red Flag...) Now it all gets strange when little Irvin states that to get to 100 million people by the end of this century (89 years to go...) we should start raising our present immigration rate 10-15% starting now! (5:12) The Oracle of Ottawa's bull shit alarm went off in terminal lock-on mode! This sounds like a trial panic "Life Raft" plan for a certain nation state that has recently burned or is in the process of burning all its remaining bridges and is setting the ground work now to transfer its citizenry to a new "host". (Does anybody have any idea which nation state this is?)

People should mind their own business...

Little Irvin states that we in Canada are mere provincials on the world stage (5:20) and that we could be such a "world power" if we just bulked up! Well we are already a G8 Nation! Canada is already a "world power"! We have already won the United Nation award for the best country on Earth more than once! We have more influence then we will ever need! (11:00)  Then little Irvin starts getting all fascist about bring in tons of God knows what, as long as they are breathing and forcing them to live in places like Moosonee, Ontario(!) (7:00) for a period of five years! (8:00)  The small constitutional problems that this would bring up are not addressed save that it could be sent to the courts! (8:48)

Facts:

At what annual growth rate would Canada have to grow to reach a population of 100 million in 2100 A.D.?
With a starting population of 35 million and 89 years to go Canada would have to grow at an annual rate of: 1.1865% per year! (Conclusion: Slam the Immigration doors shut, we just don't need any of them!)

At a growth rate of 2.00% per year, Canada will reach a population of 100 million in 54 years from now! That is Canada  will have 100 million people at 2.00% annual growth in the year 2065!

At a growth rate of 3.00% per year, Canada will reach a population of 100 million in 36 years from now!
That is Canada will have 100 million people at 3.00% annual growth in the year 2047!

Conclusion:

Canada is not week in Demographics! It is only week in arithmetic! Especially the arithmetic of first generation Canadian university professors, who have claimed to have attend the London School of Economics and Oxford University as Rhodes Scholars!! (Now this would be an ideal place for the Conservative government to cut funding, transferring it to artists that can always "do the math"!!)

This is a full copy of the said interview... all times in brackets are taken from this video time signature....as referenced above...