The Dissident Hypothesis....

NullMeans

NullVille

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All Kinds Of Updates.....At the bottom of the post....

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I am in the science geek business.

Which means I observe stuff, make predictions (ie. hypotheses/theories) about why something is the way it is, and then I get together with other geeks and we do experiments to try and prove our predictions wrong.

In other words, in the real hard-core world of experimental science you can never prove an hypothesis is right.

Instead, you can only prove it is wrong.

Thus, the fact that nobody has been able to prove that evolution is wrong after a hundred and fifty years of trying to bash the crap out of it means that it is a damn fine one.

(a damn fine hypothesis, I mean).

It also explains why evolution will always be a theory until some sharp young kid comes up with a blockbuster experiment using split-infinitive exons, microRNA, and some weird, twisted piece of of magical, epigenetically-tagged junk DNA to demonstrate that Darwin and Wallace's theories need to be either scrapped or modified

Which, in a round about way, brings me to the actual point of this post.

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Now, I know there are more important things to think about/deal with (sorry Dana).....

But this thing with the 'dissident' NDP MLAs has really got me watching and wondering.

And itching to make a prediction.

So here goes....

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One thing that is striking to me is that the so called 'dissidents' are not the heavy-lifters in the NDP caucus.

So, I have to wonder how involved they have been in the nitty-gritty of the longterm life of that caucus.

And I'm not just talking about the high-profile, out-front public stuff.

I'm also talking about all the little ins-and-outs, and the long hours in committees, and reams and reams of paper scribbled on while trying to write platforms, and the small-scale retail campaigning as well as the money-raising, and all of that.

Now.

As Tony Martinson and I (sorry again Dana!) discussed in the comments to a previous thread, in the life of any longterm project the cohesion of the group working on it will start to break down a little, bit-by-bit, when you have one cohort of folks that are the 'doers' and another that are the, for want of a better word, 'coasters'.

And pretty soon a natural split starts to form without any malice aforethought by the person or persons running things.

So.

When all this self-flagellation and limb amputation with dull (not to mention previously used and gnawed upon), plastic knives and forks finally ends, I am predicting that all this dissent will turn out to have been based on pretty much nothing more than essentially nothing.

Put another way, my dissident hypothesis is that there is no grand grievance and there is almost certainly no grand master plan to move forward.

And if that turns out to be the case it will be a real shame.

Because if this self-amputational excercise continues much longer the BC NDP will soon look, sound, and have the same chance of winning real battles against real enemies, as this guy.*

OK?

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Alright you people....Bang away.....Prove me wrong and I'll be happy to modify and or scrap the hypothesis.

Oh, and as I also mentioned in the thread referred to above....Most of my committee work is academic....And let me tell you, it would be damned hard to disprove Kissinger's theory that the real reason that academic politics are so vicious is because the stakes are so small...

*Especially if there is snap election called within a few weeks or months after the Coronation of Queen Christy....

Update (Friday morning): New data have arrived in the form of the 'Corky Letter'....May lead to hypothesis modification....waiting for further observations to accrue.....

Double-Secret Probation Update (Friday at lunchtime): And then there is, as Norman Farrell points out, the 'Bob Williams Factor'.....Sheesh....I wonder if any of them there Dippers' navels are burning from all those laser-like staredowns.....

And As For Les Leyne.....Well....He seems to think that Carole James' real problem is that she is not more like....You know.....Gordon Campbell.

Now it's Paul Ramsey's turn....Me thinks his letter will likely create little more than ripples in the tsunami of craziness that is getting set to engulf the Dipperian Zeitgeist.

Next Up.....A VT-C editorial (written by?) suggests that maybe, just maybe, one way out of this is to, at least as a start, send Moe packing.

Paul Willcocks has weighed in.....And he thinks that firstly, the Dippers have gone cuckoo and, secondly, their only hope is to climb down from their perches atop the suicide pact towers.

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