marcus

THEN MOVE TO COMMUNIST CHINA! Joke. Sort of. How would releasing the video jeopardize security?

What do you mean by common fallacy? Where are YOUR stats? YOUR research disproving that we do not need immigrants? I'm not sure how you're calculating all of this in your head. Bringing in 250K+ a year of immigrants will not result in losing your cultural cohesion. What absolute nonsense. Nothing worse than people who try to pass off their delusions as facts. Here is your chance to learn something: Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and the highest levels of the public service are immersed in a flurry of closed-door talks aimed at tackling the rising costs of health care and retirement benefits in the face of a shrinking number of working-age taxpayers available to foot the bill. Internal government documents obtained by The Globe and Mail show Canada’s aging population is no longer a problem on the horizon, but rather one that will impact the federal government this year. It's a challenge Ottawa is now discussing more openly and with added urgency. ... Canada, currently the 27th oldest country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, is on track to become the 11th oldest within 20 years. It’s a challenge that will spark debate over Canada’s retirement age, fertility rates and immigration, while risking generational tension between a growing population of older voters and a shrinking pool of younger taxpayers. ... “The oldest baby boomers start to turn 65 in 2011, meaning the dependency ratio will start to increase significantly in a matter of months,” states the draft report, which was obtained in redacted form by The Globe under Access to Information. Prepared by officials at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Finance Canada, the report is full of alarming statistics. It also lays out several measures the government could take to limit the impact, including incentives to boost fertility rates, bring in younger immigrants and encourage Canadians to work longer. “A Canada where seniors outnumber children is uncharted territory,” the report states. Globe and Mail - 2011

40% of luxury homes in Vancouver are being bought by wealthy foreigner or immigrants. Mostly from China but also from India and Iran as well. It's a way to park their money and to spread their investments. Many of these homes are being left vacant because they can afford to do so. I think the housing prices are something that cannot be controlled. One thing that might help a bit is to introduce a tax to those who are not occupying the homes they are buying.

It's about replacing the work force. Someone is going to need to do the work and pay the taxes. Since we are not reproducing at the same pace as we were when the baby boomers were being born, we need to make up for the lack of people. Every economist outside of the Fraser Institute understands that without immigration, Canada will be in trouble. The Harper government understands this and is responding to a glaring need.

Statistics Canada (I can get you the link once I'm on my computer) has shown the number of people going into retirement is going to jump and how we're not able to replace them.

That said, statistics show that Canada "needs" immigrants. With the baby boomers retiring and the major need for skilled workers, it's important for Canada to open its doors. I think the current attempt by the Conservatives to bring in selected immigrants is the right approach. There is a huge competition for skilled workers around the world. Engineers, nurses and those in the trades are being heavily courted in Australia, New Zealand, England and to some extent, the U.S. There is an international competition for these types of workers and Canada should not sit back.

They are certainly increasing the numbers for the ethnic/minority vote. The cut to the refugee healthcare was done a couple of years ago. So well before the election. They can always count for a huge portion of the population having short term memories. The type of advertising and marketing that the tories are doing in the Chinese and Sikh communities is quite impressive. Right here in B.C., they are focusing on ridings in Richmond, Surrey and North Vancouver, where the Liberals have regained support.

Most topics that discuss the middle east involve Israel. It's a big elephant.

How is it lowering the quality when we are discussing the reality of what each side is capable of doing? The original post was submitted to show some level of moral superiority by the West, but then it was shown that it's the West that lacks moral and ethical superiority by the examples given by Hudson and myself. On several occasions I have seen you trying to control the discussion and trying to censor what is being discussed. This is the wrong way to approach a debate.

When it has been proven that in most of the occasions when schools and shelters were hit by missiles and civilians were killed that they were not used by militants, then it's a war crime. Go ahead, apologize for war crimes again.

Why stone to kill when you can just bomb schools and shelters and kill a bunch of people at the same time? Eh?

And it's the enormous amount of money from the AIPACs and the Adelsons which is the glue that keeps the hips joined. Nothing else. Israel's treatment of Palestinians, both inside the occupied territories and inside Israel would never fly in America. This is why Israel continues to lose more support from Jews living in the U.S. Especially when it comes to younger Jews who are better connected to information and understand what Israel really does to the Palestinians.

Not only your explanation of the occupation, but also your weak analogies omit important information. Why should I respond to asinine analogies? Again, the story doesn't start with rockets. The rockets are not the cause. Anyone who has studied the Middle East, will not fall for your whitewashing of the recent and past history of the region. The occupation is there because the plan has always been to never allow a Palestinian State and to continue to systematically annex Palestinian land.

Same old twisting of the narrative. Like those rockets, which rarely even reach past the Gaza border are being shot just for the hell of it. How come in your explanation and in your narrative, you always forget to mention the decades long occupation, the illegal and inhumane siege/blockade of Gaza and the open air prison that Israel has created?

Sir Richard Ottaway--a sixty-nine-year-old Conservative who is head of the select committee on foreign affairs: "Throughout all this, I have stood by Israel through thick and thin, through the good years and the bad. I have sat down with ministers and senior Israeli politicians and urged peaceful negotiations and a proportionate response to prevarication, and I thought that they were listening. But I realize now, in truth, looking back over the past twenty years, that Israel has been slowly drifting away from world public opinion. The annexation of the nine hundred and fifty acres of the West Bank just a few months ago has outraged me more than anything else in my political life, mainly because it makes me look a fool, and that is something that I resent." Anyone who does not see the glaring fact that the very essence of Zionism from its commencement to this day is to steal the entirety of Palestine, and maim and murder as many Palestinians in the process as they deem necessary, is indeed a fool. More than anything else, it was the Israeli military’s bombardment of Gaza that brought about the change of policy in Sweden and the parliamentary vote in Britain. But the civilian death toll in Gaza wasn’t the only factor; even among British and European supporters of Israel, disillusionment has been growing for years. The lopsided vote in the House of Commons represented the culmination of that process: two hundred and seventy-four M.P.s supported the motion, and just twelve opposed it. Government ministers didn’t support the motion, but even their position was qualified. Tobias Ellwood, a junior minister in the Foreign Office with responsibility for the Middle East, said that settlement building made “it hard for Israel’s friends to make the case that Israel is committed to peace.”

It's not my attempt at anything. I am simply showing that you and other Zionists do not speak for Jews. More and more Jews outside of Israel, especially the younger Jews who are not drunk with unconditional support and the forever excusing of Israel, can no longer relate to Israel and can no longer sit silent while Israel continues with its racist and inhumane policies.

Why would someone want to be loyal to a racist and arrogant ideology like Zionism? Zionism does not speak for Jews, just like Wahabism or the Iranian Mullahs do not speak for Muslims. Your "self-hating Jew" card no longer has any weight.

So they can have brand new targets when they unleash their American funded military every 2 years? Israel will be forced to change their tactics because the world can no longer sit idle while Israel continues with their human rights violations and arrogance. Not only are the Palestinians gaining more legitimacy in the United Nations and will be able to use international courts to hold Israel accountable, but countries around the world are speaking out and are accepting Palestine as a state, which we have seen happen more recently in Sweden and a symbolic, but powerful message from the UK parliament. The dream of Greater Israel is over. Zionism does not have a place in a world where people respect human rights and oppose racism.

I agree with most of the above. At the end though, Obama has done more good than Bush did. Many don't like it and it has many faults, but Obamacare is better than no care. That will be one of his legacies. Because there was so much hype about Obama and not so much for Bush, the failure by Obama to come through with the many promises he made before getting elected, will also be something he will be remembered for. Bush Jr. failed in every aspect during his presidency and will not be remembered for anything positive. At the end, despite Obama's failures, I'm sure if we were to have an election now, Obama would still beat Romney or McCain.

The major difference between the Iraqi military, post and pre Saddam is that the Iraqi military under Saddam was experienced and brutal. Post Saddam, the Iraqi military is mostly made up of kids looking to make a bit of money, and who were trained by Western standards. They neither have the experience and training or the willingness to take on brutal international mercenaries, former Saddam soldiers and a group of Muslim kids from around the world who are wooed by finally being part of something. All riled up on Wahabist, extreme and absolute ideology.

So Canada gave the coordinates of the Iranians and Kurds to Saddam knowing Saddam could gas them? Your Canada complex has reached a new level.

The brilliant, piercing, straight arrow Pankaj Mishra: "The west has lost the power to shape the world in its own image – as recent events, from Ukraine to Iraq, make all too clear. So why does it still preach the pernicious myth that every society must evolve along western lines? . . . The collapse of communist regimes in 1989 further emboldened Niebuhr’s bland fanatics. The old Marxist teleology was retrofitted rather than discarded in Francis Fukuyama’s influential end-of-history thesis, and cruder theories about the inevitable march to worldwide prosperity and stability were vended by such Panglosses of globalisation as Thomas Friedman. Arguing that people privileged enough to consume McDonald’s burgers don’t go to war with each other, the New York Times columnist was not alone in mixing old-fangled Eurocentrism with American can-doism, a doctrine that grew from America’s uninterrupted good fortune and unchallenged power in the century before September 2001."

I suppose in your perspectives, the nosedive in the standard of living, the insecurity and all the negative effects on the Libyan civilians after the Western toppling of Gaddafi don't really need to be in the debate. Not as long as the cheap oil is flowing.

Is this some kind of a joke?

Not sure who sounds more like a pompous douchebag: you or Rue. We are witnessing what Zionism is doing in order to achieve its romanticized vision. What Zionism advocates is stealing the land of another group of people and continuing to violate their human rights. A practice that is rightfully outlawed as according to international law. Law that mostly came to be, after the Jews went through a horrific period in our recent history. Now, some are advocating to break those laws despite being, one way or another, connected to the holocaust. It's a baffling reaction and an interesting study of the human species. It's wonderful seeing the increase of voices of Jews who, rightfully, reject Zionism and its ideals. The resistance of Jews against Zionism is the final straw. One day we will look back at Zionism the same way we look back at Apartheid South Africa.