cannuck

You got my point: it is as ridiculous as claiming the airline should have known that those who they are REQUIRED to place their trust in were going to either allow (through negligence) or cause (through treachery) the plane would be shot down. They were given a clearance by the authority they are REQUIRED to yield to. Both they and the passengers were reasonably likely to be aware of the tensions between US and Iran at that time they BOTH chose to fly.

While I can agree with you on so many points, this one is where we part company in a radically different direction. As I have already explained, ATC is who gives an airline a block of safe airspace, and THEY are the ultimate authority on what is and is not "open" or "closed" airspace, and THAT is what airlines and other users of the civil transport system rely upon. When an IFR flight departs, it is not just wandering around for jollies, it is following an SID (Standard Instrument Departure) that is published for all users to follow. The SID gives the heading on takeoff and climbout, as well as the climb gradient required. We can figure out the times and positions pretty easily from the SID and what that aircraft could and DID do. Anything below 10,000 ft. is restricted to 250 knots TAS, and normal normal initial climb from -800 with flaps and slats out is about 150kt at 1,500 ft/min changing to 2,000 ft/min and 250 kts for the main climbout. The airplane is capable of much more, but unless there are obstacle clearace issues, this is about how it is flown. The flight in question was shot down at 8,000 ft., so it would have been airborne with an average speed of 200kt for about 5 minutes, giving 18 NM = about 30 kms. Again, unless there is some big reason published on the SID or commanded by air traffic CONTROL, the PF (pilot flying) would have followed the SID very, VERY closely. You can actually see these things on flight following websites, and the images I have seen show a very normal departure with an extremely small deviation from runway heading (i.e. turn from runway heading to the SID heading for climbout as EVERY flight would do). The point of this is that the 737 was in the air for something like 5 minutes at 250kt, and the missile would not likely be flying any faster than 500kt, so it had to be launched at 2.5 minutes before impact - when the jet would have been less than 15 kms (my guess closer to 10) from the airport and barely finished initial climb. That's the launch. The DECISION to launch would have been before that, so the airplane was barely past the airport boundary when the someone started to think seriously about blowing it to bits. Even a complete effing moron could EASILY have seen that this flight ORIGINATED from Iran's own civil airport. So, the IRANIAN government's ATC directed a civil aircraft into the air when an IRANIAN government military force immediately decided to shoot it down. IF what QM posted, and what I have heard from other sources is true, civil flights had departed before and immediately after the disaster flight. Airlines are not in the business of running countries, they are in the business of carrying passengers under CONTROL of the air traffic system. When the government that owns ATC and the military tells them they can fly, it is implicit it is safe from that government's perspective to do so. So, an airline decided to do business in a normal manner on a day that military action was chosen BY THE GOVERNMENT OF IRAN to be done in a different place. What you are missing in this whole thing is the passengers boarded this flight OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL, all obviously knowing that they were in the middle of a military conflict, and pretty much knowing that they were visiting a country ruled by some viscious, murderous fruitcakes - and you thing that is the airline's fault????? If I were the airline, I would be suing the passengers and Iran for the cost of my goddamned airplane. BTW: on the question of airplanes and the LLL (Legal Liability Lottery) - it is exactly that, a hoard of ambulance chasers who will sue the airline, the airplane manufacture, the engine manufacturer, the seat manufacturer, the radio manufacturer and ANYONE who has been anywhere near the airplane or its type certificate from day one (that can go back 3/4 of a century) that killed the general aviation industry in the USA and Canada. When Cessna (then largest manufacturer in the world) suspended light aircraft manufacture in IIRC 1978, more than half of the cost of an airplane was insurance premiums. The petitfogging assholes have handed yet another industry to China and Eastern Europe strictly due to their greed and avorice.

Worth noting that of the missiles they launched against the Iraqi base, 1/3 failed completely and the rest did very little damage (but DID land on the base). What makes me curious is why did the Yanks not have anti-missile defenses in place???

It is called air traffic CONTROL because that is precisely what it is and what it does. International commercial flights are all operated under IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) in which case it is ATC that is responsible for exactly where and when an airplane can occupy any particular block of airspace, and it is ATC that is responsible for maintaining separation from other aircraft. The pilot can not simply taxi out and take off, as first a ground controller has to grant him clearance to get from the ramp/apron to an active runway, and before Air Traffic Control will grant access to the runway, they will have received a flight plan filed with ATC and will then clear the aircraft to the runway, clear it to take off, and assign it a heading and altitude as the first clearance in the IFR flight. The only time in an IFR flight that the pilot is responsible for separation (i.e. not running into other airplanes or the ground) is when they have VFR (Visual Flight Rules) conditions, can see the destination airport and have cancelled IFR to make a VFR approach and landing. So, was the Ukraine airline foolish to operate under these conditions? Yes, somewhat, but they did as every other airline must do and were given clearance to what ATC is supposed to maintain as SAFE airspace. If the airspace was "closed", they could never have been given clearance to get to the runway, never mind depart on their IFR flight plan.

In this case, it actually WAS rocket science.

I may be a Canadian citizen and resident, but corporately pretty much American. As a taxpayer down there, I am bothered by a guy who talks out of ten sides of his mouth at once, and continues spending money he/we do not have. If I were directly involved in US politics, I would have have wanted to be Ron Paul's campaign manager to run for President. That being said, I really can appreciate some of the things Trump has said and done. Taking on China, for instance, and calling them out for predatory trade practices for one. Rather clumsy, but accurate attempts to deal with the illegal immigration problems for another. Bringing the Deep State matters to more public attention being the BIG one (and one we are deeply involved with).

OK, Rue, I really need to know: did you make that up on the fly, or had you been thinking of that previously? Made my day, thanks. Since no two humans mature at the same rate, trying to put some arbitrary number on what is a rather significant point in one's life doesn't seem possible. We have one kid I swear was BORNE 18 years old, and another who took a bit longer to get there. I was married at 20, and if I look back, would have been far better to have done so two years earlier (certainly not because of MY maturity at that time!). Going back to Rue's insightful and playful post: for instance, who are we to tell someone how many consenting adults (BTW, THAT part is or should be sacrosanct) can live together (i.e. be wed)?? Need to objectively separate religion from science to legislate well. I can agree that children DO need some kind of protection codified by the state, but since I just don't have the skill sets to come up with a definitive answer, I can only pose further questions.

My own belief is close to what some have expressed - children are NEARLY asexual from birth. However, I don't think the learn to be hetero or homosexual, I believe that it is simply the hormonal changes with adolescence that bring out their natural orientation when what would be the natural mechanisms to drive reproduction are most powerful. As with other things, nothing in human nature is so simple that one can say ALL situations follow the same rules, so I suppose it is possible to learn homosexual behaviour and adapt to accepting it, but in general, it seems that there are recognizable genetically defined traits that usually accompany homosexual orientation. Would appreciate hearing our resident shrink's opinion on this subject.

As I (and many others with aviation background) had speculated, it appears that the Ukraine commercial flight was shot down by a missile. Here is a (probably cell phone) video. You have to watch very carefully, but you can see the missile inbound from the left side of the screen and strike the airplane. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/video/iran-plane-missile.html?te=1&nl=morning-briefing&emc=edit_NN_p_20200110&section=topNews?campaign_id=9&instance_id=15090&segment_id=20204&user_id=2a3e757b2285568cc6aee5465e9acea4&regi_id=100982531tion=topNews This looks to be an absolute parallel to the Vincenze incident, except this time, there will be an Iranian soldier who will have to live with the full knowledge that his error killed 176 innocent people - many of them Iranian Canadians.

I would argue with that. I would say it is far more accurate to state that the inmates are running the asylum.

I remain skeptical about the cause. The wide debris field says it broke up in flight. I would be looking for missile or bomb evidence. I doubt we will ever get the truth on this one. So sad. The level of academics and professionals lost tells you a lot about what such people think of living in Iran (and Canada). A huge loss to both countries.

Duh! Why do you think anyone would be lobbying on such a topic?

Not at all true. During the entire Federal election period, I repeatedly pointed out to anyone and everyone that one would have to be crazy to vote for the Liberals and Trudeau. Obviously, it must be the lack of mental sick care that resulted in the government we have.

I certainly agree with making in-camera or even extra-camera lobbying not only illegal, but criminal. However, that alone will not fix the spending problems. Making politicians collect tax for their promises and giveaway while in office, though, will do a lot more.

Uh...that broad looks old enough to be his Mother.

Government should have no business at all in "stimulating" economy, beyond timely shuffling scheduling of infrastructure construction during slow times. Letting government pick economic winners and losers is exactly how the mechanism of corruption is elevated into government. Its role should be and ONLY be to provide a level playing field by legislation, regulation and enforcement - NOTthrough dispensing of privilege. I think you are missing the point: governments in most of the world have been running massive deficits in good times and bad. Recessions and depressions happen when inflationary speculative bubbles burst - and the simple solution is to prevent inflationary speculative bubbles (simply tax speculative gain - so money ends up in the real economy, not in Casino Capitalist financial games). No bubble, no burst, no recession. The "too big to fail" bailout of speculators in the US cost the taxpayers more than every war and every President in the accumulated history of the country. That was all avoided by post 1929 legislation and regulation, all of which was appealed in the post war years (ending with the last big one under Clinton). And, before you go there: many savvy economists and historians greatly debate that the "New Deal" is what pulled the US out of the Great Depression - WWII did. The Depression was caused by the limits (actually LACK of any at all) to credit as a result of the bursting of the '20s speculative bubble. When you screw up, the solution to fixing the problem is not screwing up more. Deficit spending is not sustainable nor excuseable.

I/we have been involved with and within Africa for only the last three decades, but I think I am getting a bit more of a realistic picture of why it doesn't work. When Livingston arrived in Darkest Africa, he didn't find a world of science, technology, education, literature, etc., it was a collection of ancient, tribal cultures (as was the case in much of the Americas). Again, as with the Americas, there is a LOT of natural resource wealth. So, since Africa has been in contact with the rest of the world even longer than the Americas, why is it that Western civilizations seem to be more successful than those in both North and sub-Saharan Africa? The answer is to look to the tribalism that still to this day defines African cultures. Within those cultures, the idea that one is to succeed by benefiting for one self or one's family at the expense of everyone else is completely backwards from the mainstream of other Western cultures where the welfare of the body politic takes precedence. There are no absolutes in this case, but the generalizations are valid. Yes, people in Africa TALK about raising the overall level of their fellow citizens, but the organization of their tribalistic governance simply pays nothing but lip service to that social conscience. It all takes a back seat to the mechanism for personal benefit -corruption of financial transactions. Blaming the West is absolutely BS. As has been noted: RSA for instance was a far safer and more prosperous place when the Afrikans ruled the land. Mandella was not the saviour of RSA, he was DEEPLY involved in the corruption, terrorism, racism and tribalism that resulted in it returning to the status quo of corrupt, dangerous, violent, tribal shithole. Until there has been some kind of radical shift in culture (which obviously MUST come from outside, as it hasn't evolved over the last few hundred thousand years) it will continue to go nowhere.

Got to keep your eye on the ball (sorry, Eyeball, that wasn't intentional). Reality is the world has NO other policeman than the US. The only other superpowers, i.e. China and Russia, are hardly champions of human rights. Throw into that mix two more absolute fruitcake cultures in Iran and NoKo that are on the brink of becoming nuclear powers. All of the hand wringing and ass kissing from the globalists and looney left, not to mention the totally ineffective, totally corrupt UN is doing nothing but playing into their hands - buying them the time to complete their nuclear ambitions. SOMEONE really has to step in and deal with this in real time. The second part of this is the notion that Donald J. Trump RUNS the USA. He is nothing but the mouthpieces (granted, a loud and profaine one) for a much longer term, very large and well established mechanism that provides him with the information and ideas about what is actually happening in the world.fd Crossing this particular jackass off of the list might advance several very important elements of stability. For one, it might provide an excuse to finally bring Iran's nuclear ambitions (and brutal regime) to an end. THAT will send a message to Kim, Vlad and Xi - all of whom played the Obama administration like a fiddle - that the US is no longer asleep at the policman-of-the-world switch. It will also pull out the huge financial, military and ideological backing that drives much of the Islamic fundamentalist movement in the ME and the world. If you think a rising sea level, rising temperature and all of the other climate change possibilities are dire, WTF do you think a nuclear winter will look like???? THAT is what is really at stake here, and Trump is the only game in town that can bring any effective deviation in that direction.

I think you missed my point. When they spend it, if budget is balanced and debt is not allowed, taxes are raised IMMEDIATELY to match their spending. can't pass the bill on to someone else (which is what deficit spending does).

I still can't understand how people could allow ANY deficit spending at all. Just allows politicians to cash in during their term and pass the bill onto someone else's grandchildren.

check your PM

CBC seems to follow the Clinton News Network just as they are told.

The backroom guys would tell you it added up to $2.2, not 1.4 - so there is some cooking of the books involved. Hardly an "independent" media!

Yeah, almost as bad as when politicians and unions get together to tilt the playing field. BTW: you DO realize that your Messiah, Tommy the Commie was a director of Husky Oil in his later years.