SpankyMcFarland
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Posts posted by SpankyMcFarland
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2 hours ago, CdnFox said:
Politics exists downsream of culture. The politics has taken that turn because the culture has - if someone disagrees hurt them. Punish them. Cancel them. Don't allow opposing views. If someone wants to talk and you don't like what they have to say - burn the stage down.
If i'm having a tough time it's the fault of whitey/the govt/the immigrants/privlidge And i should hate and strike back at those things.
Parents and society allowing that kind of crap thinking poisons the water and we get the kind of politics we have to pander to it,
Such attitudes apply across the political spectrum. I’ve seen multiple examples of people of who have changed party in the US and then feel obliged to make their change in policy positions more extreme in order to join their new tribe and denounce their old faith. One factor here is America’s weird two party system that forces disparate positions into only two boxes.
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17 minutes ago, I am Groot said:
You mean their nation. But Canadians are told we have no nation, and are discouraged from having any pride in Canada or its history. And the US isn't across an ocean but just a short drive away.
Also their actual location. France has had a gentler climate than Quebec although their summers are becoming hotter.
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1 hour ago, I am Groot said:
The Canadian comparison is $265k (US$195k) But then, they need to pay off far higher student loans. And we need to compete with America or we'll lose them all. Free or nearly free tuition combined with a requirement they pay off the real cost if they leave (the real cost being the cost if not subsidized AT ALL by the government, more like what a foreign student would pay). I wonder if we did away with the requirement to get a bachelor degree before going to medical school, as it is done in a number of other countries would help here. Not only would it reduce the cost and time of training but perhaps it would make them inelliglbe for a quick jump across the border to work in the US.
How big is net physician migration south? I’ve heard of it but I don’t think it’s on the scale of Irish medical migration to Oz (percentage wise) or the likes of SAfrican/Egyptian//South Asian movement here (in gross numbers).
As to why French nurses don’t move to Quebec, well, they live in France which is not yet the dystopian nightmare some claim it to be. French people require a big pay differential to give up on their country.
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Unfortunately, political parties in the US have taken the role that religious sects used to play. There can be no middle ground. When a person changes party these days, they tend to renounce their old beliefs with a fervour that is unwarranted.
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The compensation of landowners is a topic to itself. I will leave it to others closer to the action to sort out whether and how much, taking into account what similar greenbelts have done around the world and, crucially, when the land was bought. And if you want to do something different, hey, that’s fine with me.
We started off on this thread with the title in the OP claiming that the entire greenbelt needs to be de-zoned and that all the people of the GTA are ‘entrapped’ in this fiendish plot, to use the colourful language of Mr. Corcoran. I suspect the majority of residents do not feel imprisoned and would like to see at least some of it retained. Is that the case or not?
On what greenbelts are for, I think we will see some evolution on that. Farms and the markets they support will remain important but biodiversity and recreational opportunities for urban residents will rise even more as goals in the future. All the land so described is not sacrosanct.
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23 hours ago, ExFlyer said:
Generous grants??
Why not full market value?
Because the grants I am talking about would be to bring about a change of use on land that isn’t sold. The owners would be getting grants to change its use - and perhaps add rights of way - but would still own the land. Alternatively, they could sell it outright. Some of that land could then be used for housing and some for parks/wild areas.
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20 hours ago, I am Groot said:
I don't have a monkey in the show in terms of what type of system is used. Whether it's 100% public, 100% private, a mixture, or something done through insurance like the countries you name. I just want the one that will work. And ours clearly doesn't. Yet anytime anyone suggests any significant change you can hear the shrill cries of "American style!" echoing through the streets.
Who mentioned America here so far? I certainly didn’t. It’s not a ‘model’ worth considering if it can be considered a coherent model at all. Europe, Taiwan, Australasia etc. offer better alternatives that we might learn from. Let’s see if we can agree on some changes to our system.
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1 hour ago, ExFlyer said:
I cheer for the landowners that were now able to sell their land.
As long as you pay the owners of the land full market value for that land.
Absolutely. I would offer generous grants to landowners to rewild land as well.
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US sentencing policy is wildly out of line with the rest of the Western world - the sentence was in line with that. And you don’t have to be anywhere near the action to direct a conspiracy.
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I think we could do with less greenbelt being farmed and more rewilded to benefit wildlife and city dwellers. I don’t see why some of it couldn’t be used for housing as well as long as that process was transparent.
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My impression is that UK healthcare spending is considerably lower than that of France by most measures:
That Spectator article quoted in the OP is heavy on anecdotes but does concede that the French system is ‘slightly’ more expensive. Like Canada, both systems aim to provide universal health care - ultimately, the government is the main payer. However, mandatory personal health insurance seems to be a feature of many successful systems, e.g. Germany, France, the Netherlands, and it’s something we should consider here. (BTW I’m not sure our doctors would like the incomes of their French counterparts. Another day’s work.) In fairness, all these countries have advantages of population density over us. I think our best peer is Australia - similarly vast and sparsely inhabited with a federal system, high standard of living and an indigenous population. On many measures, the land down under is moving ahead of us.
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21 minutes ago, Aristides said:
Ya, tell that to all people who can no longer get home insurance or a mortgage because insurance companies have pulled out of areas that have become much riskier to insure because of more severe weather. Insurance companies look at nothing but risk, ideology or politics don't matter.
You’re just a fact-based fanatic.
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This thread started with an allegation about climate change and has rapidly moved on to Canadian politics. Let’s go back to the claims made in the OP. Firstly, please provide a link that names these 1600 scientists (I don’t care what an economist thinks about it ) and what their relevant areas of expertise are.
On 9/8/2023 at 12:12 AM, BeaverFever said:
Clearly, it was all Trudeau’s fault.
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For a politician to knowingly endanger the lives of election workers by making false allegations against them is outrageous in a liberal democracy. I won’t say it’s as low as you can go because these guys will always go lower.
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Here’s a nice graph. With any luck such mongering will reduce your gruntlement.
https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/canadian-wildfires-boreal-forest-tipping-point
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Terence Corcoran, the tireless apologist for our obscene telecom oligopoly? That guy? Unbelievably, he is still at it:
QuoteWhich brings us to what now looks like another Boswellian blunder. In a ruling just after Christmas, the tribunal shot down the commissioner’s attempt to block the $26-billion Rogers-Shaw telecom merger, a transaction portrayed by the academic and populist guardians of competition mythology as a threat to the fundamental right of Canadians to an essential service: cheap cellphones. Anything less than cheap is the evil product of monopoly market power wielded by conniving corporate executives and billionaire controlling families.
BTW millions of acres mean nothing to anybody other than farmers in their dreams. Try converting it to square miles or kms to make it intelligible.
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I think a lot more fear should be mongered about forest fires in Canada. After what we’ve been through this year already, we shouldn’t need scientists to tell us something very serious is happening.
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Another Napoleon? That’s such an absurd analogy on any level. For starters, he’s an utter neophyte, let’s say, on the battlefield and has done precisely zero to reform Russia or its legal system in a way that will be remembered fondly.
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22 hours ago, August1991 said:
In 1815, after Napoleon, the European world created a basis of peace - counterweights.
This system was tested in 1848 but worked.
It ultimately collapsed in the summer of 1914 - the Austrian-Hungarian Federal State was no longer sustainable.
There were several Balkan Wars before 1914. I fear that this Ukraine-Russia Civil War is a similar pre-cursor of an impending European war,
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My fear.
Europeans fight each other every 100 years or so.. Once a new generation of young males have forgotten the stories of their elders, they fight one another.
European wars/upheaval typically last for 30 years or so: 1789-1815. 1914-1945. 1618-1648
The European despots of 1800 feared a Napoleonic meritocracy and crushed it accordingly. Britain was more than happy to finance them so it could continue running Ireland and much of the rest of the world. This clique managed to retain that awful system in 1848. After WWII Europeans have gradually achieved a freedom and prosperity unknown in the continent’s history which the criminal regime in Moscow naturally wants to destroy.
In its contest with the PRC, the world must imitate the cohesion of the Alliances against Napoleon but not their aims. This time it’s global freedom at stake, not some grubby enterprise by the East India Company and its likes.
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I hope reports of an advance are true. Russian morale can’t be great these days.
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-counteroffensive-gains-southeast-russia/32557460.html
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On 8/1/2023 at 12:24 PM, Nationalist said:
Well Russia hasn't completely subjugated Ukraine. They've secured the eastern...ethnic Russian...provinces. They also have hundreds of thousands of military personnel there to defend that region. That part of Ukraine is now gone.
They’ve invaded them and people are getting a very nasty taste of what Russian rule means.
On 8/1/2023 at 12:24 PM, Nationalist said:The war was executed the way it was executed. Russian has control of most...if not all by now...of the eastern provinces. Were their tactics sound? Meh...probably not. On the other hand, the Ukrainians realized pretty quickly that Russia can reach into their western provinces at will. With Belarus just north of them, the Russians can attack in force, on short notice.
Methinks Mr. Lukashenko will find excuses to stop that happening. His regime ain’t too steady these days either.
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On 8/21/2023 at 11:13 PM, Aristides said:
The West Kelowna fire jumped Okanagan Lake. The Trans Canada crossed by fires on the Thompson and two places in the Fraser Canyon. You might want to rethink what is over the top.
That is disturbing. What size firebreaks are towns going to need in the future?
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9 hours ago, Moonbox said:
Surely? They had an embassy there seven years ago and they were enemies then too.
They have restored diplomatic relations. That is progress, yes? BTW, ‘surely’ there was intended as a term of politeness, not certainty. I am tentatively expressing an uncertain opinion, as also indicated by the question mark.
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8 hours ago, Moonbox said:
Working on their relationship is nice, but whether there's any material changes remains to be seen.
KSA has re-opened its embassy in Tehran. That is surely a material change?
De-zone the whole greenbelt
in Provincial Politics in Canada
Posted
Dear me. It is A topic. Even Terence Corcoran did not make it THE topic. You need to find someone who disagrees with you a little more vehemently than I do. As I said, I’m agnostic on this issue.
Again, would you like to see the entire greenbelt removed? Tower blocks all over the escarpment?