?Impact

Certainly there are countries with these social conservative policies went through a period of state atheism (Soviet Union, China) have emerged today with different perspectives on both religion and social issues. In Russia the largest religions are Abrahamic, mostly Orthodox Christian but also a significant number of Islam. In China eastern religions are more significant, mostly Taoism and Buddhism. Both countries have (close) majority non-religious populations. Russia however is extremely socially conservative as it relates to LGBT community, where China has been much more progressive for the past couple of decades. While there were significant gains in womens equality under law in both countries, probably more so in China than Russia, there is still significant social conservative views about women, more so in Russia than China.

Yes logistics is huge business. The lack of a major airport will affect some of the business for the fastest turnaround from commercial flights. The next level down however can be accommodated with daily cargo flights to several major transfer points, I assume they can push enough business to justify that. Below that of course we have both rail and road transport to the north-east.for about 3 day delivery. The west of course will be better served out of LA or Vancouver. The big question will be down south like Florida, Texas, etc. I suspect there will need to be another facility somewhere in the Gulf for that. The airport is not adjacent to the logistics area, it is on the other side of Sydney maybe 10-12km away. Now that would be a problem in a major metropolitan area but not so bad here. The runway is descent, maybe not capable of handling the largest heaviest jets but still a very wide variety. Note that New York La Guardia and Washington National airport have similar length runways. They would probably need to upgrade snow clearing equipment, etc. but that would be easily justified. The only real problem with the airport is very few commercial flights.

They don't have to vote for Hilary for her to get a plurality, although. I believe if an explicit majority is not obtained (ie. 270+ votes) when the joint session of Congress meets in January and counts the votes then they get to decide. A mess is no different than a tie.

Well said. The only qualifier I would add that it is social conservatism specifically. There are nations with differing economic policies that still practice social conservatism.

Yet Germany has a coalition between the far left socialists and the Christian democrats. I think the chances of a Liberal/conservative coalition are highly likely. The big ideological differences are not between the NDP and conservatives, it is between the NDP and ultra right-wing reformists (who call themselves Conservatives). Perhaps this is an opportunity for the emergence of real conservatives in Canada.

You seem to ignore the immigrant part, yet spend 99% of your time disparaging immigrants. You also ignore the career politician part, yet that is what you spend the rest of your time on. I didn't bring McDonald into this thread, just felt the need to put it in context. If you note, I mentioned there are many other Canadians we should start recognizing. I gave many examples, and others here gave many more.

From the numbers I have seen, Cubans were getting the almost perfect number of calories (based on average adult). It was not malnutrition, and more importantly it was not unhealthy overeating we see in the average North American diet. Yes the decades of American trade embargo on Cuba did put it in a poor position for importing food, and being a small island in a major hurricaine area caused its domestic food supply to be vulnerable to natural disasters. Trudeau is a member of Parliament. Trump is not a member of Congress. Are you sure you are an American citizen?

Yes, in Germany there are 2 main parties that tend to lead (not gain power, understand there is a difference between a coalition government and minority one). Yes, the NDP makes the political landscape a bit different in Canada but then so does (did) the Bloc, Reform, and Canadian Alliance. In Germany the balance of power was held by the FDP (Free Democratic Party) for many years, and then the Greens for about a decade. I don't see any fundamental differences here, but you need to get off the concept of a majority as the only way to govern. I agree that there are some advantages to a mixed system over pure proportional, as there are visa versa. Those should be given consideration before any system is selected. Canadians also need to be kept involved, educated, and informed throughout the process. I have no idea about BC & PEI, but I know the main reason for the referendum results in Ontario was very little involvement of citizens. That low involvement, and then holding a referendum was extremely dumb.

Sir John A. McDonald Immigrant Drunk Racist Lawyer Career politician for 44 years (23 years before Confederation and another 21 years after) Brought political scandal to the Canadian lexicon Sounds like a scoundrel to me. I'm glad we are starting to recognize the many other Canadians out there that played some role in our country. Even if we want to limit our focus on those that formed the country, there were over 40 others that participated in the conferences in Charlottetown, Quebec city, and London England. The only other one that gets any air time is Queen Victoria, although I doubt even 1% of Canadians know why we celebrate her birthday and not those of the many monarchs who went before or the 5 after her.

There is no daemon associated with proportional voting, that is something you created in your head. Many extremely stable governments around the world run very effectively with proportional voting. Next year will be the 19th parliamentary election of the German Bundestag since the war, during that same time we have already had 22 parliamentary elections in Canada. Ranked voting only gets power hungry politicians what they want - absolute control.

There are thousands of leaks every year, that is not what I would consider extremely high reliability. Yes, most of those leaks are minor and are properly cleaned up (thanks to tough regulation influenced by environmental activists). What is extremely concerning however is the few major leaks, and especially how long they went unnoticed by the pipeline company until the environmental damage was noticed. The pipeline companies have to do a far better job in both reducing the possibility of leaks, and especially in real-time monitoring to detect the early signs. Yes, there are a subset of environmental activists that are against all development. There is also much opposition directed at tar sands development, and pipelines are just a misguided means to address that. There are far more NIMBY anti-pipeline activists out there, who suddenly turn out because of locality. There are however many environmental activists that can distinguish between an Energy East and Northern Gateway. That is not to say there are not many challenges with Energy East, but they are far more manageable.

Except of course Liblin in the article you point to completely, and 100%, ignores the statement he quoted from Max Fawcett: “Dear conservatives: It was Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley that got a pipeline to tidewater. Enjoy your cognitive dissonance.” Neither of the pipelines he provides as examples go to tidewater, nor does the line 9 reversal he also cites. That is the problem with Conservatives, and their stooges in the press, they think that non-Conservative readers are as stupid as their base. If you don't understand why the tidewater qualification is important, then you obviously know nothing about the industry. The score is Harper 0, Trudeau 0. With some obstacles out of the way, Trudeau is making more progress than Harper ever did but he is still far from the finish line.

If we ignore the stupidity of the remark, and the even further stupidity of Rick Perry who couldn't remember the 3 departments he wanted to scrap during the primary debate, there is some valid logic in putting someone in charge of a department they want to eliminate because that will be their agenda. You don't suddenly turn off the taps, you need to wind thing down.

That's an interesting statement. Where does that put those tens of millions of 'Catholics' who didn't follow the birth control policies of the pope for decades? I'm not taking about those who abandoned the church, but the tens of millions who still went to regular mass but used a condom/pill?

When we closed down analog television, all the capture, storage, and display technology unique to that medium was discarded. Todays video broadcasts still rely heavily on radio technology for prorogation, but the encoding of the moving picture and sound have absolutely nothing to do with what was developed for the television industry. The only significant technology development for television that made its way into the digital market was the helical scan used for videotape which made its way into some data storage tape, but may not last that much longer because most of the industry is linear serpentine and the helical scan niche is disappearing. What did remain from the television industry was the writing, producing, financing, marketing, and sale of content. Do we call that 'technology', or is it 'culture' or more appropriate 'business' or 'industry'? The rather broad definition of technology that kimmy gave as "a method of doing something" of course would include all of that. I tend to think of technology as more of the tools. For example in banking, I see the technology as how I record transactions and current balance for an account (e.g. a paper ledger or a computer program and storage), and not the fact that I record it.

Trump has explicitly named his two sons as taking control of his business, and didn't mention his daughter Ivanka. Does this omission imply that she and/or her husband will take a roll role in his Whitehouse staff? The omission of his other daughter is not significant as she seems to be focused on building a show business career and has never been involved significantly in either the family business or politics.

Didn't CN sell of the railway many years ago? I believe it changed hands a few times since then, now being owned by an American company. I expect CN will still get revenue after Turo, but there is a big piece of coin they are going to miss out on. I expect however the economics will still be better for transfer to a smaller container ship, than rail for the bulk of the goods. I don't think that the port of Montreal will loose any business here, but Halifax certainly will. What remains to be seen is how much cargo destined to US ports will transfer through Sydney. Certainly for goods coming from Europe, or via the Suez canal it will be ideally placed.

True, because the Bible does not consider the universe as we understand it today. There are however many passages in the Bible that imply that man, made in the image of God, is the centre of all created. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. - Joshua 10:12-13 Now clearly there are many laws of physics being broken here, but allowing that an all powerful God will do that anyway, we are still left with the issue that the day has absolutely nothing to do with the Sun standing still. The rotation of Earth is what affects the day, not the location of the Sun in the "heavens". Only in an Earth centred "universe" would the above passage make any sense.

Yes, testing of siblings would be quite interesting. Technically they have the exact same ancestry as you, but will that be reflected in the test. As you already pointed out they have different expressed physical traits, but does that make them more Scandinavian for example.

Move along, move along Let's make America grate again.

I think dispensaries should be allowed, in a liquor store or any other store, but must be walled off with a lockable door (ie. not just a counter). Store staff should be certified, and must be present during the operating hours of that walled off unit. Wal-Mart can have a dispensary if they want, but the same rules apply. It would be like one of the hair cutting places they have, but you would need certified staff and the product must be sold within that unit.

"For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"

So, let`s go ahead and legalize it and see how things develop. Proclaiming legalization will be a failure because there is a black market is just plain silly.

Merry Christmas. A little early, and not sure why it is in the federal political forum.

No, again another falsification. There are no regulations against it in any province that I am aware of. Could you cite the laws you are using? Meat processing is a provincial responsibility, and the slaughterhouses need to be licensed and inspected.