?Impact

I would suggest anyone interested follow through on the links and get to the spreadsheet data. Note this study is a survey of people opinions, but it is very detailed. I am using the OECD data for the economic comparison because the study did not include any of that. There were a few interesting points I noticed from the study 1. Dissatisfaction with the Canadian system seems to be worst in the east and gets better as you travel westward (strange, we usually have the opposite). 2. Other countries seem to rely more heavily on other clinical technicians and nurses, where Canadians rely more on their GP. 3. Canadians perceive we have more mental health issues than others, although the service level is fairly flat across all countries. 3. Canadians perceive we are otherwise more healthy than others.

Are you implying we need to increase public spending as you reference it a couple of times. While three of the countries in the list they compared have lower total spending per capita, only Australia has lower government spending per capita.

I would say it is intellectually dishonest to claim anything other than being anti-abortion is the point of motion 312. Somewhat like all of Harper's bills that were named one thing and the fine print said the complete opposite (e.g. fair elections act). You are right that we have yet to run a surplus, although the current year budget is calling for one (no idea what next years budget will bring, especially if it has tax cuts). Remember that the deficit was hovering around $10 billion for several years, but in the last 2 it was $3.5 and then $1 billion so things were going in the right direction.

Do you have a quote where Wynne said that? Brown does have a track record of being socially conservative. He has voted against same sex marriage, and against a women's right to choose (motion 312 in 2012) while he was a federal MP. He also circulated a letter promising to scrap the sex education curriculum last year during the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection. He has tried very hard in the past year to change his image to be socially progressive, but his legacy lingers on.

Yes, homosexuality was viewed in both Canada and the US very negatively until very recently. Homosexual sex was a criminal act in 14 US states until the Supreme court ruled in 2003.

While I don't necessarily disagree with the idea of the Kurds having their own state, I am against more western meddling in the middle east. There is also the issue of how that state would function in the global economy, would it be isolated economically like it probably would be geographically? They would need to work cooperatively with their neighbours or they would become another Israel, and probably worse because they would not have international water access (Israel has access to both the Red sea, and Mediterranean).

Certainly the Civil Rights Acts was a major milestone with a lot of consequences that was mired in controversy. It basically outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Looking back from today's perspective, it is hard to imagine the problems in America at the time. Were there other ways to move forward that would have had less negative consequences than legislation, or do you think that the discrimination that existed then was right?

What about severely reducing the number of sports instead. While I like the idea of a limited demonstration sport that is relevant for the host country, we seem to have grown away from the basics by including so many different sports in the Olympics. Perhaps we need to get back to athletics, aquatics, cycling, fencing, and gymnastics. Yes I know nobody is aware of fencing, but it has been a staple of every summer Olympics in the modern era. Within those broad disciplines, there is also not the need for so many individual events (e.g. cycling can be track and road, no need for BMX freestyle, BMX racing, and mountain biking). There seemed to be a move a few decades back to reduce the number of disciplines, but it failed miserably because the sports administration bodies simply consolidated and the number of events continued to increase. We need to get back to the order of under 100 events instead of the 300+ we now have.

Election signs do work, but they are far from the most effective method of gaining vote share. Door to door canvasing still remains the most effective method for municipal elections and is a major factor in other elections. The problem is with close elections, those signs could easily spell the difference. Municipalities create all sorts of rules concerning signs, and as you point out they are often ignored. Every election there is also some scandal about vandalizing or stealing election signs. Note that the average citizen often breaks the rules as well to advertise their business, take a look around at poles in your neighborhood and see all the signs illegally posted. The difference is a matter of election signs being there for a limited time and in great numbers, and other signs being there for a long time and less conspicuous.

It likes to pretend it is, remember when it was banned from the Alberta legislature and they raised a huge stink.

Tyranny by the establishment is no fun.

France has a problem with no current age of consent laws, so they need to address the situation. This was a hot topic because a current case will be going to trial early next year involving an 11 year old girl and a 28 year old man (there was also another recent case where the respective ages were 22 & 11 that ended in an acquittal) . The article referenced above suggests that one group is advocating for 13 while parliamentarians are advocating for 15. I don't think a simple age is answer, the disparity between the partners involved should be taken into account. It is naive to think that there are no young people (say 13 or 14) experimenting with sex, but I see a big difference between that and a mature adult and a young child. Also note that sex partners do not ask for proof of age, so if a 13 year old claims to be 15 we need to factor in that in; it would be very different if a 16 year old had sex with 13 year old that looked and claimed to be 15, and if a 39 year old did the same.

Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs have released their "People`s Guarantee" which is essentially the beginning of their 2018 election campaign. This includes: 22.5% lower income taxes for middle class (his definition appears to be people earning less than $86k) 75% refund of child care expenses 12% more off your hydro bill Largest mental health commitment in Canadian provincial history First-ever Trust, Integrity, and Accountability Act I need to study the final two, but does anyone believe the first three are anything but empty promises or continued increase in our public debt? They are claiming they will run a $2.8 billion deficit (up from a projected surplus of the current government) in the first year and then return to surplus.

Based on what, a single example from Britain 5-6 years ago? What does that have to do with Girl Guide of Canada today? What does that have to do with this OP at all?

Here you go: Economic Left/Right: -4.88 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.33 But of course far more important is how stupid many of the test questions are. How am I supposed answer a question on Luck and have it mean anything, perhaps they should include a question on Santa Clause. What about the question of work life balance for a mother, why not a similar question for a father?

Slightly more detail than his previous presentation, but nothing really new here except he gives some hints on what his grad students will be studying next. I anxiously await their peer reviewed publication so it can be examined. Off the top of my head the biggest hole in what he talks about is he seems to think thermal expansion is a one way process. Note that he says the outside of the building buckled out, which seems to correlate with what the firefighters noticed around 2pm. The building itself did not come down until after 5pm. When the fires burn out, the expanded steel will expand negatively (ie. contract). In an ideal world the building would return to its former shape, but this is no an ideal world and things will shift.

Can you give examples? Please do not confuse wealth with money. Money is simply an accounting method that we confuse with wealth because we reward those who accumulate the most of it.

Not sure what process you are talking about. Plants take C02 out of he atmosphere and combine it with water to form carbohydrates. If you burn the plant then the carbohydrates will break down into water and carbon dioxide (or carbon monoxide). A decomposing plan will do the same thing. Here we are talking about a cycle that lasts between a few months and a few centuries. Another product of this process is energy. What is not completely understood is the process that creates fossil fuels, which yes includes coal. The carbohydrates are converted into hydrocarbons and water, but this process uses energy (heat and high pressure). Here the cycle is a few hundred million years. The problem is we are burning the fossil fuels that accumulated over many hundreds of millions of years in a couple of centuries.

as would be slandering all those other Jared`s in the world.

What everyone seems to miss is the fine print. This applies to drones over 250g (about a half pound). This is similar to the regulations that have been in force in the US for quite some time. Your kid can still fly his toy.

Do you own stock in a mediocre fast food chain, or have one of their franchises, Jared?

Yeah, I kinda realized that while I was typing it but I thought what the hey, instead of blaming the end of civilization on "lefties", might as well blame it on the Coca Cola corporation for a refreshing change.

Cool, I never heard of that before. Just looked it up and surmise you mean CocaCola Life which uses both cane sugar and stevia for sweetener. I assume the sugar helps with the taste, but to limit the calories and still make it sweet they use some stevia as well. I miss the CocaCola from my youth, when they did use cane sugar. The mass conversion to aluminum cans and plastic bottles happened around the same time as going from cane sugar to HFCS so while I associate the taste with the glass bottles it is the move away from cane sugar that is the main culprit. Now if I could just get it in 10oz glass bottles for ten cents (plus two cent deposit). Don't forget cork to seal the cap, not plastic, that conversion was several years before getting rid of the glass bottles entirely. There were often prizes and contests on the underside of the cap liners, you had to be careful with the cork liners not to break them when removing them from the cap. I just learned that one of the reasons for the taste difference is plastic bottles don't hold the carbonation in as well as glass or cans. I guess if I try the CocaCola Life I will get a can, or it seems they also have bottles if I can find them somewhere. Another difference of course might be the local water that was used as the bottling was local in those days, and now there are just a few large plants.