Iznogoud

I see, well that makes sense. It is interesting though that Canadian politicians don't feel it necessary to have the same protection. Would I be wrong in thinking that the US is unique in this circumstance, or do other democracies also offer protection to their national leaders?

I don't believe that the agents you mentioned are involved in the investigation. Strzok certainly is not. Apparently Mueller has assembled a team of agents that members of Trump's entourage refer to as "killers." Trump is in serious trouble and his actions in recent weeks show it. BTW using insults to make a point weakens your argument. I prefer to respond with facts so I will not reply in kind. Interesting that you used the Semenko-Gretzky allusion. I had tickets to the Oilers during that era. Inside Trump’s legal team: Trying to protect the president from Mueller’s ‘killers’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-legal-team-trying-to-protect-the-president-from-muellers-killers/2017/12/11/57e180c0-dc74-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.54a67cb8f548

You seem to be correct about Trump's mental state. I have had two relatives with early onset dementia and he resembles them in many ways. Even some of his long time acquaintances state that he is not the man he used to be. I am old enough that I can remember Trump from four decades ago when he was appearing on Letterman and PBS and he certainly seemed a lot more rational than he is now. In the meeting with Schumer and Pelosi Trump seemed to have walked into a trap. Apparently the GOP was planning on blaming any government shutdown on the Democrats, but Trump took ownership of the shutdown, completely undermining the GOP position. As for this Huawei fiasco, Trump may also have undermined his position on that by commenting that he might want to use Meng Wanzhou as a bargaining chip. If the Canadian courts see it as such it is entirely possible they will toss out the extradition order on the grounds that it is pure politics.

Actually every new arrest generated by the Mueller investigation seems to indicate that Trump was indeed involved in illegal activities. I find it bizarre that the President seems to be above the law as long as he is in power. That is certainly a major weakness in the US system, given the nature of a man like Trump. And Mueller's investigative team is far from a group of misfits. From all reports Mueller put the best agents he could find on the case. The ring seems to be closing in on the President and he is slowly running out of wiggle room. It appears to me that the only reason decision to be made is whether or not to got after the President now through the process of impeachment or wait until he is out of office and then proceed with a normal criminal case.

It appears that you are a little confused about the reason reserves were created. For the First Nations it was a last desperate attempt to hold on to a little bit of what they had once owned before all of it was taken from them. For the government of Canada it was a way of getting the "Indians" out of the way. In that it succeeded all too well and as a result instead of integrating First Nations into the dominant culture it isolated them resulting in hundreds of little first Nations' ghettos. This was very similar to the way Blacks were treated in the USA and has made it difficult for present day first nations to fit into or relate to mainstream Canadian society.

China also may also not care too much about the strict guidelines followed by the West regarding nuclear. Regarding solar and wind I suspect that they are going to become continually more viable especially as energy storage problems seem close to being solved. If you google "New Batteries" you get a host of possible solutions. It is very likely that one or more of them are going to solve the storage problem.

There is also another reason why many nations are not embracing nuclear, and that is that solar and wind are now much cheaper sources of energy to install and there are fewer regulatory hoops to jump through in those two technologies. In addition, nuclear plants seem to take a long time to build compared to wind and solar and often seem to run into cost overruns.

Things just keep on getting worse and worse for Donald Trump. It is hard to see how the President is going to get out of the current situation what with top aides being sent to jail and the Mueller net seemingly widening to take in more and more of his associates. The only situation that seems unresolved is whether Mueller will go after the President now or wait until after he is out of office in 2021. And, of course, there is still the question of what the Democratically controlled House of Representatives will do, especially given the obvious animosity between the President and the Democratic House leader.

I'm not sure why Trump is being compared to Trudeau. An American president should only be compared to other American presidents and so far Trump ranks pretty far down the list in terms of achievements. Unless you count his Supreme Court appointees he has really only scored one major victory and that is lowering taxes; a victory that will almost certainly result in an out of control national debt if it is not corrected.

Scheer's problem is not that he is too liberal, it is that he is too much of a lightweight. The Conservatives made the mistake of choosing another climate denier as their leader, despite the fact that most Canadians seem quite aware of climate change, and the NDP made the mistake of not sticking with Thomas Mulcair. I'm not saying that choosing Jasmeet Singh as leader was not a bold move, but he does not seem to have caught the imagination of the Canadian public. A weak NDP generally means another Liberal victory.

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

Looks like Mueller is closing in. U.S. Justice Department Connects Trump To A Federal Crime For 1st Time https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/12/08/u-s-justice-department-connects-trump-to-a-federal-crime-for-1st-time_a_23612563/?utm_hp_ref=ca-homepage

No core identity? Hey, even Muslims play hockey.

So far as attempting to develop clean coal tech, what is the point when solar and wind are already clean? It seems to me that is simply beating a dead horse. I think if you read my post you will note that I did not mention that electric power will replace aircraft, although it is a possibility if batteries continue to improve. In fact there are multiple designs for electric aircraft already in the works. All that is need is improved batteries to deliver the power. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/08/the-electric-aircraft-is-taking-off/ As for trucks the latest electric powered designs blow away conventional diesel powered vehicles. https://electrek.co/guides/tesla-semi/ https://nikolamotor.com/one I agree that population is a problem. Humanity simply takes up too much space, but currently birth rates in most of the developed world are lower than the replacement rate. This is eventually going to result in a population crash in many nations unless they do what the US and Canada have done and allow large scale immigration. And I really fail to see what politics has to do with any of this except for the fact that large coal and oil interests have lobbied extensively to pressure politicians to oppose green energy. I see a direct historical parallel in early opposition to railroads and the internal combustion engine. Of course, we all know how successful that was.

The NDP will continue to be relevant as long as it remains a potential threat to the Conservatives and Liberals. Just ask the other parties in Alberta, Ontario, BC, and Quebec.

I find the title of this thread odd, considering that it refers to the PM who was voted the greatest in Canadian history. In that case if Justin does close to as well as his father his legacy is probably pretty safe. BTW, I am not a Liberal supporter.

And what were the economic reasons? I suspect that one of them may have been that the demand for the Hummer declined, possibly due to the fact that they were expensive to run, hard to park, and not particularly traffic friendly.

So far as I have been able to determine clean coal technology is a myth. In order to be truly clean coal would have to burn without producing any greenhouse gas emissions, and I doubt that is possible. My reference to technological inertia agrees with your stand that massive investment in existing technology creates a technological mass that is hard to change. As a result fossil fuels are not going to go away anytime soon. But that was also true of many other technologies in the 20th Century. An example is that horses were used as a major form of transport even in the so-called mechanized armies of World war II. However, in the long term superior technology always wins out. There will be resistance to this trend, of course, from established industry, particularly in countries like the US and Canada which have huge oil industries. But there will also be much less resistance in nations like China and India which are major importers of oil.

I find it amazing that the nation that sees itself as the world's leading democracy has such a convoluted system for establish electoral boundaries and decided who can and cannot vote. Canada has a single system for national elections and the Supreme Court recently decided that even convicted felons had the right to vote even if they were in prison. The US seems to have gone out of its way to reduce democracy at both the state and national level. It should not require multiple court challenges to reestablish what should be a fundamental right.

And yet Hummers have almost completely disappeared. Monster gas-guzzlers are out. Even GM seems to realize that going electric is the future.

I certainly agree that fossil fuels are not going away for several decades. Technological inertia tends to keep established systems in place simply because it is easier to leave things the way that they are rather than change. However, as it was in the case of the internal combustion engine versus other forms of technology at the beginning of the 20th Century superior tech eventually wins out, especially if it is easier to use and less costly than its competition. Currently wind and solar are cheaper than coal so I expect that will give them the edge in the long term, especially if governments begin to drop fossil fuel subsidies.

This may help answer your question. How Canada ended gerrymandering https://www.vox.com/2014/4/15/5604284/us-elections-are-rigged-but-canada-knows-how-to-fix-them

Actually the cost of solar and wind installations is now lower than that of coal and oil, and considerably lower than nuclear and hydro which always seem to incur considerable cost overruns. Green energy does have its problems in that the sun is not always shining and sometimes the wind does not blow, but these problems are being overcome with improved methods of storing energy. And wind and solar do have considerable advantages over coal and oil in that they can be installed locally without the need of long distance transmission lines. This makes them perfect for isolated communities or for anyone who wants to install his own local power system. As for electric cars the most recent models have overcome a number of objections, namely those of range and power. Oil and coal are now considered old technology and although the two energy systems currently dominate it is clear that the future is in the form of green energy. I sympathize with those who depend on oil and coal for their jobs, but the days of those industries are numbered.

My first post. I looked for an introductions section but could not find one. In any case here is an addition to this topic. Apparently part of GM's reason for closing so many plants is that it has decided that in the long run electric vehicles are the future. Here is an analysis of that position. GM May Finally Be Serious About Electric Vehicles https://cleantechnica.com/2018/11/27/gm-may-finally-be-serious-about-electric-vehicles/