Hydraboss

All true, but look to the earliest of humans - the thought is that the "pack" protected itself. So when a poster makes the statement that there is no evolutionary reason for anyone to protect billions around the planet that they've never met, I tend to agree.

Not the province per se, but everyone in it and all companies do (for the most part...). Redirect those billions to the Alberta coffers instead of the federal ones and then maybe we'd be getting close to a reasonable comparison between a province and a country. I'm not supporting the yea or nay at all - I'm just pointing out how stupid the comparison is. Which is faster, a kid on a competition level mountain bike or a kid on a Honda CBR250? Exactly - stupid comparison.

Actually, yes they can. And most are doing just that. The legal system did it's thing. Don't like it? Take it to court, not the "court of public opinion". No one on this board can change it, and most likely don't care enough about this one case to bother even if they could.

Because of an even older "rule" - taking care of oneself and immediate family before others. That one would go back to the very beginning of evolution. Nope. Not at all.

And just for the record, want to see the change in the financial landscape if the "Republic of Alberta" made an agreement to lay a bitumen pipeline straight south to Montana without Canadian federal involvement clouding the deal?

The argument is that a direct comparison between a province and a country is ridiculous. You mentioned one part - federal taxes for corporations - if someone wants to compare piggy banks between Norway and Alberta, let's start with everything being paid to the feds out of this province. The whole equalization thing is complete bullshit depending which side of the fence you're standing on (that's a personal belief issue), but there is absolutely no argument that, from a strictly financial standpoint, Alberta would be billions ahead if it did not exist. And keep in mind, we're not talking a small amount of pocket change over the years from federal taxes on Alberta, et al. This is big, big numbers.

Waldo, the Norway comparison IS a bunch of bs. The only way you could make the connection between Alberta and Norway accurately would be to treat Alberta as a country - meaning that all revenues generated (royalties, taxes, etc) would have to stay in the "country". There would also be added expenditures for the Republic of Alberta (my emphasis) such as military and "federal" pension, etc but I think mathematically you'd find that RoA would be much, much better off financially in that case. Now the PCs of this province pissed away a ton of money on lost royalties and really bad spending, but to compare it's current state to that of a Norwegian country in unfair at least and completely disingenuous at best. There would likely be zero debt and one hell of a bank account if there were no cost to paying to stay in a confederation.

So my question is: How can they account for that unless they know who's lying? Look at MLW for instance; how many people have stated they lie to pollsters and how do you know that they're telling the truth about lying.... It just seems to me that the margin of error would have to include these suspected "liars" and their answers in the final result. Not sure how anyone could statistically quantify it past a "feeling".

Okay, that I knew about. I thought penguin meant people were getting paid by pollsters for "random phone" polls.

What? I've never heard of anyone getting paid to participate in a poll. edit -> I really need to participate in more polls!! How do I get on THAT list?

Cyber, that's all true but even then your results would only be as accurate as the answers given, which may or may not match the end result. People lie to pollsters (although I have no idea why anyone would bother - either answer truthfully or decline).

Even though they weren't around in 2011, their model would allow them to retroactively rebuild their charts to see if they would have predicted correctly. Now THAT would be interesting.

The wells that deep tend to be for high pressure gas not oil, but when they do their kick-off at various depths they can go out a looooooog ways into a production formation. If they run, say, 9 5/8 intermediate casing they can usually run up to four production lines inside that, and if each one went out horizontally 2500-3000 meters, that's a whole lot of formation being covered. Depending on the geologicals for the area, some of those wells produce for 5-10 years before they need any stimulation (and a lot of the time all they need is water injection not fracking). The well costs (maybe a few million) are a drop in the bucket compared to what the production values are over the long term. And when the oil production is done, they can just re-enter the well and produce gas (or vice versa). They're money makers. The comparison you're trying to make between shale operations and oilsands operations doesn't exist. Drilling relies on existing field data and seismic. Oilsands is a known entity - the oil is there and can be core drilled from surface in a single day to confirm (not that they have to). They have a pretty damn good idea of the quantity available before they plunk a multi-billion dollar facility on top of it. The other thing to keep in mind is that when oil is high, you produce. When oil is low, you build. Right now construction costs are at a multi year low so get ready for the major players to start building/expanding their operations in 2016/17. It only makes financial sense since these guys are in there for the long haul, not like shale players. Hell, oilsands companies were producing when oil was $10 a barrel so what makes you think that +/- $50 oil is going to stop them? The profit per barrel doesn't have to be as high on projects as it does on production wells because of the known longevity. If they can build what they need for 40 cents on the construction dollar, they'll be even better positioned when the price of oil starts to bounce back. This downturn won't stop the major players - never does, but it makes for the perfect scapegoat to reduce and "right size" the company and all the service companies below them. Watch for the major oil companies to start swallowing up the small and mid-sized producers at fire sale prices.

I'm curious how many avowed members of the Green Party drive these $50/1000mile cars?

Some of those talking points are pretty bang on....the PCs DID squander billions. They always did. However, not many people out here gave a damn as long as the taxes were low and they made enough cash to buy things they wanted. Like a 911S ( ). Now that the NDP has taken over, they will squander billions (because they've never had their hands on a cookie jar quite like Alberta before), only people won't have enough cash to buy things they want. That's your difference.

Samson has basically nothing to do with the oilsands. There are four major players and a whole bunch of smaller, non-managing"partners" - Shell, Suncor, Syncrude and CNRL. Not one of them is in any trouble up there and they certainly aren't "hemoraging money". Also, there is absolutely no comparison between an oilsands project (not just a well pad) and anything in the shale plays. That's like comparing a 7-11 store to a Superstore. They need to just pump that crap down disposal wells and be done with it. Or find a way to safely purify it and reuse it for steam injection. By the way, a lot of the majors are loving this downturn because, in spite of falling revenues on the oil side, they are also putting the boots to suppliers and dropping project costs by as much as 40+% (believe me, I know!). Calculate that savings over the next few phases of Christina Lake or Albian II or Firebag 5&6.... Not even close. There's more oil than they can pump out here. Before the drop in prices, pump jacks were being shut down and wells shut in because they didn't need the excess. I can head west of my house and in 7-8 minutes, it looks like west Texas with all the jacks going, and those wells were drilled in the 70's and just had a little water injected to liven them back up. There's also a ton of producing wells that were re-entered to a higher zone when natural gas was "the thing". Those holes produce both. Wrong again. The wells up here don't "need" fracking or to be drilled horizontally. The reason you go horizontal is reduction of cost - you drill one vertical well, and then punch out the side to get to the zone your "next well" would have been over without the costs of a new lease or moving the rig and services. One location - as many horizontal legs as you can fit (and some of those wells are over 4500m deep in the foothills and you can fit a LOT of horizontal legs off of that). Horizontal drilling is about efficiency, not need.

Then let them announce that they'll form an official coalition. That way, there's only 41.4% of Canadians that don't want them to form government. Easy.

TB, I'm simply responding to Waldo's typical one-sided use of "data". None of it really means a damn thing, does it?

And by those same polling results, it would appear that 68.8% of Canadians do not favor a Liberal government, and 72.8% of Canadians do not favor an NDP government. See how those numbers and "facts" work?

Hardly ludicrous. Since the thread is on the MLW board, let's just look at the comments posted here then shall we? Strategic voting doesn't "spook" me and I'm not sure it would spook the Tories either (not that I really care since I'm not a card-carrier for anyone). My gut feeling is the folks going on and on about voting strategically are pretty much the same as the ones going on and on about the environment being the most important issue in the election. It's not and they're wrong, otherwise the Green party would be running away with everything. And they're not. People like to yap about strategic voting, but can anyone point out where it has actually happened en masse? Ever? It doesn't. It's a vocal minority. And completely ineffective as far as I can tell.

The other option would be a two party system which would guarantee the winner would have 50%+1 vote, would it not?

Actually, I'd like to see them get exactly 170 across the country. No more, no less. I'd also like to see the Liberals completely shut out of my province obviously.

Yup, it is. And it's pretty stupid. Why the hell they don't wash out the limestone into caverns is beyond me.

There is. The strategy of starting two of the same threads in a day will likely fail to gain interest.

Actually, the best idea to date is what CCS and others are doing...drilling 2500-3000+ meters down into a formation that can be washed out like a cavern. Don't need to fill them with water - just set a retreivable plug above the cavern line. Dow Chemical, BP and a bunch of others have been doing it in Fort Saskatchewan for decades (of course, they use it for short term storage of base stock - natural gas, butane, etc). It does away with tailings ponds entirely. The only reason those ponds exist is the producers are hard pressed for fresh water to reinject so they try to use ponds for recovery. Which brings me to your second point... If producers were allowed to install a pipeline from the Arctic to the oil sands, the need to take water from local watercourses would end. Desalinate and pump what's left down the same disposal wells. Problem solved. ...except for those damn iceworms...