Murray B.

You are missing an important point. For more than fifty years there was only one party in Canada, who shall remain nameless, that would tell any lie to obtain and keep power. Now we seem to have another one. There is no way that an "NDP supporter" is going to attend rallies for other parties so she can decide how to vote. Any party "supporter" must already know how they will vote. The NDP used to be better than this.

According to Global News the student was not some undecided waif just wanting to make up her mind. "Layton said Awish Aslam, 19, a political science student, is an NDP supporter..." It looks like the people at the rally had made a good call except this girl knew exactly what actions to take to embarrass the Conservatives anyway. It was a no-win situation for them. The NDP used to be better than this.

What are you trying to say? Is it that only the Conservatives identify potential hecklers in their private rallies and ask them to leave or are you saying that the other parties are somehow immune to heckling and don't have to worry about the problem? One thing I will agree to is that what Mr. Crietien did was far worse than what the Conservatives have done. P.S. Is is just me or is it clear that some of these "trolls" are party employees pretending to be ordinary citizens? That is much more newsworthy than anything they are posting.

Sorry, but your meaning is unclear to me. Is this a reference to the gun registry or have they branched out into other areas? Since we have no constitutional right to property anything can be confiscated with the proper legislation. Cars with V-8 engines must be high on the list.

Thanks for the instant ad hominem. Politics are about as real as a TV show or a comic book so there is no need for insults. Obviously if they wait for the heckler to heckle it will be too late. What all parties do, and have always done in the Television era, is remove potential hecklers before the rally even starts. If they did not do this then there would be constant heckling at every event.

It looks like the opposition is clutching at straws. All parties remove hecklers from rallies all of the time and have done so for decades. This is not something that is only done by the Conservatives. The other parties must know they do this too so it is hard to understand what they hope to gain by making this an issue. Tying the removal of hecklers to this Carson fellow is even more bizarre. It is too bad that the RCMP and Privy Council failed to evaluate the guy properly but it is hard to see what any of it has to do with Mr. Harper. What is really needed here is an investigation to see if the RCMP has become partisan but that is not likely to happen since there is no one who can police the policemen. A voter would have to be very young and inexperienced to fall for any of this play acting.

The prototypes are separate from the rest. They belonged to the Canadian Government and not to Hawker Siddeley Group. The recommendation to destroy the existing aircraft came from Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Hugh Campbell who wanted to avoid “subsequent embarrassment”. There is no trace of any order from the military or Government regarding the destruction research and paperwork so the order must have been internal. It could have come from Hawker Siddeley Group in England or Avro Canada in Malton. It is hard to tell after so many years. What do you mean by “it”? If by “it” you mean a complete weapon system then “it” was not ready for sale at that time. Even the engines were not ready. According to “The Arrow Countdown” by Peter Zuuring page 43, “Charles [Charles Grinyer, VP Engineering at Orenda] said that just before cancellation, the seventh stage compressor rotor was throwing blades without any conclusive solution determined.” He paraphrases Mr. Grinyer again later on page 53, “Charles told me that if they had only had one more year on the project, the Iroquois would truly have met its revolutionary goals.” After the Arrow was built and proved to have excessive drag [it actually did not have a “wasp waist” as we have been repeatedly told] which limited its range to two-thirds of competing aircraft. The U.S. chose to go with a faster, cheaper, longer-range, locally produced aircraft the Delta Dart. In the case of Britain it came down to two British designs the Arrow and the far less expensive English Electric Lightning. They chose the Lightning. As far as France goes there was no chance that they would buy a foreign delta when they were already producing their own for far less money. All of the Arrow’s technology was shared with the other divisions of British Hawker Siddeley Group right from the beginning so your sources of information must be in error. The only reason you are puzzled is because you are assuming the Arrow was the best aircraft ever made. It was a metal-skinned aircraft with vacuum tube electronics and an improper shape for the speeds it was intended to fly. It has more in common with the aircraft of 1954 than the ones from 1958 and there was no way to fix it without starting over. Shredding all the evidence did prevent any inquiry into how the company had managed to spend $308 million to produce a rather mediocre aircraft. Read the minutes carefully and you will see who is actually responsible for destroying all those lives in Malton back then. Think about it. Which party would gain from “embarrassing” the Progressive Conservative Government like that? It looks like Ontarians have been blaming the wrong guy for fifty years. How bad is that?

Yes, a very partisan report did claim this and a major factor was the rising price of fighter jets. It is hard to see how Harper's Government is responsible for the rising price of the F-35. All partners in the Joint Strike Fighter program are experiencing the same cost overruns. Only in Canada could we have our Goverment taking the blame for the actions of a U.S. contractor. This is something I will keep in mind when I vote.

You're welcome.

It is important, jbg, to differentiate between reality and the Avro myth which is a lie that just won’t die.Here is the reality: The Liberals decided to cancel the Arrow in 1957 as described in the October 23, 1963 edition of the Montreal Star, “Gen. Charles Foulkes, chairman of the chiefs of staff committee from 1951 to 1960, testified yesterday that the Liberal Government of Prime Minister St. Laurent decided in 1957 it would cancel the Arrow interceptor program as soon as it was returned to power in that year’s election.” The Liberals lost the election and the Progressive Conservatives took over. The new Cabinet was advised on August 28th, 1958, “Finally, the cost of the CF-105 programme as a whole was now of such a magnitude that the Chiefs of Staff felt that, to meet the modest requirement of manned aircraft presently considered advisable, it would be more economical to procure a fully developed interceptor of comparable performance in the U.S.” Copy posted at http://www.international.gc.ca/department/history-histoire/dcer/details-en.asp?intRefid=8169 [The Arrow was about five times the price of the Voodoo but the improved version was estimated to only have two-thirds the range. Their maximum continuous speed ratings were similar at Mach 1.9 vs. Mach 1.7 respectively and neither aircraft was rated for Mach 2+ as were several other aircraft that were in production around that time.] In 1958 Diefenbaker’s Cabinet decided to continue with the Liberal’s decision to cancel the program. At that point most everyone that knew the details about the Arrow program agreed that it should end. Aerospace Engineering Professor Julius Lukasiewicz described the aircraft accurately when he said there was, “nothing extraordinary about it.” A video containing his words is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWuZtk8uPP0. Diefenbaker’s Cabinet did the sensible thing by adopting the decision of their predecessors and heeding the council of their best advisors. They did delay the decision for a few months to take steps to preserve the industry but, despite their best efforts, they were unable to save the jobs. It was after cancelling the program in 1959 that a controversy began. Diefenbaker describes what happened in the Montreal Star Feb. 24, 1959, “...The Prime Minister said the company had warning of the Government decision to cancel the CF-105 Arrow supersonic interceptor and knew that $50,000,000 in public funds had been set aside for in the estimates for 1959-1960 to cover winding-up expenses...”I say its attitude in letting out thousands of workers – technical workers and employes – on Friday was so cavalier, so unreasonable, that the only conclusion any fair-minded person can come to is that it was done with the purpose of embarrassing the Government.”” The minutes confirm that the Government did offer Avro $50 million to prevent job losses but the company ignored the money for some reason. The minutes also show that the Government was actively seeking other work for the company. What is very clear is that there is no direct connection between cancelling the Arrow program and the disaster that befell Malton. Destroying the industry was a choice that Avro management made and it was not only “embarrassing” to the Government but went a long ways towards defeating it. [What is very surprising about the events in 1959 is how the Opposition was complaining loudly about ending a program that they had already decided to cancel in ’57.] The Arrow myth is not a matter of a simple misunderstanding but one of political propaganda for the “purpose of embarrassing the Government.” It worked against John Diefenbaker and the myth is still useful against Conservatives today. The myth also wrongly accuses Eisenhower of conspiring to kill the program even though the Arrow was cancelled for reasons of economy and performance, not politics. The U.S. really did want the aircraft to succeed but there was no way they could justify spending $9.7 million for a Mach 1.9 Arrow with 1254 nm ferry range when a U.S. company was already producing a $3.75 million aircraft with Mach 2.3 capability and 1930+ nm ferry range. The rest is mythstory.

How many millions of our tax dollars have been spent promoting lies about the Avro Arrow aircraft? It was an average performer that cost five times as much as competing aircraft. Bona fide historians like Morton and Bliss have said so and the records are clear enough on the matter. See international.gc.ca site The cost of the Arrow is given as nearly $10 million each: [Note that the Voodoos that were purchased instead cost about $2 million each.] The recommendation to cancel came from the military: The Chiefs of staff advised the government that the Arrow's performance was "comparable" to U.S. interceptors. They do not mention anything about the Arrow flying faster, or higher, or further, than anything else. Despite the facts Canadian governments at all levels and all parties have used our tax dollars to spread lies about how great the aircraft was. How much of our money has been wasted on this over the last fifty years?

What does this federation say about the millions of taxpayers’ dollars that have been used to perpetuate the myth about the Avro Arrow. You know the one about how the evil Americans and their lackeys, Diefenbaker and his demonic Conservatives, all conspired to murder our beautiful ‘unicorn’. The CBC’s crock-u-drama alone must have cost millions. Even the taxpayer funded official Canadian Air Force site promotes the myth. Take a look at some things posted on the official Canadian Air Force website. “The Arrow program was unique in that the prototype was built using the same tools and rigs that were to be used on production Aircraft...” - This is known as the Cook-Craigie Plan and it is a method developed by two USAF officers. It was used on the Convair F-102 before the Arrow so the method cannot be “unique” to Avro Canada. “During the test flights, the Arrow had flown at mach 1.96 and up to 50,000 feet, results that are still impressive by today's standard of fighter Aircraft design.” - Many aircraft at the time were this fast and at least the Lockheed Starfighter and English Electric Lightning had both exceeded mach 2 by the time of the Arrow tests. This statement may be true but it is also misleading because it does not give proper context. “The Arrow was a very clean design and many of its features were copied on other North American-made fighters, including today's F-22 Raptor. “ - The F-22 has many features in common with many aircraft of the late fifties and none of them, including the Arrow, compare favourably with the F-22. Even the F-4 Phantom II, which had the best performance of that generation, cannot compete with an F-22 or even with the F-15 Eagle of earlier days. The Air Force has made another misleading statement that is out of context. The Arrow that actually existed had performance “comparable” to aircraft that were half its price or less. The ‘unicorn’ myth was created as part of a conspiracy between U.S. liberals and the Canadian opposition parties to destroy the Conservative government. Fifty years of these politically motivated and often taxpayer-funded lies is enough.

Perhaps the Americans flew one of the saucers up from Groom lake and slowed the Arrow with a gravity beam. They could have also used their weather control machine to thicken the air to slow the Arrow down. Strangely though, Argus, I agree with the poster that we should rebuild the Arrow or a least a digital version of it. It is the only way to know what the performance of the aircraft really would have been with the Orenda engines. I have read much about the Arrow and have discovered some interesting things. What I have found is that Avro could not deliver an airframe that met specifications and the RCAF really did not want the aircraft. The Department of National Defence seems to be responsible for two main things. It issued the specification for an interceptor and then checked to insure that the contractor met the specifications. The original specification is interesting to me for its manouverability requirement. They want 2g turn at Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet without loss of height or speed. This should have excluded a delta wing planform from the beginning since deltas don't turn without losing speed. Both the NAE and DRB [DND advisors] indicate that the aircraft had more drag then the contractor claimed. The project was cancelled in April '53. Then something strange happened. For some reason it was decided to seek the opinon of an outside agency and they asked NACA (NASA precursor) to review the project. Why would the DND want to do this? I expect that they did not and it is Avro that has gone to the government to demand a third opinion. NACA confirms that the drag is 50% higher than Avro claims. [That is basically what our guys said and I am proud that they knew that. Our military may be small but our guys really know their stuff, Eh?] NACA also recommends "proper application of the area rule" and states that delta wings are a poor planform for high endurance and long range. Avro does not change the wing planform much and only applies the area rule to the nose, intakes and tail section. Many other companies that succeeded in producing Mach 2+ aircraft applied the rule to the entire aircraft from tip to tail. Clearly the aircraft still has a range problem after the fixes, based on information from a once secret memorandum dated 17 Jan 58 which states in part, "A reduction in ferry range to 1254 nm is not acceptable." Not too long after that the program is cancelled for good and then, for some reason, all evidence is destroyed. This is very strange. Since the Arrow's performance is secret at the time there are only three groups in Canada that know much about the problems. The government, the opposition, and the DND. Although the records seem to indicate that it is the DND that initiates the destruction they really don't have a reason to do so. The DND is not responsible for a contractor failing to meet a specification. The Conservatives also have no worries since it is not their program. There is really only one of these three groups that benefit from the complete destruction of all evidence and they shall remain nameless. From where I sit it does not look like the RCAF wants the Arrow but an aircraft that meets their specificatons. It seems like they are trying to get the Arrow cancelled from '53 and keep getting overruled by the politicians. Then they are ordered to take the Arrow and like it but that government gets defeated. Diefenbaker finally does the sensible thing and cancels the program as the DND recommends. It would be nice to actually test the thing to see how it really performed. It makes no sense to build one physically but it should be possible to test a digital model of it. Then we will know what the performance was really like. The NACA report is very interesting because it cost the Americans millions to discover the area rule which was a trade secret and they gave it to us for free. They also provided a B-47 bomber to test the Iroquois engine. It looks like almost our whole country owes the Americans an apology and I for one am very sorry that we accused them of wrongdoing without a shred of proof. P.S. From the Montreal Star, October 23, 1963," Gen. Charles Foulkes, charman of the chiefs of staff committee from 1951 to 1960 testified yesterday that the Liberal Government of Prime Minister St. Laurent decided in 1957 it would cancel the Arrow interceptor program as soon as it was returned to power...Gen. Foulkes confirmed the 1959 statement of Mr. Diefenbaker that the chiefs of staff had recommended cancellation of the Arrow...the chiefs concluded that it did not make any sense to produce an $8,000,000 interceptor in Canada when one could be obtained in the U.S. for $2,000,000..."

Is that the one with the notwithstanding clause that lets any government pass any law that it likes?

Admit it, "ironstone", what makes you most upset is they have declared "non-confidence" before any bill has been tabled. This would be highly irregular unless they have actually seen the yet to be written budget. Don't laugh, all they need is a flux capacitor and DeLorean or chronoton particle generator and they can very easily obtain the next budget now. Without these the coalition is already screwed. Mr. Ignatieff's public statements about seeing the budget first shows that they now understand their fatal blunder. They cannot change governments just because they do not like Mr. Harper. If they do vote against the next budget then we would have a similar situation to the one between China and Taiwan a few years ago. We could have the Republic of Canada in the west and the People's Republic of Canada in the east. No, that is too confusing. How about Canada in the east and Cascadia in the west. These sure are interesting times.

IT'S REALITY TIME! As an Albertan, born and raised I care very much about what happens to the auto workers. It is best for Alberta if they keep their jobs and even the high salaries. Whatever they make, a big chunk will go for taxes and they will spend most of the rest. Some of that money will come to Alberta for gas and oil, beef, grain and so on. The people I do not care much about are the money hoarders that buy little and pay no income tax [only 4% in the Barbados]. The wealthy do not need welfare. There is another important reason to give some sort of relief to the autoworkers. As someone over fifty I do not have to read corrupted history to know what really happened in the sixties and seventies. I was there, and for those who are too young to remember or older people that have become deluded by the repeated lies here is what really happened: Most North American cars of the sixties were not "hot" cars by any means. [by "hot" I mean taking less than 8 seconds to go from 0-60 mph and covering a standing ¼ mile in under 14 seconds.] Maybe one out of every ten cars was "hot" or a "muscle car" as young people call them today. [To me a muscle car is a compact car with a big-block engine] If I remember correctly big-block production for Chevrolet division for the entire decade of the '60s was something like 0.7%. The vast majority of cars back then were actually quite boring, but also affordable, reliable, and fuel-efficient. It was misguided emissions laws that seriously wounded the auto industry and the whole North American economy. The effect of the law was to double fuel consumption. It was not just that they were measuring things differently, complying with the law meant that engine efficiency became about half of what it had been. A 300 H.P. 350 could be ordered in a '70 Caprice but it was only 145 H.P. for a '75 because of the lowered efficiency. [They changed horsepower measurement methods around this time but even if you add 10 or 15% to 145 it is still nowhere near 300.] Because of the legislation, the power was halved and fuel consumption doubled across the board (for the '73 model year starting in late '72). If you check your history you will also find that this is when the gasoline shortages began. Shortages had to occur because refiners could not make gas fast enough to feed millions of the new gutless gas-guzzlers. The '73 cars sold quite well because everyone wanted cleaner air and few people realized "environmentally friendly" also meant doubled fuel consumption. Gasoline prices rose exponentially due to the increase in demand and most people could not afford to run the new cars. Automobile sales soon collapsed and recession began. At first the newspapers blamed the "seven sisters" (7 biggest oil companies) for the problems and then, a few months later, they changed to blaming O.P.E.C. Strangely, I don't remember anyone ever blaming the government and environmentalists that had created the problem in the first place. It is important that our current government takes steps to correct the damage that their predecessors have done.

Well, a tax break (not taking the money) is not the same thing as a bailout that involves a cash transfer but I agree that Albertans are quite naive. Look at what Manning said, “The West Wants In”. Does this mean that he believes the ‘sub-humans’ in the outer provinces are somehow equal to people in central Canada? Preposterous, the outer provinces are colonies of Ottawa and colonists NEVER have equal rights? The function of the federal government has always been to indenture the 49% to satisfy the 51%. That is the Canadian way. Manning’s comments smack of Americanism and this is a slippery slope that can only lead to things like representative democracy, minority rights, and even individual rights. All without the protection of a notwithstanding clause. The Idea that a smoker, or a gun owner, or even an oil worker is equal to a Canadian is completely foreign to the high people in central Canada. What was Mr. Manning thinking? If people in the outer provinces do not like the way things are they should just leave.

Sorry, I have never read that book and am not really interested in such books. Chances are that a book from 1906 does not mention the financing of the Nazi party. This is the subject of Pool's books. It was a bona fide conspiracy by some of the most evil people to ever have lived. Roosevelt was around about a 100 years ago and government meat inspection was instituted about that time. It continued for most of the twentieth century until some plants became "self-inspecting". Soon after that people were dying from bad meat, again. Some blamed the burger places for not cooking the poison out but that skirts the issue. Under the old system the bad meat would not have been shipped but would have been condemned and destroyed. Of course contaminated meat is mosty a concern for people over 45 and the very young. People in between will probably survive bad meat with little permanent damage. China is fully Communist and the Progressives were mildly socialist. Why do you mention China in this context.

Hmm. History is full of real conspiracies and popular denial will certainly allow for more in the future. As far as I know Pool's books have not been made into movies but it would be good if they were. Perhaps Teddy Roosevelt was paranoid when he said "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people." [from http://www.quotesandpoem.com/quotes/showqu...roosevelt/12445] Of course even if he was paranoid that does not mean that THEY were not actually out to get him, Eh? No, he and other progressives broke up monopolies, taxed the wealthy and began government meat inspection. It seems to be that the tax on the incomes of the wealthy helped to create the large American middle-class. Breaking up the monopolies reduced the influence of the "invisible government" and meat inspection increased the life expectancy of the citizens. Now regressive and radical government reverse this progress and the result is predictable. The U.S. could sure use a president like Teddy Roosevelt again.

Thanks Don't be so quick to "blame the victims" here. Here is what I now have to do to buy Canadian shirts. There is a manufacturer in Ontario called Ash city and they still make shirts here. No store I have found carries the brand so I have to special order them from a local company that does promotional items. The minimum quantity they can order is 12 shirts so that is what I have to buy. Most people just do not know how to obtain Canadian made shirts. If the retailers had them then many people would buy them but it is not up to the customer. It is the greedy retailers that will only carry 1$ shirts that they sell for a "made in Canada" price. Lots of profit but it is empty profit because it is destroyig destroying our industrial infrastructure. Import duties were there for a reason and so were public utilities. Regressive and radical governments removed the duties and privitized the utilities. Now we are seeing just how unstable unbridled [as in the 19th century] capitalism can be. One thing to mention here. I understand that the Communist government of China is intentionally preventing their currency from increasing in value. They are allowing foreigners to virtually enslave their own people. Holding the price down is a form of "dumping" and yet there is not a peep from the regulators. Makes you wonder which side the regulators are on.

Sorry about the delay in replying bush_cheny but I needed to do some research. TI is not creating many jobs at that new plant because as the site states, "Although the facility’s completion was May 2006, TI will continue to watch market demand in deciding when to open the plant." Caterpillar is also not a good example even back in '91 most of their workforce was foreign. http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/stori...19/daily24.html “The company has 69,000 employees, and 60 percent of those work in other countries.” A lot of their products now come from plants in Shandong, China and Chennai, India. Boeing is also not a good example of a company that employs Americans. See http://www.theoutsourcingblog.com/boeing-a...tsourcing-blues “…Boeing, like other companies across the US, wants flexibility to outsource work and that is the root cause of the strike by Boeing machinists…Boeing’s 787 program, building a fuel-efficient jet was supposed to be primarily built offshore by suppliers in Japan, Italy, and elsewhere. These suppliers were to do most of the work and Boeing was only going to do the final assembly of these planes in house.” and http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/conte...05/b3969417.htm “The 787 outsourcing strategy certainly didn't sit well with the unions or Boeing employees. After all, following September 11, 2001, Boeing laid off 38,000 people over a four-year span. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, or SPEEA, lost more than 5,000 union members even as Boeing was hiring more than 1,000 Russian aerospace engineers for its Moscow Design Center.” I expect that that is nearly 38,000 people who could no longer afford their houses. Winnebago has troubles too: "http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2008/09/09/news/local/doc48c60151c1a57686701831.txt “FOREST CITY — Layoffs at Winnebago Industries are continuing because of declining production caused by reduced demand, a company spokeswoman said Monday. Sheila Davis of Winnebago declined to comment on the number of recent layoffs or on the possibility of further layoffs. She said, “We continue to reduce our labor force to meet demands of the market place.” Last month, the company closed its Charles City manufacturing plant, idling 270 workers. Two smaller Winnebago plants in Charles City are still open. The company laid off more than 200 employees and eliminated an additional 100 jobs by not filling vacant positions during the first three months of this year.” Decent paying jobs are disappearing everywhere and it would take five full-time McJobs for these folks to afford their houses. That means a 200 hour work week. See the problem (7X24 = 168)? It is tempting to "blame the victims" or blame the banks but the real problem lays with government policies. It is tempting to say they were foolish but this coolapse may well be intentional. The Progressive Republican Teddy Roosevelt spoke of an "invisible government". These are ultimately powerful families that influence the ostensible government. Many years ago when Adolph Hitler was an unemployed artist in Austria he was financed by "secret partners" (from a book by James Pool). The German economy collapsed and this allowed for the election of the dictator. Why does everyone assume the collapse was accidental when the partners could easily collapse the economy to allow their man to win? Fixing the problem first requires acknowldedgment that the problem exists. Then the influence of invisible governments need to be reduced. That won't be easy because they are wealthy and we all have the best government that money can buy.

Thanks for the information but there is a problem with using some measure like the GDP. Governments know that this indicator is used to evaluate their performance and the figures can be manipulated. California (which also has about the same population of Canada) does have a good GDP report. The only problem is they don't have much industry left there. For example, some time ago a large proportion of the world's computers came from there. Now most of the computing hardware comes from China and most programming is done in India. How can California possibly have a good GDP? It wasn't that long ago that the U.S.A. produced many things. I'm even old enough to remember U.S. made electronics like transistor radios (the Japanese did not invent them) stereos and TVs. Those are all gone now. So are the coffee makers, microwaves and electric shavers (except some by Wahl). The computer industry is mostly gone too. All this production is gone and nothing has replaced it. So what is California producing domestically to have this high GDP? This is not a rhetorical question since I always buy North American if I can find any. Do not joke about the "depression". All of North America is depends on Chinese manufacurers that all appear to be majority owned by the communist Peoples' Liberation Army. Ain't that something? A few decades ago Canadian Soldiers were shooting their ancestors and now the Communists just want to make us all rich. [isn't a Capitalist Communist also an oxymoron?] It is important right now to think clearly and carefully about how to fix this problem which has been years in the making. P.S. Back in '79 I wrote a nasty letter to Texas Instruments after they moved one of their factories to Taiwan. It was one of the very first examples of outsourcing. I was angry because it was U.S. taxpayers that payed for the development of the integrated circuits and it was U.S. taxpayers that deserved to benefit from the technology. Apparently TI completely ignored my letter and proceeded to outsource everything, just like almost every other company.

But who is measuring the GDP? Is this a case of the government writing their own report card? It is difficult to get a real grasp of what is going on from one measure. An old farmers trick was to fill the car with purple gas and then slide a tube of regular gas down the filler neck. If they were stopped and checked the sample tested okay. Back when "the gipper" was president the market crashed a little and I remember that they said it was a "jobless recovery" that followed. Isn't that an oxymoron or is it just me? Dollars are just paper and it is what they can be traded for that give them value. What does the U.S. produce in the U.S.A. to give value to the currency? Actually, It seems that things ain't been right since the '74 (caused by environmentalists) recession. Things hve been pretty much going downhill since then.

Real science is not about majority rule and a doctorate in an unrelated field is irrelevant. Would you ask your dentist if you should have your appendix removed? How about a hundred dentists? Actually, I expect they would all tell you to see your medical doctor. The people who study climate are the Climatologists and that is a branch of Physics. From what I can tell the vast majority of Climatologists do not agree that man is the major cause of climate change. Yet for some reason these Climatologists have been and are being excluded from this debate. This exclusion is a political act and is anti-science at its core. Reminds of how the Nazis did things. The party gave the "scientists" a conclusion to prove. Who can forget the "Institute of Tobacco Hazards Research? I think that was at Jena sometime around 1943. Note that the name also means "The Institute of the Foregone Conclusion". Now, of those PhDs that are jumping on this bandwagon, how many will receive research funds from government action on climate change? In other words, how many of them are actually pseudo-scientific funding whores?

The U.S. separtists that have the longest history are probably the Cascadis Party. They trace their roots back to the time of Thomas Jefferson when B.C. was part of Oregon. As far as I know the Cascadians do not want to join with Canada, especially with eastern Canada. Actually, depite all the yelling and hollering I believe that it will be B.C. that will be first to separate from Canada and not Quebec or Alberta. There is a lot of history there and B.C. really got screwed with the freight rates. The truth is they would be a better off as part of Cascadia. Maybe the CSIS can continue to preserve the status quo but since we almost fought a war with the U.S. over B.C. before [search "Fifty-four Forty or Fight"] I expect they will have a tough time of it.