Teddy Ballgame

- gerryhatrick ... 1) No, you don't feel sorry for Bush. In truth, you are well know to be the biggest left wing whackjob on this board (and that is saying a lot) when it comes to having a pathological hatred for Bush and for Harper over here, a nonstop penchant for twisting and turning and distorting and misquoting everything Bush and Harper do and say to make them look as bad as you possibly can, and an eagerness to troll 24/7 on every far left mindlessly partisan blog in cyberspace to find things you can use on your nutty crusade against Bush, Harper and anyone else not to the left of Che Guevera's ghost. 2) WHAT - EXACTLY - DO YOU FIND SO OFFENSIVE WITH BUSH'S QUOTE? IS IT: 1/ You strongly favour socialist dictatorships like the old USSR and are still mouring its passing and resent Bush's effrontery in criticising even the new Russia? 2/ You think that the leader of the world's only hyperpower should be "seen and not heard" and keep his mouth and his nose out of the affairs of the rest of the world and allow your corrupt mugs, thugs and slugs in the UN to dictate the state of world affairs which means usually just ignoring the ruthless tyrannts who repress, ensalve, impoverish, torture and kill their countrymen and neighbours by the hundreds of thousands as your good pal Saddam Insane used to do in Iraq? 3/ You contend that Bush is wrong to be the strongest ever US presidential advocate of fundamental democratic change including freedom of the press and of religion and other manifestations of open government and open economies and should keep silent on what most discerning people see as some disquieting and disturbing backsliding by Putin in Russia concerning democratic freedoms? 4/ You are anti-US and Bush, pro-Russia and Putin, and are opposed to freedom of the press and freedom of relgion and even opposed to those who favour such freedoms? 3} WHAT - EXACTLY - DID YOU LIKE SO MUCH ABOUT PUTIN'S QUOTE? 1/ That instead of actually addressing Bush's well founded concerns about new restrictions in Russia on freedom of speech, assembly, the press and religion - thereby threatening the country's still emerging democracy - he chose to take a cheap and superficial shot at the even newer and more fragile democracy in Iraq? 2/ That his cheap and superficial shot at Iraqi democracy was especially hilarious to you in that if it were up to Putin and his ilk and useful idiots like you there would be no democracy at all in Iraq and Saddam Insane would continue to be ensalving, impoverishing, torturing and killing Iraqis by the thousands? You know, except for Biblio Bublia (sic) who was known as Rudyard The Insane on prior forums and is quite clearly insane as well as someone whose nonstop libelling, stalking, harrassing and outing of others on former boards got him suspended from said boards for life, you are the most annoying character on this board due to your obvious hard left bias and your equally obvious animus and bile for Bush, Harper and all of those not on the left. It will probably get me banned from here for saying so but, frankly, I could care less if Greg The Legend of Lethbridge wants to act like an ass again and ban me instead of nutters like you and Biblio.

- Amid the loony lefties and the merely misguided lefties continuing crusade to make the world safer and more inviting for tyranny, terrorism, poverty, repression and totalitarian, anti-Western values by denigrating the US administration, opposing the use of US military forces everywhere and magnifying every atypical incidence of rogue soldiering to discredit the military comes a comprehensive and revealing study of the extraordinarily benifical impact of the long term presence of US troops in countries around the world. - As The Globe's Neil Reynolds reports below, this study provides abundant evidence that long term commitments of US troops abroad is directly associated with astounding improvements in the governance and economic performance of the host countries. - Indeed, countries with a high presence of US troops in the last 50 years of the 20th century enjoyed per capita GDP levels of nearly double the world average. In fact, the study indicated that this one factor - the long term presence of significant numbers of US troops - correlated by far the most strongly with the increased GDP levels in the countries concerned compared with any other factor including foreign aid, democracy and even the rule of law (which was determined to be the second most significant factor in these countries' superior levels of economic growth). - As Reynolds' column and the summary of the study which you can find online under "US troops and economic growth" suggest, it is difficult to ascribe specific weights to the numerous factors which combined to produce the remarkable growth of the fortunate countries that have enjoyed long term US troops commitments such as Germany, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Turkey. Freer and more open governance and economies, the rule of law, natural resources, foreign aid, declining corruption, US military salaries and other "in country" spending, enlightened domestic leadership, high quality labour forces and geographic proximity to trading opportunites all play their part. - However, as one who has travelled and lived in several countires including some that have had the great benefit of US troop concentrations and others that have not, I have at least a tentative theory as to why the long term presence of US troops has such an overwhelmingly strong correlation with superior economic growth. - In my view, this presence of sizable numbers of US troops for lengthy periods of time - over fifty years in many countries - ensures that most of the other growth factors including stability, the rule of law, more democratic governments and freer economies, declining levels of corruption in government and business, and more enlightened and outward looking domestic leadership are manifested and strengthened. - Any objective student of post WWII history will acknowledge that the long term commitment of US troops - in some cases initially by occupation, in others by request, and later on by mutually agreed long term alliances in all cases - brought with it not just US military spending and a rooting out of the bad guys but the establishment of stability and the gradual development of western liberal values of governance and wealth creation and sharing. - Contemplating the economic evidence from this study, US military personnel serving overseas can be very proud of their cumulative positive impact on the prosperity and freedom of the countires in which they have been not merely US mercenaries on military missions but on the ground ambassadors of the western values, attitudes and practices that have improved the world more in the past fifty years than has been the case in any other comparable period in history. - US troops can also be encouraged that they and their commander in chief are very likely to be seen in the long term as on the right side of history ... not just taking on the terrorists in the terrorists' lairs to keep their own country safe but proactively establishing democratic templates in the Middle East that will ultimately flourish in prosperity, peace and freedom. - They should also take away from this study the perspective that building better societies takes time and therefore they should steadfastly ignore the left wing weasels, opportunists and useful idiots who preach the bootless gospels of cut and run, moral relativism, pacifism and isolationism. FOREIGN AFFAIRS Key to economic growth? U.S. troops NEIL REYNOLDS OTTAWA -- In postwar Germany, the Americans invested 10.4 million troop years -- defining a troop year as a single soldier for one year -- in the most successful military occupation of the 20th century. In Japan, they invested 3.9 million troop years. In South Korea, 3.3 million troop years. In these three countries, the U.S. made long-term security commitments and kept them. They didn't cut and run. And the three countries built workable institutions, developed advanced economies and achieved high rates of economic growth. Could Afghanistan and Iraq do the same? Using sophisticated econometric analysis, two U.S. economists say yes, they could. Indeed, they say the long-term presence of U.S. soldiers essentially ensures superior governance and economic performance. Garett Jones is an academic economist in Illinois. Tim Kane is a research fellow with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. In March, they published a study titled "U.S. Troops and Economic Growth." They analyze growth rates in 94 countries during the past 50 years of the 20th century -- countries to which the U.S. had deployed troops. (At the bottom of the list, the unfortunate Rwanda -- with a mere three U.S. troop years.) They conclude: "Countries that host large numbers of U.S. troops experience large and persistent increases in their long-term growth rate." How large are these increases? How persistent? "Countries with a high presence of U.S. troops during 1950-2000," they say, "enjoyed GDP levels, per capita, nearly double the world average." Further: "The difference between having a single U.S. soldier or 1,000 U.S. soldiers is an additional full percentage point of per-capita GDP growth a year." Multiply this by 20 years or 30 years and you can make a real difference. Between 1960 and 2000, for all 94 countries, the average increase in GDP was 1.86 per cent a year. For the 10 countries with the highest presence of U.S. troops, the average was 3.25 per cent a year. For the next 10 countries, with a more modest presence of U.S. troops (including such countries as Turkey and Morocco), the average was 2.82 per cent a year. For the 50 countries with only a negligible presence of U.S. troops, the average was 1.22 per cent a year. In 1960, the countries with the most U.S. troops produced per-capita GDP of $4,916 (U.S.); by 2000, they had tripled this number to $16,413. By contrast, the 50 countries with marginal U.S. troop presence had increased per-capita GDP from $2,523 to only $5,505. Mr. Jones and Mr. Kane measured other factors that might explain the statistical differences -- elements of democracy and the rule of law, corruption, natural resources, national income, the direct economic benefit of U.S. military salaries. They conclude that the only "statistically significant" extraneous factor was the rule of law, which (they determine) always pays off economically -- more strongly than democracy. They also looked at foreign aid. Between 1950 and 2000, expressed in 2004 dollars, the U.S. gave more than $500-billion in foreign aid. In particular, Mr. Jones and Mr. Kane examined the contribution made to long-term economic growth by the Marshall Plan, the most celebrated foreign aid program in U.S. history. In four postwar years (1949 through 1952), the U.S. gave $90-billion to the countries of Western Europe. Mr. Jones and Mr. Kane conclude that the Marshall Plan contributed nothing significant to Europe's long-term prosperity. "In a sharp rebuke to conventional wisdom," they write, "foreign aid is economically and statistically insignificant alongside U.S. troop presence." It wasn't foreign aid that rescued Germany, Japan, France and Italy after World War II. It wasn't U.S. foreign aid that sustained South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey during the Cold War. It was, simply, the transformative presence of the American military -- which, according to Messrs. Jones and Kane, "is more important than peace itself for improving pro-growth institutions." How could this be? "Whether in Kosovo or Iraq," they say, "U.S. troops are intimately involved with the civil life of those countries -- training police, resolving disputes, holding elections." Mr. Kane says: "If the past is prologue, U.S. [military] alliances with Iraq, Afghanistan, Qatar and other Middle Eastern states will reap rewards in peace, democracy and prosperity for these countries, too." Mr. Jones and Mr. Kane concede an important qualification. The economic advantage provided by U.S. troops occurred only in countries where they were welcomed. Canada now has troops in Afghanistan, perhaps for the long haul. By most accounts, the Afghans want us there. Extrapolating from the findings of Mr. Jones and Mr. Kane, we now have more reason than ever to regard the mission as foreign aid in its finest sense and in its most effective form.

How typically Calgarian... - BD ... Harper is supposed to be the one totally lacking a sense of humour but clearly he takes second place to you in this category. I realise, of course, that your obvious and obsessive animus and bile to anyone not well to the left of Che Guevera's ghost renders you unable to appreciate a sense of humour or anything else about conservative politicians like Harper and Bush. But clearly, Harper was MAKING A JOKE when he observed that a picture of him wearing an Edmonton jersey would be held against him by Calgary hockey fans. - The reason he didn't wear an Edmonton jersey is because he is the prime minister not the head male cheerleader or Don Cherry's understudy and he is less likely than your previous heros Jean Chretien and Paul Martin to indulge in cheap and classless publicity stunts. - Obviously, he is NOT NEUTRAL about the Cup finals which is why he took time out of his busy schedule to fly to Edmonton and cheer the Oilers on in person. Obviously, he understands and appreciates good hockey no matter what team is playing which is why he is writing a history of hockey in Western Canada as a hobby and a labour of love. But to expect him to comport himself like a Don Cherry stand in attired in a hockey jersey and maybe one of Don's nifty hats and multi-coloured jackets is simply stupid and not like the man. - He was also MAKING A JOKE when he recently observed in Parliament that the Liberals in 13 years in power failed to deliver a Stanley Cup to Canada, that the last Canadian team to win (Montreal in 1993) did so with the Conservatives in power, and that his administration aimed to bring the Cup back home to Canada after the long Liberal drought. - Just as obviously, he was also MAKING A JOKE recently on the steps leading up to his Centre Block office when he responded to a reporter's question as to whether he was concerned about the alleged terrorists' plot to kidnap, torture and behead him by saying, "Those things don't bother me as long as they're not coming from my own caucus." - You know, the more I see of Harper's coolness under pressure, his obvious mastery of the complex files he recently took custody of, the focused, businesslike, effective way he and his cabinet do the nation's business, the remarkable progress he has made in mere months in keeping his campaign commitments, AND YES, HIS DRY, UNDERSTATED SENSE OF HUMOUR, the more I see Harper and his government deserving and earning at least a couple of terms as a majority government. This, if nothing else, will lead to partisan lefties like you desperately dregging up anything no matter how absurd to discredit Harper, even whether he wears a certain hockey jersey. - The more I see of you, on the other hand ....

- CANUCK ... Yes, somehow I missed those uniquely Canadian torture techniques. Not only did I miss those but I am now informed that there are still more anti-terrorist torture techniques favoured by Canada's correctional service. Oh when will this savagery end? Myself, I blame it all on Bush and of course Harper and lets not forget the nefarious neocon policies of Reagan and Thatcher not to mention Churchill and Borden! - In any case, here are 7 MORE CANADIAN ANTI-TERRORIST TORTURE TECHNIQUES: 7/ Phone service from the prison to Islamabad is sometimes "crackly and indistinct". 6/ Fellow inmates monopolize the TV, watching jiggle shows instead of Al-Jazeera or the CBC. 5/ One guard once made eye contact with one of the prisoners, causing feelings of persecution and objectivication in the poor freedome fighter. 4/ The muezzin giving the daily call to prayer in the prison is occasionally off-key. 3/ The chick-pea to tahina ratio in the prison cafeteria hummus is ever so slightly "OFF". 2/ The prison chaplain didn't have enough copies of "Protocols of The Elders of Zion" on his last visit, forcing some inmates to have to share. and 1/ Oppressive facility rules forbid visitors to bring bombs with them. How can we allow this inhuman torture to continue? Vote Liberal next time and they will put a stop to this barbaric behaviour by prison guards. Vote NDP and they will not only stop this torture, they'll organize a terrorists' union to strike for better prison conditions for Islamo-fascist terrorists. Their first union demand will be for management to order a lock out! The new union will be known as the National Union of Terrorists and Sympathizers or NUTS for short.

- Like all left thinking Canadians, I was shocked and appalled to learn from the lawyers of the 17 alleged terrorists that these poor misunderstood lads have been subjected to "cruel and unusual punishment" or as several of their lawyers called it, torture! - Surely, as The Red Tsar has noted, if we torture the terrorists, the terrorists win. (I'm not sure of the logic here since the corollary would be if we wine and dine and give in to the terrorists, we win but in any case since the Tsar says so, it must be right.) - Among the specific examples of this savage torturous treatment by Canadian prison guards of these put upon freedom fighters are the following: - Being locked in a small concrete cell without windows (instead of being housed in smart little prison cottages or townhouses with lots of windows and beautiful scenic views of The Rockies and the Pacific like some of our prisoners in BC). - Having their meals slipped to them under a small slit in the door (as opposed to being able to order out for pizza or to barbeque steaks like many of our federal prisoners). - Having the lights left on 24 hours a day (rather than having control of their own mood lights for romantic conjugal visits like some other federal prisoners). - MOST DAMNING OF ALL, in at least one case having a guard touch a prisoner's ribs, knowing the prisoner was ticklish, and then having that guard "giggle a bit." - WOW! I haven't heard of such heinous and heartless treatment since Hitler strung up his victims with piano wire after the July 44 plot to assassinate him or Saddam Insane cut off the hands and then shot his two sons in law because he thought they might be conspiring against him. - And what is even worse, I hear that there are even more severe forms of torture awaiting these poor misunderstood and falsely maligned freedom fighters in the days ahead. - Here for the information and mobilization of the usual useful idiots of the loony left are The Top 7 Canadian Torture Techniques vs The Alleged Terrorists: 7/ The only reading allowed the terrorists are the collected task forces' reports on the fiscal imbalance and the federal equalization formula. 6/ The only TV available is CBC reruns of Al Waxman as "The King of Kensington". 5/ The 24 hour muzak is a continuous tape of Celine Dion singing "My Heart Will Go On" en francaise. 4/ Instead of korans, the terrorists are required to pray using copies of Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 3/ The guards are constantly playing "pull my finger" pranks and sometimes hide whoopee cushions under the prayer mats. 2/ Instead of the low rent losers who initially represented them, the court assigns to their defence the two best criminal lawyers currently practising in Canada, Clayton Ruby and Edward Greenspan. 1/ For meals, only poutine smothered in gravy until their arteries harden! Oh the horror! Oh the inhumanity! Have I missed any other uniquely Canadian torture techniques here? If so, please advise soonest! We must be vigilant in defending the rights and priveleges and needs and wants and whims and fancies of these innocent victims of Western liberal democracy.

The Peel Region spends 1.2 billion per year. The government of Newfoundland spends 4.9 billion per year. Your facts are wrong. - Riverwind ... Of course his facts are totally and laughably wrong. Clearly he is an obsessed and ignorant nutter in the Biblio Bublia league and will therefore refuse to change either his mind or the subject. - You are correct that Peel's operating budget for 2006 is $1.2 B. Its capital budget is $452 M for a total 2006 budget of $1.652B. This puts it at NO HIGHER AND PROBABLY LOWER than 16th among governmental budgets in Canada and nowhere near the top five which all have budgets of anywhere from 150X (federal) to 20X Peel's modest budget. As you pointed out, Newfoundland and Labrador's budget is 3 times Peel's. Other much larger public budgets than Peel's include all THE provinces except PEI, the federal government, and all major municipal budgets such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, etc. - Regrettably, Greg's only concern is that everyone be very polite and diplomatic with everyone else even if they parrot the most ridiculous and inaccurate and distorted crap in their posts. This is why the board is dominated by hard left and hard right zealots rather than by more balanced and knowledgeable posters who tend to post here rarely if at all and who only come here periodically to scan the latest idiocy for amusement.

- August1991 ... Thank you very much. Never fear, at my age I allow nobody to hijack my style, engaging or otherwise. Having said that, I fully expect the self appointed Legend of Lethbridge Gregg to swoop down momentarily and to once again come to the defence of the nutter known here as Biblio Bubli and ban me again from this board, this time permanently. I could care less. And so, it seems, could everyone else other than the nutter Biblio Bubli who was responsible for my banning and yet lied thereafter about being a friend of mine and kept complaining about my banning and asking when I would be reinstated. Others, it seems, are only interested in the sound of their own voice and could care less if an informed and articulate poster is unfairly banned and/or if an absolute nutter is allowed to pollute the board on a daily basis.

- You are incorrect. There are several governments in addition to the four you have named that are bigger than Peel Regional Government in terms of both employees and budgets. In addition to the feds, Ontario, Toronto and Montreal, other larger than Peel governments include the Province of Quebec, the Province of BC, the Province of Alberta, and the Greater Vancouver Regional Government. If you use only budgets as the criterion of size, there are others clearly larger than Peel including the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. - The fact that you appear to have extracted this "information" from wikipedia means absolutely nothing because wikipedia is NOT an authoritative encyclopedia but rather a "peoples' encyclopedia" which means that any nutter who has an axe to grind may vent his spleen by making an entry in wikpedia without fear of correction. In this sense, it is much like this board. If you read the entry you cite, you will note that it provides no corroborating numbers and is replete with spelling mistakes and obviously is not to be taken seriously. - I am no fan of Peel Regional Government or of the regional type of government structure with its lesser and removed degree of democratic accountability. Having said this, it is obvious from this thread that you have an intensely felt grievance and personal axe to gring that may blind you to the objectivity necessary to make rational points credibly. If you have something specific, rational, supportable and credible to say about regional government or Peel in particular, kindly say it. Otherwise, you come off like the kind of nutter who has discouraged me from posting regularly on this board, sort of like The Lotus Land Lunatic Biblio Bubli, one of Gregg's great favourites.

- This post was an unintentional duplicate of the one following it so I have deleted it.

- W - Yes, there is little argument that Mulroney's administration not only talked about and promised and tried but actually accomplished more on the environmental front than any of our other federal governments past or present. There were 12 jurors with environmental credentials who voted on the greenest PM in our history. Almost all of them were on the left side of the political divide which meant that Mulroney was at a considerable disadvantage at the outset of the jury deliberations. Nonetheless, he received five votes, Trudeau the lefties' lovechild only managed three, and the remaining four were split among four of the other 20 Canadian PMs. - Tellingly, none of the four PMs who succeeded Mulroney received a single vote. Most tellingly, the fiercely partisan and pro-Chretien Liberal Sheila Copps - who managed a seat on the 12 person panel because Chretien had made her his Minister of the Environment in the early 90s - couldn't bring herself to vote for her old boss. She voted for Sir John A. MacDonald who started the national parks system (Mulroney finished it with eight new national parks). I guess expecting Tequila Sheila - the leader of the infamous Rat Pack who attacked Mulroney mercilessly every day in the House - to vote for Brian was just too big a stretch. But at least she was honest enough not to vote for Chretien and his Kyoto con job.

- In his typically incisive fashion, Toronto Sun Assocaite Eeditor Lorrie Goldstein's column today cuts through the left wing special interest groups' smoke screens and cant and self-interest on the day care front and reveals several points that the left wing big government day care lobby has tried mightily to keep hidden. - The column is found under http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Goldstein_Lorrie Here are just a few of the excellent points Lorrie raises: - The largest single group of young children in Canada by far, 46%, continues to be cared for by a parent in the home. - Of the remaining 54% in child care, fewer than one in three (just 28% of the 54%) are in institutional daycare, the only type of care that would benefit under the defeated Liberal government’s five-year, $5-billion daycare promise. - Daycare remains the least popular of the three major child care options chosen by parents. More than twice as many children in child care (60% of the 54%) are cared for by a relative or non-relative. Parents choosing these types of child care, and stay-at-home-parents, are ignored by the Liberal plan. - In a major poll released last year, the Vanier Institute of the Family found 90% of Canadians believe that in two-parent families, one parent should, ideally, stay at home to raise the children. Daycare centres ranked a distant fifth when people were asked who should care for pre-school children, behind parents, grandparents, other relatives and home daycare. Good work, Lorrie. Clearly nocrap and the daycare lobby is just out of touch with the thinking of most people on this issue — people who want daycare to be one option available for parents, but certainly not the only one promoted (and funded) by the state. No matter how much the daycare lobby tries to pretend otherwise.

- Four days before the January 23rd federal election I wrote the following column in a blog set up for the election. - Given two of our more popular threads here - the one in which the lefties plead feverishly for us to hand over yet more billions of our hard earned incomes to the government for a prohibitively expensive child care program and the one in which the righties argue passionately for PM Harper to return more of our money to us in both income and sales tax reductions, I think and hope you find that my column affords some food for thought about the position of those including me who want to see - at least in the mid to long term - a real reversal of the insidious trend over the last several years for Canadian governments to confisticate ever more of our discretionary income. - Enjoy and comment if you are so inclined: - Next Monday, Canadians will reveal whether or not they are cognizant of, and opposed to, their increasing servitude to the State. If they are aware and aghast at how much their economic freedom has eroded under Liberal rule, they will throw the rascals out. And while all Harper can do in a first term, particularly with a minority government, will be to put the breaks on the federal appetite for relieving Canadians of more and more of their discretionary income - in effect, to ordain a pit stop on our road to serfdom - a second and subsequent Tory terms might well result in a reversal of this pattern of federal confistication during the past several decades. - Let us compare what has happened in the government-citizen economic balance in the years since 1961 in Canada and in our closest neighbour, ally, partner and competitor, the USA. The Canadian GDP in 1961 was 85% of the US GDP and it has remained (2004 figures) at that level - albeit with numerous fluctuations - since those days of Diefenbaker. - In aggregate personal income - our gross pre-tax income - we have done even better. Canadian pre-tax income in 1961 was 67% of US income per capita and by 2004 it had risen to 78% - a very significant advance of 11% vis-a-vis our American cousins. - HOWEVER, our personal disposable income (PDI) - what is still left in our hands from our incomes including all government transfer payments AFTER the deduction of personal income taxes and social security taxes - also known as our honest-to-God income tells the real story of our increasing serfdom and loss of economic freedom. In 1961, Canadians' PDI stood at 70% of Americans' PDI. Through the 1960s and 70s, it rose steadily and peaked in 1981 at 90% which represented a spectacular closing of the gap of almost 20%! Then, the bills from Trudeau's profligate and wasteful social programs and payoffs to the public sector unions plus his huge deficit borrowing, hefty tax hikes and concomittant high interest rates began to come due! - By the time Mulroney came to power in late 1984, our per capita PDI was in freefall! It levelled off during the Mulroney era and then resumed its precipitous decline during the past 12 Chretien-Martin years. At the end of 2004, Canadians' PDI stood at 65% of Americans' PDI - the lowest level in more than fifty years! If this trend line continues for another 25 years - which it would under successive Liberal administrations - Canadians would find themselves with precisely ONE-HALF the personal disposable incomes of Americans. - Now there are many people who have no problem with this. One is Martin's Communications Director Scott Reid who opined that one of Harper's policies (the day care assistance rebate of $1200 per child under six) to return money to the people who earned it would only be "blown on popcorn and beer" instead of on an overpaid army of unionized uncivil non-servants. In the minds of Liberals like Reid, Big Brother government knows best, is best trusted with the peoples' hard earned money, and it matters little if at all if Canadians like the serfs of centuries ago have no personal disposable income but exist as vassals of and under the benevolence of the almighty landlord/government. - But others including myself believe that we as people have needs separate and distinct from governments' needs, that we should have first claim on our own money, and that removing more and more of our incomes from our personal control takes us down the pernicious road to serfdom. They obviously understand this in the USA, in the UK since Maggie Thatcher set the economic agenda and launched the economic recovery there, and in almost all of the economies that are truly free, competitive, productive and prospering. But our Liberal masters have yet to get the message. - Indeed, the huge and growing gap between the PDIs of the USA and Canada is even worse than these figures show. In Canada, we have much higher sales taxes, except in Alberta, and sales taxes are NOT computed in these PDI stats. So the real gap is even more dramatic in terms of what we really have left to spend on ourselves and our families. - And there is another gap that is worrisome and illustrative - it concerns personal disposable income as a percentage of personal income (i.e. real income as a percentage of illusionary income). In 1961, Americans' PDI stood at 89% of their aggregate incomes. And at the end of 2004, the figure was the same 89%! In other words, the USA has preserved the same relative importance of the citizen versus the state for over half a century. - But not so in Liberal Party dominated Canada! In 1961, our PDI stood at 90% of our aggregate incomes - a full percentage point ABOVE the American figure. By 2004, our PDI had declined to just 75% of aggregate incomes - an incredible fall of 15 percentage points and part of a trend in big government Canada. So it is obvious that the Canadian trend is to steadily diminish the relative importance and the economic freedom of the citizen at the hands of the State. - Now a person with steadily declining personal disposable income is increasingly a serf or vassal of the State. And the comparative savings and debt data are not much more comforting. By the end of 2004, the US personal savings rate had declined to one of its lowest levels in history, a picayune 2%. But the effective Canadian savings rate had declined to ZERO after peaking in the later Mulroney years in double digits. In terms of personal debt, the average Canadian worker now owes 113% of his personal disposable income which is roughly DOUBLE what his American counterpart owes. - For those who still haven't grasped the total picture, lets try to sum up. Canadians have comparatively much lower personal disposable incomes, lower savings and higher personal debts than the Americans AND THESE DESTRUCTIVE TRENDS CONTINUE. - Meanwhile, in Fat City, aka Ottawa, aka Ennui on the Rideau, the government is positively awash in cash. Through robbing Canadians of their incomes by several years of gross over-taxation, the federal Liberals have accumulated massive surpluses that will add up to well over $100 billion for the decade ending in FY 2007/8. The provinces, while having to spend more time than they would like on their knees going cap in hand to Captain Dithers to procure various one off and side deals in yet another form of Liberal money laundering, are not doing that badly either, at least compared with the actual citizens of the country. - In the USA, of course, where the people still count for more than the governments, it is the governments that are increasingly cash poor and indebted while it is the people who are thriving in relative terms. - Maybe this is the quintessential difference between Americans and Canadians. Americans believe that the people should have first claim on the money they have earned and should keep governments on a tight fiscal leash. Canadians - or at least the morons who habitually vote Liberal - believe that governments should have first claim on the peoples' money and should keep the people on a tight fiscal leash. - I know what approach I prefer. Next Monday, we'll see how many others agree with me

- S - Thanks for your support! I was blissfully unaware of this Drea character until she threatened me with the wrath of Greg. But this threat led me to scan her posts and quelle surprise! Like Nocrap, she is a decidedly left wing female who is anti-Harper and Conservative and Bush and US and our mission in Afghanistan and most of all she is anti Harper's child care package. Maybe Nocrap and she are related or sock puppets or something. Or maybe they are both monopoly public sector unionists who can't wait for the government to tax away every dollar we make and divvy it up among the child care and other unionists. - But it is interesting that the only defence Drea dredges up to support her position is the threat of censorship and banning. - In my experience, it is almost always the left wingers in this country who are the fascist censors, deleters, banners and bitchers when it comes to the exercise of free speech. The insufferable, ridiculous to the point of self paraody, Stalinesque rabble board is a classic case in point. - Perhaps you have read "1984" and recall the way that the authorties used a new language known as "Newspeak" to control the masses. The thing about "Newspeak" is that everything was the exact and polar opposite of what it pretended to be with truth being actually lies, peace being war, freedom being slavery, etc. I'm sure both Drea and Nocrap would be right at home using Newspeak. - Nevertheless, I'll acquiesce in henceforth pretending that ALLCRAP is really Nocrap. I do want to continue posting here without any hassles from Greg. And I also want Nocrap to continue posting here not because she is so easy to vanquish in debate but mainly because her positions and the rationale for them are usually so ridiculous that they actually gain converts to the other side which is the side I usually tend to support. So if we didn't have a Nocrap here, we conservatives might have to invent one.

- S - I simply cannot believe that the former CEO of Canfor the largest forestry products conglomerate in BC, the former head of the Greater Vancouver Airport Authority, the former deputy minister of finance in BC, and a former and current cabinet minister would be so indiscrete and irresponsible and suicidal (careerwise) as to sit down with the direct competition and unleash a barrage of criticism at his own boss and his own team, knowing it would be used against him by the competition. - Nor can I believe that a cagey reader and leader of people like David Emerson was not already somewhat familiar with his fellow University of Calgary economics graduate PM Harper's personality and management style before he ever crossed the floor to work for him. - But I can believe and I do believe that Liberal backroom boys, especially in these increasingly desperate times, will be highly selective in what they hear and in how they spin what they hear. - I also can and do believe the Toronto Star has been the pampered pet of the Liberal Party for over a century and will eagerly report anything that will hurt the Conservatives and help the Liberals, no matter how flimsy and suspect the evidence may be, which is what they did here. After the Star ran it, first inb their satellite papers and then in the flagship paper, the Globe and others had no competitive option except to also run with the story. But let us be clear that it was originated by the Liberals and the Liberal loving Star.

- I'm still grieving over the failure of my Maple Leafs to make the playoffs. Of course, it wasn't a total surprise. The Leafs this year suffered from a serious drug problem - formaldahyde. For most of the season, the busiest red light district in Toronto was the area directly behind the Leafs' goal. Maybe this was because the sign "anyone caught interferring with the play will be ejected from the stadium" was interpretted by the Leafs' defencemen as applying to them. And the team especially at the start of the season was just too old. After all, when they need a second trainer just to deal with the varicose veins you know the team is too old. - Oh well, there's always next year and the forty years after that.