Canuckistani

Too bad for him, ignorance is bliss.

OK - maybe some good will come of it. Personally, as far as the big picture goes, I doubt it will have an impact. You can call me cynical. As for this some people/all people stuff - I don't really have to spell it out for you, do I?

Yes, and thank God that's all it mostly is, venting. The sanctimony about it just shows they have not accepted their shadow.

Social justice is about not pointing out the grammatical mistakes of others.

Because people love to get on a bandwagon and get sanctimonious, and then do exactly the behavior they are condemning. You see it when some evil perp is brought in and people (especially on forums) salivate about how they would like to kill him or even torture him beforehand. Apparently being evil is OK as long as the other guy was evil first. The whole media circus (including or especially the new media) is so much bullshit. I have my doubt it will translate to changing behavior, but I've been know to be wrong on occasion. It's certainly a good teaching moment if done right, but if students take away from it "don't get caught" or "don't bully old people, everybody else is fair game" or as I say even "those kids got death threats - kewl" then nothing will change.

I have to admit I find it kinda funny. Doesn't do much for his credibility tho. But why should all the foamers (as in mouth) be on the right?

I really doubt it. It seems that anything the gets you on youtube is good, including murdering and eating people. But we can always hope. I never heard about it, just similar incidents. Didn't make it on youtube.

I get that. But this bullshit about planting trees for free just gets to me. I've worked in the woods, both in logging and silviculture. I know how hard the work is and how little it is valued. Surely there are lots of other ways to take a poke at socialist. I do think he's over the top, but I admit to having a soft spot for him, vs all the little Alex P. Keatons out there. I hope he keeps some of his idealism as he grows up.

Wonder what you people who mock getting paid for tree planting do for a living, and if it is half as socially beneficial an enterprise as tree planting is. No doubt socialist is sanctimonious about it, but for Canada, tree planting is an important job and one that should be valued, not denigrated.

No it won't. Only active bullying prevention, where other kids speak up to stop the behavior will get them to stop and think. Pretty common in Canada, where little is done, even when the bullying is reported. What this kid's parents should do is sure the bully and the school. Concussions are serious medical issues, this is aggravated assault and should be treated as such. Sue the school and they'll soon be singing a different tune.

It is only your opinion. Some bad cyclists are caught. We had one who rode down a pedestrian while she was legally crossing a crosswalk and severely injured her. He was caught and in a whole world of grief, as would be any driver, who do this sort of thing much more frequently than cyclists. June is bike month in Vancouver, and the police go on a blitz to ticket cyclists - they over do it. Unfortunately they under do it the rest of the year. And giving a cyclist a ticket because she crossed on a cyclist activated crossing, ie the cross traffic had a red, but didn't first come to a complete stop - that's pretty chickenshit. If a cyclist severely injures a pedestrian, we read about it, especially if they are not apprehended. We don't read about many incidents like that, vs the number of pedestrians killed or severely injured by motor vehicles. I once chased down a cop who rode thru a stop sign on his bike. He told me "we wouldn't ticket you for that." Sure, I bet, yet even the cops do it. I don't philosophically have a problem with licensing bikes, but it does seem a bit impractical.

How many trees did you plant on your weekends. A good tree planter can do a 1000 trees a day - and still there are plenty of areas out there that are NSR (not sufficiently restocked). Feel free to go there on a weekend and have at it.

So this middle class family decided to denigrate tree planters? How sad. One thing is true, tree planting is very hard work. And it's certainly more of a real job than hawking derivatives.

That social safety net is what Gruebel is talking about when he says each immigrant costs us $6000 a year average. That might raise the GDP with govt spending and all, but is that really a wise use of our tax dollars?

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Unfortunately there's no thumbs up smiley here - but I agree wholeheartedly. It's true that in Amsterdam, say, they have more head injuries per capita for cyclists than in Vancouver, where helmets are mandatory, and supposedly worn by 75% of cyclists (never looks that way to me). In Amsterdam they have far fewer car/bike collisions, so injuries are much less, but they do have more cyclist collisions and resulting head injuries. I always wear my helmet. I support the law because I have to pay more taxes if some numbnuts gets a brain injury. But, the argument is that if helmets weren't required, more people would cycle, and the more people are cycling the safer it is for every cyclist. It's also true tho that Peeves has a point about cyclist behavior. What I see riders doing here, they would never get away with in Europe - they'd be called out by the other cyclists. So we do need some way to make cyclists act more responsibly. Better enforcement I guess.

barring any solid numbers, I would postulate that the number of cycle hit and runs where significant damage or injury is caused to the driver is exceedingly small.

The link mentioned a number of high income earners who paid no tax. I wonder how many of the 1/3 of filers who paid no federal tax (and so presumably no provincial tax) are not actually poor. Also many filers have little or no income but file to get the various govt disbursements like GST credit, child credits etc.

I find that 8.2 million number very hard to believe. That is a quarter of all working age Canadians. Certainly any single person working full time at a minimum wage is going to pay more federal taxes than that. So they either had enough dependents to reduce their tax to 0, or just weren't able to get sufficient work. Should people who can't find work still pay taxes? On what exactly? But, be that as it may, those that worked did pay EI and CPP. As well as GST and provincial sales tax. As well as property taxes (their landlord ain't gonna pay it for them), various transportation levies and all sorts of user fees.

No I meant nailed as in injured. When a driver pulled out of a parking lot right in front of me, I yelled "hey you could kill me like that" and his response was "that's right." Shows the attitude of some drivers. There are many idiot bicyclists, but as I said, there is a Darwinian effect playing out on them. Drivers not so much.

I may have already said this above: If a cyclist does something stupid, he's the one who gets nailed. When a car driver does something stupid, the cyclist still gets nailed. Same is true for motorcyclists. Mostly drivers bitching at cyclists is just an excuse for their own bad driving. Had a guy who cut me off, after I yelled at him, yell back: "you don't have to buy insurance." Whatever that's supposed to mean or be a justification of.

Exactly how is it germane? Argus's point seems to be that 25% of people, the rich, pay 75% of taxes. This comedian is certainly rich, but I doubt he's included among the 25% paying high taxes. Far too much of this goes on, and it should be the first order of business for any government to put a stop to it. Rather than going after the low income earners, as Argus seems to be suggesting.

That is interesting. I don't see it as a glowing endorsement of our immigration system. Again, any economic benefits are small or even negative, while it doesn't look at the stresses on our society caused by immigration. It certainly says that immigrants should be much more carefully selected and I agree with that. It also says that 2/3 of immigrants are family reunification and refugees. I have no problem with taking in a generous number of genuine refugees, and spending the money to make sure they succeed and don't become the calamity that the Somalians for instance have. I see not benefit to the family reunification part, that is something that should be drastically scaled back to only allow in when somebody marries a spouse from outside the country.

I'm not talking about absolutely no immigration. Never have. Reduced immigration.

Our population is growing, not shrinking. We could cut immigration, especially for family reunification and for low skill workers and still have a growing, tho slower, population. I think we can go round and round on this. I haven't seen anything that convinces me that the economic benefits of massive immigration, especially of old people and those without skills, is of economic benefit for Canada. OTOH, it seems to be there is a massive downside in infrastructure stress and environmental degradation, as well as cultural problems. We're not going to be able to immigrate ourselves out of the demographic crunch that's coming, unless we brought in 1,000,000 young people in every year, and then we would just delay that crunch until they get old, only the crunch would be much larger. Meanwhile we don't train Canadians adequately for the jobs we have, because it's cheaper to just import people trained by another country - but that leaves that country short while we have under employed Canadians. I'm not arguing for no immigration. I'm arguing for a policy that puts Canada's needs first and adapts to changing conditions.