Charles Anthony

My eyes are tired. I normally prefer watching movies in the theatrical widescreen version rather than the cropped-for-tv-screen format. However, I think I will have to take a break from that. Also, no more IMAX for a long time.

That is a very interesting question. It opens a very different debate. Many people look at financial costs of separation and how it creates turmoil in an economy. To bring it down to concrete terms, they look precisely at things like housing prices, jobs and migration. What a lot of people do not grasp is that uncertainty in an economy can create stagnation. If Quebec separates, there will be more economic certainty in the future. Until Quebec separates, the Quebec economy will always be operating with less predictability.

That is a false comparison. The force of law is behind publication bans.It is not that simple: the law would mean nothing if most journalists did not agree with the ethical principles behind it. A publication ban on the names and images f mass murderers would only be effective if there was a broad social consensus that such a ban is in the public interest.I agree. However, which one is it? Are the ethics of the media to blame or are consumers? Maybe it is both.

No, you are identifying an "attempt" when none exists. You are treating us members of the "consumerist culture" like we are all immature children growing up in some kind of a religion and never developing our own brain nor free-will. Once people reach adulthood, it makes no sense to make across-the-board generalizations blaming their actions on "consumerist culture" or any other chimeric entity. Having adults believe that they can blame something else for their actions is a prescription for chaos. Help me: exactly how does the media "attempt" to capture you? You know why: because not enough people want those family values. Same thing governs the hoola-hoop market. I have never seen a commercial for hoola-hoops either. How about you defend your attack on "consumerist culture" by writing a list of criteria to help us determine what we should and should not buy?

Until the popular numbers are in their favor, it makes sense for the separatists to do as much constitutional preparation ahead of time. I encourage them. It gives federalist politicians and complacent Quebeckers less opportunity to say: "Oh, but if we separate, what will we do?" as they shrug their shoulders and retire back to the devil they know which is federalism. Furthermore, maybe it will encourage people in other provinces to start thinking the same.

No - the media provides the incentive. We would not see these types of killings if the media applied the same restraint that it does when children are abused.However, consumers are complicit in both instances. The media displays what we buy. That is a false comparison. The force of law is behind publication bans. I agree completely. I believe the problem is a result of elders not paying much attention to their children. People are more concerned with getting their children to daycare on time instead of what their kids do in daycare. WTF? It's now the fault of Walmart?No, not theirs at all. Yours, and mine. Of what we value. We fuel their actions. And in a strange circle, ours.Come on. Your strange circle is better known as non-coercive co-operation (granted, with a little bit of croney-State-intervention tossed into the mix). Your "comsumerist culture" breeds isolationism and individualism in the same way as the egg breeds the chicken --- or is it the other way around? which one came first???

Of course not but we do not need advanced technology to tell us that. Would we respond differently if there was a live police officer 24hours a day standing on every corner instead of a talking camera? ? If you are not looking to get rid of the police force, then look on the bright side: the cameras are cheaper. If the streets were privately owned, they would probably be secured in the same way, anyway.

Forgive me, but it seems like both of you are getting side-tracked. You guys went from: Are you suggesting that as a country we should no longer subsidize education because it no longer creates the desired outcome?to assuming the government is trying to direct labor production. Education is subsidized because enough people want it that way. Period. The government is not out on a mission to increase labor force productivity or reduce poverty through education subsidies either. Thinking that the government could even do those things is foolhardy.

Now he's a good guy in the eyes of the naive.Furthermore, the U.S.A. negotiated with terrorists. Kaddafi's good-guy status comes after agreeing to pay a few billion dollars to the victims of the Lockerbie airline explosion.

First, I would suggest that all education be private and paid entirely by the student. Since that will never happen..... Are you suggesting that as a country we should no longer subsidize education because it no longer creates the desired outcome?I would suggest that students be required to pay more of the freight. Thus, there would be less incentives for career students to waste tax-payers' money. Our post-secondary education in Canada is a form of pre-welfare. A university degree in Canada is worthless because there are soooo many of them floating around. Anybody remember when high school diplomas were meaningful? Today, saying you graduated from high school is like saying you got toilet trained -- from a public daycare.

I just spent that last day struggling through both of those articles and I was not impressed. The thrust of the authors' conclusions hinge on their fixation of "market failure" in the nursery school industry. The problem is that "market failure" exists everywhere if you are willing to be precise enough. For markets NOT to fail, the conditions are extremely stringent. [i will not define both those situations since the authors do so already in your quoted article. I trust that you read them.] Since there is market failure, the conclusion is that the government must intervene to clear the market. However, following this logic, we should also have the government intervene in practically every market -- except for maybe the stock market. The analysis of these authors is really no more profound. Truly, all of the excessive analyses (they go into enormous detail of the different ways in which the market fails for daycare services) are a waste of paper because most of it is self-evident. http://www.childcarecanada.org/pubs/other/benefits/bc.pdf However, the authors spend very little effort on their more extravagant assumptions. That is my next bone of contention. The studies thinly provide evidence to support the connection: earlier daycare leads to a benefit to society as a whole. They look at student performance up to ages 10 and 13 years but never beyond. Now I ask: who cares about a 13 year old's academic performance? Is it not more important to look at their development as adults too?? The closest the authors go to such a more profound examination is extrapolating across completely different studies to suggest that early institutionalized daycare attendance leads to lower high school drop out rates. They make the connection thusly: - one study in France compares early daycare attendance to grade 1 failure/repetition rates (kids without daycare experience tended to repeat grade 1 more than others) - a second study from Canada compares early drop out rates to high school drop out rates (kids who failed grade 1 tended to drop out of high school more than others) From this, the conclusion is drawn that early nursery school leads to a benefit to society. Blah. The shorter 4 page study is pathetic. It is nothing more than a policy bias cluttered by over-the-top mumbo-jumbo. Have you ever had a doctor explain something to you in technical jargon??? They usually do so because they are disguising their true message or they just want you to think they are so smart. You just nod and say: "Yes, yes, yes. (Get me out of here!)" That second article amounts to nothing more. I have a lot of disdain for academics who misuse their specialties to con the public into supporting their politics. I will provide a disgusting quote from that study that opens their comparison of public, private and non-profit daycares: http://www.ccsd.ca/pubs/2004/cc/cleveland-krashinsky.pdfThis quote clearly sets the stage for the authors' bias and motivation. Defending the babysitting-nursery-daycare-early-learning-pre-public-school-conditioning-job-creation industry from these studies is the same as defending the running shoe industry. If everybody had top quality running shoes, we would all be in much better health: - less people would have sore feet - more people would be encouraged to maintain a job, - less financial burden on our health care system - yadda yadda yadda Therefore, we should have a national running shoe strategy because society would benefit as a whole. The running shoe companies would be happy too.

I agree. The underlying truth that we might fear and not want to admit is that the school shooter is a product of possibly the school.

I can not help but think that most of the gun registry cost was "friends" of the government skimming off the top and pocketting the change a la AdScam game. A billion dollars is outrageously incredible. Only a government can do that and only a fool could accept it from their government. The registry is a shameful abomination. Here is an idea: hire more police officers. Making generous assumptions: $100,000 annual salary and a 40year career, the billion dollars could fund about 250 more officers for the whole country. It does not sound like a lot but I think it is better than nothing -- nothing which is what we get from the gun-registry game. To contrast the two scenarios even further, the cost of gun registry is on going. Drawing a line is easy: just choose one of the extremes.

My favorites are: Michael00David LeafLess Argus Betsy in that order.

Any citations for the above?

The text is peculiar. "(anglophone, détail ô combien important)" is bizarre. combien: is that a trans-anglicisation of "how" as in "how much" ? Maybe the writer should have said "detail peu important" or "detail fort important" instead, I am not sure. The cost having armed guards on every school in the country would be huge. Would you really want to stick the taxpayers with such a bill?No, I would not force the tax-payer to foot that bill (or any bill , for that matter). If it was a private school, I believe the school should have the right to have armed guards if they choose. This single tragedy has 2 people dead and 20 wounded. A society with more guns would likely have many gun related accidents - this would lead to an increase in gun related deaths even if many deaths are not called 'crimes'.I just find it intriguing that that the only people I see carry hand-guns (other than police officers) are bank guards switching cash at ATMs. We permit deadly force to protect the bank's precious money but it is too expensive to protect students on campus. I disagree. The guy wanted to die. So did the Columbine shooters and others of their ilk. I don't think someone like that can be deterred.If this guy simply wanted to die, he would have shot himself. He intended to cause tragedy.I just heard on the news that the police shot him in the arm and then he turned his gun on himself. Who knows??? Moving his dead body is messing with a crime scene.

You forgot some: you mean the AborigIndoIslamoVampiroAnarchoPinkoPunko threat.

Good eye! However, he did sport a mohawk!

[i will start with the opinions. Here goes....] I can not help but think that less people could have been shot by either one of two things: 1) armed security guards an campus 2) more people commonly bearing arms The witness testimonies that I heard repeatedly involved the shooter clearly walking with his rifle in full view before shooting. That tells me that he could have been taken down by security guards or fellow by-standers -- provided everybody else was armed. At the very least, pepper spray could have helped subdue him before the police arrived.

Actually, that statement is comparing two things that are far too different. Marrying is a private affair. Violence and crimes are not. Studying out-of-country marriage could remain in the realm of academia while keeping track crime could stay in the hands of law enforcement.

This is really a tax paid by the employee because their wages could be higher if employers did not have pay the tax. I would not count that as tax you pay.But it is a tax that I must pay. I am not free to spend it on other business expenses. In fact, the extra amount of money could allow me to hire an extra employee, too. Also, you can not make that connection in all markets. It all depends on the available labor pool and skills set. In a highly competitive labor market (to illustrate: if an employee quits, they could be replaced quickly) it is not that easy for a current employee to command a higher wage. My profits currently are still not that high. I am relying on my savings. Indeed, they do. The full amount of my commercial property taxes is more than my take home pay.

One day, I hope to have that problem but I am not there yet. You really do not know many people in the private sector, do you? Nit-picky jerk? Do not worry! In my book, you will have to do much worse than that to qualify as a jerk. It takes a lot to offend me. Bigotry is one of the things that enrage me. Anyway, about the 50% thing, combine all taxes at all levels -- all the way down to the municipal level. With all of the downloading from the higer levels of government down to the lower levels, it makes no sense to just look at income taxes. More importantly, my income is low, to say the least. In other words, you pulled the number out of your ass because it sounded good, but you actually pay very little taxes. Here in Canada the 50% tax rate on income tax is just a little after $60,000.00 yearly income. For the person who makes $650,000.00 per year he dinfinitely would be paying way more in his total taxation of all things, and it would probably be around 65% of every dollar made would be for taxes of some sort or another. Most people with that kind of income though do have tax shelters to make this much less. I will be more explicit for people who are completely ignorant of sectors in the Canadian economy who do not mooch off of the tax-payer and are called private: I am an entrepreneur. I have employees. I must pay their deductions AND THE EMPLOYER'S PORTION of the deductions. My profits are not high. I am living off of my savings. I also must pay property taxes. Now, go spin and say that if my profits are not high, I must be a stupid entrepreneur or I should go out of business anyway or some other display of your complete ignorance of anything outside your narrow selfish world.

I will be more explicit in a more appropriate thread, if you may.

Would you deny me the right to send my child to the daycare of my choice??? It is not a worthwhile investment if <You had better duck!> you go bankrupt <CRASH!!!> before the fruits of your investment are realized. Even if it was worthwhile and inexpensive, I see daycares in the same way as amusement parks. If you want to go, pay the fare.

That makes even less sense. Why not let the government govern and let the babysitters babysit??? Surely to goodness, the current daycare entrepreneurs can create daycares better than a bunch of bureaucrats. If not, we should all give up and submit ourselves to the almighty State for all of our needs! Help!!!!