myata

But of course it's OK for others to follow in our footsteps. Why shouldn't they? We did it, got our prosperity from uncontrolled unlimited consumption of carbon fuel, and now we want to stop them from doing the same? With nothing to show for it (other than hot air polemics on deficiencies of Kyoto)? Countries like China, Brazil, India are still developing to have their people fed and clothed. Their choices are different from those we make (like should I buy a 6cyl city cruiser or SUV or a truck). Are we in any position to preach conservation and responsible use of resources to them?

I'm not sure where the figure came from ... but anyways, on the Wiki page you should be able to find links on the methodology and sources used to derive the data. I will be very much surprised if such a serious source of GHG was somehow left unaccounted for by people who compiled and reviewed these stats. And if it is the case you are welcome to publish your own results which would definitely make an impact due to its significance. In any case this argument is beyond the point because West, which is responsible for at least the current state of affairs, has already burned all of its forests. So, making claims against others who are simply following in our own footsteps, is pathetic, not to say hardly credible.

If you mean the US, you're right: emission stats from Wikipedia. Here's another interesting emissions and climate change stats, from Env Canada.

geoffrey, while I agree that, in principle, having citizens of two sorts is not ideal and maybe even inacceptable from puristic rights perspective, the current situation reflects the reality of historic evolution of this country: most importantly that from the outset it was decided to co-exist and negotiate with aboriginal population of the land as opposed to simply subjugate it, as in most (all ??) other settlement and colonization episodes. Certainly, the "co-existance" wasn't perfect and oftentimes plain flawed. However the principle held and holds still till now. We can consider this time as transitional for the two populations to adjust and learn to accommodate each other. I will not be surprised if in certain, probably remote future (at least while the cornerstone of Canadian policy still holds: don't fix it if it ain't broken and then some) the issue could be revisited. This may happen on the request of native groups themselves who may realize that keeping the special status is counter-productive to their long term prosperity; or if majority of population will no longer be able to support status quo. I'm not sure (and here I tend agree with you) if the cituation with two classes of citizens is acceptable in principle. It would be interesting to discuss this aspect. I think maybe those who want to keep their special rights should not be citizens (some don't want it anyways, as I understand it). They can be given a special status, like "Crown protected resident", with all the rights under treaties, land ownership, culture and so on, but citizenship should be reserved for those who contribute here and now, not x hundred years ago.

Just wondering, are you guys reading the news, at all? Or staking it out in the alternative Universe?

Surely West was and is the biggest contributor to the problem. As current statistics show. Yes we're all humans. And humans cause this problem. But humans living in industrialized oil burning economies just happen to cause it so much more, that they have to accept responsibility and show leadership in finding solution. Of course if we believe the statistics. But of course the statistics must be really flawed because they don't happen to support your argument. You must have betters ones and should share them with the world. FYI, the data on emissions per country is quite east to find on the net and it was posted in another thread. I liked the forest part too. Please try to go to UK, France or Central US and find a forest. Where oh where have they all gone? I wonder. Er.... why? Lowest cost to who? And how "we" can limit emissions in China or Brazil? Wouldn't it be more natural to start where most emissions originate? I don't happen to have a crystal ball so I'd just wait and see how it'll play out. There's little doubt though that the ball is squarely in the West' year on this, and while some (like EU) at least starting doing something, there hasn't been much action on this continent. In contrast to the amount of rhethorics against Kyoto. Absolutely. But is America's non participation in the solution the reason to do nothing ourselves?

I'm sure that's what Harper may think. It's still defies very basic logic nonetheless. What we see around us now, is created by 200 years on uncontrolled virtually unlimited (other than in the last to or three decades) pollution by the West. One can argue that West's wealth can be in part traced to that history (along with its former ability to plunder resources of other less developed countries virtually at will). To make the clean up of the mess conditional on participation of the countries which had nothing to do with creating it, and only developing their economies, is the same thing what it looks - i.e., opportunism and hypocrisy. What if China turns up a coal plant a week, if it's total greenhouse emissions are still times less than those of US - both absolute and per capita? Can you see the fatal lack of logic in this argument? If you can, than millions of Chinese and Indians won't miss it either. The way to go was to start some activity, possibly develop solutions to deal with the problem, then attempt to involve the second tier countries by sharing these solutions with them to the benefit of all. But of course, it'd have caused certain pain and it's oh so much easier to do nothing while pointing blaming finger at everybody else but one's own image. It's becoming a trademark of US foreign policy so much that I wonder if anyone would expect anything different now - real leadearship, perhaps, even by example?

It was already pointed out before that this talk about making China and India to put any kind of involuntary restrictions on their still underdeveloped economies sounds like pure opportunism and hypocrisy coming from the West which has been (for couple of centuries) and still is the greatest polluter and emitter on the planet, in absolute terms and per capita. You've got to come up with some more credible argument to discredit Kyoto, which in my understanding at least, was intended to be a tool to kick start global climate awareness internationally, more than to actually achieve real reductions on the global scale. All this talk about China and India to show the lead is no more than a stalling tactics and an obvious one at that. Now with the latest conclusion of international panel on climate change, argument against greenhouse reductions becomes even less credible.

I think genetics science is quite away still from being able to do anything like this, so I wouldn't worry about it for the time. And if anything even remotely plausible will come up, you're bound to hear about it on all news.

On that, there was a commentary on CBC The Current yesterday morning. A prof from US was essentially suggesting a kind of a "salary cap" on renumeration of execs (like 100% tax on personal earnings above 50 times the minimum wage). His arguments are that rewards paid to execs have reached "grotesque" levels which reward and inspire "grotesque" behaviours counter-productive for the economy in the long run. It would also make exec directly interested in the well being of the lowest paid category. Sounds interesting, I wonder if anything like that has been tried?

FYI: Norway: population 4.6 mln people, oil exports (2005) 2.7 mln barrels / day - ranked #3 in the world, after Saudi Arabia and Russia. (reference). That may explain many of this country Norway's economic miracles (not to diminish it's achievements in any way). Obviously it's a special case that cannot serve as a general example of prosperous egalitarian economy that can be applied elsewhere. Somehow, many leftwing authors who like to admire Norway forget to mention this fact. More (and better) examples of economic systems where egalitarian distribution of income has been sustainable over long time, are needed for this argument to gain credibility.

Is it an either/or situation, where either it's criminalized or it's sanctioned? I don't think adultery is officially sanctioned by the government, nor is it criminalized. The same with cigarette smoking. I don't even think we have such a notion as "officially sanctioned". All what isn't prohibited (i.e. considered illegal under criminal or administrative code) is allowed. Call it officially sanctioned if you like though it isn't the way I understand it.

Global warming, but in the broader sense of human impact on the environment: deplition of species, overpopulation, pollution, and like. Unless humanity develops a way to maintain some sort of balance with its environment, the balance will find us (and likely not on our terms).

I agree though that compensation of that size is way over the board. Let's not forget that though it was wrong for the RCMP to send this wrong information, it's the americans who sent him to Syria. Compensation of this size creates the impression that Canadian government accepted full responsibility to the unfortunate things that happened to him. Such responsibilty should be shared between Canada (for providing wrong information - lesser part) and the US (for deporting him to Syria even though he was travelling on Canadian passport - greater part). Also, how does it compare to compensation given to other wrongfully accused (in this country and abroad)?

You are correct geoffrey, but who would be the "shareholders" of the government? Who owns it? Who elects its CEOs and the board? You answered your own question.

Smells like a parody. http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/genpets.asp Or a scam. The Net is a huge dump where anyone can drop pretty much anything.

O come on don't be obtuse, It is a simple question. How many men would share a wife. I understand, it"s hard to get, when it"s so much easier to live in the world where everybody"s thoughts and actions can be presumed from their looks (and wallow in the injustice of that imaginary world).

I'll have to agree with fellowtraveller. Once someone's reached the age of maturity, who can tell (or decide) whether they are/were "brainwashed"? Abuse of underaged though should be prosecuted without hesitation, there's legislation for that. I applaud Cons law on age of consent and look forward to see them apply it equally without exception for "religious belief". To margrace's eternal question, I believe you should stop thinking in broad categories like "men" and "women". Each situation is different. You may be right in what biology and history make men more likely, statistically only, to be polygamous, but it's a matter of scientific research, not morals. Each individual makes their own decisions.

Why some kinds of physical labour be taxed less than others? Wouldn't it be, like, gender discrimination? Pay equity, anyone?

Oh, that's quite simple. What other choice do they have given that the other party insist on their superiority? Nothing to do with morals, just simple logic. And because everybody understands that, the effect of such statements will be around 0 (other than display their authors as compltete hypocrites).

It's 7.5, not 75, really! I hope you aren't this loose with your taxes or you're in big trouble. Then and again, the "moral" argument (even if you believe that it was "moral" to nuke two cities full of civilians from safe distance), doesn't matter much here. China is doing the same thing as US was doing for years and who's there to stop them? From todays CBC commentary on the issue (the exact transcript should exist somewhere on the Net): < ... China reaffirmed it's commitment to peaceful space. For ... years Russia and China have been advocating international treaty on prohibition of weapons in the space. These attempts were rejected by Bush's administration. > Sound like these "grave concerns" by the same administration have a good chance to qualify for the years top international policy hypocrisy contest. Not to mention that they carry as much credibility as water in bottomless bucket.

Here's the quote in question: "Based on public reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 1,770 people were executed in China during the year, although the true figures were believed to be much higher." It does go on to cite the other figure, as a data given by expert, without subscribing to it. Wouldn't it be, so to say, more precise, to use the Amnesty International lower figure, as a lower boundary (i.e., "at least 7.5 times higher..." ) as opposed to never mention it at all? Of course you're free to write your own report based on your intimate knowledge of China's situation and have it accepted internationally as valid and proven record. Why hypocritical? Shouldn't someone professing global rights and democracy be held to a higher standard than just everybody else? In any case, it's beyond the point who's better that who. It's simply not a credible position and will not impress anybody.

Some basic math for you: 1770 / 60 = 30 (rounded) Then, China's population is 4 times that of the US: 30 / 4 = 7.5 Quite a difference from your figure. And, then they don't go around this globe preaching their stellar record on human rights and like. Let's give them some leeway for that.

Here's something on the moral standing of US in the world: "As in previous years, the vast majority of executions worldwide were carried out in a tiny handful of countries. In 2005, 94 per cent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA. " From Amnesty International 2005 Death Penalty and Executions report.

Just because you mentioned it second time in this thread, let's attempt to bring up the scores: Invasion of small countries: US (after WWII only): Iran (CIA supported coup); Chile (CIA inspired coup); Grenada, Panama, Iraq, ... (those I can name right off the top of my head) China: ??? unlike the US in the above, China has some kind of historic claims to both Tibet and Taiwan. Now, for the "mass murders of innocents": US: nuclear bombing of two cities full of civilians of no military value in Japan; thousands of civilians in Vietnam; if Iraq's campaign were to be defined as illegal, may qualifiy as well. China: cultural revolution, Tiananmen? If you mean internal prosecution, US is high on the list by the number of executions, some of which are bound to be "innocent". Note, it's not to qualify China as being superior on this scale; it's just that the record of the other side isn't anywhere as pure and unblemished as some want to pretend. Also, China isn't generally preceived on the international stage (at least, yet) as willing and trigger happy to interfere in "zones of interest" thousands of miles away.