Jerry J. Fortin

Yeah right, the Newf is a vicious animal. You realize that up here in the frozen chosen they breed Newf's for their calm disposition. I personally have never seen a vicious one, and I in fact have one for a family pet. I don't recommend them as guard dogs, they will kill strangers with kindness and kisses but they won't do a damn thing if the stranger is carrying your tv out the door. The Labradors are pretty scary though if you are a duck shot full of buckshot half a mile out in the water. Damned dogs can swim like a fish and NEVER forget to bring back your lunch to the boat. Both of these dogs have webbed feet, so they get called water dogs. Vicious, not hardly. Now as to those terrorists in the swamp lands of Quebec, I don't know if they are Jews or Arabs or just IRA Catholics, but the FLQ was a nice home grown terrorist outfit. But you do know this JBG, so why on earth would you pull peoples chains with this stuff.

Why not just eliminate income taxes altogether. Dump Revenue Canada, reduce the federal payroll by retiring all of the no longer required bureaucrats from Revenue Canada, and switch to a flat rate consumption tax. Contract out the collection of said taxes the same way the GST has been done.

The Canadian government are fools. The most applicable statement I can think of is use it our lose it. The nation needs to get people up there on every single island all along the NWP. They need to be doing arctic and resource research every damned day of the year.

So you think that the passage is Canadian waters by definition?

So in your mind there is no such thing as territorial water. China could just sail into Pearl Harbour without permission, and Russia could just park between Manhatten and the mainland and no problem?

Not anymore you don't. You have to apply for one. You have to love social engineering.

Water isn't shown as owned by anyone. The fact that this little passage is I don't know how many hundreds of miles long and it bisects our country separating the northern islands from the southern mainland indicates to me that it qualifies as "territorial waters" But aside from that, whether it is merely the US or if it is others as well making this claim, it doesn't really matter since you would rather not defend it as our own anyway. The motto for my province is Strong and Free, that is even part of the national anthem of this country, and yet this country is anything but.

Guns are the property of the owners. Property comes under provincial laws, not federal. The feds know this so they carved a nice little hole in criminal law for it and subverted provincial rights. I do not own a gun, because I have no need or desire for one. I figure when Safeway quits selling meat, I will hunt it down myself but until then I will buy it. I don't shoot at targets and don't play paintball. But some folks do, and they enjoy it. Hand guns have had to be registered in this country longer than I have been alive. Long guns don't often get used in crimes, but even so they are now required to be registered as well. Fine, so be it. My objection to the gun control laws is simply that its cost is horrific, and I don't see how it prevents crime. It does restrict citizens rights to own property, but the feds gave that away in the 1982 Constitution Act anyway. Why would we not have simply made it a capital offense to use a weapon in the commission of an offense? Why not simply make all violent crimes capital crimes? Why not simply make conviction of capital crimes punishable through a sentence of duration of natural life without chance of parole?

So you agree that the North West Passage which is fully surrounded by Canadian land is not by definition part of our territorial waters. I can only guess your position of the 200 mile limit. If there was ever any reason for me to quantify why I am an Alberta separatist, this whole topic cleaned up any reason why I would want to be a Canadian. If you don't have the guts to stand up for what is yours, don't even bother to discuss it, just give it away.

Disputed ownership? Really, is that a fact. Is the Empire of America saying that it disputes Canadian ownership of the lands and waters that has been printed in every atlas around the world for the last century? Is that what I am hearing here?

This nation should either crap or get off the pot. I grow weary of governments that make a lot of noise but cower when the bullets fly. WE need to either build an armed force capable of doing the job the government tells them to do or scrape the idea of even having a military force.

Where did those banks get the money to lend? Was the value of the asset at least equal to the cost of borrowing? Or was the bank able to lend money it did not have based on the unrestricted fractional reserve system that allows borrowers not to have hard assets to back up their loans? The gold standard is gone. There is little besides legislation to take its place.

Its not just Toronto, this is a world wide trend. The financial sector was the beginning of it. strangely nobody recognizes the flawed monetary as the cause. We are watching the beginning of a world wide adjustment. The question on everybody's mind should be is this an international recession?

The cartoons are just that cartoons. However they take a nasty swipe against a minority. Thats not very nice, and that IS against the law.

The United States faces grave danger, and it needs its friends. I would prefer to be on the side of friendship.

I will go along with everything you said right up to the point about the implosion of the British Empire. In my view it didn't implode at all, it went bankrupt. Two world wars and an empire that the sun never set upon was simply too expensive to retain after expending billions of dollars on war. The United States jumped to the podium to replace Britain as the superpower of the world, but they had to fight to get it. The Cold War was the first and most likely last war ever fought with dollar bills. The Soviets lost, America won. These things take great effort and much expense to undertake, and are not done lightly or with considerable planning. Considering this very real point, I must contest that the US was unwillingly thrust into the position they now find themselves in. America is a superpower by design and intent. America wanted the title, fought for it and achieved their desired goal. Now there is a very real American empire. It is an empire the like of which has never been seen before. It is based on a military industrial complex and the capitalistic model of free markets. The reality is that America has been made great in this political, economic, military tripod. The rest of the world needs to prepare for the eventuality that such achievement has its detractors. For all of these things and more, God bless America. For all the problems associated with her, at home and abroad the most important factor is the freedom of her citizens. That is one country, as flawed as it is in so many respects, that actually stands up for not only itself but others as well.

I will go along with everything you said right up to the point about the implosion of the British Empire. In my view it didn't implode at all, it went bankrupt. Two world wars and an empire that the sun never set upon was simply too expensive to retain after expending billions of dollars on war. The United States jumped to the podium to replace Britain as the superpower of the world, but they had to fight to get it. The Cold War was the first and most likely last war ever fought with dollar bills. The Soviets lost, America won. These things take great effort and much expense to undertake, and are not done lightly or with considerable planning. Considering this very real point, I must contest that the US was unwillingly thrust into the position they now find themselves in. America is a superpower by design and intent. America wanted the title, fought for it and achieved their desired goal. Now there is a very real American empire. It is an empire the like of which has never been seen before. It is based on a military industrial complex and the capitalistic model of free markets. The reality is that America has been made great in this political, economic, military tripod. The rest of the world needs to prepare for the eventuality that such achievement has its detractors. For all of these things and more, God bless America. For all the problems associated with her, at home and abroad the most important factor is the freedom of her citizens. That is one country, as flawed as it is in so many respects, that actually stands up for not only itself but others as well.

We are afraid of our own skin. We have no identity because of it. There was a time when we were moving in the right direction, then along came Def the Chief. After him what had what was left to us, they called them peace keepers. Several years later we got the "Canadian Forces" and a gutted defense budget. This nation will not even stand up for itself, let alone act in the interests of peace.

Canada is poor in spirit. I can say this with confidence because we are a nation of wishy washy politics and dispassionate leaders. There are few inspirational figures active in our society and our society has no unique identification. In terms of pure wealth, that is an exercise in statistics. You know the kind, ask the right question and get the right answer kind of thing. Mostly those stats have answers with questions designed to prove them. An exercise in foolishness at best. The cold hard reality is that if you take the actual value of our natural resources in this country and divided it by the number of people we would find ourselves the richest citizens per capita on the planet. I don't think we want to do that, I don't think that we want to go there because it smacks of socialism. Does this mean we are rich or poor? It means it is subject to the perceptions of the person asking the question. Canada is a failed experiment in democracy. Our politics suck and our standard of living is un-naturally suppressed. We need to grow up and start thinking with the big head instead of the little head in very real terms.

To a certain degree I have to side with JBG here. The US has extensive interests around the world and therefore it has responsibility around the world. Yes it has and yes it does support some unsavory characters, there seems to be no shortage of these folks in leadership positions. On the other hand, US foreign policy is visibly supporting its own interests. This provides much political cannon fodder for the detractors of the US superpower status. For many people around the world it is a case of penis envy. The US has a rather large organ.

I too was once a member of The Alberta Social Credit Party. I left the party because it wasn't about Social Credit! Social Credit is actually a theory, not a political party. The idea of making it just another partisan group to advocate partisan policy is detrimental to the actual cause of the theory. The theory deserves much debate and the fact that it is far different from the established views on economics often puts supporters of the concept into the tin foil hat club. That doesn't speak to the validity of the theory but instead to the supporters of the entrenched economic system that literally detracts from the advancement of the cause of improving the human condition. That is the little fact that escapes many folks. What is the goal of politics if not to improve the human condition? The present perception is that politics is power and power protects itself. It is only a system, a political machine designed by man to accomplish tasks for men. Governments should not have a life of its own, it should be little more than the servant of its master. the people. Until people realize that the only political machine capable of providing a government accountable to the people is a direct democracy, then the theory of social credit will be doomed to gather dust on the shelf because it upsets the established authority of this nation and this world.

Track runs about 2 million a mile for freight. Passenger ONLY high speed rail is another matter entirely. Right of way is an added expense that must be taken into consideration. A good high speed rail link will run about 69 million a mile for double track turn key operation, according to the latest development in China. http://inte099018.halls.colostate.edu/~vig...nsit/maglev.htm

Track runs about 2 million a mile for freight. Passenger ONLY high speed rail is another matter entirely. Right of way is an added expense that must be taken into consideration. A good high speed rail link will run about 69 million a mile for double track turn key operation, according to the latest development in China.

Get used to Harper, he will be here for a while. The Liberals need a new leader and won't get one till after an election. I will predict a spring election, another minority tory government and a Liberal leadership convention for the fall. At the international level, a middle east peace followed by a middle east war. In the far east, China dumps the greenback and switches to the Euro. In South America, Chavez unites the north west under a single socialist banner making trade agreements with all but Columbia.

Global warming is one thing economic policies driving market prices are another.