Jerry J. Fortin

As Tobin would say, All in Good Time.

Defence is one thing offense is another. Especially in religious matters.

John is not a girly man. He has been there and done that, a real veteran.

Your friend should look at leasing the tower tops and buying some turbines! Its a good idea. Then again a little partnership to do this would not hurt any of us on this forum!

There is room, but is there a probability of election, likely not. Out here we have multigenerational political regimes. We keep them around until we know for sure we are getting screwed and then we turf them. When we put them down, they don't come back. First loser was the Liberals, they were replaced by the United Farmers who were replaced by Social Credit, who was replaced by the Progressive Conservatives. The track record here is that the old government is displaced by a literally new party.

The next US President will be either John McCain or Hillary Clinton. One hawk and one dove, guess which way the citizens will choose?

If the truth be known I would like to run for office, but not just yet. I have said it before, I am an Alberta separtist. The time to take action will be soon though. Harper must kow tow to eastern Canada to gain a majority. When he does that there will be pressure to tap into Alberta wealth in the form of an NEP2 type of program. If he is dumb enough to sell his soul and take the bait he will loss support out here but still gain a majority overall. At that point Albertans will be seriously looking at their options. Meanwhile back at the ranch King Ralph has bailed, thank God! Whatever partisan lackie they install into that job this fall will determine which direction Alberta will take with respect to the feds. The guy that takes a hard line on provincial rights will likely be the winner in this contest. Fed bashing is a favorite pastime over here.

I don't support partisan efforts normally. I look for independent candidates who claim an accountability to constituents not party leaders. The last three elections I had no such candidate to support, I was stuck voting for a Green Party guy. At least they support direct democracy and environmental concerns with sustainable development and industry accountability.

We could have a windmill attached to every single power line transmission tower. The towers are ugly to begin with anyway. Oh, but think of all of the jobs that would be lost if we converted to free electricity sources! I live out in the boonies so I can get away with my plan of attack. Unfortunately for the city dwellers they can't. A little town by the name of Spruce Grove just outlawed coal boilers within city limits. Windmills need space to work, at least 500 feet between towers, so Fred could have one but if Barney put one up next door, both would suffer production losses. Solar can be slapped on just about anything, roofs that have a southern exposure would work best. But these things cost money to buy and instal. Putting turbines on transmition towers is a great idea though. It will take advantage of the height and probably work really well. I don't thing we are in danger of losing any jobs in the industry.

The lowest cost heating system I have found is an outdoor coal fired boiler system. Cost outlay for this looks like a little over 14k. Not cheap but a good high effeciency furnace will run 3k and then you still need the tin bashers to come in and do their thing for about 4k. But the upside is that coal in Alberta runs about 28 to 30 bucks a ton and it takes about a ton a month to heat the place in the winter verses about $250.00 with natural gas. Coal will allow me to heat a greenhouse as well, and a sauna and a swimming pool at a fraction of the cost I am spending on gas now. On the electricity side I am alittle miffed at the feds, because of regulations that prevent me from using a steam engine for power generation. So I am stuck with wind power that is going to cost almost 25k with all of the inverters and stuff to work in conjuction with solar power. The entire power system will end up costing almost 45k. So far the cost to going off grid looks like about 50k give or take a few k here and there. The biggest concern overall is the design and construction of the home itself. You need to take advantage of southern exposures and have a little respect for thermal mass numbers. We have looked at foam blocks filled with concrete, regular concrete blocks, and regular stick frame construction, as well as timber frame and log designs as well. The method we have chosen is called stack wall construction. If you can mix mortar in a wheel barrow and are capable of lifting a piece of firewood, then you can build your own walls for practically nothing. The foundation and the roof will require professionals, but the walls can be done no problem. Cost projections are in the 125k range to lock up. Finishing is another story, we haven't delved into that little corner of design yet.

Good point! However I will vote against Harper no matter what he does until he starts legislating for the citizens instead of partisan special interest groups. He is no better or worse then those who came before him.

In light of the current situation in the middle east perhaps now is the time to consider the military and paramilitary requirments of nations. Is it time to think about the realities of war or do we need to count the tragic deaths on calculators first? When will we learn?

Best plan is to get citizens off the grid. Create our own power and be done with it. I am designing just such a home now actually.

You guys can say what you like. You are free to express your opinions. Keep in mind that the UN created Israel. The peolple of Palestine were asked to stay in 1946. They chose to leave. From that day forward they have been conducting acts of violence toward the people and state of Israel. The entire premise of the dispute is out to lunch. The Jews moved onto that land after defeating the then owners of it millenia ago. They lost it to their enemies at some points and regained it at others. The freaking ownership of the land has been in dispute since time has been recorded. The overiding cause of this is not the fault of either the Jewish or Arab states but it is the fault of those individuals who choose to not live in peace. Yet both sides blame the other for the acts of individuals and the acts of government. Sad but true. Personally I don't care who is right and who is wrong about the ownership of that land. The simple reality is that the nations of the world have given the Jews a piece of land to call their own after the horrific events of the second world war. The survivors of the holocaust had nothing to their names and the world gave them nothing but a desert. The made the dessert bloom and now they are guilty of success. I think the root cause of this dispute is greed and envy. Welcome to world war three people. I can only hope to God that the politicians of the world can see this as a tragedy to be avoided not an opportunity to capitalize on. The arms makers of the world will get rich, and the citizens will die. I fear that the only solution is the extermination of one or the other of these proud races of peoples. I will regret there passing, but I will not advocate participation from my country in the affairs of theirs. This battle is the one to avoid. This could be the beginning of the end people, all that is needed to hasten that time is to provide fuel to the fire and it will consume everything.

The thing to remember is that it will be getting more expensive to purchase fuel. That little fact should wake people up into realizing that the oil companies of the world are going to be making a lot more money. In other words invest in that stock folks.......

So screw Albertas needs? We can't get people to come here and work, you acknowledge this problem and still tell us too bad so sad but bugger off?

Look at the Swiss model. There are two kinds citizen interaction with government. One takes place or can take place in the form of a citizens initiative, where a sufficient amount of public support can force the government ot legislate on a specific concern of the public, the second form does or can take place after legislation has been created bu government, that is referendum, of which there are two kinds both compulsory and optional. Most legislation lawmakers create comes under one category or the other. Some legislation is not subject to public ratification, but most is. So when citizens can both initiate legislation and negate legislation by democratic means the power of the lawmakers is curtailed.

Just keep buying gas, Albertas' economy is depending on you!

The nation of Israel has a sovereign right to defend itself. So does Lebanon, go figure. If the citizens of one nation cause harm to the other nation a state of war may be experienced by both sides. That is the reality. The citizens that launched rockets into Israel are the ones guilty of causing harm to the rest of their fellow citizens. The ones that kidnapped Israel Army personal were the ones that started the problem in the first place. Lebanon is filled with Lebanese, some will be from this group or that group but they are all Lebanese. One citizen with a gun can be merely a criminal, but a citizen with a rocket is a member of a military organization. If a country has a rogue element within it that has a stand alone military group not accountable to the government they have a problem. The international community only supports nations, not war lords, so it would have been better for the Lebanese government to act in its own interests and deal with this rogue element. The Lebanese have decided not to take care or their own business and now somebody has to deal with the mess the Lebanese government has left laying around. If you really have to have somebody to blame, blame the government of Lebanon.

Alberta has advertised all over the country looking for workers. The problem is simply that there are a lot of lazy people not willing to work. Why bother if you can sit on your behind and collect welfare? The nanny state pays your bills so why work? The answer to that is immigration. It is a simple solution. The other side of the coin is to get rid of the welfare state! Oh I would love to see that, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

The only way for both sides to win is to live in peace. Otherwise both sides lose. I expect a losing resolution to this conflict, however this time is a little different. I am not sure that conflict will not spread and engage more nations.

Well that link lead to a very biased viewpoint. I don't care for the authors opinion myself. But my opinion is less worthy than his because he is there and I am not. I have no vested interest in those lands, and I care not what they do to each other in violence. When all parties decide to try peace than people will stop dropping like flys. Until then, they all reap what they sew.

The men who hide amongst the women and children are not men but beasts. When beasts have rights I will consider their plight.

I would not use term unethical - illegitimate by today's standards is a better description. For example, periodically people talk about Canada taking over the Turks and Calicos. If this happened Canada would never negotiate a deal that included special rights in-perpetuity for the descendants of the existing residents of those islands. Nor would Canada accept a deal that allowed the residents of those islands to prevent other Canadians from moving to the islands or denied them the right to vote for the territorial gov't if they lived there. Canada would be willing to negotiate a self-government deal that allowed the residents to protect their unique culture and language.There are many things the gov't has done in the past that are not acceptable by today's standards. For example, the forms of discipline used at residential schools are considered abuse today and natives feel they deserve compensation for that abuse even though those forms of discipline were acceptable at the time and many non-native children experienced the same kind of discipline at regular schools (i.e. the strap, punishment for using languages other than English, et. al.). It is not reasonable to selectively apply today's standards to events in past. If we as a society are expected to pay compensation for past actions that are only wrong by today's standards then we as society are also entitled to demand that deals and treaties with provisions that are wrong by today's standards be torn up and replaced by deals and treaties that do meet today's standards. Holy crap that is a big chunk of land! I just went over to; http://www.sixnations.ca/LCMap.pdf to check it out. Damn you guys have a large problem! Look for openers the best plan of attack with this is to take a step back and consider what you can get away with. I mean in all seriousness what you are talking about will cause a few heart attacks! First of all getting everything you want out of this deal will simply not happen, so you need to shoot for something that can happen. This agreement was reached prior to the confederations of provinces formed Canada. Therefore the legal authority was British, who when the BNA was concluded should have incorporated into it something about this treaty and other treaties. So the question I will ask is what happened between 1784 and 2001? I am sure that the Six Nations have some plan, and I will begin to look into this, but you have a large problem buddy.

Yeah that is about the sum of it isn't it? The centralized power of the federal government needs to be cut back somewhat and devolved into a more local formation of political authority. Leave the feds in charge of defense and foreign affairs but dowenload the balance of operating authority to the provinces piece by piece to start looking after their own citizens as they see fit. This would go a long way toward providing for the distinct cultures found in many areas of the nation. Leave the feds to create national minimum standards and then turn the ball over to the provinces to do as they see fit.