Michael Hardner
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Posts posted by Michael Hardner
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On 5/4/2025 at 1:08 AM, August1991 said:
We are facing a guy like Trump who looks at real numbers.
Carney, you care about symbols.
Are you still holding on to the idea that Trump is actually smart?
He told Carney that Canada doesn't do much business with the US, didn't he?
Carney is a career banker, and Trump is a career Carnival Barker.
You have this exactly backwards
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3 hours ago, Barquentine said:
Your extreme bias constantly clouds your judgment.
Who has more skills to deal with a global financial crisis ? One who was Bank Governor under Harper and the UK or a textbook demagogue who puts training wheels on MAGA and tries to ride it across Canada ?
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11 hours ago, August1991 said:
Boring AF, as the kids say.
Oh that the public sphere would learn the limits of bluster and televistic appeal !
Imagine high office going to people with relevant skills, and experience ? What a world !-
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On 5/6/2025 at 2:37 AM, CdnFox said:
And people in the east wonder why Alberta is especially mad
That's about the dumbest thing I've ever read. And the other ones in the list are from you also so it's an achievement.
Are you from the West? I thought Western people were smart so I think you're maybe from Toronto where I'm from.
The NEP was in place from 1980 to 1985. And you think that's why the West is "mad" ?
😂
Come on.
..
I know there's nobody around here who talks down other parts of Canada. They talk down separatism, because it's a stupid idea
You think that it's East versus West. I think maybe it's just a little spook that lives in online forums.
At least I hope so. I guess I don't know for sure.
Okay I'm going to tuck you in under your little ignore blanket... Sweet dreams.
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9 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:
Eg, you can't "help" Africans have good lives by giving them enough food to feed 50M for 80 years because they'll have 5,000,000 babies a year and then you still can't feed them all.
Not a real scenario.
Foreign aid also includes helping with education, family planning, infrastructure.
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1 minute ago, TreeBeard said:
Yeah, the paper you linked shows why it’s a terrible idea to do this.
I agree, but I am also trying to show that charity isn't 100% altruistic.
I suspect that those who hate helping people will rejoice at the prospect of filthy lucre arriving as a result.
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@TreeBeard I just read up on it.
They did used to donate food directly, now they sell the food, send the money overseas and buy food on the other side.
I had to read up on it. I stand corrected.
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8 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:
They do? I think Canada provides the funds to foreign aid organizations to buy food, but doesn’t tie it to just Canadian farms.
Tying it to Canadian farmers would be inefficient. It’s better to buy the food closer to where it’s needed to avoid the expense of shipping it, among other extra costs.
The organization I cited was formed by Christian Western farmers, so it stands to reason.
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And that's just agriculture.
There's mining also ⛏️..
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02255189.2023.2184330
3 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:And this organization buys the food from wherever it wants, not just Canadian farmers, if at all.
Okay but somebody got those millions....
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9 minutes ago, CdnFox said:
That's in the states
Food Grange charity is able to leverage donations to receive up to $25 million a year
https://foodgrainsbank.ca/about-us/partnership-with-the-government-of-canada/
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Tens of millions of so-called foreign aid go directly to Western Farmers.
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45 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:
Plagiarized wall of text, as predicted.
It was cited in the end...
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11 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:
Ewww. I don't want eyeball's sloppy seconds.
Go to bed Elon...
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16 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:
You think @Goddess uses the word “betwixt” in her posts?
It’s a copy/paste job from a substack with no citation. Plagiarized.
https://www.google.com/search?q="some+interstitial+state+betwixt+the+third+and+first+worlds%2C+a+sort+of+adolescence+one+grows+through."&oq="some+interstitial+state+betwixt+the+third+and+first+worlds%2C+a+sort+of+adolescence+one+grows+through."&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDEwNjRqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Well seems like THREE substacks used that phrase. Let's give her a chance to cite/explain... -
15 minutes ago, Goddess said:
1. You're definitely not a conservative.
2. I think its described well, above. How a first society functions, how a third world society functions and how a first world society succumbs to its own weaknesses in not defending its way of life, culture and beliefs, thus sliding into being a second world country, which in my opinion, is worse than a third world country.
3. If you're not familiar with Gad Saad's thoughts on "suicidal empathy", perhaps that will explain it more. I agree with Dr. Saad.
4. In the case of the West, I think a large part of it is immigration. Too many, too fast for integration to happen and too many who have no intention to integrate, not that the Canadian govt suggests they do anyways. It doesn't. We're bringing in too many that see Canada as a crime/scam/cheat bonanza. But no one can talk about that or you're a racist. But its not about race. It's about culture & values.
5. That might be part of it. But i dont think its as big a part as what I talk about in the OP. You did remind me of the Monopoly experiment where they give real people unfair advantages to start the game and invariably, they lord it over the disadvantaged players, mocking and denigrating, believing they deserved the advantage because they are better people. It was an interesting video to watch.
6. I don't find your questions genuine, generally, or innocent. If they are in this case, then I apologize.
1. Ha. Says you. Anyway, keep your opinion and hold it tight ❤️
2. I'm not going to pick apart your definition but a lot of 2nd world nations are solid in their own culture, beliefs and traditions including no democracy, concentration of power etc. So maybe they think THEY'RE first world IDK.
3. I'll look it up.
4. Yeah, lots of people talk about it. It was racist 10 years ago, no more. But if you are conflating higher numbers with loss of culture, you have to at least acknowledge that it's difficult to pin down the "cause" of culture decline. Lots of locals buy into decadent culture too.
5. I like the analogy.
6. I mean, no doubt I can be snarky and sarcastic... I don't expect anyone to forgive that but if I see a post that interests me I try to say so and that's not sarcastic.
Ok thanks for the chat.20 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:Can you get pregnant too, Michael?
Stop coming on to me, I said.
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1 hour ago, eyeball said:
Trump seems more like an utterly unselfconcious dog licking it's own butt.
Not speaking from experience here, I swear... but I imagine that LICKING your own BUTT would be an activity that would make you HIGHLY CONSCIOUS of yourself in that particular way.
Random second thought: anyone chime in if they can speak to this, thanks for taking my call... -
35 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:
The OP (article) also says the $6.3B spent on foreign aid is more than the department of health, which is a blatant lie. Also, we don’t have a department of health. We have Health Canada. The quality of the cite from @blackbird is very suspect.
Health Canada’s budget is around $13.7B. I do math frequently, so I know that 13.7 > 6.3.
https://canadaspends.com/en/spending/health-canada
Do you think any foreign aid benefits Canada in some way?
Yeah, I don't know them very well as I have them on IGNORE.
See if you can get an acknowledgement of the error from them on that.22 minutes ago, Legato said:You mean the $11 billion spent on overseas gender studies.
That's some weird cockamamy benefit.
What is the breakdown on that though ?
I don't trust budget summary news from either side, personally. -
1 hour ago, Goddess said:
The point of the post wasn't to define 1st world, 2nd world or 3rd world.
In fine leftie form, you utterly miss what the point is and want to argue semantics and definitions of words instead.
Use whatever definitions you like.
First of all, calling me a leftie is offensive because I am, and identify as conservative.
If you can't take an innocent question and suggestion without lashing out like a feral tabby then that's ok... I'll move on.
Let me try again though, because I was intrigued by your post: can you come up with a simple phrase to generally characterize what each of these mean TO YOU ? That way, I can follow you into your thinking and we can discuss your ideas, what is causing the current situation and where it's going etc.
I'm not arguing, I'm asking. I'm not going to dispute your definitions I just want to understand them.
If you want me to use MY definitions (your last sentence) I would maybe start with sometime that they call the Freedom Index. I'd use your "3 Worlds" model against Freedom Indices ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices#:~:text=The Index of Economic Freedom,series in political science research. )
So any country that is mostly free, in terms of Economic, Political and Press Freedom is 1st world. Mostly Unfree in those terms is 3rd world and the rest as 2nd world.
I would also quibble with some of these listed on that Wiki page like China, Egypt, and a few others...
Your post seems to centre on how '1st world' countries decline, but you're mistaken in describing the '2nd world' in terms of places that have declined. Some have never really done better than 2nd world and others (Thailand, Fiji, Liberia it looks like) are on their way up. Liberia elected an American president a few years back and is seeing improvements in infrastructure and education for example. For them, the 2nd world is for sure NOT 'the worst of all worlds'. They're building their way to the first world, as are China and Egypt.
This is, to me, the crux of what you are trying to say:
"The high trust, high function wealthy west is a small place. Left to itself, it’s incredibly resilient internally and against external threats and stressors. It’s been a flourishing first world experiment in human elevation and progress.
But it has little in the way of internal immune system and its systems require high trust to be high function."
So it seems like you're most interested in what has gone wrong to bring forward this threat of decline. And you're saying it's the decline of "trust". I agree with you on that, that such decline is a decisive factor in things starting to not work properly. But what is the cause of said decline ?
I usually fault cultural changes like that with major social changes and technological changes, which themselves can have deeper causes. To me, it's relative wealth and technology. Our spectacle-based consumer society has adopted a materialistic view, thanks to a wealthy economy and consumer tech. That pushes us away from important traditions, values which reflect cross-cultural humanistic touchstones that bind us to each other and make life meaningful.
What do you think?49 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:Can I just use a definition where Canada remains a 1st world country? Then I don’t need to read that long copy/paste post.
It's not that bad... also I think she wrote it.
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3 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:
Both exist. Private charities obviously are not enough. Plus, Canada has an interest in providing aid. Foreign aid may mean less refugees in the long term, which you should like. Also, a stable situation in poor countries is good for us as well. Preventing deadly diseases in foreign countries prevents their spread to Canada.
Plus, I want my government to not let people starve to death or die from preventable diseases.
I read the op again, when I remembered that there is a fallacy about foreign aid. Sure enough it's there in the op, that dollars are shipped out of the country. As we saw with usaid, it's actually goods that are shipped, and the dollars go to domestic suppliers such as Farmers, manufacturers and so on.
So that's something we need to State up front
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Well, I don't know about the definitions you have provided... are they yours ? Because these terms were in use in the thick of the cold war and described, in somewhat simple terms, the wealthy "west" including Japan as 1st world, the utterly poor as in Africa, India etc. as 3rd and everyone else as 2nd.
See - my definitions are pretty succinct. Can you do that ? Then maybe we can discuss... -
16 minutes ago, Barquentine said:
No. They just hate their constant whining.
I never hear people in Toronto say anything negative about any other part of Canada.
It's weird that people think that.
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14 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:
Who said it’s ok? Do you think Canada is one of the wealthiest nations on earth? Who do you think is wealthier?
You said we're wealthy in response to the question "Why doesn't Canada get foreign aid?"
The standard pivot is to come back with a different point and simply drag the conversation into a never-ending change of direction. It's not a progressive chat, ie. you're no longer going anywhere. You're just playing ping pong with someone who won't concede a point IMO.
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11 hours ago, eyeball said:
The NDP isn't a right-wing party.
No ?
By some measures they are:
-Advocating for big corporate subsidies and special treatment under trade deals etc.
-Acceptance that capitalism is a central foundation for our economy
-Anti-nationalization
If you forget that the NDP is moving right, then you do odd things like singing Barry Manilow songs while sleepwalking, thinking Dr. Pepper tastes good and believing that the Democrats are 'left'.-
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Nobody here cheered Trudeau when he cut foreign spending as I recall...
I guess the moral is 'read the room '?
Men Dropping College Classes
in Sex and Gender Issues
Posted
Good point.