Accountability Now

I had mentioned before about Notley over promising on her election campaign with the thought that she didn't thing she would get it. Today I have to wonder how much of her platform was factual (meaning she knew she could do it) and how much was just pandering to the crowd with the comfort that she was never going to get in and thus wouldn't have to deliver. I'm not saying this because I think she will pull back on promises but you would have to think that the team's thought process probably had to change from the start to the finish.

The man was FIRED in 1993. I am quite certain that his bias is quite a bit larger than mine. As I have already said, although I see you have problems with reading, if this story was picked up by a main stream journalistic source and proven to be factual then I would be all ears. However, we only see this coming in from second rate sources and in the COMMENTS section on various sites. Do you honestly think that as long as its on the internet, its true? Would you like me to post some stuff about not landing on the moon or perhaps some great global warming data? Now...speaking of agendas...your initial post said that you worked in the department of Alberta Energy. Worked being past tense....did you get canned too? Maybe you're buddies with Jim Roy? Maybe you have a chip on your shoulder too? Yes... I have found it frustrating that you won't back up your claim about the PCs not having experience and now are dancing around it by saying the data is gone. That is very frustrating. Of course....your claim from Jim Roy is so laced with bias that it isn't even a point at all....hence the reason why no one other than second/third rate news sources are even talking about it. Here's another note from the forum rules because apparently you need the help: Sufficient meaning enough or adequate. Your source from the Tyee with an obviously biased disgruntled ex employee's claim is not sufficient. You haven't come close to doing that. All you have done is spewed your opinion and continued to whine about it after I asked you back it up. I even quantified it for you....I said five candidates will do. But...keep that head in the sand where it belongs. What in fact you are looking for is someone who will just blindly agree with all the BS that you spew. Unfortunately MLW is not the place for that. I could care less if you put me on ignore or respond or dance around every citation request that has been asked of you. I enjoy a good debate but that is just something you clearly can't provide....since debates are based on facts and credible sources. Keep peering through the comments section....that should help you sometime.

An OPINION column????? LMFAO!!!! Even the column says this guy CLAIMS this happened. Do you know the difference between a CLAIM and a FACT....especially one coming from a disgruntled ex-employee. LOL This is great.

I've asked you to back up your claim on the PCs inexperience and you have provided NOTHING. Now...you provide a claim that Alberta government miscalculated the royalties based on a claim made by a guy who USED to work in the review department in the early 1990s and was FIRED. Do you honestly think that he is speaking without bias or agenda. LOL. This is a beauty. Again...when you can get a main stream media outlet writing and confirming this is true then I'm all ears. Yes...I saw that you were ignoring Derek. I guess it sucks when you too many people call you out on your poor claims.

Now is NOT the 1980s. Your comments was that you would be willing to go back to the 1980s which had such interest rates. Its an all or nothing kind of statement. You can't say geez...I like the 1980s but not the high interest rates. Also take away high unemployment and while we're at it...let's get rid of the Oilers winning the cup. Sorry pal....it doesn't work that way. All talk....NO action until this election. They were 'pissed' during the last election and nothing but another majority for the PCs. I guess since you're derailing this point to whether we want a PC government or not versus the idea that unions sway the vote then that means you've conceded that point. Thanks. I told you already. Most of the industries we are concerned have a PST tax exemption. Also, the article you quoted was from the UofC Policy Planning....if Provincial Sales taxes were so bad then why did this same report suggest that Alberta should adopt a provincial sales tax? Hmmmm....

Do you ever get tired of being wrong? Here....directly from the forum rules: Back up your claim that many of the PC candidates were young and inexperienced. Of course, your comment was a response to me saying the NDP had people in their election, particularily the person in my riding, that joined at the last minute and appear to not really want to have run in the first place. So if you want to respond to what I was actually saying then that is the context. Of course, I will be glad if you just backed up your comment too. Alright...lets see it. Start with a few...lets say 5. Perhaps its because you cherry picked the thing that you wanted to talk about and didn't actually read the various posts. If the story was 'newsworthy' then it would be in the mainstream news. Journalistic integrity will sort through (or attempt to) stories that have agendas or are misusing information. When the main stream media picks up on this story then I will be intrigued. Until then, I equate this to something said in the comments section. If the senior advisors comments were in fact true and there was nothing more to it then I would be certain that main stream media would pick up the story. I guess that's another thing you need to learn here. The source matters. You have nothing until you have a credible source.

How is this hard? Because you know your claim is wrong? Show me PLENTY of the PC candidates that you said were young and inexperienced. Just because they didn't win doesn't mean they didn't exist. Lets see it. On this site you need to back up your claims and not just with you spewing more BS. You keep saying there were many young and inexperienced PC candidates. How is this possible to be inexperienced when 70 of 87 were INCUMBANTS. LOL. Again...I have no problem with age itself but I do have a problem with a lack of experience and specifically with MLA's who showed little interest in attaining the seat but were thrown in just to fill the riding. I showed examples of this with the NDP so that is why I want your examples to do the same. Of course, I understand if you can't. I am curious about this. Why is it that I can only find this link on The Tyee or Thinkpol? No other major news source that I have seen is covering this story? Perhaps my Google skills are failing me? With that said, is this along the lines of Rachel Notley leaving out 1Billion from her own budget? I mean the calculations are based on fluctuations and external numbers. Notley just did add things up right.

The companies affected by PST are largely retail companies....ie companies that aren't going anywhere. The companies that we are talking about are the mobile ones. The ones that can and will pick up shop and move to where ever the taxation structure suits them best. Many of these oil companies are PST tax exempt even within the province. Of course any product sold outside of Canada is entirely PST exempt. As such your simple formulas don't apply. Perhaps its because you can't comprehend the points being made. The Wildrose was an option in the 2012 election until they spewed their mouths but more importantly until the teachers dangled the carrot to increase the wages of the unions. If you don't think that these public service and teachers unions carry a massive sway in this province then you are deluded. Your point was about the business climate in 2003. I simply showed that Saskatchewan wasn't a factor in 2003. As for the proposed NDP rates, Alberta would be HIGHER than BC and the SAME as Sask. Because the 20% interest rates weren't mythical back then. Nor was the high unemployment. You can't cherry pick how you want it. I get the fact that you don't like a competitive and booming province where the only thing we have to bitch about is how good it is. Instead you wish that it would implode because if you can't have it good then you want everyone else to go down with you. Personally, I would benefit greatly from the province not doing well since the vast majority of my business is conducted outside this province and would benefit from such cost reductions. But at no point would I ever want to see Alberta or any province go back to the situation in the 80s. That is just stupid. Nope...yours takes the cake by a landslide. A prediction is a prediction and based on the last election and the way the polls swung at the last minute, it wasn't a horrible prediction. And for the sales taxes, again....sales taxes are largely retail taxes for the end user. So yes...your comment is the stupidest thing by far.

You're not really sure how sales taxes work...do you?

Please provide an example of the PLENTY that you're talking about. Also be very specific to show their lack of experience and more importantly their lack of desire to actual to run for the MLA seat (as I have shown with the NDP) Yes...I said it. The last election wasn't called early nor did the PC's accept the Wild Rose defectors. Add to it that in 2012, the Wild Rose was hit hard by that one candidate making harsh claims about homosexuality and the lake of fire. Most Albertan's aren't into the really far right wing thing. All this aside, the largest factor in play here was again the teachers and civil servants unions. The last election the PCs promised a ton of benefits at the last minute which swung the unions votes to the PCs. This time the PCs knew that it will be unsustainable to maintain those 'highest in Canada' payscales and was looking to cut back. Hence the mass exodus with the unions. If anything, it just goes to show how much power the unions have in Alberta. Rachel Notley was just the right person, saying the right things to win over the unions but also she had the PCs shooting themselves in the foot to win over the rest. All sales taxes (PST, HST, and GST) are flow throughs for a business meaning it doesn't actually affect them. They collect the tax for the government from the end user and remit it after deducting the sales taxes they have paid on purchases. The expense is passed on to the end user. With oil, most of that is shipped out of country where the end user can claim tax exemptions and not have to pay this. In 2003, Saskatchewan was being run by and NDP government that didn't care to develop its oil resources. Its only been as of late that Saskatchewan Party (a right wing government) has started to develop oil resources and make it a serious competitor for Alberta. Also, at that time BC's tax rates was even higher than Alberta. Seriously??? This has to be one of the stupidest comments I've heard on here. Why would we ever want to or need to do that? Left wingers are complaining about the ability to buy a house now? Try doing it with 20% interest rates. I think its funny how so many people are so hard done by in Alberta when unemployment is low, pay is high and overall job security is really good. I guess people need to know how bad it can get to appreciate the good times.

No matter where you live in Detroit, you need to drive to the Joe Louis which is in a horrible place. Very scary just walking around there.

But again, there is no end game with this argument until you die or there is some sort of magical revelation that clears it all up one way or another. A lot of the arguments for religion are based on biblical text which has holes throughout and was written by men with bias. Even the arguments against are very circumstantial and attack points that are somewhat irrelevent and in the end should make us question the details but not the message. I certainly enjoy a good discussion on religion but there really is no winning or losing the argument. One thing I find particularily of interest is how people who are highly religious their whole lives can turn from it and stop believing just like that. Convserely you have the born agains who never believed once but through bad times turn to God/Jesus and now they are the most tenacious believers. To me both of these types of people are not an indication of how religion should be defined. Clearly these people have something missing or are fragile enough to not have the capacities to deal with life problems without some sort of crutch.

I try not to stay in Detroit when I go. I prefer to stay in Windsor and drive over when I have to.

City Center, Southgate, Romulus, Taylor, Inkster....a lot of places in and around Detroit are quite scary. Edmonton has a couple too but not nearly to the effect of Detroit. I wonder what the stat is on those wives of Canadian born players who want to be close to home. I know that was the reason why Sheldon Souray wanted to come to Edmonton. Of course he left because of Lowe/MacT. All these things you bring up as factors are indeed factors in the final equation but I do believe that playing for a team that has a chance to win trumps all.

Again...this has largely to due with the ability win. The Oilers (and the City of Edmonton) had no problem attracting superstars like Pronger, Peca and Spacek for their 2006 Cup run. Once they had a taste of the organization, they all ran. They knew what the city was like when they came....they just had no clue what the organization was like.

That preference is largely due to the organization and not the cities themselves. I've spent a lot of time in Detroit and live in Edmonton. The choice is obvious to me. Besides, they did an informal poll of the players favorite cities when travelling and for night life after the games and they said that every city was good except Detroit. This was reported on Hockey Night in Canada by Nick Kypreos so it has to be true.

He's lived in Detroit which is much, much worse. After living there Edmonton will seem like Palm Springs

Damn it. You changed it from Bart Ehrman to Dan Barker! Lol. I thought I had you for a mintue since two things: 1. Bart Ehrman openly states in an interview that his reason for dropping religion had nothing to do with his study but rather his inability to understand suffering in the world. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeFdhyuVyzI) 2. Bart Ehrman himself acknowledges that Jesus walked the earth and acknowledges himself as a historical figure which is what we have been arguing all along. The ironic thing is that in our debate I came across a number of things from Bart Ehrman and I chose not to use him becasue I thought he was a bible banger which doesn't really help me prove my side due to bias. I didn't realize that he was actually agnositc and atheist. With that said, I truly enjoyed his interview explanining the difference between agnostics and atheists in that the former is about knowledge and the latter is about belief. Its almost like all of us should be agnostic because no one truly knows if there is a God or higher power. However, we all have the right to being atheist or a believer since its up to each person to decide what they believe in. So no matter how many scholarly arcticles that come out, it will never be a matter of changing the agnostic since we will never know what lies for us after death until death itself. I do find it interesting that people so devoted to Christianity like Barker and Ehrman are the ones to make such dramtic switches. I find those fundamentalist tyes are so entrenched in each word and detail that when one thing doesn't work out that it breaks like a glass house. This again is why I don't get caught up in the details. The Bible is written by men....its not a God sent artifact that is holy. It has been written, rewritten, translated, adapted and changed by men. If humans are involved then you have to account for error, deviation, bias etc. Thats why I try to live by the more direct revelations of God which are the ten commandments and more so the Golden Rule. There is not to much bias or devaition that can happen from that.

I've already answered this question. If you don't like the answer then I suggest you find a different horse to beat.

No. The PCs had to goEdit...not that I agree with the NDP platform but I see why they were the only choice

I am talking about one or two examples specifically where the person is shown to be inexperienced and not overly interested in the position. I am not talking about all new MLAs

Its a disgrace to elect someone that isn't qualified to be an MLA. I have often voted for the party but full well knowing that the person I am voting for (MLA or MP) has some basic qualifications to make it work. I guess what I'm hearing is that MLA's really aren't important. Its just the Premier and a select few cabinet members? If this true then maybe we need to revamp the system. It certainly would save the province a ton on pensions...as shown by the departing PC MLA's!

Again, I am amazed at how you expect the same type of documentation and scrutiny as we would in the modern era. This was 2000 years ago...do you not expect it wasn't done the same way a lawyer would today. Keep in mind how many times these writings have been translated. I remember taking a class in unversity a while back that said until recently (compared to when I was in school) they thought they knew what the one Hebrew letter was but they actually mistook it for another. It changed the way things were translated for some details but it didn't change the message. When it comes to the gospels, I wouldn't expect those exact people to say they wrote it. The gospels are writings 'according to' these people. And as I said, the fear of persecution tied in with a tradition of oral history lead to many details not being written down. This seems very obvious to me but I guess to a cynic it would seem convenient. But again...you can't use our modern way of thinking to assess how they did things. As for the letters to Paul, I've always viewed his letters as just such....letters. He wasn't trying to document anything and take note of details per se. Again...a message not details. I beleive that most books in the Bible were also edited and some books not included. Like I said, man's invovlement means there will be errors.

Why are you assuming that I feel the system is broken or needs fixing. My comment is that the voters did not vote for the MLA they voted for the party. In this particular case they voted in someone who doesn't seem committed to the job. And it would be just as big of a disgrace then as it is now. It might be. The elected MLA has already shown an inability to show up for her duties and has no previous background experience to show that she is prepared for the job. Its one thing to elect a candidate thinking they are good but aren't versus electing someone that you are quite certain isn't up to the task. I could be wrong but all signs are pointing the other way. Please feel free to cite the examples you are thinking of. I would be particularily interested in something of similar nature where this person or people were late entries, had no experience and missed the one public engagement they needed to be at but still got in. Its an objective point which maybe bothers you? You prefer subjectivity?

I never commented on the years the PC held power. Why do you ask?