Saturn

It not nearly as highly improbable as you imagine. A difference becomes significant only at the 20% level. I was merely pointing out that comparing support for the CPC from the two surveys shows a significant difference at the 2% level. That's a highly unlikely result (given that the two surveys are measuring the same mean over roughly the same time). Using the same methodology you employed earlier should lead you to conclude that a drop in CPC support over those 3-4 days is far more certain than the above "drop" in Liberal support in Ontario (which you are so convinced of). Yes. In any survey the sampling error is the minimum error (i.e. the lower bound). Then come in the various non-sampling errors - non-response (typically the largest, often exceeding the sampling error), measurement, etc. Voting intention polls suffer enormous non-response - luckily it's often close to missing completely at random, but ignoring it still results in a substantial underestimate of total error. In a perfect world, where only sampling errors exist, two typical voting intention polls measuring the same means over roughly the same time should show a significant difference at the 5% level only about 5% of the time. But look at the numbers and you'll see that significant differences occur far more often than that. A change in CPC or LPC support of 4+% or in third party support of 3+% is significant at the 5% level. Such changes between polls released in a period of a few days occur about half the time, not just 5% of the time. The methodology behind the polls is the same, so this contradiction can only be explained by non-response bias. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40th_Canadian...n#Opinion_polls That's yet another source of bias that is unaccounted for by simply reporting the sampling error. Give me 5 polls that show a drop in support for this party or that party over the same period and I'll be far more likely to agree that there is an actual drop. Give me one poll and it doesn't mean a thing to me. Overall, voting intention polling is more of a fad that's given far more importance than it deserves. I guess polls make nice headlines and sell papers. And then the whole Mulroney/Reform story will repeat all over again. Harper needs one term to achieve his goals and then he can happily retire from politics to sit on the boards of 20 corps and to play golf. At the same time Rex Murphy wills the CBC TV and radio waves with praise for Harper and Larry Zolf worships him like some sort of deity on the CBC website. Don't worry, the Aspers run an extremely tight ship. The CanWest outlet is squarely behind Harper. The rest are coming around.

Anyone who thinks that Canada should meet its Kyoto target is avocating shutting down the economy - there is no other way to meet those targets. You must remember that Kyoto measures compliance over a 4 year period starting in 2008. So even if by some miracle Canada reduced its emission by 20% of the 1990 cap EACH year until 2012 we would still be 6% above our assigned target because of the high emissions in 2008-2009. No, we've missed the window of opportunity and we can't meet our Kyoto targets. However, in the absence of penalties, nobody will move a finger to change the status quo because the status quo always the easiest way. The environment is a renewable resource for the most part but we are on an unsustainable path and that has to change. The whole purpose of international agreements is to give government an excuse to resist intense domestic pressure to impose measures that are counter-productive. Kyoto is currently the closest we have to something that can force some action and change our path for the better. Here's what happens to renewable resources in the absence of outside pressure. Intense domestic pressure by the fishing industry to overfish, gov't caves in, the fish is gone in no time, the NFLD economy cannot adjust quickly enough and unemployment hits an all time high - Newfoundlanders who first argued that they have to overfish or their economy would be ruined blame the gov't for mismanaging their fisheries and 10 years later many are still unemployed. With some outside pressure, the gov't could have resisted overfishing to some extent, at least delaying the collapse of the fisheries and giving the economy more time to adjust. Without outside pressure the same will happen to our environment. We missed the opportunity to get a good seat on the Kyoto train but we are still better off staying on the train than jumping off. We can't afford to destroy our environment.

That's a pretty silly statement. The subsidy here goes from working people who have money to people who don't have money yet but are working on the skills necessary to get there. And it's not really a subsidy, it is an investment that will pay off. Wrong again. A certain number of students (about 1 in 6) default on their student loans, so it is government subsidies. Education is an investment that keeps paying off (both for the individual and for society) and is absolutely essential for economic development and growth, diamonds are consumption and don't produce anything in return (except for industrial diamonds). Investment is worth subsidizing and consumption of diamonds is not. Now buzz off and stop telling me about my logic because you clearly don't get my logic.

I think that counting seats in Ontario that will go Conservative based on a bad poll is very premature but I do agree with the following analysis. Very well put. Unlike Mulroney though, Harper has a couple of things working in his favour. For one Harper seems to be on much better terms with the media bosses than Mulroney was (media is of course the most powerful tool in swaying public opinion) and Harper is much bolder in campaigning with entirely different messages in different parts of Canada than Mulroney was. The French media telling Quebeckers that Harper would fix the fiscal imbalance (ie give them more money at the expense of ROC) went unnoticed by the ROC. Even the CPC slogans were entirely different in English and French.

Nice calculations but your interpretation is incorrect. Your CI contains 0, which means that you cannot reject the hypothesis that there is no change in support for the Liberals at the 95% confidence level. I also told you that in a poll with 80% nonresponse rate, the actual error is much larger than the sampling error. Do your calculations on the Leger poll of 1,500 showing 38% CPC support and the SES poll of 1,000 showing 33% CPC support and you'll reject that the two means are the same at the 98+% confidence level. Thus, it's far more statistically possible (in your own words) that the difference between CPC support and CPC support is 5%. Not bloody likely.

I didn't call you a Commie. But if shutting down Canada's economy entirely won't slow or stop warming, why do it? Nobody is suggesting shutting down Canada's economy. That's spin and fearmongering on behalf of energy producers who fear the using less energy will lower the prices they can charge for their products. It's like claiming that putting out forest fires will use all our water and we'll die of thirst as a result.

Grads of private schools are twice as likely to default on their student loans as public university grads because they are also less likely to find jobs. Your idea is not that bright after all.

It is precisely lack of funding that is causing universities to concentrate on making money instead of on education. They get themselves involved in advertising and into luring as many students as possible into useless programs that require few classes of third rate class instruction and nothing else instead of more useful programs like engineering, science and medicine that require extensive investment in equipment and facilities. Skimping on education means that classes are growing bigger, facilities are getting worse and students are cheating more so that they can pass their courses in addition to working 2 part-time jobs. Do you want a doctor who cheated his way through medical school or a condo designed by an engineer who similarly cheated because he had to work a full time job to pay for university? http://www.macleans.ca/homepage/magazine/a...209_174847_6984 With China turning up millions of new grads every year and companies moving their accounting departments to India, don't expect the fees for professional services to go up much. For services that have to be provided locally, does it make more sense to pay $100K/student to educate 50% more doctors than we currently do, or to pay each doctor $100K more per year because we don't have 50% more doctors? It may be more beneficial for the doctors but seeing that the patients far outnumber the doctors, I'd think that the cost to society of making the initial investment is far lower than paying outrageous medical fees later on.

Gah. How can you make inane statements like this? Ontario Hydro has been charging different rates based on the time of day for a long time. That is not the purpose of the so-called "smart" meters. They are designed to tell homeowners how much energy they are using, and in theory help them to cut back on their energy use and to switch their energy use to off peak times. Obviously you don't pay hydro in Ontario. We need Kyoto just for pollution buffs like you. If common sense doesn't cause lazy ass to do anything to reduce the pollution you create, then higher energy prices might.

How is Canada not going back to having a deficit something that the U.S. can take credit for? The U.S. deficit may be down from what it was but it will be there for years to come according to Congress and financial experts. I see you ignored the Iraq question altogether. The Conservatives would have had Canada in Iraq and probably would have sent their party down in flames for another 10 years had they done so. It's never too late for the Conservatives to put us in a deficit position. Flaherty and co. never registered a surplus in Ontario despite the big boom of the late 90s, barely managed to balance their budget by selling public assets and piled up the debt as soon as their rosy projections of 4% growth didn't materialize and their plan to sell off Ontario hydro in full failed. Their "common sense revolution" simply consisted of cutting services and investment, handing out public assets to friends for nothing and keeping the voters happy by giving them lots beer and popcorn money and spending $100 million on advertising how their government is putting kids first. The result was 30% high-school dropout rate, decaying infrastructure, and piles of debt. Ya, and they went from majority to 20% of the seats in the legislature. I doubt that Flaherty has leaned his lesson and I will be surprised if he doesn't squander the federal surplus in a similar fashion (given the time to do it of course).

Engineers subsidize a hairdresser's education. Engineers subsidize primary and secondary education. Cosmetologists and hairdressers who attend college or other recognized training programs will also qualify for student loans in the same way university students do. The main difference though is that a hairdresser requires substantially less education than an engineer does - hence the subsidy is smaller. On top of that, having a shortage of engineers would be a far more serious problem for economic development than a shortage of hairdressers - in our current situation one engineer is far more valuable than one hairdresser.

Call me a commie if you want but when your forests are on fire, due to completely natural causes such as lightning, you still want to put the fires out, not pour gasoline on them.

Because the learning curve for a mechanical engineer is much steeper than that for a mechanic and during the "education" part a student in mech. eng. won't be earning enough to support himself or herself. A mech. eng. graduate will also accept a lower salary when he enters the business, similar to the mechanic. The initial investment required for high-skill professions is very high - both in terms of education costs and in terms of foregoing 4-5 years of earnings. The reality is that the more expensive education is, the fewer people will attempt to get such an education. The result will be shortages in their respective fields, and in higher fees for the services of those who graduate to cover their large initial investment. So the consumer will have to pay more. Even worse, a substantial number of unfilled positions jobs will go overseas. Any way you look at it, education is essential and a very worthy investment for the whole country.

Dude, this is just sad and/or funny. A 95% confidence interval simply means that there is a 95% probability that the true mean lies in the interval. So, there is 95% prob that at the time of the first poll support for the Liberals was somewhere between 38 and 50% and at the time of the second poll it was somewhere between 32 and 44%. The two CI overlap substantially, so there is no evidence that the means actually differ or that support for the Liberals has changed. On top of that these polls suffer from around 80% non-response and respondents are not necessarily honest about their intentions, making the margin of error even larger. My training in statistics is much stronger than yours and no statistician would claim that there is a change in Liberal support based on this poll. What you wrote above make no sense. Oh, I see. You are probably assuming that the 44% in the previous poll WAS the true mean. That's a bad assumption. 44% +-6% simply means that at the time the previous poll was done, the proportion of people who would have answered the poll would have claimed and that they would vote Liberal was somewhere between 38% and 50% with 95% probability.

Lots of people have suggested that, without being labelled a communist. Lougheed is one example. Your view of Westerners and in particular Calgarians, is wrong. It's not wrong. You just described what the situation is. Lots of people may have suggested sustainable development is better, but there are obviously too few of them to make a difference.

Typical free-rider thinking. I don't need to do it, let someone else do it. Free-riding doesn't lead anywhere.

I disagree. There is so much energy waste in Canada that it can be cut at minimal cost in a very short period of time. 30% reduction can be achieved in 5-6 years time (not by 2012) if someone will just start working on it but the politicians are more interested in pointing fingers at each other and doing nothing. Let me give you a few examples. Ontario Hydro has started installing "smart meters" (a great invention that has been used Europe for 50 years) that will allow them to charge different rates for day, day peak, and night electricity use. The point is that if they can shift more energy use to the low use periods (night), they can take the biggest polluter in Ontario off line (of course the prov gov't had an agreement with the feds to have the darned thing off line by 2012 but Harper canceled it so it may still be dumping millions of tones of pollutants in 2012). These "smart meters" cost about $200 to install and it will save the consumer far more if the consumer is wise to take advantage of them. Installing them in rental buildings will mean that renters will not leave their windows open and their a/c on when they are away because the landlord pays for electricity. Next, turning off the lights in offices and stores at night can cut energy use for lighting by as much as 30% but many just don't bother to (as if there is some huge advantage to have the lights on at night). Buying a front load washer instead of top load washer results in 30% energy savings (front load washers do a much better job anyway). Unplugging appliances that are not in use can cut energy use by another 30% (most appliances keep drawing electricity when turned off). Another great invention that others have been using for ages is water heaters with on/off buttons or timers. Turning the thing on at night and off during the day or when you are away lets you save a bundle in cheaper night energy and 30% cut in overall energy use. Buying a smaller car can also save you a bundle in energy costs (face it most people don't need a huge SUV to drive to work). Anywhere you look, there is tonnes of energy waste that can be cut at little or no cost. How much does it cost to tell appliance manufacturers to make appliances that don't draw electricity when turned off? They make them for other markets, so why not for Canada? Installing "smart meters" will more than pay for itself (all meters in Ontario will be changed by 2010). The reality is that everything at home and at work in North America is geared toward energy waste. Energy and its cost were never an issue, so there was no point in designing equipment, housing, and appliances with energy savings in mind. The cost of energy was always an issue in Europe, which is why everything there is designed with energy savings in mind. That's why the Europeans use less than half as much energy as we do. We are not trying to get to their level of energy efficiency, we just need a 30% reduction. And it can be done, painlessly. But noone wants to move a finger. Screaming and fearmongering is apparently easier.

Agreed. It goes beyond that though. We're not in trouble because we aren't building infrastructure... we're in trouble because we aren't building the right infrastruture. Hehe, now you are talking like an evil socialist Do you expect any sort of sustainable development in a city where everyone is so brainwashed against sustainability? Really, who benefits from putting all office buildings downtown and all workers 50 km out in the suburbs and from perpetual traffic congestion? Is it beneficial for the economy when a million hours a day are spend by Torontonians stuck in traffic? No. Are the resulting commuter frustration and pollution beneficial for Torontonians? No. But it's beneficial for carmakers and oil companies. In Calgary if anyone tries to make better use of land and to reduce the number of hours spend in cars, he will immediately be painted as an evil communist whose only purpose is to destroy the oil industry and your way of life.

If you think that any measures to improve air quality will not reduce GHGs, then you are a loony. If you think that we have to shut down the oil sands to reduce GHGs, then you are twice as loony. All scary scenarios put forth by right-wingers that if we waste less energy, we'll end up poor and unemployed is complete pile of bullshit. Cutting the energy waste may have a negative impact on energy producers (if they are stupid enough to not go into other types of energy production) but everyone else will gain considerably. Now cut the crap and the fearmongerring because we're tired of it.

If you had any room for them, more would come. Instead of frantically digging out the oil, put a bit of effort to fix your infrastructure. The oil isn't going anywhere.

Or that they gained 6%. Without some really nice bribe from the Conservatives, I don't see the Liberals dropping in Ontario.

On a sample of 262 with accuracy of +-6.1% 19/20? Stats101 here geoffrey, there is no evidence of change in support for the Liberals based on these polls. Btw, some of those ridings you identified in Ontario, like Guelph and Kitchener Center, I'm going to vote for Harper before they do.

Nonsense. What benefits (even potential) does a waitress in a restaurant or a teller in a bank receive when someone else obtains a BA in political science (for example)?Why should either pay taxes so that another person can obtain this diploma? Without going into some hypothetical example, university graduates provide a lot of useful services. Did it never occur to you why you buy things? When a consumer and a supplier engage in trade, they do it because both derive some benefit from doing so. If one of the parties did not derive a benefit, the transaction would not occur. If the benefits of post-secondary education were private and students captured all of them in higher salaries or a better quality of life, nobody would ever buy their services. Ponder this.

The whole economy and society benefit from education, private lenders don't do charity for the benefit of others. Nonsense. The smart provide the bulk of services and pay the bulk of taxes in Canada subsidizing a social safety net and many social services for the dumb. You got the direction of subsidies wrong.