Saturn

Don't let your buddy Argus see this or he will think you are uneducated and mentally challenged. Don't need Argus' analysis to come to that conclusion.

What are you talking about? I'm talking about the skyrocketing costs of health care, primarily caused by the skyrocketing costs of drugs, which in turn a caused to a large extent by skyrocketing advertising costs (roughly 3 times the costs of R&D of the pharmaceuticals).

Enjoy spending your money on your personal charity - advertisements.

I don't see any particular obligation on our behalf to fund US drug companies' advertising campaigns, do you?

What a truly pathetic attack on one of Canada's most respectable figures. You are one sad, little soul.

So your silence implicitly accepts my refutation of your facts? You're so full of it.

There is no end to your BS, is there? http://www.oecd.org/document/47/0,2340,en_...l#historicalppp At PPP, in 2004: $1.25C=$1US implying $1C=$0.8US ($6,280/$4,109*0.8)-1=91.0% Even if PPP were 1:1.03 and you looked at the age-adjusted health-care spending, you'd be at 60%. Even if the difference were 54.4%, how does that back up your claim that the US health-care system is not more expensive than Canada's? Don't respond, I'm done with your nonsense.

How ridiculous can you get? The two links I provided are among the few most authoritative sources of information on health care spending. The data is for the same year (2004) and is easily comparable. A blog is nothing reliable. The only study from the Fraser Institute you provided that provides international comparison specifically states that the US is excluded from this comparison: That a blog and a study that specifically states that it does NOT compare Canadian health-care costs to US health-care costs provides a comparison of health care costs in the two countries would be a mystery to anyone except apparently your confused mind.

http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml US health-care per capita in 2004 cost 52.8% more than health-care in Canada. Now, factor in the exchange rate and you are looking at a difference of 70%. You should read the two websites thoroughly and carefully before you come back with any comments. At $1C=$1US ($6,280/$4,109)-1=52.8% At $1C=$0.9US ($6,280/$4,109*0.9)-1=69.8% At $1C=$0.8US ($6,280/$4,109*0.8)-1=91.0%

In an American poll, 75% supported capital punishment and 47% supported the death penalty.

That's all Harper is doing - saying it. Said it in opposition, said it government, did nothing to the effect.

Saturn, you are accusing somebody else of being an ideologue? I have seen Argus criticize the Conservatives. I have never seen you say anything good about the Conservatives. You always attack them. I've seen them do only one reasonable thing and I wasn't around at the time to praise them for it. The rest of the time they take some reasonable steps which are preceded by so much hype and so much exaggeration that when delivered they look so pathetic and fall so short of expectations that they are nothing but a disappointment. Overall, the CPC acts the same as the old Libs and their big claims are nothing but hot air and hypocrisy. I have nothing good to say about that.

There is nothing wrong with a PM spending money for a photo op. Sure it was a waste of money, sure it was a failure as far a photo op goes. But it could have been worse. He could have announced the environment policy with a banner behind him. "Mission Accomplished". And he could have done it from his own back yard. I have to say that with all the hype about the PM going all the way to Vancouver to make an announcement on the environment, I expected some meat and was very eager to hear it - was online and ready for the announcement. Man, was I PO'd! What kind of an idiotic photo op was that? I thought of him worse as a result of it than I did before that. Many I know felt the same way. He sure exceeded my expectations on how full of hot air he was.

No, I did not. I'm not an ideologue. Come on, Argus, you are one of the biggest ideologues I've seen around. You wouldn't recognize it if the Conservatives robbed you blind. Screaming about Liberal waste and excusing Conservative waste is certainly not based on logic.

Isn't it the Turks and Caicos? I had to go running around looking for the name but I recall hearing about it a couple years ago....unless we have now switched Islands...why don't we just take on the Carribean...maybe we could send a diplomatic mission to Cuba and convince Castro to give us the country in his will. Inviting the T&C into Canada was studied and rejected in the 70s. It's been a pet project of several MPs since. It's nice but not big enough. But Cuba - that would be really something Please, please Fidel.

Harper is overweight, under a lot of stress, and a male of the right age for a heart attack. PS: Just joking

Oh well. Certainly you don't expect the PM to drive to Vancouver do you? I certainly expect the PM to be able to make an announcement (that the environment minister will be making an announcement the following week which everyone knew about already) from Ottawa without flying OR driving to Vancouver. In fact, I expect the PM not to make such announcements of announcements in the first place.

And Bernard is hardly a Harper/Klien conservative. And 1 province does not make the Maritimes. Ironically enough, Lord was the first one to get tossed out of office.

Wow, back the truck up. Alberta has a lot of natural resources, resulting in many jobs, resulting in the migration of younger, healthier, working people, resulting in the youngest population of all provinces. People who are unhealthy, older and "lazier" are pushed out of the province. Now that's a really nice place to be in because Alberta is able to get the younger, more capable people from other provinces (who cost Alberta nothing to raise and educate, who work for Alberta and require little services) and send off it's "bad" people (who work less and require more services) to those other provinces in return. Now imagine what will happen if other provinces start acting the same way - stop sending their youth to Alberta and stop accepting it's "bad" people. I'm thinking that you should be thankful that other provinces don't act like Alberta, no? In addition, picking on NFLD is not quite appropriate given that their natural resources just died-off. If Alberta's oil suddenly disappeared and Albertans had to switch to fishing, I don't imagine that Alberta would fare better than NFLD currently is. Finally, more recent (2005) stats show that Alberta is the odd one out of the general trend: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/labor07a.htm -the provinces with the highest employment rates are: 1)Alberta, 2)Manitoba and 3)Saskatchewan, with 2 and 3 having NDP governments -followed by Ontario, with a Liberal government -further down: 1) BC, 2) PEI, 3) Quebec with right-wing governments (the Liberals in 1 and 3 are the right-wing in those provinces -the bottom: 1) NFLD, 2)NB, 3) NS, with Conservative governments. Overall, the more Conservative the government, the lower the employment rate with Alberta being the only exception.

The rules on disability are very stringent in most federal and provincial programs. In their attempts to reduce spending, both the feds and the provinces have excluded many disabled people from qualifying for these programs. The result is that many people who are in fact disabled and not able to keep a job end up on the welfare rolls where they should not be in the first place. One simple example is the condition that the disability must be of a duration exceeding a year. Many disabling conditions, such as Multiple Sclerosis for example, are characterized by periodic attacks, which in the initial stages may render the sufferer unable to work for weeks or months at at time over many years before the condition progresses to a point where the sufferer is permanently disabled. In those cases, a person with MS will not qualify for disability payments even though his condition causes him to not be able to work for a month, then to be able to work for 2 months, followed by another 2 months of illness, etc. Such people are not able to keep a full time job (employers don't normally allow employees to be absent for months at a time), they do not qualify for disability payments because they are not disabled 100% of the time, so they end up on the welfare rolls instead.

I don't know. Any company with gun-registry performance would be a bad bet IMO. Hopefully history won't repeat itself (but I have a bad feeling about this one).

A couple of seniors with over $100K in income, and wealth far exceeding that of the average working Canadian, will get $11K of tax-free dollars from our taxes to spend in Florida over the winter. Welfare costs across the country - $3 B/yr (and falling) OAS costs - $18 B/yr (and growing at incredible rates) Now which project is more "grandiose" and why are you poor-bashing?

Easier said than done. The people have long relinquished their power over the government by paying little attention to what government does and voting for those who are the best funded (through their connections with BB) and are the most convincing liars (with the help of BB again). It's difficult to say how the people can be made to take their watchdog responsibilities more seriously - something that may be a good start would be mandatory voting. In any case, more interest and participation on behalf of the public is what's needed here but any measures that will be beneficial in that respect have to be pushed for by the public (again) because the politicians stand to lose from more public scrutiny.

A policy convention is one of the biggest advertising events a political party can possibly stage. It is an essential part of the activities of a political party and all party activities are funded by donations. Consequently, the funding for a policy convention falls under the funding rules for political parties. Those rules require that all party funding is properly recorded and reported and is subject to certain limitations, including a $5000 limit on individual donations and the $0 limit on corporate/organization donations. The CPC failed to report the $3.5M in funding for its policy convention. Individuals were allowed to exceed the $5,000 limit on donations. Corporations and organizations were allowed to donate. Therefore, the CPC broke the law on 3 fronts: -failed to report funding -allowed illegal donations by individuals -allowed illegal donations by organizations.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...PStory/Business Interestingly enough, RBOIF is the successor of BDP Ltd, which handled most of the very efficient and successful gun registry. http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/breitkreuzg.../2005_nov15.htm http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/breitkreuzg...2005_oct_19.htm http://www.resolvecorporation.com/investor..._Prospectus.pdf From a Liberal boondoggle to a Conservative boondoggle?