Moonlight Graham

In terms of economic development in developing countries - measured by GDP growth per capita - I can find you dozens. GDP per capita growth during the 1970's for developing countries was 3.28%, and in the 1980's (when neoliberalization, SAP's, and the "free trade" development mantra came into effect via the World Bank and IMF etc.) GDP growth dropped to 1.5%. In the 90's it started to climb back up to 3%, and now GDP growth rates for developing countries have finally surpasses those of the 1970's. These stats are available for every country & region here. Google "HistoricalRealPerCapitaIncomeValues" and you'll find an Excel sheet for easier viewing. Here's a quote from a scholarly journal article backing up my claim ("Policy Space in Historical Perspective with Special Reference to Trade and Industrial Policies" by economist Ha-Joon Chang, Reviewed work(s): Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 7 (Feb. 18-24, 2006), pp. 627-633): Not to say free trade and globalization is universally bad. It depends on each country and its context. In general, free trade between economically developed countries seems to be beneficial to growth. However, highly liberalized trade between developed and developing countries has historically been most beneficial to developed countries and much less beneficial in most (not all) cases for developing countries. The mantra of "free trade is good for all countries and will alleviate poverty" is 1980's hogwash that has since been thoroughly debunked in hundreds if not thousands of economic and development scholarly articles & books. The "Washington Consensus" has proven to be utter garbage. It's worth noting that developing countries that have seen the most economic growth, like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, even China (and historically Japan post-WWII), have not simply opened trade/markets, but have had strong state-directed control of economic policy (based on capitalism, but not simply opening markets to let foreign investors and businesses go wild).

If this poster just put "The right > the left" in his signature he could spare himself about 10,000 words a week.

Or perhaps you don't want to answer the question because you will be revealed to be something you wish not to be made public. Certainly a poster on here who is feverishly anti-Muslim would have absolutely no reservations on having an Arab come into their home to do renovations. At least I admit my racism

Absolute rubbish. In your brain all racism is gone from society except the white-on-white racism of affirmative action? Easily disproven. Is all sexism gone as well, like in the Catholic Church? And gays have equal rights, like in many U.S. states re: marriage? LOL you're talking out of your ass. You didn't answer my question. I never said the Arab didn't have excellent command of the English language, I said they had an Arabian accent. Let's assume the Arab can speak perfectly understandable English to a Canadian in the same manner a Brit or Aussie can be understood by us with accents. Or better yet, let's say the Arab has no accent whatsoever. If you had to have renovations done in your home and you had to choose between a white man and an Arab man to do it, all other things being equal, who would you choose?

This was the top headline on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper yesterday: What do you think of this? Obviously the Iranian embassy should be closely monitored and I'm sure is by CSIS. It seems like it would be easy to infiltrate the embassy since there's apparently many Iranian-Canadians strongly opposed to the current regime in Iran. Should the embassy even be closed? I wouldn't go as far as to close it, but I think it should be stripped of all but essential diplomats and be rid of ridiculous "cultural programs" like this that threaten Canadian and US security.

Good to hear that, I think everyone should be treated equally as well. Unfortunately, historically this isn't the case, and certain groups face certain discrimination. Women and gays and historically blacks and whatnot, aren't seeking special treatment, they're seeking equal treatment. First of all, you're jumping to conclusions about my views. I never said if I support affirmative action or not. In some cases I do, in some cases I don't. It's a very fine line because it's indeed essentially racist and discriminatory. Yes, certain groups are racist in their hiring practices: some whites will hire other whites over blacks or arabs etc., some jews will tend to hire jews, some indians or arabs or chinese will hire other indians, arabs or chinese etc. in specific cases (you can't generalize everyone). Let me ask you: if you owned a business and had two candidates for a job who were equal in qualifications, yet one was white (or whatever your race you are) and one was Arab (and spoke with a bit of an Arabic accent), which one would you hire? I personally know managers and business owners who are racist in their hiring practices & have admitted such.

Welcome to the Jerry Springer Show. Do we need laws banning freedom of speech? Or do we need citizens who aren't morons who are easily swayed by these types of ads? They use these ads because they work. I say pass a law banning people from being morons. But I guess that would be against freedom of thought/belief/opinion

This argument is false. "Centralisation of control" in social spheres is certainly not immune from the right. What about social conservativism? From wikipedia:

You're not a fan of women's rights and gay rights? How are they discriminatory? You think "Islamist countries", whatever that means, are leftist (when Islamism is an extremely socially conservative ideology)? There's an argument to be made that affirmative action is racist & certainly discriminatory, yet on the other hand it's attempting to counter racism & discrimination inherent in society's hiring behaviour.

You're saying statism is automatically a left-wing feature? Are all authoritarian/totalitarian governments that control citizens socially and economically left-wing? I think not. If Stephen Harper made himself King of Canada and forced a socially conservative agenda down our throats, would that make him left-wing? Individualism vs collectivism doesn't define left vs right philosophy. Naziism is a complex system that incorporates both left-wing and right-wing elements. Much like various forms of Anarchism, which can be collectivist on one had yet anti-state on the other. One could argue that Naziism is right-wing because it's anti-egalitarian. Leftists are often egalitarians, they push equality for all, while Naziism is the antithesis of this, they promote social darwinism, racism, they kill disabled people & other undesirables. Naziism is also hyper-nationalist, and nationalism is also commonly a feature of the right. There are other elements that could be described as leftwing. What you're basically trying to do is illegitimate the left by pinning Naziism to the left. You're not interested in any kind of rational debate on whether Naziism is left or right-wing based on its characteristics. You don't want Naziism associated with the right and will argue against it being such primarily to further legitimize your own ideology & illegitimate the leftists you dislike. Thus, this debate is DOA.

On the other hand, they spell out their philosophy on the party's website. They are democratic socialists, so we should expect that if they govern. In terms of precedents to how they would govern, we can look at how they have governed at the provincial level, as Premiers/official governments, to see what they might do.

And what about taxes on big businesses? The NDP's raison d'etre is to apply the principles of democratic socialism to Canadian government and public affairs. That's straight out of the 1st sentence of preamble of the NDP's constitution. The NDP are further left than the Liberals, clearly. But not boogie-man communists some claim they are.

Wow, thanks for posting. The guy appears to be a stereotypical crooked cop.

With all the "hidden agenda" talk for the CPC, it's only fair to wonder if the NDP has one too. It's pretty clear they would steer the country to left, likely more so than the Liberals if they got a majority.

If you're lucky to get the 1 out of 10 or so that isn't a moron, no.

from the Vancouver Sun: Fantino knows butt-all about development or developing countries. As with many ministers, they're appointments are based on patronage rather than expetise. Peter Kent, environmental expert! This is the same thing a development officer I talked to last week said. Harper doesn't give a rat about helping people in developing countries, just Canadian interests, meaning foreign aid for the Harper gov is a neo-imperial tool. What a wonderful Christian! Conservative Christian hypocrites are hilarious I tell you (according to the teachings of Jesus, Christians should be socialist pacifists). This gov has slashed foreign aid spending to developing countries and CIDA significantly. Bravo numb-nuts.

Go check out a Tea Party message board. They're insane. Some valid ideas, but mostly insane. They're still in love with Palin and Michele Bachmann. Some fascination with hot MILFS that are as dumb as doornails. I calmly await the extinction of the US (and Canadian) fundamentalist right-wing nutjob lot. Maybe my grandkids will see the day.

Thanks for looking. Is there only one school board per district? Is that how they're set up? So a district basically means a school board? Also, these are public boards, i'm wondering about Catholic boards too.

I like Quebec, I want them in Canada, and I fully recognize that they are indeed a distinct sub-culture of Canada, but it makes me PO'd how much we have to pander to them because of their threats of separation and whatnot. They do have a significant population, which of course makes politicians also pander to them, but in terms of what is given to them by government compared to other provinces it's a bit of a joke. They should be treated as equal, but different. If that would make them separate, so be it i guess. TROC should not be blackmailed.

The last 15 years or so of Canadian fiscal policy has been Keynesian economics to a "T": government should spend to stimulate the economy in tough times, and then pay back that money (usually debt) during the good economic times. Chretien gov started paying down the debt with surpluses, and then with the recent recession hit the Harper gov did what most other Western countries did and ran deficits & to provide stimulus for the economy. You can't blame Harper for doing what just about any other federal party would have done, including the Liberals under Chretien/Martin I'd be willing to bet. That isn't to say some of the Harper gov spending hasn't been moronic, but deficits alone doesn't make them "poor managers of the public's money". One can argue they handled the recession decently.

Doing some research. Called the BC Ministry of Education for this info but I couldn't get through (must have taken a Friday holiday, haha). I want to know what the top 3 or 4 largest (in terms of say # of students or teachers) elementary/secondary (grades K-12) school boards are in BC, as well as the biggest in Vancouver if possible. If anyone has some guesses, or can lead me on the right direction, It would be appreciated since I live in Ontario. I'm thinking some or all of the biggest boards are around Vancouver.

You posted this Sun article quote without properly quoting it, other than sticking a link at the end. It makes it seem like you wrote the opinion, until i realized you didn't when i read the article.

This was great, thanks for posting. Love seeing government liars get their asses verbally handed to them. Kudos to the reporter for catching her in her hypocrisy. A little diversity in viewpoints is probably a good thing.

That's conscious memory, of course we don't remember when we were a year old. But our experiences as infants do profoundly shape our entire lives. Example: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/eqa_attachment_bond.htm