hitops

Ok but before we condemn.....how good were the fiddlers?

No didn't you hear? The rich are evil, they all meet together to plan how to make life hard for anyone less rich than them. It's a weekly conference call. Having kids is your choice. If you choose to have them, please think beyond the next American Idol commercial and plan out how you might afford them.

That's why I mentioned the public debate, not the law. You've never been one for careful reading. But regardless, you're also wrong on the legal part, which you can verify by looking at Hal's links. Of maybe it's just an exercise in self-indulgence and careless self-expression regardless of the effects on others. No, you claimed that I claimed that. Again, the reading. What I was responding to specifically mentioned violence, such as fear of violence etc. But it's not about that, and you know it. It's about making choices and then not liking the results. For example you get loaded and bring somebody home and start romping around, then the next day can't remember your own name. Feel like a moron so.....it was rape! If you don't think this happens, I would question whether you have been outside your house in the past decade. I'm saying it's really easy to avoid, and my family and friends don't run into those problems. We also don't miss out on anything or limit our lives in any meaningful way. No women I'm related to or know well complain about this kind of thing, and they are very active in the community and probably the most caring people I know. It doesn't mean it can never happen, but the fact that some women will repeatedly have issues, and others never will, tells you that it's not some kind of universal experience that just 'happens' and there's nothing you can do about it. It's kind of like drinking - do you blame a drunk when he runs into problems? It doesn't mean drinking itself is wrong, but my police friend always tells me if not for alcohol, 95% of his day would be having coffee at Tim's. There are things that associate with certain types of problems, and you have to use your brain. If I walked into a Hell's Angels bar at 2am and said all bikers are pathetic, stupid and gay....it's still wrong for them to attack me. Yet I would still truly be a moron to do so.

Interact e-transfer.

It's not a difference in the public debate. Somebody kidnapped in a 2am home invasion, stowed in a remote cabin and systematically assaulted for months, and somebody who had their shoulders massaged in a creepy way will both described 'sexual assault' in the dialogue. Any many non-predators as well, since for them that would be true. Likewise, every accuser is going to say it was, whether it was or was not. That's why we have a process and not just a mob hunt. Of course, if a guy keeps having the same problem, something real is more likely than a vast conspiracy against him. Likewise, if the 'victim' keeps having the same problem, the issue is likely with them and not a vast conspiracy where every other person they meet is assaulting them. I've never heard a single person say they submitted to a workplace sexual harassment to 'get out of their alive'. What a ridiculous hyperbole. Perhaps you're mistaking the Canadian workplace with rural DR Congo. Yes, when you accuse anyone of anything you run the risk of discomfort or consequence. That's why it's important to think long and hard about it. But if it's serious, obviously the right choice is to leave. If you don't because you like money or employment status more than your dignity, that's your choice to make. But it also makes you less credible. Yes it was so terrible.....so terrible that I did not think it was bad enough to apply for another job down the street. Much as lefties dislike it, we live fortunately in a country with law and order. If there's no accusation, and no steps made to document or prove anything, then obviously no conviction will occur. Perhaps you have preferred to live in post-revolutionary France, where anybody accused to oppressing the people or even wearing nice clothes, just goes straight to the national razor. No the difference is I don't live by a double standard. If somebody accuses someone of something, the burden of proof is on them. If you don't want to mitigate your risk in society, of if you don't want to take any steps whatsoever to document or record anything, that's your choice. If you want, you could live your entire life with google glass turned on, then you never have to wonder if anyone will believe you. See I know many women who live in, apparently, a completely different world than you. But then again then also hold different values. The ideas behind putting yourself at risk and how certain women seem to run into trouble and others don't, come from them, not ideas I made up. It's funny how they don't experience a vast barrage of sexual misconduct. Funny, I wonder how that happens.....

It sounds like the main benefit of this will be to allow judges more discretion on whether bad faith occurred or not. Overall probably a positive.

Not at all, just look at the professors in Quebec who had their doors pasted with stickers implying they were guilty. No need for process or even complaints. The mere fact that you suggest an 'action' took place without a shred of proof beyond somebody's claim, is the problem. That analogy doesn't make sense. We've not talking about a rapist being undetected. Obviously if you had no idea who they were for 5 years, there would be no accusation, duh. We're talking about knowing who they are, but not accusing for 5 years. Your bad analogy proves the point - almost nobody would delay contacting police about a suspected murdered for 5 years if they believed they knew who he/she was. However it seems tons of women who feel they were assaulted do exactly that. This leads to skepticism. If somebody is in a bad situation, they should leave that situation. If somebody's boss kills that person's family member, they don't hesitate to press charges because there is a 'power imbalance'. If you believe something happened, it's your responsibility to act on it. We have a highly liberal sexual culture, but also a one that says you must be right at all times and your pride is of the highest importance. Obviously those values will collide. Sigh....this is the whole point. I don't get into those situations. I don't even drive women in my car (other than wife) if it will be only the two of us. I don't close my office door if it's me and a woman in there. I don't even leave the possibility of a misunderstanding. However other people don't feel quite the same about fidelity, we know from surveys that a huge number of people admit to affairs in the workplace. When the culture is like that and you don't guard against it, it's easy to see how people will run into problems. If I were at a conference and a lady colleague invited me to her room and we drank and got into it, and then latter I said she raped me, she would just say it seemed consensual because I agreed to go there, agreed to drink, start kissing etc. We could both fully believe we are right. So I just avoid it. Ummm no, mine don't. Nor do those of my friends. My mom has never had to deal with that situation, according to her, and she was a nurse at a time where all the higher ups and docs were men. We just apply basic common sense and our interactions with people don't get ourselves into those situations. The greater point however is that accusations have to be proven. We have a legal process and the rule of law, thank goodness. If you don't report something, then I guess it didn't matter that much. Right now I'm having to sue a contractor who I paid and didn't do any work. But if I come to court in 5 years, the judge will have a hard time understanding if it was so bad, why was I not there when it happened? Understandably so. Men are going to lie about sex sexual assault, and so will women. Welcome to human nature, people lie for their own advantage. I know, shocking. In an imperfect society, we need to rely on rule of law, not just the assumption of guilt.

And now returning to reality. Sexual assault, and even rape, have vastly broad definitions and there actually no similarity at all to a violent assault with penetration and somebody making a comment. Plenty of women want to have fun one night, then regret it the next. Now it was rape. How to prove? Unless you are suggesting a total ban on unmarried men-women interactions, there's no way to solve that. A rapist and someone accusing falsely of rape deserve equal derision. Just because a guy thinks it's consensual, doesn't mean it is. Just because a women says she was raped, doesn't mean she was. If somebody is truly assaulted, that's virtually always using force and some violence. Not to hard for police or medical staff to find some indication of that. If you don't report, or don't go get examined at that time then it becomes just one person's word against another. If somebody says they were mistreated, assaulted, raped, abused etc, but then don't mention anything, stay at that company, stay with that same relationship, go out again with the same person, continue to interact with them etc, I have a lot of skepticism about that. Same as if somebody comes to court and says their landlord was harassing them....and then they kept living there for another year anyway. Doesn't make sense.

The right to be treated well exists only in your own mind, there is no such legal right. In reality, if somebody doesn't treat you well you normally go elsewhere where they do. This is not an option in government, which is very much the problem. This is not ideology, we have for example the fact that government workers call in sick 2x as much as the average. Now why is that, are places of gov employment just cesspools of viruses? The work delivered vs salary paid ratio will always be poor in government work. The question is how much of an additional premium you are willing to pay to have a basic level of service and competence. Perhaps you are willing to have gov workers compensated 2x their real value to ensure this?

It's a lot more complicated than that. We have to live in a society where accusation need to be proven, or at least made. Many women't rights advocates don't want to be part of the process of law and order, they just want accusation = conviction. In any case, humans are complicated and both men and women will flirt or interact in ways that gratify their own desires to be wanted, appealing, etc, and then sometimes don't like the consequences of behaving that way around others. There are many ways to avoid getting yourself into bad situations. But if you don't want to do that, and would prefer taking the risks, then the very least that's required would be a formal complaint if something happens. And not way after the fact, but at the time. I've asked women friends who I respect, who are married if they ever run into this problem. Without exception the answer is no, because they understand how not to send the wrong signals to men. Unless we go Saudi Arabia on our men-women workplace interactions policy, misinterpretation of somebody's intentions, or probably more commonly, perfectly understood and correct interpretation but then later regret, is going to happen.

A program which is not only incredibly costly for a broke and financially incompetent province, but ineffective at raising unemployment above the Canadian average. In fact it remains a full point below. Why exactly would we want to emulate that nationally?

Oncologist That data is more than 10 years old right now (the website also looks like it was designed in the 90's). Doesn't mean it doesn't illustrate a trend, but we have more recent information. Filipinos not only have higher employment rates than other immigrant groups, but higher than native-born Canadians. http://www.cicsnews.com/?tag=statistics-canada The data you provided also does not account for the overall stagnation in all wage growth, whether immigrant or not. I don't see a problem with it as long as we are bringing in the right kind of people, and Filipinos certainly are that. When you start out in a new place, just like when you start out in life, you will likely be working in entry-level. The vast majority of our parents and grandparents did that. Anyway the immigrant story is usually that the immigrants themselves do better than one might expect given their lack of credentials, but they do struggle, but then the kids do much better than the Canadian average because they inherit the work ethic values. In particular health care, I run into Filipinos all the time (where I trained, if you estimated demographics from the hospital personnel, you would think Canada was 40-50% Filipino). Purely anecdotal, I have no doubt they will be running the place in a generation. So hard working, so positive and great attitudes, friendly, strong social and family cohesion, highly motivated and responsive in the workplace, etc. It's a refreshing change from the cynical, entitled, and lazy support staff one can more often encounter with the locals. If I ask a Filipino nurse to do something, I know it will get done right away. They don't spend time wallowing in victimhood regarding perceived racism. The community as a whole it seems doesn't even register it, if it exists. Not really surprising therefore, that as a race it doesn't hold them back.

That's joke right? The military budget is small compared to our entitlements. We spend more just on EI payments. And it's a small fraction of what we spend on healthcare.

What I would do for a law that mandated a balanced budget every year.

We love simplicity, and we love to arrogantly assume that if only everyone had the opportunities we have, they would be just like us an renounce terror. But it's feel-good nonsense.

In my position, there are about 17 people at my work force. This job takes approx 12 years of post-secondary education, I would argue it is probably the most educated profession. Of the 17, 2 are Canadian born, including myself. I seriously doubt that immigrants have a harder time getting into entry-level jobs than local high school grads. Immigrants appear to hold a huge majority of all entry-level service jobs. Value systems of the people coming here matter deeply. Philipinos do very well, statscan in fact reports that they do better than Canadian-born. I have seen their great attitudes, optimism and great work ethic firsthand many times and it is incredibly refreshing. A look at the religious makeup and historical influences of this country leaves this as no surprise. They don't come assuming the world is against them, the 'evil kaffir' is out to get them, or that whitey is getting them down, or anything else like that. They come willing to get it done, and they do. Here is the statscan report on their above-average employment. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/71-606-x/2012006/part-partie1-eng.htm

I don't think there's a good way to separate that from the general increasing difficulty in entering the labor force today compared to previous generations. I think it would be relevant to compare new immigrants to young people completing high school. Both are coming with similar credentials in a way, but likely vastly different attitudes towards work and entitlement.

While no doubt many factors are at play, those factors exist in large part in poor countries of all religions. Yet only one religion today dominates nearly all religion-motivated violence, and that's Islam. While the co-motivator theory sounds nice and packaged and sensible to our western ears, there's a reason why it doesn't seem to apply to other religious in anything even close to the same scope or impact as Islam.

It's extremely difficult to measure the return on those investments, however I do grant government is the only one who can pay for them and they are indeed necessary.

Presumably the government favors jobs being created (we hear this constantly, daily, from all parties), yet they continue to support a payroll tax, a tax which is directly and specifically levied upon the creation and provision of a job. So I don't quite buy that argument. Regardless, allowing the maximum prosperity to occur for people is the best way to encourage them to have children (I'm talking about those who plan their children, those who just pop them out every year on the reserve will do so no matter what policy you have). If you lower the tax rate overall, people take home more money. That means they can be more comfortable on one income and have (in most cases) mom stay home, or it would allow daycare to charge less. If one parents works and takes home a little more, or if both can work half-time (or something) but take home a little high percentage, that goes a long way. Certainly a few percentage points can make a much larger difference than a few hundred bucks. And direct parent-kid time has no price, and no babysitter or daycare can some close to compensating for that. Government constantly scrambles to address problems of it's own creation. It causes goods and services (housing is best current example) to become very expensive, and therefore wants to take more money from people to try to subsidies them in different ways. It makes regulations that create difficulty and expense for individuals and businesses, and then decides to contribute tax breaks and/or subsidies to address that. It runs a mortgage-guarantee operation that has succeeding to blowing home prices to the stratosphere, and then needs to spend money on affordable housing, etc. But it's not an even exchange, because tons of pure waste is introduced simply in operating the system.

You're confused. If you get rid of all the subsidies, that brings in more money to government, not less. It allows for lower taxes, not higher.

Agreed. Then just give people their money back, fairly and evenly. Don't pick winners where some people get their money back and others don't. A much simpler method would be to get rid of the benefit, and just lower the overall tax rate. It's not a dichotomy with either everything or nothing. There has to be a point where it doesn't make sense. Having kids is a choice, and having both parents (or the only parent) work is also a choice, getting divorced so you only have yourself as breadwinner is a choice. We should not be in the business of accommodating people's lifestyle choices with tax dollars. We should provide things that are absolutely necessary and which the consequences of not doing so are unavoidable. I give far, FAR more than that every year both voluntarily and through government mandate.

Correct, I favor having as few subsidies as possible. Having children is in virtually all cases, a choice. You either choose to conceive, or choose to not use birth control before becoming sexually active, or choose not to use it right after (morning after pill), or choose not to abort, etc. There are virtually zero incidents where a woman is both raped AND ALSO forcibly prevented from using birth control. I believe you pay for your own choices. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to take the $320/mo for my kids, I'd be stupid not to, but I fully support getting rid of it for everyone. I would also get rid of all childcare subsidies, mortgage subsidies (CMHC), sports subsidies, corporate subsidies, etc. I'd keep universal heath care because I believe there's a reasonable economic argument for it, although I'd allow two-tier.

Funny hey? Probably because I don't agree with subsidies, not just those that don't help me. I also don't agrer that anyone should be forced to help pay for my kids or anyone else's. Would scrap the UCCB if I could.

This is classic vote buying. Everything announced yesterday benefits my family, but it's all a bad idea. It's not fair that people without kids should have to help pay for my kids. It's not fair that single people should get less benefit than married. Also $2000 is really not much.