msj

curious that i can delete my status updates to my hearts content....

Better yet, rather than a self imposed banning maybe I can get it imposed from the man himself: Charles, take your heavy handed bull shit moderation and shove it up your ass. How's you like them trolls?

Agreed.

So, are the Mexicans going to pay under this scheme or not?

Just because Ontario has done a crappy job of things does not mean the rest of the country will. I find it funny how when it comes down to wanting to implement any kind of energy policy it always comes down to: no, can't do that because, Ontario! Not a compelling argument.

Agreed. As someone said on Twitter: Trump is right. John Lewis's district is a mess with 53 men getting the shit kicked out of them..... See link if you don't get the joke: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jan/15/donald-trump/trumps-john-lewis-crime-invested-atlanta/ The Patriots are particularly insufferable with Trump as President (as he likes to talk of his freindships with Bill and Tom - much to their embarrassment). Glad to see Matt Ryan get some spotlight: he is a very good QB and this past year has been the best in the league. I probably won't watch much of the game, if any, but will check out the stats and play by play after the fact.

Of course oil is going to be around. The question is: at what price? Given the compounding effect of investments in solar/wind elsewhere I think it is only a matter of time before oil is a sunset industry. Thanks to productivity increases (US shale in particular) Alberta should be thankful that the price is under $55. If it was at $100 then the incentive to switch over to alternative energy sources and technology would be even greater. Yes, Canada is a small part in this and in producing carbon. Does not mean we just ignore our international commitments. Besides, the government just needs to find a way to make the carbon tax revenue neutral. In BC most of us are fine with what we have. Doubt it will even come up in our election in May. And I look forward to, some day soon, getting an electric vehicle so Saudi Arabia/Alberta can go to hell. That will probably not be good for the Canadian dollar at a very very very micro level.

If we do not embrace change then the rest of the world will outpace us. What do we do when oil demand decreases because of changes to technology (electric vehicles, power walls etc)? The rest of the world, especially the sunny parts, can easily, and cheaply, change over to solar over the next several decades. In fact, this is already happening now. But no, no jobs to be had in solar/wind technology. We're Canada so we can only focus on oil and gas because we can only do one thing at a time. One day, when the markets realize that the oil game is up and OPEC can no longer manipulate prices higher, it will hit our dollar. No backup plan, no development of alternative industries that will pick up the slack. Then we really will see a low dollar.

Um, account for population increase much? That's why I have focused on percentages.

For 2014 it was 14.3% for BC'ers 12 and up. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/health74b-eng.htm As for the past you can start here: http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/publications/healthy-living-vie-saine/tobacco-monitoring-survey-2011-enquete-surveillance-tabac/index-eng.php For example, in 1985 it looks like about 42% or so of 20-24 year olds smoked. Compared to the 21% for that same age group in 2011. I am sure other stats can be found somewhere like here: https://www.med.uottawa.ca/sim/data/Smoking_Rates_e.htm As for carbon taxes - there primary use is to make fossil fuels more expensive which, in turn, effects how people use them (i.e. people tend to reduce their consumption of something that rises in price). I expect over time we will see all kinds of government investments/partnerships for various projects that will reduce carbon emissions. Also will see tax rebates related to energy conservation and for changing over to renewables (eg. rebates on solar conversion, rebates on Tesla power wall, etc). As to education: as more people accept global climate change then change can occur more easily even without the stick portion (carbon tax) or the carrot (rebates).

Here is BC we have gone from ~50% of adults smoking 40+ years ago to something like 13% today. That's very good results thanks to education and taxation. With fossil fuels it will be education, renewables, technology, and taxation. BFD. Adapt.

I think most people who would call themselves atheists would admit that there is an infinitesimally small chance of somekind of "god" or "power" out there that we don't understand. But it is so unlikely, especially to be a personal god like in the Bible/Koran, that to waste time on such things is foolish, if not destructive (as history has shown).

Which is not to say that conflicts do not arise from time to time. Majority of churches/synagogues/mosques will not marry gay people. Muslims like to segregate themselves within certain mosques, for example. Allowed under our religious freedom, presumably. I have a thread in the gender section about women and Orthodox Jews on a plane showing another type of conflict thanks to the prejudicial insanity of religion. These conlficts are real, hopefully more annoying rather than truly harmful, and often inspired by the stupidity of religious beliefs - hence the need for the secular way of life.

Think it's obvious from this thread that I don't think genuine consent is possible by religious people as they are indoctrinated and such practices such as disturbing sleep and other methods of blaring religious BS is used to keep the sheep faithfull. Nevertheless, who am I to judge ones sincerity? If an adult wants to cut off his foreskin or her clitoris then that is their problem.

It is the consent that is important. Again, not rocket science.

Not sure why this is so hard to understand: doing something voluntarily is fine. Being forced to have anykind of mutilation without consent is not. This is not rocket science so screw off with the false equivalency crap

As compared to Cambodia where, going up and down the river, the Muslim community blasts their religious BS far too often. Or Egypt where I have a friend working and he wears noise cancelling headphones to bed as the mosque blasts its religious BS at all times of the night and early morning. Thankfully Canada has noise by laws to prevent this, but man, I would love to set up shop on the Mekong and blast Metallica, AC/DC, etc right back at them. I will say that noise bylaws are evidence based public policy that benefit us all. The religious freaks, however, don't like it as they need to disrupt peoples sleep to keep the indoctrination going.....

Points so obvious and logical that I am starting to understand why, if it were possible, people like Altai should not be allowed in Canada to impose their religious BS upon us.

Except most atheists would accept that god most likely does not exist and without any kind of suffient evidence it is reasonable to live their life as if god does not exist at all. So, to say "there is no Santa Claus (tooth fairy/leperchauns/pink unicorns/flying spaghetti monster) " is equally as dogmatic as to say "there is no god." Which is strange since most of us accept the likelihood of Santa Clause et al to be virtually zero (or absolutely zero) and yet people who believe in god are unable to extend the logic to their precious one (God/Allaha/Yahweh). Why such a distinction?

I dunno, maybe I should retract the above. Afterall, isn't the religion of those who do not believe in the toothfairy just a splinter group from those who do not believe in leperchauns who split from those who do not believe in pink unicorns who had a schism with those who do not believe in Santa elves and reindeers who are divided with those who also do not believe in Santa Claus?

Um, having as your core belief that god(s) does not exist (and Santa, Satan, tooth fairy etc) does not make for much dogma, scripture, nor messiahs. For those of us who are "militant atheists" it is not our lack of belief in god that is the issue. It is religious people trying to shove their religious precepts down our secular throats that is the issue - and the fact that we no longer stand for it. The problem is that religious people don't like it when we stand up to them and tell them to practice their BS in private and don't expect to make laws protecting slavery or disallowing tattoos because their crap "authoritarian" book tells them this is righteous. Ahteists often go about their business with few blowing themselves up because of their lack of belief in any god. Meanwhile, religious people have no problem flying planes into buildings because their god told them to.

There is a good chance that Trudeau will have to deal with a recession that is due too. And perhaps even a home/debt bubble that is long in the tooth. Maybe by the time the infrastructure spending gets going it will be just in the knick of time. That's how I'd do it: drag it out and get it going 18 months prior to the next election. Too bad Brexit and Trump will have such a negative effect on global growth though.

No, it means that money and politics are always intertwined. It is not a reason for me to vote for or against a politician (since they all do it) so I vote for other reasons. I think most people are like this and the ones doing the complaining are usually the losers from the past election(s) who would not care about their guy doing it because they vote for other reasons too.