Wild Bill

"Axing those positions"? What a fantastic idea! Michael, I am behind you 100%! Get rid of the deadwood!

Michael, we both know how few people vote for their local school board Trustee. Often a candidate will be elected by acclamation. I have often wondered why I bother to vote for the position. I guess I am still too much of a boy scout. Virtually always if there are more than one candidate they are indistinguishable anyway. My experience with schools has been that the boards do whatever they like. If any parents object they are made to believe they are in the minority. Sometimes parents get together and find that they are actually the majority! I can't count the number of times things were changed at my daughters' school "for insurance reasons". Whenever I asked if there were any examples of something actually resulting in a claim to justify the change I never once got an answer. I'm too old with too many commitments to run for Trustee myself. A crusader needs to be a lot younger. As I have said, I was very lucky to be so successful with my own children. More than that I cannot ask.

Christian cultures that are extremely primitive and barbaric are virtually gone from the world. Unfortunately, there are still a number of Islamic cultures that fit that description. They are at least 1000 years behind the rest of the human race. They have access to modern weapons. A very bad combination, indeed.

Schools have slowly been going to Hell in a handbasket for a least 50 years anyway. It would appear that no one and nothing will stop the slide. As I have posted before, I worked hard with my own kids and fortunately it worked out well. They get great marks and "Render unto Caesar". They don't waste their time tilting at windmills. Meanwhile, they are incredibly well self-taught with many things that interested them, at a level far beyond what was available to them at school. I don't see anything else a responsible parent can do, given the state of the "system" today.

Some are. You must know my ex-wife. That's a bit simplistic, IMHO. I think in this instance many parents are genuinely upset that explicit sexual issues are being made too easily available to their children, at too early an age for them to deal with. It is true that the little darlings can find anything they want on the Net but still, that's different than handing it to them on a platter, along with text commentary pushing a more adult agenda. Jesuits used to say that if you gave them a child until the age of 7 he would be their Catholic boy for life. There is much truth in that. The young tend to swallow whatever they are taught. What is embedded first tends to stick. Perhaps it is a futile effort but most responsible parents try to teach their values to their children as best as they can. Links like those provided by the School Board are really an end run around the parents' efforts. I just can't respect that. Schools are not there to be social engineers. They have neither the right nor the competence. Many parents may also lack the competence but it is THEIR right!

No! Opium is a useful tool for such zealots. What they resist is people coming up with any ideas on their own. They believe that they already know whatever other people should know. They wish to impose their religion and more important, their culture on everyone they possibly can. They start with their own community and country. Their goal is the entire world. Of course this means the use of violence because they are well aware that most other countries would never convert voluntarily. They are fanatics. One should not expect rational thought from irrational people.

When you post links on your site you are acknowledging some kind of association or relationship, if not approval. You don't post a link unless you want visitors to your site to see the link and have an easy path to reach it. This is much different from surfers finding porn on their own.

Not all Muslims. The problem lies with the ones from countries with very primitive cultures. They tend to view the world from a caveman, barbaric perspective. The cure is education. However, our enemies are well aware of that. Why do you think they throw acid in the faces of young school girls?

Maybe, but as I've said before, when people are very insecure about their jobs I don't think even free daycare would help.

"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan"

Well, I've no doubt that we can both cite "experts" with some easy googling. I also have no doubt that you would consider any and all for my side of the argument to simply be dead wrong. So we may as well just agree to disagree. Sooner or later Mother Nature will prove who is right.

Terrible in hindsight, Smallc. At the time they were considered scientific fact. When it comes to climate science today, how is the situation any different?

So is it your position that the principal and school board in question always 100% fulfilled their duty? That we can always accept that fact as a given?

Yep! "Heavier than air flight is impossible!" "Light moves through an ether!" "An engine traveling faster than 30 mph will never happen!""Man will never reach the Moon!" " There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible: truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths, until we come to those which are primary. — Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnz

Perhaps you read my post too quickly. I never said Airbus had anything to do with Meech. I said it was something added years later to the pile of reasons TROC hates Mulroney. As for fixing Meech instead of voting against it, there indeed was no time. Changes were coming thick and fast and they were not always reported in the media. A feeling developed that Brian Mulroney really didn't want TROC to have time to understand the deal. He seemed like a used car salesman who wanted you to cut him a cheque before you even had a chance to inspect the car. As for why TROC is still against reopening Meech, are you saying that Quebec would be in favour? Certainly that's never been an impression I've ever gotten. Whatever, one can't say how TROC feels about the idea. No one ever asks us! Chretien's Liberals were terrified of any "Meech II", for fear it would turn into a mess. Harper hasn't been around long enough or secure enough of his power to think about it either. I was there at the time, Benz. You may not have even been born, let alone traveled much outside of Quebec. I admit my time in Quebec has been limited as well but one thing struck me very hard. Quebecers for the most part feel TROC doesn't understand them yet they know even less about Canadians outside la belle province! For whatever reason, the average Quebecer seems to have chosen to be insular and introverted within Canada. I respect your passion, Benz, but whenever you say something about how you think people in TROC feel or felt towards Quebec you always sound totally wrong regarding anything I have seen or felt myself! Have you ever in your life considered there is room for more understanding on BOTH sides? Because Man, sometimes when you talk about TROC it sounds like you did not grow up in Canada, you grew up on Mars!

Enough principles? Sometimes we can see the validity of an argument if we look at its converse. If you and Michael are right, then authority must be accepted as always correct! Obedience therefore must be blind and trust in authority must be absolute. This is of course, absurd! We live in a fallible society of fallible human beings. What's more, sometimes the channels for correcting mistakes can be clogged, drastically stretching out any time needed for corrections. In a school, that time can result in many years of students being harmed by negative approaches to their education. Dissent is a negative feedback mechanism. It allows for corrections in a system that is not perfect. It should never be so easy as to stop all progress but it should also never be so hard that no correction is possible. The teacher took a principled stand and accepted the consequences. He was fired. A private school that shared his principles and valued them promptly hired him. Good for them! Meanwhile, hopefully the principal in question will have his own actions examined in the court of public opinion and if necessary the boss above him. Up the line it should go and as quickly as possible. The lives of the next generation truly depend on it!

It would seem segnosaur that if one doesn't know much and doesn't want to learn anyway it's easy to be afraid of almost everything!

Well, if you are going to deal in "what if", why not "What if the NDP wins a majority government?" Or "what if the NDP wins over 300 seats?". You can "what if" anything but it is a better use of time to stick to what is probable.

Verify? Seems to me you could do a search for sources on both sides of the argument. It's "pick your expert" time with that game! You always imply that what you believe is absolute gospel. If someone disagrees they must be either completely ignorant, stupid or hiding a crooked agenda. Do you not grant the possibility and the right to hold a contrary opinion at all? Are we talking science or faith here? Sometimes wyly you make those who disagree sound like heretics. That comes across as simple righteousness.

You're right about the need for a much smarter grid, Bonam. If there was a problem in one area the losses and difficulty of sourcing from long distances away pose severe challenges. It doesn't help when we have political snags, like the new transmission lines that are stopped from crossing through areas disputed by Six Nations. Those new lines were to enable using the new power from upgrades at the Niagara Falls generating station. Now McGuinty says we don't need the lines anyway. Which brings questions like why did we build that new capacity and why did we start those new transmission lines in the first place? I would suggest that if Six Nations doesn't produce any power themselves then if they want to block power to others why should we supply power to them? Seems rather one-sided to me. If they want to make a political point they have every right but if they are indeed the "stewards of the earth" as they love to claim then surely they can produce their own power and in a green fashion, as well. I don't have deep enough knowledge but I have a hunch that if the grid WERE capable enough storage capacity would not be as much of a problem. There could be so many household contributors that we would offset the need for storage with excess. The "Grey Line" of sunrise moves slowly but wind covers both day and night, when it is there. Again, the grid would have to be able to transport power from much greater distances and respond much more quickly to changes in load. We are nowhere near that ability, at the moment. Perhaps McGuinty wlll strike another deal with Samsung to make it happen in a few weekends!

As I had said, August, it depends on what he needs to do. It's not likely he can win an election but if he can at least keep them from dying off and maybe even pick up a few more seats than they have at present, that would be better than what they have right now!

You would do well to investigate first! We have a unique situation in Ontario. The majority of people will never be selling power back to the grid in Ontario! Dalton has deliberately structured things so that cannot happen. While many if not most of American states allow bi-directional meters so that people can sell power to the grid that is illegal here. The American model is great because it eliminates the most expensive capital investment for generating your own power - a battery bank! Wind and sunlight are not consistent so you must store power in batteries when you are not using it, so that you will have enough at those times when you need it. You then don't need a gigantic system that constantly generates 5-10 kilowatts of power. You need something that generates only a kilowatt or two but stores it in the battery bank. You need expensive deep cycle batteries. Car batteries will not cut it. Figure on several thousand dollars for the average home, at least. By using bi-directional meters, the grid is your battery bank! You have your couple of kilowatt system and when you are drawing less than it supplies the extra goes into the grid. The meter tracks it and your bill is merely accounting - credit or debit. Here, everyone has only two choices. You can be totally off the grid, which means buying that expensive battery bank, or you do it the McGuinty way. The McGuinty way works like this: You feed your own house from the grid, the same way you always have. You get a bill and you pay it. As a separate item, you buy a wind or solar generating system. You have no connection to that system for your own use at all. That system feeds the grid and Dalton pays you for the power. To get paid for generating that power, you must be accepted by Dalton's system. That is no longer open to anyone. They had so many applicants they closed the door. Many farmers signed up, since they had the land and space. Dalton was not prepared for so many. At first they closed the door with several thousand applications that had arrived well before the deadline refused. This caused such an outcry they were forced to grant those applications, but no more. You see, to stimulate a new industry that supposedly was going to make Ontario rich again Dalton pays 80cents per kilowatt for solar power on a rooftop and a bit less for wind power. Meanwhile, regular power costs about a nickel a kilowatt. A few people with solar panels on their rooftops meant some inexpensive photo-ops and glamour for the Liberal government, for being so "progressive". Thousands of rooftops means a HUGE subsidy for alternate power! That of course would prove embarrassing. So right now your only choice is to go totally off-grid. You look after yourself. You don't get to sell any surplus to the province. You likely never will! Right now your electricity bill has some deliberate confusion as to usage, transmission costs and "stranded debt" from the fiasco of the 30 some billion dollar debt Ontario Hydro ran up. By making sure that it is very difficult for large numbers of people to get completely off-grid the Liberals have ensured that stranded debt will be paid off eventually, by us citizens, of course. We have no choice! So that's the scoop, Mr. Canada. If you want to play around with solar panels as a hobby by all means have fun but as far as any ideas of selling surplus back to the grid, you can just forget it, at least as long as Premier Dalton and his Liberals are running the show.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that there are no absolute definitions of left and right, conservative or liberal, but rather some sort of Bell curve, where you just plot what you see today and accept an arbitrary centre. I don't agree with that. I use a dictionary. To me, there are absolutes. If I used your method I could have labeled a left and a right to Chairman Mao's Party Congress. I'm not saying your definition is wrong, just that I could never accept it.

For the zillionth time Michael, I am not a conservative! If anything, I am a Classic Liberal. It's not my fault that modern liberals have drifted so far to the left that I cannot relate to them. I have no problem with their social values. I couldn't care less about gays getting married. Why should they be any happier than the rest of us? However, with fiscal issues I am forced to align with the present Tories, if only by default. I also believe very strongly that the rights of the individual should be paramount. That leaves me with no choice at all, except for a wasted vote to the Libertarians. The only political party I ever embraced with enthusiasm was Reform, mostly for its populist streak. Imagine, a party that actually cared about how a member like me felt? True, I would need to convince a majority of others to get the party to make my ideas party policy but that was far more than any other party would do! Anyhow, I don't know why I am yet again explaining this. Before the end of tomorrow someone else is going to assume I'm a conservative anyway. These days, a conservative is defined as anyone not at least mildly socialist.

Sadly Kraychik, things have drifted so far that most on the left today ARE oblivious to their position! They truly believe that their views are in the centre. What they believe is the norm.