Wild Bill

Now you talk "laissez faire"? August, I remind you that it was YOU complaining about the idea of Newfoundland getting any federal monies towards providing an alternative path for more Hydro-electric development that bypassed Quebec! I was a salesman for many years. One thing you learned very early was to always leave the customer as happy as possible. If you boxed him into a corner so that he took your deal only because he had no choice it was guaranteed that the first time he was presented with an alternative he would drop you like a hot potato! I understand your concept of ruthless capitalism. As a classic Liberal, I support it. I just think that your idea of how it works is a bit too shallow. I watched many old-fashioned companies die off from the 70's on, for being too short-sighted about business relationships. It was the Japanese who taught us that a deal should be good for both parties. I was very successful with my commission base. I found it paid more to have a smaller list of good customers that I could help grow much larger, instead of just trying to gouge any one I came across for the maximum profit on the one specific deal. As an old hippy, I took great satisfaction at times giving some of these old companies their "comeuppance"! In the electronics industry we quite often went into shortages of some of the new computer integrated circuits. Delivery times would stretch out to more than a year! Some big company that up till then would never give me the time of day would phone up and try to buy out my entire year's commitment, at a good price. With a smile, I would refuse! Why should I leave all my regular customers high and dry for a one-shot deal that would not result in any lasting business? When the panic was over I would lose that huge company to the first competitor willing to drop his price by a penny! Meanwhile, my regulars would have been insulted by my abandoning them. They would have stricken me from their supplier's list and I wouldn't have blamed them. To use an old phrase "You dance with who brung ya!" It took a while but today's business has learned the hard way about the value of long-term relationships. There are hidden profits in having suppliers who can be counted on to support you when you need them. They may not be obvious on a General Ledger but they are very real. Sometimes it may take years but if you've ignored them sooner or later they will bite you on the ass! By being so greedy with the original Churchill Falls deal, Quebec has ensured that there never will be another one. If she had left her customer feeling reasonably happy, the idea of an undersea cable would likely never have been considered.

Yeah, that's what I thought too, Angus. Different name but the same old crap! Like a TV set with nothing but CSI spinoffs...

Stirring the pot again? Anyone who looks into it knows that the US never got a drop of oil out of conquering Iraq. The countries who actually benefited were Russia and China.

Public transportation? I've been hearing calls for that all my life, it seems. It also seems like it never, ever works! Maybe it's just where I live. Here in Hamilton the buses never seem to go where you need them. You end up taking so many transfers and you walk more than you ride. My wife works for the City and one day her crew were called to a meeting where some cheerful folks gave them a lecture about taking public transportation. It was felt that civic employees should set an example to the citizenry at large. So it being a warm summer day the following morning, my wife gave it a try. She had to walk a total of about 9 blocks, 3 transfers and just over 90 minutes to get to work. That's compared to her usual 10 minute drive! Obviously, she never did that again. Having your own car means you can leave at the drop of a hat and drive directly to your destination. Unless the traffic congestion gets so heavy that you are stalled in traffic for an hour or so, no one is going to consider giving up their car. If traffic gets that bad, odds are that a bus won't be any faster either. Elevated/Light Rail Transit can help somewhat but it has the problem of fixed routes even worse than buses. If you live away from a starting point and your destination is also not close to a stop point on the rail line your car is still going to be more attractive. And what about the problem of trips with a handful of kids, or a week's worth of groceries? The biggest problem with public systems is that they really only cater to a common denominator. If the residential part of the city is at one stop and all the jobs are at another then a common bus or train can ferry folks back and forth. However, what city is designed like that, or even could be? It's like two islands with one ferry line between them. Urban communities are always much more complicated than that. A car has no problem with such complications. A bus or a train cannot cope with them at all. Politicians always promise to throw money at public transit but they know that it can only be a limited part of a city's transportation mix. It helps but it can only do so much. Meanwhile, at least it looks like they're doing something! Only people who actually try to use public transit will find out about its failings. Those who actually find it useful will be happy. Most folks will still use their cars but they'll be happy thinking OTHER people are taking public transportation!

Why do they raise prices? Because they can! It's Christmas shopping time! People HAVE to drive more! So they have to buy more gas, even if it's more expensive. Who can cut back on driving when they have to do their Christmas shopping? It's the same reason gas prices go up just before a long weekend. The price of crude really has little to do with it. We have only a few refineries in this country. No matter how much crude is in tanks only so much can be refined at one time. The amount available doesn't change all that much. If there was excess supply we would see more price drops. Instead, Instead, it's very easy to throttle back a refinery or two to put a crimp in supply and drive the price up. There aren't that many different oil companies, either. They all buy from the same few refineries. So they basically can do whatever they want with the prices. There's no formal conspiracy, just a few guys who all understand that if they all do things the same way they all get the maximum profit. It's called an oligopoly. Our governments know this but they like the situation too! After their fixed taxes on each litre they have sales taxes on the retail price. As it goes up so does their take! Their only checks are political. They know that if they gouge us too badly they can mess up the economy or cause pressure on the ruling party of the day. It seems that every time prices soar in too big a jump the economy goes into recession. Is it a coincidence that just before the start of this present global recession we saw gas prices spike up to $1.40 per litre? Few economies are strong enough to handle that kind of shock. Watch for prices to fall between Christmas and New Years. That's because except for the actual Holiday dinners people tend to stay home and relax. Gas sales will drop and they will lower the price to try to encourage consumption. This has been going on since at least the mid 70's. It's nothing new.

I wasn't slamming you, BM! I don't recall any post of yours where you said someone was in the wrong merely because he was white, or at least, non-native! Or that someone was a racist simply because he or she did not accept any native stand anywhere as gospel truth, because it came from a native.

You've never bought or sold protected technology, have you? If you get caught selling protected stuff like munitions, computer chips or whatever not only will you be charged, fined and often jailed but you will never, ever be able to sell to the government again! With your major customer gone, you'd have a hard time staying in business selling to those few black marketeers who can smuggle a much lower volume of orders out of the country. I had personal experience when computer chips were new stuff, fending off suspicious orders from Montreal brokers with cash in hand. I also saw what happened to other companies in the business who got caught! You're right that it does happen but it's nowhere near as easy as you imply and the cost and likelihood of being caught are far greater than you might think. To trade a huge customer like the American military for a couple of small illegal smuggling operations is hardly sensible business.

Of course it is the worst deficit on record. We've never had to bail out the auto industry before! This has probably been the worst global depression in half a century. We're still not out of it. There are countries like Portugal, Ireland and Spain that will likely go under at any time. Everybody thought they could just join a group like the EU where somebody ELSE would pay for their inefficiencies! Now the chickens have come home to roost. Margaret Thatcher has been proven quite right. Joining the EU and adopting a common Euro currency has proved to be a disaster! Meanwhile, the French still riot when the government tries to raise their retirement age to something more reasonable. As Jay Leno said, you can understand why they are so upset. The age used to be 37!

Not all, Saipan. Perhaps not even a majority. As said before, there are many different bands living on very different reserves. They are NOT all the same! However, you are absolutely correct that SOME are EXACTLY as you describe! All of us have little or no control over the cards Life deals to us but we have TOTAL control over how we play them! There are very progressive reserves in Canada that do quite well for themselves. They have the same problems with the Indian Act and the outright loopiness of the governments they have to deal with as any other band but somehow they've found more positive ways than others. Personally, I think those bands that are abandoning their Indian Act protection in order to have the right to property will do far better than those that prefer a more "leftwing" approach. The story of "The Little Red Hen" baking bread, where no one helps but everyone wants a share, applies to all human beings, of any race or persuasion. First Nations peoples have had some unique challenges. Historically, they have been abused. Still, historically, who hasn't? Trying to right all the wrongs of centuries ago is a futile effort. Where does it stop? As to why some bands are so much more positive than others, there's a better story than the "Little Red Hen": Two twin brothers grew up under a drunken father who savagely abused them. They never had enough to eat, adequate clothing or money for advanced schooling. One brother grew up exactly like his father. He too became a drunkard who beat his family and did not properly provide for them. When asked why he said "With a father like mine, what would you expect?" The other brother became a model citizen. He was sober and hardworking, using part-time jobs to get through school and eventually winning a good-paying job. He had a wonderful family with well-behaved children. When asked why he replied "With a father like mine, what would you expect?" I'm just saying you should be careful, Saipan. Don't brand people by their race or you'll become like a couple of your opponents in this thread.

Oh-Kay! After reading your reply three times I think your answer boils down to "Quebec is poor, has always been poor and will always be poor. Therefore, our role is to always be a have-not province and take from the group's resources rather than add to them. We shall run "social democratic" governments and be quite comfortable." Guy, you didn't address my point that "social democratic" government means always taking and never giving. You ignored my point that if every province acted like Quebec we would be a bankrupt country. In the newspaper today there was an article about Portugal, which is now an economic basket case begging its EU neighbours to save its sorry ass. Apparently, they too have been proud to be a "social democratic" government for some decades now. Unfortunately, reality caught up with them and things fell apart. Is that the future you wish for Quebec? Quebec has been wrestling with the separation question for years now. What do you think would happen if Quebec's "social democratic" style of government led to an economic collapse like that faced by Portugal? Isn't it possible that the rest of Canada might vote to kick Quebec out, rather than pay her debts? It's all well and good for everyone to call each other brothers and sisters and bruit how we have so much common history but if a referendum came out across "The Rest of Canada" that said "Are you in favour of paying double or triple your taxes to bail out Quebec, who believes that her "social democratic" government is a wonderful way to manage her economy?" Everybody is friendly at a party until a few are stuck with the bill for the beer! Why do you think that Quebec is so angry that Newfoundland has struck a new hydro-electric deal that cuts Quebec out of the loop to transport the power? They took it for granted that they would get another lucrative "Churchill Falls" type deal, to pay for the debts being run up by their "social democratic" economy. How many "have" provinces are left to pay everyone's bills, Guy? Has "social democratic" government got a solution? As an Ontarioan, I'm willing to pay a bit extra for my 'imported' Bras d'Or beer but I think Quebec is going to need a lot more than that...

Anyone who paid attention should well remember the Liberals and the NDP forcing Harper to spend that 4 billion! The Tories were being called all sorts of names for not dumping money into the recession, the mildest of which were words like 'callous', 'uncaring' and cruel. Of course, once Harper gave the money the same Liberals and NDP starting in on how Harper had put us deeper into debt! Talk about your no-win scenarios! Now they're complaining that the 4 billion didn't create any jobs. Go figure. It would then make sense for Harper to refuse to listen to the Liberals or NDP at all. Why should he? They make no sense but just attack him no matter what he does, even if he does what they said he should! However, then they would accuse him of being "unlistening" and "undemocratic". They would say that he runs Parliament like a dictator. I don't know who deserves less respect, the Liberals and the NDP or their supporters who are too dim to see the ridiculousness of the situation.

I think you've missed the point, Guy. No one WANTS Quebec to become an economic basket case! It's just that many of us don't believe that this "social democracy" is self-sustaining on its own. Obviously, it has worked for Quebec in the past. It has worked for a number of the other provinces. However, it only worked for them because other provinces followed a different approach and made enough money to support the ones that didn't. If "social democracy" works so well economically then why is Quebec a "have not" province? Why isn't Quebec a "have" province like Alberta or how Ontario used to be? Historically, why hasn't Quebec been one of those supporting the poorer provinces? Why don't ALL the provinces follow this path of "social democracy"? Surely it will make us all rich!

Mullis doesn't deny that many papers have been published. He just doesn't respect the scientific methodology involved. His point is not that there aren't footnotes and cites. He believes that they are all based on incorrect premises and since the originals have just been citing each other! He has personal experience of how strong the politics of the situation have been on the funding and the career opportunities of the scientists involved. So you can make a list of cites a mile long and Mullis would just say "Of course there are! Show me the original documented and reproduceable research, like any other premise in science! BS just spins more BS!" There are still doctors around who think ulcers are caused by stress, you know! That's like believing the world is flat, or in Intelligent Design. The idea that having an idea trumpeted by a preponderance of the cites or sources thereby being true is not scientific at all. Just because 5 million flies say it tastes good is no reason to have it for supper yourself! I'm not qualified to defend Mullis' premise. He's the Nobel prizewinner, not me. Again, I just wanted to point out that YOUR premise about AIDS is not accepted as absolute fact by everyone in the scientific community! There are qualified people who disagree. Hey, doesn't it seem strange that in 30 years there's been no cure? If HIV is not the real cause that fact makes perfect sense. All the research won't work if it's based on a wrong premise. We seem to have made great progress in helping the body withstand the damage of AIDS and thus add a few years to a victim's lifespan but actually finding a cure? We seem no further ahead than we were at the start of the problem. Mullis has a lot of other stuff in his book. It's a great read! He's obviously brilliant and loves to tweak academic noses. I'm sure that you'd enjoy his book for more than just his views on the source of AIDS.

Is that your idea of a solution? We feed the NK people so their government can use the money to buy nukes? You know that the bags of rice are emptied at the border into new containers, so that the people of NK don't know it came from an outside country! Or it's taken for to feed the army first and the common people second. Isn't this more like being an alcoholic's 'enabler', perpetuating the problem and allowing it to grow?

Popeye, you really should read the whole thread before you just jump in blind, making assumptions and preaching to the air. Nobody has claimed that natives have no rights. No one has claimed that some bands don't live in terrible conditions. No one is talking about taking any rights away. You put an army of straw men in your post! The issue is that SOME native supporters have made claims that natives have hunting rights far beyond what the courts have ruled, in effect that natives can hunt anywhere and anytime, including not just crown but private land! This has been the tone of a number of threads regarding native issues. Mostly, they have revolved around the Caledonia process as an example of how native protesters went too far. Still, you yourself in your post are generalizing, as if all natives in all bands anywhere in the country are the same. They most certainly are not! They are all individuals, with different issues and values. Some of them might very well disagree with the hunting claims posted in this thread! If you want to join in on the debate it would be nice if you took the trouble to note what people are actually debating about.

Why wouldn't they?

Maybe. Maybe not! If NK gets really busted up, it might result in re-unification. It's guaranteed that NK will desperately need help with building industry and agriculture that works, as opposed to the inefficient mess that all Stalinist regimes seem to run with. China gets not just a huge market but a source of cheap labour if they want to float the capital to modernize NK. Seems to me that the real downside is to El Kim Dongo and his son. SK wins, China wins and the rest of the world wins for having a whackjob regime eliminated. The only problem of course is that there will likely be a few million casualties...

Hey, Mullis is the Nobel prize winner, not me! I just think that you would enjoy the book, especially the chapter about AIDS. He explains his beliefs far better than I could. He doesn't deny HIV exists, so isolating it doesn't affect his premise. He just claims to be unable to find any documentation proving it to be the CAUSE of AIDS!

Really? You should dig up a book by Kary Mullis called "Surfing Through the Mindfield". Mullis is a Nobel prize winner. He was the guy who figured out how to decode DNA, leading to innumerable spinoffs of CSI shows. His book is a collection of personal history anecdotes and his eclectic way of looking at the world. He is a true genius and a model of a Renaissance Man. Mullis was asked to speak at a convention sponsored by a large drug company that among other products produced some of the early anti-Aids drugs. Like any other reputable scientist, the first thing he did was to try to research the original papers that proved Aids was caused by the HIV virus. He was surprised that he couldn't find any! Lots of papers that simply stated the premise but zilch as far as anything to back it up. Somehow, the idea had simply been accepted and no one dared challenge it. Sort of like man-made Global warming, I guess. When he attempted to talk about this in his speech he caused an uproar and was finally asked to stop. As a scientist he was quite offended and afterwards investigated the matter more thoroughly. He now believes that the idea that AIDS comes from a virus was adopted as a political decision to make it look like the American government was doing something, at a time when no one really knew what was going on but everyone was exceedingly angry at the loss of life and the apparent helplessness of the 'system' to find a cure. I'm not saying he's right but if a Nobel prize winner like Mullis can doubt then there's no shame in others taking the same stance.

Natural gas is a good point! For some reason, McGuinty has a hard on against natural gas and coal for electricity production. This is totally politics for the ignorant and has nothing to do with 'green'. Other countries have successfully developed scrubbers and other technologies that make these fuels as clean as almost anything else. Yet McGuinty will not even consider using them! With the discoveries of shale gas deposits, enough for our needs for centuries to come, along with the existing known reserves, natural gas is going to remain a reasonably priced fuel, unless the politicians find a way to lie and get more tax money out of us. McGuinty has chosen to go with wind and solar as the 'sexy' choices. Unfortunately, he also intends to more than double our costs in only a few years, as paying ridiculously high prices to wind and solar producers is the only way he can attract them to build. He hopes to build jobs by forcing producers to use locally made solar cells and wind turbines. This is the antithesis of free trade and already he has challenges pending from other countries over breaking trade agreements. He's trying to build an artificial economy based on energy sources that are not by themselves profitable, in order to create jobs that only exist due to government subsidies. Meanwhile, he is deliberately ignoring fuels like coal and gas that are cheap and plentiful, pretending to be ignorant of modern ways to use them cleanly. He says he's going to upgrade our nuclear capacity but he keeps dithering and delaying actually doing it! He's already broken several promised timelines. Only someone who lives in a pampered bubble could fail to understand that the average citizen cannot afford such high economic shocks in such a short time. The average wage is not likely to rise enough over the same time period to cover the amount he has heaped in taxes and on the electricity bill. Certainly, pensions for the retired on fixed incomes certainly won't! Surely he could have chosen a more gradual approach. We've spent many decades digging our hole. Why the rush to get out of it so quickly and expensively? More and more, I'm convinced this man is an idiot! I think he really believes his own BS! I seriously doubt if he has any technical understanding of the problems of his own. Look what he did with the HST. Look what he did in Caledonia. Look how he's handling our electricity. This man is making Stephane Dion look like a paragon of practicality! Maybe someone is pulling his strings. Samsung sure got a sweetheart deal with their manufacturing plant...

And he does, TM. Often! That's why so many people like listening to him. Maher has always been good at cutting through all the BS around a subject. In fact, I believe Maher to be better at looking in his own backyard than most of us Canadians! We constantly dodge criticism of our negatives by pointing the finger at Americans. Just start a discussion about problems in health care, for instance. You won't get 2 minutes before someone barks "Would you rather live in America? Poor people die there in ditches!" After that you won't have a hope in hell of getting back to recognizing our problems so that we can discuss solutions.

Are you really being fair here, Mr. Dre? The major factors for a lack of new nuclear power plants are all political and not economic! The anti-nuke activists have done a great job convincing the average Joe that a nuclear reactor is really the same as a nuclear bomb. So NIMBYism reigns supreme! There are so many unnecessary and redundant codicils involved in building a new plant that anyone can understand why private investors would say "Screw it! If governments want to put so much red tape into it then let them build their own nukes!" Meanwhile, they can make more money as the kilowatt hour price keeps climbing, without having to invest a thing into new production! It's similar to our situation with oil refineries. Canada has very few left, as they have been slowly closing down over the years. A business investor would need his head read before building a new refinery! Refineries are considered smelly and nasty. Nobody wants them around. They have had so flippin' many 'green' and 'eco-clean' rules applied to their construction and operation that the costs have spiraled out of sight! Again, private investors walk away. Notice too that the government hasn't stepped up to the plate. They did have a PetroCan refinery in Oakville, Ontario that they inherited by buying out Shell Oil's ownership. When it reached the end of its life cycle they closed it down. Once again, it's because having a crimp in the supply chain ensures a higher price! There's always no shortage of crude. The shortage is with refining capacity! If you had a surplus of refining capacity you would have competitive pressures to keep prices down. The gas companies have no interest in that situation. Several times in the last year alone we've been told that a spike in prices at the pump was due to a refinery problem in Quebec or somewhere. It's obvious that if our governments truly wanted to give us a break with gas prices they would build us a new refinery or two. We're not going to see that happen! Not with the HST on the pump price! As it goes up so does the take to the feds and the provinces. They have no interest in anything that would keep prices down or even lower them. Electricity is a bit dicier for a government like McGuinty's. A lack of production capacity will move prices up but he has to be careful that we don't have any blackouts! He's starting to get enough flack about the size of the price hikes but that will be nothing compared to the reaction if we start having power failures, especially if it's in the dead of a cold winter. If it happens on a cloudy day or at night, with no wind, all the MicroFit generators in the world won't help light one extra LED Christmas bulb! Non of that MicroFit power from wind or solar can be stored for dark and calm times. You either have it available at that time or the lights go out. It appears we agree that wind and solar should not be subsidized. If they can't be profitable on their own then they're really just another drain on our tax dollars. However, nuclear power is in a different position. How can we tell if it is profitable with all the red tape slapped on it for political reasons? I think the answer is simple. Nuclear reactors are quite popular in other countries, build by private business. If private business won't build in Canada then its likely our politicians have screwed something up!

Possible, but not likely. The West does have tactical nukes and if they were truly about to be overrun the temptation would be strong to use them. However, they have a BEJEEZUS number of mines across the DMZ! They may have a few less troops in total but the US always has the advantage of more modern technology. Look what happened when they last went into Iraq. All the CNN talking heads kept shouting "Watch out for Saddam's Presidential Guard! They're tough as nails!" The US blew through nearly a thousand Iraqi tanks like they weren't even there! It's true that the Iragis were highly trained and quite brave. It's true that their tanks were reasonably modern. Yet they had nothing to compete with the American night vision and satellite observation, plugged into a communications net that let not only every officer but nearly every grunt know instantly, 'real-time' what was going on. The much-feared Presidential Guard were constantly caught with their pants down. It was like the US attacked a force of Canadians. Brave, highly trained soldiers but their country only paid for older, second-best equipment, while having no industry of their own to make leading edge stuff. One also has to credit just how much a couple of modern aircraft carriers can quickly add to the mix. So General Dong might be able to get 7 million soldiers to goose-step down to the DMZ but there's no way he has anything like the technology of the US with which to outfit them. The real worry is that General Dong may not care! He may be counting on his enemy not having the stomach for a high casualty war. Old tech or not, sheer numbers would mean a LOT of South Koreans, US soldiers and civilians would be hurt and killed. El Dongo doesn't really care about that if it means his adversaries will give him what he wants to sue for peace. He may have the impression that if push comes to shove Obama will wuss out. A few million dead to become ruler of the entire Korean peninsula might be a good price to him! He would instantly have twice the amount of food available to bribe the rest of his people. You can bet that General Dong has a bunker deep and strong enough to withstand any cruise missile sent to take HIM out! I hate to say it but South Korea is in a damned either way situation. They may have to decide just how much they are willing to pay to stay free. It's guaranteed to be a terrible price, even if they win. However, if they win the chances of another El Dongo coming along in these modern times is pretty slim. Especially when even China doesn't really want him or another like him.

Jack, you seem to think that all companies are old fashioned manufacturers, like Stelco or General Motors. I've worked for both modern and old-fashioned companies. I think your criticisms apply mainly to the old ones. Newer companies tend to have far fewer employees and are dealing with factors that keep them in the country. They also get little or no government money, since each company represents only a comparative handful of votes. You don't think that governments shove money at steel companies because they truly care about the steel industry, do you? They give money because there's a lot of votes involved and not for any other reason! I worked for a while at a couple of different Canadian Westinghouse locations. They reminded me of General Motors - 1954! Westinghouse was one of the earliest to start outsourcing jobs out of the country. It actually cost them more than any increased profits. Wages of course were far lower but the quality of the workforce was also far lower. The scrap rate went up exponentially. Politically, no one dared to mention things like scrap rate. We all just oohed and aahed at the wage savings and ignored all else. The attitude was that if you just kept your head down and waved the company flag hopefully you'd be laid off LAST! My take on it is that all the jobs that have gone to China and other such countries are a trend that is not yet complete. These older companies are exporting jobs because they're all copying each other! Somebody wrote an article in Business Week about "Outsourcing! The New A-Go Go Way to Go!" and every manager who wanted to make a name for himself was off and running. I'm not saying that all outsourcing is bad, just that most companies never properly looked at the whole picture. There are always "soft" costs involved that might not be clear but if you don't account for them they will bite you on your ass! At one Westinghouse location I was a buyer. I was rated solely on price savings. That meant I always went with the lowest bid. Sometimes that meant buying from a vendor who I knew was a total screwup and when he fell short on delivery and stopped our production line it cost us a fortune! No one in management even understood what was happening. I tried to point it out a few times but got slapped down. I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut. That Westinghouse location is now a parking lot, BTW. Every business has its own specifics and sometimes the benefits of keeping production close to home outweigh any wage savings. Especially when automation has made wages much less of a factor in the total cost anyway! I'm saying that most North American management, especially the bigger and older companies, were trained in the Dilbert school. Moving to China is just one step in the process of these old companies dying off! The sooner they're gone the sooner newer, more compact and efficient companies can take over. We will likely never see the days of high paying big company manufacturing jobs again but that might be a good thing. It's a hard nut for those caught in the transition but for the new generation there will likely be more security. I'm just saying you should look at the big picture, Jack. Not the OLD picture!

I think his point is a bit simpler than you've stated. Essentially, if you hear the name Mohammed more and more often it's a pretty fair indicator that the percentage of Muslims in your society is increasing. If you want to go a bit deeper, Muslims tend to be more fundamentalist in their religion. Maher believes that fundamentalist religions of any stripe tend to be bad things! After all, few atheists wage jihad on their neighbours.