Wild Bill

The book hits the stores on Monday, Scrib! I saw an article about it in the newspaper last week and placed an advance order with amazon.ca They promise to ship on Monday and I look forward to the read! It should generate some good discussion, especially from those posters who will never actually read it but feel free to condemn it.

Michael, don't be to quick to take a simple look at having more or less governments. That's how Harris failed! I've watched two major examples in my life. The first was in the 70's when Hamilton and its suburbs formed what was called Regional government. It was an extra layer of municipal government that was supposed to manage common problems and resources, like plowing, street building and maintenance, police and fire services and so on. The second was the actual amalgamation during Harris' term of Hamilton and its suburbs into one big city. Now it seemed like common sense that having one big government body instead of a bunch of smaller ones would be more efficient. Why have a handful of police chiefs instead of just one? Wouldn't a larger body need only a smaller amount of bureaucrats? Wouldn't a common snow plowing department need a few less supervisors and even actual plows? Of course, nothing like that actually happened. We kept ALL the civil servants we had before and hired some more! We kept all the former city halls. Under regional government we kept all the police and fire chiefs. The overhead went up, not down! Cost savings were never realized. Because different areas had different needs we saw many silly decisions made, such as a leaf sucking machine going down country roads! We saw expensive equipment needed in a suburb area sold off because some inner city bureaucrat who had never saw the need for it in his balliwick saw no problem with dumping such for some quick money, then having to buy new equipment for much more cost. The examples are too numerous to count. The bitterness has never gone away between the suburbs and the inner city. It can't, really. The problem is that there are NO success stories! For the suburbs, taxes went up and services went down because of having fewer governments. If the new larger government could point to at least a couple of areas where citizens paid less and/or received better service then there would be some grudging acceptance but that has never been the case. With only negatives and no positives it becomes a mission of futility for politicians to try to get everyone within the new larger boundary to feel a sense of unity and civic pride. Every time such feelings do spring up some service gets eliminated or reduced, some tax is increased. So having MORE governments tends to be more efficient! This at first seems contrary to common sense but a bit of reflection makes things more clear. All governments tend to lack common sense! What's more, the larger a bureaucracy the more intelligence seems to be reduced. Bureaucracies have no interest in greater efficiencies if it means reducing their own size. Actually, they have no interest in efficiency at all. They merely pretend to care for political reasons. There's an old maxim that intelligence is a mathematical constant you divide by the number of people in a group. So if you increase the size of a bureaucracy the individual intelligence level gets lowered! Having more provincial governments would mean that the accompanying bureaucracy could focus on a smaller area of interest, giving it more and better attention. Just my humble opinion, but real world examples tend to support it!

To be fair, if we had decided the F35 was the plane for us we had no choice but to wait to see if the Americans would commit first! The plane would never have been built based on the size of order that Canada could place. It would be just too small.

Well, I for one wouldn't! First off, the UN is not some world government. It is a meeting house for a group of sovereign states. If the UN had declared the Iraq war illegal, the US would be under no legal obligation to obey. They would simply treat the UN position as an opinion, nothing more. This is a GOOD thing! Remember, the UN is often corrupt and its decisions hijacked by third world dictatorships. Most of them don't even pay their UN dues! They sure demand that they're listened to, however. Cheap bums with loud mouths, if you ask me. Before we could ever even imagine a world government we would have to have evolved to the point where we could put together enough sensible countries to make such a government work properly. I don't know when that will be but it certainly isn't NOW and it won't likely happen by next weekend!

Then you agree that their rate of change is negative? For that was my point. Centuries ago they did indeed contribute much that western culture adopted. Then they stopped! Since that time they have done nothing but take western oil technology and weapons. In Saudi Arabia, it is not their own citizens who build the roads and skyscrapers. They have to import all the labour from other cultures, the "grunt" level from the Third World and all the engineering and supervisors from western cultures. This is one of the attributes of a culture where religion dominates. Witness the Middle Ages in Christian Europe. The "Dark Ages" is the usual term! Fundamentalist Islam is essentially in its own Dark Ages, except for access to modern weapons. There is hope! Western culture with its luxuries and its freedoms is VERY attractive! Modern technology allows it to seep into even the most repressive cultures. If we can just get through the next decade or two without catastrophes that are too massive we may indeed achieve a blended "Star Trek" culture.

Yep, but what have they done lately? I agree Dave that western (really British) civilization cheerfully adopted many things from different cultures. That was one of its greatest strengths! It was that Utilitarian ethic that said "If it works, or works better than our way, then why not? That led to a drastically accelerated pace of change and improvement. Eventually, thanks to that sort of thinking we put a man on the Moon and perfected many medical methods that have drastically extended the human lifespan and comfort. Contrast that with some fundamentalist cultures, like that of the more strict Islamic ones. They haven't changed in a thousand years except to adopt the use of western weapons! Just for fun, try googling how many western books have been translated into Arabic and are sold in countries like Afghanistan or the Taliban areas of Pakistan. How many new things have been invented in those cultures today that are positive and are worth adopting?

I've always had a problem with this quirk of our legal system. Someone has to agree that the State was right and he was wrong before he can be eligible for any early parole or benefit. It's easy over a cut and dried case, like a robbery or an arson. Something like the Latimer situation is very different. It is a moral issue that cannot help but be intensely personal. I fail to see how some judicial bureaucrat could ever fully understand what Latimer and his daughter went through. What's more, when the justice system demands that Latimer agree with THEM as an expression of remorse it is implying that the justice system represents the mainstream morality of Canadian society. How do we know this to be true? We appoint our judges, for life. The bureaucrats are essentially picked for life. Anybody who belongs to a government union in practice falls into this category. Where does the moral view come from? Where is the input from mainstream Canadians? We never have a referendum or a plebiscite on such a legal position. In effect, the only moral values involved are those of the judges. The legal bureaucrats just follow along. We don't even allow politicians to impose their own personal morality upon us all and we get to choose them by election! Yet these few judges can insist that a Latimer or some other like them must conform to THEIR moral compass! I can understand how Latimer cannot do it. I don't think that I could do it either, at least not without feeling like a hypocrite for the rest of my life. I would never have imprisoned Latimer and it would seem that I am far from the only Canadian who feels so. Am I in the majority or the minority? How can we even tell? Does our "system" even give a damn?

Actually, I never said that the reason I could not switch to Ignatieff was that I found him to be too leftwing. I just don't find him to be much of anything! He flip flops, he caves, he rants and roars only to duck a vote so that he won't force an election. He is gauche enough to screw his country out of a UN seat just for a cheap partisan attack on Harper's government. I wouldn't switch to the Liberal party for any sense of left or right. To me, they and their leader simply seem incompetent. However, if you wait a few minutes that can change!

Radical? That was never anything I said. What I implied and said was that the federal NDP is simply goofy! If we needed a bridge the CPC would be concerned about the cost. The Liberals would be concerned about who's brother-in-law got the most contracts. The NDP would want to ensure that the engineers were chosen not from a list of the most capable but rather from those engineers representing minority groups, who received their degrees from an affirmative action program.

Oh, I don't know! I've voted Liberal before and could see myself doing it again. Just not with Ignatieff and his present bunch! There was a time when Liberals were Blue instead of left wing, you know! It's important to understand that Canadian parties really don't have a fixed ideology. True, things have stayed pretty well on the right side with the Tories this past decade or so but they too have slipped a bit left towards the middle. Mulroney's party and that of Joe Clark was rather pink at times. So if you hang around long enough everything changes! It's like the old joke about Vancouver weather - if you don't happen to like it then just wait a few minutes and it will change. The Liberals and Conservatives are like a professional sports team. The players and coaching strategy changes drastically over the years but they always wear the same jerseys. I guess what I'm really saying is that you can't keep judging a party by its words. It's actions can be widely at variance and that is the ONLY true measure! I will state that I'm too old to ever likely to vote NDP before I die. Philosophically, I have never thought socialism to be a practical approach. Once again, it's the techie in me. I just don't see it working efficiently! What's more, the Canadian socialist party which is the NDP seems even more so. They talk about noble goals but rarely talk any practical way to achieve them, IMHO. They ignore reality and live on dreams. Worse yet, they've shown no signs of changing with the times. The NDP is NOT the party of Tony Blair! I'm talking federally, of course. Out west there are and have been practical NDP governments but they are nothing like their federal cousins. So never say never, Nick! If the CPC were to revert to a Joe Clark approach at the same time as the Liberals choosing a leader more like Pearson and I would switch with no problem! If you wanted to amend your premise to say that Wild Bill would always find leftwing parties to smell worse then I would agree with you.

Isn't it obvious? All the other guys smell worse!

If Iran started attacking oil tankers willy nilly, would that not be considered a declaration of war against each and every country that was operating one of those tankers? In effect, would Iran not be building up a considerable number of enemies besides Israel and/or the US? Would not some of these countries be Iran's own Arab neighbours? Would this be a positive move for Iran's interests?

Why should we have to spend the time and effort, Jack? Wouldn't it be easier to just give Toronto the boot?

We should keep in mind that it was McGuinty who claimed that the PCs had left him with that 5.6 Billion deficit. Eves people didn't agree. There are different ways of totaling up the numbers and when McGuinty made that claim the conservatives were very irate and swore that he was fudging the books! Seems for the past few years every new government has made the same claim about being left with a deficit from the previous guys. Since none of them are a trustworthy bunch I see no reason to believe McGuinty anymore than I believed Mulroney...

So? Caledonia's criminals love him! The man seems to be willing to pick and choose who is under the law and who isn't. Likely in Caledonia he was doing what McGuinty told him. To me, that is even more reason not to respect him! He played a numbers game! He obviously felt it was worth throwing a small number of citizens to the wolves to prevent a large scale escalation that the province was not willing to handle! He seems to think that this approach was a success. I guess it depends on your philosophy of governance. Some of us think that EVERY citizen is entitled to the protection of the law, even if that means you must go to extraordinary lengths to protect that right! Fantino seems to believe that the right to protection of the law is a mere expedient. I despise his attitude! I've lost some respect for the CPC for even adopting him!

You know, 'Justme' and I disagree on some pretty basic fundamentals. I believe in a Star Trek Universe of all races living together and that when you mix people love will always bridge racial differences. In fact, I believe that nature has programmed us to be attracted to the exotic, to encourage widening the gene pool. Every animal breeder knows that mongrels tend to be healthier and that if you breed overly pure you get genetic problems and a weaker animal. That being said, I think you guys are being virtually all emotional and not at all logical in your attacks on his arguments! When he says that only white countries encourage immigration and even marriage of other races, look around you! He's right! When he says that most of the non-white countries have attitudes and policies that discriminate against whites he might be exaggerating the numbers somewhat but you guys are all dumping on him as if there are NO such countries! That is obviously false! This does NOT mean I support the kind of world that 'Justme' is proposing! As I said, I'm in favour of a 'mixed' society. Also, just because a society is 'mixed' doesn't automatically mean that the races will immediately try to breed out all differences. Large numbers of people will always feel more comfortable with partners of their own race. Mixed marriages don't have to be mandatory! I just think that people should be allowed to make their own choices with their love life and social groups. It really shouldn't be that big a deal. What we SHOULD be doing is trying to export OUR values onto other cultures! I happen to believe that our white culture's racial tolerance is a strength, not a weakness as it appears 'Justme' does. I do NOT believe that all cultures are equally positive in all their facets. I believe that it is OUR culture that has brought about the living standard so many human beings enjoy today. We have every right to be proud! It's just that doesn't mean we should be exclusive. We should welcome people to the POV of our culture and encourage them to become more like us. I think most of the posters on this thread are so quick to dump on someone for being a racist because they believe that somehow this will make them NOT racists! You don't build yourself up by putting someone else down. Some of the points 'Justme' has expressed are obviously true. Mocking him for a cheap laugh is totally ad hominem and not a worthy form of debate. I would have expected it more of "rubble.com" than MLW. He's got some points! You don't have to accept his 'pur laine' POV but when a point is valid then deal with it!

Your question has more than one aspect. Living out on the Prairies allows you to consider it just a moral question. It's a bit less academic here in Ontario. You see, tobacco is a HUGE industry here on native reserves! It's officially admitted that at least half of all cigarettes sold in Ontario are contraband, from native factories. If the governments made tobacco illegal do you think the natives would just cheerfully close their factories? Do you think ANY party in power in Ottawa wants anything to do with an armed conflict that would make Oka look like a tea party? It ain't gonna happen, period and end of story!

August, I saw the electricity reference in the press release over the company's move. The Stoney Creek Dairy had been a community fixture since 1929. It had a hugely popular ice cream bar. People would drive for miles to get there in "Happy Days" times and its milk products ruled the local market. Over the past few years the dairy had financial problems and started changing owners. The present one is from Quebec and they made the decision to close the dairy, keeping only the store front for dairy products made in Quebec. One of the key points in the press release was SPECIFICALLY the price of electricity, water, taxes and such! http://www.thespec.com/news/business/article/14168--high-costs-forced-stoney-creek-dairy-out "Gaucher said several factors combined to make the Stoney Creek ice-cream plant uncompetitive -- taxes and electricity bills were almost twice what he pays in Montreal and the cost of city water was $8,000 a year in Montreal compared with $100,000 a year here. In addition, the local plant's lack of warehousing space added $250,000 a year in costs. "All of that is extra cost that doesn't add any value to the product that I can charge for," he said. "Altogether my costs of production in Stoney Creek were almost twice what they are in Montreal, and pennies count in this business."

How about Robbie Robertson of The Band? Or Graham Greene, the respected actor who started out as a rock and roll roadie in the glory years of Crowbar and Ronnie Hawkins? Or that new kid, Derek Miller, who looks fabulous on stage and plays even better? Culture? More than that! People like these have contributed directly to our nation's soul!

Tobacco might not be the best example, Bonam. The official word here in Ontario is that at least half of all cigarettes consumed are contraband. Smoking rates have hit a plateau for some years and among teens the habit has actually grown somewhat, due to the cheap and easy availability of native smokes. The high price of legal smokes is almost entirely due to taxes. Forgive me for picking apart your model and not your point but I just thought it should be pointed out.

Found this article today and thought I'd toss it here onto the fire! http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100058265/us-physics-professor-global-warming-is-the-greatest-and-most-successful-pseudoscientific-fraud-i-have-seen-in-my-long-life/ "Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society." "It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist." Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making) The entire letter is about a page or two long. It's well worth clicking on the link and reading the whole thing.

Sounds simple enough to do on an Excel spreadsheet...

You know Max, backing Fantino would seem to indicate that Harper and his boys don't see any Caledonia baggage. At least, not enough to matter outside of the Caledonia area. They may be right. As a people we Canadians never seem to care about our fellow citizens outside our immediate area. Or it may be another example of how everything is run from Calgary, where almost no one has any clue about what's happening in the East. Back in the Reform days when I was a local riding director we used to bang our heads against the wall in frustration over Calgary HQ insisting on being a backseat driver who doesn't know the route!

As for protecting our jobs, that's one of the functions of government. I don't respect government doing a job that could be done by private enterprise. However, relationships with other countries are not a job for privatization. I EXPECT government to handle defense, diplomacy and trade relationships! Suggesting that being pro privatization means government should do NOTHING is just silly! Why, if that were the case why should we pay taxes? I would agree with completely FAIR trade! That's the problem. As I had said, we haven't had any such agreements as yet. It always seems like we get an unfair deal, especially when Chretien used to trade away jobs for status at the UN. When we put "green" costs on our steel or ban pesticides that increase crop yields yet let other countries with no such extra costs cheerful access to our domestic market that's NOT fair trade! When we allow countries to fill our WalMarts while they keep our stuff out of theirs, that's NOT fair trade! When we allow American truckers to operate in Canada who can depreciate their capital costs of having the truck far faster and to a greater degree than our boys, is it any wonder that our guy are less competitive at contracts WITHIN Canada? Again, that's NOT fair trade! Don't get me started on softwood lumber! Why on earth would Layton be a better match for me? He and his people have always looked at business like a vampire at a fat lady with high blood pressure!

Yes, immigrants both produce and consume. So what? What's important is the ratio. If one immigrant produces and 100 consume is that as positive as the other way around? Primary industries of course keep an economy going! They provide the need for the secondary ones. If someone produces oil then someone has to make oil cans. If someone makes cars for us to buy then they also provide jobs for licence examiners. If someone raises a cow then they create a job for someone else to produce excessive amounts of styrofoam for packaging. As for RIM, I've seen the production lines myself and sold them parts to go into their products. Don't bother demanding a cite. I've touched them! That's enough proof for me. GNP/GDP was indeed my error. Doesn't change my point, though. Both acronyms end in PRODUCT and not just JOBS! As for trade agreements and turning back the clock, I have nothing against Free Trade agreements for Canada. When are we going to get some? The ones so far all have seemed to be rigged deals where our negotiators got "snookered". Mulroney killed much of our manufacturing in favour of import warehouses, where the terms were not equally favourable for a Canadian country to do the same down South. Chretien and his gang gave all the Northern Telecom manufacturing to China, for intangible political gains and for large sums of money that no longer were used for Canadian payrolls. As for being a Conservative, I've stated many times that I am not! Folks like you keep insisting on calling me one. I guess the modern definition of a Conservative is someone who doesn't agree with everything that's modern liberal. Once again, for lack of a better definition, I'm more of a Libertarian with a streak of rational anarchist. Although I differ in some areas, I can get along with a Randite. (Thanks to Bob Heinlein for educating me!)