Wild Bill

And if the shopkeeper had NOT detained him, would the police have caught him? Would the robber have been arrested? Would he have faced ANY consequence for his illegal actions at all? Guyser, it sure sounds like you prefer that victims just lie there and bleed quietly. If the police do nothing then that's just too bad! Making your own videotape that police can later ignore is hardly a solution. I believe that the State has obligations to its citizens. If it doesn't fulfill them then citizens have less obligation to the State!

http://news.sympatico.cbc.ca/local/on/toronto_grocer_says_police_would_let_thieves_go/bfda46ea "David Chen, the co-owner of the Lucky Moose Food Mart on Dundas Avenue West near Spadina Avenue, said shoplifting had become such a serious problem that he felt the installation of a $30,000 surveillance system was a sound investment. Testifying for the first time in his trial, Chen said through a Cantonese interpreter that he repeatedly called police about shoplifting incidents. But officers would take up to five hours to respond, only to let the shoplifters leave with a warning to never return, he said. *** Chen testified that Bennett punched and kicked him during the tussle, and that he and his nephew subsequently tied Bennett up. They then locked him in the back of a delivery van with the intention of taking him to another location so they could hold him for the police, Chen said. But police intercepted the van as it started to move, Chen said, and arrested Bennett, Chen, his nephew Jia Chen and cousin Chin Li." If this is indeed the way police have prioritized store robberies in this area then only an idiot of a storekeeper would have any faith in the police! Let's hope this case gets a HUGE amount of publicity! Sounds like the Toronto police have taken a Caledonia approach to crime, i.e. if they ignore it and no one hears the victims then it never happened! This is what happens when police chiefs are beholden to politicians first instead of the Law. At least the Americans let ordinary citizens pick their police chiefs. Here it's up to politicians like David Miller.

Further reports have revealed that this is not a one-time incident. The police have a history of making robberies in this area a very low priority. Perhaps you'd care to tell us just what those 'options' are? And why a citizen should have to go to such lengths on his own?

And apparently they tied him up with duct tape and tossed him in a van to take him to the police station. Now it was also said that they hit him and made him "afraid". Who said that? The perp himself! A man who has had a ridiculous number of prior convictions, had robbed the store just an hour before and had come back to rob some more, by his own admission! Sounds like you've said "the hell with..." some facts of your own, guyser. This is getting to be all too common a story. The State fails in its duties to citizens, leaves them with no alternative but vigilantism and then when the citizens defend themselves the State comes down harder on them than the real criminals! Anybody want to discuss the term "consent to be governed" and what it means when the State gets that derelict in its duties?

Once again, I do not follow your reasoning. Are you implying that if the state does not do its job the shopkeeper should just sit there and be a victim, repeatedly if necessary?

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101006/full/news.2010.519.html "At face value, the data seem incredibly important," says Michael Lockwood, a space physicist at the University of Reading, UK. "If solar activity is out of phase with solar radiative forcing, it could change our understanding of how processes in the troposphere and stratosphere act to modulate Earth's climate." Some meteorologists believe, for example, that during phases of low solar activity, 'blocking events' — unusual patterns in westerly air currents that can cause cold snaps and freak weather in Europe — occur more frequently. A blocking event is thought to have caused the southward transport of ash clouds following the eruption in March of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which disrupted air traffic throughout Europe. But any links between recent weather anomalies and possible peculiarities in the current solar cycle are speculative for now, says Lockwood." Just going back to the OP and throwing some more fuel on the flames...

Ah, no! Just ask David Chen, a Toronto Chinatown grocery store owner. A thief stole from him and had the nerve to come back an hour later to try to steal some more! David chased him, tied him up and threw him in the back of his van and called police. The police promptly charged David with assaulting the thief! http://www.albertalocalnews.com/reddeeradvocate/news/national/Store_owner_charged_in_citizens_arrest_on_trial_104490629.html "The accused have said they were simply making a citizen’s arrest, and Chen’s lawyer says he never should have been charged. At issue is the fact that Chen did not catch Bennett red-handed, but about an hour after he had shoplifted. The law states you can only make a citizen’s arrest when you catch someone in the act. Bennett testified that he stole flowers from Chen’s store in May 2009 and then came back later to try and steal more. A silent surveillance video played in court Wednesday showed Bennett running off after Chen calmly approached him, touched his shoulder and pointed towards his store. Bennett said he panicked and ran down the alley, and that’s when three men chased him. “All three of them started duct taping and then started twining my legs up and my hand,” Bennett said, complaining of a thumb injury that he claimed lasted for “months and months.” “They hit me a few times on the way in while they were trying to subdue me.” He testified that he didn’t fight back because he was afraid those who tied him up would grow “more violent.” Now we all know that Toronto is a bit squirrelish anyhow but still, they do tend to be trendsetters for legal silliness across the nation. Similar cases have happened before. There was one a few years ago about a jewelry store owner in Cambridge, Ontario. He had been robbed so many times that he could no longer get business insurance, at any price! So he fired a shotgun loaded with rocksalt at a robber. He deliberately fired too low, hoping to scare the perp. Unfortunately for the store owner, some of the rocksalt pellets richocetted up and hit the perp in the leg. The store owner was also charged and it was pointed out in some newspaper reports that he faced more severe penalties for a few grains of rock salt than did the robber for stealing jewelry! As usual, most Canadians are blissfully unaware that this is how far things have gone. We don't pay any attention unless and until it happens to us. Then we get frustrated because no one else will believe us! It's just the Canadian way, I guess.

How? That's a tough one. This situation has grown up over the years as we have had more and more of a disconnect between the mainstream population's concept of justice and that of those in the "system" who actually control it. It breeds disrespect and a lack of confidence in the 'system' to protect us. After all, if you stop and apprehend someone who is stealing from you and YOU get charged how on earth can you keep confidence? There was a quick panel discussion on my local TV station last evening about this issue. The 'defendant' for the 'system' kept saying that we Canadians had chosen to accept life sentences over capital punishment. Now I don't know about you but I don't remember ever being asked for my opinion on that topic. I don't remember ever having it as a major campaign plank either. The Liberals just up and did it! Of course, you could vote against them the following election but that argument is always specious. A voter has to weigh ALL the planks! We vote in an entire party's package and rarely have the luxury of a 'line item veto'. The interviewer also challenged the representative over the meaning of a 'life' sentence, which of course in Canada is not life at all but rather 25 years or shorter, depending on parole factors. The fact that multiple murderers serve all their murder convictions at the same time rather than consecutively was also brought up, as something at odds with the mainstream concept of justice. The representative never really did answer these points! Instead, he started ranting about 'vigilantes bearing torches' and lynch mobs. He actually said that one of the problems with our system is that we listen to much to 'emotional' victims who just want revenge and for that reason should be barred from the process! I dunno, Wyly. It's just nuts!

True, in the strictest sense. Still, the fact that smart meters are being used DOES influence demand! People know that they will pay a higher price at high noon than at midnight. That encourages people to shift their demand to a less expensive time of day. We're arguing definitions and semantics but the net effect is the same.

Merci, M Canadien! It's starting to make sense. I'm not entirely convinced about every specific point but overall I'm beginning to understand, thanks to posts like yours!

Does it? "7. The Trustees of Separate Schools forming a body corporate under this Act, shall have the power to impose, levy and collect School rates or subscriptions, upon and from persons sending children to, or subscribing towards the support of such Schools, and shall have all the powers in respect of Separate Schools, that the Trustees of Common Schools have and possess under the provisions of the Act relating to Common Schools. 20. Every Separate School shall be entitled to a share in the fund annually granted by the Legislature of this Province for the support of Common Schools, and shall be entitled also to a share in all other public grants, investments and allotments for Common School purposes now made or hereafter to be made by the Province or the Municipal authorities, according to the average number of pupils attending such school during the twelve next preceding months, or during the number of months which may have elapsed from the establishment of a new Separate School, as compared with the whole average number of pupils attending School in the same City, Town, Village or Township." The first paragraph seems to me to be saying that Separate School Trustees had the right to collect their own levees upon those sending children to Separate schools. I can still remember when that was the case. I had understood at that time that was how their system was funded. Obviously, they needed to collect their own levees if they weren't getting common money. The second paragraph says they are "entitled to a share" and that share is proportionate to their number of pupils as compared to the entire average number of pupils in that community. Again, not being a lawyer where I need clarification is the meaning of "entitled to a share". I don't see anything that defines how large that share actually is! It doesn't seem to say EQUAL share! It just says "a share", multiplied by the number of separate school pupils as a percentage of the student whole. This makes more sense. If they were always entitled to an equal share then why did Bill Davis have to change anything? They already would have had equal funding! It's not that I really care one way or the other but it does seem obvious that despite any argument as to the Catholics having some long standing historical right, to give funding to one religious group and not all the others is simple discrimination, by definition. Constitutional arguments are simply saying that we have enshrined such discrimination in our constitution! The Reform Party wanted to institute a voucher system, where parents would get a voucher equivalent to the tax funding alloted for every child they had in school and they would have the choice to give it to any school they wished. If enough of a particular religion lived in a community to have their own school then so be it. If not, it could be used for some home-schooling fund. For mainstream schools, if parents felt there was a problem at a specific school and the administration was not listening to them they could take their voucher to another school! Needless to say, teachers' unions were horrified at the very idea of parents getting such a choice!

Scrib, some years ago I had an argument with a local RC bishop about the funding issue and he made the BNA Act claim that they were entitled to the money. So I went home and d/l'd the damn thing! I read the Act from top to bottom. Nowhere did I find anything saying they were entitled to money! It was quite clear that they were entitled to their worship, churches and schools. I just couldn't find anything that mentioned funding. To be fair, I couldn't find anything guaranteeing funding for the public school system either! It was very early in our history and things hadn't developed completely at that time. I saw that bishop again and told him what I had found. He promptly made the claim that guaranteeing the right to HAVE schools was exactly equivalent to FUNDING such schools! I told him that seemed an unsubstantiated stretch and he didn't want to argue anymore. I've told this story on MLW before and of course some disagreed with me but so far no one has quoted me the specific words in the British North American Act that say "Catholics get money!" Being a layman it's possible that it does say specifically that and I missed it. If so, I would appreciate someone more learned to make the specific quote.

I just don't see how this could ever work! You're talking about a political attempt to institute a market system. Such an idea would always be doomed to failure. You see, the price would either be set by the market or by politicians. Clearly, the market has no interest in carbon trading or it would have done it long ago. That means pricing must be controlled, at least initially, by governments. Governments are incapable of running a free market system! Their problem is that they can never resist playing with the market factors. Pricing will be altered for different cases. A country would be designated as a "disadvantaged", Third World player and given a preferred price. Another country that has much political antagonism from numerous middle eastern countries, like Israel or Uncle Sam, will be penalized, under some trumped up charge that they "have had an historical unfair advantage that must be redressed". If politics tinkers too much with a free market system it just breaks down. You may have a good idea but it is more a dream than a practical one. Where is the impartial administrator of a carbon trading scheme? Strip away the rhetoric and carbon trading is really just one more attempt at a "planned economy". I thought everyone had seen how well that works when the USSR collapsed.

So who is asking them to shut down any power plants? If they have a surplus then fewer people would get off the main grid. It must make sense under the American way or they wouldn't have growing numbers of people doing it. Still, if too many people are running 2-way meters with no battery bank and it gets to be a problem for the main utility then at that time decisions can be made to either upgrade the system or stop allowing people to sell surplus power back. By that time hopefully systems will have progressed to the point where people may go that final step and generate all their personal needs themselves and forget about the grid. Remember, the official goals are (so we're told, anyway!) are to have more power generated by individual and small sites to accumulate into a respectable portion of the total supply and also to generate more renewable, "green" power. If it grows and becomes a problem like you suggest it will be very amusing to hear how the "powers that be" prattle around it! The question is moot, anyway. As I described, McGoofy has come up with a rigged system for Ontario that keeps people ON the grid! The only alternative is to find ways to do it all on our own.

Not at all! You could simply have a standard interface to provide isolation and metering between an individual's generating system and the main grid. You could have a quick inspection for the final connect, just as we do with connecting a new home to the grid. It doesn't have to be all the same approved equipment and only approved contractors. It's just an expression of the rule-bound mentality here in Ontario, if not Canada. All those American states don't seem to be having such problems and the number of people developing systems to get off the grid keeps increasing. As I said, initiative and innovation versus the ONTARIO way! Make it so rule-bound and bureaucratic that you stifle it.

This is an interesting point! After reading up on McGoofy's MicroFit program for those wanting to generate wind and solar power themselves it's pretty obvious that the LAST thing his government wants is people finding ways to get off the grid entirely! When you try to generate your own wind and solar power one of the first problems you come up against is the need for a battery sink. The average household might need 10 kilowatt hours of power daily but most of the time it needs only a fraction of that. Running a few lights is "mice nuts" of a power drain. Kick on your electric stove to make supper and there's 3-5 kilowatts happening right there! Add a washer or dryer and you're up to your peak but when you shut of the TV and go to sleep your power consumption drops to a pittance, except for when your furnace blower motor kicks on. It's dumb design to make a wind or solar panel generating system that can deliver the peak power at any given time. It would be horrendously expensive! What you do instead is set up a bank of batteries to store up all that power during the times you're not needing it. The battery bank just has to be big enough to store electricity to get you through cloudy or calm days. That will still be larger than you might think and will cost you several thousand dollars for batteries alone. When you need power for your dryer you draw from the battery, not the main generator. When the dryer is finished the generator goes back to charging up the battery. For a couple of decades now many American states have offered another solution. They let you use the existing power grid for your battery bank! They do this with a 2-way meter. When you need power you draw it from your system. If you need more than your system can supply then you get the extra from the main power grid. During the time when you aren't drawing much power your system feeds the power grid, effectively "driving the meter backwards". This can drastically cut your power bill and perhaps even let you run a profit! It's a wonderful way to encourage people to innovate and construct their own alternative power generating systems. Now let's look at the McGoofy solution! First off, you have to understand that the LAST thing he wants is large numbers of people getting off the grid! That's because we still have about $30 BILLION dollars of stranded debt from all those years of using the nuclear power plants for patronage appointments and a perpetual trough of tax money for everyone involved. That debt is slowly being paid off as a surcharge on your monthly bill, along with separate charges for carrying the power on the transmission lines and any other excuse they can think up! You could use ZERO electricity and still have a considerable bill each month, simply for the 'privilege' of being connected to the main grid of a big massive power company linked to the provincial government. Those people who signed up for to produce their own power don't get a 2-way meter! Instead, their regular power system stays the same. They continue to draw their home power from the main grid and pay the Ontario Power Corp that inflated bill every month! The power they produce has an entirely separate path with its own meter to feed into the grid. You will be paid for it and you don't need a battery bank, since ALL of it goes into the grid, ALL the time! Hopefully, you will get paid more for your solar or wind power than you're paying for your residential power from the grid. It has to be a LOT more 'cuz your generating system is rather expensive. It might take 10-15 years to break even and start showing a profit! Meanwhile, your system CAN'T provide power for yourself! It's not hooked up to do it and there's no battery bank. You still get your regular bill and pay all those surcharges. Are you thinking that you have a lot of personal experience with electrical systems and could save money building some or all of your generating station yourself? Forget it! McGoofy has already blocked that idea! Only 'approved' contractors are allowed to install 'approved' equipment into such a system. That means you can only buy their stuff at their prices and pay them whatever they ask to install it for you. It shows a completely different philosophical approach to the problem. The American way encourages self-initiative and innovation. The Ontario way encourages forever relying on a huge universal power company! There are numbers of people out there handy with this stuff. They scrounge suitable batteries from golf cart service companies. They make their own wind generators and find cheap sources of used solar cells. They even make their own power regulators and inverters! It's not that big a deal if you're an electronics buff. They've realized that the biggest cost savings for themselves can only come from getting totally off the government grid! Then they can kiss all those surcharges goodbye! The problem is that it is far easier to do such homebrew stuff if you live in a more rural setting. For the average city homeowner it's a far more ambitious project and not really practical as yet. Of course, for an apartment dweller there's no relief at all! A breakthrough in battery technology could really lower the entry costs for an independent home-based alternative power system. Electric and hybrid cars may prove to be the answer after they have been around for 5-10 years. If they become cheap enough from autowreckers they might be very useful hooked up to a roof-top wind turbine! I wish I was younger! I'd build them for friends and charge them nothing for the labour, just to stick it to people like McGoofy who rig the "system" to keep us forever captive to them!

Michael, I don't respect where India has BEEN! That doesn't mean I can't agree that they have made some progress and hopefully will do more in the future. The state of the facilities for the Commonwealth Games is a disappointment. If you can't understand the difference between the American situation and that of India then I will never make you understand. I almost think you are hardwired to believe that all cultures are equally positive, in any context. I believe that to be a fallacy. Whatever! On to the next flame! Let's blame Harper for tsunamis! Let's label Ignatieff un-Canadian for living so long abroad, while we cheer for Jim Carey and Bill Shatner! I'm still disappointed we didn't get more support for Katy Perry playing tag with Elmo...

You're nitpicking, Michael. Picking apart my model while ignoring my points. I had thought better...

If I understand you correctly, you would consider our situation where such things have occurred on a rare and infrequent basis as equivalent to the situation in India? In other words, if it is "situation normal" for India but it also has occurred at least ONCE in Canada then both countries are the same? If that's your position there's little point in arguing. Canada and India both have some of the same letters in their name, you know.

Congratulations!

Harris keeping the dumb promises is your opinion, Max. This is the inherent point of this thread. I said earlier that virtually all the Harris slamming I've heard since he left came from the same folks that hated him BEFORE he took power! We have never tested how the electorate truly rated his style of government. Eves was a weak offering and it was a good time for someone new anyway. Would Hudak have handled the HST the same way? Maybe. I like to think that he would have put in a few exemptions in some key areas to reduce the bite on essentials. The same with the smart meters. Its not so much what Dalton has done as how he implements things. He always just seems to ram the square peg in the round hole and "Devil take the hindmost". Afterwards we have people hurting and yelling and he and his people seem genuinely surprised! Then he goes about damage control after the fact, like with proposals to help folks on fixed incomes with their electricity bills. I mean, even a high school kid could have seen how his electricity strategy was going to hurt those seniors! It makes it look like the Liberals really don't have a clue what they are doing, like a chess player who may start a good move but can't think more than one move ahead at a time. At the risk of starting some flames, its as if Ontario is being run by teachers, who know what the book says but have "never actually DONE it!" A minority? I don't think so but I wouldn't be surprised. I sense actual anger building towards the Liberals. That's different than what's happening at the federal level, where what we actually have building is boredom! Angry voters make large voting swings. I won't agree that most of what Harris did was dumb but I will agree that when he blew it he blew it BIGTIME, like with amalgamation!

Context, Michael! Perhaps I should have added "...when so many of those people are starving!" The USA didn't have to choose between starvation or the Bomb. That was the moral choice I was trying to highlight. Since the USA could afford to do both the question wasn't relevant.

Where did it say that, Max?

Michael, YOU are the one stating MY principles! I may have not been as good as I could have been at defining them for you in my posts but I don't think it fair that YOU get to define MY principles and then call me down for not living up to them! It would be more fair to state that I did not make my principles as clear to you as I should then to make me responsible for not living up to YOUR definition!

Hey, I've always liked Rush! You have to take him with a grain of salt. He is, after all, a pumped up media figure given to hyperbole. Still, he provides some balance and he CAN be funny! Like anything else, it would be wrong to take his rants as gospel but once in a while he comes out with some zingers! I stopped listening to him and buying his books because I found him overall to be rather shallow and repetitive but still, I can enjoy catching his show a couple of times a year. One of his best quotes still sticks with me. "Symbolism over Substance!" when describing many "liberal" values. I see this in Canadian politics all the time. It goes well with my Liberal joke "It doesn't have to work as long as we can say we've got one!" It's just the techie in me, I guess!