Wild Bill

I ask you again, does the Earth care about all this? If CO2 is a true danger, is it ok to piss around with income redistribution schemes while emissions go UP? "Gee Martha! The Titanic is sinking but its ok! They took some money from the passengers in first class and gave it to those in steerage! Everything's ok! Go back to sleep!"

Wyly, do you consider Russia, China and India to be so backward as to deserve to be exempt? 'Cuz they're at the top of the list! And while some got rich selling carbon credits in actual fact the carbon released overall went UP! And this is ok? Just because a third world country did it? Do you really think the Earth gives a crap about politics? And did you read the opening post? Talk about a scam!

Shouldn't you provide some context for your statements? When you visited all those cities, just what did you do while you were there? Some of us might be attending Ozzfest. I suspect you may have been a polka fiend, following Walter Ostanek as he toured across the country. Perhaps you are a polka clarinet player yourself? Or maybe you are an aficionado of boy bands. Different strokes for different folks. Boring people bring it with them.

Personally, I think it is all Mike Harris' fault. Or perhaps the white man!

This is unfortunate for those francophones in Calgary. Both of them!

jbg, Kyoto was just politicians jumping on a parade started by eco-evangelicals.It was obvious from the start that no one cared if the science was proven or the "solutions" workable. I read the damn thing from start to finish and was struck by how little was actually said about addressing global warming/climate change. All it seemed to talk about was economic redistribution from First World countries to the Third World. From the start it was an open door for corruption by any corporation or country that was so inclined. The eco-evangelicals likely were sincere but they were just so blissed out from drinking their Kool-Aid they were fleeced outrageously! Thank Heavens that Harper kept us the hell out of Kyoto! Just a con job by the usual leeches that would do little or nothing to accomplish its stated goal. If they truly wanted to save the planet they would have left NO exemptions for ANY country! Actual reductions would have been the goal, NOT ridiculous carbon trades that would not reduce anything but would make some pirates HUGE amounts of money!

If you have raw material and enough energy you can do whatever you need or want! As for how many people, remember we are not talking a 10 mile wide flat disc. We are talking about a big asteroid ten miles in diameter. That's 3D! Think about an apartment building that goes 10miles down into the ground and nearly the same forward, back and to the sides. That's a lot of room! Water and resources of course would be recycled. Most asteroids contain metals, minerals and often water. Space livers would not have only the tailings from their own digging to process. The Universe is full of other asteroids and material! Just reach out to another such asteroid and mine it for 100 years or more of supply. A sleeper ship only makes sense if you have an end destination, like a planet to colonize. If you live in space, why spend your life sleeping? I'm not saying it would be attractive to someone raised here on Earth. However, if you were born on a space colony and had an interesting life with lots of social interaction, useful work and enjoyable recreation you would never know what you were missing! Or give a damn, for that matter!

Or perhaps the teachers are simply losing public support because they are getting a better deal than most these days and even more, bitch about it! Is the media creating an impression or responding to one already there? Every parent who has experienced frustration on behalf of his child develops his own opinion. Too many teachers seem to have become so used to just telling children what to do that they think parents have to obey as well. Of course, they don't have to do anything of the kind! They may not have the power to change anything but that will do nothing to stop how they feel and what they will do if they ever get a chance to express that feeling.

So you think it "suffices to say" something that directly contradicts my own experience? Sorry eyeball, but it doesn't suffice for ME to just chuck everything I've seen and believe you just because you say so. Even if you bought me a beer, I would still need something a bit more fleshed out than that! You are not giving me reason. You are giving me your faith! Please don't bang on my door too early in the morning!

Why? Such a craft would be their home! We're talking hollowing out asteroids up to 10 MILES in diameter! That means CITIES of people in space! Do we need a religion to live in a city now? We are talking about hundreds, thousands, eventually uncounted millions of such cities in space. There are an infinite number of asteroid sized masses in the Universe. After you have built a few you can build as many as you want, forever! People would be born, live and die in such cities. They not only would not care about ever returning to the Earth, likely many if not most would eventually forget there ever was an Earth! Just as most folks today have no idea of how Man may have originated in Mesapotamia. Or even that there is somewhere once called Mesapotamia! Read the whole thread, eyeball. You are thinking WAY too small!

Alright eyeball, I'll give you that one. ONE! I'm almost 60 years old and I now have ONE! Got anymore?

Ditto, Tim. I too have never heard a damn thing but "NO" from the green movement. They offer only generalities as alternatives - dreams without specifics. However, they have no problem attacking any plan dreamed up by their opponents! That's because it is always easier to criticize than create. That is simple human nature. Eyeball, the onus of proof is on the side of the environmentalists! They are the ones attacking a positive, not trying to prove a negative. The ship is sinking. Some guys come up with a plan to bail the water out. The environmentalists try to shoot it down, with everything from the shape of the bucket to how the bailer is holding it! They never offer a practical plan for saving the ship! And the ship is still sinking! They shout out things they don't understand, like "Solar Power!" They have no idea of how solar power works or the problem of storing the power for use during the night. They don't care! They turn that back on the engineers and demand THEY come up with the solution! When you know little to nothing about the technical aspects of a problem it is easy for anyone with hair in their ears to just demand a magic solution.

Well eyeball, why are you wasting time talking to us? We can do nothing about such a problem! You have to convince all those populations in third world countries to first dramatically limit their reproduction and second, kill off any excess babies. Third, any excess babies that survive to adulthood must not be allowed to consume anything! Unless you have another idea that would WORK? Or just more wishes?

Wait until a parent senses his attitude and see what happens! As a rule, parents don't give a damn about teachers unions or principals telling them what they have to accept. Such attempts always seem to escalate and the MSM LOVES to publicize them!

You have put your finger on the Left's biggest blind spot, BB. In my whole life I have never heard any theory of wealth CREATION from the Left that made sense! Actually, I've never heard any wealth creation theory at all from the Left! They just seem to assume that some of us are genetically hardwired to create businesses and industry.Those people can be taken for granted to always be there. You can tax them and tie their hands as much as you like and they will never leave, for their genes leave them no choice but to keep doing what they do. Mind you, the Left always has incredibly detailed ideas about wealth REDISTRIBUTION! They may take the Little Red Hen for granted as someone who has no choice but to keep baking bread but they have a detailed system of how to take her bread and give it to as many other people as possible. So Lefties never even think about the contradiction about destroying industry and standards of living, BB. Perhaps their brains are genetically hardwired too!

Wait until he runs into a parent who doesn't appreciate socialist's political leanings affecting his child!

blueblood, did you actually read my post? I said nothing against free trade. I never mentioned Nafta, which only concerns north american trade. I ONLY spoke about deals with Europe that the Europeans don't always honour THEIR side of the bargain! That was the point of my post. I talked about apples and you start harping about oranges. Sheesh!

Too many countries in the EU have a strong sense of entitlement. In trade deals especially it has never worked out well for Canada. We can sign a deal opening up trade in agricultural goods only to see after a year or two that a country like France, afraid that it will have more farmers rioting in the streets, will renege on the parts of the deal that gave better access for Canadian goods into France. Meanwhile, they still expect that Canada will keep the doors open for THEIR stuff! For years we have been a door mat for these countries. Screw 'em and the horses they rode in on, I say. Letting ourselves get screwed is not a positive solution for anyone.

Again, we agree! Still, it's not hard to see why there is so little sense of cooperation between provinces. At the outset, Canada was a Confederation of equal provinces. It wasn't long before history fostered a sense in us of unity and patriotism for our country as a whole. Two world wars were a big part of that. I was a child in the 50's and 60's and I still vividly remember how we thought of ourselves as Canadians first. I hate to once again bring up the NEP but it is just too good an example of how things began to change. There was a new trend coming down from Ottawa that we were no longer a Confederation of equals but rather more of a federal state, of 10 provinces run by Ottawa. As time went on it became obvious that whichever party was in power in Ottawa didn't see this new power as something to be used for the overall good of Canada. Rather, it was something to use to play off different regions, favouring some at the expense of others to boost the electoral fortunes of the ruling party and keep them in power. So now the provinces look at Ottawa as an adversary, someone who will not hesitate to screw them blind if it would mean buying votes somewhere else in the country. Why should a province make a small sacrifice for the good of Canada as a whole? Odds are it will never be reciprocated. Nobody wants to belong to a club where your job is to pay dues so that the OTHER guys get to eat all the doughnuts! Folks like us here on MLW may kill chickens and read the entrails so that we know that this perception is not totally true or fair but the average BC voter never knows or thinks much about the rest of the country. He's heard about terrible oil spills and might not be hurting for a job or paying his taxes. So his attitude is to just leave things the way they are and keep any pipeline out. Why should he care about the rest of the country? Meanwhile, we all turn up our noses at the Americans for being too patriotic...

Quite true, punked! Sorry, I just used your post out of convenience, for the sake of others. Actually, the idea that we are using less because our industry is shutting down is pretty scary. I mentioned before I spent some time selling charity tickets to businesses at a call centre. You wouldn't believe how many plants were moving from Niagara Region over the border into upper New York. They all said the same thing, Since McGuinty came to power the cost of electricity has tripled! To them, the electricity bill is a big deal to feed all their machines. And the rate keeps going up!

Punked, unless you are a techie most people have little to no idea about the power breakdown in their home. Some things are trivial and some haven't change much in years The biggest user of electricity has to be an electric stove. When cooking supper it uses perhaps as much as a thousand CFLs! That's why forcing us to give up incandescent lamps always seemed to be a touchy feely smoke screen to me. Next comes anything with a motor, such as a furnace, washing machine, refrigerator, dehumidifier and whatnot. perhaps as much as a few hundred or more CFLs. Then comes lighting. Changing over all those old bulbs to CFLs saved maybe enough to buy a beer or two every month, if that. Last comes all the standby power drains from tvs and such that are "instant on". Despite those outright lies implied on the OPG tv commercials, ALL of them in your house might add up to a couple of AA batteries worth! The only place for any reduction is with the motors and the efficiency of refrigerators and clothes dryers. Add in the new DC motors with the new furnaces. That's it! All this is just residential, of course, If you have a steel smelter or an aluminum manufacturer in town then you can pretty well ignore the power draw of the entire town population! Power demand will only go up, not down. Not unless we all revert to a Little House on the Prairie lifestyle.

Sounds like you are a fan of Spider Robinson! I've always found the idea of a Singularity to be a bit of a stretch but I can accept that if it were possible and cheap enough it would include everyone. Leaves out the protection of using a "B" Ark, though.

Punked, the demand keeps constantly rising! We have already flogged the conservation horse almost to death. CFLs and lighting was always the mice nuts part of the electricity bill anyway. Population keeps growing. People need a roof over their head. That means more refrigerators, stoves, furnace motors and all the other stuff. Add electric cars into the mix that need charging every night and it will never stop! Do you have any cites to prove this idea that usage is dropping? As a techie type, I just don't see how that can be true. We MIGHT see a small dip if factories are shut down for the recession but as soon as we get back on our feet demand will go through the roof! Do you have any idea how much electricity even one arc furnace in a steel mill draws?

August, you seem to have ignored my earlier point that the animosity towards Quebec over the Churchill Falls deal had nothing to do with charging for transportation but rather for Quebec getting 95 cents of every dollar, leaving Newfoundland only a nickel, for decades and decades! I would appreciate an answer. Your silence is damning! Also, in our previous thread on this subject you railed against Newfoundland choosing to lay an underwater cable into Nova Scotia to reach the US market that way. Is it not good business to ignore Quebec if it is not competitive? From the tone of your arguments in this thread and others you seem to come across as a "laissez-faire" capitalist except where your own province is concerned!

Oh dear, Derek! You had to use the 'C' word! Now I can't help but start to wonder. If I were running a country that finds its rivals are building a plane much more advanced than anything I had at the moment, perhaps even more advanced than anything I have "coming down the pipe", would it not make sense to do whatever I could to slow down or perhaps even prevent the rival's plane from ever being deployed? Like I said, I can't help but wonder. There has never been a shortage of "useful idiots" on the left...