Wild Bill

I agree with you about "not sweating the small stuff" and also about having a sense of humour. Still, I am not talking as much about those on the left or the right as I am with those who are simply RUDE! Despite actually being a classic Liberal I have been tagged as on the right for so long I no longer have the energy to make an issue over it. That doesn't mean I mind talking with people of different persuasion. Leftwing friends help challenge my views and "keep them honest". I would find nothing more boring than being in a large group who thought exactly the same as me! I also don't think there is a bias as to who gets reported. Some of our rightwing posters should have been tarred and feathered, by my lights. Extremists of both sides tend to be irritating, at the least. No Msj, I'm talking about courtesy, manners and outright rudeness. There are a few posters who just happen to seem to be lefties who are VERY rude and yet have been getting away with it for some months now. Peeves has been just one of the targets and IMHO he has every right to be thoroughly "urinated"! I know I am! If someone in real life implied I was a racist or held racist views I would consider a legal challenge. When I was younger I might have just pasted him! Yet I never thought it would become the norm here on MLW. So without explicitly naming names, I'm talking about insulting posters who never get warnings. I'm talking about situations where when a target finally blows his top and retaliates it is HE who gets a warning! I don't think it is a deliberate policy so much as just a supervisory "blindness". It's like when a child is repeatedly bulliied on a school playground and teachers never notice it. Then one day a teacher sticks his or her nose outside and sees the bullied child haul off and slug his attacker. You know what always happens. It is the bullied child who gets the reprimand! Or at least, both do under some sanctimonious idea that "it takes two to fight!". That's nonsense, of course. It only takes one to hit and another to stand there and take it! I'm just pointing out what I see as a negative trend in common manners on MLW and a desire to have it reversed. Left or right poltical views have nothing to do with it! Take Mad Max, for example. He's an unabashed lefty but a very thoughtful and courteous poster! We should have him cloned!

We have had some talk in one of the threads about a perceived bias in the moderating here on MLW that has seemed to be developing over the last year. Basically, it has to do not so much with left or right (although that's part of it) as with allowing the level of personal insults to rise. What's more, it tends to rise more with the more liberal and politically correct posters than with those of a more "right" persuasion, for want of a better term. One poster may start with a post about cultural values differing from one area of the world and another. He may point out that some foreign cultural values may be considered negative by our own lights, such as the suppression of women or some of the violent atrocities committed by the rulers of some Islamic countries. Or it may be as mundane as defending some of the policies and actions of the Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford. Certain posters will invariably jump in with personal attacks, implying you hide a white hood in your bedroom closet, or that you wish to flog gay folks while secretly being a pedophile yourself. I am not citing specific posts per se but rather a general attitude in some quarters. Certain posters make these attacks repeatedly, apparently with impunity. Sometimes when the "attackee" finally gets overly frustrated and lashes back, it will be HE who gets a caution or a warning! When I first joined MLW I don't recall such personal attacks being allowed, by anyone. I do sense a change and not a welcome one. Anyhow, it has damaged my enjoyment of debating here and I suspect that I am not the only one. Hence this thread! Has anyone else felt a similar experience? Have you found your 'ignore' list getting longer and longer and longer? Am I the only one noticing a bias, not political but rather about simple good manners? I think a lot of us would appreciate some discussion. We all have a vested interested into ensuring that MLW does not end up degenerating into a rude and crude pile of 'rubble'.

Well said, Peeves. I am not so much surprised as saddened that you got a warning for such a post. It would seem that the fact that a poster expresses a non-liberal view or at least, one that is not politically correct, is taken as bigotted or racist by definition. It's almost Orwellian. However, I guess I am squeamish! Your reaction is to fight. My inclination is to simply leave. There are some posters we have not heard from in some time. I wonder if there's any connection. Either way, I think it's a symptom of a very real problem. I would never want to see MLW become a rightwing extremist board. However, it seems to be slowly drifting to becoming a leftwing one, where you are not just wrong but downright evil for disagreeing with the politically correct POV.

What's more, these schemes always have clauses like those of the Kyoto Accord, where 3rd world countries and China, India and Russia will get carbon tax credits because "they have been exploited by those evil western countries". Then everybody trades carbon taxes and credits so that there is no need to actually DECREASE carbon emmissions! It's all just another political game of " smoke and mirrors". Makes the ignorant feel all warm and fuzzy, transfers money from he 1st world to the 3rd world and never actually does what it was supposed to do in the first place!

Peeves, some of us are tip-toeing around the elephant in the room. I have been watching what seems to be to be a slow decline in standards on MLW for about a year now. There are a few posters who seem to be of the more left persuasion who constantly twist arguments to make the originator look like a bigot or a racist. They never directly deal with the substance but simply make ad hominem attacks on a poster's character. What I find most distressing is that they seem to be getting away with it without reproach! Then, if someone like you or I finally have more than we can take and retaliate, it's WE who get a caution or a warning! I truly believe that the moderation of this board has become biased. It never seemed to be this way a couple of years ago. This was always a very civilized discussion board. I hope this trend can be corrected. It would be a shame if it were to continue to an inevitably unfortunate end.

Nice bit of troll work, Mr. Canada! What it all boils down to is the simple fact that we have no concrete evidence of any afterlife or Deity. That doesn't prove that there is none, just that there is no proof that there is. Faith by definition needs no proof. It is solely a matter of choice - to believe something or not. Many if not most humans choose faith, for a variety of reasons. For some its a comfort, for others it's easier than trying to figure out as much of the Universe as they can. Such a choice is deserving of respect but some folks of faith step outside of the lines. They think that they can force others to believe as they do with religious persecution or they think they can demand the respect of true Science by falsities like Intelligent Design. They can try all they want but the cold truth is that the Universe just doesn't care! The atheist has no more concrete proof or even evidence than the theist. Some of them seem just as militant. We all will die, sooner or later. At that point, we will either cease to exist or discover something new. If there is an afterlife, that still does not automatically prove there is some Intelligent Force behind it all. It just means that we will have discovered an afterlife! That too may be rooted in the natural way the Universe works. Me, I lean more towards the Church of Bill and Ted - "Be excellent to each other!". Still, I can't help but get frustrated sometimes with those churchgoers who interrupt my weekend morning to knock on my door. When I tell them I am a "man of science" they always try to prove their beliefs from what they think is a scientific perspective and always fail miserably, since in my 60 years of life I have not met ONE who knows anything at all of all but the most basic science! They will try to fight Darwin, who has been dead for over a century, but never Einstein and most definitely not a contemporary like Stephen Hawking. I suspect the bulk of them don't even know of Hawking, much less are prepared to debate with him. To me, they seem very presumptuous. Not for their circular arguments, where they make the claim that their Bible is the Truth because it says so in the Bible!. Rather, it's because if they are right and there is a God, in effect they are telling HIM how he made everything! I'm not sure if this would give a God a chuckle or offense!

He didn't make an anti-ethnic slam spam! Do you not understand written English? Even if he did, how does that excuse all your ad hominem insults and blind accusations? I still am not sure if you are merely challenged or an exceedingly smart troll.

Would you be so kind as to back that up with some cites or something? Who's court? Under what statute? In other words, where does it say that natives are allowed to sell to non-natives without collecting any taxes? Forgive me if I just don't take your word for it. You do not have a good reputation for accuracy.

Yes HERE! The fact that we have had a spineless McGuinty government does not change the laws! You are pulling things out of your butt again! The principle is quite simple. It is true that natives do not pay such taxes. It is true that they are under no obligation to collect such taxes EXCEPT when they are selling into the non-native market! If you sell into the non-native market then you are the same as any other business. Exemptions only apply to the natives themselves, when dealing among themselves and when buying from the non-native marketplace for THEMSELVES! Natives were never given the right to a tax free advantage in mainstream Canadian business! If your reasoning were correct, natives could become the Bahamas of Canada overnight and in 2 weeks own the country! They can't and they don't! We give natives a huge amount of money. Sovereignty and rights work both ways. Your logic is a "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition in favour of the natives. Things just don't work that way. If natives push things too far then they may find that some cheques will no longer be sent their way.

One thing about getting older is that often you were around to witness the history of issues that have suddenly become of interest. I was there when asbestos got banned. Those were the days before I started selling electronic parts, when I worked in a construction materials lab. My boss filled me in on what was happening with asbestos. He had very little respect for the way governments handled the problem. You see, asbestos comes in more than one form! What had finally been discovered was lung damage from FIBROUS asbestos! Those tiny fibres, if inhaled, could and did damage internal lung tissue. If sustained, healing becomes next to impossible. Asbestos mine workers were dying of this condition. However, governments did not handle the problem scientifically. They handled it POLITICALLY! They banned asbestos of ALL kinds, everywhere! (Except in Quebec, where there was a very large asbestos mining industry. That was mostly ignored for decades now, for political reasons.) It's really not a big deal to handle fibrous asbestos. It's not radioactive and it's not acidic to your skin. You just need good masks! If you are working in a concentrated environment like a mine or when demolishing an old building you should also wear overalls and take a good shower, to remove any fibres you may have picked up. It is like the difference between a fog of cement dust and cement cast in a wall or sidewalk. Non-fibrous asbestos, such as in fire-prevention panels and such, is perfectly safe. Nothing to inhale, but by banning this along with the fibrous kind caused another problem, namely finding a substitute that worked as well and was the same price or less. Banning the harmless forms increased costs and difficulties. When you ban something before there is a good substitute you are assuming the "tech" boys will just wave their magic wands and come up with something immediately. In the real world, that's not how it works. Not only can good substitutes take a long time and cost much more, they may not exist at all. Anybody who has had a 20 year guaranteed roofing shingle job on their house fail after less than 10 years learns that lesson. Why did the government do it this way? Why do they ALWAYS do it this way! Because they don't care about true protection or a working solution. They care about politics, which is governed by public perception. The average voter is not a technician or an engineer. He or she likely dropped science when the beans in that jar full of wet toilet tissue died, back in the 6th grade. Give them a true but scientific explanation of why something is ok and they will NOT believe you! Once they have heard that asbestos can kill or they see a television report on asbestos miners dying, they are terrified of coming into contact with ANY asbestos! Or worse yet, discovering asbestos materials in their own home, where they raise their kids. So a politician does what is actually a smart thing, politically speaking. He over-reacts with his solution and bans asbestos TOTALLY, in any shape or form! Voters will never know or care that any fire-proofing materials in his or her home or office cost more and don't work as well. However, they WILL feel safer because a politician instituted a total ban! They might very well give him or her their vote as a reward! When you talk about independent watch dogs you are talking about rational approaches, my good Dr. Dre. The problem is that most voters, when it comes to technical or scientific problems, are not rational. They simply don't know enough to have a valid opinion. We end up with politicians hijacking issues to garner electoral support, preying on the fears of the ignorant, including in most cases the politicians themselves. If an issue is sufficiently important in the public eye we will see "white coat wars". This is where both side of an issue try to come up with a bigger pile of white lab coats than their opponents. The average citizen cannot understand technical arguments so he relies on which side has the more impressively large pile of lab coats. This is why society tends to grow in the slowest, most costly and inefficient manner. When I was a lad I thought I might grow up to live and work on the moon. It could have happened, if not for the social limitations I just described. Now, I sincerely doubt if the opportunity will come in time for my grandchildren to take advantage of it.

You know Jaycee, much of the reason I ignore you is that so often you don't seem to actually READ what I post! I sit back with my coffee mug in genuine awe, shaking my head and thinking "Where the hell did he get that idea? Did he just pull it out of his butt?" Who the hell said I have a problem with those ladies getting cheap smokes? Where did I ever post such a thing? For the record, as a libertarian type classic liberal, I APPLAUD cigarette smuggling! It shows the government to be the inept hypocrites they always have been. The sky high taxes charged on tobacco are a joke, from my POV. They made smuggling inevitable. We went through this with Prohibition. Even more current, we went through this in the early 90's. Yet our governments seem incapable of learning. Total blockheads, they are. In my post I attacked McGuinty's government. Where did I say that I blamed the old ladies for taking advantage of a better deal? Back in the 90's my sales route took me back through Caledonia at least once a week. I would buy a couple of DOZEN cartons, for office friends and family! I never charged a dime of profit! It was my way of tweaking my nose at the government. And I didn't smoke, myself! I have never agreed with "sin taxes", or with any laws of any kind restricting what people choose to ingest into their own bodies. People must have the right to do with themselves whatever they wish, even if many if not most would consider it a mistake. That's freedom! So pick on Peeves if you want but leave me alone! That's assuming of course that you will also pick on Peeves for what he did day and not whatever you pull out of your butt! And before someone chastises me for personal attacks, please note that I am the injured party here!

Hey, these are the same investors who owned the Toronto Maple Leafs this past decade or more. What the hell do they know?

Well, everything I have seen in the MSM says that the oilsands are good for about 300 years. How long do they NEED to be viable? However, who says the oil sourced from those Islamist countries is all that green? As for me being happy with "...a cold-blooded capitalist calculation you should be happy with.", why should I be happy? Are you saying that I am a cold hearted capitalist? Why would you think that? What evidence do you have to support that opinion of me? If you look back in this thread, I'm the one not comfortable with blood in my gasoline! From what I've seen these past few decades, I'm all alone in a crowd! Are you suggesting I should just shut up, close my eyes and not let it bother me? I'm the guy who reads the label when he buys a can of beans, because I care about what country it came from, if you remember!

That's a good question! Consider, if they never invested in oil stocks then why would they be looking at oilsands stocks anyway? So if they have no intention of investing in the Alberta industry, then their public statement is just propaganda. If they actually HAVE been investing in oil stocks from Islamist countries all these years, then they are hypocrites!

I dunno about Manitoba but from what I see here in Ontario I think you are absolutely right, Ontario, at least under McGuinty's Liberals, has not lifted a finger against the native operations. Once or twice a year the OPP will stop little old blue-haired ladies from Brantford returning from Six Nations with their cheap smokes and scare the hell of of the old biddies. Seems rather a cheap shot, to me. Since there are MANY roads in and out of Six Nations they don't have the resources to block all routes. So those old ladies have long since learned that if they see a police car on their way in to just leave by a less common exit. The protests at Caledonia have proven that Queens Park hasn't the stomach to challenge the natives. Natives will defend themselves strongly and even violently. Non-natives virtually always meekly do what they are told. Any party that would stick the taxpayes with a 240 million+ dollar bill over a gas generating plant to save a Liberal seat during an election campaign would cheerfully ignore all the lost taxation of illegal smokes. It's all a matter of what's most important to you.

Eyeball, if you keep talking to me like I am some sort of amalgam of every rightie who ever lived I am going to start doing the same to you! How do you know what parties I always vote for? How do you know if sometimes I accepted the package but disagreed with a few of the contents? Be fair! I'm an individual, not your collective scarecrow! As far as "lefties" caring about the human rights atrocities in oil-selling Islamist countries, I am not denying some folks like yourself have condemned such things. I'm just pointing out that the investors groups in question have never been reported boycotting those oil-sources as investments. Only Alberta.

Well, we must agree to disagree. I don't believe that the Alberta oilsands are as detrimental to the planet as the critics say. I also consider many Islamist states to be barbaric murderers. So my choice is quite clear. My point however, was that the people who are criticizing the oilsands have NEVER, to my knowledge, taken a similar stand against "murderous barbarians". As I said, that is what I find questionable about their values. Obviously, they couldn't give a crap!

Ah eyeball, how little you understand the master plan! Once the arcologies are built, we can finally leave all those wingnuts who hold us back and live a life of luxury and fulfillment among the stars! The Trogs can remain behind. After all, surely after a few centuries without us they will have totally returned the Earth to a pristine state! They will no doubt achieve a state where no one has to work hard, everyone is comfortable and sciences like medicine will have been developed to the point where all disease has been wiped out. The Trogs should be deliriously happy! After all, they constantly complain that all the problems of the Earth are caused by people like Bonam! So the people like Bonam will be gone! Utopia achieved!

Yes, they will. The only difference will be that ordinary, otherwise law-abiding citizens will not risk penalties under our sanctimonious drug laws. Immense resources of police enforcement and the court systems will be freed up to handle "real" crimes. Hell, perhaps cops will come out when your home has been burgled again! I'm no druggie, but I am a taxpayer. The immense waste of the taxes we all pay towards a futile war on drugs to force people to have a government- approved, mistake-free life has always pissed me off, big time! Instead of crackheads wasting nothing but their own lives I have to worry about them breaking into my home for enough money for their next dose. And the police won't even bother to try to catch them! They will just give me a report number for my insurance claim, which will of course increase my premiums! A pox on all their houses!

I can understand how someone who takes a passionate stand on environmental issues would let that influence their investment strategy. What I DON'T understand is how they blissfully ignore ignore anything to do with human rights! At least women can get a job as a driver on an oilsands prpject. Hell, in Alberta they also can go to school! I don't need to list all the terrible things done in many Islamic countries. They are well documented in the MSM. So far I have never heard of ANY investment group here in the West that gave a damn! Yet now we see a move against the oilsands. You don't need a tinfoil hat to be suspicious here. To me, it just doesn't make sense! I'm starting to wonder if such lefty investment groups are secretly funded by the Saudis or someone similar. I've been reading about atrocities in many Islamic governed countries for decades now and have never been comfortable with the idea of my oil coming from such sources. Am I the only one?

Peeves, this was a big issue in the MSM a couple of years ago. I remember that one reporter had an off-the-record quote from some EU official saying that they actually encouraged Roma to emigrate to Canada, figuring it was an easy way to dodge the constraints of political correctness in handling the Roma problem in Europe, by making the Roma CANADA's problem!

I agree that such deals with China seem to be very one-sided. It reminds me of how for years Quebec construction workers would be on jobs in Ontario while Ontario tradesmen are banned from working on construction jobs in Quebec. Still, I am surprised at how you appear taken aback at the idea of Harper selling out his country. After all, he IS a Conservative and anyone who follows some of the posters on this board well knows that all Conservatives are dedicated to destroying Canada, the country they themselves and their families live in, simply for the gleeful joy of it! It's their master plan! After they have destroyed the very home that they themselves share with the rest of us they will sit in the rubble and laugh maniacally at the success of their deeds! After all, it's what Conservatives do! It is their raison d'etre! Only left wing people and politicians care about the welfare of their country. Without the in-depth and logical explanations of many leftwing posters to MLW, I would not be so fortunate as to know this!

I agree that as fossil fuels become more expensive renewables will become more attractive in price. However, the present situation is a great comfort, at least to me! The factor that most advocates of getting away from fossil fuels forget is TIME! Some even push for artificial surcharges on fossil fuels, in order to bring about the switch to alternatives even faster. I can't think of anything not only more futile but even cruel! Every time fossil fuels jump in price people suffer! Society just cannot accept change at so fast a rate. People have a fixed cost of living that most can barely stay ahead. To dramatically increase their cost of heating, light and cooking faster than any increase in their income and they can suffer, big time! Change must come at a rate people can handle. Here in Ontario the price of electricity has nearly tripled just during the term of one inept premier. Have you an elderly aunt or grandmother living on a fixed income? Ask her how she's coping sometime. Did her Old Age Pension triple? Or increase at all, let alone enough to cover the increase with her utilities? A politician would be a fool to ignore such factors. Otherwise the peasants will light torches and storm his castle! We are gradually moving towards electric cars. They are still too pricey for most buyers but the number of Prius' and such on the roads goes up every year. Solar cells are slowly becoming affordable. The price for the average home for a solar installation is still nearly $30,000 but give it a decade or two and it will become more affordable. Getting out of this mess in a weekend would be simply stupid. We took perhaps a century to get into it. It would be much more practical to take a decade or even two to get out of it.

Interesting, but shouldn't we first find out WHY they went bankrupt? It was the Depression and all four western provinces went bankrupt. Why did they go bankrupt and not Ontario and the east? Was the Confederation deal a level playing field at that time, or had the West simply squandered their opportunities? Did they have the freedom to sell their grain and products anywhere they wanted? Were they allowed to buy their refined products at the same price as anyone else? Were there any unfair shipping rates at that time? Seems to me the fact that the West went bankrupt and the East did not bears some examination, rather than simply saying they should feel indebted to the rest of Canada. Not saying you're totally wrong. It just seems to me to be rather a shallow premise.

Good question, Scribb. Not entirely sure myself but I can see how doubling the cost of electricity to industry can surely KILL jobs! Perhaps it is up to government to keep costs for business as low and favourable as possible. That would include not just electricity but also taxes, water and a host of nitpicking little costs and user fees. I watched much of my industry, which was high volume electronic manufacturing, move to not just China but also Ireland, which was a surprise to me at first. Turns out Ireland has MUCH less government red tape for businesss! I had not thought a lot about that point before but I should have, I guess. Back years ago when Stelco was still a Canadian company I had a friend who was the personal secretary to their head of HR. She told me that Stelco had at least 3 people devoted gathering all the info the government demanded. I had never realized that the data for StatsCan was gathered by business being forced to provide the labour. The bigger the company, the more people who had to be paid to do work that had little or nothing to do with the profitability of said company. It's just a given that given any choice, enterprise avoids locations of higher cost.