August1991

I found this through another link: Toronto Humane Society ---- New York Times Thelonious has a point here. Many breeds seem to be of recent vintage and I suppose, some breeds could just as easily disappear.

Statistics Canada says that about 233,000 people died in Canada in 2003-4. The total on the cigarette package appears to be about 54,000. So, what did the other people die of?

The following quote comes from the Carol Goar article (link above). Nowhere in the article does it define what the "child poverty rate" means. The article says that it "stands at 15 per cent".15 per cent of what? It is this kind of silly use of statistics that usually mean I stop reading an article. If the writer cannot cite data in a meaningful way, then I take that as evidence of poor thinking. ---- As to the issue of child poverty, Indian and Northern Affairs has an annual budget (2001-2) of about $5 billion and there are roughly 700,000 registered Indians. That amounts to about $7000/person. I think it is fair to say that the greatest child poverty in Canada is among our aboriginal population. I will let these statistics speak for themselves.

Argus, I agree, but the point is lost.Stockwell Day should have said the the Canadian Conservative Party sends its condolences to the family of Yassir Arafat as it also sent its condolences to the family of Kim Il-Sung and it will send condolences to the family of Fidel Castro when he dies. I'd commiserate with Eva Braun. The guy's dead. Then, you say what you think about the future. (e.g. Colin Powell is finally flying to capitals and talking to leaders.) ---- My take? I've expressed it elsewhere on this forum. I don't know if Abou Ammar was gay and I don't care. But I think he was incompetent. Don't believe me? His death was the perfect example of his incompetence. A mess. The Palestinians deserve better leadership. (Arabs deserve better leadership. Think! Mubarak. Assad. Arafat. Saddam. Quaddafi. How about Chamoun? Or the Gemayal brothers? Faisal!) The last time the Arabs had a demagogue was Abdul Nassir. The last time they had a genuine leader was Saladin, a 1000 years ago. The Arabs have not had a Pierre Trudeau, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Boris Yeltsin, Margaret Thatcher. For a long, long time, they have not had a leader to hate, but angrily admire. Arabic-speaking people have not had "democracy", whatever that is.

No, it's not my goal. (*Looks aside and scrinches eyes*) Ashlee Simpson? Alberta NDP? No-beer Beer?---- In 1964, the Republicans lost. In 1972, the Democrats lost. Both parties now know how not to commit suicide. In Quebec, political parties have known this since Duplessis. My question was naively simple. I still don't understand why no Albertan political party has created an alternative.

Maple Syrup, you have an agenda. I don't.The North American Left wants to spead the word, like good Christians. Convert people. Explain to them, educate them. Raise them up. My answer to the North American Left? I figure people can decide for themselves. [Note: My answer makes no sense to the European Left.]

No, I don't believe that.Linda McQuaig writes a piece about Europe, taxes, government and child care as a comparison to Canada. But she ignores basic facts. France has about as many children as Canada but the rest of Europe doesn't. Europe has more old people than Canada. McQuaig's piece ignores les beurs. I suspect their children explain the birth rate in France and I suspect they don't get the care McQuaig implies. The scientific method means being an intelligent sceptic. Linda McQuaig is no scientist. She is on a mission and has an agenda. That's not science. She confuses form for content.

BD, where did you get that line?[i can't believe you created it.]

Les Canadiens semblent plus soucieux des ressources que les Américains. Par exemple, votre signature prend six lignes alors que la mienne ne prend que deux. En fait, on prend moins de place. ---- BTW, I mean no harm. Sorry.

Overally?Kimmy, you wanted Liberal/NDP gains?

Can someone interpret this for me? 'Sounds good'. What?

Sorry, Argus, the world has fundamentally changed since August 1991. For starters, Berlin has no wall and Poland is now, well, Poland. CNN has fears that Putin is trying to manipulate Ukraine. WTF? If you are clueless, Putin is no Andropov. Argus, I chose the sobriquet 'August1991' because I thought the world had obviously changed. Yet no one understood this. I also chose the sobriquet because Canadians still haven't understand the change in their own country. In Canada, the 1995 referendum was a tie. The world fears Russia is still Soviet? The world is mistaken. English-Canada believes all is normal? English-Canada is mistaken.

I live in Quebec. Senate reform is a possible way to establish a "Canadian" (northern North America?) peace.

I used to think that Linda McQuaig was an Elmer Gantry. Now I understand that she's clueless. She has a case, but she doesn't present it well. She only preaches to the converted.

You are an authority on this question, eureka?Or have you simply decided the data is wrong because it doesn't show what you want to believe?

It's easy to offer lots of government services to children when there aren't too many of them. European birth rates are below replacement levels and have been for quite some time. In simple terms, there aren't many European children. I recall however that many older Europeans died two summers ago because government hospitals lack air-conditioning.

[Laughing out loud]Greg, the System Admin Guy, should create a category for bon-mots where we can preserve such comments...

My kids are certainly interested in knowing whether they'll inherit a debt-free house or a mortgaged house. Let me know where I can borrow at 2%, like the government of Canada. In a way. It's a very random way to tax, because the effects aren't predictable.Inflation is not a tax "in a way". It is a tax - as you note, Hugo. Governments can print money and buy stuff with it, or pay off debts.It is an inefficent tax because people will do all kinds of things to avoid such taxation. This is quite predictable so I don't know if it's as random as our current taxation system. (Have you heard of Loto-Québec? How about Impôt-Québec?) No, the Fed contracted because, faced with the collapse of a financial bubble, it wanted to have "sound"money. The UK went into recession in 1925 when it returned to a gold standard at a pre-war level and in effect applied a restrictive monetary policy.The evidence now is that the sonner countries left the gold standard in 1930s, the sooner they got out of recession. In 1987, Greenspan took an entirely different approach (he applied a loose monetary policy) and the stock market crash that year is now a footnote. Many European countries attempted to return to gold after WWI. Keynesian ideas only became popular after WWII.----- I don't want to lose sight of two main points. First, the base money supply is increasingly in the hands of individuals independent of government. Around the world, people can choose to denominate much financial paper in which ever currency they choose. In effect, base money has been privatised. This is a major limit on the power of government. Second, whether governments borrow or tax makes little difference. What matters is what governments buy.

Supreme Court decision We've all seen this. It costs about $60,000/year to treat a child, according to the method preferred by parents, but the BC government refused to cover this cost. (Ironically, if I understand properly, this coverage is available in the US.) In my mind, the issue is how much others in society must share our individual burden. To what degree should we strive for equality? Should we take from the beautiful to compensate the ugly? How did the Charter of Rights get mixed up in this question anyway? The original US Bill of Rights was designed specifically to protect the individual against the majority will expressed through the State. It was not intended for use in regulating disputes between individuals. It expressly limits the powers of the State. It seems to me that much of English constitutional law strives to restrict the power of the Sovereign. Discrimination and choice are fundamental to freedom. We discriminate when we choose a spouse, an employer or a brand of soft drink. It is absurd to say that we should be equal since we are all different in different ways.

People voted for Parrish as a Liberal knowing that if she did something PM PM didn't like, she wouldn't be a Liberal for long.The Liberals may have a tendency to, how should I put this, prevaricate but on being a Liberal, I don't think there's much doubt about their position.

It wouldn't solve the problem of free-riders any better than our current system does. We have all of that now, more or less.Many public goods are geographic and many of the goods and services provided through government are geographic (garbage collection, roads, schools, hospital care). In the western world, people choose their jurisdiction in the same way they could choose their clan. (In Somalia, birth decides clan membership.) None of this solves the fundamental problem that while a bridge between two towns may be a good thing, each person individually has an interest in claiming otherwise.

Assuming, for instance, you could get more than 10% APR on that $100.The government debt grows more slowly than the mortgage on my home since the government borrows at a lower interest rate than I do.So, PM PM should not pay down the debt but rather cut taxes and let me pay off my mortgage sooner. Oh, I do see it. I also know something about economics and I know that taxation is a lesser evil than inflation.Inflation is taxation - albeit a particularly inefficient way to tax. But the question here is whether the government should tax more efficiently now (through GST for example) or borrow. The ECB is not a country. It is not even under the control of one government. For all intents, it acts as an institution independent of any single government. The US Fed was created in 1911 (our Bank of Canada dates from 1935).The Fed was loose in the 1960s. The terrible results of the 1930s were due to what Friedman has called the Great Contraction, hardly evidence of being loose. ---- The US Fed has been independent of government for only 25 years with only two governors in that time. But that represents about 25% of its history. The history of money is short and the involvement of the State in money issuance is shorter. I reckon we are still in the learning stages. (Heck, we have only had credit cards for about 35 years and debit cards for about half that. Many countries are just now discovering the benefits of credit card transactions.) I consider two watershed events in recent history: the failed coup of August 1991 in the Soviet Union and the Fed's independence starting with Paul Volcker. Both indicate clearly the limits of government as a useful institution.

The following web site provides data:heritage.org My favourite example is Iceland with 1600 US troops. Iceland has no military of its own and the Icelandic government wants the US soldiers to stay.

Given the chicken poll elsewhere, I thought it would be time to bring this thread to the top again for the new posters. Do the test below (it's fun and takes about five minutes). Then post your results (Economic Left/Right) and (Social Libertarian/Authoritarian) in this thread. Political Compass Test

Local London Paper 11 Dec 2003 My question is whether Glenda Jackson gets away with these kinds of remarks because of who she is (member) or because the British parliament is different from ours (systemic). I suspect the latter.IOW, the ordinary British MP can remain in caucus while voting against the party and even criticising the leader. Why is this possible in the UK but not in Canada? I have no ready answer except to note that Canadian politics are primarily regional, not ideological.