Moonbox

Derek, McCain's remarks regarding the F-35 program were scathing and there's literally no way to paint it as anything but. It lists a comedy of errors and failures and it describes the F-35 program as a debacle (scandal was the word I think he used). This is a perfect example of your pointless/deflecting "HERE: A LINK!" debate tactics that (as usual) doesn't provide any insight to the specific point being discussed.

Really!? You're actually complaining about waldo slanting and distorting!? I wish you had even the slightest clue how ironic and hypocritical that is coming from you of all people on this forum. This whiny complaint coming from the guy who even on the last two pages of the debate has on numerous occasions deflected and dodged pointed questions with "Here look! A LINK!" that provided a a glut of information with no reasonable explanation tying it back to the question being asked. Funny. It's just more of your argument ad-nauseum. You're not going to win this debate by rational thought or realistic facts. You're just going to wear your opponents down.

While we're on the topic of demographics, why don't we investigate the effects of poverty and education on crime rates. Of course it's easier to just say "Black People" though, isn't it? That's why we see so many frat-boy drunks getting shot at keg parties instead of going ot the drunk tank right? I mean, if you're uncooperative with police, you should expect the bullet right? Argus your logic is pathetic. This is the sort of banal nattering that gives us every indication we need of your intellectual credibility/capability. What are you trying to suggest here? Are you suggesting that if you're fearful and suspicious of persecution that the natural and most logical reaction is to just meekly roll over and take it? You're obviously a student of history and humanity, aren't you? Right...If we're not careful then free speech is going to get outlawed by some vague group of "progressives"... /yawn. There are people on this website who'd support deporting all of the Muslims in this country or taking away the vote from poor people. What's your point? Tantrum? Okay bud. As for knowing little or nothing about the subject, I'm not the cliché old man bitterly listing off "Black People" crime statistics as justification for unreasonable force and outrageous police shootings. What you're basically saying here is, "Sorry Black Guy, if all the other Black People behaved better, we wouldn't have had to shoot you." That's supremely ignorant, incredibly stupid and flat-out racist all at the same time.

Most of it, actually. While there's certainly some logic behind the idea that fighting with police leads to proportionally higher police shootings, simply running away from them is another matter altogether. Regardless, your line of thought here suggests that it's, "Black People's" fault when a police officer shoots or beats them to death without anything even resembling justification - as if these poor white cops are so traumatized by "Black People" that there's no reasonable option other than to shoot... Nobody's forbidding you from saying anything, or punishing you for saying it. Political Correctness/Incorrectness is not the same thing as Legal/Illiegal. Go ahead an natter off as much old-man-style ignorance and scorn as you want. You're not going to get arrested or fined for it. You're just going to look stupid.

because running from police justifies shooting black people in the back, right? That Walter Scott guy was looking pretty threatening running away unarmed for a traffic stop. While there's probably some underlying truth to that, the situation is far from that simple. Political Correctness often goes way too far and over-reaches, but in general it's just the basic understanding that people shouldn't say whatever stupid and/or ignorant crap they're thinking.

You don't even know what it is to keep an argument straight. As usual, your response to having your junk logic debunked is to prattle on with a bunch of irrelevant factoids that have little to do with the actual point you tried and failed to make. Perceived deficiencies from 30+ years ago don't really tell us much about what a plane can do today. The A-10's life has been extended for a reason. Not as expensive as over-reaching, trying to cram all of them into one platform and then having the program explode spectacularly in your face. The F-35 is so late and so over-budget now that nobody would have approved it in the first place if they'd have known where they'd end up. and decades of failed/cancelled/troubled projects that confirm exactly what I said there. That wasn't a straw-man (that's really funny coming from you. Maybe look up the definition?). It was common sense and reality. Multi-role doesn't automatically mean better or cheaper. The role it was designed for, which it still does better than any of these planes. Something the USAF hasn't really faced in 30+ years and counting and isn't likely to any time soon. Thing is it's proven REALLY good at playing wack-a-mole against the type of enemies it HAS faced. Regardless, the point of this argument was never to compare the A-10 as an either-or debate. Nobody's debating whether we should buy A-10's. waldo brought up the A-10 vs F-35 face-off because it's just another concern for this colossally troubled project that's given few indications it can actually deliver on the all-in-one plane it was originally conceived and advertised as.

No. We're still going to buy the F-35 because it STILL by far makes the most sense despite how much of a mess the whole program has ended up being.

Who's making one?

Try and keep your argument straight bud. You tried to suggest that the A-10 was obsolete/irrelevant simply because they started looking at replacements for it 30 years ago - something they do by default for virtually any aircraft given how long development cycles last. Your suggestion, therefore, means absolutely nothing (as usual ) and gives us no useful information on the A-10's relevance today. Niche aircraft are too expensive for a country that has a military budget approximately 0.006% the size of the US' and can barely afford a single platform for a single role. Also, there's a point of diminishing returns with multi-role platforms. If you try to cram too many features into a single vehicle, the cost of integrating them and the compromises you have to make doing it eventually makes it so you would be better off with multiple dedicated platforms. That's why nobody uses Sporks, why the US army doesn't issue combination assault-shovels (instead of issuing a carbine/rifle AND an entrenching tool) and why the Hind failed as a troop transport/attack-helicopter combo. Unfortunately for you reality isn't as black-and-white as your "logic" would like. It's a dumb comparison. I know you thought it was clever when you wrote it, but the type-writer is strictly obsolete. Everything it can do can be done better (and now cheaper) by something else and that's why nobody wants them anymore (except George R. Martin I guess). Nothing can do what the A-10 does as well as the A-10. Analogy failed.

I don't know, ask the USAF. While you're at it, why don't you ask them why they started looking at options to replace the F-15 and F-16 35 years ago when they started the ATF program. I guess that means these planes aren't/weren't relevant either? It's funny how easy it is to turn your trash logic back at you. Probably because nobody but the United States can reliably ensure the sort of "permissive" airspace an A-10 thrives in, nor do they have the budgets to make a single-role aircraft even remotely worth considering. Really though, the choices that the Philippines, Mali or Columbia make with their shoe-string military budgets couldn't be less relevant for this discussion. As usual, you've fallen hilariously off the mark.

An inept analogy - as poorly thought out as usual. Obviously you thought that was clever but the A-10 is still very much relevant and needed/wanted.

Then why do you keep deflecting and making up fake arguments (ie. pretending someone's saying something they're clearly not? That looks like squirming to me. How many times does this need to be explained to you? Waldo laid it out clearly and you ignored his explanation in stride and clumsily fabricated a completely different and unintended meaning for it. I corrected you in no uncertain terms, waldo confirmed my correction for you, and you're STILL somehow lamely insisting otherwise. This isn't the first time someone's told you this Derek. We're highlighting areas and reasons for concerns about the F-35 program. Lockheed Martin talking points and a link to Nellis' home page don't address any of them. The fact that the A-10 and the F-35 are being tested head-to-head on CAS capabilities and that this decision was made very recently (it came even as a suprise to Bogdan) suggests there are perhaps new and/or ongoing concerns that need addressing.

Your link showed literally nothing other than that Nellis Airforce Base exists and that it tests aircraft. Good job? Once again you've managed to provide a link that proves nothing useful and that your go-to move is to argue against a point that was never being made. Again, waldo was clearly (and I mean painfully clearly) suggesting that A-10 vs F-35 face-off is suggesting further doubts surrounding the F-35's CAS capabilities, particularly since some of the brass (like Bogdan) is so against it. http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1943 So that's not really waldo's "implication" as you say. It's a reality.

Nice try. He suggested no such thing. From his comments it was painfully obvious that the point he was making was that the specifics around the F-35's CAS testing and the doubts behind its capacity to replace the A-10 for this role (like the resistance to a face-off) raised further concerns about its all-round capabilities. Of course you somehow (incredibly) managed to screw this up into waldo apparently saying that the USAF doesn't routinely test its aircraft, even though he specifically continued to explain: I mean, come on. If you're trying to actually convince anyone of anything, and if you're actually interested in having a reasonable discussion, then argue what the person is actually saying instead of making up your own version of it and arguing that. It's interesting that you still think Lockheed publicity and talking points are reliable sources of information for this debate. It doesn't take a genius to see the problem with that (please don't report me for saying that ). .

Heh. Zing! in arguably the largest defense procurement boondoggle in American, NATO (probably World) history. Numbers are great and all, but only part of the story.

Do you have your alternate source? I'm curious to see the breakdown corrected for this error. I didn't vote for Trudeau to blow his load on on social programs that get us nowhere (like his Dad did). I voted for him because he promised infrastructure spending.

They were never really "muzzled". Nobody ever stopped them from publishing their research, peer reviewing other people's research, or factually disputing claims made by the government. Look at the PBO's office for indication that the Harper cons weren't suppressing criticism. What the Tories did do, however, was prevent publicly funded researches from loud and partisan criticism of the government that employed them. The courts upheld these restrictions and found that they were perfectly valid. No doubt the federal public service is more than pleased that their incestuous relationship with the Liberals is back.

When your argument is based on nothing but hyperbole and straw man, the next predictable step is to provide a biased, self-ingratiating testimonial. I mean, you don't have to provide any facts, citations, analysis or anything. It's really easy! You just make stuff up and PRESTO! Your point is "proven"! No all we're assuming is that you're making stuff up. BTW, didn't you say you were giving up on this thread, or was that just more cheap words? Yeah especially when you're taking a full course load at university! Easy! That's why so many of the nearly 1,000,000 university students in Canada do it every year (by so many I mean virtually none). Don't let facts or the truth get in the way of your argument though!

You chose to offer a personal testimonial about your heroic struggle to get yourself through post-secondary and assumed everyone would automatically believe it. Nobody's obligated to, especially when it smells so badly of BS. Don't worry though, my questions were pretty much rhetorical. I asked with about 95% confidence that your story was balogna and your inability/unwillingness to explain it further only helps confirm it. That's a good idea, because you're embarrassing yourself. You're thumping your chest and telling people you make lots of money on the internet - the anonymous space where everyone's a millionaire if they want to be. That's certainly not very smart! That's because it's both an empty offer and a really dumb suggestion. What are we to expect is going to happen here? That the moderators are going to wade into the debate, check your email, verify it, and come back and tell everyone, "Guys, he's telling the truth. He's a real baller." Holy crap man.

Suuuure. What sort of student job did you have that made you $40,000/year and allowed a full course load? Care to run us a budget? Please keep in mind when you do that I spent about 5 years as a lender in a university town (the same years you'd have been in school) and saw hundreds of student budgets for education borrowing applications. Let's hope the math doesn't get in the way of your inspiring story though... Nobody's penalizing you. They're just taking away a tax break that you never needed because your mommy and daddy looked after you while you were at school and beyond.

Bad critical thinking skills. Most people couldn't use up the $5000 TFSA limit (like the overwhelming majority). The increase, therefore, was 100% unusable. Use your brain. Try a little math. Consider how much after-tax income you need to actually be able to afford $10,000/y in your TFSA and then tell us who could make use of it, okay? Just try it. No, you're just struggling to keep up. Back-peddle from what? From your sad attempt to assign deeper meaning to a colloquialism? Not as senseless as whatever you're trying to say here. That whole statement above is literally just verbal diarrhea. Mhmm. I'm sure your personal struggles were just heroic. My point was stated explicitly. I literally couldn't have made it any more clear. Read it again and get back to us.

The problem I think was that he was so defined in Canadian minds that it wouldn't have mattered. If he was going to show a kinder and more relatable side, that needed to happen back pre-2006/2008. There was no way he was going to reinvent himself and change perception in 2015 during his FOURTH federal campaign. People are over-analyzing the results of this election, or at least the Conservative campaign. It didn't matter what they did. Unless Trudeau stabbed a baby in the face or something, the Conservatives weren't going to win. I think what you're saying above is all very true, but it needed to happen 6+ years ago and play out during his terms.

So is buying a Porsche. Or how poorly you understood a fairly simple statement and concluded something that stupid from it. Perhaps, but the wealthiest 20% has seen their income grow faster than any other part of the population over the last 20 years. They've received, we can say, more than their fair share over that period. Like most of the pedestrian logic you've managed to cobble together for this argument. /yawn and you entirely lack perspective. I suppose you grew up in a rough neighborhood with an uneducated single parent who worked night shift and you had 3 siblings...Right? Talk about infantile logic. Owe others? If you're the Lucky Sperm you're the Lucky Sperm. It can't be understated how much easier it is for people growing up in an upper-class family with a stay-at-home mom and a Dad who's pulling in $150+ every year. It really, really can't. You're so out of touch it's sad.

and it's going to stay that way. As you confirm, it's a fringe party. The places where the Greens are doing well aren't even close to representative of the general population. If you've ever been to one of those BC island communities, you'd have an idea of just how out of touch these sorts of places are with the RoC. Victoria isn't anything like the rest of Canada, and somewhere like Quadra Island is practically a different world.

The $10,000 TFSA contribution limit only applied to a VERY small percentage of the population. It was a crap policy decision aimed only at a privileged few. You're not a priority, sorry. Fertility rates are an absolutely essential part of public planning and they're an enormous financial burden to families. It's a large reason why immigration is essential to maintaining our economy. Pick your poison. Make having children more affordable or increase the intake of immigrants. What are you whining about, exactly? Unless you're making +200/y, you're more than likely better off. If you are making that much, good for you! You're still making great money and the tax increase doesn't all of the sudden make that not the case.