Moonbox
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Posts posted by Moonbox
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Where is the evidence this isn't an issue? How about some poll numbers?
Has anyone been talking about it much? There be your evidence.....
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Reguardless, problems and cost overuns to the B version won't effect us, as I've said, we're buying the A version, and as I said, it's already in low-rate production.
Nope. Cost estimates are for the A variant. They're all going to be way over budget. To say that the F-35B is somehow going to be 50-100% more expensive simply because it's STVOL is ridiculous. If that was the case it'd be smarter just to design a completely new fighter from scratch.
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WRT being "beset with problems", you're wrong. The version we're buying is already starting low-intial production. The F-35B, which will replace the USMC Harrier and Hornet fleets is the version suffering weight issues. The F-35C, which the USN & RN are buying is currently meeting all test goals.
Oh boy. Where to start? The F-35 program isn't beset with problems? You might want to let US Defense Secretary Robert Gates know that. US officials (pentagon included) are estimating costs of between $115-150M per plane, which is getting close to double what Harper and his government are projecting. The program is struggling so badly that the USMC variant, the F-35B may be getting cancelled altogether.
http://ipolitics.ca/2011/03/30/pm-disputes-pentagon-price-tag-for-f-35s/
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The whole country has been selling out to Quebec for the last 40 years.
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Sooooo... where do you suggest interest (self-education, informed decision making and turnout) begins?
It goes far beyond getting people interested in voting or politics. The average person is completely ignorant of anything outside his immediate circle of friends, family, job and whatever TV show they're watching.
My suggestion is that parents impart the importance of voting on their children, that schools teach it to their students (without the bias they sometimes present) and that the people themselves peel themselves away from Criminal Minds or Jersey Shore for maybe 30 minutes a week to pay attention to what's going on in the world. A tall order...
I know that my own first party membership was the admission ticket I needed to an evening of free beer. Is that worse than those who learn their politics (but not any analysis of those political objectives) from their parents and grandparents?
No offense intended but it is sad that your first exposure to politics was motivated by free beer and you were presumably 18 or 19. Even if your parents are giving you biased politics when you're younger, at least you'll have been thinking about it and learning about as a youth. By the time you're 18 you'll actually have an idea of how the system works and you'll at least have some of the tools needed to understand what's going on.
By the time you're 20 something it's really kind of late but I guess whatever helps those people get interested is for the better. If it's a vote mob then fine, but I highly doubt that these people are actually getting interested in what's going. Theirs will likely be dumb and uninformed votes.
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As for the mob votes, I'm not really a big fan of them. I don't think it promotes an educated vote and I don't really feel that an uneducated vote is any better than no vote at all.
Increasing voter turnout isn't really what we should be worrying about. Increasing electoral participation and INTEREST in the process is. When the only way you can get people voting is to peer pressure them into a mob, something is wrong.
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There just aren't as many young folks as there used to be! The Baby Boom is over. Most parents of small children have noticed elementary school closings. There was a mini-boom about 6-8 years ago but it was nothing like the one that led to huge wave of citizens born after WWII and beginning to die off now.
I would think that there are more people in the 18-30 range now than there has ever been wouldn't you? The baby boom stopped in 1964 and those people's children are still coming to voting age. My parents were baby boomers and my generation is HUUUUGE.
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I don't have a hate for Jack Layton, I'm not a big fan but all our leaders suck. I was just brining up the fact that two weeks ago he released a platform and over the weekend he sent out a press release saying that he can't afford all his policies. Is it not a lie?
It's not really a 'lie'. It's more like he knew his platform was BS and is worried that he's being called on it. Jack and the NDP's problem is that they've never been realistic with their policies and they're completely out to lunch a lot of the time. One of Jack's policies is to make the maximum credit card interest rate prime +5%.
The banks straight up won't issue credit cards to anybody but the most reliable (and likely the more wealthy) clients. The default rate on credit cards is simply to high to bother.
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The longer the campaign....the longer there's no government in power. During that time, we're in limbo.
Furthermore, with the gruelling pace of fierce campaigning I wonder how long our campaigning leaders will last on the trail - healthwise?
John McCain is older than any of our candidates I'm pretty sure. I don't think health is the problem. It's voter apathy.
We don't need a 3 month election campaign here in Canada. It's not a pageant and people have already mostly lost interest and made their decision with a week left. Draw it out another few weeks and people just get even more bored.
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What is he again?
Prime Minister??/ :|
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I went to the advance polls around 7pm Good Friday. I walked right in and was the only person there voting.
Seems like you went at a bad time.
For the record.......
I didn't vote NDP
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Your partisan delusions are duly noted
And dismissed as one more example of how you Conservatives can't move past being held accountable for your own disgraceful record.
Your posting is a brilliant example of your infant-like logic and your rabid attempts to convince people of things they don't agree with you about. Shouldn't you be starting another topic about something equally idiotic right now?
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...Keep making excuses in a weak attempt to deflect the truth away from them knowing full well that it's no secret that the Harper Conservatives are behind these intimdation tactics.
So why are only Conservative signs getting vandalized in Guelph?
Just look at the way the Conservatives have tried to use intimdation tactics throughout Harper's reign of terror...
What sort of intimidation tactics? Are you sure you're not completely making this up????
Rick this is so dumb you're really making me laugh! Keep it up I'm really entertained!!
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As a side note, does anyone else think it's absolutely hilarious that the Toronto Star even published this article? I mean this crap goes on everywhere but the Toronto Star, being the loyal Liberal hack newspaper it is, somehow decides this is unique and newsworthy?
Come on....
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I've yet to meet an NDP supporter who is so full of hate as to do something like that. CPC supporters on the other hand....
Oh okay that's good to know. Your testimonial about the NDP supporters you know really makes all the difference.
Come to the downtown area of Guelph and meet some of the NDP wack jobs here. Those ARE the type of people who wreck signs and slash tires. Probably about 50% of the Marty Burke (CPC candidate) signs have been vandalized and although nothing has come up this year, people were getting their tires slashed in Guelph last election.
I think it's far more likely the unemployed and bored NDP wackos are out there causing mischief than the CPC.
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That still doesn't change the fact that PMPM was one of the most honest that we ever had.
Oh man...you're so naive. I'm sorry. There's a laundry list of lies Paul Martin was pinned on. He promised to eliminate the GST, which he never did.
He used a picture of Harper whispering to Duceppe at a Holocaust memorial to support fears of a coalition.
The fact that the Liberals campaigned on health care throughout the 90's and early 2000's and then slashed health spending like no other government in Canadian history go to show you that he VERY MUCH the every day politician. I voted for him the first election when he got his minority because I liked that he at least went after the deficit. I saw him for the liar and politician he was, however, and I'm kind of chuckling about your comments. I'm not sure you were even voting when he was first elected though. You were probably still in highschool?
The accounting that he used was quite legitimate, and though he gave in to human frailties sometimes (we all lie at some point - deal with it) he lies far less than most. Certainly less than Chretien and Martin. Don Newman always said that the finance ministers, including Flaherty and Martin, were the most honest politicians that he ever met.
The most honest politician you ever met is a pretty dubious honor. You have to be pragmatic with politicians. Understand that they will lie, and why they have to lie, and you'll be a lot better for it.
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So no proof then. Understood.
Proof that he was a liar, or conniving, or that he was a weasel? Or proof that he was all three at the same time. I think we could easily find proof that he was a liar and that he was conniving. I'm not sure about the weasel part. I'd need blood samples for that.
Here's a pretty despicable lie Martin told just off the top of my head:
http://www.lufa.ca/news/news_item.asp?NewsID=5203
Do you remember that one?
As for conniving, his budget magic with EI reform and slashing transfers to the province to make himself look like a finance guru was pretty interesting.
Do we need to go on?
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I hate to say it but I think it's almost time that Harper starts taking Jack seriously. In about a week he's turned himself from a distant third to a strong second and you have to worry that the momentum could continue. Layton doing well in BC and Quebec could actually lose the conservatives some seats rather than split the vote and kill the Liberals like they were hoping.
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Harper had nothing original to say, and Mansbridge had nothing original to ask.
Canada deserves better.
I'm not sure what you were expecting. Mansbridge tried to do the same thing as he successfully did with Ignatieff but Harper was more composed. Harper has completely revamped his image and he's sticking to it better than anyone I can think of in recent memory. Gone is the cunning and ruthless wit, which has been replaced with a boring, yet resolutely consistent intelligence.
Harper's doing it on purpose. I think any interviewer would have had a tough time cracking Harper.
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Jack did address an issue that is on my mind and that is the long wait times currently for family members and denials for temporary visiting visas.No other party leaders have made this an issue as far as I am aware.
Because it's not really an issue. There is some pretty obvious criteria to get a temporary visa.
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Mansbridge launched hard balls, and Harper caught them and then examined them and talked about them. Look at the 17 minute video. How much time did Harper talk? 15 minutes?
That's generally how an interview is supposed to go. You're not there to hear the interviewer speak.
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Ignatieff is very bad at debating period.
I don't believe there is anyone that could help him.
My best advise for him would be to register in MAPLELEAFWEB under some inconspicuos name and get his hands dirty with the conservative low-lifes here.
WWWTT why are you so AAAANGRY!???
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That's not completely correct. Our economy is far more than energy, with sectors ranging from agriculture, to manufacturing, to financial services. The country's population (and internal spending is the bulk of our economy) can't survive financially these types of massive increases in the energy price.
I know what our economy is. Yes, those sectors exist. There's no arguing it. We are, however, a largely resource based economy, any way you slice it. The increased price of energy will be felt across the globe, not just in Canada either. Because we're a vast net energy exporter, we will fare FAR better and will become far more competitive overall with increased energy prices.
There's certainly a price where the economy just becomes crippled altogether, but we're not nearly there yet nor will we get there just because of how international energy markets work.
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Not really. The Canadian economy is far more than just energy.
The Canadian economy is mostly energy and resources. Because we sell so much of it, higher energy prices increase our tax revenues etc etc..
The average household sees only the literal price of gas at the pumps. They never see or take into account the tax revenue the government gets from all the oil, which helps keep other taxes down and government spending available. They also don't see how much effect higher energy prices have on making our dollar more valuable, and thus every dollar should be able to purchase more. The only reason we haven't seen so much inflation over the last year or so is because of our inflated dollar. Interest rates are going to start going up very soon, which will drop the inflation rates back to normal.
The other benefit we'll see from higher energy prices is (gasp) more manufacturing at home. Eventually higher energy prices will start to erode the labor cost advantage of Asia because transportation of larger items will become prohibitively expensive. If energy prices continue to go up, or stay where they are, it will help keep jobs here.
The higher the energy prices go, the more export $$$ Canada is getting.
NDP: Official Opposition or Jack Layton as PM?
in Federal Politics in Canada
Posted
August I wouldn't take too much stock in the polls. Some of the pollsters themselves have been saying the data they're using is lousy, the samples poor and the methodology bad. The Liberal Democrats were polling as a strong second before the last UK election but ended up a distant third when the ballots were cast.
Less than 15% of people respond to the telephone survey. Of the people who do respond, the pollsters are saying it's usually the uneducated, the older and the people with too much time on their hands.
Add to that the fact that the left has typically absymal turnout rates and I wouldn't be surprised if poor Jack ends up in third place again.
At any rate, if Jack does form the official opposition (I think PM is out of the question), he'd find he has no friends in the House and no chance of forming a government should the Cons fail to win confidence. The Conservatives are so ideologically opposed to them that the NDP'd get little cooperation there and the Bloc and the Liberals have the most to lose by supporting them and giving them legitimacy. An NDP official opposition would lead either to another election or another 2-3 years of Conservative minority.