Moonbox

Okay well how about if the Russian navy was patrolling a few miles off our seas near Newfoundland or something? Patrolling the Black Sea is just stupid. Not only is it an empty gesture (as even the US would have no hope of controlling it so close to Russian soil and Russian airbases), it's also an insulting and provocative one.

That's why Section 1 of our Charter exists. It imposes reasonable limits on any/all applications of the law.

Well sure, it's a lot easier to blame the 'system' and cry about how unfair it is than it is to actually, oh I don't know, watch 15 minutes less television every night and learn anything about what's going on. 40% of people not even voting is a really clear indication of how engaged, intelligent and informed these people are, right!? Oh wait, sorry, it's just the 'system'. Fat people are only fat because of their genes too....

Which gets back to my original point, which is that Canadians consider ANY change drastic. The frothing protests of special interest groups (be they corporate, public or otherwise) and their ability to distort the facts usually manage to convince everyone that small changes would lead to calamity, even if those changes are good for virtually everyone. The Dairy Board, like I've mentioned before, is a perfect example. Rather than seeing how unfair the system is to almost everyone, Canadians instead buy into the ludicrous myth that dismantling the Dairy Board would throw poor Ma & Pa farmers onto the street, completely ignorant of the fact that they're paying ~$300 a year more on dairy so that mostly large and wealthy dairy farm operations can keep getting larger and wealthier.

Along with backwards, stagnant and overly cautious. Obviously you can't say those things in the news, however.

I don't think it was really either. The PC torpedoed because they horribly botched the Constitutional debates (frustrating pretty much everyone) and ran enormous deficits throughout. The fact that most of the deficit spending was debt-service payments on Trudeau's debt went over most Canadians' heads. It's always about the economy and Mulroney failed spectacularly in that regard. The Reform Party was born mostly out of protest for irresponsible PC fiscal policy and the Liberals were elected in the 90's with a mandate to balance the budget.

Okay sorry Derek. I just usually roll my eyes when I hear people say Canada is 'centrist', because that's like saying, "Popular music is popular" or "The average Canadian likes the things that the average Canadian likes."

The belief that the government is screwing people over is ubiquitous all over the world (except maybe North Korea). Unfortunately it's also a very arbitrary and unfocused belief. The majority of people complaining about politics might as well be complaining about bad weather for all of the energy they devote to understanding the topic. That's circular logic eyeball. If the governing system is to blame then it should be changed. The only people who can force this change are Canadian voters, so the buck always has to stop there. The attitude that the 'system' is the problem is just an impotent excuse and a way to shift responsibility away from ourselves.

Sure, but an inflammatory, comically obese and lying crack-head is more than anyone can, or should, handle. His political career is over. I've long maintained the opinion that this is all the electorate's fault. You can blame the media or the cowardice of politicians to take risk, but the buck stops at the voters who are too collectively too stupid/apathetic/ignorant to even make the attempt to reason out even basic political/economical messaging. The Reform Party, at its core, had some smart and reasonable ideas. Unfortunately, there were way too many religious Bubbas, and vocal antagonists for anyone to really trust them. Combine that with a platform that was too far from the mainstream and they were always doomed.

Yes, it would. Even incremental change, however, is a struggle in Canada. The tendency for special interests (corporate, social or other) to cry/whine/advertise loudly about impending disaster are usually enough to get voters confused over the issues, ensuring the gravy trains remain unaffected. The issue never seems to be about how changes will positively and significantly affect the majority of Canadians, but instead how calamitous it will be for small special interest groups. The Dairy Board is a great example. This monstrously stupid institution ensures that a relatively small number of large (and wealthy) dairy farmers don't have to compete. In exchange, Canadian families (on average) pay something like $300 more on milk and cheese than they would otherwise, and export markets for OTHER farming markets remain closed to Canadians. Instead of actually learning what the Dairy Board actually does, the fabricated image of the struggling Mom & Pap dairy farmers gets imprinted in the mind of Canadians, making any discussion about dismantling it widely unpopular. It makes me want to puke.

That was one of the best and well thought-out posts I've read here in forever. It's a huge problem in Canadian politics and it has been for probably 20 years now, showing no signs of improvement. Can we lay the blame squarely on the party's shoulders, however? Nope! This is a fluffy, exaggerated and essentially meaningless statement when you really look at it. It's a pervasive cliché in Canadian political discourse, but let's actually look at what it tells us. When we say "centrist", what we really mean is mainstream politics. Mainstream politics win in Canada, sure, but they generally win everywhere else as well. Mainstream/Centrist politics dominate everywhere that democracy rules. What's mainstream here, however, is not necessarily mainstream in the USA or Japan. The mainstream changes from region to region and over time as well. This is where we actually get to what Derek's statement actually means. When he says Canada is centrist and averse to extremist vitriol, he is certainly correct, but perhaps not in the way he intended. While as nation we're certainly anti-extremism and anti-vitriol, we're also anti-change and anti-honest talk. In aggregate, we're a nation of conservatives, and by the proper definition of conservative rather than the 'right-wing' meaning of the term today. We're resistant to change, we don't like boat-rocking and we're shocked and appalled by candid dialogue. That's why little/nothing gets done over long periods of time, and that's why people like Harper/Chretien etc can spend 10 years in office with little to show for it. The parties that maintain the status quo and have the most boring platform are generally the ones who win.

He did not make an excellent point. The fact that you think he did has more to do with you agreeing with the underlying tone/message of the post I quoted, rather than on any sort of intellectual merit. He could have said, "Harper BAD, me no like! All people like Harper are dumbs!" and you would have been equally impressed. First of all, he's certainly not 'my man'. Your assumption that he is, along with your lap dog comment, is just the typically childish reaction of someone who struggles to reasonably handle disagreement. As for the article, I agree with some of the comments made, particularly with the lack of transparency regarding the "other" category of revenues, as well as a the inability for critics to compare past budget figures using the new accounting rules. I don't know if that's simply a matter of it being too expensive/time consuming to review old budgets with new accounting rules, but if it was a big enough concern then I would like to think the opposition would investigate it on their own. As for comparing past Liberals, this is simply a tactic to highlight the hypocrisy/bias of certain posters on this board, many of whom have been here a long, long time. cybercoma, for example, has been posting here for longer than Harper's been in power. I can assure you, back in 2006, he was not loudly criticizing Paul Martin's dubious methods for balancing the budget. The Liberal supporters on this board at the time were in fact championing this as responsible fiscal management. In the end, I just found it incredibly amusing to see someone like cyber calling people 'hacks' given his history of heavily slanted and exaggerated rhetoric. It's the "If you disagree with me then you're a hack/dumby" approach to political debate. I love it.

Hey now, we don't know he'll be as much of a spend-thrift as his father. At the very least, he so far appears to listen to his advisers. He has his father's legacy to shake off, and I really doubt that he'll start his first term off by making it rain.

Hearing you, of all people, call anyone a hack on this forum is beyond hilarious.

The whole text didn't need to be quoted, and as per the forum rules we're asked to only quote what's necessary. Saying I've quoted you out of context suggests that your meaning wasn't clear without the accompanying text, or that I misportrayed it and attributed it to a different topic. Your statement that I quoted, however, was unequivocal. You said: "I do not support any party as they are all crooks and Harper will go down in history as the biggest so far." What part of that statement is even remotely unclear to the casual reader? There's little/no room for interpretation there, so the quote was completely contextual. Oops! What you're doing here is suggesting that anyone who disagrees with you is stupid/foolish/ignorant. Not only is this a childish approach to political debates, you're also being hypocritical. You mention needing 'facts' to support your positions, but you suggested that Harper's campaign was financed by Putin's friends with no facts backing that up. Additionally, campaign financing rules make it pretty much impossible for Russians or Russian companies to have had any impact on Harper's campaign finances, so your statement is foolish on two counts. Ah, there it is, the ultimately fallacy, the pinnacle of incompetent arguments! Godwin's Law fulfilled! That sure didn't take you very long. When Harper negotiated minor trade deals with the elected Yanukovych, that was JUST like Chamberlain giving Czechoslovakia to Hitler, right!? It takes a special type of intellect to make that comparison. While you may have more experience with Ukraine than I do, you appear to have very little experience making rational arguments. You're very obviously speaking from an angry personal bias rather than facts and reason.

Out of context? Do you even know what the term means? You posted a bunch of frantic, goofball rhetoric and I directly quoted it and directly responded to it. That's about as in-context as it gets. Being a new member doesn't give you a free pass for writing irrational, emotional nonsense. If a new members want to be treated reasonably, they need to speak reasonably.

What a great post for you, as a new member, to show everyone how rational, well-spoken and intelligent you are.....

What you also don't do is show anything even resembling a balanced point of view. While you might fault Argus for flavoring his criticism of Harper with even stronger criticism for the Liberals, he's at least acknowledging that they're not perfect. Is that any worse than the determined efforts of certain posters here to denounce literally everything the Harper government has done as the workings of the Anti-Christ? "but the Libs" is just a tool of comparison, and politics are all about comparison. While the Conservatives certainly formed the government now for the better part of a decade, most of that was a minority government with, you might be reminded, the Liberals helping to pass all of their legislation. While that certainly doesn't give Harper a free pass, it IS something to consider. Additionally, "but the Libs" can often refer to the frequent hypocrisy of the debate. A perfect example was the Ignatieff Liberals and their supporters slamming Harper for not doing 'enough' to boost the ailing economy during the recession, but then later attacking his deficits over that period. That sort of thing is ridiculous. They'll be held accountable next election. Don't you worry. Enough small C's are tired of Harper and his crew, and enough young people and women will flock to Justin for everyone to feel confident that the end of Harper's federal political career is imminent.

Can you ask yourself the reverse waldo? Let's be fair here. It's not like you don't have an angle yourself.

You brought up the study, not me. I used the information provided therein, which very much supports my conclusion. The question of distribution is also a reach, and it's not just because you're now trying to question/discredit your own reference. The population of the world between 500BC and 300AD did not change enough to meaningfully impact the rates of lead fallout in comparison to the modern rate (800x higher). Maybe it changes the rate from 800x to 700x, or even to 600x. It doesn't really matter does it? Nobody said it didn't. It's a question of scale, which your study proves has increased exponentially. Thankfully yes, but this could have happened a decade earlier at no/little cost to the economy.

No, I'm saying that industrialism led to a higher impact per person AND a much larger population. This is an exponential increase. Rome's peak population was over double that, and it was only ~20% of the world's population at that time. What that article you linked shows us is that the civilizations of antiquity needed 800 years to match only 15% of the lead contamination levels that the world managed in the 1930-1994 period. Post 1930's lead fallout was thus around ~800x higher than in antiquity. Thank you for validating my point. I'm all for a strong economy, and I'm heavily against dumb money following dumb and ineffective green initiatives. On the other hand, that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of really simple common sense things that we should be doing but don't. The gas-guzzling engines of 90's and the SUV craze were brilliant examples of stupid and irresponsible economics. Curtailing that stupidity did not harm the economy.

A zealot, huh? What, pray tell, is my zealousness directed towards? Is that maybe just a stock word you use when someone disagrees with you on a topic? Pre-industrial technology had a large effect, sure, but post-industrial technology has a far greater impact. Your argument that much of the increased impact we've seen is because of the larger populations is dumb, sorry. Industrialism was the catalyst for the population explosion of the 18 & 1900's, and the effect humanity has had on the environment increased exponentially as a result. We got better and more efficient at gathering/planting/building which allowed populations to grow who did more gathering/planting/building and so on. Well duh. I'm not sure why you're saying this though. I don't remember saying I wanted to dial the clock back 200 years. I would agree with pretty much all of that. The big problem is that I don't really think we have a very good grasp of what we're changing, how we're changing it and what the effects will be. That should at least be worrying.

Don't bother posting links to blogs to support your arguments. You can find a blog that will say/support pretty much anything. I didn't bother reading it, nor do I need to because your logic is broken right from the start. The question your asking is ridiculous. Before industrialization, cities never grew much past 1,000,000 people. Beyond that point it became unmanageable and impractical. Do cars leave less manure on the road than horses? Sure, but that's about the only point you've made. I don't think anyone is arguing that they'd rather live in 1600 AD-era London. Industrialization absolutely made life longer and safer and (arguably) better for the average person. It also vastly increased the scale of humanity's disruption of the natural environment.

That's kind of screwy logic Tim. Industrial technology is the only thing that allowed the population to swell to 7 billion. Before that, populations grew much, much slower and were kept in check to an extent by crop failures and plagues etc. The idea that industrialization hasn't vastly accelerated changes to the environment is purely ridiculous.

The amount of effort you put into mocking Canada/Canadians is getting to be obsessive/sad. When you start adding lolCats photos here to support your trolling, it starts to look personal. What's the matter? Did a mean Canadian kid call you a name when you were a widdle boy? Did a girlfriend run off on you with a Canuck? Whatever it is, all of Canada is SORRY.