Moonbox

30x the scale and money flying around in the USA in terms of aerospace. Private hospitals often pay more. Yeah it takes huge balls for wealthy politicians to use taxpayer money to make themselves rich and support the companies they own. Anyone not shouting "U-S-A!" while they're at it has no balls...

It's probably the other way around actually. A small fee on devices like that would be completely irrelevant compared to the amount of piracy going on. Almost nobody in the 10-35 year old age bracket actually buys DVD's or CD's anymore. They don't purchase from iTunes either. It's more common than not that someone in this demographic would hold a library of thousands of songs downloaded from the internet. That's really the gist of it. The record companies are no longer required/wanted for the distribution of music. Beyond (usually) bad music videos, they provide no value to the industry and they'll slowly disappear. Concerts, merchandise and endorsements are how musicians will get rich now.

You mean it's not because you spend about 30x more per year on your military than Canada? Here I was thinking that the best and brightest normally go where the money is, and now I'm finding out it's not true! You're right about one thing though, you guys ARE good at spinning disasters into successes. The wasting of hundreds of billions and a long string of failures is a testament to your dogged determination and enterprising commercial spirit.

Sure! Like the Avenger II! The Americans embraced that as an "opportunity" to build the B-2. Wait...that ended up being a mess as well. As long as the disaster leads to a disaster which leads to another disaster which finally leads to a (sort of) success, it doesn't really matter right!?!?

Like the Raptor? *yawn* You can do better than that BC. You forgot to jab at the Canadian military too.

It was a pretty pointless post Shady, and I'm not really seeing any beatdown happening. All I'm seeing really is waldo trying way harder than he should to convince people who have already made up their minds and aren't listening. I agree with waldo on very very little, but I have to agree with him that the F-35's a disaster and anyone who can follow the original intention of the project to today's reality should have trouble denying it.

I was on holidays but I thought this was funny and worth commenting on. That's not my argument at all. My argument was that Quebec's lack of willingness to cooperate has left them irrelevant. Rather than trying to actually be a part of Canada and participate in the debate and formation of policy, Quebec's insisted on a direction which has wildly diverged from TROC. It's played spoiler, stomped its feet and complained/protested when this direction has not been accepted. The whole idea of the BLOC itself is quite frankly retarded, because it suggests an "us vs them" situation where Quebec's pitted itself against TROC. Unless this changes and Quebec moderates, governments are going to find it FAR easier to build (relative) consensus in anglo-Canada and ignore Quebec than to try and include Quebec in some sort of anglo-franco Canadian policy model. The NDP's success in Quebec is promising in this regard, but it remains to be seen how this relationship will work out. The NDP has to maintain this relationship with Quebec, while at the same time ensuring that they don't get bogged down with the regional demands that support from Quebec has usually required. The NDP still needs to reach out to TROC and remain focused Canada, rather than largely Quebec.

Greece's economic situation is incredibly easy to explain. When a country demands the benefits and wages from their government that a first-world western economy would enjoy, but lacks the work ethic/productivity to support it, you're halfway there. All you need after that is a population that tolerates/encourages corruption at such a basic systemic level that tax avoidance and bribery are the norms, rather than the exceptions, and you have Greece. The fact that you tried to blame it on right-wing government shows how poorly you understand the situation yourself.

This is typical Quebec thinking though. "He doesn't have support in Quebec, so therefore he doesn't have broad support." Wrong. He leads virtually everywhere outside of Quebec and enjoys far broader and less regional support than ANY other party. Almost guaranteed it would be Harper and the Tories, and I'll base it on very real and very recognizable idealogical differences, despite what you think. Look at Ontario's history of provincial elections and how weak NDP support typically is. Even with a total wet-noodle leader like Tim Hudak, the Tories still managed 35% support to the Liberal's 38% and the NDP's (ouch) 23%. That was WITH the Jack Layton bump too! Most of Ontario has far more in common with light Harper-esque Conservatism than it does with Quebec's desire for social spending and coddling. Look where support stands in Ontario for the NDP - Windsor, Niagara Falls, Hamilton, Northern Ontario and the dump areas of Toronto (ie places that need coddling).

What are you even trying to say? Most of Ontario outside of Toronto is blue, what little red there is had blue runner-ups, and the Tories did well in the GTA too. August I think your perception of how votes get decided outside of Quebec is pretty clueless. Harper had 44% support in Ontario last election. The NDP and Liberals combined had 50%. For the NDP to succeed in Ontario they'd need virtually ALL of the Liberal bleed to go NDP, which you'd be a fool to suggest is likely. Harper would need around 15-20% of former Liberals to vote CPC instead of NDP, and that would seal the deal. Ever heard of the red Tories? You think they'd go NDP? Ontario does NOT like the NDP.

It doesn't even matter 'when' the F-35 comes out. It's going to be a dog when that happens anyways.

HAhahahaa It was pretty funny and pretty clever actually.

It's a federation Peter. If Quebecquers are demanding policy and spending that are so far out of line with what the rest of Canada wants, and choose the protest vote instead of adjusting expectations, they polarize TROC and make it easy for the other side to win. We have the west and Quebec fairly opposed to one another in terms of idealogy, with Ontario being the deciding factor now. Ontario is far more open to the west's moderate conservatism than to Quebec's demands to be coddled, so look what happened. The Conservatives owe their majority to the spectre of the NDP and the collapse of the Liberals. If Quebec wants to continue voting for parties that TROC simply can't stomach, they'll remain irrelevant. The fact that the NDP did so well there is promising, but we'll have to see what happens to the NDP now. Is it going to go mainstream or is it going to push itself further out of touch with the average Canadian? Mainstream is very important here. We're not talking about artistic integrity or anything stupid like that. We're talking about votes. If you're not mainstream you're pretty much nothing. The Tories managed 40% of the popular vote and found support across the entire country except for Quebec. They were able to provide a moderate brand of conservatism that was conservative enough for the west, and liberal enough for Ontario and the East to stomach. The NDP is going to have to strike this balance as well moving forward if they're going ot have any chance. Coddling enough for Quebec, but not so much that it scares Anglo-Canada away. It's up to Quebecquers to make that work.

None of these were wars. You're talking about tiny, third world shit holes being crapped on by the world's greatest superpower. Only to an extent. The Saddam wars were a good illustration of what happens when the world's biggest economy comes to bear against a crap box country like Iraq. We're not comparing equal $$$ spent here. The Americans had the advantage in virtually all aspects. Technology, arms mix, training, logistics and reconnaisance, cooperation from neighbouring countries, desert terrain and an unbelievably large discrepancy in available resources all contributed to the USA's complete victory. Sure, but not really any more dumb that a hugely overpriced pos that's likely to be outclassed by upcoming future threats 5-10 years after it enters production.

The F-16 was, to an extent, a sacrifice of quality in favor of quantity, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The F-4, for example, was superior to the Mig-21, but it was also at least 3x more expensive to build and wasn't 3x as effective in Vietnam (probably the only time that it faced decently trained pilots), despite massive logistical advantages. A misfortune indeed. In hindsight it would have been better to maintain numerous and more specialized platforms. It gets to the point eventually where making something more complex and expensive is subject to diminishing returns.

Cost vs Cost, the Spitfire would win by attrition lol. You could probably build 1000-2000 of them for the cost of 1 F-35, and each missile fired would cost more than the Spitfire it downed. There's a reason that the Boneyard in Arizone exists, and that's because if there ever was a full scale war again against a modern professional opponent, modern air assets would last, at best, a couple of months, and nobody could afford to replace them quickly. The F4 would be making a serious comeback.

The F-35, however, WAS supposed to be a quantity over quality design. Like the budget F-16, it was originally planned to be built in the several thousands. The thing they got wrong is that quantity over quality usually suggests you're building something cheap, like the Sherman and the F-16 or Mig-21, and not something prohibitively expensive.

For what part? The Pentagon downgraded the F-35 from "very low observable" to "low observable" years ago. Google that. It's easy to find, so the fact remains that the Russians will have had 20+ years to refine their radar and infra-red to be able to see stealthier aircraft than the F-35. As for manoeuverability, the wing-loading and weight/thrust ratios on the F-35 are lousy and those numbers are also easy to find, as are comparisons to existing aircraft. I'm not making this crap up, so unless the F-35 is complete paradigm shift in terms of aerodynamics etc, this thing is going to rely on aging stealth characteristics and BVR combat, which has never really been proven effective. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1177440--f-35-the-jet-that-ate-the-pentagon

That's a dumb question, because the whole point of the BQ is to be Quebec-centric. I think I made it pretty clear what I was suggesting. If Quebecquers were a little less petulent and a little more willing to cooperate in a truly federal sense, they'd alter the political landscape. We saw this happen with the NDP. What remains to be seen is whether Quebec understands and comes on board, or whether they hijack the NDP and turn it into the new Bloc, thus alienating TROC. No. I'm saying Quebec should become more reasonable and realize that the country doesn't revolve around them. Seriously? That's what you took out of this? Reread the thread. What I was pointing out was that Quebec MADE itself irrelvant to the current government, not that it's irrelevant by default. That's how Chretien won his majority too. We haven't had a 'truly' national majority since Mulroney. Quebec's 'protest vote' made Harper's tenure as PM possible. Call it what you want. The point remains. Quebec made itself a little too distinct. The implosion of the Liberals will help the Conservatives in Ontario more than anyone, especially if Quebec's running the NDP. Barring some giant scandal or the NDP becoming far more moderate, Harper's going to be around for a while.

thus leading to where they stand today. Can they grow up, or is this going to continue?

It's better to bitch about something before it happens and try to stop it rather than do nothing about it and bitch afterwards. That's bullshit sorry. Shutting it down now would save a ton of money. The argument, I suppose, is that USAF would be vulnerable to future foreign air threats and the cost of starting a new program after this one ends would end up being more. Unforunately, the F-35 is so far over-budget, and has so completely failed to live up to the original concept, that the question is irrelevant. With a radar cross-section of a beach ball, this dog is less stealthy than existing 15+ year old designs. Its combat agility, at best, is comparable to legacy fighters from the 1970's and yet it's STILL far far far more expensive to build and maintain. By the time it's actually in full production, Russia will have had ~30 years to refine their radar and infra-red detection hardware to locate far stealthier planes than this one. By 2020, it's guessed that even the F-22 will be detectable within 20 nmi, so just imagine how easily the F-35 will be spotted. WVR, the F-35's going to get curb stomped. I asked you who has firm contracts so far.

That's not really the question at all. The question is whether or not Quebec is willing to play with the rest of Canada, or if they prefer to throw tantrums and further isolate themselves.

The Americans can cancel their contracts, the Canadians can, the Japanese can, the British can...everyone can. Also, I didn't say the program would be cancelled. I said it was starting to look like it maybe SHOULD be. As for contracts being firmed up, could you provide us some specific information on that? From what I've seen, nobody appears happy with the cost or progression of the program and everyone seems to be dithering about final numbers etc...

That most contracts, particularly non-US ones, are not at all firm, and as we saw with the Raptor and we are seeing already with the F-35, production numbers can end up being MUCH lower than previously expected.

I'm commenting on your trolling. Waldo hasn't been trolling you. He's been trying to have a conversation and you guys have really just been baiting and mocking him when he's brought up valid points.