Moonbox

Fair enough. I have trouble handling it myself, but it's never a good idea to feed into it. First of all, the problem posters will take you 100% serious because that's the way they post. Also, ironically, the posters who would normally listen to what you have to say might not get the joke .

eyeball why would you even bother posting garbage like this? I think the thread title and topic are pretty specific. We're discussing our BS immigration system. Hack-responses like this trash you just posted here are the types of things that are dumbing this forum down to nothing. Yes, there are lots of hack-conservatives on this forum. There are a lot of hack NDP'ers and even Liberals too. Don't feed into it with inane posts like this. That's so dumb and you're smarter than that.

Point is that Albertans don't get the money back that they pay in terms of social programs. They're a net contributor and Quebec, for a very very long time, has been the biggest drain.

If I was a little older and wasn't something like 35+ years from retirement, I'd probably be pretty upset about this. Unfortunately, like most Canadians, if it doesn't affect me or my family directly/immediately, I don't pay it much thought. Realistically it's another example of previous generations absolutely screwing younger generations. Over-generous pensions set up in the gravy-train days of Keynesian economics are dumped on my generation so that when the people paying them finally retire, they don't get near as nice a benefit. It's enough to make you sick.

Section two was a joke in terms of job creation. A tax credit to businesses for new hires with additional credits for having them stay employed for 12 months. Hmm...No way that would contribute to frictional unemployement is there? There were subsidies for commuters...which makes no sense at all to me. Then there was something about ensuring that foreign investment creates Canadian jobs and net benefit for Canada, but it was so vague it's hard to even talk about. Regardless, I didn't see a lot of stuff in there that was going to be great for the economy and make up for even 1/20th of the cost of the promises from sections 1, 3 and 4. That was brought up on the first page of this thread. That, my friend, is a combination of idiocy, hypocrisy, bad memory and ignorance with Canadians and a lot of posters here.

My participation in this forum is sporadic. I don't really participate in the provincial forums either, so I likely never saw it. which is what we in Ontario remember. Tommy Douglas took over at the end of WW2. Governments prior to that had to deal with a couple of interesting phenomena, particularly the Great Depression, followed by WW2. Tommy Douglas took over in time for the baby boom and probably the most prosperous time North America's ever seen. I don't know a ton about the man, but I'm sure those had something to do with his record. What part of the NDP platform was going to bring us a balanced budget exactly? Green Energy, which has worked out for us fantastically in Ontario? I actually read it, believe it or not, and didn't see much in there that would help out our economy (aside from tax credits for creating jobs) and vague promise to keep Canadian provincial+federal taxes below the USA's (which isn't hard). Aside from that I don't really see much there that's going to help the economy. For a few examples we have: 1)Strengthening federal and provincial pensions (people who don't save a dime their whole life should love that) 2)VASTLY increased parental and family leave benefits 3)More publicly funded daycare 4)More public funding for university tuition (which young Canadians are increasingly finding isn't getting them anywhere...yay Communications major ) 5)Utility Bill tax credits 6)Limits to credit card interest rates (5% above prime). If you know anything about the banking industry, you'd know that this was a bald-faced lie on their platform and they'd never have a chance to implement it effectively. 7) More child tax benefits for families in poverty (because, you know, we need more unemployed people having kids so they have more spending money...) This was all from section ONE out of SEVEN in the NDP platform. The rest looks much the same, I'm just not going to reprint it here lol. It's not at all hard to say that. The fact that it's overfunded means that people were paying far too much into it for what they collected, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't rampant abuse of the system. I think (hope) that you and I can agree that EI was started so that hardworking Canadians who lose their jobs have something to get them back on track. The fact that we pay benefits to seasonal workers (landscapers let's say) so that they can snowboard most of the winter was not really part of the equation. The system is a mess. Someone who works steadily for 20 years and whose company goes bankrupt gets the same benefits as someone who works for a year. The surplus didn't just go to corporations, and what did go to the corporations didn't just go into Dick Cheney's bank account. There were benefits all around, including a more favorable business climate for investors. Personally, I'd prefer that then to wealth distribution to the poor, but that's an idealogical thing on my part. Recession. It was money down the toilet. If it was worth it to renovate to make your house more energy efficient, people would just do it, and it wouldn't need a tax credit. It was a feel-good incentive during the recession that helped get people working, but it still just ended up costing Canadians money. In that you and I can agree. I'll re-iterate again that I'd love to see an alternative who didn't promise to spend money frivolously. If someone were to promise to increase taxes solely for the purpose of paying down the debt, I'd vote for that. Unfortunately, Canadians seem too dumb (both in terms of household and federal finances) to realize that you can't spend more than you earn forever.

but nothing the other parties were proposing would have left us in a better position. The NDP's proposals, in fact, would have left us in much worse shape. That's my problem. Please, present an alternative to me - one that doesn't pander to the unions, public sector employees and EI abusers. I'll listen. I'm not even being sarcastic.

I'd have to echo your sentiment there. Topaz buddy - Do you not realize how much of a hack you come off as with posts like this? You criticize Harper's spending, and then he does something, however small, to curtail it, and you wet your bed over it as well.... Choose your battles man.

I'd love to see solid citations for that. I don't know about the rest of Canada, but that's categorically false as far as Canada's biggest province is concerned. The short track record the NDP has here looks pretty aweful...McGuinty aweful. That's kind of a useless comment. You could say that about anything really. I'll take whatever cuts they give us. Criticize their spending all you want, because that's fair. Presenting the NDP's platform as an alternative, however, would be adding to the problem. The whole platform is based on the expansion of oft-abused EI benefits, pension benefits and green money-burning energy.

Okay let's stick with the economists here, because that's what we're talking about. I'll certainly llisten to economists' criticisms of Harper, because he's hardly done an admirable job. I mean, sure, Canada's been solid compared to the rest of the West financially, but it's certainly not because of his leadership. He exercised a campaign of pandering and appeasement through his minority governments which burned through our surplus, he dropped the GST instead of income taxes (and now we have a household debt problem) and he completely blew his prediction of recession in 2008. I'm sure he's glad Canadians are ignorant and have short memories. Looking at Mulcair and the NDP, however, would indicate we'd probably be a lot worse. I don't think it's unfair to call their platform tax and spend, because that's exactly what it is. Aside from military spending, the NDP is pretty much ALWAYS promising increased services, benefits, social programs etc, as well as higher taxes, particularly for those aweful job-creating corporations. The economists, by a VERY VERY VERY large margin, favour Harper over Mulcair and the NDP, and have done so for a very long time.

See below:

Like Papa Jack? Honestly, this is a really stupid thread topic. It might as well say, "Is Harper a politician?". At any rate, pretty much any criticism from the NDP on Harper's economic record, dubious as it clearly is, has to be taken with a truck load of salt. Regardless of Harper's overspending, the fact that Mulcair is fussing over proposed Tory cuts to public services shows you where he stands. You can't criticize him for his spending on one hand, and then fight him trying to fix it after the fact. What were the NDP's proposals to deal with the recession again? Oh yea...increase corporate taxes... What we have here is two party leaders bs'ing everyone and playing the dumb game of politics. Anyone falling for it is just dense.

My mother was too critical when I was growing up. I hope the courts take that into account as well. What a pile of dog****.

I think he's referring to the F-35 program specifically. I don't think madmax is a fervent Tory supporter himself...

Air Canada, as far as I know, didn't have a contractor to do their work in Canada anymore. They'll need to find one eventually but for the time being they need their planes fixed, in the USA if necessary.

You strike me as very pragmatic and cynical about politics and politicians, which is a good thing. People like you don't usually swallow the dogma and make the whole experience religious...like a lot of posters here.

Clever trap, but I'm not biting. The difference between electromagnetic weapons, and either kinetic energy weapons or conventional explosive weapons would be more or less the same. Just because A & B differ in a similar way to C, doesn't mean A & B are the same. but you and Bill just told me all of these techies are inherently concise...but now there's ambiguities? BTW, did this thread get merged with the other one? If so, maybe we can switch to PMs or give uip on the debate altogether. Nobody needs to suffer through this but us

Interestingly, it said: kinetic energy weapons are those for which it is the energy of a moving projectile, such as a bullet or rocket, which damages the target which is pretty much what I've been saying. This guy, whoever he is and wherever you found this, wrote the paper on directed energy weapons, and he acknowledges that his inclusions of kinetic energy weapons in this sphere is out of the ordinary. What that should tell you is that indeed there IS in fact generally accepted terminology and jargon used in the field. Also of note is that his math dealt more or less strictly with trajectory and mass/velocity, aiming, and the effects of such on impact, not of payloads delivered. and as I responded to Bill, those folks don't redefine narrowly used terms to the point where they're so broad, and so general that they're meaningless, like you have done. There is a reason why people use terms like, Kinetic Energy Missile, Kinetic Energy Penetrator etc, and that's because the weapons themselves are very different from others. A HEAT round or shaped charge, for example, would never be called a kinetic energy penetrator in technical circles. Sure, they penetrate targets. The explosive charges are shaped to direct the resulting kinetic energy to pierce the armor of the target, but even experts don't call them KEP's. When experts are talking about KEP's they're talking about things like APFSDS or LRP's -- just solid projectiles.

Thread title is weird. I would think that pedophilia is something that would just come natural to you, and wouldn't require a lot of coaching on...

First off, it's impossible to eliminate all ambiguity with the spoken/written word. Context affects meaning and that can't be avoided completely. It's fair to say that a technical discussion amongst experts in a given field is likely to be much more terse and precise, but even there Derek flounders. His explained usage of the term kinetic energy weapon is so broad and all-encompassing that it's rendered meaningless in a technical discussion. He'd be just as well off saying weapon or more specifically conventional weapon. Instead, however, he choses kinetic energy weapon, which for his intended usage is extraneous and indicative of an attempt to show off what he believes is his expertise in the subject of military hardware. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that the term already has a specific meaning in military literature and discussion that's completely different from the way he was using it. Apparently he's not such an expert himself. My original comment was merely meant to highlight the irony of his condescension earlier in the thread towards other posters, but I found it amusing how I somehow managed to get an irrelevant 7-page education on basic physics and limited military history, and learned nothing new throughout.

I have to believe now that you're being intentionally obtuse here. I'm arguing terminology and your contextual misuse of it in a discussion like this. You're trying to turn it into a science debate where the science itself is not in question. I'm going to have to revert to analogy here, just to try, in any way I can, to get you to realize how pointless, unecessary and foolish your science rants are. Consider the term personal computer. The term has a fairly accepted meaning right? If we were going to use the framework of our argument and replace what we were talking about with the term personal Computer, the argument would look something like this: Derek: I'm sure glad I brought my personal computer with me. I didn't realize I'd be waiting in line this long. Now at least I can read the news while I wait... Me: Your personal computer? Don't you mean your Iphone? Derek: No. I mean my personal computer. Me: You usually call it your phone...or your Iphone...you don't call it your personal computer. Derek: Well it's a computer, I'm a person, and I'm using it, so it's a personal computer. Context, meaning and implication are all very important parts of the English language Derek. The term personal computer has a generally accepted meaning. So does the term kinetic energy weapon.

There you go Smallc

Good one. So clever. Kinetic energy is energy in motion. Potential energy is basically stored up energy awaiting release/reconfiguration. A pulled-back elastic has potential energy. Me holding a rock in the air has potential energy. A compressed tank of gas has potential energy. Releasing the potential energy converts it. The elastic launches, the rock is drops, the gas explodes. Kinetic energy. I get it. It just has no relevance to my point and it was childish of you to harp on it, because we were never arguing about how weapons work. We were arguing about what terminology you use for them. I said they're not termed impact weapons. You don't call them that. The fact that where they impact makes a difference doesn't mean you call them impact weapons. Cobra venom isn't an impact weapon either. Sure, it's spit through the air, and it matters where it impacts, but that's just a delivery method, just like a missile. The fact that it might have to penetrate deeper in the target doesn't change the terminology you use. Again, I'm not talking about the science behind it, I'm talking about the terminology used.

Apologies Smallc. You're right. Don't worry though. Someone will start a new F-35 thread in a few days anyways. There's always one lurking near the top of the page.

Again, I wasn't arguing that. I was arguing your use of the term kinetic energy weapon, which has a very specific meaning. One last time, the term is used to refer to a specific type of projectile weapon. You don't just say kinetic energy weapon for the sake of using extra words. You say it when you're trying to differentiate it from other types of weapons, much like you would between melee weapons. A spear, for example, is a stabbing weapon. A sword is a stabbing/slashing weapon and an axe is a chopping weapon. All use kinetic energy, but nobody would write that the Assyrians were so feared in ancient times because of their superior kinetic energy weapons. In today's terms, kinetic energy weapon refers to piercing weapons, impact weapons like like rubber bullets and bean-bag rounds, and particularly experimental weapons like railgun, gauss and mass-driver weaponry. More or less. The impact is merely necessary to deliver the payload to where it will be effective. Of course the point of detonation matters! A hit is going to cause more damage than a miss. An explosion in a munitions or fuel storage is likely to cause more damage than in the mess hall. That still doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of the damage is caused by the explosion. The Japanese weren't flying empty planes into American carriers, nor did Iraqi's fire solid lead missiles at American ships. These weapons cost a lot and they don't fly fast enough to do significant damage to ships (barring a fluke like the Sheffield) without explosive ordnance. That's why they're not termed kinetic energy weapons. It's not because they don't impact with kinetic energy, it's because the force of impact is merely for conveyence of the payload. In contrast, a true kinetic energy weapon, like an APFSDS from a tank, is extremely dense (tungsten or depleted uranium), fires at almost 6000ft/s, and hits its target (usually another tank) so hard that it tears through its armor, causes all sorts of burning fragmentation, kills everyone inside and then knocks out most of the interior systems. There is no explosion, just pure momentum.