Moonbox

There's no mystery to this. The Arab world has been trying since the 70's to come up with the bomb. Iran appears to be close to this objective. After this is achieved nobody can/will mess with them. They know it, we know it, the USA knows it, and there's f*** all anyone is going to do about it.

I remember an election. Unfortunately for you, all of the morons, unemployed basement dwellers, tree huggers and refugees in our country were either too lazy too vote, or were too stupid to vote intelligently. Parliament is not controlled by the PM. He governs Canada through the impotence of Canada's other parties and just so happens to wield the largest amount of influence. I almost feel like you need a grade school lesson on how the British Parliamentary system works, but sadly I'm not sure you've got what it takes between the ears to absorb it. I'll agree we should look at electing senators, but other than that you don't have a clue man. It's like talking to a 10 year old...

The Queen as our head of state is merely symbolic. The idea of a dried up prune in England exercising any real authority on our nation is farcical. If we wanted to we could have a referendum and abolish the monarchy in Canada. We 'maintain' the monarchy in Canada for symbolic reasons and because our system of government has thus far worked and there's no use messing with it. Royal Assent these days is pretty much assumed on any legislation passed in Parliament. Don't fool yourself into thinking the Governor General/Queen could actually ACT as the head of state. Virtually ALL of the power in Canada rests with Parliament, the Senate and the Supreme Court.

Matter of opinion. I didn't say I hate the homeless. I said I don't feel worse for them than animals in the humane society who will likely be eventually put down . Choosing to do drugs is a choice. It's not like, "Oops, I started shooting heroine. I never knew this would happen." Of course upbringing has something to do with it, but 99% of kids who start know it's a TERRIBLE idea to begin with. As for mental illness, well that's all relative. Sometimes there's clearly mental illness at work, sometimes you're just dealing with idiots who've been to jail too many times and can't get jobs anymore. Ya because you see these people everywhere right...this is a good example of the average homeless guy Watch a few more movies. A lot of them don't want treatment, refuse treatment and alienated their entire families. They'll be dependent on others their whole life and constantly refuse to help themselves. Sorry. Don't care about those. No they're not. They're not allowed to live outside human control. We round them up and bring them to the Humane Society. More like abandoned and abused. Feral would mean you found them in the forest somewhere, and we REALLY don't have a lot of wild dogs running around...at least not in Ontario. No, we're part of the same community. That's it. The woman begging me for change downtown Guelph so she can go do something fun like go and see a movie (her words) is not part of my moral community. She just lives in the same city as me. That's kind of my point. The homeless guy who chose to shoot up or shank someone or whatever knew at the time it was wrong/bad at least on some level. If he can't make that distinction, he's in the same moral community as the animals we're talking about. So are humans. Given the means to survival, however, a HUMAN should aspire to grow and improve and be productive. The ability to reason and think gives us that power. The people who survive and linger in the gutter (ruling out your schizophrenics of course), somehow miss that part. Starve a human and see what they'll do. When you get down to that level a dog and a human will act pretty much the same.

Legislating them back to work basically means they'll be sent directly to arbitration. Arbitration means they'll get contracts comparable to other unions with similar industries/skillsets/markets. It doesn't necessarily mean the unions get screwed. Often the government ends up on the losing side. That's why the garbage piled up so high this summer in Toronto. They were afraid of what would happen in arbitration.

This will be perceived as an aweful thing to say, but personally I care even less about the street bum begging for coin than I do about stray dogs at the humane society. Maybe I'm a terrible person, but I truly don't see the difference. Just because I share more in common genetically with the street bum doesn't automatically mean I should feel more responsible/care more for his problems. A vagrant typically has more opportunity to understand/improve his circumstances than does an animal. An animal's well-being is almost ENTIRELY dependant on the people around it.

The fully armored knight was more of a prestige/cultural thing than anything at the best of times. It was never really a cost-effective weapon and they could always be outwitted by competent opponents in less expensive equipment. Gunpowder took hundreds of years to eliminate armor from the battlefield and it took the repeating rifle/machine gun to get cavalry off the field. The curassiers were still wearing steel breastplates at Waterloo. As for the battleship, its preeminence was over well before WW2 started and at least the USA and Japan knew it. Even then, you can't truly say they were made obsolete. Cruisers now fulfill many of the same roles. What does your brother-in-law think about the Chinese and Indians building their own aircraft carriers? Seems kind of silly if they know they can be sunk by a million dollar missile right? Scud missiles were being tracked by 1980's computer equipment. My Blackberry has more processing power.

These weapons and tactics brought changes. That's all. You act as though one weapon all of the sudden erases the need/use for entire armies/navies. A lot of the time tactics simply evolved to develop a quick counter. The stirrup and chariot encouraged training and cohesion in infantry. A competent commander could make cavalry look foolish. The longbow and the musket certainly could pierce armor, but it took hundreds of years for it to get to the point where the armored horseman was obsolete. Military tactics/equipment are always going to be constantly evolving, and the cruise missile is something that modern navies have and will continue to adapt against. One problem with the cruise missile is that it has to be able to actually target a carrier. It's not simply a matter of saying, "Hey, there's a carrier 400 miles off our coast, let's wax it!". They need a good way to find it and target it, and it's standard practice for any modern armed force to take out the eyes and ears of the enemy before moving big assets into the field of fire. This in itself is a defense against cruise missiles.

Part of the problem with most of these countries is there is often little/no infrastructure in place to collect and enforce taxes and nothing to tax the people for anyways. How much taxes do you think you're going to pull out of a Laosian subsistance rice farmer? It's not low social spending that's causing poor living conditions, but rather poor living conditions/lack of economy that are preventing high taxes.

Left or right is a relative term. That's the whole point. A lot of conservatives would call an LPC supporter a left winger, and a dipper would call him a right wing elitist. It really doesn't matter. The terms of left/right are simple framing devices used in political discussion. They're meant to dumb down whatever issue is being discussed. Rather than arguing the pros/cons of the issue, people instead try to define the poster (much like in politics) and discredit him/her rather than her opinion. Of course this is not always the case, but generally speaking it probably is. I'm guilty of this, you are all guilty of this, and it's simple human nature. Deep down, we are all here because we like to argue. Rhetoric is a natural part of that

It's disgusting. EI and welfare should be there for people who temporarily need help or legitametely can't find work. Those who chose not to as far as I'm concerned should be left to starve or herded in to work camps or something. It sickens me. It would pay worth a shit if it was worth paying anything for. Don't expect to have a car and a luxurious lifestyle if the only work you've qualified yourself for is something a monkey could do.

An elected representative can say whatever he wants. It's the choice of his constituents to elect him. Criticizing chronically unemployed "wastes of humanity" (those are my words)who chose not to work is hardly an aweful thing to do. It's interesting how various companies/industries are almost always short of workers yet perfectly able people are lining up for their welfare cheques every month instead. They've clearly got better things to do right?

Dancer don't tell him. It's much more fun to watch Topaz flounder...

Bingo. Don't tell that to Topaz though. He doesn't like to know what he's talking about.

I laughed my ass off when I read this article in the newspapers. This woman is nothing but a crybaby sore loser. Her husband SINGLE HANDEDLY tanked the Liberals because he was an incoherent wuss-bag and now she's blaming Liberal misfortunes on Ignatieff? True, Ignatieff may not have done anything to fix the problem, but you should blame the idiot who dug you into hole first before you start attacking the guy trying to dig you out. Also, I too am starting to really get a chuckle out of the term "Toronto Elite". I mean, it's unfathomable that the LPC's power wouldn't be centred in Qwebec like it has for the last 30 years. It's not like most of their support comes from Toronto or anything. After how poorly Dion did, I would say any change is good change.

First of all, please work on your punctuation because it's painful to read some of your posts with all of the random commas. It's worse than listening to Shatner speak. Second, the things you would like the government to invest and change are things that most Canadians don't want anything to do with. This is reflected in the polls. It's not a lack of desire for change but rather a lack of desire for expensive and pointless new initiatives. IIRC correctly you were advocating earlier for the federal government to invest in a high-speed transit line between Montreal and Toronto. I live near Toronto and that's the last thing I want federal money spent on. That's not a good public investment. That's for poor people who want the government to pay for them to travel around and entertain themselves.

1.1 billion in GROSS profits for a company with 50,000 employees is garbage.

That's what they are. They're 'alleged'. To say that Harper knew about it is a pretty tall claim as well. This is going nowhere.

Bloated huh? Yep, that's a really sage and well-informed opinion....

I thought this was an interesting read. Strike The CAW has found a parts plant that appears to be critical to Chrysler's operations in the area. Now I'm not expert or anything, but I would have to suggest that striking immediately after your biggest customer emerges from bankruptcy protection isn't really the greatest idea. The CAW doesn't appear to be learning any lessons.

Topaz! It's nice to see you carrying the torch and letting us know about all the inane happenings in Ottawa. Someone has to do it!

To argue that quality of living should be a universal standard is pretty much agreeing with communism. Health and education should be universal and beyond that it's the individual's responsibility to achieve a quality standard of living. They are not on any 'practical agenda' because most Canadians aren't interested in subsidizing the lazy and stupid any more than we already do.

No not at all. Nobody is advocating for these to go away. While education is a social program, it's not the same as, say, welfare. Didn't say anything about free health care either. That's one thing I think everyone should be entitled to. I have no problem supporting those in our society who contribute or are in bad situations through no fault of their own. I DO have a problem, however, having people expect me to subsidize other people's moronic/lazy lifestyles.

The problem is that many of the things you think are going forward are what I would call wastes of money that I shouldn't have to pay taxes for. I DO NOT think that I should have to pay for other people's child care. I DO NOT think that I should pay extra for social programs. I think the cities themselves should pay for urban infrastructure and transit and do NOT think that's a provincial or federal responsibility. If the city wants these things, they should raise their taxes and pay for them. Then maybe we wouldn't have half our population living in the GTA/Montreal areas. What YOU call 'moving forward' I consider unfair and wasteful spending towards have-nots.

Not alien invasion? :angry: