Moonbox

The point of federalism is to ensure that regions remain affiliated but mostly self-determining. This is why we have provinces and territories and this is why we have ridings. Without ridings, regional interests are nowhere near as relevant. The riding system ensures that member districts of the federation have a noticeable voice. Representation by population transfers that power away from electoral districts and instead it centralizes it instead, which is contrary to how federation is supposed to work. If you really need examples of how this would work I can give it to you, but hopefully not. I don't want to write another three paragraphs.

Good one...

They were draconian cuts, and they were done on the back of the provinces. Just as the Conservatives won't give him credit for that, the left likes to forget that it was Chretien, not Harper, who reduced the provinces' fiscal capabilities and stressed their budgets. Somehow, this translated into the Liberals being champions of health care etc. It's funny, isn't it?

You don't have to explain it to me. I know that. It's working as intended. You don't understand the goal of the system. Read more into 'federalism'.

eyeball, don't ask for proof for stupid crap like this. It makes you look dumb. 40% of people don't even vote. That's proof that the electorate isn't interested. The fact that clinically retarded campaign ads like Harper's from 2011 actually WORKED is proof that people aren't doing a lot of thinking. If people were actually INTERESTED in politics, and were so outraged etc, they'd actually hold the politicians to a higher standard. They don't. They watch TV, see the election ads, and make their decisions based on that. Good for you for knowing people that are interested in politics. I know lots too. I know far more, however, that aren't in the least interested.

Okay, whatever. I'm not really arguing against that. The fact is that the electorate, as a whole, is uninterested. The average voter or none-voter doesn't have a clue. Clearly you don't understand the system with comments like this. You're not voting to ensure you're represented in parliament. You're voting to determine who's going to best represent your community. That's because you don't understand federalism.

The 40% who don't vote are clearly less educated about the issues. I only brought it up to highlight how dumb the electorate is. Personally, I think it's dumb not to vote. It's also dumb not to know what you're voting about. Both are bad. As for FPTP, of course it's a flawed system. Democracy is flawed and always will be. It's less flawed than the alternatives. People who say it distorts the will of voters usually just don't understand what the system was designed to do. Either that or they're just unhappy that they're supporting a party that doesn't succeed undert he current model, which is just whining as far as I'm concerned. You're not voting for the composition of parliament. You are voting over who your community will send as a representative to parliament. The system was designed this way to ensure that the different priorities of regions and minority groups have a voice in parliament. Your representative is there purely to ensure that the interests of your community are looked after. It's little different than voting for your mayor and city council. Either your candidate wins, or he/she loses. Get informed about the issues and make sure you don't waste your vote by not making the best and most pragmatic choice for you. Where parliament begins to fail is in the idealogy, party allegiances and (again) the ignorance and apathy of the electorate. 99% of people have no idea what their MP supports or stands for because votes are virtually always whipped. Under ideal circumstances, if a vote was put forth on an issue in conflict with a community/region's well-being, its MP would vote against it. The consequences of this, however, is often that the MP is expelled from the party. The voters in that community, rather than informing themselves over what he/she was expelled for (looking after them) instead recognizes that their pet party expelled that MP and then looks unfavourably at that person during an election. That's the electorate's fault.

'Little friends' is a personal attack? At worst, this is light mockery, and your childish arguments warrant it. FPTP isn't going to change. It is still, by far, the best form of government for federal democracy. Your problem with the system is that it elected a candidate that you don't like. The alternatives, such as proportional representation, don't work for a country like Canada, where priorities differ greatly by region. The problem with Canadian politics isn't the system, but the apathy and ignorance of the electorate. When ~40% of the eligible population doesn't even vote, and most of those that do know nothing about the issues or candidates, we end up with the brainless politics we get. The dumber the electorate, the dumber our parliament. If the average person spent an hour a week reading the news, becoming informed of the issues and actually thinking them through critically, things would improve. Unfortunately, people can't spare that time with a busy schedule of Glee and The Bachelor booked up. Do I like Harper? Hell no. Do I think he plays to the lowest common denominator? Yep! Did I vote for him? Sure did. The alernatives sucked more.

This is how FPTP works. This is how it works everywhere, and how it has always worked, and that's how ALL of the parties play it, particularly the poorer ones like the NDP, who need to spend their money carefully and narrow down their focus to VERY specific areas and demographics. As to your observation that he's not that popular a leader, that's true I suppose. Unfortunately for you and your little friends, he was far more popular in the last election than the alternatives!

The information you provided is not in question. The infantile conclusions you draw from it, however, are. The fact that the CPC targeted ethnic ridings they thought they had a chance to win does not mean that they didn't have widespread support. Outside of the urban ethnic ridings they won, they basically swept the West, dominated rural Ontario and crushed everyone outside of Toronto/Vancouver, the Maritimes and Quebec. Contrast them with any other party in that election, and you can see that their vote was FAR better spread out among demographic groups. You can whine and cry about them winning all you want, but this is how a federal system works and it's worked this way for a very long time.

What a freaking stupid thing to say. I guess ~6,000,000 Canadians are 'extremists' then. What specific ethnic group is that? White, rural Ontario farmers? The CPC has more widespread support, BY FAR than any other party in Canada. Compare that to the NDP, where it was almost all in Quebec and an small assortment of other places (ie. broke, armpit communities in Ontario like Windsor, Hamilton and the empty north) or to the Liberals', who were for all intents and purposes non-existent outside Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, and your argument is a pretty clear indication that you know NOTHING about Canadian politics except how to whine. As for this 'survey', I can't say I take it very seriously, especially given how low the results are for the media and the political parties (which are lower than Parliament!!!!).

The alternatives are the Liberals and the NDP. I think the CPC is safe in Alberta.

That's where a lot of people start getting stupid about the argument. The assumption IS that there's infinite money, or at least that the proposed environmental initiatives (ie powering our homes by wind/solar) would be anything near affordable. Neither is true, but alternative, as it's presented to us, is the end of the world by 2040 apparently.

It's too late now to do anything about it. The damage is already done. The better solution at the time of conception would have been to maintain the multi-platform doctrine rather than try to fit every single little capability into one plane.

Because much of the resources they need are outside of their historical sphere of influence. Unfortunately for them, they're so far behind in terms of force projection capabilities that it will be decades before they can catch up (ie 25 years or more). By then the F-35 won't be nearly as impressive as it is today. It's like bankrupting yourself now so that you can be protected from the threat that doesn't exist, all so that you can be too broke to protect yourself properly when the threat actually materializes.

Sure, a lot of it came from them. To suggest that LM has no sunk costs in the project, however, is silly. Arms race with the Chinese and the Russians? Sorry, but no. If you're even SUGGESTING that this is happening then you need to learn a bit more about each nation's respective military. I always find this a refreshing link: http://en.wikipedia....ry_expenditures You'll see that the US spends more on their military than pretty much the rest of the world COMBINED. They spend more per capita as well. Look up how many aircraft carriers the USA is operating and their displacements, then compare that to what the Russians and Chinese have. I always think it's funny how little people understand the US military. It's pretty much the most kick-ass military the world has ever seen, by far. There's no contest whatsoever.

I'm sure a lot of the $$$ invested so far has been invested by LM, which they're looking to make back from aircraft sales, along with a tidy profit. First of all, the F-35 is entering a post-Cold War world where there's no major antagonist or arms race going on. Second, there's a pretty large discrepancy in the number of planes coming out (in the magnitude of several thousand). The $1.5T mark is also only the cost (so far) to the USA. It would be interesting to see where your $4T figure came from too. Care to show?

Too many people living in one place is a sure recipe for that. Imagine if everywhere in the world was as crowded as India/Pakistan.

The US gov't isn't footing the bill for the entire development process. Can you imagine how sweet that deal would be? When it comes down to it, I support the JSF program. I think it's been horribly mishandled and is going to end up way more expensive than it should have been, but one of the biggest problems with the program is also going to be one of the reasons it has to go through. It's a one-shoe-fits-all-roles platform and there's nothing currently in development that will match it. In the end, it's going to go down in the books as what NOT to do in terms of military procurement.

There's nothing suspect about the math. It's business/econ 101 type stuff. You have your fixed/sunk costs and your variable costs, and the longer the development of the plane continues, and the more changes and revisions that are done, the higher the fixed/sunk costs become. To cover these costs, sufficient units need to be sold at sufficient margins. If you reduce the number of units being sold, the margin has to be higher to cover the sunk costs. Compounding this problem, however, is the fact that the fewer the units produced, the higher the variable costs will be in the production process, thus forcing the price up to meet margin requirements. Derek, this is REALLY basic, fundamental stuff here. As for providing a detailed breakdown of all of the cost overruns etc, I think a lot of people would like to see that. LM and a lot of the politicians/senior Pentagon, officials with their heads on the line still insist that their projections are accurate. Basic economics and math would suggest otherwise, as would various other Pentagon officials, budget watchdogs, think-tanks, defense experts and anyone (politician or otherwise) not playing cover-your-ass.

Pretty much nothing you just said there addressed anything I brought up. Total program cost / Overall units = Cost / Unit We have delays and a program cost that's FAR exceeded the planned budget, and we have a reduced number of units. All of this leads to an increased cost/unit. You keep bringing up all sorts of interesting little facts, but none of them address the math. An enormously over-budget program is an enormously over-budget program, and there aren't many ways for this to not increase the cost of the end product.

So they throw a few planes in the air just to say, "Aha! See! We're on track!" What a milestone!" You're right though, within the next year, the USMC will have enough for an operational squadron of 16 planes. Neato! I'm not sure about the other branches of the military, but it doesn't look like they're going to do a ton better. Regardless, the original plan for initial deployment was 2012. That's gone and past. They're not even done designing and developing the entire system yet, and that's apparently years away still before everything is done. The initial batch of planes isn't even going to have the proper electronics/software on-board. Any planes built now are going to need to be expensively refitted with the proper systems later. So they dropped ~400 aircraft designated for training?? Your apples to oranges argument is also non-sensical. They dropped ~400 units from the order. Unless that brought the overall program costs under budget (it didn't), that's automatically going to lead to a /unit increase in cost. Your ability to wriggle and squirm around with this topic is impressive. I'm not arguing anything about initial production numbers. I'm arguing overall program costs (way over initial budget), total units being built and missed deadlines are all contributing to an increased unit cost. Once again, the magical formula you and others use to insist on the earlier estimated unit price is baffling. Increased overall program spending + Missed Deadlines + Reduced Orders =/ Increased Cost/Unit ????? Okay....

The change in time frame is not recent. It's not as if in the last year or so they all of the sudden decided it would change. As you already brought up, this was determined ~4 years ago. The estimated cost per plane, as per LM and the official canned political/senior Pentagon response, has changed only marginally for as long as I've been following the topic. The overall program costs, however, have skyrocketed. Get these simple points through your head: The program is way behind schedule. The number of planes being purchased has been significantly reduced. These points alone are enough to confirm that the cost estimates are off. If you give us an estimate on timetables, overall costs and number of units being sold, and you end up being late, over budget AND people are reducing order quantities, SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE. The original US order in 2001 was for around 2900 aircraft and the original price-tag was hoped to be along the same lines of the F-16 program ($60M/unit). Deployment was originally hoped for 2012. As of 2011, the program was already 75% over budget, the order was reduced to ~2450 units, and now program development isn't expected to be done until ~2020. To summarize, the program is over 75% over-budget for 15-20% fewer planes than originally forecast, AND it's 10 years late so far. If you want to insist that none of that translates to a more expensive plane, that's insane. I hope you like the taste of sand.

So then let's build nuclear, which is the only short-term solution we have at the moment.

Go back to the Reuters article I posted. Pentagon estimates were $1 Trillion a year ago, now they're $1.45 Trillion. Go back several years ago and they're even lower. After all the delays, all of the revised (and increased) program cost estimates AND with the reduced number of orders, it takes a special type of voodoo financial magic to insist on the /unit cost from 2008 or 2009.