Moonbox

What are Alberta's taxes like compared to Ontario though? Hint: Lower I'm perfectly fine with public spending, providing it doesn't make the tax burden too high. That's the problem that geniuses like Trudeau and McGuinty landed us in.

Bombs/missiles aren't kinetic energy weapons. Being a kinetic energy weapon implies damage is caused largely by mass and speed. A bullet, or armor-piercing round, is considered a KE weapon. A bomb or missile is just an explosive. Anyway, regardless of the F-35's capabilities, I think by now it's pretty clear that the program is one of the biggest debacles in US military procurement history.

While I think that Ontario has been getting shafted pretty bad for awhile now, and I despise the equalization program in the first place, nobody with a brain can honestly say they want Ontario to seperate.

I don't even know who Morano is. Regardless, here's the part of Theon's quote that Morano and other's misrepresented: Yes, one could say that I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation. Hansen's dismissal of Theon's criticism was also pretty misleading. "Oh...yeah...he was like some bureaucrat or something that I sort of knew of and like...just a pen-pusher...I mean...he doesn't know anything about climate scientist." If you look up Theon's list of credentials, that's not really the case. So, at worst, what you have here is a very senior NASA weather scientist, well above Hansen, who, after reviewing his work (particularly the stuff that made him famous in 1988, says it was bogus. Does that prove anything? Not particularly, but it is an example of a very well-positioned climate scientist who has problems with Hansen's research. Please tell me what you think of Freeman Dyson's position. I think he's in a position to understand the computer models no? What about Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize winner who left the American Physical Society over their position that man made global warming is 'irrefutable'?

The conclusion is still up in the air. I don't think anybody really knows. What's bogus are the people who've declared the debate is concluded.

Who cares where the link came from? The relevant material is true and can be sourced from any number of places. John Theon believes that Hansen's work is a sham, stated it publicly, and his words are available for all to see. This is Hansen's former boss. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/28/nasa_climate_theon/ If necessary, I can dig up similar statements from Freeman Dyson too, a brilliant and well respected physicist, who says the same things about the climate models and their implications. Instead of attacking me with your sad excuse for wit, respond to what Theon says. It's all there. I'm waiting.

The fact that he's so prolific highlights his agenda more than anything. His NASA credentials are what they are. He's a smart guy, but his credentials don't make him right. His former boss, John Theon, is himself a skeptic and has claimed that Hansen's models are useless, as have many other NASA employees. http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=1a5e6e32-802a-23ad-40ed-ecd53cd3d320 My assessment of Hansen's agenda and claims are based on the information I have on how he does his research and the criticism that brilliant men like Dyson, Giaever and even Hansen's former boss have heaped upon his research methodology and conclusions. See Theon's criticism I linked above. If absolutely necessary, I'll get more, but if I do, please prepare to actually respond to them and not dance around them with your sad excuse for clever wit. and you'll be the judge of legitimate skepticism? Am I right??

They had a 50% chance of being right, so good for them. Thus far the temperature changes have also been WELL within the type of changes seen over the last thousand years and more. If we're going to take their predictions and models seriously, however, they'd have to at least make the predictions that came close to the changes we're actually seeing. The weather man is often wrong, and people don't trust him at all.

lol...bringing either one of them into a debate concerning the credibility of climate science is a joke. Al Gore is the face of the idealogy and Hansen is his chief "scientist". Waldo man...He's a red flag to deniers because he's proven himself wildely inaccurate and prone to gross exaggeration and sensationalism. That's not a credit to him. There isn't a scientist or computer in the world that accurately make predictions on the millions of variables that affect temperature and climate. We can't measure what the effect of long term weather patterns, ocean currents or the sun have on climate and temperature, nor can we control these variables. If we don't really understand the variables, can't control them and can't determine how they affect each other, any projections made by computer models are, at best, going to be useless. As for your rhetoric about climate change 'deniers' Waldo, get a life. You sound like a bible-thumping republican and your tone is frighteningly similar to a religious zealot. You seem to think that either you accept everything you're told and agree 100% with man made global warming, or you're a pagan heretic denier. Is it not okay to be skeptical about a contentious science in its infancy, where the doom and gloom scenarios painted by its most vocal alarmists have ALREADY BEEN PROVEN WRONG???

Hansen is getting to be one of the less credible scientists out there these days. Even supporters of global warming theory are distancing themselves from him saying he's doing more harm than good. In his later year's he's become a pretty visible target for skeptics (some of them award winning scientists themselves) for his reliance on BS computer models, just like his buddy Al.

Guys...really... We live in a country where the scariest thing our intelligence agencies do is show up at work and embarrass you? Maybe I'm really naive, but I find it hard to believe that CSIS would be bothering you for no reason...I think Canada takes the "ends justfiy the means" very sparingly. Good thing we don't have the CIA, GRU, Mossad, ISI, RAW or China's MSS to deal with. Harrassing you at work would be considered polite in comparison.

Wait...what? The EU is using more coal than ever. In 1995, coal accounted for 31% of Europe's energy mix. By 2007, it was 30% of their energy mix. I guess you could say that's a positive trend, except for the fact that their energy consumption went up by 45%. Over that 12 year period, they managed a whopping 40% increase in how much coal they've been using. That's just heroic... http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/statistics/energy_mix.pdf Okay fine. We'll leave Al Gore out of it. It's all indicative of Europe's tendency to choose where and how it's appropriate to be 'green'. Conventional fuel, as far as they're concerned, is the lighter crude at their doorstep that they're able to import from relatively nearby sources (Libya,Mideast, Eastern Europe) by pipeline and Mediterranean shipping. The stuff barely even needs to be refined compared to the heavy crude that North America mostly imports. That's comparing apples to oranges. Half of the countries in the EU are nowhere near as industrialized and productive as the US. Of the countries that are (even nominally), they enjoy the enormous logistical advantages of denser populations, smaller distances to travel, convenient maritime shipping routes and milder climate. That's pure smoke and mirrors BS waldo, no offense to you intended. Coal, by its very nature, is filthy, and the technology to make it meaningfully cleaner simply doesn't exist right now. It won't be viable for another 15-20 years. If you care to, you can read the study published by MIT linked in this article. It is long and boring though. Fair warning http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/30/fossilfuels-carbonemissions From that you have to start to wonder how serious Europe really is about the environment. A lot of it appears to be optics to me. A lot of the favourable comparisons they like to make to North America are generally achieved not by pain and sacrifice on their end, but by default from the advantages I listed earlier. Where they COULD make meaningful changes and sacrifice, they don't.

That was so cleverly and eloquently written...

Wish there were more of those around here...

'Raised concerns' are a little different than outright smear campaigns and boycotts from the world's politicians, celebrities and moronic blow hards like Al Gore. Instead of crusading against the oil sands and calling them the world's 'dirtiest fuel', maybe Al Gore could focus on not bs'ing everyone and also on his own country's absymal (and worse) environmental record. Anyone still burning tons of coal right now and then turning to criticize Canada's oil sands has zero credibility.

Why don't they just release the information...if they know about a crime/illicit activity, why wouldn't it be best to make it public?

Nobody is arguing whether or not pollution is bad though. Everyone can agree (I think) that we want to keep our air clean. What's pathetic about the whole argument, however, is that environmentalists are crusading against a form of energy which is in fact a cleaner alternative to another, dirtier, more widely used form, which is getting nowhere near the same amount of negative attention. Politicians around the world (particularly Europe) have decided to single Canada out for its energy exports, which has the added benefit to them of directing attention away from their poor records, particularly their coal burning. That's like boycotting Subway for having unhealthy sandwich sauces when there's a McDonald's across the street.

It highlights the hypocrisy of most of the countries criticizing Canada's oil sands. They don't have a leg to stand on because their largest source of energy, by far, is coal, the world's dirtiest source. Europe, for example, was still depending on coal for something like 31% of their energy generation in 2007. Extracting Canadian oil is dirtier than conventional drilling in, say, Saudi Arabia, but whoopity doo. The majority of emissions come from when you burn the stuff, not mine it. The environmental impact of burning coal, which the Europeans still do aplenty, is far more significant than the added emissions from merely gathering Canadian crude. Europe would be a lot cleaner burning Canadian tar-sand oil than their coal, but coal is much cheaper, so they stick to coal. It's a ridiculous smear-campaign championed by a bunch of goofy no-nothings who've for some reason fixated on the terms "dirty oil" and "tar sands", and can't put their money where their mouths are.

Well I'm not how many people out there invest their life savings into starting/growing a company so that they can provide well-paying jobs for people they don't know. I think it's pretty fair for them to expect to want to make money, although in this case it doesn't seem like Caterpillar was negotiating in good faith. I mean...how many people out there would accept a 50% wage cut? Fact of the matter is that in a world of global trade, unions supporting low-skill monkey work just aren't going to survive. The CAW in particular has had its head in the sand for the last 20 years and still hasn't figured out how precarious their position is.

Negotiations can be held between any two parties. Because Palestinians recognize themselves as a seperate group and is willing to negotiate collectively is enough to get things started. Formal recognition of borders etc is not required for practical negotiations.

*yawn* Another pointless Topaz thread.

I think it's hard to be too cynical about politics. It's even harder to not be cynical about how poorly the money that goes to First Nations is managed. I think we have a good amount of evidence by now to show that the vast majority is squandered. I don't mean squandered like the Liberals and Conservatives squander (as in bad ideas that are poorly implemented) but more in a pathetically indept, morally bankrupt and futile sort of squandering.

Very articulately stated. Good post.

Nobody can. The airforce wouldn't even be able to scramble a fighter in time to do that. The main line of defence in this situation was security and intelligence personel. It's their job to make sure that civilian aircraft filled with passengers don't get hijacked and that people planning to do these things get caught long before they execute their plans. In the pre-911 frame of mind, the first thought NORAD or civilian air traffic authorities probably had when they realized that an aircraft was off-course was that there was some sort of pilot error or technical failure. The idea that a civilian airliner would be hijacked by radical Muslims and piloted the WTC was completely and totally unforeseen. The thought that another would be hijacked and successfully landed into the Pentagon (a fairly impressive example of airline navigation) was even more remote.

Spending was increasing at the same rate under Martin as it was under Harper in his early days. It's typical Topaz logic though to say, "We need to reduce spending, but we don't want to see Canadians suffer for it." Topaz's angle is that Harper and the conservatives are bad because they spent too much, but they're even worse because they're reducing spending now....