ReeferMadness

Agreed - if we accept the use of fossil fuels, there will be risks. And environmental costs. And health costs. And if we stopped subsidizing the cost of fossil fuels and instead properly accounted for the risks and costs into the price of the fuel, the problem would fix itself. If we suddenly had gasoline at $10 or $15 a gallon, you'd be surprised how fast people would use less. And entrepreneurs would find alternatives. The reality is that the fossil fuel industry only continues because we subsidize its existence by trading shorter lives, health issues and the environment that we will pass along to our kids for cheaper gas. That seems like a bad trade to many of us. As shortlived said, we need to preserve the remaining hydrocarbons for things where there are no alternatives and move on to sustainable and green energy.

No fly lists are a modern form of McCarthyism.

That is actually nonsense. The price signals are given way too late. We've used about half the oil we've ever found and it's only recently that prices have started to rise. Agreed the earth will be habitable - but will it support 7 - 10 billion people? And if not, are volunteering to be one of the left-overs?

Economic growth just means that you've spent more real money on goods and services. It doesn't mean you got more value or more enjoyment. It doesn't even mean that you will necessarily be able to keep on spending more (ie you might have borrowed the money).

True but irrelevant. You assume that if I wasn't mowing the lawn, I'd be working for pay. This just reinforces my point. The broken window is a net loss but it still increases the GDP. In the long run, we're all dead. Businesses look to the next quarter. And what do you mean by destruction? In my view, it's destruction to cut down a forest to make crappy furniture that will only last a few years. But we do it anyway and it definitely drives the GDP up.

Spoken like a true plutocrat. Let's keep those rabble-rousing peasants down and keep the money in the hands of the betters where it belongs.

That's a myth. If I choose to fix my own car, cut my own lawn, paint my own house, GDP suffers. If I choose to buy pink flamingos, wreck my health with expensive booze, crash my car and buy another, GDP goes up.

And since it's not a measure of well-being, policies calculated to increase it are misguided and foolish. Instead, it makes much more sense to pursue polices that improve wellbeing.

Alberta needs this pipeline desperately because currently, it can't give the oil away to foreign companies fast enough.

Anecdotal & based on conventional wisdom. No way to verify how much truth there is to this. So, let's just throw up our hands and give up, right? Why not try alternative ways of delivering education like MOOCs? The cost per unit can be driven way down.

The GDP is poor metric of wellbeing: This is another way of saying the GDP is the sum of what everyone paid for everything they bought. It says nothing about what they got for their money. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/is-gdp-the-right-way-to-measure-progress-one-economist-says-no/article10242590/ It's tough to improve if you don't measure. But if you measure the wrong things, your improvement will be illusory.

Anyone who is not smart enough to be born to wealthy parents should mortgage themselves to the hilt if they want a decent education. This is only fair and natural. Anyone who says otherwise is a socialist dupe. Wealth is the only way to allocate a scarce resource like knowledge. The fact that the schooling is heavily subsidized by the state doesn't change that. Let the rich get richer!

It's difficult to compare the unemployment rates between the US and Canada because of policy differences. In the US, people with few marketable skills are much more likely to wind up in one of two places where they won't show up in the unemployment stats. Those two places are: prison the military It has been argued (and I agree) that official unemployment stats are 1-2 points lower because of the large number of disadvantaged people who show up in one or both of these categories.

Most stereotypes contain a grain of truth but the stereotypes of 'tax and spend Liberal' vs the hard-nosed fiscal Conservatives are just ridiculous nonsense. On both sides of the border, it's the neo-cons who spend like drunken sailors and the spend the money on, well, drunken sailors. They pour money into buiding jails and then enact laws to ensure the jails will be full. They pour money into military toys and then pursue foreign politics in such a way as to guarantee that those toys will be out there killing people. Paul Martin put this country on the path to fiscal stability and Jim Flaherty put us back on the road to ruin.

Canada was a "pure socialist state"? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I don't think we're seeing Harper's true nature. This is the same guy, after all who once called Canada a "second tier socialist country" (why anyone would vote for him after that is beyond me). The problem you guys have is much deeper. Harper is pushing Canada to the right as fast as he dares but the country isn't there. And it won't be anytime soon.

It depends on where you live but in the more expensive cities, it's cheaper over time to rent. The problem is that most people don't have the financial discipline to save the difference. So, over time, renters will usually wind up poorer, all other things being equal.

This story seems a bit ridiculous but the reporting is very thin. It makes me wonder whether this has been taken out of context.

I haven't been that impressed with Justin to date. When he expresses opionions, I think he's aiming for nuance. What I see, though are half-ass compromises. A good example is his support for decriminalization of marijuana instead of outright legalization. Still, if he can remove Chairman Harper, I will be eternally grateful. I won't vote for him but I will be grateful.

This is timely: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/iraq-war-10-years-later-worth-141829429.html 70 percent of direct casualties were civilians. It puts the lie to the image of high tech war with pin-point munitions. Instead, it's the same old thing. Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out. Well done. I read a book written by someone who ran one of the provincial reconstruction teams. He described an absolute gong show, with money being thrown around by unqualified and incompetent people hired by the state department. After the war destroyed civil authority, local power resided in the Iraqi equivalent of local mob bosses. Nothing could be done without them and much of the money that was designated for economic development wound up in their hands.

The fact that the South couldn't hold on even backed by American air power, is proof that the USA shouldn't have been there at all. The puppet government in the South had little popular support and didn't deserve to be there. When you say "saved the day", you mean these airstrikes killed untold numbers of people whose crime was to defend their homeland from wealthy foreign invaders.

Appreciate the war porn, Derek. You and b_c must really have fun together.

Waldo, thanks for bringing this forward. You're right - it's something that should shame the US and their "coalition of those countries that had their arms twisted". I think you and punked are wasting your time debating with b_c and AW. It's pretty clear that they fall into that class of Americans that seem to believe it's their God-given right to kill however many poor, dark-skinned people they want(I wonder if the have a constitutional amendment for this, like the right to bear arms), providing their President can come up with some way of selling it to their gullible media. Who, of course will sell it to an apathetic public. Over on the Nixon-in-Vietnam thread, I asked b_c whether it bothered him that little kids spent their last moments screaming in pain after American warplanes dropped napalm indiscriminately in Vietnam. He said he was OK with that so I'm pretty sure that a couple of million dead Iraqis won't weigh heavy on his conscience. I'm guessing both of them will continue to point the finger at all of the countries who were pressured into joining Bush & Blair.

Another irrelevant comparison. This whole war criminal stuff is really starting to bug you isn't it?

Sure, why don't you prepare a list? Then we can compare.