ReeferMadness

And we miss the excitement when the banks fail and economy collapses.

The question isn't whether the oils is there - it's who is going to benefit from it. The distrust Albertans have for governments - even ones they themselves elect - runs so deep that they'd rather have foreign billionaires get the money. Most people don't get a lot out of a booming economy and there are a sizable number (renters, for example) for whom it is a big problem. Some of you might recall when Premier Klein was caught berating and throwing coins at people in a homeless shelter. You may or may not recall that some of those people were working full time but couldn't afford a place to live.

Ralph is unfortunately suffering from a severe form of dementia now. Still, given the way King Ralph ruled, I wonder whether anyone would notice.

Terrorism is a political term that was force-fit into a legal framework. Terrorists are the bogeymen that right-wing knuckle-draggers had to invent after the last bogeymen (communists) self-immolated. Self-immolation is remarkably easy when you're only a paper tiger to begin with. We will stop worrying about terrorism when another useful enemy appears or has been invented. Orwell's 1984. Art that is now imitated by life.

You're right, bc. The drone attacks are on a moral par with the 9/11 attacks.

I'm half metric. I find it easy to think in terms of metric distance and speed for traveling. Temperature is OK but I find myself converting below 0 © temperatures. I can sort of do weight but have never been able to get height. If someone is six feet, they're what, 180 centimeters??

Sooner or later, Torontonians have to get tired of having their city associated with this guy. What's it going to take?

How many scandals will it take before some of this finally starts to rub off on Harper?

I grew up in Alberta. When I think of the way the Province has given its wealth away to oil companies, it makes me want to cry. Norway embarked on a strategy of extracting the greatest public wealth for its oil. It has a sovereign wealth fund of well over $600 billion (projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2019). Alberta, with roughly the same population, has squat in comparison. Production of the most valuable commodity, light crude, peaked years ago and they are reduced to producing some of the dirtiest, nastiest sludge on earth. In 50 years, after the oil companies have turned the northeastern part of the province into one big environmental nightmare, they'll leave and Alberta will return to the poverty from which it came. Hey, at least Albertans will be able to regale each other with stories about when that wacky buffoon Klein was premier. Good luck with that.

The question that comes to mind as I ponder Minister Kenney's grave warnings on terrorists is "Why?" Why is this government obsessed with terrorism? Why not a national strategy on preventing people from getting hit by lightning or a multi-billion-dollar program to save people from drowning in the bathtub? Both occurrences are a far greater threat to most people than dying from a terrorist attack. The simple answer is that this huge waste of resources is simply a reaction to international fears of terrorism. And those fears are stoked by a new media that is busy 24x7 reporting and over-reporting events around the world. And there is nothing that it likes to report more than violence. But why focus on this concept called terrorism? Does anyone here understand the definition of a terrorist? That depends on where you live but here's the Canadian definition. Make sure you explain it to the rest of us if you can decipher it. Why do we need special laws on terrorism at all? I thought we already had plenty of laws against killing people and blowing stuff up. The sad conclusion that I come to about all of this is that these laws aren't about public safety. They're about the politics of fear-mongering and all of the money to be made in the 'security industry'. Like Hoover's FBI found a "red under every bed", like the CIA systematically grossly over-estimated the threat from communism, so too does the Department of Homeland Security make a practise of fear-mongering. And this is the space where troglodytes like Kenney play. The Terrorism Delusion is a bit of a read but well worth it. Here is an excerpt:

There seems to have been a huge amount of thread drift from the OP and we've just hit page 2. Our Information Commissioner is complaining that the Government is hiding information. Anyone who believes in democracy should be concerned about this regardless of your opinion of Harper. Whatever happened to his promise to be more transparent & accountable? Or was that promise only good up to the point of actually getting elected?

Well, we all know that the CPC talks a good game about getting the government off the people's backs. But when it comes to knowing where the bread is buttered, nobody does that like the Cons.

It's funny how it's often the same people who champion 'economic freedom' - low tax, laissez faire economics, will then turn around and defend the state's right to come into your home and dictate what substances you can and cannot put in your body. Eat all the red meat you want, guzzle those big gulps but don't have a joint. I would prefer that the state support the science that provides me with information to support my choices, enact laws that ensure what people are selling me is what they claim it is and let me decide what I want to do. Those same people who support prohibition will cloak their fascistic tendencies by claiming that it's all about keeping drugs out of the hands of kids. In fact, if you care about the efficacy of policy, you would know that it's easier for teens to get pot than beer. Prohibition is a failure on every level. It is the nanny state in the worst sense of the term. It creates and enriches criminal organizations. It helps drive demand by creating a 'forbidden fruit'. It creates a market where the products are unregulated and often adulterated. And, worst of all, there is no evidence it actually decreases consumption or availability.

If you took a list of substances that are known to cause adverse health effects such as: Alcohol Cannabis Heroin Tobacco Prescription drugs Steroids Food additives like nitrates Sugar Red Meat LSD And you looked at the relative dangers of some of these substances. You might see that some of these substances can be quite dangerousbut are completely uncontrolled. And others which evidence shows are relatively much less harmful, are illegal and people who imbibe them are zealously persecuted. If you reviewed the list and their effects on people and the way they are controlled (or not), you might well come to the conclusion that there is no rhyme or reason to any of it, that all of it is the effect of government bozos who can't get their shit together. But you'd be wrong. Because if you looked at it from a standpoint of understanding vested political and economic interests, it actually makes a lot of sense. There are plenty of financial interests (organized crime) and political interests (enforcement agencies) who have a lot tied up in keeping illegal drugs illegal. Of course, the pharmaceutical industry likes having a monopoly on substances that doctors will prescribe. The tobacco and alcohol industries both deny that they market to kids but they both lie. Why they should be permitted to advertise at all is a complete mystery. Let's put that question to the big media conglomerates. And when it comes to sugar, red meat, processed foods and harmful food additives? Don't mess with the food industries. It's all very simple when you follow the money.

It's no coincidence that this happened during an election. Either Obama responds with military force or he loses the election. Or both. And both is what works bests for the extremists. There's no better recruiting campaign for Islamic extremism than to have US troops in Islamic countries. And the Republican nut jobs are on the whole, much more likely to put them there than the Dems.

This is a direct affront to free speech. There needs to be a full investigation and consequences for whoever made this decision. The police should not be able to hide behind "security" reasons when it comes to suppressing dissent. And if it turns out that this decision was made politically, well.....

How long did that take? The John Galt diatribe alone must have consumed a couple of hours at least. Such as what good points?

Rand did so much speak to the individual so much as she deified the individual. Or at least certain individuals. Her interchangeable heroes are so much smarter, wiser and better than the rest of the world, it's like watching the Americans and the Germans in Hogan's Heroes. The real world doesn't work like that so she had to invent an extremist fictional world to support her extremist views. Rand has very little to say and she says it poorly. She's not the problem. The problem is the collection of zealots and opportunists who seized on her work. How far will they get with it? Will the world revert to 19th century capitalism before people wake up and see the results?

Ford is a buffoon - can Toronto really not come up with less of an idiot? I live over 3,000 km from Toronto and I hear more about him than my own mayor.

Let's be fair. The Conservatives did promise to be tough on crime but they didn't say all crime. What it really means is they want to jail everyone who has the nerve to grow a little pot in their backyard and bust kids for downloading songs. Election fraudsters, white collar criminals, people who own caches of illegal weapons big enough to field a private army (for hunting and personal protection mind you), they're all OK. No need to be inflexible, right?

A heat pump isn't cheap but it will last a long time and pay for itself. Not to mention the reduction in GHG's. They put in vertically instead of horizontally. It seems like whether you can use one in a city would depend on bylaws. In many of areas of Canada, an air source heat pump is feasible. They are somewhat less efficient but significantly cheaper. And they are definitely feasible for city use.

No, I don't think more people should live in basement apartments. I do think that more consideration should be given to energy efficiency instead of aesthetics. People tend to focus on closet space and nice kitchens, not efficiency. My house has a shallow basement. If the basement was dug in it would provide more of a reservoir of cool air in the summer and warmer air in the winter. When houses are built and basements are dug, it would be the perfect opportunity to put in a ground source heat pump, which will work even in climates that are quite cold.

I live near the ocean so it rarely gets hot enough that I need A/C. There are a couple of points that I haven't seen yet in this discussion. Heat pumps can provide heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. The up-front costs can be significant but they are far more efficient than ordinary heating. If you live in an area where you need A/C only occasionally and can save significant amounts on your heating, they can be a good option. Our needs for heating and air conditioning are driven in significant part by building design. Many of us live in houses that are far bigger than we need, have too much glass (which can cause heating in the summer and leak heat in the winter), and are poorly designed for heating/cooling efficiency. If we shifted a greater portion of our living space to be below ground (which provides natural moderation of heat/cool swings), we could lower our energy needs significantly.

In the hands of a skilled thinker and writer (Orwell, for instance), Atlas Shrugged could have been insightful. It could have been a thoughtful exploration of what is owed to the group and what is owed to the individual. And whether that is even measurable. Or even relevant. Instead, Rand starts with the premise that without a relative handful of heroes, we would all be holding committee meetings in caves to decide what time sunrise should be. Or, more likely, that the species Homo Sapiens would be extinct. Her premise (that everything flows from the individual) and her conclusion (that only individual rights count) are so close to one another that as an act of logic, the book is practically useless. Unless it was intended as propaganda, targeted at weak thinkers and true believers, it's difficult to find a point.

I suppose that's possible but I've never heard it suggested by anyone else. I understand that she had regular meetings with her club of true believers until the time of her death. Sounds to me like she was the head of a cult. Still, I don't claim to be an expert.