ReeferMadness

Chomsky's a scholar. His books are meticulously researched and footnoted. I don't necessarily agree with all of his conclusions but writing him off a a crackpot just eliminates whatever credibility you thought you might have. I'm still waiting for you to tell me when and how the UN approved the invasion and occupation of Iraq. If they didn't its a war crime.

Wow, Derek, I misjudged you - I never would have guessed you were so passionate about worker safety. Are you a member of the ILO? Indeed, these are a sad case and may be an example of an employer failing to provide safe working conditions. But there are far, far more egregious examples out there and in fact nobody even knows how many workplace deaths each year. The WHO has estimated it at 335,000 but this is almost certainly on the low side. And many of these are children who are forced to work in dangerous conditions like artisanal mining. And certainly, the vast majority of these deaths can be laid at the feet of heartless capitalists. If Canada were to stand up for labour safety around the world, it would definitely help our reputation.

Isn't it nice how the same people that trash the UN suddenly use it as a fig leaf to excuse war crimes. As Chomsky put it It's called victors justice. But do go on - tell us where and when the UN approved the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Once Canada had a reputation on the international scene as an honest broker, a country whose foreign policy promoted world peace not just domestic interests. Sort of the Mother Teresa of the international diplomatic scene. And like Mother Teresa, there were always detractors who argued, with some justification, that the actual actions didn't match the claims. Then Harper came along and pandered to the bigots and the rambo-wannabes; the ones who see Hitler in every minor tyrant, who think that every problem needs to be "solved" by bombing someone (except of course those with a military capable of shooting back), who spend their spare time watching war-porn, who lust after America's military. Personally, I'd like to go back to the days where Canada focused on diplomatic rather than military solutions, where we were seen as the honest broker. Even if it wasn't entirely deserved. The world needs another example of a country that leads by diplomatic rather than military means.

I'm not clear on what we "owe" but certainly humanitarian minded people want to help others. The first objective should be to not make things worse and that's why I don't favor bombing. There are also lots of non-lethal ways of helping such as funding refugee camps, accepting refugees, and diplomacy. War-mongers can sneer at that as a "warm blankets" policy if they wish but I look at it as a policy that recognizes reality. If we really want to be brave, Canada can start calling out all of the hypocrisy that is involved in all of the different countries. But that would piss off our allies and embarrass us so I won't hold my breath. Before someone invokes Godwin's law, I want to point out a couple of salient facts regarding the Hitler analogy. 1. Bringing down Hitler cost tens of millions of lives and destroyed Europe. Western countries got off lightly because they either surrendered or came to the fight after Russia had ground down the Germans. The European portion of WWII was mainly a bloody war of attrition on the Russian Front, something nobody would ever guess from watching American war movies. 2. More importantly, fighting Hitler never should have been necessary. If the western allies weren't so determined to punish Germany after WWI, the conditions that allowed Hitler to rise in Germany likely never would have happened. And even as Hitler was rising, he had support around the world, not just in Germany. Did you know that IBM's German subsidiary supplied and programmed punch cards for the tabulating machines that allowed the Nazis to get a census of and track the Jews? In fact, IBM CEO Thomas Watson received a medal from Hitler himself for "Service to the Reich". Warmongers like it when people take from WWII the lesson that you need to band together and attack tyrants. The intelligent lesson to take is that monsters like Hitler won't take power at all if you prevent the conditions that make people desperate enough to support them. Is that what you really think? The only way that things are going to get any better in the short term is for the proxy wars to stop. ISIS is only a bit player in the regional mess and focusing only on them is just a denial of reality. Longer term, it might help once the world transitions away from fossil fuels. Then they will have to stop buying high tech weaponry and the big countries will be less interested in manipulating the politics.

Afraid of getting locked out of the clubhouse? Your buddies won't teach you the magic handshake? Maybe there's a less destructive way to stay friends than bombing poor countries. And if you think that dropping bombs is going to "bring an end to this mess", you clearly haven't been paying attention.

I'd be happy to support fighting ISIS providing someone could justify it. We should be demanding that the PM explain why bombing will do more good than harm, why it won't have the effect of attracting more recruits, and why there aren't any other viable alternatives. Instead, the default position seems to be that we need to 'do something' and that something must involve killing people. The media and the people (sheeple) are dropping the ball by not questioning the government.

And our other allies the Kurds are engaged in a little ethnic cleansing of their own.

Our "NATO ally" Turkey just arrested 27 scholars for denouncing the crackdown on the Kurds.

I wonder if it's occurred to the chest-thumping military geniuses around here that maybe there's a reason that most of the world's great military powers combined are unable to defeat a handful of ragtag extremists with stolen weapons. The answer is simple. ISIS is still there because it's useful to Turkey and Saudi Arabia in the proxy wars that are going on. Somebody has been buying oil from ISIS (Turkey). Someone has been allowing ISIS fighters into Syria (Turkey). Someone has been selling them ammunition and supplies. I keep hearing how we're letting down our NATO allies. Really? Our "NATO ally" Turkey has been tacitly supporting ISIS because they're more worried about our other ally the Kurds. And they hate Assad more than ISIS. And Saudi Arabia, our other "ally" is much more interested in defeating Assad to spite Iran than doing anything to ISIS. In fact, their commitment to defeating ISIS is highly suspect given the Shia-Sunni aspect of the fight in Syria and across the region (ISIS is Sunni and Assad is actually Alawite but that's more on the Shia side). The only real allies we have in the region that really want to fight ISIS are Assad, Iran and the Kurds. If the coalition really wants ISIS gone, there's a simple way to do it. Pull Turkey and Saudi Arabia representatives into a room. Tell the Turks if they continue to support them, they're out of NATO and they can face Russia on their own. Tell the Sauds if they won't help, there won't be one more bullet sold to their regime. So, I don't give a crap if Canada isn't invited to some meeting. And before the rest of you get your panties bunched up, maybe one of you could figure out what's really going on and come up with a strategy to deal with reality.

Wow thanks for that because it proves.....ummmm..... exactly nothing! Japan's situation is very different from Canada's - they have a negative population growth and an economy that has been stable for the last few decades.

Canadian bitumen is now down to $8.35 per barrel. And the price of North Dakota sour oil actually went below zero before settling on a price of $1.50.

You have that backwards. The oil is cheaper than the barrel. By a lot.

And the best part is after Kevin O'Leary becomes leader of the Conservatives, it will guarantee they will lose again next election. Can you say 3rd party? 4th?

You still haven't answered my question. Obviously, you think it was a good idea to build a commodity-dependent economy, despite the historical fact that commodity prices are volatile. Today's low dollar is inextricably linked to our dependence on commodities. Now you are complaining about the low dollar. How can you be accepting of a commodity based economy (and by extension a commodity based dollar) and then complain about currency devaluation?

Not sure why I waste my time explaining things to you but.... Framing it as an engineering challenge implies that they believe it can be addressed by adapting existing technology. They're one step away from production. Hide under your bed if you're afraid of new technology.

Oh, jeez. You really have trouble with reading comprehension. Go back and read the section you quoted. Then keep on reading it until you understand it. They've solved the temperature issue by changing metals and switching to alloys. Now they need to engineer an air seal and then (and I quote)

USA - where anyone (with a billion dollars) can become president.

Let's form a 'we heart Bernie' support group. But unless the NRA lovin, fossil fuel supportin, warmongering congress changes, Bush&Cheney are right - nothing will change.

Your contention that Alberta's citizens made some sort of conscious "decision" to keep taxes low and knowingly accepted the inevitable conclusions of this policy is supported by exactly nothing. I visit Alberta regularly and I know lots of people there. Certainly, there has been a degree of smugness about the roaring economy, low taxes and lack of sales tax. But I've never met one who said "I understand and accept the consequences of not saving are that we'll have a run-up in unemployment and a massive deficit" or "I understand that we're giving away our birthright to multinational oil companies" or "I'm OK with the fact that our gold-rush development of the tar sands is causing the dollar to go up and hurt manufacturing in eastern Canada". None of the downsides of Canada's ruinous and myopic focus on "rip it and ship it" economics have had any serious discussion; not at the political level and not in the media. And the people are, as always, squarely in the camp of ignorance is bliss. Until one day it's not. Patent nonsense. Aside from the effect that fossil fuels have on the climate (which I should remind you we all share) the high Canadian dollar, caused by the gold-rush mentality in the tar sands and elsewhere in the commodities sector, has hollowed out other portions of the Canadian economy and resulted in the economic downturn we find ourselves in now.

ROFL. You're hilarious - you read the bit that tells you what you want and ignore the rest. You're DESPERATE for us to be hooked on the same fossil fuel/centralized grid model forever. Otherwise, how could you possibly fail to see this? They're taking this to market, pal. I don't know what makes you so afraid of progress but best hider under your bed!

More bad news for all of you who stubbornly cling to the myth that electricity base load has to be generated by fossil fuels, hydroelectricity or nuclear power. A new liquid metal battery promises cheap, long-lasting, scalable grid scale electrical storage.

I see you complaining about a situation and yet you don't appear to be disavowing the policies and decisions that produced the situation. I'm not going to join you moaning about the dollar - you're doing enough for both of us. What are you proposing we do about it?

Well, I'm not very good but OK.

Well, in fairness, they're just reflecting the level of bigotry fear stupidity lack of judgement security consciousness of many of their readers. That's called pandering to racism listening to your customer. See? I'm self-censoring.