cgarrett

just thought that it was amusing that the conservative "oil patch" party of canada website ensures that the term "global warming" is never used. this is a great thread and breakdown with pie chart of the conservatives "environment" plan... http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2496 essentially, the target is to get to 1998 levels by 2020 provided that we only have 1-2% growth.

so the conservative and liberal agendas for the environment are a wash? well, do the cons _have_ a plan? remember steve saying that he "wasn't convinced global warming was even happening"? what about the ndp agenda? aren't they at least addressing the right issue of promoting the 'shift' that needs to happen? by promoting capacity in alternative methods of transportation. the biggest problem seems to be waste. pretty well 100% of pleasure vehicles on the road today are completely over powered for transportation needs. how much could we reduce our carbon footprint by regulating these vehicles off the road and promoting fuel efficient vehicles? could we lower it enough to make drastic cuts in the costs of diesel/aviation and commercial fuels? wouldn't that be a win situation?

thanks for the info from the con website. i see some omissions here that need to be explained though.. self-employed but also non-incorporated? thats key and i see no mention of it. self-employed as in sole proprietor or partner etc... well, thats the same thing as being a t4 income earner. I don’t see any reason to have them not opt in and get benefits but… well, again, its not fair that they get to opt out again to those who have no choice. now being self-employed myself where my income is discretionary on my part from an incorporation that I own… well, if they allow people like me to opt in and out then that’s highway robbery! my corporation could still be making money and I could decide not to pay myself for the period to ensure I qualify for the benefit, have those earnings pile up in company coffers, pay myself later after the benefits expire and opt out. so, obviously, they must be talking about sole proprietors and partners only. or at least I would hope so…

lets call a spade a spade here shall we? tax t4 employee's... give to business people. its the conservative agenda! t4'd employee's should be outraged!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2...vatives-ei.html please let me know if i understand this correctly.... as a self employed individual, i get to opt out of ei premiums. but I think I’m going to need maternity leave so I opt in? and then i can opt out again? sign me up!! ha ha ha!! so the t4’d slaves are grossly overpaying into ei which has a huge surplus now and for which they have no option not to pay so the thing to do is… give the money to self employed people? sign me up! ha ha ha ha! it will pay for itself? oh, that’s wishful thinking! what kinda program where you can opt in and out and make more money in benefits then in payments will be self sufficient? if payments in any way exceed benefits then a business person will opt out all together! and yet at least today when I saw initial responses from party spokespeople… they were all for it! looking out for ‘working families’!

just curious what others think about the timing of the election being influenced by the upcoming u.s. elections? irrespective of whether any associations between the canadian conservatives and u.s. republican parties in the minds of canadians are justified... has the fact that it is highly likely that the democrats will come to presidential power in november a motivation for calling an election here in canada in october? in other words, could the outcome of the canadian election be much different if it was held november 5? my suspicion is that the selected date for the canadian election has a great deal to do with any threatening outcome of the u.s. election.

”Its an interesting subject to start I will throw in a few definitions. Liberal and Conservative” “The philosophy that a Nations wealth is the property of its people to enjoy is a founding principle of marxism. In a democracy Wealth is held by its citizens for there private use which the government takes a portion of through taxes in order to found the business of running a government.” as soon as I see these labels which are, currently, predominately informed by a select group of people (ie. liberal, conservative, marxist, red tape) then it worries me. a ‘democracy’ has nothing to do with personal property rights. actually, we live in purely democratic socialist nations that use capitalism as a tool. a democracy is used to select our governing bodies, absolutely necessary entities given the requirements to uphold personal property rights and other rights as defined in a societies constitution. governments use taxation for governance which envelopes many practices whether those be protection, regulation, infrastructure building etc etc. please research these concepts. I encourage anyone to stop informing themselves with sound bites and research the concepts of democracy, constitution, capitalism and governance. I assure you that you will find them wonderful concepts that on their own appear at odds with each other but used in a symbiotic way create wonderful things!

the same military-industrial complex is in full charge of both countries foreign affairs. thus the recent escalation to improve sales.

ok, well i challenge 'conservatives' to pick examples from this article and make reasonable arguments regarding their assertions that parts of the article are incorrect. shouldn't be difficult if its all 'garbage'. of course, one of the assertions is that neo-con ideology does not hold up to detailed inspection and so conservative finger puppets have been indoctrinated in the use of anything but meaningful dialogue that provides more than one view of any particular discourse. and no, 'shut up' by certain fox news personalities can not be described as 'meaningful dialogue'. in fact, august 1991 is about the only self described conservative in this forum whom ever participates in some amount of reasonable discourse and even admits when the odd right wing viewpoint or some idiotic post from another conservative doesn't make sense. august 1991 is obviously an educated person. while most posts by conservatives on this web site or any i've seen for that matter reek of pre-programmed stooges. my point is that this article explains the 'conservative' indoctrination so well that it anticipated leader circles reply perfectly! the sad thing i believe is that democracy will not survive conservatism. oppression will always exist between men for some extremely sad reason. and conservatism is openly against government and thus anti-democratic in nature. 'democracy' is just a word to conservatives. a carrot held out in front of peoples noses.

preston manning? don cherry? they said 'intellectual'! david suzuki is recognized _world_wide_ as a great thinker.

i have been asking myself this question for some time. why do 'conservatives' who are not part of the aristocracy (ie. rich and/or powerful) follow without reasoning on their own behalf? this is a great article that explains 'conservatism' in detail. http://www.bcpolitics.ca/left_conservatism.htm what i am beginning to grasp is that these people are of the type that like to follow ideologies and 'conservatism' is attractive to them because they feel that they are also 'better than most people' or imagine themselves as members of the ruling class. this article answers so many questions, if one thinks about it. like why so many 'conservatives' revert to extreme name calling to reasonable thinking human beings who dare question their ideological position. again, a great read for everybody!

yeah, that neo-con free market stuff makes lots of sense... but thank god we don't follow it precisely. north america is rich because of unionization. it is becoming poor without it. if you look at statistics showing average family income this value increases dramatically as north america enters a period of heavy unionization 50 years ago. as it crumbles then we see this value dropping like a rock and so too the economy as lack of spending follows. all powerful economies demand that the people in that economy have money to spend! what the hell is so difficult to understand about this? capitalist systems only concentrate money. free market systems are great for generating capital and business and terrible at supporting the very concepts that make them a success. you can't sell stuff to people who have no money! competition only drives prices down. in every instance competition by its very nature drives prices down! its not good for business! it is good for the consumer... but only provided that you have consumers with money! yes, its a delicate balance. but socialist democracies _are_ the most successful countries in the world! socialist constructs include democracy, socialized infrastructure, socialized education of workers and a wealthy consumer base. on top of this cake a well regulated free market economy uses peoples own desire to succeed to produce capital and industry. something that they could not do without infrastructure and educated workers.

if bin laden is caught... then the us wins the war on terror! oh, except that that is not exactly the idea in the first place... they would have to make up a new war wouldn't they? to make some excuse for the protection or expansion of u.s. 'interests'. like the 'cold war' or the 'war on drugs' or some other forever war... the new american empire is like all of the other empires before. history is cyclical with new players. just look at the history of rome or england for a look into the future. these powerful empires expand beyond their borders in ever increasing circles of manipulation and control driven by the greed of those who benefit the most and eventually bankrupt the empire attempting to maintain such a position. its never a sustainable position.

i've been away from this forum for awhile... i can only suggest not responding to any more posts from this guy. he must be living upside down with all the crap that comes out of his mouth constantly. iraq is not a quagmire. everyone with any intelligence (including the white house) knows (and knew) the amount of time and money involved. its just that they didn't really properly inform the american people about what it was going to take and who was going to pay for it. they also failed to let them know that it was strickly about oil. rich republican supporters don't have boys on the ground taking bullets in the head. its mostly kids who are trying to get a college degree and get out of their trailers. us oil companies and arm manufacturers joined at the hip to the white house are not paying for it. they will simply be reaping the massive profits. no, american tax payers are footing the entire bill. bill clinton left office with government surplus. g.w bush has almost _doubled_ the national debt!!! to over 7 TRILLION dollars! and this guy advertises himself as someone who cuts spending! ha! i'm extremely glad that we canadians are not paying for it. this will be good for the iraqi people, provided they continue to kill americans and their puppet governments and control their own wealth. power to them! i suspect that if things continue as they have that iraq will have another military regime in place in any case... just one that is subservient to american enterprise through the state department. this guy also knows _NOTHING_ about lincoln!

back to the original post... hilarious!!! thanks for the post, ironside! the cost of the iraq war to the american people is, of course, ridiculous. isn't iraq the second most rich oil country in the middle east? shouldn't iraqis be paying for this? well, of course these questions are rhetorical. us and uk oil firms i suspect are firmly planted and moving oil far before any bread trucks arrive and using that oil to pay for the rebuilding would cut into their extreme profits. this is a good study on the subject of iraq oil and war: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2...aniesiniraq.htm