Evening Star

It's funny. While I despise the viewpoint behind that opinion piece, it actually does much to highlight what I like about Trudeau.

Like, the post I was originally responding to seemed to suggest that India had accomplished nothing since independence but acquire nuclear weapons.

AFAICT, the reason he brought this up on the thread is to argue that we should be concerned about immigration from these cultures.

So you agree with Bill then that Indian culture has declined since independence and is therefore demonstrably less worthy of respect than Western, or at least British, cultures because of its inefficiency and corruption, despite evidence that a number of economic and social problems have been tackled with appreciable success? I'm not saying that the British invented famines in India or that they didn't leave anything worthwhile. I would, however, question the idea that British governance was more efficient, effective, or 'civilized'.

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Indian_mathematics.html And these are not on the same scale as, you know, devising the numerical system that is the basis for our entire system of mathematics, but they were in the news recently and they're neat: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100723/3consumertech/as_india_supercheap_computer

You're right but my point is that the famine situation has improved to the point where there hasn't been a famine in over 35 years, whereas they were more common under British rule. This is something that is documented and demonstrably true, regardless of anyone's anecdotal claims about whether 'trains ran on time' more often under the British or under self-government. I mean, if anyone is trying to claim that the Indian people had better access to electricity and clean water under British rule, he or she is surely playing games!

Both my parents' entire families live there and my parents grew up there. I have visited several times and have noticed the incredible progress. Judging a culture purely on 'whether the trains run on time' while placing less value on things like economic development, whether most people can even access those utilities, education, basic human development and social justice, agricultural production, or technological innovation seems hopelessly blinkered to me. How many of the (non-British) people could even have access to water and electricity under the British? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India#Famines_under_British_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India#Famines_after_Independence Seems a bit more important than whether the trains arrive on time, eh?

Ah, I see RNG has noted this already.

No, the Star clearly states that the prohibitions on #1 and 3 were struck down in this ruling: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/867332--prostitution-laws-struck-down?bn=1

Oh, well yeah, I definitely agree with you there. That's a bit of a stretch from banks being aware of Sharia financial practices though. Stonings etc would still be very illegal under Canadian law.

Yeah, that's a long way from any form of Sharia law being imposed on non-Muslim Canadians.

Compared to the Wikipedia article, I would actually tend to give the socialist phase of India's development more credit for developing the infrastructure that made the recent boom possible.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html (Read the "Economy" section.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India#Economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology#Educational_rankings

This is nonsense. Britain plundered India. It was widely seen as a 'basket case' when the UK left. Since that time, India has made steady progress in many areas: industrial development (a priority for Nehru and something that has taken off even more since economic liberalization), agricultural production (all the way back to Indira Gandhi in the 70s), higher education (IIT), technological innovation, minority rights (also a Nehru priority), women's rights. Nearly everyone knows that India is currently amongst the world's fastest-growing economies and a centre for high-tech industry. It's far from perfect but it would be hard to achieve more in 60 years in a highly multicultural democracy of a billion people that had been left in poverty and has had to contend with hostile neighbours. The changes since the mid-90s alone are incredible (not always for the better - the air is genuinely hard to breathe in some cities).

It will be hard to set up regulations within 30 days.

But as madmax already pointed out, Bob Rae is not the only NDP premier that we've seen. SK and MB have long histories of highly fiscally responsible NDP governments. Rae was really more the exception than the rule. (It's worth keeping in mind that he had to preside over the departure of much of ON's manufacturing sector, which was certainly not his fault, that the federal government was cutting transfer payments, and also that the social contract actually generated some savings in the long term that Mike Harris' government got to benefit from. I'm not saying that he was the greatest premier but the situation is not as simplistic as some make it out to be.)

While I basically agree with ToadBrother and Nicky, I do think it's worth considering some of the issues raised in TimG's NYT article. From what I've heard, there is a serious problem with human trafficking in the Dutch prostitution industry. I'm not saying that the current regime is helping things but how would (or could) we avoid those problems? I can easily see e.g. Windsor (where I live) becoming a prostitution Mecca for American tourists (just as it did in the areas of gambling and strip clubs). This isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself as long as it doesn't also mean major increases in crime (the kind with victims) and exploitation.

Come now, how is Obama any more socialist than Stephen Harper?

How do you think it would play in ridings held by NDP MPs such as Ashton, who did vote against the registry in the end? What if the NDP played a role in potential reforms of the registry?

This is probably hopelessly out-of-touch with people who actually, you know, have to use guns, which I'll freely acknowledge. I'm genuinely curious though. Is this an issue on par with, I dunno, the HST in terms of its importance? Or more than that?

That was a xpost to BubberMiley.

Not if rural NDP voters switch to the Conservatives rather than the Liberals, which is very possible. For example, Reform/Alliance picked up many Western seats from the NDP in the 90s IIRC. TBH, I don't even really understand why a gun registry would be such a vote-determining issue for people, on either side. One way or the other, it's just a matter of extra paperwork for people who buy guns, right?

The second part of that is all I was saying, really. Do we actually know what Layton did to pressure his MPs? I'm not sure that he actually did anything that was reproachable? Enough of them still voted against the registry, including e.g. the young backbencher Niki Ashton, and seem to be keeping their seats. You're right that the party is already suffering though. Layton should have just emphasized the NDP principle of not whipping votes on private members' bills as a matter of democracy and, of course, should also have avoided even the appearance of pressuring MPs one way or the other at all.

Yeah, I'm also interested in hearing an explanation there. I'm not sure what I think of out-and-out nationalization but I do think the case against it has to be explained more fully than that. (I'm in strong agreement with SmallC so far and do admire the premiers' leadership.)

(Besides, if one were to add up the number of all women (already over 50% of the country AFAIK) plus all male visible minorities and aboriginals in Canada, that would surely add up to a majority of the population!)