fellowtraveller

Lower income workers, or lower income non workers do not contribute to OAS because they do not ultimately pay much or any income tax, which is the source of funds for the OAS.

That was just after you claimed I was a simpleton, correct? Take a break Skippy, back to rabble.ca, they'll be awaiting your breathless report on the demise of democracy in Canuckistan.

Inded, why not.Personally, I am going to wait for the actual proposal/legislation. I expect it will include: 1) a phasein of a two year extension to eligibility to OAS to age 67, like several other developed countriesd have done and msot of the rest will be obliged to do 2) a reduction of the clawback point of $67k, perhaps into the high $40k range. 3) enhancement and/or maintenance of the threshold level for the OAS Supplement for the poorest of seniors. In the meantime, I expect you pair will continue to flap your giblets frantically and keep us all entertained. One demographic reality that will help with OAS is that fewer seniors are expected to rely as heavily on OAS in the future. The reason is that OAS Supplement recipients are often older generation women who did not contribute much or at all to CPP and have less income from that. That is less true today than in the previous generation, more women and men earn CPP now than then.

Nothing false about our future. There will be much more drain on our precious social contract at the same time that the money going in will be reduced. Whimpering over the status quo simply won't do. if we act now as anation, not as bunch of bickering old women pretending the present will be our future, we are well and truly f**ked. I know that is the forte of the NDP, championing the rights of the working man, but when oh when will they actually get around to something practical to make sure the money is there when it is needed for those rights? There will never be enough money to keep all of us alive forever. The government is not responsible for my life. Try and think from that point of view, and act accordingly.

Not everybody voted NDP. You're talking out your ass again, the trust issue was thoroughly dismnissed when Harper won 165 seats. End, Of, Story. You'll just have to find a way to redirect your rage. In the meantime, here is Andrew Coyne, a gent who is more often scathingly critical of Harper: link to fascist puppet Andrew Coyne

I was hoping you were not one of those morons who think that you can double the number of recipients of huge gobs of end-of-life health care, and double the number of recipients of pensions, while simultaneously reducing the number of taxpayers. The numbers are real. My hopes for you have been dashed. I hope you do not have an aneurysm when the real talk begins on the 400 pound gorilla- health care. Of course nearly anything is sustainable, but at what cost. If the money is spent on pensions, somehting else has to go. When the baby boomer wave hits, a lot of things have to go. Youy pick 'em- when you are the govt. Until then, enjoy the unbelievable spectacle of a PM actually acting on a problem before it is a crisis. He's no Jean Chretien.

Oh FFS, don't treat yourself like a moron.Are you and your buddy punked now pretending that Saint Jacques did not strongarm several NDP MPs into changing their publicly stated positions on the gun registry just before the vote?

some guy named waldo said this in #7: The only options are to kill about 70% of the boomers, or address the tsunami of boomers about to retire, stop paying significant taxes and start hoovering up health care, OAS etc. You pick 'em, because you are simply not going to get everything.

I have not concluded that there was not enough evidence, only that it is thin. The worst of it is the scraps of healight at the crime scene(if that is whwere they were actually killed, nobody escept the killers knows). The sons explanation is laughable, and his later explanation of an accident and attempted escue is worse. But that does not in any way tie his parents to the scene or to the murders. I don't state they didn't all do it, but this case is missing some things.

And that is precisely why I am a bit uneasy about this trial: the Crown spending day after day after day speaking to motive, somehting they did not have to prove at all, and that motive was something which would resonate with a jury of whitebread Canadians. The motive was not proven and cannot be proven in this or many cases. Only evidence is proof. But by doing this, the Crown put a layer of stain on the family that simply cannot be cleaned. It was idiotic of the defence to put the mother and son on the stand. They were terrible liars and terrible witnesses for the defence. The lawyer for Shafia knew that his client- foreign, brown, accented and filled with strange notions of honour- was the worst person to be allowed prolonged cross examination. So Shafia sat silently while his family dug themselves deeper just by speaking at all. Somehow this escaped the lawyers for the mother and son, that nothing was gained and much lost simply by having them speak.

The OAS is sustainable but only if we close one out of three hospitals, and soon. You get to pick which one in your town. Or does the local clown posse think there is going to be plenty of money for everything we have now?

why do you hate freedm punked? Why do you fear the truth. Desjarlais was run out of the party for actually voting against Laytons wishes in the same sex marriage vote. Fact. You can pretend otherwise, but that is the truth. Of course in that same vote, the Liberal cabinet was whipped, the rest of the caucus could vote as they wished. The Tories had a fee vote. Another porky pie from you on the gun registration bill too, where Saint Jacques did the whipping before the vote and armtwisted some MPs into line. Did you conveniently forget that one too? The NDP always votes in block. Just a coincidence, or are you pretending otherwise. Don't bother with the old blarney about NDP MPs having a member crafted and certified policy on everything in advance, they make it up as they go just as often as everybody else.

Only four posts in and we have our first strawman. Well played.

One detail about this incident continues to bug me. Anybody here ever been in a fight? This guy has been publicly paraded and twice now has shown his handd to the media. If he beat the shit out of her, hard enough to crush her face. why are his hands unmarked? OK, two details. News reports were that she was found naked on the elvator. No clothes, he claims she got on the elevator naked. No clothes. Where are her clothes? Where was she coming from? If she slipped out of her room for a rendezvous, or even for a late night drink, would she leave her room naked?

I do see a difference with the prosecution of this family. Proving motive was central to this case and central to the conviction. The physcial evidence was a bit light and especially so for the two older accused. There was no doubt an element of xenophobia in the prosecution case, pointing a finger at the culture that is so foreign to the 12 people on the jury, hammering away at the mother and son on the stand about their cultural beliefs. That part of this trial made me really uncomfortable. Under Canadian law, proving the why and how of murder is irrelevant once self-defence and simialr issues are dismissed. Why does not matter. 'How' does not matter either, and in this case they still do not know how the women were killed other than cause of death by drowning. If, in this case, the prosecution used the culture card to 'bolster' their case- and their is absolutely no doubt they did- it actually weakens their case in my miond. A finding of guilty must be based on the evidence.

The NDP is the party that almost always whips MPs. Both the Liberals and Tories have allowed MPs to actually vote what they wish on some matters. Ask Bev Desjarlais what happens when you vote your conscience.

I do not see any substantibve difference in the not-so-different cultural reasons for killing a woman for her sexuality. The only difference is in degree, in perception. The result is the same. Very interesting that people think killing a woman for supposed infidelity is somehow substantively diffferent from killing a woman for expressing her sexuality by wearing revealing clothing. It doesn't make any difference at all to the woman, she is dead. Yet one is an 'honour killing' and the other is a routine occurence in every Western city and is a 'crime of passion'., Honour killings are equally passionate and both are equally reprehensible.

The identity of the guy doesn't really matter, the Mexicans really want stuff like this to go away as fast as possible.

Your question is in the second sentence, and the answer is in the first sentence.

The whitest of whitebread Westerners routinely kill their spouses for the suspicion or actuality of infidelity. Are these crimes included in your stats as honour killings?

I strongly suspect Pelosi got told to shut her face by Obamas handlers. He would be delighted to face any of the Republcian gong show, and would demolish Newt with more ease than he'd defeat Romney. There is no need to open a front when the battle is essentially won already.

I think of honour killings as more tribal/cultural than strictly religious. Many women have been killed for infidelity by non-Muslims, and many women have been killed on suspicion of infidelity. Some men too.

Yes, there was some, not much. By far the most damaging evidence was the bits of Lexus headlight plastic found at the locks. Thyese were certified as coming from the accuseds vehicle, which was not supposed to have ever been at the crime scene. The son had a complicated story whereby he had an accident at the locks but everybody was OK when he left. He picked up the pieces and lied about an accident in Montreal because he was afraid to tell his father he had damaged the SUV.It is almost certainly after -the-fact drivel to explain the fragments. What disturbs me a bit is that although that evidence and the subsequent chain of nonsense seriously compromises the son, it does not implicate the parents. There is little else to connect them directly to the crime. They might do OK on appeal. The Crown is not required to prove why the victims were killed or how. The Crownspeculates and theorizesthat the women were sedated with something(pharmacology tests indicated no evidence of drugs), drowned elsewhere enar the locks(no evidence of where or how), then placed in the car already dead and bumped into the locks. They further speculate and theorize on motive, but having a motive alone means nothing, you still need actual evidence. And there is little of that.

It was a hatchet job, though people unaware of the circumstances of the UK in the 70s through 90s would be unaware of how it is done. Basically, the focus is split: Thatcher as a demented/senile loon and Thatcher as a politician. The first overshadows all in the movie, it is easy for the uninformed to be swayed to the point of view that the dementia began in the 70s and coloured her decsions. It is particularly annoying that she is portrayed in this way when she is utterly unable to defend herself or her legacy. It is a savage cheap shot.

What international court has jurisdiction in Canada on the federal govt?