overthere

And you fall hard into the "overvalue" camp on this one. and which variable have I miscalculated with regard to this specific player? I have compared him only to the other forwards on the same team, nearly all of whom have tougher minutes. He's been coddled and babied from day one, and has failed in every challenge presented. His value to this team is negligible, and nobody will want him anywhere(except the KHL) unless he is very, very cheap.

Yet both the NHL and NHLPA have grumbled about particpating at the Olympics for a while. If they'd been held anywhere other than Sochi, the mens hocley might not have happened. The Russian players insisted. But the next winter Olys are in Korea, and I would not be too sure that the NHL will go unless they are paid for their time. Not the players, the owners. After all , they still pay the players and they take direct losses. It's one reason why the NHL and NHLPA resurrected the World Cup of Hockey- it provides a marketing opportunity if the NHL decides not to go to Korea. But the organizer don't pay the salaries, and nobody is going to forfeit their paycheque. So the owners get nailed twice- having to pay a monster salary bill since only the very best go to Qatar, and they lose revenue if the leagues shut down. Thats a big hit, and for what? To watch an execrable turd of an organization like FIFA get rich? Baseball does not play in international events during the season for these reasons. And you'll have noted that many of the best players do not play or are severely restricted- by their owners. The NHL and the soccer leagues want a cut of the massive gravy that is generated by their presence. Seems fair to me.

The feds are in control of the money no matter what the band calls itself. And even when they have 'self governance ' status does not mean the the money stops. "Extinguishment" is avoided by the bands. But the relationship between Feds and all bands has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. There iused to be hordes of engineers managers and specialist at DIAND, now they are mostly gone. Far, far fewer people in the field now. Nothing prevents a band from proclaiming their status as self governed, and many, many many have done just this. The Feds don't care because they still provide the money nobody what you call it. What they do not provide any more is day to day micromangement of everything, in most cases at the insistence of the locals. And that is what you refuse to see: that 'self government' is the de facto reality nearly everywhere, except where the band has wholly floundered and is under third party management. Even then, it is usually not a bureaucrat running the show but a third party manager. The 'claim' for self governance is also almost always a land claim agreement in the works. I wouldn't get too excited about these. Only a handful have been signed and many have been 'negotiating' for decades. They are not in a hurry in most cases.

It is hard to see the selector lever position when you're looking down the barrel.

We;ll see if he is a coach. The Oilers have had a middling record since Nelson took over, playing Eastern Conference teams. An improvement, but there was nowhere to go up but up after all. Their last 20 games are mostly against big Western teams jockeying for playoff spots. And the Oilers will be doing it without their best defenceman. Eakins was clearly a mistake, one that McTavish still does not seem to take any responsibility for- hiring him or keeping him so long. So they fired their rookie NHL coach with no experience and replaced him with... the same thing. I guess leftovers are all that is on the table mid season.

Much of what we will see in the next months regarding Yakupov will be strictly facesaving by management. The persistent story locally is that it was Katz who made the call on him. The scouting staff wanted Ryan Murray. If they traded him now they'd get very little back. Their only hope of getting perhaps a second round pick is to hope he plays much better, and accepts a short bridge contract this summer. Worst case is they lose him for nothing at all, which is entirely possible. And a second rounder is pretty close to nothing for the first overall. Yeah, plus/minus. I don;t see it as an overly reliable stat when comparing between teams. It is not overly reliable when compared to the defensemen on your own team. But he is the worst forward on the team, again. Compounding this is that he rarely plays against the other teams best lines, and other teams don't play their best defenders against him either.

And that is exactly what the Soviet system did : keep the puck away from the opposition with team play. They would skate and pass endlessly and never, ever dump it in. He is trying to blow smoke up everybodys ass when he talks of the 'Soviet spirit' of free play. Never happened. Strict, rigid system hockey. But he has a purpose. He knows the players he represents- Yakupov and Galchenyuk- are both up for second contracts. Yakupov wants the big bucks as a #1 overall and expects Larionov to get it. Players get what they get on entry level deals. Now it time for a payday in Nails eyes. And Larionov has to sell what he does, and it doesn't involve backchecking. Yak has to score, and Larionov knows it. His horrific plus/minus can be overlooked, but scoring is all he has. Or had. Things are different in the OHL. What Larionov is doing is pitching that Yakupov is a cerebral skilled guy who needs to be allowed to do what he does best. The problem for the Oilers and any NHL team is that if Yak does what he does best, every shift is like a powerplay for the other team. As we have seen nearly every night.

But every major soccer league in the world would lose their biggest draws for at least two months and their compensation is..... zero. In the past, all they had to worry about was injuries to their money machines. This is professional sports at the highest level. Somebody has to pay. Owners will claim and correctly that they have paid monster money by investing in these players. Risk and certain loss is not an incentive to cooperate, although there is big national pressure to release stars for these events. But not when it is long term and mid season, that does not seem reasonable to me. The owners will step up and change things. Perhaps Blattler, perhaps the timing, perhaps the venue and the timing, perhaps all those things. Owners of Man U and Real Madrid won't be bribed by free trips and sparkly things.

One of your links cites a report from 2003. Another has charts that indicate the unemployment rate dropping from 12% in 1991 steadily to holding sub 8% for all the time that we increased immirgation to 200k to 250k per year..... just a coincidence? If immigration is harmful to the economy, shouldn't that rate rise dramatically with all those new people in the workforce?

They do self-govern. And they negotiate land claim agreements. You don't have to have a comprehensive final agreeement to be recognized as a negotiating entity with the Feds. And of course, you need funding for that management and development infrastructure at the beginning of the process, not the end. So, your assumption that self governance implies some sort of agreement is false. They will have an agreement that the Feds will continue to fund operations and capital inprvements, as the Freds have done for decades, for better or worse. They'll have an interim agreemtentthat the Feds will fund self-government. Hope that helps.

your link does not link. Does MLS they have any players that go to the World Cup? The Qatar World Cup is in the heart of the European season. Blattler has put himself in a no win situation here, though perhaps he knows he won't be around in 2022 so does not care what he passes to the next Head Thief. Qatar has bought and paid for the event, so somebody will have to refund the massive graft that bought it if FIFA cancels.

Mmmmmm... Personally, I am more afraid of people with automatic weapons than geezers in walkers.

An enduring memory of Jean (Le Bully)Chretien: when he choked out a protester:

They will lose, at minimum. all the best players in the world through the heart of their seasons. What will be the cost to every major soccer league on the planet? Billions? I suspect the soccer world, the one with all their money about to be pissed away by FIFA, will not stand for it. This might be the nail in Blattlers coffin.

Is comparing Jimmy to his competition intended as an endorsement?

As usual you've missed the point. When you have a situation that exists for 25 years- steady immigration under a standardized system for entrance- that IS the status quo. It's not the old system or something else that you have imagined as the status quo. Once again, you ignore the reality that the price of oil in the period under discussion has been for the most part much lower. The high price of poil has been the exceptioon in that period, not the rule. So your claim that oil is responsible for what has been a pretty long run of prosperity in Canada is simply untrue. I would suggest that NAFTA and the huge bump it gave to manufacturing had a much bigger effect. And what was required to feed and fill all those new jobs? Yes, it is immigrants for the most part, since we simply do not breed fast enough - and of course even if we could you cannot slot infants into manufacturing or resource based jobs. This is where you explain how you get a four year old to work in a gas plant. On;ly natural born Canadians and their descendants pay taxes? Where does it say that?

why put a bunch of wee turbines in a reservoir to stroge area at all, it defeats any sensible approach to econimies of scale. There is nothing that needs testing in conventional turbines in a conventional setting for generating conventional power.

I guess you missed this part in your link: They all get plenty of money to set up their organizations and govts while or before negotiating anything. And let us not forget the seismic shift that happened through the 90s in DIAND and then AADNC in the 2000s- nearly all the money micromanaged formerly by DIAND and hordes of federal bureaucrats is now micromanged directly by hordes of First Nations bureacrats- 600+ of them. You don't need a comprhensiveland claims agreement to get the money, and AADNC no longer has the staff even if you don;t want to manage yourself. That is part of the reason why there has been some much publiciized failures on first Nations- they have little capacity for self-governance in some cases. Don't be deceived by the number signed, that will move at a snails pace for decades. The reason is prosaic and good business for the First Nations involved. Why get closure on a land claims agreement in a hurry, what is the local benefit unless you have some urgent projects that require independent attention?

I think you've missed the point of the four hour ad that is the Oscars. . The whole idea is to dazzle you with sequins and cleavage and get you to go to the theater and/or buy the DVD or pay for on demand video for all those movies.

You can disagree if you like, but the reality is that many bands have established First Nations governance, both is areas with treaties and those without treaties. And it was done with the cooperation of several successive federal govts, starting with perhaps Mulroney but it really increased with Chretien and has become the norm now. It would be impossible to have done what has been accomplished so far without the full and complicit help of the federal government. The big aboriginal affairs the feds once completely micromanaged is now largely managed by First Nations. It's been that way for a while. There have been disputes to be sure, and failures and successes as well in terms of local management, but by and large that tranistion has been remarkably calm. And overdue IMO. It's a huge step away from the 150 years of failed paternalism that preceded it.

so that must be from a reservoir to a pumping facility. Why not just put in conventional turbines and create power for a thousand homes?

Let's see what you think about him when he assaults some of your favorite social programs, and soon.

Well, no. Many of the 600+ First Nations are changing the deals they have, with federal govt concurrence. That is what self govt is all about.

is another word for defense. The reality is that the 70s-80s Soviets played far more like the LA Kings did with defence first than they did like the firewagon Oilers teams of the 80s. The Soviets did not have the physicality of the Kings, but they certainly played within very tight, rehearsed formats that were effective. 5 man systems play, start to finish. The Russian teams of the glory Soviet days realized they'd do a bit better if they let their skilled players lose from the rigidity of the Soviet systems play. The Canadians teams of that era realized they'd do better with more systems play and less freewheeling. Both acted on their realizations, but systems hockey has prevailed and produces winning teams. The 'Soviet spirit' is conformity, so Larionov is blowing smoke up our asses.

The status quo of 25 years of 200k to 250k of immgrants makes that the standard, not lower levels of immigration. Rubbish. The price of oil rarely cracked the teens for more than half the last 25 years. In any case, all energy sector items(oil, gas, etc) are less than 10% of GDP. Of course it is a component, as Immigration /low birth rates are in our economy. Our native birthrate was and is very low, and immigration addresses the serious problems that produces , like- who pays for that fat social contract we all enjoy. In Canada that question is largely answered by immigration, and in Japan it is largely answered by 'taking on debt'.