Well your statements are incorrect about the Alberta and British Columbia governments at the very least. They may be wrong about other provincial governments as well - I don't know as I don't have the facts handy but since you are wrong at least twice I'll safely assume I shouldn't trust you to be right in the case of the others.
And while I was no fan of the Mulroney Conservative government it was the Liberals who ran the debt to GDP ratio up to its historical high - years after the Conservatives left power.
And what government was it that ran the Canada Pension Plan like a Ponzi scheme? Why that would be the Liberals. What government kept taxing people with high unemployment insurance premiums long after it had accumulated so much money that it could have been self-supporting in perpetuity if the government hadn't kept raiding the kitty to spend the money on other things? Mmmm that would be the Liberals too.
What party broke its promise to do away with the 7% Goods and Services Sales Tax? That would be the Liberals too.
What party signed the Kyoto accord and then did nothing about it for more than a decade - in fact letting emissions rise something like 35%? That would be the Liberals.
And don't even get started on the Liberal money scandals.
Oh please. The liberals ran up huge deficits and only started addressing the issue when public sentiment forced it. Yes - they did indeed then start running huge surpluses - not hard to do when you overestimate costs, overtax the populace to cover the predicted costs and then declare a surplus when the costs don't materialize. A surplus means people paid too much tax.
To quote the article you reference:
Canada posted a record budget surplus of C$13.8bn last year, allowing Ottawa to reduce its debt ratio to the lowest level in 25 years and paving the way for a fresh round of personal tax cuts.
The announcement on Thursday by Stephen Harper, prime minister, is likely to fuel speculation that his minority Conservative government is preparing for a general election either this year or early in 2008.
You claim that The previous Liberal government consistently operated under the largest budget surpluses but the article also says:
The debt-to-GDP ratio reached a peak of 74.8 per cent in 1996.
And who was in power in 1996? and 1995 and 1994 and 1993??? Mmmm, that would be the Liberals who ran the debt to GDP ratio up to the worst rate in Canadian history. So I'd be careful about tossing around the word "lies" if I were you.
The Liberals are also the same party that signed the Kyoto accord and then over the next decade or so let greenhouse gas emissions rise by - what was it? 35%? And then after getting booted from power had the unmitigated gall to hypocritically blame the government replacing them for not bringing about reductions in their first two years in office.
This sounds like something that, if it works, would apply to many forms of cancer. Is it just because breast cancer research is popular in funding circles or is there something specific to breast cancer to limit the applicability of the technique to breast cancer tumours?
That's got nothing to do with Harper or the Conservatives - it has been the problem with every federal government for decades. Canada has an economy almost totally tied to one other country. It has always needed to diversify and generate more trade with other countries. Mind you that wouldn't have done much good with the current situation - since every country seems to be going into the tank Canada's position as an exporter would be done in no matter what this time around. Canada is in a good situation relative to others because the banking system is more stable and because the national debt per capita is quite low, compared to say the US. Canada also had huge job creation numbers (just released) so that even with an influx of employment seekers and the current economic maelstrom the unemployment rate didn't go up.
As evidenced by the fact that it's clear, particularly after the debate, that his economic policies are to just let things kinda tick along and let whatever happens happen.
Part of letting things tick along is letting the Bank Of Canada do its job the way it is intended to do - such as putting out a 0.5% drop in the bank rate which was coordinated with the equivalent entities in other countries doing the same.
On this, I wholeheartedly agree with you. While well-spoken, he's a sociopath who refuses to accept responsibility for his own actions, and tries to take credit for the work of others (besides being prone to hyperbole.)
Sociopath? Maybe... he does kind of make my skin crawl when I watch him speak... there's definitely something off about about him.
OMG - get your tv fixed! It's filtering out all those NDP ads attacking other parties! It must have also filtered out the televised debates where the NDP leader was attacking the Conservative leader!
The funny thing is that watching the debates the only leader who looked like a real competitor to Mr. Harper was Mr. Duceppe, who was passionate and obviously intelligent. It's too bad his party is based on breaking up Canada into two independent countries.
If the first was a lie then you could have easily disproven it by giving an example of an NDP government that left office with less government debt than when they took office. As to the second I agree that government ownership is frequently a plank of the NDP platform - they've downplayed it for a long time now because they realize how unpopular it was.
They would be the party that held bingo games purportedly for charity but the money ended up paying for NDP expenses. And they had the Premier who was quoted as saying "It's like we're shovelling money off the back of a truck!"
$11 Billion divided among 1 Million people is more like $11,000 per person.
The example he is using is for the debt created in one province by a provincial political party. The equivalent of the debt of a state in the U.S. - is it really common in the U.S. to see state debt at $11,000/person?
The left of center governments in Canada typically create huge debt while the right of center governments create smaller debt. The previous left of center federal government (known as the "Liberals") ran up a huge debt - they after heavy pressure from international financial entities and from the Canadian people they paid alot of it off. Not by fiscal discipline but rather by raising taxes and off-loading costs to provincial governments - not by cutting program spending. The current federal government (known as the "Conservatives") actually cut spending, lowered taxes to people and business and paid off a significant portion of the national debt.
It's been a similar story at the provincial level.
True and our society has for some time been saving people who, in an earlier time, would otherwise have died before reproducing. We've been interfering with evolution in lots of ways. Certain behaviours will get you laid and others will discourage it... but in most cases those behaviours are entirely socially dictated... so the passing of genes is driven by whatever happens to be the flavour of the day in acceptable behaviour. Of course in this case, on the micro scale at least, "acceptable" is defined by women.
OTOH we are getting to the point where we will simply be able to genetically tailor offspring so evolution will be old hat and inefficient.
I was looking at this the other day... would be an interesting toy to tinker with to see what else you could do with it... too bad there are no linux drivers.
My prediction is that in less than 20 years cell phones, or whatever passes for cell phones by then, will be implanted below the skin. Look at all the people walking around in what would normally be in and off itself a social setting and yet they are simultaneously busy chattering away to someone on their phone non-stop. It won't take more than a generation or two before people are connected 24/7. Time to start buying stock in manufacturers of hive...errr condo/apartments.
Anyone with even the slightest life experience knows that when "fact" faces off against "treasured belief" the loser is virtually always "fact"... I suppose it would be useful to have this quantified in some way but it's hardly news. Be forced to spend an extended period of time in decision making with a heterogeneous group and it's not just obvious it's bloody torture.
For instance participate in a condo association and you get this over and over again: "You say you want A, but it has been proven that doing B will cause C and C will prevent/destroy/whatever A so you shouldn't vote to do B if you want A. Followed by them voting to do B and then later being surprised when they don't also get A."
So let me add, if memory serves correctly, "ABEND036. Probable Programmer Error." An IBM OS360 message basically meaning "your program crashed, you probably made a mistake but it could be something else"...
I agree. I've worked in many many places (contractor) and I have never seen a project fail for lack of technical capability by either the rft tech staff or the contractors. It has always been a management problem in one way or another. Frequently it is management's inability to, or lack of desire to, control marketing - which may end up making the tech folk look bad simply because they can't hit a target that is in constant motion.
I had a classic case of this - a good product opportunity had been identified, business cases done, tech requirements done and a realistic schedule set up. I joined as a contractor for a specific part of it, which fortunately isolated me from most of the BS, but I watched as every week requirements changed. Delivery kept slipping, and slipping and slipping. I stayed as long as I could but as I'd warned them from the start I had to leave for another project... that was three months after the original delivery date... I don't think they ever got it out the door. Too bad - it had been a good idea to start.
How many are not willing to put in to learn new skills because they'd rather put their time towards raising their children or going out on a date or staying home with their girlfriend and oiling her hair/giving her a backrub?
If it had been giving each other back rubs etc. I'd have agreed with you but as it stands it sounds like you are just trading one taskmaster (mistress?) for another.
That's not an unreasonable question - but no matter what the answer to that, doesn't it seem like a tremendous breakthrough regardless? I mean, assuming his design works, he and/or his parents, have done much better than all the people who are actually paid to do this in well funded research facilities. Impressive in any case.
Heh heh.. yeah... years ago I was playing around with a scavenged linear power supply along with a friend of mine when suddenly we heard what could be described as a "fizzing" noise - instantly we both knew what it was and hit the deck under the table... just in time too, that thing went off with quite a bang.
There is nothing inherently dangerous about glass jars (other than breakage etc.) while the problem with plastics appear to be fundamental to the material itself.
I have never looked at Halliday and Resnick Fundamental version, but that may also be good.
Haven't thought about them for a long time... eons ago I used one of their books in 1st year physics... I really disliked it... one day I stumbled across the Feynman lectures - so much clearer and easier to understand. Maybe H&R have improved with time but otherwise I'd not recommend their books. Mind you the publisher built them tough... came out from classes one day put the book on top of the car to unlock the door and forgot it when I got in... drove down a steep road when I suddenly remembered it and reflexively hit the brakes - whoosh I see it flying from directly overhead to in front of me and then slide on down the road about 200 feet - drove after it and only the spine cover was destroyed, but the binding was still intact. Later it survived a small liquid oxygen spill... so I suppose it had some good points.
after all if a company is going to smelt aluminum they don't go around building an atomic power plant to run their smelters, they find a cheap source of electricity preferably reachable by major shipping lanes, and let the utility company worry about where the power comes from.
Not the best example. Alcan, which is one of the biggest aluminum producers in the world, did just that (except it was hydro instead of nuclear) in my part of the world. The trouble came when they wanted to start selling the electicity to the grid rather than using it to smelt aluminum (which is why the government had allowed construction of the dam in the first place).
How do you know he didn't? Did you know that about 20% of people suffering chronic depression are not helped by either therapy or anti-depressant drugs?
I'm sorry, you are entirely correct. I don't understand depression.
If only you had stopped there you would have been fine.
His state of mind should not excuse him.
Of cooooourse not - why would a mind not working properly be an excuse for not thinking properly? While we're at it why don't we tell all those people who have lost their eyesight to just see anyway? Sheeeesh - you and people like you are a good part of the reason why people with depression don't seek help. Look instead of spouting off about things you admit you don't understand why don't you go do some reading about the topic?
Slashdot Mirror
Well your statements are incorrect about the Alberta and British Columbia governments at the very least. They may be wrong about other provincial governments as well - I don't know as I don't have the facts handy but since you are wrong at least twice I'll safely assume I shouldn't trust you to be right in the case of the others.
And while I was no fan of the Mulroney Conservative government it was the Liberals who ran the debt to GDP ratio up to its historical high - years after the Conservatives left power.
And what government was it that ran the Canada Pension Plan like a Ponzi scheme? Why that would be the Liberals. What government kept taxing people with high unemployment insurance premiums long after it had accumulated so much money that it could have been self-supporting in perpetuity if the government hadn't kept raiding the kitty to spend the money on other things? Mmmm that would be the Liberals too.
What party broke its promise to do away with the 7% Goods and Services Sales Tax? That would be the Liberals too.
What party signed the Kyoto accord and then did nothing about it for more than a decade - in fact letting emissions rise something like 35%? That would be the Liberals.
And don't even get started on the Liberal money scandals.
Oh please. The liberals ran up huge deficits and only started addressing the issue when public sentiment forced it. Yes - they did indeed then start running huge surpluses - not hard to do when you overestimate costs, overtax the populace to cover the predicted costs and then declare a surplus when the costs don't materialize. A surplus means people paid too much tax.
To quote the article you reference: Canada posted a record budget surplus of C$13.8bn last year, allowing Ottawa to reduce its debt ratio to the lowest level in 25 years and paving the way for a fresh round of personal tax cuts. The announcement on Thursday by Stephen Harper, prime minister, is likely to fuel speculation that his minority Conservative government is preparing for a general election either this year or early in 2008.
You claim that The previous Liberal government consistently operated under the largest budget surpluses but the article also says: The debt-to-GDP ratio reached a peak of 74.8 per cent in 1996.
And who was in power in 1996? and 1995 and 1994 and 1993??? Mmmm, that would be the Liberals who ran the debt to GDP ratio up to the worst rate in Canadian history. So I'd be careful about tossing around the word "lies" if I were you.
The Liberals are also the same party that signed the Kyoto accord and then over the next decade or so let greenhouse gas emissions rise by - what was it? 35%? And then after getting booted from power had the unmitigated gall to hypocritically blame the government replacing them for not bringing about reductions in their first two years in office.
This sounds like something that, if it works, would apply to many forms of cancer. Is it just because breast cancer research is popular in funding circles or is there something specific to breast cancer to limit the applicability of the technique to breast cancer tumours?
That's got nothing to do with Harper or the Conservatives - it has been the problem with every federal government for decades. Canada has an economy almost totally tied to one other country. It has always needed to diversify and generate more trade with other countries. Mind you that wouldn't have done much good with the current situation - since every country seems to be going into the tank Canada's position as an exporter would be done in no matter what this time around. Canada is in a good situation relative to others because the banking system is more stable and because the national debt per capita is quite low, compared to say the US. Canada also had huge job creation numbers (just released) so that even with an influx of employment seekers and the current economic maelstrom the unemployment rate didn't go up.
As evidenced by the fact that it's clear, particularly after the debate, that his economic policies are to just let things kinda tick along and let whatever happens happen.
Part of letting things tick along is letting the Bank Of Canada do its job the way it is intended to do - such as putting out a 0.5% drop in the bank rate which was coordinated with the equivalent entities in other countries doing the same.
On this, I wholeheartedly agree with you. While well-spoken, he's a sociopath who refuses to accept responsibility for his own actions, and tries to take credit for the work of others (besides being prone to hyperbole.)
Sociopath? Maybe... he does kind of make my skin crawl when I watch him speak... there's definitely something off about about him.
OMG - get your tv fixed! It's filtering out all those NDP ads attacking other parties! It must have also filtered out the televised debates where the NDP leader was attacking the Conservative leader!
The funny thing is that watching the debates the only leader who looked like a real competitor to Mr. Harper was Mr. Duceppe, who was passionate and obviously intelligent. It's too bad his party is based on breaking up Canada into two independent countries.
If the first was a lie then you could have easily disproven it by giving an example of an NDP government that left office with less government debt than when they took office. As to the second I agree that government ownership is frequently a plank of the NDP platform - they've downplayed it for a long time now because they realize how unpopular it was.
They would be the party that held bingo games purportedly for charity but the money ended up paying for NDP expenses. And they had the Premier who was quoted as saying "It's like we're shovelling money off the back of a truck!"
$11 Billion divided among 1 Million people is more like $11,000 per person.
The example he is using is for the debt created in one province by a provincial political party. The equivalent of the debt of a state in the U.S. - is it really common in the U.S. to see state debt at $11,000/person?
The left of center governments in Canada typically create huge debt while the right of center governments create smaller debt. The previous left of center federal government (known as the "Liberals") ran up a huge debt - they after heavy pressure from international financial entities and from the Canadian people they paid alot of it off. Not by fiscal discipline but rather by raising taxes and off-loading costs to provincial governments - not by cutting program spending. The current federal government (known as the "Conservatives") actually cut spending, lowered taxes to people and business and paid off a significant portion of the national debt.
It's been a similar story at the provincial level.
True and our society has for some time been saving people who, in an earlier time, would otherwise have died before reproducing. We've been interfering with evolution in lots of ways. Certain behaviours will get you laid and others will discourage it... but in most cases those behaviours are entirely socially dictated... so the passing of genes is driven by whatever happens to be the flavour of the day in acceptable behaviour. Of course in this case, on the micro scale at least, "acceptable" is defined by women.
OTOH we are getting to the point where we will simply be able to genetically tailor offspring so evolution will be old hat and inefficient.
You really have to hear that with the actual voices of Sellers and Scott to get the full effect lol!
I was looking at this the other day... would be an interesting toy to tinker with to see what else you could do with it... too bad there are no linux drivers.
My prediction is that in less than 20 years cell phones, or whatever passes for cell phones by then, will be implanted below the skin. Look at all the people walking around in what would normally be in and off itself a social setting and yet they are simultaneously busy chattering away to someone on their phone non-stop. It won't take more than a generation or two before people are connected 24/7. Time to start buying stock in manufacturers of hive...errr condo/apartments.
Anyone with even the slightest life experience knows that when "fact" faces off against "treasured belief" the loser is virtually always "fact"... I suppose it would be useful to have this quantified in some way but it's hardly news. Be forced to spend an extended period of time in decision making with a heterogeneous group and it's not just obvious it's bloody torture.
For instance participate in a condo association and you get this over and over again: "You say you want A, but it has been proven that doing B will cause C and C will prevent/destroy/whatever A so you shouldn't vote to do B if you want A. Followed by them voting to do B and then later being surprised when they don't also get A."
So let me add, if memory serves correctly, "ABEND036. Probable Programmer Error." An IBM OS360 message basically meaning "your program crashed, you probably made a mistake but it could be something else"...
I agree. I've worked in many many places (contractor) and I have never seen a project fail for lack of technical capability by either the rft tech staff or the contractors. It has always been a management problem in one way or another. Frequently it is management's inability to, or lack of desire to, control marketing - which may end up making the tech folk look bad simply because they can't hit a target that is in constant motion.
I had a classic case of this - a good product opportunity had been identified, business cases done, tech requirements done and a realistic schedule set up. I joined as a contractor for a specific part of it, which fortunately isolated me from most of the BS, but I watched as every week requirements changed. Delivery kept slipping, and slipping and slipping. I stayed as long as I could but as I'd warned them from the start I had to leave for another project... that was three months after the original delivery date... I don't think they ever got it out the door. Too bad - it had been a good idea to start.
How many are not willing to put in to learn new skills because they'd rather put their time towards raising their children or going out on a date or staying home with their girlfriend and oiling her hair/giving her a backrub?
If it had been giving each other back rubs etc. I'd have agreed with you but as it stands it sounds like you are just trading one taskmaster (mistress?) for another.
That's not an unreasonable question - but no matter what the answer to that, doesn't it seem like a tremendous breakthrough regardless? I mean, assuming his design works, he and/or his parents, have done much better than all the people who are actually paid to do this in well funded research facilities. Impressive in any case.
Heh heh.. yeah... years ago I was playing around with a scavenged linear power supply along with a friend of mine when suddenly we heard what could be described as a "fizzing" noise - instantly we both knew what it was and hit the deck under the table... just in time too, that thing went off with quite a bang.
ok, just in case it wasn't clear - I should have said "the problem with these plastics"/p>
I do agree that it's "better safe than sorry" and if there is some chance of a problem then things should be labelled.
There is nothing inherently dangerous about glass jars (other than breakage etc.) while the problem with plastics appear to be fundamental to the material itself.
I guess I better do some reading.
I think that would be an excellent idea.
I have never looked at Halliday and Resnick Fundamental version, but that may also be good.
Haven't thought about them for a long time... eons ago I used one of their books in 1st year physics... I really disliked it... one day I stumbled across the Feynman lectures - so much clearer and easier to understand. Maybe H&R have improved with time but otherwise I'd not recommend their books. Mind you the publisher built them tough... came out from classes one day put the book on top of the car to unlock the door and forgot it when I got in... drove down a steep road when I suddenly remembered it and reflexively hit the brakes - whoosh I see it flying from directly overhead to in front of me and then slide on down the road about 200 feet - drove after it and only the spine cover was destroyed, but the binding was still intact. Later it survived a small liquid oxygen spill... so I suppose it had some good points.
after all if a company is going to smelt aluminum they don't go around building an atomic power plant to run their smelters, they find a cheap source of electricity preferably reachable by major shipping lanes, and let the utility company worry about where the power comes from.
Not the best example. Alcan, which is one of the biggest aluminum producers in the world, did just that (except it was hydro instead of nuclear) in my part of the world. The trouble came when they wanted to start selling the electicity to the grid rather than using it to smelt aluminum (which is why the government had allowed construction of the dam in the first place).
He should have sought help.
How do you know he didn't? Did you know that about 20% of people suffering chronic depression are not helped by either therapy or anti-depressant drugs?
I'm sorry, you are entirely correct. I don't understand depression.
If only you had stopped there you would have been fine.
His state of mind should not excuse him.
Of cooooourse not - why would a mind not working properly be an excuse for not thinking properly? While we're at it why don't we tell all those people who have lost their eyesight to just see anyway? Sheeeesh - you and people like you are a good part of the reason why people with depression don't seek help. Look instead of spouting off about things you admit you don't understand why don't you go do some reading about the topic?