"Quebec completely misses the notion of democracy"
I am from Quebec... Could you tell me exactly what are you talking about? How exactly are we missing the notion of democracy? It is quite a accusation to make without any sort of supporting facts...
Well, it seems you skipped the Charlemagne era... And the before that the fact that it was Franks (not yet a country at that time) that stopped the islamic progression from taking over what is now France (and the rest of nortern europe by consequence).
Oh and you also forgot the first crusade...
I am not from France, but despite all their issues, French had their share of victory in the past. Otherwise they would not be on the map, they would have disapeared.
As for whether the US does what it does for self-interest.. who doesn't?
Nice set of values you have there... Hey everybody does... So we should too.
Never heard the sentence : "With great power comes great responsabilities" ? Or Your liberty ends where the Liberty of others starts
"We are fortunate to be living at a time where the dominate power in the world strives for freedom."
Really... then tell me what kind of freedom those US projects strives for:
Projects in studies by the american army to dig the St-Lawrence river so boat can go straight up to the great lakes.
Consequences:
- Destruction of the Animal and vegetal life on the coast of the st-Lawrence river because of the tons of polluting material buried by Both ontario and US industry that would be released all at once.
- Destruction of the most of the tourism industry in Quebec province for the same reasons as above + drastic change in the level of water on the coasts.
- Great reduction in the economical activity of the montreal(Biggest city in Quebec Province) Docks since boat would no longer have to stop there...
This is just an example.. there are others like:
- Project to drain water directly from the hudson bay toward the US (would reduce water level in many places that we do not want).
- Blocking lumber free trade against the will of the WTO and signed economical treaty.
- Beef embargo because of one Mad cow on canadian soil even if that cow came from the US...
And the canadian governement is far from beign the most exploited country by the US.
"the end result has always been a more prosperous and freer society"
Really do you have an example for me?
Maybe Sadam governement... After all the US armed him... It was wonderfull to live under Sadam I guess... NOT! I guess it was awfull. But at least they had electricity and water.
Now they only have around 8 hours of electricity per day (those lucky enough to have any) and fear to explode every time they go in the street. Please dont argue that they could not speak against their governement for fear of being put in jail and tortured because what do you think happen right now to people against the occupation?
If they speak against the US backed governement they are tagged as terrorist and put in jail like abu-Graib (which you governement promised to shut down, but instead decided to increase in size).
They must provide US given passport at every checkpoints or face being unable to go trough. If you get your documents stolen while outside your area, you cant go back... ever... even with testimonials from relative and old official documents as proof of your origin. That makes for a freer society like you said...
Or maybe funding talibans made Midle east a better place (think Oussama...), I dont think so...
Oh yeah... And that guy who made a plane explode in Cuba killing innocent civilian (terrorist action) that your governement arrested under illegal alien charge and are about to set free... I am not taking in any way the side of cuba here, just the fact that that guy in particular is a terrorist and that he should be procecuted accordingly, but the US prefer to let him go. Talk about striving to protect people.
If your foreign policy is all about honor and freedom please explain why Italy is now pressing criminal charges against 13 CIA agents because of their illegal "exceptional rendition" operations?
Oh yes, and the World bank (US apointed leaders) that force feeded to Bolivia the privatization of their water. People did not even had the right to collect rain water under the rules edicted. What kind of freedom is that that your country promotes.
Want more exemples of the US "good will"? Stop listening to FOX news and look around in foreing media, hear what they have to say and then double check the sources and validity of it.
Have you ever read reports about the living condition in those country before and after US invasion?
I am not saying that life was good under dictatorship... I am just saying that the claim that US does this to give freedom to the people.
US does that for purely for self serving reasons. Maybe I should say US Governements and friends does that for purely self serving reason because it is not good for US in itself (think huge debt), but only to a handfull of corporate people.
"I have found is that people who use arguments like the ones you are using are not going to be happy no matter what. They live to vehemently protest something."
Yes and no... Most people that are protesting against something are doing so because they see (or perceive something) as bad and ill willed or unfair.
Most of the time they have arguments and explain why they see thing X worth protesting against. Now, sometimes they are wrong and sometimes they are right.
But the only way of knowing that is to look at the reasons for which they beleive thing X is bad or ill willed. And have a discussion about those points.
But tagging (like you do) is the worst ennemy of any civilisation.
Putting people in a bag and just refering to a tag to discredit them is a big stopper to any society evolution. Because sometimes some people in the bag are Right. And discredit them as "liberals" or "lefty" or "whiners without solution" doesnt make the problem they protest about disapear and thus let society go in the wrong direction.
Your country was built by a bunch of people protesting something they were unhappy about... What if they were beign tagged as "liberals" and "eternal protester" and thus not listened to? You wouldnt have a country at all...
As for the particular whining about the US imperialism and total lack of consideration for other country in its interaction with them or on global issues, if you were from another country you would just know that it is plain fact.
Want an example:
1- Projects in studies by the american army to dig the St-Lawrence river so boat can go straight up to the great lakes.
Consequences :
- Destruction of the Animal and vegetal life on the coast of the st-Lawrence river because of the tons of polluting material buried by Both ontario and US industry that would be released all at once.
- Destruction of the most of the tourism industry in Quebec province for the same reasons as above + drastic change in the level of water on the coasts.
- Great reduction in the economical activity of the montreal Docks since boat would no longer have to stop there...
Now why would our governement (Canada) would put up with such a stupidity :
Simple your governement doesnt care about others and it got both and economical levy to inflic sanctions... And a big army that act as a deterent to beign to bold about refusing things that are not in our interest.
This is just an example.. there are others like :
- Project to drain water directly from the hudson bay toward the US (would reduce water level in many places that we do not want).
- Blocking lumber free trade against the will of the WTO and signed economical treaty.
- Beef embargo because of one Mad cow on canadian soil even if that cow came from the US...
And the canadian governement is far from beign the most exploited country by the US.
For god sake your governement condemn some truly elected gov because they do not suit their view and on the other hand support and finance Dictatorship while screaming "liberty from tyrants"...
Sometimes their is really good reason to protest things.
"If the German people didn't want to be bombed, why stand up and salute Hitler and cheer when he announced he was going to bomb London."
They cheered because not doing so would get them killed... That is what happened to the husband of my girlfriend grand-mother (hum... not sure about the english here: mother of her mother)...
Political dissent was a good way to loose your life back then.
"No, his previous experience makes him a skeptical reviewer, which is a very good thing."
He is no scientist, his job was to sell (lobby)... Which by definition means trying to show all the good point of something in order to convince it is good...
Now if you want skepticism... Take my skepticism over this guy to be a good thing. He had no qualification to edit this report, yet he did and he did it in a way that supported its old company... He even got a job from them afterward.
As for not editing it, he also removed entire section regarding the effects of global warming on the environments. Does that sound objective to you?
And yes I agree that GW is not an easy phenomenon to understand, but there is a scientific concensus amoung almost all other governements except yours. Are all the others biased hippies run governement...
Or is the connection between your administration and the oil industry crossed with its stand alone stance on the issue a bit suspicious...
As for skepticism, putting an ex-oil lobby in this position is like putting an UFO freak in charge of determining if they happen to exist or not. It is in no way a thing a true scientific sceptic would do.
Skepticism is good, but apply it not only to the facts, but also to the intents of people...
Wishfull Thinking or denial never solved any problems in the long run... It only serve to make them worst.
"he is just removing a somewhat offtopic section that reports something he doesn't want focused on."
Offtopic? Lets see... a report about climate change and we remove section about the effects of climate change... Yeah Offtopic I guess, or maybe a little bit too annoying to the oil agenda to disclose...
The point is that changes where made in a way to put more importance to the doubt raised on the matter... And if you consider that the guy in question is an ex-Lobbist for the oil industry... I would say that is more than enough to at least say that the guy should never have been in charge of editing that report in particular.
Not to mention that there is a common scientific concensus around that issue (G8 declaration, Kyoto Protocol...) And that the only official report coming to the conclusion : "wait and see..." are the one from the US and that most of those report that conclude on major doubt is funded by the oil industry (to which your president is closely related by the way...)
All in all that makes the situation quite dubious and the addition of those changes to a report regarding that issue made by a Bush apointed official and ex-oil lobby makes the already pretty obvious situation just a little bit clearer.
So maybe just that report in itself is not enough to condemn anybody, but you have to look at the whole picture... not one thing at a time saying : "hey this in itself is no proof..." You have to look at things in correlation to another...
Here in Canada it was all over the news... The white house changed the wording of scientific research to make it sound like there was a great doubt on the climate change and its link to human activity.
I guess that would confirm the affirmation "encouraged by the Bush Administration"
For each Islamic radicals that is killed in the name of the "war on terror" two previously non-radical Islamist becomes radicals... That's the problem with that war... Because those Radicals have family and friends... and those tends to go nuts when relatives get slauthered...
Not to mention that a lot of innocent non-radical islamist get killed by error, which leads the surviving non-radical to think that the radicals where right to demonise the US...
That war is a terrorist breeding machine, it should never have been started the way it has been.
It would be a good guess that that war on terror is not going to end for a looong time.
Have you ever wondered why the US is the main target for terrorist (dont give me that shining beacon of light and liberty crap, most people from other country dont see you as such and chance is those evil terrorists are not seeing it that way either)
The US have been economically enslaving many country in the past... millions are dead from hunger and disease because of this economical colonisation. And many of those terrorist were born in that misery and learned to hate the US in that context.
I am not saying what they are doing is justifiable... Just that as in any illness, the cause of the problem must be found for the disease to go away... Taking anti-pain pills to fight a cancer never worked well...
And to worsen the things some right wing political figures use that situation to restrict the liberty of its own population... while beign re-elected on the basis of the war.
"You want Corporate ethics? Make shareholders legally and financially accountable for violations that occured during the period which they held stock."
I agree with you entirely on that... but try to convice your governement to change that...
There is a good documentary on this subject called "The corporation".
That migth be true for common goods and services, but when it comes to highly patented (and/or with very few player) domains like pharmaceutics, do you think those are very responsive to a small niche?
My point is not private competition is bad, my point is more:
If the governement cant be trusted and the private companies cannot be trusted, then as a population we should stick to the hold war/political theorie : "divide to reign"
Then electing minoritary governement to prevent its capacity to have an abusive legislative power.
Trying to push for regulation that insure competition and fight monopolies
Never be too faithful to a company(switch brand often).
And push for an equally divided goods/services deserving between governement and private interest...
that way everybody is a competitor to each other except the population/consumer putting tehm in a position of power over the struggling partys.
But that mean accepting a fair amount of services deserving in the hands of governement too...
If not the money ends up all in the private sector and governement bows to them and can potentially send their black suit with guns on behalf of private interests. Which ends up the same as putting all in the hand of governement... Execpt your only mean of pressure is buying choice which is not democratic since people with less money get less votes and eventually the companies gives all the job (give the money) and sell everything (set the price), so it end up being people living at the confort level desired by companies and working for those companies... And that is very close to slavery.
Those things happened in the not so distant past from where i am... In the 60's people started using their majority to use the governement to get thing strait and remove power from companies because they were treated as slaves... In that case the governement (well the party the population created at that time) saved the day... Think of governement vs private company as opposing forces that can be used to your adventage in different ways.
Do not put your eggs all in one basket (free market or governement only market) go for a fair balance of both... because in position of absolute power both are very dangerous to the common good.
Yes...
But in that line of logic, why trust private companies? You should have at least the same level of distrust toward them than toward the governement.
Even more since you cannot elect anybody in the companies... well you can, but that would cost you the majority of the share of that particular company which most people cant afford...
Especially at a time where big buisness have a lot to say in your governement decision (not only true in the US but alomost everywhere these days).
That means that those private companies can effectively influence your governement into regulating things.
Thus they have close to the same regulating power as a governement but are not accountable for their actions... Neither by vote and only in a very limited way through law since the company itself is considered a legal person and the shareholders are not directly liable of the actions of a company...
In fact they have even more power because a big company act as an economical levy that can threat people into voting for or against something by saying "hey if this bill passes we just get out of here (you loose your job and we damage the economy of the place)". Which a local governement obviously cannot do.
And I wont start about the economic benefit of governemental sector running at loss in time of economical distress to preserve the jobs of people thus creating demands for goods that help restart the economy...
As I see it, in a democratic state, you have more power over the influence and legislation passed by an elected governement than over those asked by big companies...
A balance of both private run buisness and governement run buisness is a good safegard against abuse from one or the other... But trusting the private industry over the governement could get people in some sort of corporate run governement by letting the people far too dependent on private sector for the governement not to obey their wishes.
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forgive my writen English: it is not my primary language.
Being from outside the US I cant help to notice how many people seems to be afraid of their governement (who's primary purpose is supposed to be to serve the people) and would rather trust private company (who's primary purpose is to make money).
If your governement is so corrupted as to being dangerous to trust, maybe it is time for the average american to realise that they should get involved in politics a bit more and get things strait...
Because from outside the border it is beginning to feel a bit unconfortable knowing that the governement whit the biggest army in the world is considered an opposition force by its own people...
Unfortunatly the link you provided does not seem to work at the moment...
Yet you may be right about the fact the hydro-electricity creating methane more that I have heard before, my source being a engeneer working for Hydro-Quebec (friend of mine and usually fairly objective) but lets say he is wrong and you are right.
I still dont think the debate should be simplified under a dense vs non-dense energy sources argument... In some cases non-dense energy sources can be excpected to be fairly safe. Like wind power in north of Quebec which has huge unhabitted area with full of wind and almost no life... Of course there is some migration area that should be avoided and taken into acount in such projects, but overall I dont think the equation is as simple as dense vs non-dense.
There is also distributed energy sheme that can help in the equation (solar panel on individual houses that gives back to the power grid in time of low consumption)
And sometime no toxic waste can be a plus...
Overall i think a mix of many renewable energy sources plus some nuclear is probably the best bet.
"Another example is hydroelectric. Dams are now causing more greenhouse warming due to their emmissions of methane than they save in reduced CO2 emmissions."
It is true Dams emits methane due to the drowned areas it create, but while it does for a while, this emmissions reduces over time has the drowned biologic material is consumed... So thats a short-medium term bad side-effect... So it is good in the long run.
Canada governement:
"Ok that is enough, we wont give you wath you want you cant take my wood anymore"
USA Gov:
"How will you stop me from taking it?"
Canada governement:
"Well we will pass a law to disallow you the rigth to do so..."
USA Gov:
"And if i dont recall our worker there and they continue their work?"
Canada governement:
"Then we will arrest them..."
USA Gov:
"That would be considered as an hostil act and we would do anything in our power to free them..."
Canada governement:
"We will stop you from doing so!"
USA Gov:
"With what army?"
Canada governement:
"the Canadian army!"
USA Gov:
"hahahahahahahahahahahahaa... rotf... cough hehe yeah right... Do what you want but we will not comply"
Canada governement facing the obvious only solution:
"Ok you can continue harvesting wood..."
Stand pressure... easy to say with the size of your population and your army... this is a different reality out there...
I might agree about the need for something someone else have and the other wanting to extort.
But before attacking people i mean you start by looking if you can reduce your cunsomption of that thing. You have to look at alternatives, maybe majors change in the way of life but still better than attacking people... Ok you lack oil... You have food... Irak lacks food but have oil...
Another exemple would be wood... Your country kind of do not have enough lumber to suffice itself... We have lots of wood here (well had... nowaday we have less thanks to american companies...) if we decided, seeing a wood shortage in the coming years, to stop allowing USA comp to harvest our wood (for free... talk about extort...) so we can keep enough for ourself in the coming years and let the forest regenerate would you be in favor of attacking Canada?
I mean the ressource is our first, an then the excedent can be sold to agrement both economy and other's need.
All country have things they have in surplus and others they lack... They sell the surplus and buy the things they lack.
That is normal... somehow we get the impression that you think if you need something you should grab it elsewhere, that it is rigthfully yours.
We feel like americans are not ready to sacrifice anything for the common good but are ready to sacrifice others so they can continue not caring about the rest of the world.
America is a rich country in term of natural resources, and if the country was handled as if those were eternal this is your error (as a nation) and you have to solve this yourself, not impose those error on other country... for one day there wont be any of those resource you reach for anywhere and there you will be in an even greater trouble than if you stop this today and look at the way of life you can afford with what you have.
This is the way alomost all other country act. The ones in history that acted like you do, are remembered very sadly. And ironicly they all had the eagle as a symbol.
Now surpopulation IS a problem... but the theorical limit of population for earth is not yet reached... it is only over-consumption and bad handling of things that cause the trouble.
And talking about having ressource and not sharing it... Their is a lot of people in USA that have enough money to provide permanent water supply and energy installation to a very large number of suffering people around the world that are not concerned about their car, but about eating and drinking...
Do not forget this fact before you bomb those people because they "extort" the people who need oil...
I do not blame USA for all the bad decision of our own governement, we have problems of our own over here and we try to deal with it in our own way.
But what I say is that USA put A LOT of pressure on other countries regarding their politics and vision of things.
USA tends to put pressure on foreign governement regarding internal decision of others countries.
It is not rare to face blackmail from the USA government regarding our own policies. Like for exemple closing the borders to trade companies, applying illegal border taxes on goods... etc, etc...
It is common knowledge over here that those things happen frequently...
Why do you think in Quebec we GIVE FOR FREE to american company the right to cut the forest for lumber production, even tho we are running low on stock?
Most of the population over here are against this politic, there are a lot of politic pressure group making the case for this to stop. But yet, our governement does not comply because they are under a lot of pollitical pressure from the USA... And when I say a lot I mean borderline Blackmail.
Another exemple would be the project to dig the St-Lawrence river to allow ships to go directly to the great lakes (lake Champlain, lake superior... etc).
We have absolutely no interest in that since it would bypass our own ports and it it agains our economical interest. Not to mention the worst about this... There is a lot of chemical at the bottom of the st-Lawrence river put there by numerous industry over time (a lot of them being american) that are resting beneath a layer of mud. Diggin that will put all those contaminent accumulated for years back in the water all at once killing both marine life and tourist industry on the border of the river. This project is backed by no one in the population it is dangerous,unwanted and would cause a great loss of money to our land.
But due to pressure from your governement, it is under investigation. Not to mention that we would have to pay for it.
Yes, your governement is acting like a big bully with other countries and we cant do much on our side. (aside from building up a military to answer the threat which is both unrealistic and unwanted)
So yes you are responsible of the action of your country toward others and unless you (as a nation) let people live their lives without interfering, it is normal that we feel bullied by your politics and that we are concerned by it.
Do you really think all of a sudden people started to dislike USA for no reason at all? Jealousy maybe? I dont thing so... USA likes to brag about beign the greatest nation of the world, but aside from your great military there are a lot of country with very good level of confort and liberty that have nothing to envy to USA.
I dont own a car... and if i would own a car i would not go for a SUV... And face it Oil is going to deplete someday and you will have to look for other solutions... So why not start now.
And if you have a problem with the trade of something... do like everybody else do... negociate and compromise because it is not your ressource it belongs to another country.
Slashdot Mirror
"Quebec completely misses the notion of democracy"
I am from Quebec... Could you tell me exactly what are you talking about? How exactly are we missing the notion of democracy? It is quite a accusation to make without any sort of supporting facts...
"It only needs to make it to 50% + 1%, at least that's what Quebec Seperatists would have us believe."
Well thats what any democratic society wants you to believe...
Well, it seems you skipped the Charlemagne era...
And the before that the fact that it was Franks (not yet a country at that time) that stopped the islamic progression from taking over what is now France (and the rest of nortern europe by consequence).
Oh and you also forgot the first crusade...
I am not from France, but despite all their issues, French had their share of victory in the past. Otherwise they would not be on the map, they would have disapeared.
As for whether the US does what it does for self-interest.. who doesn't?
:
:
:
Nice set of values you have there...
Hey everybody does... So we should too.
Never heard the sentence : "With great power comes great responsabilities" ?
Or
Your liberty ends where the Liberty of others starts
"We are fortunate to be living at a time where the dominate power in the world strives for freedom."
Really... then tell me what kind of freedom those US projects strives for
Projects in studies by the american army to dig the St-Lawrence river so boat can go straight up to the great lakes.
Consequences
- Destruction of the Animal and vegetal life on the coast of the st-Lawrence river because of the tons of polluting material buried by Both ontario and US industry that would be released all at once.
- Destruction of the most of the tourism industry in Quebec province for the same reasons as above + drastic change in the level of water on the coasts.
- Great reduction in the economical activity of the montreal(Biggest city in Quebec Province) Docks since boat would no longer have to stop there...
This is just an example.. there are others like
- Project to drain water directly from the hudson bay toward the US (would reduce water level in many places that we do not want).
- Blocking lumber free trade against the will of the WTO and signed economical treaty.
- Beef embargo because of one Mad cow on canadian soil even if that cow came from the US...
And the canadian governement is far from beign the most exploited country by the US.
"the end result has always been a more prosperous and freer society"
Really do you have an example for me?
Maybe Sadam governement... After all the US armed him... It was wonderfull to live under Sadam I guess... NOT! I guess it was awfull. But at least they had electricity and water.
Now they only have around 8 hours of electricity per day (those lucky enough to have any) and fear to explode every time they go in the street. Please dont argue that they could not speak against their governement for fear of being put in jail and tortured because what do you think happen right now to people against the occupation?
If they speak against the US backed governement they are tagged as terrorist and put in jail like abu-Graib (which you governement promised to shut down, but instead decided to increase in size).
They must provide US given passport at every checkpoints or face being unable to go trough. If you get your documents stolen while outside your area, you cant go back... ever... even with testimonials from relative and old official documents as proof of your origin. That makes for a freer society like you said...
Or maybe funding talibans made Midle east a better place (think Oussama...), I dont think so...
Oh yeah... And that guy who made a plane explode in Cuba killing innocent civilian (terrorist action) that your governement arrested under illegal alien charge and are about to set free... I am not taking in any way the side of cuba here, just the fact that that guy in particular is a terrorist and that he should be procecuted accordingly, but the US prefer to let him go. Talk about striving to protect people.
If your foreign policy is all about honor and freedom please explain why Italy is now pressing criminal charges against 13 CIA agents because of their illegal "exceptional rendition" operations?
Oh yes, and the World bank (US apointed leaders) that force feeded to Bolivia the privatization of their water. People did not even had the right to collect rain water under the rules edicted. What kind of freedom is that that your country promotes.
Want more exemples of the US "good will"? Stop listening to FOX news and look around in foreing media, hear what they have to say and then double check the sources and validity of it.
"T
Have you ever read reports about the living condition in those country before and after US invasion?
I am not saying that life was good under dictatorship... I am just saying that the claim that US does this to give freedom to the people.
US does that for purely for self serving reasons. Maybe I should say US Governements and friends does that for purely self serving reason because it is not good for US in itself (think huge debt), but only to a handfull of corporate people.
"I have found is that people who use arguments like the ones you are using are not going to be happy no matter what. They live to vehemently protest something." Yes and no... Most people that are protesting against something are doing so because they see (or perceive something) as bad and ill willed or unfair. Most of the time they have arguments and explain why they see thing X worth protesting against. Now, sometimes they are wrong and sometimes they are right. But the only way of knowing that is to look at the reasons for which they beleive thing X is bad or ill willed. And have a discussion about those points. But tagging (like you do) is the worst ennemy of any civilisation. Putting people in a bag and just refering to a tag to discredit them is a big stopper to any society evolution. Because sometimes some people in the bag are Right. And discredit them as "liberals" or "lefty" or "whiners without solution" doesnt make the problem they protest about disapear and thus let society go in the wrong direction. Your country was built by a bunch of people protesting something they were unhappy about... What if they were beign tagged as "liberals" and "eternal protester" and thus not listened to? You wouldnt have a country at all... As for the particular whining about the US imperialism and total lack of consideration for other country in its interaction with them or on global issues, if you were from another country you would just know that it is plain fact. Want an example: 1- Projects in studies by the american army to dig the St-Lawrence river so boat can go straight up to the great lakes. Consequences : - Destruction of the Animal and vegetal life on the coast of the st-Lawrence river because of the tons of polluting material buried by Both ontario and US industry that would be released all at once. - Destruction of the most of the tourism industry in Quebec province for the same reasons as above + drastic change in the level of water on the coasts. - Great reduction in the economical activity of the montreal Docks since boat would no longer have to stop there... Now why would our governement (Canada) would put up with such a stupidity : Simple your governement doesnt care about others and it got both and economical levy to inflic sanctions... And a big army that act as a deterent to beign to bold about refusing things that are not in our interest. This is just an example.. there are others like : - Project to drain water directly from the hudson bay toward the US (would reduce water level in many places that we do not want). - Blocking lumber free trade against the will of the WTO and signed economical treaty. - Beef embargo because of one Mad cow on canadian soil even if that cow came from the US... And the canadian governement is far from beign the most exploited country by the US. For god sake your governement condemn some truly elected gov because they do not suit their view and on the other hand support and finance Dictatorship while screaming "liberty from tyrants"... Sometimes their is really good reason to protest things.
"Never point out a problem without providing a solution."
Pointing a problem is the first step to finding a solution...
And sometimes the guy who could find a solution to a problem is unable to see the problem in the first place...
and the guy who see the problem might not be able to come up whit a solution by himself.
Problem pointer (or whiners) are a key element in the problem solving (and problem causing as well) machine that is society.
All revolution or innovation start with someone whining about something. Often without a solution to provide.
"If the German people didn't want to be bombed, why stand up and salute Hitler and cheer when he announced he was going to bomb London."
They cheered because not doing so would get them killed... That is what happened to the husband of my girlfriend grand-mother (hum... not sure about the english here: mother of her mother)...
Political dissent was a good way to loose your life back then.
"No, his previous experience makes him a skeptical reviewer, which is a very good thing."
... Take my skepticism over this guy to be a good thing. He had no qualification to edit this report, yet he did and he did it in a way that supported its old company... He even got a job from them afterward.
He is no scientist, his job was to sell (lobby)... Which by definition means trying to show all the good point of something in order to convince it is good...
Now if you want skepticism
As for not editing it, he also removed entire section regarding the effects of global warming on the environments. Does that sound objective to you?
And yes I agree that GW is not an easy phenomenon to understand, but there is a scientific concensus amoung almost all other governements except yours. Are all the others biased hippies run governement...
Or is the connection between your administration and the oil industry crossed with its stand alone stance on the issue a bit suspicious...
As for skepticism, putting an ex-oil lobby in this position is like putting an UFO freak in charge of determining if they happen to exist or not. It is in no way a thing a true scientific sceptic would do.
Skepticism is good, but apply it not only to the facts, but also to the intents of people...
Wishfull Thinking or denial never solved any problems in the long run... It only serve to make them worst.
"he is just removing a somewhat offtopic section that reports something he doesn't want focused on."
Offtopic? Lets see... a report about climate change and we remove section about the effects of climate change... Yeah Offtopic I guess, or maybe a little bit too annoying to the oil agenda to disclose...
The point is that changes where made in a way to put more importance to the doubt raised on the matter... And if you consider that the guy in question is an ex-Lobbist for the oil industry... I would say that is more than enough to at least say that the guy should never have been in charge of editing that report in particular.
Not to mention that there is a common scientific concensus around that issue (G8 declaration, Kyoto Protocol...) And that the only official report coming to the conclusion : "wait and see..." are the one from the US and that most of those report that conclude on major doubt is funded by the oil industry (to which your president is closely related by the way...)
All in all that makes the situation quite dubious and the addition of those changes to a report regarding that issue made by a Bush apointed official and ex-oil lobby makes the already pretty obvious situation just a little bit clearer.
So maybe just that report in itself is not enough to condemn anybody, but you have to look at the whole picture... not one thing at a time saying : "hey this in itself is no proof..." You have to look at things in correlation to another...
Did you even read the link provided?
Here in Canada it was all over the news... The white house changed the wording of scientific research to make it sound like there was a great doubt on the climate change and its link to human activity.
I guess that would confirm the affirmation "encouraged by the Bush Administration"
"Kill all the Islamic radicals"
For each Islamic radicals that is killed in the name of the "war on terror" two previously non-radical Islamist becomes radicals... That's the problem with that war... Because those Radicals have family and friends... and those tends to go nuts when relatives get slauthered...
Not to mention that a lot of innocent non-radical islamist get killed by error, which leads the surviving non-radical to think that the radicals where right to demonise the US...
That war is a terrorist breeding machine, it should never have been started the way it has been.
It would be a good guess that that war on terror is not going to end for a looong time.
Have you ever wondered why the US is the main target for terrorist (dont give me that shining beacon of light and liberty crap, most people from other country dont see you as such and chance is those evil terrorists are not seeing it that way either)
The US have been economically enslaving many country in the past... millions are dead from hunger and disease because of this economical colonisation. And many of those terrorist were born in that misery and learned to hate the US in that context.
I am not saying what they are doing is justifiable... Just that as in any illness, the cause of the problem must be found for the disease to go away... Taking anti-pain pills to fight a cancer never worked well...
And to worsen the things some right wing political figures use that situation to restrict the liberty of its own population... while beign re-elected on the basis of the war.
"You want Corporate ethics? Make shareholders legally and financially accountable for violations that occured during the period which they held stock."
I agree with you entirely on that... but try to convice your governement to change that... There is a good documentary on this subject called "The corporation".
That migth be true for common goods and services, but when it comes to highly patented (and/or with very few player) domains like pharmaceutics, do you think those are very responsive to a small niche?
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My point is not private competition is bad, my point is more
If the governement cant be trusted and the private companies cannot be trusted, then as a population we should stick to the hold war/political theorie : "divide to reign"
Then electing minoritary governement to prevent its capacity to have an abusive legislative power.
Trying to push for regulation that insure competition and fight monopolies
Never be too faithful to a company(switch brand often).
And push for an equally divided goods/services deserving between governement and private interest...
that way everybody is a competitor to each other except the population/consumer putting tehm in a position of power over the struggling partys.
But that mean accepting a fair amount of services deserving in the hands of governement too...
If not the money ends up all in the private sector and governement bows to them and can potentially send their black suit with guns on behalf of private interests. Which ends up the same as putting all in the hand of governement... Execpt your only mean of pressure is buying choice which is not democratic since people with less money get less votes and eventually the companies gives all the job (give the money) and sell everything (set the price), so it end up being people living at the confort level desired by companies and working for those companies... And that is very close to slavery.
Those things happened in the not so distant past from where i am... In the 60's people started using their majority to use the governement to get thing strait and remove power from companies because they were treated as slaves... In that case the governement (well the party the population created at that time) saved the day... Think of governement vs private company as opposing forces that can be used to your adventage in different ways.
Do not put your eggs all in one basket (free market or governement only market) go for a fair balance of both... because in position of absolute power both are very dangerous to the common good.
Yes... But in that line of logic, why trust private companies? You should have at least the same level of distrust toward them than toward the governement. Even more since you cannot elect anybody in the companies... well you can, but that would cost you the majority of the share of that particular company which most people cant afford... Especially at a time where big buisness have a lot to say in your governement decision (not only true in the US but alomost everywhere these days). That means that those private companies can effectively influence your governement into regulating things. Thus they have close to the same regulating power as a governement but are not accountable for their actions... Neither by vote and only in a very limited way through law since the company itself is considered a legal person and the shareholders are not directly liable of the actions of a company... In fact they have even more power because a big company act as an economical levy that can threat people into voting for or against something by saying "hey if this bill passes we just get out of here (you loose your job and we damage the economy of the place)". Which a local governement obviously cannot do. And I wont start about the economic benefit of governemental sector running at loss in time of economical distress to preserve the jobs of people thus creating demands for goods that help restart the economy... As I see it, in a democratic state, you have more power over the influence and legislation passed by an elected governement than over those asked by big companies... A balance of both private run buisness and governement run buisness is a good safegard against abuse from one or the other... But trusting the private industry over the governement could get people in some sort of corporate run governement by letting the people far too dependent on private sector for the governement not to obey their wishes. ------ forgive my writen English: it is not my primary language.
Being from outside the US I cant help to notice how many people seems to be afraid of their governement (who's primary purpose is supposed to be to serve the people) and would rather trust private company (who's primary purpose is to make money). If your governement is so corrupted as to being dangerous to trust, maybe it is time for the average american to realise that they should get involved in politics a bit more and get things strait... Because from outside the border it is beginning to feel a bit unconfortable knowing that the governement whit the biggest army in the world is considered an opposition force by its own people...
Unfortunatly the link you provided does not seem to work at the moment... Yet you may be right about the fact the hydro-electricity creating methane more that I have heard before, my source being a engeneer working for Hydro-Quebec (friend of mine and usually fairly objective) but lets say he is wrong and you are right. I still dont think the debate should be simplified under a dense vs non-dense energy sources argument... In some cases non-dense energy sources can be excpected to be fairly safe. Like wind power in north of Quebec which has huge unhabitted area with full of wind and almost no life... Of course there is some migration area that should be avoided and taken into acount in such projects, but overall I dont think the equation is as simple as dense vs non-dense. There is also distributed energy sheme that can help in the equation (solar panel on individual houses that gives back to the power grid in time of low consumption) And sometime no toxic waste can be a plus... Overall i think a mix of many renewable energy sources plus some nuclear is probably the best bet.
"Another example is hydroelectric. Dams are now causing more greenhouse warming due to their emmissions of methane than they save in reduced CO2 emmissions." It is true Dams emits methane due to the drowned areas it create, but while it does for a while, this emmissions reduces over time has the drowned biologic material is consumed... So thats a short-medium term bad side-effect... So it is good in the long run.
Canada governement: "Ok that is enough, we wont give you wath you want you cant take my wood anymore" USA Gov: "How will you stop me from taking it?" Canada governement: "Well we will pass a law to disallow you the rigth to do so..." USA Gov: "And if i dont recall our worker there and they continue their work?" Canada governement: "Then we will arrest them..." USA Gov: "That would be considered as an hostil act and we would do anything in our power to free them..." Canada governement: "We will stop you from doing so!" USA Gov: "With what army?" Canada governement: "the Canadian army!" USA Gov: "hahahahahahahahahahahahaa... rotf... cough hehe yeah right... Do what you want but we will not comply" Canada governement facing the obvious only solution: "Ok you can continue harvesting wood..." Stand pressure... easy to say with the size of your population and your army... this is a different reality out there...
I might agree about the need for something someone else have and the other wanting to extort.
But before attacking people i mean you start by looking if you can reduce your cunsomption of that thing. You have to look at alternatives, maybe majors change in the way of life but still better than attacking people... Ok you lack oil... You have food... Irak lacks food but have oil...
Another exemple would be wood... Your country kind of do not have enough lumber to suffice itself... We have lots of wood here (well had... nowaday we have less thanks to american companies...) if we decided, seeing a wood shortage in the coming years, to stop allowing USA comp to harvest our wood (for free... talk about extort...) so we can keep enough for ourself in the coming years and let the forest regenerate would you be in favor of attacking Canada?
I mean the ressource is our first, an then the excedent can be sold to agrement both economy and other's need.
All country have things they have in surplus and others they lack... They sell the surplus and buy the things they lack.
That is normal... somehow we get the impression that you think if you need something you should grab it elsewhere, that it is rigthfully yours.
We feel like americans are not ready to sacrifice anything for the common good but are ready to sacrifice others so they can continue not caring about the rest of the world.
America is a rich country in term of natural resources, and if the country was handled as if those were eternal this is your error (as a nation) and you have to solve this yourself, not impose those error on other country... for one day there wont be any of those resource you reach for anywhere and there you will be in an even greater trouble than if you stop this today and look at the way of life you can afford with what you have.
This is the way alomost all other country act. The ones in history that acted like you do, are remembered very sadly. And ironicly they all had the eagle as a symbol.
Now surpopulation IS a problem... but the theorical limit of population for earth is not yet reached... it is only over-consumption and bad handling of things that cause the trouble.
And talking about having ressource and not sharing it... Their is a lot of people in USA that have enough money to provide permanent water supply and energy installation to a very large number of suffering people around the world that are not concerned about their car, but about eating and drinking...
Do not forget this fact before you bomb those people because they "extort" the people who need oil...
I do not blame USA for all the bad decision of our own governement, we have problems of our own over here and we try to deal with it in our own way.
But what I say is that USA put A LOT of pressure on other countries regarding their politics and vision of things.
USA tends to put pressure on foreign governement regarding internal decision of others countries.
It is not rare to face blackmail from the USA government regarding our own policies. Like for exemple closing the borders to trade companies, applying illegal border taxes on goods... etc, etc...
It is common knowledge over here that those things happen frequently...
Why do you think in Quebec we GIVE FOR FREE to american company the right to cut the forest for lumber production, even tho we are running low on stock?
Most of the population over here are against this politic, there are a lot of politic pressure group making the case for this to stop. But yet, our governement does not comply because they are under a lot of pollitical pressure from the USA... And when I say a lot I mean borderline Blackmail.
Another exemple would be the project to dig the St-Lawrence river to allow ships to go directly to the great lakes (lake Champlain, lake superior... etc).
We have absolutely no interest in that since it would bypass our own ports and it it agains our economical interest. Not to mention the worst about this... There is a lot of chemical at the bottom of the st-Lawrence river put there by numerous industry over time (a lot of them being american) that are resting beneath a layer of mud.
Diggin that will put all those contaminent accumulated for years back in the water all at once killing both marine life and tourist industry on the border of the river. This project is backed by no one in the population it is dangerous,unwanted and would cause a great loss of money to our land.
But due to pressure from your governement, it is under investigation. Not to mention that we would have to pay for it.
Yes, your governement is acting like a big bully with other countries and we cant do much on our side. (aside from building up a military to answer the threat which is both unrealistic and unwanted)
So yes you are responsible of the action of your country toward others and unless you (as a nation) let people live their lives without interfering, it is normal that we feel bullied by your politics and that we are concerned by it.
Do you really think all of a sudden people started to dislike USA for no reason at all? Jealousy maybe? I dont thing so... USA likes to brag about beign the greatest nation of the world, but aside from your great military there are a lot of country with very good level of confort and liberty that have nothing to envy to USA.
I dont own a car...
and if i would own a car i would not go for a SUV... And face it Oil is going to deplete someday and you will have to look for other solutions... So why not start now.
And if you have a problem with the trade of something... do like everybody else do... negociate and compromise because it is not your ressource it belongs to another country.
I did not say everyone is inteligent except american... I said the rest of the world is not dumb ... And you should hear what they have to say.
As for not beign americans who started the war i must have missed the war declaration from Iraq... Not all musulmans are the same you know.
Again: Iraq != 9/11
So no war declaration from Iraq...
Dont worry... i know a lot of you voted for someone else and i dont think americans are idiots...
I am just a bit shocked and depressed for my crystal ball just turned black today...
All i can say is watch that president closely...
For over here in Canada all we can do about this situation is sit and whine.
And seeing how Bush reacted to the pleas of millions before the war... he doesnt care what people outside the borders thinks.