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Bringing white hot death to an official enemy hopefully far away from you.
Our Federal Government is really the bomb-shit. I mean they stopped the Liberal nationalized daycare program in its tracks when they assisted Paul Martin and the Libs self destruct in 2006.
“The Liberals were in the midst of delivering on a $5-billion national child-care program before they were thrown out of power in the 2006 election. When Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives came to office, that program was abandoned, in favour of the $100-a-month cheques to Canadian parents known as the Universal Child Care Benefit.”
The Universal Child Care Benefit is laughably ineffective, as reasonable day care costs are well above $100 dollars per month. Hats off to conservative thinking and the choice that the 100 dollars per month provides (none). Way to go, nanny state kept in check.
The fiscal restraint though goes *poof* when we are talking about shiny new fighter jets! The new F-35 is so new and amazing you do not even see the 9 billion dollar price tag through all of this incredible awesomeness!
“The Canadian government said Friday it plans to spend $9 billion to purchase a new generation of fighter jets, the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.
The contract, one of the biggest military equipment purchases in Canadian history, is worth $9 billion, but the full cost could rise to as much $18 billion once the government signs a maintenance contract.”
I’m amused that we need the best and the brightest new technology for our Air Force. What exactly are we going to do with these new jets other than spend a horrendous amount to train to fly and maintain them. Put quite simply, Canada does not need these jets. The F-35 is purely an offensive weapon that has no place in a Canada that is once was dedicated to peacekeeping and resolving issues without the slaughter of war.
For the fiscally conservatives who also occasionally read DWR here is another little interesting snippet.
“The new jets would replace an aging fleet of CF-18s that recently underwent a $2.6-billion upgrade”
Huh, we are retrofitting old jets, AND buying new ones. The money for the military seems to be connected to a high pressure fire hose. Consider that 2.6 billion is already one half of the necessary money for universal childcare in Canada. Oh yah, but we need defence! The terrorists are at our door just waiting for our Jet Technology to become obsolete.
I’m thinking we need to up the *facepalm* ante here just for the inept twerpitude of our military planning/spending.
9 billion for *shiny* jets? Can I get a 'Hell Ya'!
Here is what the Official opposition is saying:
“But the government is fending off criticism that it is making one of the biggest military purchases in Canadian history without a single competing bid. The Liberals say the massive purchase of 65 jets should have been subjected to competitive bids.
I think Canadians are amazed that the largest procurement deal in the history of the country is a single-sourced — so, it’s not a competitive — deal,” Ignatieff told reporters.”
You know what I am amazed at Iggy? Your enormous capacity to miss the blatantly obvious point. We should not be making this purchase in the first place. You want to show Canadians you have a platform and spine of your own? Then make a stand against this vacuous prestidigitation, try for once to make a principled stand you might like it.
The planes we are purchasing are used to rain death down on people who do not have planes of their own to shoot back with. Has the mighty Harper decided that Canada needs its own imperial air-force to lay the smack down on some poor schmo(s) on the ground armed with an AK-47 and faith on the brain? The ludicrous stupid burns nova hot on this one. You would think as the principled opposition of Canada you might point out that we do not frakking need
Childrens Welfare vs. Bombing other children? Wow, unpopular position if I ever heard of one.
any more fighter planes for the defense of our country and maybe the money could be used elsewhere to benefit the children and families of Canada.
Do you know why according to Military Analysts that we need these pricey Edsel?
“Military analyst Mercedes Stephenson told CBC News that the purchase is “absolutely necessary.”She added: “We have to have fighter jets. Canada is a massive country, and when you think purely about response times, there is nothing else that can get across the country as fast as a fighter jet.”Also, when you are dealing with the Arctic, there is very little that has the kind of survivability of a fighter jet in the air under those kinds of harsh conditions. She added that the purchase is also important for Canada to meet obligations to its international allies.”
Shorter: We need fast planes because Canada is big and cold! Oh, and sometimes our friends need us to bomb people.
Are you kidding? Are we that stupid?
What really fries my biscut is what the NDP has to say about this:
“But the NDP argues even if Canada needs fighter jets, it’s not clear it needs these particular ones.
“The issue for the Canadian defence department is, is the F-35 what we want?” said NDP MP Malcolm Allen.”
Holy Plastic-Jebus on a pogo-stick! Is this the best we can do for spirited opposition? It is okay to say that this is waste of Canadian money, and that this is a particularly bad idea coming from Stephen I wanna be a Neo-Con Harper’s private circle-jerk cabinet. This deal needs to be scrapped immediately, put the money toward combating child poverty and do some good for once.
What I fear is that no one from any of the opposition benches has the spine to take a stand against this fiscally and morally boneheaded move on behalf of the Canadian Government.
Christians everywhere awed by magical blanket, now with the image of Jesus. It is proof, proof I say of all the malarkey I have been force fed and child and led to believe. The CBC reverently intones:
“The Shroud of Turin, believed by many Christians to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, went on public display Saturday for the first time in a decade.
Confirmation bias anyone?
Over the next six weeks, about two million people are expected to view the linen bearing the faded image of a bearded man.”
Oh fantastic. Sheeple to the ramparts, the magic cloth has arrived!
“Each visitor will be allowed five minutes to stand before the bulletproof, climate-controlled case containing the cloth inside northern Italy’s Turin Cathedral, where it has been kept for 500 years. In that time, the public has been allowed to view it on only five different occasions. The last time was in November, 1998”
And then the Jebus blankee along with the disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs go back into the vault. So do not delay!
“Pope Benedict XVI will visit Turin on May 2 to pray before the 4.3-metre-long, one-metre-wide shroud.”
2010. 21 century here, we really need to stop propagating foolish dangerous mythology.
Religion, the stupidity mill that keeps grinding out the awesome. Stolen from the CC.
Oh hey, and for extra churchy-fail Thunderfoot examines the Catholic Church for the evil entity that it is.
Wow, you can now watch 3D TV in Canada!
Also known as, you can now watch the crappy commercials and pap they pass off as content with an extra dimension.
The problem is that 3D crap is just as unappealing as the regular 2D crap.
I think it is about as useful sometimes as attempting to urinate up a rope into the wind when its cold outside. Trying to explain concepts like evolution and abiogenesis to people who are religiously addled is an exercise in frustration.
It is like this, you offer your arguments and conclusions, fact based of course, and all they have in rely is goddidit or He works in mysterious ways and *poof* for them it is the “I WIN” button. If you call them on their feckless handwaving then they attempt to disengage with such disingenuous statements as this:
“it’s written to go from the presence of a foolish man when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge”
Seriously?
Bullcoookery does not get any swarmy than this little gem. It is no wonder the dark ages was dominated by the religious because it is obvious they could not and still cannot reason their way out of frakking wet paper bag.
The Alberta government is lowering royalty rates for the gas and oil industry. It is a bold initiative, that will bring jobs, prosperity and pink frakking Unicorns back to our lovely province. Apparently the old royalty review was just too darn hard on the industry.
Douche-Nozzle and Premier of Oilberta
We have just spent the last year and a half recovering from the last bout of fiscal looting and pillaging brought on by the business class so it is right about time to lower government revenue because we need less money, not more, to fund out starving public sector. Great Scott we need to close a few more schools and hospitals as right now we are falling behind in the race to the bottom.
The paucity of morals and commitment to the people of Alberta is vomit-worthy. Honestly, could the kowtowing and subservience to the Oil Patch be any more blatant? This is not even the right question.
The million dollar question is will people actually give a flying flaming hoop about how they are being sold down the river by our government and will they care enough to vote the PC’s out of office?
Oh, by the way the competition review was written by the Gas and Oil Industry. Certainly a fair shake for all Albertans. If you read closely you can actually hear the smirk and audacious tone Mr.Collyer uses.
Dave Collyer, head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers:
“I think it was a significant step forward in restoring investor confidence in Alberta and I think that makes it a good day for not just the industry but for Albertans. This is really about getting investment back into the province, getting Alberta back in the game and that creates activity and that drives jobs and that’s good for the province overall. So I think it was a positive announcement in both tone and substance. So we’re encouraged by it but we’ve got a ways to go yet in terms of getting the industry fully back on its feet.”
Contrast this with what Amy Taylor has to say from the Pembina Institute:
Amy Taylor, senior economist with the Pembina Institute:
“First and foremost, we have concerns with the process that the provincial government embarked upon in which they came to the conclusion that they needed to make adjustments to the royalty scheme applicable to oil and gas in Alberta and more specifically, they made that decision based on conversations and meetings and negotiations that they had over the course of the last several months with industry and industry alone. And we’re talking about a resource that is owned by Albertans. The citizens of this province own the resource and it’s imperative in our opinion that they be consulted when these kind of changes are being considered.”
Transparency and the interests of the people of Alberta have always been low on Ed Stelmach’s list of things to do, but this is just outright pillaging. And for what? Because the Wild Rose Fascists are undermining the government from the Right? You bet it is. Albertans are getting a dry splintery broomstick in the anus, in regards to resource royalties, because the quavering lick-spittle progressive conservatives are afraid of alienating their ‘base’ and will not stand up for the peoples’ interests.
The people of Alberta need to put a stop to these shenanigans, the sooner the better.
I consider myself to be a progressive of a sort. I’m all for saving the earth and all that, but then I observe the goings on at the Sustainable Campuses conference here at the UofA all I can think of is ‘What the hell is the point?’.
I mean really, all we have here is the proto-educated elite coming together to make some noises about sustainability, recycling and earth saving in general to each other confirming their ‘green ethos’ and noble intent; a perfidious waste of time, but I imagine it looks darn good on the CV/resume.
I can guarantee that this cohort, like the previous and the one before that, will have their high expectations and noble goals quashed by the reality of the situation facing them ahead in their life path.
Being the educated elite they will gravitate toward the upper middle class of society, reaping the benefits and privileges of that socioeconomic station. Only a very few will retain their ‘earth-friendly’ principles; most will happily defile the earth and others in the maintenance of their lifestyle thus propagating the cycle.
Lifestyle maintenance will be the end of us all.
Who wants to sacrifice comfort and security for the greater good? Is that ethos even mentioned anymore in this capitalistic money based society anymore? Why think of others when you can have a new big screen TV (insert techno gizmo/must have here)?
I’m certain that some good does come of such gatherings. Raising consciousness and what not. Incremental change is all that we can hope for, but unfortunately incremental change will not be enough. Nor will the small progressive changes happen soon enough or on a significant scale to change the sodden downward spiral of our crumbling civilization. When we finally flame out and the human population inevitably crashes only then will lessons be learned. Mmmm… society based on greed and exploitation, not a good thing. It worked so well as long as resources were available. Not so good once said resources were all exhausted. On our ruined shell of a planet, at least we can be proud of the fact we recycled our paper cups (at least some of the time).
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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