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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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perhaps vancouver canucks of all stripes might want to consider NOT discussing politics nor hockey and instead descend on kloochman park on june 21...
next thing you know people will start jumping into the water for a swim...
Well, hockey will be just a distant memory by then, and jumping into that cold northern ocean will certainly put an end to the Canadian erection, so you shouldn't have to worry.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Canadians don't refer to swimming conditions in fractions of a single inch for nothing.
Quite so. One of the key aspects of Coast Mountain alpinism is penis shrinking... Uh, I mean river crossing.
Don't know if we'll make it for the mid-summer night's traversing, but we just might. We're definitely planning to spend as much time as possible at Squamish this summer.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 7, 2011 - 07:00pm PT
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The usual question at the midsummer madness traverse is who gets to be the DS.
Hint: If you don't know who the DS is, it's probably you.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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One good reason to be a girrrrrrrl.
Another good reason is what happens when that cold river water soaks yer T-shirt...
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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My question is: If these backward dickwads can fire their cabinet ministers over "sorcery" and "making magic", why the hell can't we?
Why can't we? Because we don't live in a theocratic dictatorship. Do you really want some child-molesting Archbishop to be in a position of that much power? I haven't spent much time in Canada lately, but down here in the good ol' U. S. of A, the ruling corporations would never let the priesthood gain that much power.
Just imagine what it would be like if Pat Robertson, or Pastor Ted had the kind of power that Khameni has. If someone like that could persecute a citizen on the grounds that he was "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds," what would happen to Klimmer?
Kidding aside, they really are that far over the edge.
As the Guardian reports, several people, including the president's chief of staff, were charged with being "magicians." Abbas Ghaffari, one of the men arrested, was described as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds" by an Iranian news website.
Stephen Harper may be a corporatist who is happy to sell out the country, but at least he can't imprison you for witchcraft. And you will have the chance to vote him out of office before he totally wrecks things.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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The fate of the indisputably successful In site injection site in the downtown East side is now before the court
Many of us go through life trying to be decent folks, but other than that we don't make much of a contribution to society. Or not the kind of contribution that's measurable or visible. One thing I did do, something I'm proud of, is helping move Vancouver's drug policing policy toward the harm-reduction model that began to take hold just over a decade ago. To see things being dragged back into the medieval sin-and-punishment way of thinking is depressing.
(And yes, some of what I said earlier was tongue-in-cheek)
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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The Economist:
Harper leads into new territory
How to interpret the Conservative prime minister’s decisive win—and how he should use his new mandate
May 5th 2011 | from the print edition
AT LAST the deadlock has been broken. In an election on May 2nd, after seven years in which no party has enjoyed a majority in Canada’s House of Commons, Stephen Harper, the prime minister for the past five of them, won a clear mandate for his Conservative Party. In doing so, he can claim to have redrawn his country’s political map (see article). Only a few years ago, it was the Liberals who were Canada’s “natural party of government”. But they have been humiliated. Not only did their leader, Michael Ignatieff, fail to win his seat, but they were outflanked to their left by the New Democrats (NDP), a niche party that now becomes the official opposition. The NDP did especially well in French-speaking Quebec, at the expense of the separatist Bloc Québécois.
Two sets of reasons explain this shift in the political landscape. The first is that Canada is quietly changing. The Liberals ruled for most of the 20th century by offering consensual, centrist politics with a dash of European social democracy to a coalition of industrial workers, the suburban middle class and immigrants. But the Liberals’ industrial base has contracted and Canada’s centre of economic gravity has shifted, westward and towards natural resources. And many immigrants have discovered that they rather like the Conservative appeal to the rugged individualism and family values of the Prairies.
Secondly, Mr Harper out-fought and out-thought his opponents. Mr Ignatieff, a former academic, unwisely triggered an election for which his party was ill-prepared by choosing to bring down the government over its contempt of parliament in concealing the true cost of new fighter jets and prisons. That was an important issue of principle, to be sure, but hardly one that swayed many voters. They proved more susceptible to relentless Conservative ads portraying Mr Ignatieff as an elitist. Mr Harper stuck to a simple mantra: his successful stewardship of the economy, promises of tax cuts, stronger defence and tougher measures against crime. Mr Ignatieff tacked to the left, seeking to match the NDP’s promises of federal largesse. In doing so he surrendered the centre ground to the Conservatives. That should be reason enough for the next Liberal leader to hesitate before heeding calls to merge with the NDP.
Within this broader narrative, there is a subplot. For 20 years the Bloc Québécois has been a spoiling force in Ottawa. Its near-annihilation does not mean that Quebec separatism is spent, but at least many more Quebeckers now seem to want to play a more constructive role in federal politics.
Don’t forget the moderate majority
Mr Harper is doubtless delighted that the NDP’s rise turns politics into a straight fight between right and left. Liberal commentators see in Mr Harper, and his remaking of Canadian conservatism as a more aggressive and right-wing force, a northern cloning of George Bush and today’s American Republican Party. If so, the prime minister should not be lulled by the clear result delivered by the first-past-the-post electoral system into imagining that Canadians have become tea-partiers. His new majority, secured with only 39.6% of the vote, allows him to press on with some useful measures, such as a cut in corporate tax. But it also means that he has no excuse for not tackling difficult issues such as health-service and pension reform, and environmental policy. And it makes it all the more important that his government is clearly accountable to parliament and acts less secretively than it did when in a minority.
In victory Mr Harper insisted that he will spend the next four years “governing for all Canadians”. That is good advice, and he should follow it—otherwise he may find that reports of the death of Liberal Canada are premature.
from the print edition
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 12, 2011 - 10:45pm PT
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Yes, Moe wasn't quite all he seemed to be, but then neither was Glen.
And the unkind nickname we had for Kim at UBC... If only we had known she was a future PM, not just a Socred hack wannabe.
Anyway, isn't it time we started an HST discussion? Americans love to talk about taxes, I've heard.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 14, 2011 - 01:18am PT
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Hey, we're actually having a referendum, to decide whether to keep an unpopular but economically sensible tax, the harmonized sales tax. Introduced with stellar ineptitude by our provincial government, two months after an election where they promised they wouldn't ever do it, cross their rotten hearts. Leading to the downfall of our provincial premier.
It's almost as dysfunctional as the popular democracy run amok that passes for public policy in California.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 14, 2011 - 05:06pm PT
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The economists and policy makers seem to agree that the HST is a more equitable tax, notwithstanding transitional challenges, and that there are significant economic advantages to having it.
I agree that the introduction was very clumsy, especially as it turns out the provincial and federal bureaucrats had long been negotiating. Also that the province should have dropped the PST portion from 7% to 6% or even 5%, to balance the 'net' being cast more widely.
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Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
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May 14, 2011 - 10:18pm PT
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Anders,
Can you PLEASE explain how it is more equitable to those in the restaurant trade? Or is it equitable that many small businesses should be hammered while big business aren't?
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 15, 2011 - 12:44am PT
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No, I can't. I'm not an economist, and don't make public policy. They claim that the HST is overall an improvement, with various reasons, some of which seem to make sense and some of which don't. Whether the HST is an unfair burden on small businesses, service businesses, or the restaurant industry, is beyond me.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 25, 2011 - 12:08pm PT
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Some may be interested to learn that the leader of Canada's official opposition, Jack Layton, died on Monday. He was 61. Layton was the leader of the New Democratic Party, and led it to win 103 seats in the May election, the first time it has been the official opposition. He had been treated for prostate cancer and had hip surgery in the year prior to the election, and feistily wielded his trademark cane. Apparently the prostate cancer was successfully treated, but he developed some other aggressive cancer. Layton announced he was taking a leave of absence at the end of July, when he looked quite gaunt. There will be a state funeral in Toronto on Sunday.
Definitely not a good day for democracy in Canada - a loyal, strong opposition is important to the functioning of any democracy.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/08/22/f-jack-layton-death-legacy.html
(For our American friends, the leader of her majesty's loyal opposition is the leader of the non-government party with the most seats in the house of commons. Sort of like combining the senate and house minority leaders in your country. The NDP was originally called the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and was founded in the 1930s as something of a farmers'/workingmens'/populist party. Its founders included the grandfather of a SuperTopian.)
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