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PittTheElder posted:600 people have been evacuated from Bragg Creek, which Wikipedia suggests is the entire town. It's really ridiculous. My family used to go out to Bragg Creek for picnics, and we'd always stop at an ice cream shop in the little shopping area you can see in some of the pictures. Hard to believe it's under waist deep water.
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Jun 21, 2013 03:16
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It's currently beautiful and sunny outside in Calgary, which is deceptively bizarre given that we're still basically living in a disaster zone.
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Jun 22, 2013 14:53
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MA-Horus posted:Also half of Calgary is underwater and it hasn't really affected the economy at all. It's probably going to make at least a small dent to the local economy, depending on how quickly they can get the Stampede grounds up and running. The Stampede is one of those events that people plan extensively for, and pushing it back even a week'll hit travel agents, hotels, etc. right in the pocketbook. To put it in perspective: this is about the time of the year where they're supposed to be getting the midway set up.
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Jun 24, 2013 19:16
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I once had the truly unfortunate pleasure of visiting Guzoo "behind the scenes" and it was an absolute loving pigsty. It's completely odious that Gustafson isn't being fined into financial oblivion.
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Jul 10, 2013 04:26
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Huge Liability posted:One of the most awkward moments of my life was when I driving home with my ex's mother one night and she suddenly went off on this incredibly racist tirade about first nations people, completely out of nowhere. It was so bizarre and shocking to me. This hatred surfaced more subtly later, such as when she made a point to sneer at the totem poles at the ROM. Ah, the classic "person you otherwise respect suddenly goes on racist tirade" bit. It's seriously like stepping on a loving landmine. I've been trying to avoid it of late by intentionally opening up casual discussions on issues like First Nations, poverty, etc. with people I've just met in order to gauge whether or not I can have any hope of being around them without being unutterably repulsed after some random, awkward moment in the future. Funkdreamer posted:I'm pretty sure between Christie Pits, Alberta Social Credit, and King's virulent anti-Semitism, we could have taught Hitler a thing or two about hating Jews. Hey, don't forget our good buddy Adrien Arcand, the Canadian führer. Vermain fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Jul 17, 2013 |
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Jul 17, 2013 04:09
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Mordecai posted:So I guess the dentists drilled the door open, then charged in with needles full of tranquilizer? It probably went a little more like this.
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Aug 10, 2013 00:44
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I'm always rather saddened over the near-death of the railway in North America. Energy-wise, it's amazingly efficient compared to a typical airplane ride, and there's generally a lot more space you can afford on one.
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Aug 18, 2013 05:13
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Eej posted:Amish in motorhomes? Am I missing something here. Modern Anabaptist-descended movements have a lot of differences between them, though they do share a few similarities, which can often mean people mistake them as being the sort of "stereotypical" Amish that's in public consciousness. Most Hutterites in Alberta, for example, practice plain dress and communal ownership but have no objection to using most modern conveniences/automobiles/etc.
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Sep 9, 2013 02:00
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Majuju posted:So this is a big ask, but I figure there are enough people here with smarts that it should be achievable: can you guys give me some articles about income/wages/productivity growth in Canada (or the lack thereof)? I am trying to make a case to one of my co-workers that the articles about how the current generation is so entitled and lazy and etc. are bullshit, and while I have Googled up some stuff, I figured I'd also solicit help from y'all. Honestly, the "this current generation is entitled, lazy, etc." rigmarole is not a matter of economics at all (at least in terms of "they're unproductive") and is entirely a matter of caricaturization - it depends upon something akin to the traditional anti-Semitic figure, where it's a patchwork of negative social values (laziness, dependence, ignorance, whatever) extrapolated into an Other. Attempts to explain it tend to be rather facile, because they don't really explain in any substantive way why the current generation is entitled, lazy, etc., or they provide symptomatic reasoning to try and explain it. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to say that there's more of a focus on the immediate "self" today than in the past, but that's entirely a result of the spread of neoliberalism, and its principle message thoroughly crosses generational lines. Vermain fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Sep 17, 2013 |
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Sep 17, 2013 23:48
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eXXon posted:citation needed How many times since the Reagan days has the tax rate actually increased?
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Oct 1, 2013 04:18
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eXXon posted:A good anthem would be some heavy metal band doing their thing and screaming BEAVERS MAPLE SYRUP HOCKEY TOONIE CANADA AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH CANADA TRAILER PARK BOYS CANADAAAAAAAA. This should definitely be our anthem.
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Oct 1, 2013 22:13
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Even if the long form census is no longer used for public policy (and I am a bit skeptical, but here I defer), it seems to be of significant academic value, considering the number of papers citing it. My main concern with the death of the long form is that there is simply no better publicly accessible statistical tool for academic research (is there? I'd love it if there were one), leaving statistical analysis of long-term trends rather firmly in the hands of either the civil service or private institutions.
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Oct 6, 2013 03:02
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eXXon posted:This is the sort of thing the CRTC should be dealing with, and doesn't it receive its marching orders from the government? Sort of. Parliament can create and express general policy objectives towards them, but the CRTC is thoroughly arms-length and can decide largely what it wants to do to accomplish those objectives (within the constraints of its mandate in the Broadcast Act). If it thinks cable packages are the best way to fulfill its mandate, there's little parliament can actually do to change its mind.
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Oct 15, 2013 04:56
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Dallan Invictus posted:It's entirely possible that whatever Harper announces in the Throne Speech will be a) simply getting out in front of the parade the same way they did when they highlighted the Wireless Code of Conduct among the government's achievements, or b) contain actual changes to their mandate (in the form of Broadcasting Act changes or a new policy direction, which could both do rather a lot to change the Commission's mind. Thanks for clarifying - I've been studying the CRTC recently, and the book I'm reading gave the impression that Cabinet's interaction with the CRTC tended to be limited in terms of influence. (Or, rather, that few governments really wanted to be seen messing around with the Broadcast Act to a large extent, since the CRTC is supposed to be arms-length.)
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Oct 16, 2013 00:26
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I would care exactly the same amount because $3 billion dollars is an awful lot of people's bellies being filled, or hospitals getting upgraded, or teachers being paid decent salaries.
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Oct 29, 2013 21:44
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I, too, am perpetually lit by a hideous red glow regardless of the surrounding lighting.
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Nov 13, 2013 05:41
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PittTheElder posted:Desperately. Infrastructure funding has generally been based on the province or federal government being benevolent enough to give us money to build stuff. Except we have a massive infrastructure deficit now, and neither government is about to give us anything. Yeah. There's basically a whole bunch of things colliding together at once: -Transit out to the ever-expanding suburbs. The relatively laissez-faire method of suburb construction from before has meant a large deficit in available funds for things like a Southeast LRT line. The CTrain in general is trying to scrape funds together; there was a recent proposal to allow companies to add their name to certain LRT stations in return for cash grants. -Sewage systems. In addition to the everpresent problem of sewer lines just plain ol' breaking down due to age (there were a few major ruptures earlier this year), the growth of the suburbs is putting significant strain on existing sewage systems, which is restricting the amount of growth you can actually stuff into the suburbs. -Garbage disposal. Calgary landfills have around 30 years of space left before more space has to be found. There's been proposals for new composting facilities to try and reduce organic waste, but it's got a hefty tag (something like $180-190 million in total). -Flood protection. The most recent flood really hit home about the need for some kind of flood protection infrastructure, none of which comes cheap. In general, Calgary's stuck in an unfortunate position. It's been touted as this sort of neoliberal paradise where the taxes are low and the growth is endless, but growth always comes with increasing costs to the government, which haven't been met with a commensurate increase in revenues. The problem, of course, is that any kind of tax increase in such an ideological situation is vehemently resisted, regardless of how necessary it might be.
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Dec 5, 2013 22:59
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Professor Shark posted:This is pretty scary. So Unions are going to be bankrupted. Super villain evil. It's managed to produce one of the weirdest alliances in modern politics: the AEPU and the Wildrose Party.
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Dec 6, 2013 01:59
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mik posted:You can't just destroy a wetland, interrupt a tributary to the Athabasca and then somehow return it to its original form. I'm mostly concerned about the wetland destruction because most of the extraction is also upturning large carbon sinks in the process. It really is one of the most immensely destructive industries currently operating in Canada.
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Dec 8, 2013 02:00
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swagger like us posted:Its just jargon, get over it, honestly. Language, by its very function, creates meaning and defines our world. "A person was shot by a police officer," and, "A bad guy was shot by a police officer," are two fundamentally different sentences because there is an assumption underlying the second (that a "bad guy" deserved it, because he is bad) that does not exist in the former. There's a reason things like racial epithets tend to gain ground, since they define an oppressed group as being "different" and can immediately turn opinion against them by relating the epithet to presuppositions ("niggers are lazy," "micks are always drunk," etc.).
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Dec 16, 2013 02:41
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Helsing posted:graphs Has this mostly been a result of globalization, or the development of the oil industry in general? Or have they been concomitant (e.g., as more and more manufacturing flees to China/India/Vietnam, we make up for the relative national deficit via the development of natural resources)?
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Dec 27, 2013 18:47
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It's precarious in every province, I think. I finally went to my GP to get a psych ref to try to sort out some issues in Alberta. Mine isn't incredibly serious (no suicidal ideation or whatnot), but I've still got a six month average wait I've got to last through. I can't imagine enduring a wait like that if I was stuck in a serious depression. In general, it seems to be part of a larger trend where the idea of primary health care has been sidelined in favor of acute care for various political reasons.
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Jan 4, 2014 05:37
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Helsing posted:As for the idea that real wages are rising in Canada I would love to see an actual breakdown of those statistics. I'd be really surprised if this was the case. If we take the CSLS report from 2008 on labour productivity and the median real wage gap, they identify four factors (measurement issues, increase in earnings inequality, decline in labour's terms of trade, and a decline in labour's share of the national income) that they believe explains the productivity/wage gap. In an increasingly anti-union environment (both federally and in certain provinces such as Alberta), I'd be surprised if any of the last three had changed.
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Jan 4, 2014 23:37
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The problem isn't that there's a deep left/right polarization; it's that the left effectively does not exist as a potent political force. Even the NDP isn't interested in radical politics. They're into the same sort of depoliticized expert administration of society as the Cons and the Libs (albeit with more of a social democratic focus, though I doubt you'd see anything beyond enhanced social programs and mildly higher corporate taxes). One is obviously better than the other, of course, but addressing systemic inequality and exploitation demands an actual rejuvenation of the "political" left.
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Jan 5, 2014 00:11
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Heavy neutrino posted:As for leftist activist groups forging alliances with each other, I'm not sure that's a terribly good priority -- left wing groups are aware of each other and back each other all the time to begin with. I think it's a very important activity, but it has to be done in a concrete way that's put towards effectively obtaining political power and putting it towards a more "radical" economic purpose, rather than as an informal coalition agitating for general "social justice." Part of the problem, I think, is that the alternatives simply haven't been articulated coherently enough to be implemented as actual policy. Establishing what, say, a socialist economy would look like, what benefits it would confer to the average person, etc. is critical. While I'm not qualified enough to say it unequivocally, the successful implementation of neoliberalism worldwide seemed to depend a lot upon having a solid intellectual/policy backing that lent apparent strength to the arguments being made (deregulation is beneficial, unrestricted free trade is good, etc.).
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Jan 5, 2014 03:48
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Huge Liability posted:If you can, have it administered by a doctor. I had mine done at a Rexall pharmacy. The pharmacist sat down, told me to roll up my sleeve, started unpacking the needle and then paused thoughtfully, muttered "Right", and hastily got up to wash her hands. I got mine administered at the local Calgary Co-Op and it went off flawlessly. I think it really just depends on the pharmacy. I know that the Co-Op's generally quite good at training their staff.
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Jan 7, 2014 04:31
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HookShot posted:Yeah, I don't know what it is about them, it's just a complete and total phobia, and it's never like I've had a bad needle experience or anything, it's just kind of how I am. I can't even watch people stick themselves with needles on TV. You might've just had a bad needle experience somewhere down the line. I had a pretty crippling fear of electrical sockets for most of my childhood after accidentally making contact with the prongs while trying to pull a plug out of the wall one time. Unfortunately, the only real cure is to just be repeatedly exposed to it.
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Jan 7, 2014 06:29
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Hexigrammus posted:So, what are these salmon modified for? If it's something that makes farmed raised Atlantics taste like something other than poo poo, err, mud it might be worth the risk.  Pictured: A regular farm salmon on the bottom, with a GM salmon on the top.
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Jan 21, 2014 03:34
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Starks posted:Why is it worse for society as a whole if Kevin O'Leary spends money on charity instead of on himself or just sitting on it or whatever? That makes no sense to me. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: charity helps to perpetuate the present economic and social order by "cushioning" the full effects of massive wealth disparities. Someone who's in dire straits who receives enough from charity to survive, even if barely, isn't likely to support radical structural change (because they're already in such a precarious position), whereas someone with nothing to lose (e.g., their social infrastructure has collapsed, they can't get any food for themselves or their families) is far more likely to support radical structural changes. I don't think anyone's saying to abandon charity (unless they're accelerationists or something similar), but that charity in and of itself can be deceptively negative. The example Zizek uses is a chocolate laxative: you eat it for the laxative to relieve your constipation, but are then constipated by the chocolate in the laxative. Similarly, we have businessmen using their vast personal fortunes to ameliorate the effects of them collecting vast personal fortunes.
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Jan 22, 2014 02:54
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TheKingofSprings posted:Do people in this thread honestly think Kevin O'Leary gives money to charity with the idea in mind that he is preventing people from revolting? No? I'm not positing that Kevin O'Leary is some kind of bourgeois mastermind, but that the effect of charity nevertheless helps to perpetuate systemic inequality by allowing that systemic inequality to continue via a reduction in its negative effects.
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Jan 22, 2014 03:20
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Jonad posted:DnD has a lot of trouble grasping the fact that maybe, just possibly, it might be possible for bad people to do good things, or vice versa. I don't doubt that Kevin O'Leary or Bill Gates are doing charitable things because they believe in doing good things, but the reality of the self-perpetuating cycle that this creates still exists, regardless of their intentions.
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Jan 22, 2014 03:43
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I'm still impressed by Glenn Greenwald's resilience. The dude must have at least half the major world powers breathing down his neck, by now.
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Feb 1, 2014 18:43
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Alctel posted:How come they always scew so far to the right? Is it pressure from industry once in power? I expect that there's a bit of trepidation involved in trying something new, even if the leadership is sincere in wanting to see more left-leaning policies. It's relatively easy to be a "fill in the potholes" government and continue to get elected, but trying to introduce new programs (which usually means new taxes) can put the axe on your neck drat quick if something unexpected (economic downturn, etc.) pops up.
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Feb 24, 2014 22:53
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I would, admittedly, love to see a return of passenger rail as a major mode of cross-country transportation. Does anyone have the data on its comparative efficiency to flying? I'm almost certain it's more efficient, but I haven't checked anything out directly.
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Mar 10, 2014 04:52
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Gus Hobbleton posted:Because the oil lobby has convinced everyone that ATOMS will kill us all. In fairness, it's not really oil lobbies doing the heavy lifting in terms of anti-nuclear sentiment. Opposition against the building of reactors in Canada has historically been made up of coalitions of well-organized national or international environmental groups (Greenpeace) and smaller grassroots environmental/community organizations who are worried over the impacts of having a reactor nearby. It's by-and-large an emotional issue centered around the association of atomic power with atomic weaponry built up over the Cold War period and the great deal of misinformation or outright ignorance in circulation. I'm betting that few people even understand what a nuclear reactor does to generate power, necessarily, or what a "meltdown" actually entails. I consider myself reasonably well informed, and I certainly didn't until I actually took a class centered around nuclear power as a policy issue.
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Mar 10, 2014 20:27
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Brannock posted:Isn't France running on like 75%+ nuclear power? Maybe it could get a foothold in Quebec and spread from there They already have, sort of. Areva's Canadian subsidiary has a strong foothold in Saskatchewan uranium mining and various nuclear services. The lack of nuclear power is, at its most basic, a cost issue. Private companies rarely want to foot the bill for the full construction cost of nuclear reactors (which are notorious for tremendous cost overruns which can dynamite your ROI), and reactor construction thuss depend heavily on government subsidies (at least for the initial build). The problem: governments don't want to fund them because they're comparatively expensive (especially thanks to the natural gas boom) and have a bad reputation (there was strong opposition to the idea of a reactor in Saskatchewan, the uranium mining capital of Canada). As long as there's a politically and economically viable alternative, most countries won't bother with nuclear. China, for example, is one of the few places with a surge of new builds, but that's because there's significantly more agitation over air quality and they don't (as far as I know - please correct me if I'm wrong) have a lot of alternatives.
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Mar 10, 2014 21:06
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vyelkin posted:China also gets to do that because, as Justin Trudeau would be happy to tell you, they don't have to listen to their population, they can just do whatever the gently caress they want. Only to a certain extent. That they're building nuclear at all says that they really are concerned with what the agitated public is saying, since it'd be considerably cheaper to just throw up a ton of new coal plants instead of investing in the comparatively expensive nuclear option. I'll go out on a limb and say that the organized environmental/community movements are mostly just a convenient excuse for governments to avoid doing something that is economically unfeasible in comparison to their other options.
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Mar 10, 2014 22:29
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Tsyni posted:Government subsidy for building new nuclear plants shouldn't be an issue because power companies should all be publicly owned. I'm hard pressed to understand why you'd want a profit motivated enterprise versus a sustainability/safety/service one when it comes to energy generation. It would still be a problem because the money has got to come from somewhere, and building/refurbishing a reactor that hits a bunch of unexpected delays and ends up going massively overbudget is a poison pill in any Western democracy. I'm generally in favor of nationalized energy industries, but a lack of nuclear development is more than just a result of low levels of private investment.
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Mar 10, 2014 23:02
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Speaking as an internet YouTube cat, I'm incredibly offended by this choice.
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Mar 11, 2014 22:33
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 04:45 |
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swagger like us posted:Well, I am in disagreement in this form of protest entirely, regardless of the purpose or goal. Due to the pluralistic nature of politics (i.e. there will always be divisiveness on issues), I just don't believe blockade protests, or disruptive protests are a fair use of civil disobedience in a democratic society. It's absolutely a fair use of civil disobedience, and has been critical in the promotion of nearly every progressive cause one can think of. The modern protection of labor in Canada was born of uncompromising strikes and mass civil disobedience (see: Winnipeg General Strike); the Civil Rights Movement in the United States was made against the backdrop of increasing black militancy; and the freedom won by Gandhi followed an immensely devastating world-wide war that sapped the strength of the British and made attempts to hold onto its Empire pure fantasy (though there was already a decline in the Empire before this point - the War just solidified its end). One also must ask: how do you gauge an acceptable level of disruption for civil disobedience? Are blacks sitting at a whites-only counter being "too disruptive?" They're causing a great deal of grief for the business owners and patrons of the establishment, yet are effectively pointing out discrimination and forcing the authorities to respond in one way or another. Are solidarity strikes "too disruptive"? They cause disruption in "unrelated" industries, yet are undeniably more effective than single strikes in forcing business owners to respond to the complaints of their workers. What is the "limit" for disruptive behaviour that minorities can take before their demands are heard? Political systems do not realistically work based on everyone having an equal voice that can access political structures at will. Social change for disadvantaged parties in a democracy comes out of large-scale, disruptive movements, because there is otherwise no reason for the government to actively pay heed to their demands. This has been repeatedly emphasized through historical struggles against oppression, where the only effective method of change has been direct challenges to the pre-existing system. The reason that people like Gandhi are emphasized so much in world history is because they serve as effective totems for preserving existing power relations: one can truly "change the world" by non-violently protesting (assuming that your chief opponents have just suffered an absolutely devastating war from an unrelated third party). The clearing out of Occupy Wall Street camps is a very clear example of the fallacy of this belief. (This isn't to say that I advocate armed overthrows of the government of Canada, but that you have to do something more than sitting outside of city hall to generate the consistent sort of press that might result in people paying attention to your cause.)
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Mar 19, 2014 23:45
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