I think McCain needs to let the old finance-the-economy-by-war thing go away. Obama organizes a plan to withdraw troops and hand over security in Afghanistan in five years, and McCain thinks this is a bad idea because the insurgents will wait until everyone leaves and then wreak havoc again? Well we can’t stay there forever. There needs to be a day when Afghanistan and Karzai take over their own bloody country’s affairs. Maybe someday the old dogs like McCain will all die off and we’ll have less of his kind of crap flying around.

Stop whining and do something to curb the rest of the world’s fears. Ahmadinejad is mental, who thinks nothing as significant as the Holocaust ever happened, that it was all an excuse by the Jews to grab attention, and now he has his entire country of politicians complaining that we’re all worried about them seeking nuclear capabilities. Ahmadinejad told everyone that he would remove the world of Jews, and he acts aggressively at every turn for no reason. Why wouldn’t we be worried that you want to enrich uranium?

Finally a Republican that isn’t afraid of their own party. Olympia Snowe was the only Republican on the senate finance committee to vote to pass the new health care reform, and will probably be hearing about it for some time to come. But, as Snowe said, “when history calls, history calls.”

Well, it would have been nice to help those poor girls in Bountiful. Another time, perhaps. Let’s all hope so. At the very least, I’m sure there’s a front row seat in hell for Oler and  Blackmore for all the lives they’ve ruined. Sometimes the Charter prevents justice. Naturally the Charter is a great thing for personal freedom, but it does allow for more illegal and evil things to take place without punishment.

People need to realize that governments don’t do things for no reason. A center/right government will not just raise taxes for no apparent reason – that’s left for the NDP to do. As an economist, I took time to understand what the HST was, and what it intends to do. Should some consumer tax be offset under the new HST to ease the transition until businesses can pass on the savings? Yes, of course. But if you don’t understand what it is, ask. If you still don’t, then shut up. And if you do understand but believe it’s intended to be negative, try to find a brain that works better. The government is not out to be hated, and they’re certainly not out to get you.

Maintain the right. Exactly what the Integrated Security Unit in BC is doing for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. 

But what I keep hearing and reading everywhere is that they are absurd for limiting free speech to certain zones. At least they are allowing it! What do people expect, that people should be allowed to create chaos in the streets for every homeless rant, every environmentalist, or whatever else they want to yell and scream about? None of us can possibly believe that these protests would be civil. They would result in riots and physical violence. Most countries that host the games don’t even allow the free speech that the RCMP is allowing. It is a high risk environment, and for some reason people don’t get that. The RCMP have a big task ahead of them, and if anything goes wrong all of these people that initially criticized their tactics will be the ones who blame them for the mistakes. Get over it! They’re doing what needs to be done, so stop screaming about it. Oh, right. You screaming ones are the ones who are upset about not being able to yell and scream wherever you want.

Well no kidding.

When the government acts in such a way, it would seem that they should also be on the terrorist list. Sounds a lot like what the Nazi party was doing in the 1930’s and early 1940’s. I wonder why the Tigers were so bent on bringing down the government…

Read the report at Human Rights Watch here.

I was incredibly excited to see a competent leader at the Liberal helm. However, he slipped a little bit.

I’ve been increasingly uneasy over these Employment Insurance debates. I am a trained economist, and everything economics has to say goes against EI; we are given blips of information regarding to helpful aspect of it as well in terms of temporary assistance while an employed individual is retrained in another field or searches for a job.

The problem EI has for me (and economics): lack of incentive. For you non-economists out there, economics is all about incentives. In this case, there needs to be incentive to not only keep a job, but to find one as soon as possible in order to keep unemployment low, GDP high, and consumption high (among other things as well). With a lower requirement of worked hours (from 420-700 hours down to 360 hours), there will be a dramatic surge of Canadians on EI. Will they look as hard for employment, especially with a downtrodden economy such as this one? If it’s too hard to find a job, a lot of people will not look as they are being paid regardless.

Ignatieff is fighting for the 360 hour requirement amendment to EI requirements. Just the other day is was quoted saying, “The good thing about [the 360 hour requirement] is it is the fastest and most direct was to get stimulus into the economy.” Excuse me?

Stimulus? Here is where Harper and Ignatieff differ in their academic training. Harper, being the only economist leader, has reformed the requirements somewhat but is blatantly against the 360 hour requirement. Ignatieff, on the other hand, believes that it is a direct stimulus into the economy. So, taking general tax revenue (where he said the added EI claims would come from) and giving it to unemployed Canadians is a direct stimulus? Yes, perhaps creating a means for some people to spend is a stimulus, but the last I checked EI didn’t give you so much that you can buy everything you see. It will allow people to survive, yes, but it won’t create enough consumption to be called a direct stimulus.

Harper’s solution is to retrain the unemployed in order to land them a job in another sector. Instead of taking hardworking taxpayers dollars and sending them as gifts to people who have worked 360 hours then took a year holiday on EI, let’s retrain them so they can make more money than EI could ever give and create a stimulus that way. Will it take a little longer than than 360 hours? Probably not, depending on the training. Even if it does, the stimulus there is much more significant than an unemployed person spending tax dollars and not contributing anything to GDP, technology, or exports themselves. Bottom line: get people working!

On a last note, how many times has Ignatieff laughed at the Conservatives calling this EI reform as “socialist?” Well, aren’t the Conservatives right? They want people to suck on tax dollars and not work, just to be nice guys to everyone. Yes, I do not deny it is painful and very sad for those that have lost their jobs. But, we don’t need to pay them to sulk. I’ll gladly pay to help them find a job and get back on the bike (such as retraining). Some out there may argue that only those “seeking a job” can stay on EI. Well, yes, but I’ve known people that have easily lied about it. It’s really not that hard.

I really want to see Ignatieff act as intelligently as he claims to be. If he wants to not just pull out of this recession, but pull out stronger, then we need real contributions to the country, not a bunch of people that don’t have must need to hurry up and find a job. Canada needs people working, not wishing it were so. The last I heard, hope is not a plan.