Andrewwhyte

BC is considerably larger than Texas so it's tough to compare it to a city. The Greater Metropolitan area of Vancouver contains more than half the people so those comparisons work. The city of Vancouver itself is the most dense in the country and has a decent, but not great transit system. The downtown core is a growing, desirable highrise district that contains about 5% of the region's residents in Manhatten-like density The suburbs are very low density with the added disadvantage of being a long narrow band with the central city being at one end. The reason is because the mountains, ocean and US border all force development up the valley. Essentially the urbanites are very public transit, walking, cycling friendly; the suburbanites, not so much. The inner city, like San Francisco is not freeway friendly so the commuters burn a lot of fuel not moving. Basically traffic is fucked all day long; much more so than you would expect for that size of city (2.1M). Outside Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria public transit is virtually non existant, definitely only for the poor if at all. Northern Mountain conditions lend themselves to larger vehicles with larger engines. The premier is definitely aiming at the urban and sub-urban crowd with this policy as it is unlikely to resonate well with the killin' trees, diggin' coal, pumpin' oil crowd. A new tax on fishing boat fuel isn't going to make him a lot of friends up the island, but then again they tend to over estimate their clout anyway.

I do believe that eventually this type of tax will make a difference, but not overnight and not alone. 2c/l will not really do much to the pocket when you consider that Greater Vancouver already pays 10c/l in public transit surcharges. The tax and the publicity surrounding the tax are just part of the ongoing education of the population that they have to change. As for it not changing rural behavior, it will but it will just take longer in the same way rural Canadians have been slower to give up cigarettes. I think the premier is on acid if he thinks they will achieve their GHG goals. What I really think he plans is that when the Olympics roll around he will be able to brag that BC is leading the north American class at GHG reductions. That may or may not happen; we'll have to see how Cali makes out.

Development is a nebulous term. US has the largest GNP, but does that mean the most developed? Is China really the third most developed nation on earth? The reference was the human development index. This is one of those things developed by Europeans that Europeans tend to do well on. This doesn't mean however that the "goods" it is based upon are not valid. Broadband penetration is certainly an indicator of development, as is participation in post secondary education (another area the US excels at), but so is adult literacy, homelessness, life expectancy, infant mortality; these are areas The other OECD countries tent to beat US at. Incarceration rates are another area the Europeans tend to look down their noses at US for. From my experience though, most US citizens are not too concerned about this due to the high proportion of inmates that are members of the subculture. The same is true for the murder rate; the Europeans score better, but they seem more concerned about it than the Americans.

That is why this thread is about reading comprehension; Scandinavia not Alaska is east of the pole.

Yes you did, Kallend is being intentionally obtuse. However I don't think you really believe hand weapons in the hands of the VC really one that war. The US military declined to take the actions necessary to annihilate the NVA, which would have ended the VC threat. Personally arresting and disarming every man woman and child in Montana could be done in a few months, there really aren't that many of them. The problem is they would have sympathizers in northern Idaho; then you'd be in trouble.

Wow, Star Trek Geeks. How uncool is that? As William Shatner said at the Star Trek convention, "You people need to get a life!" BTW Wesley was the only one who didn't get addicted.

If we're real lucky we will get to see a little Star Wars debris to go with it. If they shoot down the satellite we should see some debris burning up late in the eclipse period.

Wrong type of eclipse.

Oh my Flying Spaghetti Monster! or who could forget: Holy Birthdaycake Batman!

Que?

Well if you read Marx you will learn that democracy can only take you so far. The wants of the masses will lead to "Trade Unionism" but not to socialism. For that you need leadership from the vanguard. This leadership must be imposed upon the proletariat for their own good. Lennin knew that, so did Mao, so does Castro.

And most of them were predicting this as early as five years ago. yes even the ones at the big banks. The deal was they needed to make enough windfall to cover the losses when they happened; and they did. Blaming the government for lowering the interest rate and forestalling a recession for six years is a bit silly, but that is political reality. In hindsight governments are not judged on whether there is a recession, but rather on how deep and how long.

It is your MPs job to know what you're talking about. With a possible election call as early as next week he might actually be paying attention.

A-fuckin-men

27 December 2006, 02:18 GMT From there; they went east. No they didn't.

Transformers. Just great visuals.

In degrees:0

Remember if you are west of The prime meridian your longitude has a negative sign.

It doesn't change the huge disparity of collage members selected per vote; however it does change the chance a vote will turn the election. That is the point.

Practice? The guys a page 1 postwhore.

Most people don't see a big difference between that and going to resort in DR Owned by the descendants of the Conquistadores and worked by mixed Spanish-Indios at the top and illegal black Haitians at the bottom.

Hi, i worked there a couple of winters ago. The beach jumping is magic, life just doesn't get much better. They were going to 14,000' when I was there. The drive to the airport takes about 20 minutes, depending on who is driving. the best thing to do is not look out the window for the first few trips. the driving is, umm,.. aggressive. They open at 9:00 AM and jump till sunset. That only amounts to about four or five loads a day as the TMs tend to pack their own and, well because it's Mexico. Make sure you are current on your canopy as traffic in the landing area is unpredictable and there are lots of hazards.

If the new regime cares to allow more capitalism in on an incremental basis, more and more Canadian, Mexican and European capital will find its way there regardless of the stance of the US. This is already happening albeit very slowly. The situation is very similar to Viet Nam, sooner or later US business interests will tell the government that they are tired of losing out. The Miami Cuban community has put their eggs very firmly in the GOP basket. If there is a Dem Congress- Dem White House next year they may get a big fuck you from the gov if Cuba shows a willingness to play ball. Trust me no one at State or the CIA gives a shit about the Cuban ex pats when they are working on the Venezuela file.

No but British and French industrial concerns certainly has interests there. Generally when discussing international law you look internationally for precedents.

Well I think you need to pick a subject and really delve into it. Religion is always good, or you could have a go at gun control. I know, pick a side you don't usually argue and start three different threads with provocative statements. That oughta hold you for the rest of the day.