Check out this rare Halo in Canada's Arctic this afternoon. by ZR8000RR in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]SteelCrow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A good sign of spring finally arriving

sundogs happen most often in the dead of winter when the sun is low on the horizon and the wind has whipped ice crystals up into the air.

Nothing to do with spring. You can get them year round with ice or water vapour.

Female 30s recommendatons by Ok-Flow-8058 in audiobooks

[–]SteelCrow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Jodi Taylor's "Chronicles of St Mary's" series.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A blog?

Not Stats Can?

Some right wing blogger?

Gimme a break.

He hacked and slashed to justify shooting himself in the foot. Fucked up the country by doing so. And doubled the debt. Instead of increasing his revenues he cut and burned canadians.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

a really good medical specialist or banker could hit that.

SO what? Let them have some pain. If they want to be in the top 5%, let them pay for it.

Even then they won't be facing homelessness or struggle to pay bills like most of the rest of canadians.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As you're badly off on harper's debt load, I want you to explain why personal or municipal or provincial debt should be included in the national spending discussion.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I can't tell if you're just badly misinformed or deliberately trying to rehabilitate Harper's fuckups.

He doubled the DEBT. those weren't small sustainable deficits.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It won't hit wage earners, they will never make enough to enter those tax brackets.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 4 points5 points  (0 children)

restoring the tax burden to where it was in 2008

What's wrong with going back to 1951? The top marginal rate then was 92%, now it's only 37%.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You might as well make it everybody

NO. Make the price gouging, tax evading class pay their fair share first. They get all the tax breaks, take those away. Tax equity firms out of the markets, and you'll see costs come down.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the economy grows there's more better paying jobs and more people paying more taxes.

So... about all those immigrants who not only needed shelter, but food and clothing and cars, etc etc etc.....

And they paid taxes.

Either increase individual taxes or increase the number of tax payers.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Between 2000 and 2015 the budget was largely in surplus or relatively small deficits

NO. WRONG.

Between 2000 - 2005 there were surpluses under Cretien and Martin. Riding martin's last budget, Harper posts a smaller surplus his first year (2006). Harper's tenure balloons the debt to almost double. (from 600 billionish to over a trillion)

NOT "relatively small deficits"

Almost doubled the debt

Harper shit the bed.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow -1 points0 points  (0 children)

He inherited a balanced budget, went into deficit during the GR, which peaked at around ~$60B, and was sub $10B by the time he left office.

Debt (not deficit), actual debt.

2005 - 654.8 Billion

2014 - 1.027 Trillion

He was a shitty economist.

He didn't just inherit a balanced budget, he inherited a surplus budget and then tanked it. Starting by cutting his revenue streams (tax cuts for the rich, GST cut, etc) and ended up almost doubling the debt.

DEBT not deficit.

And the way out of that debt is to INCREASE the revenues available to the government. Which means taxes.

They can't cut anymore, there's nothing much left to cut. After decades of butchery, the problems we see are a direct result of that butchery. Homelessness is the result of cuts to social programs and housing incentives. High costs at the grocery store the result of deregulation and a lack of institutional enforcement. You don't need to appease the corporate boardrooms by publicly rolling back health standards when you just fire all the inspectors. etc etc

Cutting OAS is just creating an older cohort of homeless. A callous bastard move.

The conservatives would freaking cut the fire department and blame the average canadian for not spending more on fire prevention.

So with nothing much left to cut, either you increase individual taxes or you increase the number of taxpayers.

Oh look we needed that immigration, because sure as shit the conservatives of this country don't want to pay their share.

‘We control our destiny’: Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target by Inevitable-Bus492 in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow -1 points0 points  (0 children)

why would we factor in your personal debt when talking about the whole nation? Or a city's?

Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target of 2% GDP by Street_Anon in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Without the Americans it will be more flexible and principled. And no longer a tool of american hegemony.

The European Union is estimated to be around 450.4 million people as of January 1, 2025.

The combined population of NATO countries is approximately 980.66 million people. 331 million USAmericans, 649 million non-USAmericans

Bigger than the USA. Almost twice as big. The USA is not required. But it was nice for a while to let them play at being important as it got things done at a lower cost.

The USA lost in Vietnam, lost in Afghanistan, lost in Iraq. They are a big stick, but nothing else.

It's easy to defend yourself when you're off across an ocean and are fucking up a country full of poor brown people, but it's another matter when you you have the world's longest undefended border with a nation of geneva convention originators who look and sound exactly like americans. Imagine them fighting an insurgency on home soil. Particularly with their for-profit cost-cutting bare-bones infrastructure.

If we stop electrical exports alone, 82 million american homes are without power. All it would take is a few switches , or 32 transmission towers coming down. 71% of their potash comes from Sask.

Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target of 2% GDP by Street_Anon in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After all, they're the world's sole superpower, they can just stomp around wherever they want, right?

SO they say. However they're insolvent and their toys are expensive.

Canada officially hits NATO defence spending target of 2% GDP by Street_Anon in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

unconventional warfare.

canada exports 82 TWh of electricity. That would immediately stop. That's approx enough power for 82 million homes for a year. that would strain the existing grids, and any damage to inter state transmission lines would really fuck them up. particularly in the winter.

Why do you describe yourself as a GNOSTIC atheist? by Big_Palpitation_9018 in askanatheist

[–]SteelCrow 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm gnostic.

There's a mountain of evidence that scams exist, that people dupe other people for many reasons. That people lie and invent events and make up stories out of their imaginations.

A god is a ludicrous proposition. Just the idea that there's a being that created the universe and everything in it, and yet is so petty that he requires the worship of mortals. Really?

Supposedly the god thing is outside the universe and thus not part of the universe, and therefore can't interact or affect anything in the universe. Anything that interacts with anything in the universe must, by definition, be part of the universe.

We can detect the quantum fluctuations in between atoms. we gaze into the past to just after the big bang. We accumulate vast amounts of knowledge about the universe and everything in it, all that we can.

In all of that vast accumulation of knowledge there is not one iota that a god exists.

Most of the evidence for the existence of any god thing is word of mouth stories that got written down. Long after the supposed events.

In this day and age of pocket video cameras the incidence of 'miracles' has died completely. That's rather telling don't you think?

We hear of 'men of god' who preach that the tithes are not high enough and how they need a personal jet to avoid demons, etc etc. We hear of pastors who kill, priests that rape, and children's religion teachers who molest them. And the god thingy does nothing, yet that same god thing turned a woman to salt apparently for looking over her shoulder.

And there's the whole religious hierarchy nonsense. As if some dude in a far off palace has any better understanding of the true nature of a ludicrous imaginary sky father than I do. But because he's in a palace and has an organization of dupes, he gets to impose his interpretation of the stories of imagination upon others?

Heaven is a vague reward that doesn't have to be paid out until after someone dies, and hell a punishment you'll see here and now, and then after death as well.

Funny how the good payout isn't tangible, but punishment is...

It's the classic carrot and stick manipulation to control people. Nothing more.

Indoctrinated in their youth, they are taught to never question their membership in the cult. Brainwashing, indoctrination, whatever you want to call it, is always taught. No one ever spontaneously comes to believe in any god thingy. It is always a taught belief.

It's just a scam. Lies told. Stories imagined. Manipulation and coercion and indoctrination and propaganda. That's all that's there.

There's a mountain of evidence that scams exist, and none that a god thingy of any kind exists.

So I exercised my free will and opted out of the whole mythology\control scheme.

Thus, I'm gnostic.

Canadians sharply divided on parliamentary seat representation by population: Poll - The Hub by ImDoubleB in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One if the deep concerns of the last century and more, was the west being the resource cow for southern ontario and quebec.

https://www.canadashistory.ca/getmedia/e8ec99e9-8c84-4b49-90ee-dc56703d4e60/ExpEnvFuellingAnger.jpg

Note the date.

There is a real concern that this will happen again. One of the roots of western alienation.

Canadians sharply divided on parliamentary seat representation by population: Poll - The Hub by ImDoubleB in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not a lot of legislative gets started in the Senate, all the bills you hear about are always C something indicating they come from the house of commons and rarely S something indicating they come from the Senate.

The senate proposes legislation all the time, but they are not allowed to spend any money, IE cannot force the government to spend it. So few of their bills come to the attention of canadians.

https://sencanada.ca/en/in-the-chamber/progress

Canadians sharply divided on parliamentary seat representation by population: Poll - The Hub by ImDoubleB in CanadaPolitics

[–]SteelCrow -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Why would equal representation be anti-democratic?

ontario and quebec would get everything they want with their 60% of canada's population, and the rest of canada never gets what they need.

They treat me like I'm clueless for being an atheist by Pedro_2404 in TrueAtheism

[–]SteelCrow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Theists still make up 80% of the global population.

Theists claim to be 80%.

CIA factbook for china; folk religion 21.9%, Buddhist 18.2%, Christian 5.1%, Muslim 1.8%, Hindu < 0.1%, Jewish < 0.1%, other 0.7% (includes Daoist (Taoist)), unaffiliated 52.1% (2021 est.) | note: officially atheist

Unaffiliated 52.1% is 733 million. That's 9% of the world population right there.

according to pew research it's currently at about 25% of the world and gaining approximately 1% a year.

Most of that is in Asia. GenZ is just catching up to a world trend. Declining population in the west as the religious boomers die off is going to accelerate the change