Troy's blog

"Let's focus our energies and seize the initiative. Let's cut to the heart of the problem and once and for all deal with the Indian Act," Atleo told representatives of more than 600 First Nations gathered in Winnipeg.

Atleo is saying some good things, but I also gotta disagree, here. We can't just do away with the Indian Act.

It's an incredibly complex legal document that had set out the relationship between First Nations and Canada. Or rather, it had set to set it out.

Am I saying we should keep the Indian Act? No. It's also an incredibly heinous document, which allows the federal government to decide who's indian. And it also denotes how we create our governments. It needs to go.

After researching into the taxation system, looking at it from a couple different perspectives, I can only come up with a couple of conclusions regarding flat tax proponents: they're either being foolish, or they're lying.

I've come across two major arguments for flat taxes: they're fairer, and they're simpler.

However, the first doesn't take into account proportional burden, that twelve percent on someone making $10, 000 doesn't equal twelve percent on someone making $100, 000, because a person making only $800 a month could really use that $120 in their pocket because whether they want to or not, in all likelihood, they're spending all $800 that month, whereas the person earning $8000 a month might only be spending two to three times more than the person making $800. $8000 is ten times $800, but if the former isn't spending ten times the latter, then the fair argument falls more than quite a bit flat.

Well, it passed. It's a nice big piece of polished turd legislation.

Trying to ignore its massive and built-in follies is a bit hard, but it appears there are quite a few so-called progressives doing just that.

People are hoping against hope this bill will be somewhat fixed in reconcilliation, and a public option added in an up-or-down-vote, but the truth is, don't hold your breath.  It ain't gonna happen. That vote is a myth, and our bravest leaders in the progressive sphere will make sure it doesn't happen.

He's been cheering on the health care as it currently is: here, here, and here. It's rather a huge shock and letdown.

He's considers only one issue to be important; it's a nice symbolic victory for US progressives. It's the symbolism, stupid!

There are a great many symbols in this world, Professor Krugman: the Trojan Horse, as an example.

It's filled with rotted and weakened intentions. It will itself become one more burden for USians as they will be forced to buy insurance which has no price caps and no basic standard controls for a basic contract.

On March 27th, I did up a post called The Cons are simply racist. I got a response, which is here. I wanted to respond to it directly, but my thoughts twisted and turned about, leaving me a bit lost.

I wish to wander about in my thoughts, and was thinking perhaps some of you all might want to come along for the walk.

I'll start in my memories. We'll begin at the Trans-Canada, at the entrance to my reserve.

---

My hometown I.R. #3. Standing at the mouth of the reserve, we're looking down the old dirt road. We can see quite a ways, but it turns gently rightward. More so than the road, however, we see potholes. Deep, deep potholes. It's my own belief that there have been cars lost in them. The highways department grades the road every spring, but the potholes are ancient, having existed before time began, and so return the very next day, simply waiting.

Tories to pull Canada further down the path of irrelevancy in human rights.
Damn am I ever feeling sour right now. Dunno why. Just am. And then I read this Toronto Star article on the Tories pledging to end '2-for-1' sentencing guide, and I just became very bitter too. Go ahead and bite me. You won't like the taste.

He had seen a wall, and he wished to bring it down. Day after day, he attacked it, weakening it, wearing it down, until he finally made a crack. And quickly, water began to pour from the crack. What the man had been trying to bring down was a dam. And he did not know that far upstream beyond the dam had been a storm which had been raging for weeks and months. He was too focused on the wall to notice anything else.

Well, it is true, and completely obvious that an economic stimulus will run a deficit, but I don't think liberals and socialists are Harper's intended audience with these remarks. We're not the sort to need to be talked down to as though this were some upgrading economics course in university.

Of course, I do place the blame for the oncoming $18 billion deficit squarely onto Mr Harper's shoulders. Two straight years of bad tax and spending policies have destroyed the monetary cushion we Canadians had that we could've ridden on to weather out the economic storm down south.

If Harper's trying to divorce himself from the coming deficit, I ain't gonna allow it. Harper, the $18 billion deficit is your fault. It ain't because of the recession. It's your policies that had landed us all in this position. Harper, the deficit is your fault. Let me repeat, Harper's deficit. Harper's fault.

So this recession won't make much a difference to me at least

But here's some advice to you all if you lose your job due to downsizing, and can't get another one right away and have to live on the welfare pittance.

- Restrict all activities you know you can't afford. If you find yourself telling yourself, "I can't afford this", then you can't afford it, so don't do it. Repeat, repeat, repeat. And then beat yourself up later because you ignored your own advice (tends to be how I do things anyway. Maybe you have a stronger will than me).

- You can live on one meal a day. Just make sure it's the one right after you wake up though. I lived for a year on strictly macaroni, mixed vegies, and ketchup. If I can do it, then you can too!

- Buy in bulk. None of those one meal packages, unless you can get them on the cheap, or they're a part of the monthly food hamper you can get from a food bank.

Bloomberg.com: Canadian Stocks Fall Most Since 2000 as Potash, Barrick Slump

Nobody wants to mention the dreaded 'R' word. It's as though a recession is an iceberg, and we've just narrowly avoided it: now it's clear sailing from here on in!

Um, I'm a plebien when it comes to economics, but I can look South as well as anyone. America is in a recession, and they're headed into a depression now. How we're going to avoid a recession when our biggest, and only, trading partner is knocked down and out (and most importantly, not buying a damn thing from us) is a question that begs to be rhetorical. What happens when demand falls all of a sudden again?

First Perspective: TRC tells government: hands off budget

Here's some old news, but it's probably news to most of us. At any rate, Harper's imperialistic and authoritan policy of either tampering with independent organizations and committees continues. And he's using the age-old trick used by countless Canadian governments, both Liberal and Conservative.