Skoot: What percentage of benefit recipients are blowing money on smokes, weed, beer and tattoos? Lots, that's how many.
cite a real stat from a reliable source, or admit that's your opinion based on anecdotal evidence alone and absolutely nothing else. you know, look a few things up. find out if your vitriol matches up with reality at all.
people like you talk a good game but you've got nothing but hatred of the poor to back up what comes out of your mouths. everywhere in the states when governors got elected for talking like you, they've had to eat their words or double down on bad ideas and look like a fool. in more than 5 states, the cost of the drug tests they made recipients endure caught so few people that the cost of the tests far exceeded the savings of denied requests for financial help.
in tennessee, only 1 in 800 applicants tested positive for drugs. florida's drug use rate checks in at around 8% of the general population but only 2.6% of welfare applicants tested positive. maine's governor went on a jihad to prove there was massive welfare fraud and abuse, claiming recipients were bums who spent their cheques in strip bars. it amounted to less than 1% of welfare debit card transactions. almost nothing. statistically insignificant.
so please save us the prejudice and sanctimony. you're not some kind of superior human being than those who get by on social assistance. you simply have no idea what you're talking about. you just want to dump on people you think are beneath because it makes you feel good. you've got nothing. stories of "i know a guy who..." ain't gonna cut it.
topshelves:
my solution doesn't consist of putting the cart BEFORE the horse. blowing the money in one big lump sum like we already have the tax base to cover it on only one big project that REQUIRES the population we don't have to make it go is stupid upon stupid upon stupid. it's been tried on a lot of different industries and has never worked. i notice you fail to answer my most pertinent question: what if it doesn't work as predicted? what then? who will pay for it all? who will lose their jobs for being so wrong? why should we expect this will save our economy anymore than call centres or casinos have been promised to do? if we can't sell out or just barely sell out local team action, what makes you think having pro teams come, costing an attendee more than 10x the ticket prices of amateur teams will somehow be better? on what evidence? Why aren't the mooseheads, the rainmen, and other amateur or university sports leagues good enough for you? they're just as entertaining as far as ns are concerned (see their ticket sales compared to the old ahl numbers), tickets are at a price nova scotian families can afford, and most of the teams themselves actually get their talent from the area, create community spirit, and put down roots. pro teams just go wherever the taxes are cheap and where the taxpayers will backstop any losses. they have no fidelity to the area, only to cash.
and what do you think these people we will attract might say? "gee what a nice stadium they have." you don't think they'll notice the third-world-style roads we have on the way there?
here's a thought: let's make our education and health care system great first. let's take the money you propose spending on this and reverse cuts by previous govt's. let's pump OUR money back into things the taxpayers actually think are priorities for spending: basic services. without those, we have no future either, for young or old. i don't have a huge problem with the gov't using limited tax incentives to create favourable conditions for business to move here - but don't straight up GIVE them free cash. that they need it before they'll move here is a HUGE red flag. if it truly is a viable venture, it doesn't need actual cash from the citizens of the city. if they're asking for millions of free money right from the start, to pay the inflated salaries of professional athletes and team managers, then you need to make the business case. please explain to me why the taxpayers of nova scotia should pay for any of that. why shouldn't 100% of that money come from those like yourself, willing to pay a boatload of money for bad seats? why should i be asked to pay for any of it since i would never pay the outrageous sums it costs to attend a pro sports game? i don't mind subsidizing your kids' education. i don't mind subsidizing the health care of your entire family. we're all going to need those things. but a pro sports team? not so much. sorry but it's a luxury most of us can't afford. like someone else pointed out, i'm sure portland maine would like an NFL team too. so would Montpelier New Hampshire. but you know what ? they can't afford it. so the patriots -based in boston, the nearest city capable of making the business venture viable- will have to do for the entire region. and even boston wouldn't likely be able to keep it going if it weren't for the equally-divided tv profits, the commie business model of the nfl.
if your decision to stay or not is hinging on the rest of us covering the bill so you can enjoy the sight of juiced-up millionaires give each other brain damage live instead of on TV, and that you are happy to see this happen at the expense of health care, education and other basic services, please do us all a favour and just leave now. you're not helping.
and it's april 24th. we had our last big snowfall less than 3 weeks ago. it snowed yesterday ffs. you honestly want to try to argue that we can use it from march to november? good luck with that.
"It’s this unwillingness to move forward that is severally hindering progress in the Maritime region."
no, it's pie-in-the-sky bullshit dressed to appear like it's some kind of innovation, that soaks the taxpayers for millions (if not billions), that is holding us back. as this kind of crap predictably goes down in ball of economic disaster flames, the people of the city get told again - "it's your own fault! you just won't be 'world class' no matter how many 'world class' amenities we bring to you! what is wrong with you people?" when the public support seems kind of meh, there's never much reflection on the part of the boosters on whether or not the idea was good in the first place. no, it's always us, the city. it's never them, the boosters with bad ideas of how to spend taxpayers money.
maybe we're catching on to the model this kind of thing seems to bring with it every single time: for it to be successful and profitable for someone else, the taxpayer has to pay for it. if it isn't successful, the taxpayer has to pay for it anyway. private profits, socialized losses. if you can guarantee that kind of thing won't happen, i suspect you'd find you'd get a lot more public support. but this business model doesn't work that way. ever.
some of us would rather our taxpayer dollars be spent on things for US, the citizens, not for people from away. maybe some of us would rather have the basics covered down at city hall - like real paved roads and decent snow removal - before we start getting into dream projects. we already have one on the go: our new convention centre. using that as our model, your stadium fantasy will be overbudget, behind schedule, costing the taxpayer more than was initially stated, will have fewer permanent jobs at lower pay than was initially promised, and will no doubt do exactly what our other convention centre did: be unable to attract enough conventions to have made it worth doing. when it is finally opened and its first few years' numbers are made public, will any of the liars who sold us this pig-in-a-poke lose their jobs? or held to account? nope. they'll likely line up behind the next get-rich-quick scheme huckster pushing a stadium, a international sports competition of some kind, whatever. these plans are never about taking something made by locals that works already and making a plan to build it slowly and carefully. it's always about attracting some rich people crazy enough to come a visit here for a while, hopefully some of their money falling out of their pockets while they're here visiting (because they never seem to actually move here unless the idea is to live incognito on cape breton island near the buddhist retreat or something).
let me spell it out for you nice and easy and in big type: WE DON'T HAVE THE POPULATION BASE OR THE ARID WEATHER LONG ENOUGH EVERY YEAR TO MAKE THIS FINANCIALLY VIABLE.
here's the big problem: if you're right, some people get rich and it seems like everybody wins. nobody hates that, right? but what if you're wrong? what if the teams won't come without the taxpayers paying for pretty much everything? and what if that STILL doesn't work? what if the tourists don't come in the numbers needed to bolster the lack of a local population base necessary to keep this project going? who will pay the bills? what will we do with this huge white elephant then? will we ask then "did we really need it?"
if this is such a great idea, why isn't the private sector all over it? if there were money to be made other than taxpayer money, don't you think we'd already have this stadium? why wouldn't scotiabank or the royal bank wanna get their names all over the walls in giant letters? they must know something you don't. most notably, that hopes and dreams don't fill stadiums at $60+/ticket. the history of the AHL and the moosheheads have more than proved it: haligonians wold much rather pay $7/ticket and be able to afford to go to every game in the season than to hope to see a farm or nhl team play a single game here for what gets close to $100+/ticket. they prefer watching young players play entire seasons, maybe even a few, before they're shipped off to play for somebody else. they'd rather not fill the pockets of millionaires killing time until they can leave halifax for a rival team in a real city on their first opportunity.
paul dunn:
you do know that the charter of rights and freedoms wasn't written by our fathers of confederation, right? and you do know that "the founding fathers" are from another country, of whom many believed that the personal gawd was the only true one, and that organized christianity was a sham, right?
and they "...fought for our right to serve..." gawd? wtf does that even mean? why, whatever folks like you want it to mean, of course. our own 'founding' fathers attempted to commit genocide as they conquered this land and took it from those already living here. they were not the least bit christian about it. it was greed - a mortal sin- and not benevolence that brought about christian supremacy in canada.
is everything the fathers of confederation did bad and morally wrong? maybe not, but let's not sugarcoat what they really did to other non-christians while they simultaneously professed to serve gawd. saying and doing are two different things. among other crimes, they knowingly let thousands of women and children starve to death and die horrible deaths from preventable disease. what would jeezus and gawd have to say about that?
and enough with your christian supremacist vocabulary. seriously. sure, i'm an atheist, but i don't need you to be one too. i hardly want gawd "...gone from our country...". believe in whatever hokem you want. just keep it to yourself. that's in section 2a of the charter. freedom of conscience. and let's also not forget what comes right after "...recognizes the supremacy of gawd... AND THE RULE OF LAW." we are a nation of laws, and not the laws from your favourite book of bronze-age jewish fairy tales, but rather the laws of man. one of those laws is you don't get to force your beliefs on anyone else and this is especially true if you hold elected office. outside of your church, NOBODY CARES. you might as well save all your outward expressions of love/fear for your gawd for your house of worship or your own private space. to conduct yourself otherwise is exuding anti-social behaviour. it's like farting in an elevator: certainly not completely unexpected when sharing space with other humans, but it's very rude and highly unwelcome. hold it in til you're in private. then let 'er rip. if you insist on sharing, then please do us all a favour and save it for when you're around other public farters.
further, that the christian majority would include a reference to gawd in any kind of sweeping legislation like the charter doesn't surprise me, but it does tell me something about them: they're frightened that if it isn't included right there in the text, other people might stop believing in the truth of it as a statement of fact - and as well they should. writing it down doesn't make it real anymore than the existence of spider-man comics proves he is real. if you think a belief in gawd that inspired the trudeau cabinet to include such a line in the preamble to the charter convinces me that it was the right thing to do, you'd be wrong.
it seems to me that those who really want to bring back gawd and religion as part of government are running countries like iran and saudi arabia. despite how gawd is injected into the daily runnings of those places, i don't think those regimes are models for us to emulate. so what will happen when gawd and your religious dogma is pushed to the margins in the governance of humans? darkness, you say? well, i'm not afraid. the last time it happened, they called it "the enlightenment".
"For less than one minute of a day, I think it’s probably the least offensive thing you’ll come across.”
with all due respect to your office, the least offensive thing would be to do would be to have a solemn moment for everyone and do your own prayer in your own head. the least offensive thing to do is say nothing out loud that reveals to me if yours is the abrahamic gawd, shiva, buddha, satan himself or whoever. we don't want or need to know. you're a councillor. you represent everyone when you exercise your official duties, not just the christians. why are you and the rest of the council giving us a reason to believe otherwise when it isn't necessary? you can pray. i can't stop you. but you hold an office of the people. if you don't understand that holding a gov't job of authority means that some in the community think your voice carries more weight than an average joe, and that as a result, you need to be a human first and a christian second (or at least appear that way) then you don't deserve to hold the office.
Some of us see your efforts to be ecumenical and non-offensive as simply a very cynical and insincere way of (still!) injecting your gawd into everything and everywhere it isn't needed, warranted, or even wanted from where i'm standing. when you punch the clock and you're on the taxpayer dime, pretend you're in a uniform or whatever it takes but shut up about your belief in magic zombies and sky daddies. please and thank you. save it for home.
Spinner: "their are many wellfare bums who do absolutely nothing except drink ,smoke their weed & sleep.Many people from other provinces & countries come here to NS because it is the best deal going for wellfare.Come from another country with no life skills & we give them rent ,travel allowance & feed them."
read up a little, learn that you didn't have a clue before you opened your fat effing mouth, that you pulled facts out of your posterior, that everything you just said is not true, and then do us all a favour and stfu.
in 2011, federal social transfers intended for social assistance spending in the provinces came to about $6.6 Billion, according to canadian social research, (among others who crunched the same numbers). According to the commies at the Fraser Institute, they estimate corporate welfare in canada at about $6.4 Billion (and i'm sure we could boost that number quite a bit if we went with a study conducted by a less ideological think tank). one study published in the national post business section said we've doled out $684 Billion in corporate welfare the last 30 years.
so unless you're also willing to call guys in business suits bums who do nothing but drink, sniff their coke, and sleep at their desks while the gov't cheque clears just in time for the executive bonuses to get handed out, your analysis ain't worth much.
Jammie, clearly you didn't read the article all the way thru. Millet's lawyers are arguing that, by narrowing their focus to only 6 posts rather than considering all of them, the ASCC evaluation is deeply flawed. This isn't what all the hullabaloo is about. This is but a small, carefully-selected few of the posts in question.
"One issue for the MacIntoshes is the ASCC’s selective focus on only about 10 percent of the Facebook evidence. Another is that before the hearing Dal provided a list of rules Millet is considered to have broken—a list the lawyers had prepared to speak to—yet at the hearing the list of violations was considerable longer."
Recent Comments
cite a real stat from a reliable source, or admit that's your opinion based on anecdotal evidence alone and absolutely nothing else. you know, look a few things up. find out if your vitriol matches up with reality at all.
people like you talk a good game but you've got nothing but hatred of the poor to back up what comes out of your mouths. everywhere in the states when governors got elected for talking like you, they've had to eat their words or double down on bad ideas and look like a fool. in more than 5 states, the cost of the drug tests they made recipients endure caught so few people that the cost of the tests far exceeded the savings of denied requests for financial help.
in tennessee, only 1 in 800 applicants tested positive for drugs. florida's drug use rate checks in at around 8% of the general population but only 2.6% of welfare applicants tested positive. maine's governor went on a jihad to prove there was massive welfare fraud and abuse, claiming recipients were bums who spent their cheques in strip bars. it amounted to less than 1% of welfare debit card transactions. almost nothing. statistically insignificant.
so please save us the prejudice and sanctimony. you're not some kind of superior human being than those who get by on social assistance. you simply have no idea what you're talking about. you just want to dump on people you think are beneath because it makes you feel good. you've got nothing. stories of "i know a guy who..." ain't gonna cut it.
my solution doesn't consist of putting the cart BEFORE the horse. blowing the money in one big lump sum like we already have the tax base to cover it on only one big project that REQUIRES the population we don't have to make it go is stupid upon stupid upon stupid. it's been tried on a lot of different industries and has never worked. i notice you fail to answer my most pertinent question: what if it doesn't work as predicted? what then? who will pay for it all? who will lose their jobs for being so wrong? why should we expect this will save our economy anymore than call centres or casinos have been promised to do? if we can't sell out or just barely sell out local team action, what makes you think having pro teams come, costing an attendee more than 10x the ticket prices of amateur teams will somehow be better? on what evidence? Why aren't the mooseheads, the rainmen, and other amateur or university sports leagues good enough for you? they're just as entertaining as far as ns are concerned (see their ticket sales compared to the old ahl numbers), tickets are at a price nova scotian families can afford, and most of the teams themselves actually get their talent from the area, create community spirit, and put down roots. pro teams just go wherever the taxes are cheap and where the taxpayers will backstop any losses. they have no fidelity to the area, only to cash.
and what do you think these people we will attract might say? "gee what a nice stadium they have." you don't think they'll notice the third-world-style roads we have on the way there?
here's a thought: let's make our education and health care system great first. let's take the money you propose spending on this and reverse cuts by previous govt's. let's pump OUR money back into things the taxpayers actually think are priorities for spending: basic services. without those, we have no future either, for young or old. i don't have a huge problem with the gov't using limited tax incentives to create favourable conditions for business to move here - but don't straight up GIVE them free cash. that they need it before they'll move here is a HUGE red flag. if it truly is a viable venture, it doesn't need actual cash from the citizens of the city. if they're asking for millions of free money right from the start, to pay the inflated salaries of professional athletes and team managers, then you need to make the business case. please explain to me why the taxpayers of nova scotia should pay for any of that. why shouldn't 100% of that money come from those like yourself, willing to pay a boatload of money for bad seats? why should i be asked to pay for any of it since i would never pay the outrageous sums it costs to attend a pro sports game? i don't mind subsidizing your kids' education. i don't mind subsidizing the health care of your entire family. we're all going to need those things. but a pro sports team? not so much. sorry but it's a luxury most of us can't afford. like someone else pointed out, i'm sure portland maine would like an NFL team too. so would Montpelier New Hampshire. but you know what ? they can't afford it. so the patriots -based in boston, the nearest city capable of making the business venture viable- will have to do for the entire region. and even boston wouldn't likely be able to keep it going if it weren't for the equally-divided tv profits, the commie business model of the nfl.
if your decision to stay or not is hinging on the rest of us covering the bill so you can enjoy the sight of juiced-up millionaires give each other brain damage live instead of on TV, and that you are happy to see this happen at the expense of health care, education and other basic services, please do us all a favour and just leave now. you're not helping.
and it's april 24th. we had our last big snowfall less than 3 weeks ago. it snowed yesterday ffs. you honestly want to try to argue that we can use it from march to november? good luck with that.
no, it's pie-in-the-sky bullshit dressed to appear like it's some kind of innovation, that soaks the taxpayers for millions (if not billions), that is holding us back. as this kind of crap predictably goes down in ball of economic disaster flames, the people of the city get told again - "it's your own fault! you just won't be 'world class' no matter how many 'world class' amenities we bring to you! what is wrong with you people?" when the public support seems kind of meh, there's never much reflection on the part of the boosters on whether or not the idea was good in the first place. no, it's always us, the city. it's never them, the boosters with bad ideas of how to spend taxpayers money.
maybe we're catching on to the model this kind of thing seems to bring with it every single time: for it to be successful and profitable for someone else, the taxpayer has to pay for it. if it isn't successful, the taxpayer has to pay for it anyway. private profits, socialized losses. if you can guarantee that kind of thing won't happen, i suspect you'd find you'd get a lot more public support. but this business model doesn't work that way. ever.
some of us would rather our taxpayer dollars be spent on things for US, the citizens, not for people from away. maybe some of us would rather have the basics covered down at city hall - like real paved roads and decent snow removal - before we start getting into dream projects. we already have one on the go: our new convention centre. using that as our model, your stadium fantasy will be overbudget, behind schedule, costing the taxpayer more than was initially stated, will have fewer permanent jobs at lower pay than was initially promised, and will no doubt do exactly what our other convention centre did: be unable to attract enough conventions to have made it worth doing. when it is finally opened and its first few years' numbers are made public, will any of the liars who sold us this pig-in-a-poke lose their jobs? or held to account? nope. they'll likely line up behind the next get-rich-quick scheme huckster pushing a stadium, a international sports competition of some kind, whatever. these plans are never about taking something made by locals that works already and making a plan to build it slowly and carefully. it's always about attracting some rich people crazy enough to come a visit here for a while, hopefully some of their money falling out of their pockets while they're here visiting (because they never seem to actually move here unless the idea is to live incognito on cape breton island near the buddhist retreat or something).
let me spell it out for you nice and easy and in big type: WE DON'T HAVE THE POPULATION BASE OR THE ARID WEATHER LONG ENOUGH EVERY YEAR TO MAKE THIS FINANCIALLY VIABLE.
here's the big problem: if you're right, some people get rich and it seems like everybody wins. nobody hates that, right? but what if you're wrong? what if the teams won't come without the taxpayers paying for pretty much everything? and what if that STILL doesn't work? what if the tourists don't come in the numbers needed to bolster the lack of a local population base necessary to keep this project going? who will pay the bills? what will we do with this huge white elephant then? will we ask then "did we really need it?"
if this is such a great idea, why isn't the private sector all over it? if there were money to be made other than taxpayer money, don't you think we'd already have this stadium? why wouldn't scotiabank or the royal bank wanna get their names all over the walls in giant letters? they must know something you don't. most notably, that hopes and dreams don't fill stadiums at $60+/ticket. the history of the AHL and the moosheheads have more than proved it: haligonians wold much rather pay $7/ticket and be able to afford to go to every game in the season than to hope to see a farm or nhl team play a single game here for what gets close to $100+/ticket. they prefer watching young players play entire seasons, maybe even a few, before they're shipped off to play for somebody else. they'd rather not fill the pockets of millionaires killing time until they can leave halifax for a rival team in a real city on their first opportunity.
you do know that the charter of rights and freedoms wasn't written by our fathers of confederation, right? and you do know that "the founding fathers" are from another country, of whom many believed that the personal gawd was the only true one, and that organized christianity was a sham, right?
and they "...fought for our right to serve..." gawd? wtf does that even mean? why, whatever folks like you want it to mean, of course. our own 'founding' fathers attempted to commit genocide as they conquered this land and took it from those already living here. they were not the least bit christian about it. it was greed - a mortal sin- and not benevolence that brought about christian supremacy in canada.
is everything the fathers of confederation did bad and morally wrong? maybe not, but let's not sugarcoat what they really did to other non-christians while they simultaneously professed to serve gawd. saying and doing are two different things. among other crimes, they knowingly let thousands of women and children starve to death and die horrible deaths from preventable disease. what would jeezus and gawd have to say about that?
and enough with your christian supremacist vocabulary. seriously. sure, i'm an atheist, but i don't need you to be one too. i hardly want gawd "...gone from our country...". believe in whatever hokem you want. just keep it to yourself. that's in section 2a of the charter. freedom of conscience. and let's also not forget what comes right after "...recognizes the supremacy of gawd... AND THE RULE OF LAW." we are a nation of laws, and not the laws from your favourite book of bronze-age jewish fairy tales, but rather the laws of man. one of those laws is you don't get to force your beliefs on anyone else and this is especially true if you hold elected office. outside of your church, NOBODY CARES. you might as well save all your outward expressions of love/fear for your gawd for your house of worship or your own private space. to conduct yourself otherwise is exuding anti-social behaviour. it's like farting in an elevator: certainly not completely unexpected when sharing space with other humans, but it's very rude and highly unwelcome. hold it in til you're in private. then let 'er rip. if you insist on sharing, then please do us all a favour and save it for when you're around other public farters.
further, that the christian majority would include a reference to gawd in any kind of sweeping legislation like the charter doesn't surprise me, but it does tell me something about them: they're frightened that if it isn't included right there in the text, other people might stop believing in the truth of it as a statement of fact - and as well they should. writing it down doesn't make it real anymore than the existence of spider-man comics proves he is real. if you think a belief in gawd that inspired the trudeau cabinet to include such a line in the preamble to the charter convinces me that it was the right thing to do, you'd be wrong.
it seems to me that those who really want to bring back gawd and religion as part of government are running countries like iran and saudi arabia. despite how gawd is injected into the daily runnings of those places, i don't think those regimes are models for us to emulate. so what will happen when gawd and your religious dogma is pushed to the margins in the governance of humans? darkness, you say? well, i'm not afraid. the last time it happened, they called it "the enlightenment".
with all due respect to your office, the least offensive thing would be to do would be to have a solemn moment for everyone and do your own prayer in your own head. the least offensive thing to do is say nothing out loud that reveals to me if yours is the abrahamic gawd, shiva, buddha, satan himself or whoever. we don't want or need to know. you're a councillor. you represent everyone when you exercise your official duties, not just the christians. why are you and the rest of the council giving us a reason to believe otherwise when it isn't necessary? you can pray. i can't stop you. but you hold an office of the people. if you don't understand that holding a gov't job of authority means that some in the community think your voice carries more weight than an average joe, and that as a result, you need to be a human first and a christian second (or at least appear that way) then you don't deserve to hold the office.
Some of us see your efforts to be ecumenical and non-offensive as simply a very cynical and insincere way of (still!) injecting your gawd into everything and everywhere it isn't needed, warranted, or even wanted from where i'm standing. when you punch the clock and you're on the taxpayer dime, pretend you're in a uniform or whatever it takes but shut up about your belief in magic zombies and sky daddies. please and thank you. save it for home.
read up a little, learn that you didn't have a clue before you opened your fat effing mouth, that you pulled facts out of your posterior, that everything you just said is not true, and then do us all a favour and stfu.
http://policyschool.ucalgary.ca/sites/defa…
in 2011, federal social transfers intended for social assistance spending in the provinces came to about $6.6 Billion, according to canadian social research, (among others who crunched the same numbers). According to the commies at the Fraser Institute, they estimate corporate welfare in canada at about $6.4 Billion (and i'm sure we could boost that number quite a bit if we went with a study conducted by a less ideological think tank). one study published in the national post business section said we've doled out $684 Billion in corporate welfare the last 30 years.
so unless you're also willing to call guys in business suits bums who do nothing but drink, sniff their coke, and sleep at their desks while the gov't cheque clears just in time for the executive bonuses to get handed out, your analysis ain't worth much.
"One issue for the MacIntoshes is the ASCC’s selective focus on only about 10 percent of the Facebook evidence. Another is that before the hearing Dal provided a list of rules Millet is considered to have broken—a list the lawyers had prepared to speak to—yet at the hearing the list of violations was considerable longer."