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Comment Re:Something wrong at the foundation - (Score 1) 504

Didn't Harris privatize Ontario Hydro? Anyways if it is like here the idea is to break the government control of electricity by driving up costs so it can be given to campaign contributors, the essence of crony capitalism and saying they shouldn't give insane contracts to their friends does little to stop them.
And to only pick on the Liberal party seems weird though they do do a good job of screwing people over, around here they're the right wing party that is sucking billions out of hydro each year to make up for the budget shortfalls caused by their tax cuts, consider $1.45 a litre too cheap for gas so suck another 7 cents a litre for carbon taxes and all the other shit that successful politicians do everywhere.

Comment Re:The geology department is trying to... (Score 3, Informative) 135

Venus is still in the Goldilocks zone, which is why it was expected that Venus would be covered with steaming jungles and inhabitable until we actually measured the temperature and it was such a surprise that it was so hot. This would have been even more true early in the Solar Systems history when the Sun itself was 25% cooler.
BTW, even the Earth would be an iceball at our distance from the Sun without the greenhouse effect which raises temperatures something like 40K

Comment Re:Who watches the watchers (Score 1) 243

The idea of Confederation started with a plan to unite the Maritime colonies (Charlottetown accord 1864), then Canada showed up and wanted in. Politically the Province of Canada was deadlocked due to the way it was designed and that was one motivation, internally there were others such as trade and such. Externally there was the horror of the American Civil war, American manifest destiny, cancellations of free trade agreements, terrorists attacks (Fenians) based in America and England losing interest.
As for the Confederate States rejoining the crown, I doubt that it would have ever happened. They were Americans, believed in the Republic and Constitution, just interpreted it differently then the north. IIRC their Constitution was mostly the same as the Norths as well.

Comment Re:USA = country founded as a republic (Score 2) 243

You should read the American Constitution. It features a democratically elected House of Representatives, A Senate appointed by the democratically elected States governments and a President elected by people appointed by the democratically elected States government. This makes it a representative democracy which having a President also makes it a Republic.
China is also a Republic but doesn't have the democratic elected part and yet all you fixate on is that your country is like China, a Republic.

Comment Re:True Elections (Score 1) 243

You can quit funding the government without being thrown in jail any time you want. It just means losing the benefits of funding the government like having a good job. Shit if everyone decided to sit down, not work and not fund the government, government would respond as fast as Google would respond to everyone boycotting them.

Comment Re:Who watches the watchers (Score 1) 243

It's all relative, some States thinking the Federal government of the time was too strong does not mean that it was strong enough to prevent a civil war and it obviously wasn't as the civil war happened.
First time I've heard that the South was about to become a monarchy to get help from the British. At that my understanding is that at the beginning they expected British help as Britain was so dependent on cotton that they couldn't afford to not get involved. Instead the British seeing the war coming stocked up on cotton, planted it in other places such as India to assure a supply and stubbornly remained neutral.
What the Fathers of Confederation were scared of was the American Norths war machine turning north and annexing the British N. American colonies so they formed a Confederation to be stronger and attempted to work around what they saw as weaknesses in the American system of the time.

Comment Re:Who watches the watchers (Score 1) 243

So much like the old Soviet Union, a Federal Republic, made up of 15 IIRC Soviet Republics who also kept their sovereignty in all matters not assigned to the Federal government by the USSR Constitution.
Totally different then Canada, a Constitutional Monarchy made up of 10 Provinces which retain their sovereignty in all matters not explicitly assigned to the Federal Government by the various laws that make up the Canadian Constitution. Of course Canada is different as it was originally designed to have a strong Federal Government as the American Civil War was happening at the time as a lesson in what a weak Federal Government leads to and the courts have transferred more power to the Provinces over time.
It always amazes me the Americans who feel they have more in common with the USSR then Canada.

Comment Re:That doesn't really explain it (Score 1) 234

Have you never heard of the Helms-Burton Act which penalizes any company that deals with Cuba including the executives never being able to travel to the USA. This basically means every company has a choice, do business with the USA or do business with Cuba and guess which is more profitable or even possible (Canadian planes often fly over US territory and despite international law, America has these extra-national no-fly lists and can veto passengers)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comment Re:Shame this happened (Score 1) 136

safe, cheap, and environmentally benign herbicide Round-Up

It should be noted that it is only Glyphosate that has been tested to be safe and benign (breaks down fast), not Round-Up which includes various untested surfactants (especially bad for skin though generally low LD50 levels) and such. Not only that, if you look at the price of Round-up in comparison to some other herbicides such as 2-4-D it's arguable about the cheap part.

Comment Re:Revolt? (Score 1) 818

The United Provinces (Netherlands) was sorta democratic after breaking away from Spain. San Marino separated from the Roman Empire and became a constitutional republic in 301, it didn't seem to be a violent separation though.
But yes, generally nations seem to get stuck with dictators after wars of independence, even the ones that start out democratic. America had an advantage as being composed of Englishman (sorta) they considered having a voice in government to be a right and proper and Washington wasn't power hungry.
The point remains that America had more of a successful war of independence then a successful revolution though depending on semantics it can be considered a revolt, especially at the beginning when really they wanted home rule. I'm not aware of any really successful violent revolutions though the glorious revolution was borderline violent and neutered the power of the monarchy putting Parliament supreme and for the time Parliament was democratic.

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