Move to Canada

I'm told that the crash was simply the result of a huge number of hits when a Trump victory began to look certain.

Sorry, Kizmet -- maybe it's too early, but I just can't see anything remotely funny about the election result. Still can't get my head around it. Might never... :sad:

J.

 

deleted - J.

 

Especially in the winter. Disgusting whiteness, relieved only by beer and hockey.

I favor kind of a minimal federal government, devoted largely to protection of Constitutional rights, military defense, foreign relations and interstate matters. But without all the federal regulations governing every conceivable activity.

Then let states add laws and regulations to that, if their people feel the need or desire.

Then let counties and cities add once again to that.

The result would be a more diverse country than we presently have (isn't diversity supposed to be a good thing?) where some locations (like rural Idaho perhaps) have very few laws and others (like San Francisco) have the freedom to become little people's republics if they want to be.

On Tuesday night, California voted for Hillary and voted in a bunch of new taxes and laws, including legalizing marijuana, strengthening what are already the toughest gun-laws in the country and outlawing plastic bags, statewide. (The Earth will spin out of orbit and fall into the Sun if I'm ever allowed to get my hands on a plastic bag! Save the Planet! Save the Planet!)

While I think that many of California's laws are stupid, I don't like the idea of a Trumpian Washington preventing the state from being a bastion of "liberalism" if that's what its people want. Nor do I like the idea of a Democrat-ruled Washington messing with the free-range ways of the Wyoming cowboys either.

Let a thousand flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.

 

I love those little bags from the grocery store. I use them for all sorts of stuff.

 

It's crazy. They outlaw the bags in some jurisdictions around here. In others, the stores charge you a nickel each, that's supposedly to discourage their use. It's not - just another cash grab.

The problem is "environmental" - supposedly, that the bags last 500 years and won't decompose etc. Yet (here) you aren't allowed to put out garbage in anything but a plastic bag. If you don't have any from shopping - you have to buy a pack of bags from the household section of the supermarket! So you pay extra, and your garbage is protected - to last in landfill for 500 years!

Don't get me started on the people in Ontario who make so-called "environmental" regulations! I think they're wilfully malicious! I could go on with examples all day!

J.

 

Okay - here's one. I couldn't resist. For 20-odd years, we've had a so-called "Environmental Tax" on liquor bottles. It started at about 5 cents. I don't drink at all any more, but I think it's around 15 cents now. Not a penny goes to "environmental" purposes. It all goes into the General Revenues of the Province.

J.

 

Don't they call those sorts of taxes "sin taxes?"

 

Not as I see it. "Sin taxes" are taxes on the product itself - liquor, wine, cigarettes etc. This tax is on the bottle, not the booze.

Here, 77 cents of every retail dollar spent on booze goes to Federal and Provincial taxes. And the other 23 cents includes a markup of 100%. So the pre-tax wholesale cost is about 11.5 cents on the retail dollar. Those facts made it very easy for me to quit, 11-12 years ago. And I have every penny I saved. And then some.... :smile:

J.

 

Every time there's an election there's a bunch of people who say "If (s)he wins then I'm going to leave the country. Some of these people are celebrities of some type. Do you think they'll really move or are they just a bunch of drama queens?

Celebs who said they

 

Here's more specific math - I think it's from an Auditor General's report - one 26 oz. bottle of Canadian Whisky:

REVENUE DISTRIBUTION

Supplier (including freight) $6.17
Government of Ontario $15.79 (This includes Provincial taxes and markup by LCBO - provincial liquor distribution authority, which operates liquor stores.)
Government of Canada $4.69 (Federal Tax)
Container Deposit $0.2

CONSUMER PRICE $26.85

Like I said - makes quitting easy!

J.

J.

 

A few? OK. But if there is a huge influx of people who come here as "Trump-Dodgers" I think Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should build a wall and make President Trump (oh, how that phrase grates!) pay for it!

J

 

so... confederation.

 

That idea worked out well for South Carolina in 1861.

 

Now I have to go look up what everyone was saying when Texas threatened leaving when Obama was voted in. I'm sure it was level-headed and thorough analysis.

 

Sigh. Of course, there's La Belle Province that doesn't want to be a Province...or have anything to do with the rest of us maudits anglais. The would-be Sovereign Nation of Québec!

Latest American celeb to say he's moving... Snoop Dogg. His friend Drake will no doubt be pleased to help him get set up in "The 6" (Toronto).

Snoop Dogg says he

J.

 

I got a taste of that in 1967 but the attitude went both ways.

That was especially interesting as I'd had a taste of Hong Kong not long before. There it was the Chinese and the English. Very interesting was that the Chinese saw Americans much differently than they saw the English.

 

Americans can survive anything. No sense running off with our tail between our legs...besides all of us will be needed to push back against the new regime.

This too shall pass.