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Trudeau Popularity - or not (various polling, etc.)

I did poorly in high school as they were not well set up for someone like me. Based on my marks I went into technical school and not academic. At that time we had fully outfitted shops for automotive, welding and wood work. With instructors from the industry. I learned a lot in those classes and I ended up catching up to my peers outside of school. At that time education other than grade 12 was not required for most jobs.

Nowadays, schools are way better at dealing with kids that have special needs than before, That's the good news. the technical side of high school has been mostly razed and what's left is taught by "Professional teachers" who have never worked in industry. My daughter wants to be a elementary teacher and looked at Early Childhood Education for daycare. They want her to take a 4 year program and get a degree, the job pays on average $22-5 an hour. She dropped that and is doing a major in communications. I push my daughters to get a degree, not because I think it will make them a better person, but because otherwise, most of the doors will be closed to them otherwise. Sadly most of the job descriptions are written by people who went to university and who can't imagine someone with no degree having any skills.
As did I, although I pretty much stayed academic. Our high school had every shop imaginable: wood, metal, auto, electrical/electronics, HVAC, construction framing, draughting, and I'm probably missing a few - the 'tech wing' was huge. And, yup, all our shop teachers came from industry.

Our daughter went into a B.Ed program but after the first year decided teaching wasn't her thing, a decision that has been repeatedly confirmed over the years.
 
Education, credentials, knowledge, and experience are not arrows in the same quiver.

You can have a Master's and still lack the knowledge and experience to perform a skilled trade. Some of the most insightful and wise conversations I have had are with people who dropped out of high-school to pursue a skilled trade. I would trust the welds of a journeyman with 25 years of experience before I would that of a young kid coming out of a 3 year college diploma program.

Where we get lost in this is that the world is run by gatekeepers. We do it within recruiting all the time. We spend so much time finding the ideal candidate when in reality, we need a GE recruit; "Good Enough."

My wife recently applied for a job with the PS and was worried about the education requirements, as she went into the workforce after high-school and then became our Domestic SM. The interviewer said the education piece is easy enough to wave because she had experience and that it was a job she would learn as she went. My wife retorted, "then why is a 4 year degree a job requirement?"

Policy. Written by someone who probably doesn't know ow the ins and outs of the day to day enough to assess the actual education needs of an applicant. Instead, flatten the Grid Square and make it a Bachelor's degree and you'll get far better applicants right?

Much like you @Colin Parkinson I know I am pushing my kids to higher learning, not because I believe they need it for what they want to do; but solely because it's the price of admission.

Then again, I barely passed HS, didn't get a degree, worked hard, learned the business from Pte to Sgt and was handed the King's Commission, based on merit and performance. Am I less of an officer for lacking a degree? According to the SCRIT, yes. In practice.... well let's just say I had to correct the spelling mistakes on my CFR paperwork coming down from my Adjt.
I think a lot of education requirements were put in back in the day so that they didn’t have to screen and interview so many applicants for one position when there were more people compared to availability of good jobs. Now, we can’t get enough applicants for positions available. Our department is now looking at reducing the educational requirements for our positions so we can get more applicants.
 
But that job is noisy, dirty and you can’t WFH on snow days.
cabs are insulated, air conditioned and the seat is ergonomically designed. They stopped shovelling coal when I was young. Its the guys outside that get dirty, wet, and cold
 
I think a lot of education requirements were put in back in the day so that they didn’t have to screen and interview so many applicants for one position when there were more people compared to availability of good jobs. Now, we can’t get enough applicants for positions available. Our department is now looking at reducing the educational requirements for our positions so we can get more applicants.
My trade had to lower the CFAT and education requirements for recruits. We got greedy for the best when Afghanistan was happening, and it bit us hard in the last 10 years.
 
cabs are insulated, air conditioned and the seat is ergonomically designed. They stopped shovelling coal when I was young. Its the guys outside that get dirty, wet, and cold

My dad was a VIA locomotive engineer. It was clean.
 
My trade had to lower the CFAT and education requirements for recruits. We got greedy for the best when Afghanistan was happening, and it bit us hard in the last 10 years.
I don’t know what trade you are but in this day and age you better have an idea about electronics, the information highway and tech things. A lot of weaponry and vehicles now are computer equipped- which can be a good thing.

Or bad if the electronics fry.
 
I don’t know what trade you are but in this day and age you better have an idea about electronics, the information highway and tech things. A lot of weaponry and vehicles now are computer equipped- which can be a good thing.
Average Is Over. Increasingly, the "net gains" of the economic changes downstream from technological changes will mostly concentrate in above average people, leaving the losses to fall on the others.
 
And his profile continues to rise.

Is it a good thing if your leader is universally recognized as an object of ridicule?

Humza Yousaf does his best Justin Trudeau in a public spectacle of embarrassing smarm​

Constantly interrupted, with a penchant for buzz words and an inability to give a straight answer, this First Minister put on a comical Q&A
MADELINE GRANT
PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHWRITER
30 March 2023 • 5:37pm
Madeline Grant


Humza Yousaf

Humza Yousaf promised to unlock Scotland's 'wellbeing economy' CREDIT: REUTERS

From a sketchwriter’s perspective, Humza Yousaf’s opening foray into First Minister’s Questions was an embarrassment of riches. For everyone else, it was just richly embarrassing.


The trading standards act would have more accurately called the session “First Minister’s Suspensions” as there were so many of them – seven within the first 15 minutes, including an exceptional incident whereby the entire public gallery had to be evacuated, then re-seated, after it emerged a group of schoolchildren had been manhandled out of the chamber along with the usual grotty coagulation of anti-oil protesters. This was local government at its finest.


The session did, however, set a promising tone, for entertainment factor if nothing else. The first suspension came within three minutes – before Douglas Ross had even finished his opening question. He attacked Yousaf for setting up a new “taxpayer-funded minister for independence”, complete with an £98,000-a-year salary, while abolishing key Cabinet posts relating to tourism and social security. Was this really governing for all of Scotland?


The First Minister started as he meant to go on; with an empty platitude. Cosplaying as a kind of Hibernian Justin Trudeau, he professed his delight at appointing the Cabinet with “the most number of women [sic] in it in the history of devolution”, featuring “a number of members under the age of 40”. Then burst forth an ooze of meaningless smarm that the Canadian parliament could only dream of; buzz-phrases like “unlocking green potential” and the “wellbeing economy”. Whatever that means. Yousaf might as well have promised a “marshmallow economy”, a “bollard economy” or a “Loch Ness monster” economy.


Naturally, none of this related to the actual question. Ross, quite reasonably, accused his opposite number of reading off a script; an accusation Yousaf refuted by grabbing his notes and rummaging through them.

Inevitably, proceedings were suspended after another volley of squawked complaints from the gallery. This was less a parliamentary session and more an elaborate game of Just A Minute; an ever-present ticking clock until the inevitable filibustering by the Thunbergian chorus upstairs.


Ross made hay by parroting the SNP’s internal critics back at them; a "fish-in-a-barrel" exercise nowadays if ever there was one. A particular target was Yousaf’s recent brutal reshuffle designed to eliminate any last vestiges of talent from the front bench – less a "Night of Long Knives" and more a "Day of the Blunt Sporks". Ross quoted with glee one SNP source who had referred to departing minister Ben Macpherson as “one of the few non-idiots available”.

Yousaf, by way of response, accused his Tory counterpart of being a “third-rate politician leading a third-rate party”. Ross gave a decent impression of that schoolmaster who’s perpetually not angry – just disappointed. “I really hope the First Minister gets better than this,” he said, oozing insincerity. As night follows day, this was interrupted by yet another suspension.

Farce comprehensively dealt with, it was up to Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to move onto the more tragic realities of life under the SNP. Here, Yousaf’s ill-starred stint as health minister came back to haunt him. One child, Sarwar pointed out, had been on a mental health waiting list throughout Yousaf’s entire tenure.
All told, the First Minister’s pledge to “unleash and unlock the potential” of Scotland barely survived this initial contact with reality. The comic potential of a Yousaf premiership, however, looks endless. Let’s hope the people of Scotland can find something to laugh about. Otherwise, on the strength of this first showing, the only other rational response would be to cry
 
For the past year or so, I’ve referred to Justin as Mr. Fancy Socks. The following encounter he had with world leaders to revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017 is what really made me embarrassed, both for Canada and for him as well. The following account is courtesy of former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turbull. (Sorry if this specific incident has already been posted here in this thread.)

 
The manchild is a complete ass and embarrassment to us. That is one gene pool that needs bleaching and removal from the human genome.

Got to get it all said before his internet censorship bill passes.;)
 
1692

Ancient history

The start of seven years of lousy weather, failed crops and famine all across northern Europe with mass deaths everywhere.

The year of the Salem Witch Trials
The year of the Glencoe Massacre of the Jacobite MacDonalds by the Williamite Campbells
The year of raids in New York and New England when French Royalists and Abenaki and MikMaq natives led by a French Missionaries were killing Anglo-Dutch protestants.
The year when Port Royal in Jamaica, the home of the privateers and pirates of the Caribbean, was destroyed by an earthquake

A year when Britain was led by the Dutchman William of Orange and its armies were led by French refugees fighting under the Union Jack.

Catholics and Protestants, Authoritarians and Rebels at each other's throats.

A decidedly unhopeful and unenlightened outlook.

Thomas Hobbes wrote documentaries.


And yet there were signs of change

John Locke, one of King William's English advisors wrote "A Third Letter for Toleration"

Edward Colston (1636–1721), merchant, philanthropist of Bristol, and Member of Parliament, a shareholder in the Royal African Company divested his shares in the Company (His statue would be toppled in 2021)

And the Enlightenment moved from being a philosophical debate to being a matter of state policy.

The move was precipitated by a decidedly authoritarian act by one of King William's Scottish advisors. A man who traded Scotland's support for King William and Queen Mary against their recognition of Scotland having a separate constitution that of the English. The rough bargain that was made was that the advisor, William Carstares would do two things.

1 - Promote the Union of the Scottish and English parliaments
2 - Reform the thinking of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

In England, reforming the Episcopalian Church of England was easy. All William had to do was replace the Archbishop of Canterbury with a man that shared the views of John Locke, the King's principal advisor.

In Scotland reforming the Presbyterian Church was difficult because each congregation's council of elders hired their own minister from the credentialled, if not licensed, pool of candidates generated by the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. And those universities turned out staunch Calvinists in the mold of John Knox - unbending.

Carstare's solution was to persuade the Scottish parliament to appoint his brother-in-law William Dunlop to the Chair of the University of Glasgow and then

"Scottish parliament purges Dunlop's University of Glasgow clearing the way for the Carstares-Donlop team to appoint reformers like James Wodrow and John Simson as professors - Enlighten the University, the Kirk and Scotland with a New Licht (New Light)"

Carstares took over the University of Edinburgh himself.

Both schools stopped training strict Calvinists who debated witchery and angels on the heads of pins and started hiring professors open to debate on the existence of God and the nature of happiness. They also hired professors who taught novel applied sciences like physics, chemistry, medicine and mechanics. Resulting in young men becoming ministers while developing new breech loading hunting guns with percussion caps rather than chasing witches.

A very official change of direction in society towards a more democratic future but precipitated by a very authoritarian government.

Yet another paradox.

Less of a self-quote than an attachment point for this article

A new poll reveals a related dynamic from another perspective, what the researcher Jack Jedwab calls a “decoupling” of belief in God from the sense of attachment to one’s religion. You can lose one, but keep the other, and plenty of Canadians are doing it.

A new poll by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies shows about half of Canadians believe in God, a measure that has been roughly stable for the last few years.

It is common for Canadians to believe in God and feel unattached to their religion, the poll shows. But it is even more common for Canadians to report deep skepticism about God’s existence, even to the point of firm atheism, while also feeling closely attached to their religion.


The Scotsman in me sees this as the continuation of the Enlightenment - as religion becomes personal.

Toleration is easier. People can agree to disagree, live and let live, all become "deists" of a sort, unitarians, latitudinarians, non-subscribers ... even agnostics. It becomes easier to rub along together and take the heat out of issues that are intensely important to the individual but need not be of great import to society.

Might even learn how to tolerate atheists.

It is all about being polite and staying civil.

 
Except, Kirkhill, we have whole new crop of religious fanatics:

Environmentalists

Race theory proponents

anti-abortionists

anti-migrationalists

The list goes on on…

Most of these people operate on faith and emotion and brook no rationale discussion on their “religion”…
 
Except, Kirkhill, we have whole new crop of religious fanatics:

Environmentalists

Race theory proponents

anti-abortionists

anti-migrationalists

The list goes on on…

Most of these people operate on faith and emotion and brook no rationale discussion on their “religion”…
those who hold the opposing view are just as fanatical about their beliefs. After all, there is no value in having a belief if you can't or won't support it. Just witness the opposition to Jordan Peterson's stand. Very view people will support your right to have and to express your opinion if it is contrary to their own
 
those who hold the opposing view are just as fanatical about their beliefs. After all, there is no value in having a belief if you can't or won't support it. Just witness the opposition to Jordan Peterson's stand. Very view people will support your right to have and to express your opinion if it is contrary to their own
Really? I am not sure the counter views are as "radical" or religious

Holding a rational view for leftist views is ok.

So for example, Lets look for REAL alternatives for oil and gas but keep what we have still available or lets have migration but keep it legal, safe and controlled

Then their is the radical (aka "religious") fanatical view

For example, Oil and Gas must be stopped right now, all of it, no more! or All migrants are allowed, legal or illegal, do not even question it, open borders for all!
 
Except, Kirkhill, we have whole new crop of religious fanatics:

Environmentalists

Race theory proponents

anti-abortionists

anti-migrationalists

The list goes on on…

Most of these people operate on faith and emotion and brook no rationale discussion on their “religion”…
Not to mention the rabid atheists, they're the biggest cult going right now.
 
Really? I am not sure the counter views are as "radical" or religious

Holding a rational view for leftist views is ok.

So for example, Lets look for REAL alternatives for oil and gas but keep what we have still available or lets have migration but keep it legal, safe and controlled

Then their is the radical (aka "religious") fanatical view

For example, Oil and Gas must be stopped right now, all of it, no more! or All migrants are allowed, legal or illegal, do not even question it, open borders for all!
so change the statement to those who hold the opposing view CAN BE just as fanatical about their beliefs. Because the left side can be very, very vicious as well and unwilling to be open to change. An example is the woke condemnation of Ryerson. The man died before the instigation of the residential programme. He spent several years working with the indigenous folks near the Forks of the Credit. He was made an honourary member of their nation for the work he did with them. He founded the educational system in Ontario as we know it today but he has been condemned for being white.
 
Not to mention the rabid atheists, they're the biggest cult going right now.
I am at a crossroads with regards to religion. Jedi or Mandalorian?

As Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) said "weapons are part of my religion". Jedis wield weapons as well.

I think I need a time out on.....the comfy chair.
 
so change the statement to those who hold the opposing view CAN BE just as fanatical about their beliefs. Because the left side can be very, very vicious as well and unwilling to be open to change. An example is the woke condemnation of Ryerson. The man died before the instigation of the residential programme. He spent several years working with the indigenous folks near the Forks of the Credit. He was made an honourary member of their nation for the work he did with them. He founded the educational system in Ontario as we know it today but he has been condemned for being white.
Similarly, as I’ve pointed out before, those same idiots who want to trash the Ryerson name wouldn’t even consider wanting to remove the name of Chief Joseph Brant (a Mohawk chief who owned a number of black slaves) from various towns, streets and buildings bearing his name. Also there were numerous other First Nations bands that regularly practiced slavery against other enemy bands as well as white settlers. So why aren’t we hearing even a single word from those bands about how sorry they were for what they had done? If any Member of Parliament were to stand up in the House and ask those questions, he or she would be shouted down and called a racist. I’m not trying to justify the terrible things that happened at the residential schools or to the FN peoples generally. But the whole “woke” movement, “cancel“ movement or whatever name they may want to assign to this crap is getting out of control. At least the way I see it.
 
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