President Obama is welcome to visit, as long as he pays for his beaver tails. I have zero desire to see stirring-rhetoric-and-nothing-behind-the-curtain as a political leader here. If there's nothing behind the curtain, there may as well be little in front of it. Make up your own joke.

Btw, you forgot to add my -1 score to my last post.

Sorry, I missed that part, or my browser is unable to display it. For your credibilty's sake, kindly direct me to that specific quote.

" It's not a stretch these days for a steel worker to have a degree or two in whatever"

Some incredible claim. You don't have a shred of credibility. Troll.

The only program I can think of is NASA. There are a few products developed by NASA that went on to have commercial success. But that's exception, not rule. While NASA has invented a few useful things, it does not compare to private industry inventions.

And it seems to me Canadian engineers were involved.

I think you're being too narrow in your definition, but maybe that's just me. Within the context of this blog, I doubt Iggy is suggesting the green jobs are related to new technologies, per se, but having the economies of scale through demand of goods and services to drive down costs, improve manufacturing efficiencies.

The argument here is that current green schemes are risky and unproven, and perhaps an unwise taxpayer investment as a result.

Coincidently, a discussion I recently had with the "Green Party of Canada's critic on fiscal reform" regarding his new solar panel installation on his house ( a recent Dalton McGuinty policy) on many of tyhe same issues. It gets silly at times – but recently concluded (after he cut me off permanently- of course he had the last word). I post with the moniker used in letters to the Economist .

I'm sure he'd enjoy the extra traffic.(NOT) Just shining a little light…

http://www.erichthegreen.ca/2009/09/making-green-…

When you're talking about spending money – particularly scads of public money – you should listen to the nickel and dime guy. Likewise, you should be polite, but firm, with the "it'll all turn out good in the end" guy.

If you can point to a cost/benefit analysis for any of the 'green' technologies, I'd be interested to read it.

Arguing that we'll find some further benefit down the road somewhere is just wishful thinking.

Regardless of my laziness in reading your post, I get the impression that you lean more towards a belief that your first statement is probably more true than the latter…

As far as your update, you're the nickel and dime guy, not me…go crazy….

Just because there is an initial capital investment involved, doesn't mean that there is no long term benefit.

By that token, my guess is that you find no economic benefit in changing single paned windows to double paned windows, right?

What did paragraph one say?
If the costs of a new efficiency are ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE HIGHER than the savings, it is NOT an advantage.

What did paragraph two say?
If the efficiency is worth the cost of the change, it is an advantage.

If you need help with "orders of magnitude," paste it into the Google.

Ah…"progress"….

Ahem, please allow for the possibility that the Canadian people might have rejected Dion's platform with or without Harper's campaigning.

If efficiency has truly improved, accounting for ALL the costs of achieving that efficiency, then it's a competitive advantage no matter what the cost of energy is. It's just a bigger advantage as the energy cost goes up.

Yeah that's an incredible claim all right. All steel workers have degrees. Pathetic! You're utterly dishonest. You don't like what i have to say. I get it. You're a bore. Now piss off.