A recent study done by a think tank hired by Canadian airline companies has come to the conclusion that if the airlines charged less money then people would buy more tickets.

I don't want to know how much money and time it took to come to that brilliant conclusion. What disappoints me is that this was reported on today's news with absolutely no comment by the newscaster.

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A news item the Belgium television reported that a cell phone contains GERMS!
It was explained by a expert bacteriologist that the germs and bacteria where mostly harmful. But she advised to clean it regularly with an anti bacteria tissue.
DUH, why do I have to kill my germs on my cell phone???

Thanks everyone for the entertainment.

I've been told that the price of gas is very important for car sales. I drive a Nissan Leaf and have bought 2 tanks of gas in 2 years since that purchase for my own transportation.

You can imagine I'm not a good candidate for a lot of surveys.

your information are very nice.thankx for sharing here.keep it up.

A recent study (maybe I should rename this thread) in Canada, publicly funded, has concluded that golfers who walk the course are healthier than golfers who use electric carts. I don't want to know how much money they got to research this gem.

commented: +1 +0

Correlation =/= causation. We need a follow-up study to see if walking in golf courses causes them to be healthy or if being unhealthy makes people want to use electric carts rather than walk. Or if it is actually a third factor - such as age - which makes people more likely to be unhealthy and be more likely to want to use electric carts.

Golders?

One of the hazards of owning a cat. Sometimes I have to type one-handed ^_^

commented: Who Owns Whom? +0

The study did not reach a conclusion (that was reported) as to causation. Perhaps they can now do a study to determine if people who have just had a drink of water are less thirsty than those who have not.

I was once in charge of collecting and analyzing the results of a province wide survey for the Manitoba Department of Education. Of all the survey forms that were sent out, only 65% were actually returned which makes any conclusions statistically invalid. The powers that be would nbot let me include that in the report. I was not even allowed to include the 65% response figure.

Politicians are serial abusers of statistics.

A recent study done by a think tank hired by Canadian airline companies has come to the conclusion that if the airlines charged less money then people would buy more tickets.

Your topic hits a nerve; it is something we have been kvetching about for a long time.
In fact, Scott Gilmore, a columnist with MacLean's magazine, made similar comments earlier this year: Canada is not a country

It is a pretty good article, not specifically about travel, and I think he made some excellent points. His comment about black swan moments, in particular, resonated with me, but he didn't go far enough. I think history is shaped by black swan moments. Period. And they are far more common than people think.

However, he did get strongly criticized for this article. Some people like to pick nits, and they really attacked this article piece by piece.

+DavidB The general point of that article which is actually that Canada needs to make an effort to hold itself together is absolutely true but, historically at least, all the major parties have worked hard to do so. As a result Canada is far less divided than any other confederation of equal/comparable geographic size.

I'm now living in Europe and while the EU has certainly made travel and trade far easier in Europe than in Canada it has largely failed to create cultural cohesion. It is extremely easy to exchange goods or be a tourist for a few days and without actually learning anything of substance about another place/people (and for many it will serve to reinforce their pre-existing prejudice against the place). A point that Scott Gilmore seems to utterly misunderstand.

In my opinion a far better measure of cultural cohesion is regional accents/dialects, because they literally affect how easily a people can understand each other. In that respect Canada is one of the most cohesive federations on the planet (Australia is probably one of the few that would beat us). Italy, UK, Spain, India, etc... all have a much greater diversity of accent/dialect than Canada does.

ETA: Though probably the biggest glaring issue with Scott Gilmore's article is failing to realize that Canada is far from unique with respect to being a loose conglomeration of different regions. Nearly every country on the planet is such a federation. So by his definition there are probably only a dozen "real" countries in the whole world.

Actually thinking about it some more, it's really hard quantify or even describe "culture". I've never been to Vancouver or any of the Prairie provinces, but I've now lived in the UK for 6 years, but still when I meet other Canadians over here even if they are from Vancouver or Edmonton I find I "feel" much closer to them than to most of the British people I meet. Trying to measure cultural homogeneity by trade or travel is definitely wrong headed - e.g. Canada does tons of trade with China does that mean we're becoming more culturally Chinese? I doubt anyone would make that argument.

Because of the many different cultures in Canada it's hard to say what "Canadian" culture is. I guess the best word would be "inclusive". A few years ago, PM Harper did what he could to change that and make us more American. They started by changing the gun laws to scrap the long gun registry. That was also when Fox News made a foray north with (I think it was called) Sun Media. It was right wing propoganda and it didn't take long to go belly up.

+Reverend Jim I would add "humble", and "pragmatic" as well but not in a negative way. At least compared to American and British culture IME.

And possibly apologetic. There is a joke about how two Canadians argue over a parking spot.

"You take it!"

"No. You take it!."

And in southern news, in Virginia, the mother of a 14-year-old girl says her child is facing assault and battery charges for throwing a baby carrot at her school teacher. The teacher was hit in the forehead. My guess is they will

  1. jail the student
  2. ban vegetables from the school
  3. issue the teacher an AK47

My favourite example of Canadian culture is a dinner I had in Toronto : A British-style pub serving Tai-spiced ribs with roasted potatoes and Korean kimchi. Though I've definitely experienced the Canadian dilemma of two people trying to hold the door for each other and neither going through, as well.

commented: Very Canadian Problems are pretty similar to Very British Problems. +0

There is a lot of hoopla over the fact that Apple is not valued at over one trillion dollars. If you converted to today's dollars, the Dutch East India Trading Company at its peak would be valued at more than 8 times that amount.

Just watched Mike Pence talking about the United States Space Force. And then it hit me. You know, the F in USSF can be turned into an R so easily. Coincidence?

I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the USSR, yeah     

:) great song.

Don't know if the USSR still exists as in those days.

Just Russia and the CIS (confederation of independent states) if they are still calling it that.

commented: I always have brush up on this as well as Great Britain, England to avoid Very British Problems. +0

I always have brush up on this as well as Great Britain, England to avoid Very British Problems

<sarcasm>Yes, anybody from Great Britain who is not English loves it being called England </sarcasm>

commented: Not to worry I doubt those bits will stick around after Brexit. +0
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