BHS

I was a big Mike Harris supporter, but I voted Liberal to get rid of Eves. I'm sure there are many, many other Harris supporters who did the same. That's my take on that election. I'm not sure what the damages are that you're talking about. At least, not damages that aren't attributable to any number of factors other than politcal interference. I don't know that the province would be in any better or worse off with a different premier.

What a wonderful set of circumstances! Privacy is a "natural right" to be used by the court to uphold trendy progressive legislation on one hand, but to be limited in other cases at the Supreme Court's discretion "such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society". Brilliant! And bulletproof! Using the privacy carrot and stick the justices can rule any way they want on nearly any case that comes before them.

I'm shallow like that.

And the reason was that Ernie Eves couldn't (or wouldn't) live up to what conservatives had come to expect from their party. As much as people love to trash Mike Harris, his government set a conservative agenda and stuck to it. Under Eves that all fell apart.

I see. So it's okay to compare me to a ridiculous Monty Python character, but I'm not allowed to respond with a likewise meaningless and frivolous post. In your little game I'm the only one who stands to lose credibility. Which makes sense, since I'm the only one with credibility to lose. USAF being short for US Armed Forces, not Air Force. My mistake. The term Commander and Chief is traditionally reserved for the President, so I thought you'd catch on regardless. Another mistake on my part. If you're picking songs for me, why not Carly Simon's "You're So Vain?" I always did think that that song was about me.

Didn't you follow the link? As always, it would be nice if you could back up your words with something other than more of your words. But in this case you can't. I've reviewed the US Constituion on this matter, and there is no requirement therein of a formal declaration for the nation to proceed in war. All that sections 2 and 8 have to say on the matter are that Congress has the power to declare war and the President has the power to wage war. Repeat: No Requirement Of A Declaration. The US Supreme Court had three opportunities to review the Vietnam War "police action" (war was not declared) and turned down all three opportunities. It hasn't been presented with an opportunity since. So as it stands, the status quo procedure of allowing the president to operate militarily without a formal declaration is not illegal or unconstitutional. By the way, since when are you the authority on what is appropriate for posting in these forums? It seems to me you'd be the last person any sane moderator would call upon for such a postition.

"Judge made law" is not a reference to passing laws per se, but the setting of legal precedents that go beyond the scope of the Charter as it is written. The Supreme Court has determined and re-affirmed it's determination that discrimination based on sexual orientation is unconstitutional, despite the fact that the framers of the Constitution voted down any reference to sexual orientation seven times. Much like the American Constitution, the Charter has no clause specifically protecting a right to privacy. As has happened in the US, this "right" has been "read into" the Charter so that the Supreme Court can take a liberal standpoint on such issues as SSM and abortion. Quebec's language laws were deemed unconstituional by the Supreme Court, and they remain unconstitutional. Robert Bourassa used the Notwithstanding Clause to overrule the Charter and re-instate what the Supreme Court had struck down. None of this is technically "illegal". The Charter was written with enough sloppy, open-ended language to allow the Supremes to make an arbitrary decision on just about any issue that comes before the court.

mcqueen625 makes a good point. The mainstream churches that have modernized their teachings to keep up with current trends in polically correct thinking are losing members. The churches that have maintained their traditional views are bursting at the seams. My wife's family belongs to a traditional church. In the past five years they've doubled their seating and their still isn't enough room, even with two Sunday services. I am personally in favour of SSM, and I'm not a particularly religious person (though I have made a personal study of a variety of religions). I know enough about religion to tell you that people seek religious guidance as a means of centering or anchoring themselves in the world. A church with long tradition and a robust set of values (even if some values that seem outdated) is a more attractive anchor for such people than one that is being blown by the winds of fashionable political conscience.

I'd rather be nailed to a cross and singing about it, then complaining about the stuff that drives you lefties crazy. BUSH FOREVER!!!

"Real Christianity"? Who made you the judge? This entire posts illustrates nothing more than your ignorance and your prejudice. Roman Catholics make up half of the population of this country. In any case, I don't think that anyone is laughing at the Vatican's decision to adhere to biblical guidance and church tradition on the issue. They may not like it, but they aren't laughing. The Anglican Church's position is that it is against SSM. It is the American branch, the Episcopal Church, that has broken away from this stance. (So much for showing the Americans.) Since when have the Unitarians been a guiding light on any issue pertaining to Christianity? What sort of person making a serious post on Christian issues would make reference to the Unitarians at all? Someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.

That's just ridiculous. What a great role model for young Canadians - take out citizenship in another country! Being solely Canadian won't get you anywhere in life, least of all in Canada! I'm going to laugh hysterically if she says one word in favour of seperation, if there's another referendum during her tenure. It would be the ne plus ultra of our ridiculous system of Prime Ministerial appointments to have the Crown's appointed representative in Canada favour the disolution of the state and system that made her appointment possible. See, when you elect your government officials, you get to find these things out about a person before they become the de facto head of state.

You go ahead and get all peeved. We'll see who the ninny is, my friend. We'll see.

Incidentally, the US Constitution doesn't require a declaration of war, only that if one is made it is made by Congress. The practice in the US since WWII, including Korea and Kosovo, has been to allow the Commander and Chief of the USAF to send in military forces as needed without a formal declaration. In fact, Congress specifically denied authorization for Kosovo but Clinton sent the forces in anyway, without political or legal backlash. What is world sympathy worth? How do you measure it? What can it be traded for?Is it worth adjusting your foreign policy to maintain it? Especially in light of the certain fact that it will diminish in short time, regardless of what you do? "Squandering sympathy" is a meaningless partisan attack strategy.

I don't think I'm the one who has to do the salvaging.

It's all spin, dude. If you choose to focus on relatively small losses and temporary setbacks to justify your theory, good for you. I'm looking at the big picture, where the real story of the intervention is playing out. Rebuilding a nation takes time. Go ahead and point to circumstantial difficulties and bury your head in the sand. Your input isn't needed, and you won't be missed.

Is it just me, or do Koizumi, Pierre Pettigrew, and Joe Wilson (but not so much) all have the same hair stylist? I must confess, I don't know anything about Japanese domestic politics. But keep posting, it sounds interesting.

It wasn't so much mind reading as making an experienced guess. "Illegally occupying force" and a buck will get you a small coffee at Tim's, when the world body supposedly upholding the law ties itself in knots to do nothing about transgressions of said law. For the sake of my sanity, I hereby declare that Iraq is officially a quagmire. The people such as yourself who've been arguing from the quagmire angle since before the intervention started, have long ago sucked all useful meaning from the word. This being the case, I don't feel that there's any harm in allowing you to use if freely to describe Iraq's liberation and democratization. Oh, and say hi to Cheech and Chong for me.

I'm sure that in your mind, every war becomes another Vietnam. If that's how you choose to look at the situation, that's your prerogative. I hope you enjoy being bitter. Don't blame me for seeing choosing to focus on the positives. I don't believe I was quoting anyone in particular, but illustrating the rhetoric common to anti-Western imams throughout the ME. It's interesting to me that the left has taken to identifying all Islamist terror with OBL personally, as if he were the one and only authority on the subject, and as if terrorism will suddenly cease if he's ever captured (assuming you can capture dust - I'm still not 100% convinced he didn't die in Tora Bora). Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.

Since the advent of the Charter of Rights, the Canadian Supreme Court has taken more than it's share of leeway in "interpreting" our constitution to suit their personal opinions. Decisions based on ideas from outside of the constitution as it is written are political by their nature. How do you know that the judges are non-partisan? Because Paul Martin told you so? Don't be ridiculous. There's no way for any of us to know what sort of prejudices Supreme Court appointees bring with them to the bench, and that 's part of the problem. If you want to eliminate politics from the process entirely, why not have the Supremes pick their own replacements? Wouldn't that, by your logic, make the system even better?

Imagine that. Politics involved in lawmaking in a democratic country.

I believe the thrust of your post was that pork barrel spending doesn't happen in Canada because we have a different system for passing legislation, and now your saying that we DO have pork barrel spending, but it's okay because Sheila Frazer can account for it all (even though she can't, and that's usually why we hear about her reports - the media do like to concentrate on the negatives). So, why is the great and glorious gun registry system, that was initially to cost two million dollars, now hovering at around a billion? (I have a pet theory about this, but I'd just like to see what you have to say.)

Yeah, you'd never see the Liberals hiring friends and family via bidless contracts, or giving multi-million dollar sponsorship contracts for nothing to firms that support the party, or spending money to have fountains built in the middle of rivers in their ridings or... Oh yeah, they really do all of those things. I guess you DO see that sort of thing in Canada, even with an unelected senate.

And what, exactly, would they charge him with? ALL HAIL THE GREAT NANNY STATE!!!!

If there's anything more irritating than a "roll eyes" smiley at the end of a post, it's the smug self-congratulation inferred by a "sigh" stated at the beginning of a post indicating that the member regards those who disagree with him as childishly stupid. Especially when the "sigh" is followed by a load of ignorant partisan tripe.

The war on terror wasn't rebranded. Rumsfeld started using a different euphamism on his on, and was reprimanded by Bush. The person who wrote this article is about a week behind the times. We now have a situation for comparison. Spain intends to treating train bombing terrorism as a domestic crime. England intends to continue treating it as an act of war. We'll see which method gets the better results.