?Impact

I love how the anti-Obama crowd like to talk about his executive orders, easily forgetting that he still trails George Bush in executive orders. Bush was 291 and Obama stands at 227 to date. We won't be able to make a direct comparison until the end of his term, but at the rate Obama has been signing them he will end up with about 250. Bush Sr. was much higher, 166 in 4 years which would be about 332 in an 8 year term. Reagan was 381. So yes, Republicans make just as many, or more, executive orders compared to Democrats.

Here is another false colour satellite image. This is from a pass of the Landsat 7 satellite, and a different type of imager than the one I posted yesterday. It was taken yesterday, although I don't can't find the specific time. Comparing the two images would show you how the fire progressed over about 24 hours. http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/87000/87988/mcmurray_etm_2016125_swir_lrg.jpg

Here is a false colour image from NASA's Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 satellite. This was taken about noon hour yesterday, and the fire has spread considerably since then, but it will give you an idea of the magnitude of this fire. http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/87000/87985/mcmurray_oli_2016124_swir_lrg.jpg As best as I can tell, Landsat 8 will not be in the same position to update that photo until May 19th. Landsat 7 will be there in a weeks time, but it does not have the same imager so the different photo would result.

The interim leader has the incumbent advantage, which is not insignificant. As long as it is done upfront, as was the case here, I see good reason to have an interim leader that will not go on to seek the leadership. The same should happen in municipal politics for interim appointments.

Sorry, successful sales persons depend on their reputation and repeat business. Not all sales persons are focused on pushing unwanted transactional products and then moving on.

Just to let people know, when posting a link to a pdf file you can include page number. If I wanted to talk about executive compensation for the IESO, I might add the following link http://www.ieso.ca/Documents/corp/IESO_2015AnnualReport.pdf#page=51

Here is what Brad White from the Legion had to say about this: “(The funding for the Invictus Games) is helping veterans, It’s helping people make transitions…and brings awareness to the Canadian veteran community.” What is unclear to me is how centralized the poppy fund is, and how much the individual branches decide on disbursements. From some of the reports I have seen, it appears that some local branches support other activities from the poppy fund like Sea and Army Cadets. I don't know what is right, wrong, or expected, just pointing out what I have seen.

While he would like you to think that, from all I can see he is a failed businessman. He did strike it big once, when he sold his company to Mattel for several billion dollars. I heard they unloaded that company a couple of years later, after firing him, for $27 million. Most of us would call the fraud, but it equally doesn't say much about Mattel's due diligence. His reputation on the O'Leary funds and actual follow through with Dragons Den don't seem to be very brilliant either.

CBC updated their article, including the following: The visit was deemed a private one, closed to all media outlets except Vice Canada, which is shooting a documentary on the tour. Two TV crews got onto the reserve, but were ordered out by Treaty 3 police, which serves First Nations communities across much of northwestern Ontario. The community, not the Prime Minister's Office, made the decision to restrict media access, said Cuyler Cotton, the band's media relations officer. The aim was to have Trudeau speak privately with many residents and not have a "media circus,"

Good question. There is nothing wrong with being partisan when you are leader of a party. I think the issue is however he had a role where he was supposed to be non-partisan and failed at it. That is a mark against his credibility. I guess however that means that Kevin O'Leary would be a good choice too, he failed as a businessman so perhaps he could be a Prime Minister.

I believe there is an inverse relationship between the size of the mouth, and any true capability or accomplishment.

We should not be training on the front lines. The argument that it is more effective is irrelevant, it is not our place to be in the front lines in a civil war.

It would be interesting to find out who did the hack, and for what purpose. Is there someone with a personal grudge out there, or possibly someone who stood to gain from this (moving up on the ranks). I have no problem with someone smoking a joint, that is a personal choice and should not be criminal. That said, it does speak to your character and health and those are factors when picking someone for a job. Much more serious however were Tunsil`s other violations of NCAA rules.

I drove by del Mastro's RV dealship today, it is up for sale. There is a real-estate sign on the lot, although it is still in business with plenty of RVs open and ready to be viewed. There is also a sign that says "relocating".

I concur that the GST implementation play a significant role in the decline of the PC party, but many other issues were at play as well. Unemployment was high, the debt situation was out of control and our deficit had not declined at all during their tenure, even things like the failure to reach agreement on constitutional reform (Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords) was a factor. Probably most of all, the public was just tired and wanted change.

Near the bottom of the main forum page is a short list of the most recent visitors. There are several meaningless entries in that list that could be eliminated in order to get a better picture of who is around. Then the extra space for the list could be put to better use. #1 - The first entry in the list almost always appears to be myself. I guess depending on how the software is written (multi-threading) it could be later in the list or always first. The point is that is a wasted entry, because I know I am around. It is like when standing in a group, I see the faces of those I am talking to but I don't need a mirror in order to know that I am part of the group. #2 - It seems like the search engine robots are always high up in this lists. I generally see Yahoo, Bing, & Google; but there could be others. This is to be expected, because they are trying to keep their database up to date. I don't however need to know that they are there. Getting back to my group analogy above, I want to know who is in the group I am conversing with. If I want to look around the larger room and see who is there, and take my attention away from my group - kinda rude, then I can click on the expanded list. I don't know if there is any aging of the list, my main interest would be real people within several minutes (i.e. likely to still be hanging around). If the list does go beyond a certain threshold (e.g. 10 minutes), then perhaps something to delineate it (ie. a vertical bar instead of a comma)

Would you prefer 8 oranges, or a bag of oranges?

The teachers are in the playground, lets go hide in the corner and continue our fight.

Ezra Levant's ranting site is exactly that. I was banned there within a week. I merely raised views which were not singing in the hymnbook, and for that I got called names that my mother would wash my mouth out with soap for. I got accused of saying all sorts of things I never said. The absolute worst thing I did was tell about 3 people (and never the same person twice) that I don't respond to juvenile comments. I was banned in about a week. They don't want contrarian views. Ezra pretends he has a different view, but if you don't bow down and follow his command then you are out. b.t.w. There were also several good exchanges with people on that site, but by far it is the hangout of children.

Sanders will be 75 when the new President is sworn in. Queen Elizabeth just celebrated her 90th birthday today. Do you know something about Sanders' health that the rest of us don't? I believe Ronald Raegan was the oldest serving President, aged 69-77 (actually just shy of 78 by about a week when he retired) during his two terms.

You really don't have a clue about the difference between the judicial system and the legislative system. one makes decisions based on a hierarchy of laws and other case law, and the other is influenced by emotions and votes.

One could also say that Pallister is the only Conservative government in Canada, turning the tide back on a brand that suffered the past few years. Congratulations Brian, you have a strong mandate it will be interesting to watch over the next 4 years.

Hey, let's not get into a pissing contest here. I was really just trying to point out the "All liberals are..." that I was replying to is meaningless rhetoric, just like the meaningless rhetoric I used to respond to it with. Still trying to figure out this forum (note "Junior member" badge), but hoping we can have more elevated discussions here than the usual tripe that fills the Internet.

Interesting question. It might be worth investigating the "tyranny of the majority", a long understood concept and certainly why the founding fathers of the United States put so much effort into getting the appropriate checks and balances in the system. Similar thought is behind other western judicial systems, I only refer to the US system because it so much has been written about it. Justice is not easy, and we can certainly find plenty of examples we can disagree with but alternative systems have their own problems. The Crown may have more limited rights to appeal than the accused, but that does not mean it has no options at all. Generally those appeals would relate to errors in law (e.g. the judge wrongly excluded evidence), and not sentencing as the trial judges decision is usually respected. That doesn't mean however in egregious examples like you are implying cannot be successfully appealed.

Yes, the Alain Bellemare case is certainly hard to understand, I can't find the judgment on CanLii, does anybody have a link (not media summaries, lots of those)? From what I understand, the federal sentencing guidelines from 1996 were cited (Gladue report). Perhaps this is a problem with the guidelines.