prairiechickin

Ya, I'm from Saskatchewan and we don't monkey with time around here, it screws up the milkcows. I'm not in favor of the change overall because now I can't get home from work in time to watch Judge Judy.

Wall's Saskatchewan Party passed legislation in their first term allowing them to be sole arbitar of who was an 'essential service', and hence, who was eligible to strike. It was all a bit much, and was challenged by many unions, and eventually struck down under a Constitutional challenge. Outside of Saskatchewan people likely never saw the newsshots of Brad Wall admitting his new government went too far, they were young and full of beans, and in future they will only try stunts like this with the cooperation of labour. I found the court-challenge interersting, but I found the Premier's contrition refreshing and to the point.

I'm no expert on this topic, but one of the best no-bs sources I've found is Barry Broadfoot's 'Six War Years: Canadians in World War Two'. These are excerpts from the guys that were there. Its only one chapter, but the sense you get is that the Canadians were more than trained, they were itching for a fight. Most had signed in '39 and had endured over two years of training, they were over-trained and ready to get out of camp and fight some Nazis. Mount B screwed this mission up, but it still remained useful on D-Day. Whoever made the comment about the lieutenants figuring it out was spot on, once you've survived that mess you know what to do different the next time. Three of my great-uncles went in that day with the South Saskatchewan Regiment, all my Grandmother's brothers which is why I know the story, and all three made it out with the usual brovado. All three were there again on D-Day, and that had to help. Two of them made it through, Clifford Skeates was killed a few days later near Caen. For all of its failings, despite its attempts at leadership, the guys that survived Dieppe may have been the critical element on the beaches of Normandy, and that alone may have made it worth the Canadian lives in 1942.

The right wing Wall government in Saskatchewan has hardly been quick to dismantle the NDP legacy of Crown Corporations, mostly because they make economic sense and save/make bazillions of dollars every year for the province. Its nice to have your vehicle insurance, your power bill, and your heat bill governed at cost, and responsible to the Leg, rather than shareholders. CCs rule.

greyman, Welcome to the Board, its nice to have a real First Nation's voice here. While I agree with you regarding the wastefulness of the current federal funding structure on Reserves, I don't agree with doing away with the reserves entirely. The model we have is clearly broken, but I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think its important to retain reserves so Native peoples still have a home base, so to speak. Under the numbered treaties, the reserves were never intended to last forever, they were designed to warehouse the older generations until the younger ones could be assimilated into Canadian society. It didn't work out that way, but one of the few useful things the reserve system accomplished was to allow Native peoples a refuge to keep being Native until such time as they could regain their voice. I think that's important, and that alone is enough reason to retain reserves. But clearly the fund-the-band-council-and-hope-for-the-best approach doesn't work. If you've read any of my posts here you'll know I'm not big on the 'living treaties' nonsense, but here's one change I would like to see. Replace the $5 annual token per person payment with something real, like $5000. Allow reserve members access to the same social services and health care as all Canadians, regardless of location. Cut funding to band councils and allow Natives to construct their own governanace model on reserves. Let them tax and regulate themselves. As long as the money comes from Ottawa, people will tolerate the Chief in the Big SUV, once its their own money being wasted, accountability will follow. If the reserve can't generate enough funds to support itself, then people will move to town, simple as that. The reserve will still be there as a home base for the Band, but it will no longer be an atificially funded ghetto in the middle of nowhere.

You're losing me in the acronyms here, but I'm not sure why you think the average Canadian needs to carry concealed waepons. I bring my hunting guns out around August to sight them in and prepare ammo for the fall hunting season, and I have friends that shoot more regularly because they like to punch paper. Beyond target shooting and hunting I'm not sure I agree with people being armed all the time anywhere. To what purpose?

As I've said, I'd shoot the bad ones like the mad dogs they are, but if that's too extreme for you sensitive types, may I suggest a ten foot helicopter drop to the Belcher Islands in Hudson's Bay. You get a three day supply of food, a Bic lighter, and a knife, good luck. The point is Canada is no longer wasting $100,000 per year covering your sorry ass every year -- that would be enough to provide dental care to 50 underpriviledged kids every year. The cost of those kids not enduring toothaches alone makes it worthwhile. So what is your preference, feeling better about a sick killer in jail, or some poor kid enduring a toothache because his single Mom doesn'nt have the money to take the kid to the dentist? Its a real choice, there's only so much money to go around for this stuff.

I've read your posts Derek and I think we agree on most things regardng guns, but I'm not in favor of a backlash that sees us all armed to the teeth against a further ban/restriction on various weapons. I think we are on the cusp of turning back the stupidity of the long-gun registry, and that's great, but I for one would just like to see a return to normalcy where my huning weapons no longer put me on a special list that makes me a target of a SWAT intervention. I think we can agree that regular hunting guns should be available to those who just want to hunt, and for those who want to shoot handguns, there should be yet another classification. I personally do not want an American system where people can have hidden handguns in their glove compartment to settle road rage incidents. As a responsible hunter, I just don't see the need for such a classification. If I'm missing something, let me know.

I'm not much on making a sick dog suffer, even if he bit me. Quick bullet to the brain then move on to other things. We have better things to spend our money on, like free dental care for underpriviledged kids.

Milgaard, Morin and Truscott were innocent, Marshall was trying to rob an old man when the old guy turned the tables and knifed his accomplis. I have no sympathy for him. As for you squeamishness for killing, nobody's asking you to do it. I think we could have a chamber of sober second thought that would exclude the Milgaards of the system, the case was bogus from the get-go and that would be pretty obvious to any neutral observer. But for the rest of truly guilty, I'd be happy to shoot them myself as a public service. You might be too faint of heart to kill the Clifford Olsens of the world, I'd consider it a public service to put a bullet through his brain. Then we could use the $100,000 per year it costs to keep this waste of skin in jail to provide free dental care to underpriviledged children. This nonsense about every life being sacred is a bunch of crap -- the really sick ones should be shot like the mad dogs they are, and the rest of us should just get on with living.

And has as much scientific credibility as psychology.

How do you suppose Canada paid for the Great Depression and World War Two? A secret cookie jar put away for a rainy day?

I'll bet you're a hoot on a date. Waddya doing next Saturday night?

Tell us more about this "Rape Culture". I've never heard of it.

But you're ignoring the possibility that some 17 year old might sneak past the less-than-vigilant WalMart cashier with some of these microbrews, and then civilization as we know it would ceast to exist.

I have no idea where you got this from, he was a Baptist, and while he was renowned for his oratory, I've never heard anyone describe him as 'fire and brimstone'. He wasn't much on the afterlife, he was a Fabian socialist who was far more concerned with bettering conditions in the here and now.

I can second that, whatever the reason was for going over there in the first place, it was a spent force five years ago. Time to bring everybody home and leave Afganistan to its fate.

My my, four pages on this? What a great to-do over nothing. The guy married a French woman, then applied for duel-citizenship to make it easier to travel back to France so the kids could see Grandma and Grandpa, and people question his loyalty to Canada? Give your head a shake.

Ya, that's the same guy. Go read a couple of books on the eugenics movement in Canada, and Douglas' MA theis, then come back and we'll chat.

My girlfriend and I fight over this term all the time. She's studied insurgencies and thinks this is the key to the successful outcome of any military undertaking. I haven't studied war in any detail, but I think its just a trite phrase that only obscures the mission, which is to defeat the enemy. Nobody worried about the hearts and minds of Germans as the Allies rolled over them in 1945. Nobody cared about the hearts and minds of the Japanese in '45, we nuked 'em and put and end to the madness. And while she would argue that these were straight-up military battles rather than insurgencies, I saw a two hour American Experience documentary on Custer last night that I thought made my point. The American Indian wars were basically insurgencies and nobody cared about the hearts and minds of the Native Americans, they were attacked and attacked until they gave up. Seems to me this hearts and minds thing grew out of the war in Vietnam, and look how that worked out. I still think its a waste of time and resources to try and win over the resident population in any war, and Afganistan is just another example. Maybe someone that has been there can tell me different, but I think if you want to win a war treat all the locals as enemies. This doesn't mean you abuse them, just don't waste time trying to be their friends. Get in, crush any resistance mercilessly, and only when they are beaten to the point that resistence is futile do you give them a hand rebuilding. This is, of course, impossible in Afganistan as the insurgents keep pouring over the border from Pakistan like cockroaches, and as long as Pakistan remains a duplicitous 'ally', that border can never be closed. I'm glad we're out of there, and the Americans would be well advised to cut and run ASAP.

I looked at the source of your statistics and moved on to other threads.

True that, but I can't help contrast the everyday experience of those Americans on the ground in Afganistan with their critics sitting safe and warm behind a keyboard somewhere in the wilds of Toronto. Army Guy sounds like he's seen enough to pass judgement either way, cybercoma not so much.

Yes you seem to have no problem passing judgement on others regardless of whether or not you have any experience in the relevent field.

I'm sure the Vatican has already crunched the numbers and they can be found at www.wedon'tscrewanymorekidsthanthoseotherguys.com/