no1important
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Posts posted by no1important
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No we need to get rid of the mis guided right wing nut jobs.
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Castro says he's in good spirits after surgery
Cuba's President Fidel Castro declared himself to be in good spirits and stable condition following stomach surgery."I can say it is a stable condition," the 79-year-old said in a statement read out on state television on Tuesday. He did not appear. "I am in perfectly good spirits."
On Monday night, Castro startled his country when he announced he was temporarily relinquishing his leadership powers to his brother Raul. Fidel had underwent surgery to stop intestinal bleeding.
Earlier, a senior Cuban official said Fidel was "very far away" from death -- despite speculation to the contrary from Castro opponents in the Unite States.
Speaker of Parliament Ricardo Alarcon told a governmental news service that Castro is known for fighting to the very end but said that his "final moment is still very far away."
Venezuela's government said Castro's recovery was "advancing positively", citing information from the island's government without providing details.
A leftist Argentine lawmaker said Castro aides told him the surgery was successful and that Castro was resting peacefully.
Castro, who turns 80 on Aug. 13, had his celebration postponed from Aug. 13 to Dec. 2 -- the date of the 50th anniversary of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces.
That is good news.
Read the rest of this article here
It sure was despicable seeing people in Miami celebrating his illness. They seem to forget how bad things were before Fidel. Scanning the CNN footage, I was hard pressed to find anyone who resembled (i.e. was old enough) to be a Cuban exile. This crowd looked more like second or third generation gamberros who've seen Buena Vista Social Club a few too many times and believe the ancianos' right-wing fantasies of a pre-Castro paradise. For those of you scoring at home, I have never been to Cuba, nor was I alive in 1959. However, I still cast my doubts as to how much of a paradise a military dictatorship owned by the Mafia and United Sugar would be.
By no means are Castro's hands clean, but he has built impressive education and health care systems: how else could he still be running the country at his age? Until Hugo Chavez showed up, Cuba was the only counterweight to American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. Why are the Republicubans so jubilant when there are no guarantees that a post-Castro Cuba would be better? What exactly do people in Florida know about free and fair elections, or for that matter, human rights abuses in Cuba?
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The Conservative party may have illegally accepted millions in unreported donations last year because it didn't understand political financing laws.
That's the startling conclusion drawn from testimony given to a Senate committee by the Harper administration's point man on cleaning up government.
Treasury Board President John Baird has told the committee that his party did not consider fees paid to attend its March 2005 policy convention to be political contributions.
But the Elections Act stipulates that convention fees do constitute a donation.
The Tories' 2005 convention was attended by about 2,900 party members, who paid a regular fee of $600 each, although discounts were available for some.
That means the party stood to rake in as much as $1.7 million, all or some of which should have been reported to Elections Canada as donations.
Are they really that stupid?
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I don't hate the people in the USA just their government. Actually I hate most governments of the world.
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It is really nothing to do with Harper.
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It is good news if it is really true, I know he has been "caught" and "killed" before.
I am also not convinced he was even a real person yet and not a figment of the bush crime family.
But now that he is "dead" I wonder how long before they have a new boogeyman or a new "face" to replace him. The timing of this needs to be questioned as things are going bad for bushie on the home front and this is something to draw attention away from that.
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Well I heard on CNN in 25 years "Hispanics" will be the majority in the US, so that means they will have great influence on who gets elected etc ad then Spanish will be the second or first official language in the US. So they may as well change it now because it will be changed in the not so distant future.
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The three biggest players in the war, President Bush, PM John Howard and PM Tony Blair, were all re-elected after major combat operations ended
Blair lost an awful lot of seats and lost more control in elections last week. The only reason he was re elected is that the Conservatives are worse.
Bushy stole Ohio and his second election. I see now the polls have bushy at 31%.
Further more we should grant refugee status to any deserters of this war. It is an illegal war and therefore it is our duty to accept these soldiers as refugees and if Harper does not want to abide by international law he should be charged.
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I saw that. Kinda funny the only politicians were men.
The conservatives claim they not not change abortion law, but they would if they had a majority as they would do with ssm.
It is too bad the liberals can't or won't introduce a bill that would eliminate the "notwithstanding clause" like they said they would do as an election promise if they were elected.
With that Maurice Vellacott taking cheap shots at our highest court and judge and now this, the radical fringe of the party is finally starting to speak.
I also think Harper is slowly loosing his grip on keeping his mp's and party members quiet. The fanatical fringe won't keep quiet much longer either as we saw they had their little protest on abortion already.
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Here is another interesting article I found about our new dictator:
In Harper's regime, Big Daddy knows best
When it comes time for history to bestow a permanent nickname on Prime Minister Stephen Harper — to label his stretch as Canada's leader, the way “Slick Willie” Clinton or “Uncle Louis” St. Laurent sum up theirs — someone should give serious consideration to “Big Daddy” Harper as a contender for the honour.Consider the evidence:
Last month, to avoid bad press on an issue he has tied firmly to the Conservative brand, Mr. Harper banned the media from filming the return of the bodies of four Canadian soldiers who died last month in Afghanistan.
Instead of decentralizing power as promised, Mr. Harper has funnelled more and more control straight into the Prime Minister's Office. The PMO now pre-approves everything Tory ministers and MPs do in their political lives. They've been ordered to speak less to the media, and banned from gassing about the government's plans.
When they do speak (to order lunch, maybe) they have to stick to the government's five priorities — the federal accountability act, GST cuts, child care, crime and medical waiting lists — virtually idiot-proof subjects. Big Daddy's boys aren't just on message; they're all message, all the time.
“But this guy micro-manages more. The business of government has ground to a halt on anything that isn't a declared priority.”
Ministers who break these rules are spanked by Mr. Harper, hard — and in public. Peter MacKay, Mr. Harper's Minister of Foreign Affairs, has been hauled onto the carpet to be flogged so many times, it's beginning to look as if he likes the pain.
He was reprimanded most forcefully for suggesting that some aid might still flow to the Palestine Authority from Canada, despite the election of Hamas.
When Mr. MacKay tried to hire Graham Fox, the clever son of Bill Fox, Brian Mulroney's old pal, as his chief of staff, Mr. Harper vetoed the move — on the grounds that Mr. Fox once wrote an in-house critique of Mr. Harper's performance in opposition.
Some say the real reason is that Mr. Harper considers Mr. Fox too crafty to be working for Mr. MacKay, a potential contender for Mr. Harper's job.
No one is allowed to contradict government policy, even in their imagination. Last month, Marc Tushingham, an Environment Canada scientist, published H otter Than Hell, a novel about global warming. He was instantly prohibited from promoting the book because Mr. Harper's government was quietly cutting its Kyoto Accord budget by up to 80 per cent that week
For years openly scornful of reporters (“he blames the media for the 2004 loss,” one insider explains), the prime minister has now declared war on the parliamentary press gallery. The PMO no longer advertises the time and location of cabinet meetings, which means reporters can no longer scrum ministers as they leave the weekly brain mash.
As a result, they've resorted to buttonholing ministers as they climb into their limos. The PMO recently volleyed back by asking cabinet ministers not to park their limos near the members entrance to the House of Commons, so as not to tip reporters that a cabinet meeting is in session. Mr. Harper himself has allegedly resorted to sneaking up to the meeting on a freight elevator. All these antics make the nation's business look like a high-level game of sardines.
The Prime Minister now tries to limit the numbers and kinds of questions reporters ask, and has adopted the Bush White House strategy of favouring friendly questioners.
No surprise, then, that Mr. Harper eats through press secretaries the way some people pop Tums. Bets are now being taken on Parliament Hill that Sandra Buckler, his second director of communications in three months, won't last past June.
Mr. Harper bypasses the national media more and more — taking last minute trips, covering up visits by foreign statesmen such as the president of Haiti, waiting three days to reveal that Canada has renewed its commitment to NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command — and instead travels the country to talk to local TV stations.
“His hair,” one Ottawa matron insists. “Just look at his hair. Is that not the hair of a control freak?”The Prime Minister's iron grip extends to his private life. His wife, previously known as Laureen Teskey or Laureen Teskey Harper, now prefers Laureen Harper — almost 30 years after Maureen McTeer kept her maiden name.
“There's definitely been a big change as a result,” one well-connected Ottawa socialite notes. “There's a little bit of a chill in terms of going out to lunch and expensing it.” Two of Ottawa's best restaurants closed after the Tories' righteousness about the sponsorship scandal made civil servants shy about spending money on meals.
After it was revealed last week that Tory MPs had attended a Senators playoff game as guests of a corporation, the PMO instantly issued a statement declaring that the Prime Minister and his son had also attended a game — but paid for their own tickets. Big Daddy is always cleaner than clean.
The controller-in-chief has affected Ottawa's personal style as well. Sober is the new black. Navy blue suits are in, especially worn American style, waist-high with cuffs slightly short above glistening shoes (Mr. Harper's most notable sartorial habit). The mantra you hear most often in Harperville these days is “get it done.
In recent days, rumours have begun to circulate that Mr. Harper has even limited his ministers' opportunities to speak in cabinet meetings. Instead, he has begun to meet them privately beforehand, hear their proposals and then make their presentations himself. That's Big Daddy, for sure.Naturally in partisan Ottawa, a lot of people claim Mr. Harper's love of command and control makes them nervous.
Meetings, according to a Tory close to the Prime Minister, are “intellectually elbows up. He talks over you. He can ignore you. When you push back at him, he can be okay. But no one does. It is a controlling atmosphere. PMO's a very unhappy place to work, very stressful, because of the control.”
The link above has a lot more. This guy Harper is a total nutjob.
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A Saskatchewan MP took a swipe at the Supreme Court this weekend.
But Maurice Vellacott ruffled the judicial feathers and had to eat crow not long after.
Vellacott stepped on judicial toes in an interview Saturday with Christina Lawand of CBC News in Ottawa.
"I don't think it is the role of the judge, whether left or right or conservative or whatever stripe [he] happens to be, to actually figure to play the position of God," the Tory MP for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin told Lawand.
Vellacott, a former pastor who claims a doctoral degree from Trinity International University in Chicago, then singled out Beverley McLaughlin, the chief justice of Canada.
He claimed McLaughlin "herself said actually when they step into this role that suddenly there's some kind of mystical power that comes over them, which everything that they've ever decreed is not to be questioned.
"They actually have the discernment and almost prophetic ability to plumb and know the mind of the public."
Supreme court judges usually ignore the barbs that periodically come their way. But Vellacott's comments were apparently too much for McLaughlin. A spokesman for the chief justice "categorically denied" that she had ever said what Vellacott claimed.
"She has always said it is a judge's role to interpret and apply the law … but those choices are always made in accordance with legal precedents and with the laws laid down by parliament and the legislatures," the judicial spokesman said.
After that rebuff, it didn't take Vellacott long to issue a statement of his own.
"As I'm not a member of the cabinet, I obviously do not speak for the government of Canada on these matters," he said in a statement Sunday.
Ahh the fanatical fringe of Harpers party speaks out.
That really was a stupid dumbass thing to say.
Funny Harpocrit has not said anything yet. Does he hold the high court in such contempt as well?
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Conservatives defend lumber deal against critics
The Conservative government on Friday found itself defending the breakthrough softwood lumber agreement it reached a day earlier with the United States.The Tories shot back in response to Opposition criticisms that the deal sold Canada's lumber industry out to U.S. interests.
Jason Kenney, parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said the government was able to succeed where past Liberal governments failed, and they brokered "the best deal that was possible" under the circumstances.
"The option is, either we make a good deal . . . or we continue an open-ended litigation and another $5 billion in duties and another five years of uncertainty," Kenney said in an interview on CTV's Mike Duffy Live.
The most interesting part of this deal is:
'Deal breaker' clauseMeanwhile, the Conservatives also find themselves under attack from some members of the B.C. forest industry, who claim to have discovered a clause in the agreement that could allow the U.S. a veto on changes to provincial forestry policies.
Industry sources told The Canadian Press the so-called anti-circumvention clause commits signatories of the agreement to take no actions that could undermine it, or offset export restrictions.
B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell said, however, that government prerogatives to make policy will be protected when the agreement is finalized in a few months.
Campbell is just a conservative in Liberal colours. They are all former Social Credit and Reform Party members, not "real" Liberals. Campbell stole the party from Gordon Wilson.
Tariff would mean a House voteOpposition leaders say those conditions fly in the face of what Harper promised in the House of Commons on Thursday, when he announced the deal "means no quota, no tariffs."
"Well, the agreement clearly has both tariffs and quotas," said Layton. "Interestingly enough these are tariffs that now the Canadian government is going to charge, which means of course they'll have to come through the House of Commons as a tax measure.
"So we'll see what happens when that is brought forward."
I hope the BQ votes against this too.
I am starting to think the Twilight of Harpers government is going to disappear soon and that the Liberals could win a minority with Graham if the government falls.
This Harper government has nothing on the Liberals for being crooked, dishonest, sneaky and selling us out. Harper has to go and the sooner the better.
We do not need a republican party bitch for our Prime Minister.
Too bad the Bloc, Libs and NDP can't work together and go to the Governor General and form a coalition government.
Dief screwed us with the the "Avro Arrow".
Mulroney Sold us out under NAFTA and Harper is carrying the torch.
No wonder Conservative governments are so few and far between. They have a history of selling us out and bending over or dropping to their knees to please the current US administration. It is despicable.
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Despite his earlier pleas to his Conservative Party faithful, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein received only 55 per cent support from convention delegates late Friday in a mandatory leadership review.
It was not immediately clear what action Klein would take, though the numbers could only be seen as a crushing blow.
In what observers are calling the most important speech of his political career, Klein pleaded with party members on Friday to let him continue as their leader for another two years.
"I ask you to give me -- one final time -- your endorsement to achieve what I have laid out for the duration of this mandate," Klein told roughly 1,200 delegates in a speech before they cast secret ballots in a mandatory leadership vote.
"If you see fit to give me that support, I pledge to you that I will work as hard as I possibly can to bring continued honour to this party and continued prosperity to this province we love."
"You have my word, which I offer to you with humility, with respect and with honesty."
Klein has won four consecutive majorities for the Tories. But he has been criticized of late for failing to provide solid leadership -- and for the political infighting critics say began when he announced his retirement wouldn't come for another 19 months, on Oct. 31, 2007.
The 63-year-old political warhorse, who normally gets a percentage of party support in the high 90s, has said he will resign from the party if he doesn't achieve a "substantial majority" in his leadership review.
Klein hasn't indicated what that magic number is, but some of his political aides have indicated he would step aside to allow for a leadership contest if support falls below 75 per cent.
Calling Alberta "Canada's shining star," Klein fought to persuade party members to allow him to carry through his fourth mandate to the end.
I wonder if he will get the message and resign?
I also bet he will start drinking again.
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No I think we should keep it. It is a part of our heritage. Not to mention it is al but impossible to get rid of the monarch here compared to Australia.
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Opposition questions Harper's ethics
Opposition MPs blasted Stephen Harper on Thursday for his refusal to co-operate with the federal ethics commissioner, with one MP threatening to hold the prime minister in contempt."Let's not mince words. The prime minister is being an absolute hypocrite over this whole issue," NDP MP Pat Martin said on Thursday in Ottawa.
"If he won't comply with the ethics commissioner's inquiry, I'd be prepared to table a motion to see the prime minister in contempt.
Do you think a "Contempt" vote would pass? If it did pass, what would happen to Harper then? Would the RCMP be involved? Could he get charged?
'A dangerous precedent'
Opposition MPs are joining forces to block PM Stephen Harper from dumping the federal ethics commissioner and could move to hold the PM in contempt of Parliament.Liberal Wayne Easter, an ex-cabinet minister, said Harper is violating the laws governing MPs by refusing to comply with Bernard Shapiro's investigation into the appointment of David Emerson to cabinet. Calling it a "dangerous precedent," Easter insisted Harper can't fire the ethics commissioner because the job is independent from the PM's office.
While Easter is still "holding out hope" Harper will cooperate with the probe, he suggested MPs could take action when Parliament resumes next month.
Slamming Harper as "an absolute hypocrite," NDP MP Pat Martin said he's prepared to move a motion to hold Harper in contempt of Parliament.
"This is the prime minister's first test, isn't it? And it looks pretty dismal. It shows disrespect for Parliament and a 180-degree contradiction to his own election platform which clearly says they would put in place an office of the ethics commissioner that would be free of interference from the prime minister," he said.
I would not be surprised come the end of the day, if the government does not end up falling over this. It is terrible to have a scandal with only a minority government.
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Our troops need and should get the hell out of there. America can fight their own dam wars, all us non american countries are doing is freeing US troops up for another illegal invision and occupation. I would say either Syria or Iran.
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Funny no mention of tolls for new highway, oops sorry I forgot it goes through the Rich Area.
All of BC or all of the Lower mainland should of had a chance to vote on this waste of money.
I wonder how it will do if it does not snow? No snow last year and they cancelled the Skiing World Cup races at Whistler years ago due to bad conditions like lack of snow and lots of fog.
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The recent national survey of Canadians conducted by SES Research shows that a surprising 12% of voters made their decision in the voting booth while another 19% made it on the Saturday or Sunday preceding Election Day.
Canadian voters in the 2006 federal election were also asked to identify the main reason for the Conservative win. Almost one in two Canadian voters (46%) said that Stephen Harper was elected because it was time for a change. Another one in four Canadian voters (25%) said it was due to the fact that the Liberals needed a “time out.” Eleven percent said that the Conservatives had the best platform while 6% said Stephen Harper was the best federal leader.
6% said Harper was best leader and 11% said Conservatives had best platform. So basically he only won because people wanted a change and to give Liberals a time out. He never won because of his policies.
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Tories lose lead in post-vote poll
The honeymoon with Stephen Harper's Conservatives was over before it began, an SES poll provided to Sun Media suggests.The survey of 1,000 people, conducted Feb. 4-9, puts the Liberals at 34% with the governing Conservatives at 33%, dropping three points from the 36% support they received on election day Jan. 23.
The results leave the parties in a statistical dead heat.
The New Democrats garnered 18% of decided voter support, Quebec's Bloc stood at 9% and the Green Party had 7%. Three percent were undecided. SES notes that due to rounding, percentages don't add up to 100.
So the honeymoon is over. Not to mention the Liberals do not even have a leader and they are 1 point ahead (i know it is within margin of error but still no leader and they are ahead)
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Personally I believe there is more to this than we are being told. I also do not believe a 28 gauge at 30 yards would do that much damage either.
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Well this will be an unpopular opinion but it is an illegal war and occupation and we should allow draft dodgers to stay here, just like we did during Vietnam. Svend Robinson and Corky Evans are both draft dodgers and they have done a lot of good. I do not see a problem with letting them stay here. It is the right thing to do.
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Emerson is just an opportunist, that riding has not voted Tory since 1958. The tory finished a very distant third in this last election. Emerson crossed before government was even sworn in, mighty suspicious if you ask me.
The tories were going to clean up government yadda yadda yadda and when Stronach crossed the tories were screaming bloody murder, but now it is ok? wtf?
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I am for it. Its no big deal to me. Were a free country and if two people regardless of gender wish to get married, so be it. Heterosexual marriage with the high divorce rates is really nothing to be proud of.
Really, how does two men or two women getting married going to affect people anyways? It won't.
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Wilson sold us out under Mulroney and now he is getting a reward from Harper.
Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian
in Religion & Politics
Posted
Yeah so called christians are a hypocritical bunch. They worship things that do not exist like sheep. very sick and mentally ill if you ask me. If their so called god was real, why does it not show up now and then and say Hi?
Yet they believe on the misguided belief of blind faith alone. They are nothing more than a cult that is stuck in some delusional dark age. Very sad people are brainwashed like this.