watching&waiting

I guess my French is not up to snuff to read this for myself, but if what has been posted in English is true, then all I can say is sick, sick sick.

It is not that hard to make terrorist attacks that have large consequences, but yes it is just so much easier in the crowded cities like New York. Or god forbid Montreal or Toronto. The planned attack on Parliamnet that was averted would not have been hard to succeed. If a terrorist group of 50 people decided thay were going to go after Parliament when it was in full session, there are very few thngs to stop them, and if their intention is only to kill or be killed, then that would be a real problem the security on and around the hill. So I disagree that it was just a fluke, and there are just so many things that can be done to cause large loss of life, that protecting them all is nearly impossible. The fact that in Toronto there are areas that at times are so dense with people on sidewlks and open places that just one gas tanker that you see deliverying fuel to service stations, were to blow up there would be huge loss of life and limb. I am no terrorist by any means, so do not get me wrong, but if I were to become one and were hell bent on destroying the lifestyles we have taken for granted, I do not believe that there would be a shortage of targets. I do not want anyone to think I am some crazy nut who plans attacks, as I am not. But if you really think about the things we see everyday on our roads or in the areas we go, that if they did explode, they would have large loss of life, then you will see just how vulnerable we really are. That is part of why I support our troop going to Afghanistan to fight Al Queda there, and hope we can be successful there. Because if the fight comes here to home, I do not like to think about just how it would play out. Some will say that being in Afghanistan will make it more likely that we will be attacked here in Canada, but I just do not buy that, as if they were going to attack us, they would. It would not matter that we are in Afganistan or not. They hate our way of life and our freedoms to do as we please. That is not something that changes because of where we are.

I disagree. The attacks by the Al queda and other terrorists groups were planned from the safety that the Taliban afforded them in Afghanistan. This soon became a haven for terrorists groups and it was obvious that the Taliban was not ever going to act against they terroist allies. This then made them a rogue state where the innocent people of that land were suffering while the government and terrorists were treated like gods. I also think that the attack on the World Trade Center was not just an attack on America but on all the western values and principals. Canada by its very nature has always stood against such actions and yes we believe the guilty must be punished. The Taliban is not longer ruling in afghanistan, but they are still a threat to the people and the new government. So we are still needed there. We also are there to seek out the Al Queda and bin Ladin, and that is still very much a job in progress. It is very possible that it will take years to accomplish this task. But it is one that the UN has sanctioned and I happen to agree with. Also afghanistan is in need of help to rebuild its army and government to where it can hold its own against the terrorists, and other enemies. Canada should not and I hope will not cut and run from this battle, but I do hope that soon the other UN crontributors will send in their armies so that Canada can take a step back from the battlefield actions. With the recent operation Medusa, Canadian troops have been gievn a very dangerous first and front action of actively taking the fight to the Taliban hideouts. Yes we have had casualties but the numbers are not really that high and even our troop there in the action have said, this is a cause they find worthy of their efforts. So why the armchair quarterbacking. It is time to listen to what the guys in the real battle have to say, as they are the ones who know what it is really like. I have not seen much negative things from them so far. As for the Hero label goes, yes thay are heroes, as in they can be looked up to by others for doing something great and risking their lives to do so. I get from your position you thing we should look down upon our soldiers?

Over the last 3 decades the military was handpicking the recruits it wanted as there were more volunteers then there were placements. I am not so sure now that it is the same. We are adding 30,000 to the numbers of soldiers and because we are updating the equipment as well to modern day almost star wars stuff that many might enlist, but I am not so sure it will be for the right reasons. But I do not see the military saying they are having difficulty in finding people. I know the USA is having trouble and it is assigning quotas for recruiters to sign up, but they have almost had forces much larger then we here in Canada. Also the US forces have a way higher of battlefront soldiers then Canada ever had. If I had to do it all over again, I think a military career would have been good. The pensions after 30 Years service are great and with a little enitiative climbing the ranks is not a hard thing to do. As for if a war was here on Canadian soil, I would be in it even with my disabilities, as I would rather die fighting for a country I love then watch in be over run by outsiders. They would not have to draft me and I would be there in a shot, knowing full well my life maybe on the line.

I guess this is going to sound more like a statement about why have bilingualism then about the liberals having some leader hopefuls not able to get on well in french, but I guess I would throw in in here anyways, as the topic seems to be going that way. The most used language in business around the world is English, and that is just what it is, not something that made it so. The French people around the world have many places where the official language is french, but once again much of the business done with these nations is done in english. I suppose that most countries have english as a second language in the schools or something to that affect, because it is not due to there being more english then other races etc. Here in Canada I can go anywhere and get by with my english, except for some areas of Quebec, where French is so engrained that it is almost exclusively spoken. But these are small areas, and I know enough french to stumble through, but it is easy to see I struggle with that language. I get my point across but I get alot of smiles for all the mistakes I make in doing so. My wife who is french will sometimes laugh outright at some things, but that is for another time. Being an English Canadian, I can travel to almost every corner of the globe and be able to speak to people and be understood. Those who are french only are limited to where they can go and be understood and I find those who are french are usually pretty rude at the best of times and down right rude when they have problems. I know Canada has two official languages, but face it English is the main language no matter what Quebec does to try and stamp it out. Canada will never be fully bilingual even with the push in our schools to teach french from early grade school to the end of high school, mostly because the kids will just stop uusing it once they have left school. It does not take long to lose the use of a language and it is then even harder to bring back all to memory. I do though believe that it is a good thing to teach a second language in school but I wonder if Spanish would not be more applicable, as we will probably be exposed to more of that then we are to french in our life time.

I am no lawyer but I have had more experience with the law then I wish I had, and if I remember correctly the time limitation for lawsuits is the 2years and 6 years, but not from the time it happened but from the time it was reasonably found out to have happened. Since the church still exists there is still possibly value in that suit. But who would be the complaints and how would one prove by preponderence of evidence that these crimes existed. Some young new lawyers may very well volunteer for such cases or even take on contigencies.

Well I guess we now can sit here and talk about the costs of war. There always will be one side that suffers more then another, especially of the war gets fought to its natural conclusion. But today with so many interfering countries seldom are these wars taken to the final solution. I believe that is why Lebanon started it in the first place. The fact that their treasuries are empty and they can not pay their workers, and also that most foreign aid has stopped since Hamas was elected to power. Just what else do you think they could do. They needed the support from Iran during the war and it was not just weapons, but much needed cash. Now that it is over, they are seeking foreign aid once again to try and get the worlds sympathy. With out this they will simply implode as a bankrupt country, and be open to anyon e who can take over

Do you have any idea of just how long it takes a forest to regrow trees the the size that will filter pollutants in large volumes? I have a tree farm and it is now 28 years of growth and the trees are now large enough to be considered as good filters, but are still about half of what would be considered mature trees. So after a forest fire you will have at least 10-15 years before you start getting trees to be of any great size and twice that long to get to half of what mature trees can filter. So yes eventually the reforestation will again filter polllutants, but it will take about 30 years to do so. Remember that the age of a tree is done by counting its rings. With the average ring being .25 inches that means the width of a tree increase .5 inches each year. So after 30 years it is apprx 15 inches in diameter. You can go on further and work ourt its size doing the same formula. Canada is not like the rain forests that regrow trees etc at about 5 times the rate. Here it takes much longer to grow trees, even the poplar tress that grow like weeds but are on of the fasts growing trees in Canada, take about 2/3 the time to grow as other deciduos or evergreen varieties.

Leafless I am not getting this from statistics, but rather from being here in Ottawa everyday and having to deal with government dept. every day. I did this as employment when going to college. I was a courrier for the Secretary of State. I delivered to all dept during this time and I can tell you that french is the language greeted in 90% of the time. If you do not believe me pick a floor of any government office building and if you stand there and listen you will here just about all the people talking in French to one another etc. The stat you say that only 2.6 % work in french is totally laughable as per my own experience. Now mind you this was 15 years ago that I did this job, but I am sure it has not changed.

Being that the Liberals will not be very popular in Quebec no matter who gets in as leader, the language issue then is a little less compelling. For the most part it would be nice for party leaders who may one day become PM, it is a good thing to be bilingual, but that shoudl not stop any truly qualified candidate from seeking the position. In Ottawa you will find that french is spoken more in government then english and you need to express your wish for english as you are almost certainly going to be greeted in French. You will find that even english spoken in some departments is very broken english. It is not to say though that you can not get service in english just that you will have to make it clear you want it. That is part of the problem you will find when two official languages exist. Even though less then 20% of Canadians are french speaking, yet it seems to be the dominant language of the government.

Kyoto's science was skewed to a certain preclaimed result, and that is a fact that many people do forget or skip over. We have seen Ice cores from the Greenland glacier that have shown many golbal warming and cooling much greater then todays, over many centuries of time. There were no greenhouse gasses around then that were not caused by nature itself. So why are we so sure that todays contribution by man is so harming the natrural way of things. I will agree that if you can take modles of the earth and it atmospher and do the worst case scenarios that things can look bleak. But we can not account for nature itself in models, so at best we can only say that the model is representative of only one side of the problem. Naturally warming and cooling is an everday thing and we have not even got to the point of being near the warmest ever or the coolest ever so why are we being so alrmed about this. Can any scientist prove that todays warming is not part of a natural event? No. just as we can not prove it is. So for now lets wait and see where and what happens before we go spending wildly on voodoo science.

Layton is just another flake, that thinks that speaking about the horrors of war and cry about the human costs of such a thing, are just grossly out of wack. He forgets about our own history and the things that we have fought for and many paid with their lives for that freedom. He just does not seem to know that it is the same freedom we are bringing to Afghanistan, and yes it is something that has a cost in human lives. We have just become so sanitary about war. It seems that people think that there can be a war with no casualties, and that is just not the way it works. The deaths in this war so far have been so small that compared to other wars this would just not even register. Right now we are fighting the Taliban and the extremist Muslims that want nothing more then to kill and crush all others from the face of the earth. Layton wants us to sit down and befriend these people and maybe they will agree not to bomb innocent people who may be in the markets or any other way going about daily chores. These people do not want to exists with us, but rather want to wipe us from the face of the earth. They know that if they were to actually from a real army they would then be easier to be seen as they would have uniforms etc.. But they preferr the cover of posing as innocent people and killing and maiming as many innocent people as they can, all in the name of extreme Islam. So how does one try to negoiate with this kind of mind set? Layton is dead wrong in opposing the war in Afghanistan and he knows nothing about why we need to take this stand here, to make it clear that Canada will fight for the rights and freedoms of oppressed people and we will not only fight for them, we will carry on that fight until the end if necessay. Layton believes he can make political hay with this and I only can say that he will lose in the end, but then again he should be used to losing. The NDP point of views are really not anywhere near what the mainstream Cnadians would want. Even a large number of their supporters would not be so quick to support things if they ever really understood what the party is all about. They are there more in the form of protest then really believeing in the cause. It will never be a governing party at the national level, because Canada is just not ever going to go that far left, no matter what the times may bring. It would be a shame if during this next sitting of parliament, that the NDP and Bloc can garner enough support to cause Canada to pull our troops. I do not think it will go that way, as I think may be after some debate it will become clearer that Canada must do something to take a stand against all forms of extreme religious insurgencies, no matter where in the world they may be. We are in the process of expanding our military and equipping them better, and most Canadians agree that is a good thing. But we also need to be ready to use the military in causes that go beyond just peace keeping. We must also have forces with the ability to take the fight back at the enemies, because they will not be long in bringing the fight to us here in Canada.

There once was a figure of just how much filtering of pollutants a full grown trees does in a single day. I am not able to remember exactly the amount, but it was a very high number. Now it only goes to show that for every grown tree you cut down or burn in a forest fire, that not only will thta reduce the amount filtered, but in the case of forest fire it will also release very high concentrations of green house gases. Therefore it only goes to show you that the quicker the forest fires are put out the beter for the environment. As for whether then under growth will decay and such also giving off gases, the answer is yes but it will feed the new growth of trees again filtering increased capacity. This is why we all have heard so much about the rainforsest and the loss of filtering ability with its destruction. Same theory just different areas of the globe. Canada does not have rain forests, but we do have very large temporate forests, and because of this we filter much of the pollutants we produce. Probably more then we do produce when all is said and done. The use of trees within our cities, would make for some very interesting changes in just how much pollution we could filter out of the air. If every home was to have one tree in its front lawn and one in the back, I am sure it would more then filter the poolution that a family car would produce in its daily drives. Those with apartment balconies can have potted ferns etc.. If you have ever gone into a green house when it is in bloom, you can feel the air is refreshing, not only due to the flower flagrances but because it is rich in oxygen. So there is two ways to look at the pollution problem. One is to reduce the emmissions at the sources at a very high costs, and in many case it just can not be done. Or two increase the ability for the ecosystem to filter out the pollutants that are produced. I would like to see a combination of both happen. Kyoto does nothing to take in the fact that pollutants can be naturally filtered, and is all for the reduction of the pollutants at the source. That is why it will fail and it also is not valid as it leaves out one whole side of the pollution equation. Canada when you take in our vast land mass and our forests, we probably are a negative producing nation, when all is considered. But we need to also understand that if we are not careful we can and will soon not be that way. The USA needs to again allow reforestation of much of its vacant lands, and if they do this, they will be capable of reducing their contributing factor by a large degree. If you have ever been to Europe you will see that most of the lands are farmlands, and yes while even crop growth does some filtering, it is nowhere near what trees will be capable of. They need to plant trees along field borders and maybe even along streets and road ways. Many of their cities just do not have the room for large trees, so they will have to call on the farmers and rural owners to help to their parts. If we all did this, we would have a world that would now be capable of filtering out much of the bad gases we produce. But we still would need technology to also help us filter out these things at the source as well.

I give Harper and the CPC credit for catching this very stupid waste of money. Why should we here in Canada be helping other countries to cut their emmissions. If they are that poor they probably will not have enough industry to have high emmissions to start with, and if they can afford to have the factories and the cars etc. then they can pay for their own emmission reduction. Canada would be one of the countries to greatly benefit from global warming and even the tar sands would give us much more and easier to get oil if the temps went up 10-15 degrees. As far as for Canadas water goes will will have plenty of it and our farmers may even get two crops per year making them much more competitive on the global markets. Now seriously I do not even begin to have any faith in kyoto and I do not see any real pressing need at this time, as global warming has come and gone quite naturally many times. Even long before the industrial age. The one thing awareness has done is make us develope more efficient machines and equipment. If we all used the newest of these out there today emmissions would drop considerably, but that would not be enough for the "End is near Group" that constantly is on about how things need to go back to preindustrial times.

I sat through a painful NDP position by Jack Layton on todays question period. I can only say that this guy and his party are just not out of step with reality but also not being able to see what the all this was really about. The plea from the Afghanistan MP was because her constituents were so very desperately poor and she thought that Canadian aid would be better spent there, then in the fighting. This was ma plea for money and support. Not so much a plead for removing the troops. Layton just does not get it, that talking with the Taliban does not work, and if you want them gone then it will take brute force to do the job. If this MP had more aid given to her area, she would never have come forward to the NDP. Other then touching moments and picture ops, there really is not much to say. It is going to be real interesting to see what will happen when the new cession starts, as you will have the Bloc in favour to support the Softwood Lumber, but it will have to be the Liberals to support the mission in Afghanistan, as so far only a couple NDP members will vote to continue in Afghanistan, and I do not think that the Bloc will be all that interested in continuing that mission. I can tell you this though, I will not even allow any NDP supporters on my property during the next election, and will make sure the dogs keep them at bay. This whole thing about which 90% of their party just voted for, is 100% against what I stand for and want my Canada to stand for. Even though I do not think that there would ever be a chance of the NDP ever being a government, it just burns my buns to see the degree of negative support for our country, when we are trying to do the right thing and take on the good fight. We are there because that was and still is where the Taliban and Osama Bin Ladin and Al Queda are. It was right for us to enter into that fight and it still is right and the just thing to do. We did not go into Iraq and I believe we were right not to do so. But Afghanistan is a whole other story. We should bring our troops home when the job is done, but yes we will need more help from other NATO allies as well. This is a NATO mission and removing ourselves at this time would hugely effect our position within NATO. If we are just going to cut and run, then we might as well just stay here at home and never extend our help to anyone unless they can garantee us no danger. I personally take the NDP's point of view as a disgrace of our once proud armed forces, who have been trained to fight back those that would threaten the weak and helpless here at home and abroad.

Canada has two official languages (French and English) and it would not be too much to ask new imigrants to learn one of these two. English by far is the most commonly used langauge of Business and also can be found spoken in many countries around the world. It also seems to be a little easier to learn then French. The problem with learning french and being in Canada, is that once outside of quebec and the areas near the borders of Quebec, you are hard pressed to find any French being used. I live 80Km from the Quebec border and in our county you will not see a french sign and rarely will you find a conversation in french in the shopping malls or streets. It is even more so the further you get from here towards Toronto. Depending on where the Immigrant intends to settle it would be wise to make the request of the language they learn to suit thatb area. But there also should be told of the limits there are in learning only the one language. I can understand french if spoken slowly and I must admit that my wife was only french speaking when we met. She is now more fluid in english then french and I have proably a better understanding of french, but I have almost never occassions to use it. To me, I do not think it is too much to ask of new immigrants to learn at least one of our languages and I do believe that it should be made part of the citizenship rules for our country. We can welcome the culture of the immigrants pasts, and in some cases tolerate it as long as our laws are not broken by cultural differences. We need people to fit into our country that are happy to be here, not those who only wish it to be a step to some other nation. Also we need to make things very clear that being here is a privilage and when they have shown thay they accepted our ways and methods, and are willing to live within those guidelines, then and only then should we grant citizenship.

I see that you do not like the we as in most of the people I can see posting trying to show you the light and errors of your ways. You do not have the right to demand anything of the government as to its supporters and there are government dept that do get that kind of thing. If you want them go look for them and make sure that they are not there. Go find a liberal critic and see if he has the list of supporters. Might as well get the liberals list as well, but then again it will have to say $42,000,000.00 from the people of Canada on it, now wouldn't it

gerryhatrick whare do you get off talking about getting someone banned? You are one of the biggest trouble makers on this site and you purposefully post things in a derrogatory manner and then try to belittle people who show you your errors. While it is nice to have a site that posts all sides to an argument, your posts just do not ring as being fair sided but rather more of malicious intent against all things Harper. You know that just because you have a right to hold any opinion you may have, it does not mean you have to share that with everyone all the time. It makes me wonder just how I can put any weight to anything you say, because it seems that you are closed minded to any arguments you are given in return.

You think that there were anything coming to you, but I can only guess that you just might not be on the list for the party to send things to. If as I imagine there were a need to give the libs a list and if it did nothing but show harpers support was grassroots and wholesome, do you think that the libs would say anything. Just who are you that you feel you should be shown this and why do you think that way? Just like the Liberals can not even seem to find a leader that will talk with one voice for the party, you can not say what is or was given to anyone now can you. Maybe you can show us where your supporters are, as judging from here you have few if anyone that wants to allied themselves with you. We do give everyone the right to voice their concerns here and you have made use of that quite a lot latel. I wonder just how much of the same would be shown if you can find a site to support the liberals

I believe Harper did say during the debates of the last election that he did name his support donators, but as usual the liberals then implied that he did not name all of them. How does on e address this accusation when other insist that it is not all, but never show any proof that this is true? That is just another liberal hack trick to try and cast a scarey picture. It was seen thru by many in last election and by now it will be seen though by almost anyone with a thought to share. Just how can this Jerryhatrick be so ingnorant of the facts. In our little village he seems to be trying to earn a title, and I am sure he will get the one I have in mind soon.

If knowing what's right and standing by it gives me "moral superiority" then I guess that's what I'm struttin' with on this topic. I would say claiming things like water vapor is causing the harmful Global Warming we're experiencing makes a person incredibly immoral if they are being willfully ignorant. I am willing to back up anything I say with scentific facts. So far you have spouted off about how you think and what you think, but never about just where or how you get your facts. I will agree that water vapour is not a large threat to the global warning system, but as science will show that the warmer the atmosphere the more water vapour it can hold. Whith the advent od particulate matter it can become supersaturated and that then will naturally fall as rain once it is cooled. It is a normal cycle to some extent. Since you do not say anything that make sense. Please show me just how this can happen to the same volume if the temperature is 10 degrees cooler. Because that is what you imply, so now prove it with this simple easy to follow cycle.

Kyoto was based on science of the environmental activists, and while it does have roots in many things, it is not by any means the answer to even a small amount of the problem. It is all about appeasing the activists and do little for the true causes of the environment. One volcano eruption will put more pollutents into the air then a 100 years of man made pollutents. Any large natural disaster such as forest fires etc do more harm then man has ever done in a decade. So why is it so hard for people to understand that all the hype about global warming addresses only a very small part of what is happening around our world. The contribution by man is very small, and while small the activists will say it is better that we do our part no matter how small, just to help the cause. If we here in Canada could put out forest fires within days instead of weeks and months, then we would contibute 100's of times more to the climate stablization, then we ever would in years of regulated emmissions. Forest fires are something we stand a chance to control, where emissions are hard to get everyone to agree. Since Canada is north of the USA and the winds come from the s/w we will always get much more pollution from their industrial areas, then we do from our own. So yes we should maybe use emmissions as a standard to cause technology to better develope our processes, but we will never be able to say that we can control or even greatly affect the climate we live in. I would rather a government look at the whole issue in perspective and then make adjustments that can and will makle sense. Kyoto just does not do that.

Polls from Quebec in between elections are just not worthy of a whole lot of discussion. Quebec has huge shifts in public opinion on a daily basis and it really is a fickle province when it comes to agreeing on anything. The back and forth see saw in polls means absolutely nothing in what their true political feeling lie. This is one province that stategic voting by the people is done come election time. I do not see them forgiving the liberal for some time to come and the fact that Harper has made being in Canada more appetizing for many, I would have to say that come the next election, quebec will be even more for the CPC then the LIB, while still keeping a strong Bloc presence. Once the Lib's have elected their new leader watch quebec, sharpen its teeth on his hide and they will have a lot of anger that they have let build up, so they can have a target to let fly. Their silence while the Lib's find a new leader tells volumes as far as I am concerned. It is the inner turmoil and the churn of such that makes me wonder and wait, to see just when and where it erupts.

It is hard to say just what kind of manufacturing can and will take placein Afghanistan, but one thing we do know for sure, is that they are a willing workforce and yes they will work very cheaply in many things. While they do not have an Ocean port thay are situated close to China and many other countries. So they are an overland trade route. While at this moment in time it is hard to say if any of this can and will help them form a strong economy, it does give the seeds for the start od many things. For us to sit here a world away and say they have no chance to become a contributing member to the global economy, is just wrong. I am sure there are many things we do not see as being life sustaining that they do. The fact that they have been a country for so long and have maintained a population, is something we need to think about. Once peace is the norm in afghanistan, we will see things come to light that we never thought possible. That is why I support our troops, in their efforts to make this a peaceful country once again.

This is just getting so lame. Just what has the talk of indian legend and folklore have to do with the subject topic ? If people are going to persist going along this path, then I would suggest that before you do, then pick up a book on physics or the sciences of both the accepted siences and the mythed sciences. You will see that in every one of the stories you will find a small amount of truth and a lot of so called faith. I have yet to see that faith to generate anything of substance in the real world, but if it helps you accept things thta you are having trouble getting your mind around, then it has served its intended purpose. Nothing in todays events or happenings can make a case for or against faith. The rule of law is something we must all abide by, but if you have faith that you can break this law and get away with it, only is true until you are caught. I would never begrudge anyone their faith as long as they do not break the rules of law. That is the only time these should ever cross and the law should always rein the winner.