Remiel

Maybe you should stick to activites that do not require any understanding of big words like " elected " . Can you name even one New Democrat senator? And even if it were true that Liberals " packed the Senate with Liberals and New Democrats " that would only indicate that they actually considered people from other parties for such plum appointments. How dare they have so much integrity? ( If that is not clear enough for you, I can say it another way: your logic is pathetic. )

Since when is there a linear scale between the population of an area and the number of politicians in has? That would be like saying, given the national average of people per federal riding, that the province of Prince Edward Island only needs two MPPs: one to be in charge and one to oppose him. And the reason that they might want a Senate is the same as the reason (in theory) that Canada has one: to balance the disparate interests of regions of differing sizes. I am not saying that they would have one, just that it would make some sense if they did.

I suppose I had forgotten about Labrador; though the greatest geographic distance from the bottom of Nova Scotia to the top of Labrador would still be comparable to the greatest width of Ontario. "Should" and "would" are worlds apart. And while it is true that intra-province inequities exist, it could probably be said that many regions, given a chance, might not opt to be all part of the same province. There is such a thing as a " Toronto Separatist Movement " , after all. Right now there is no " like the others " . Consider how close Quebec has come in the past to being guaranteed 25% of the seats. Strict rep by pop is only barely holding on as a principle in Canada I think. Well, I was only thinking of federal. I imagine they might cut the provincial parliament to 100 in a merged scenario. I wonder if they might reinstate a senate though?

A couple of things: 1) As much as we may tend to group them together, each of those provinces has its own history and its own distinctive character. If you do not think they should be concerned overmuch by that, why not add it Newfoundland & Labrador to the union as well? 2) How much such a union favour one of the former three (or four) provinces over the other? " Good overall " does not necessarily translate into " good for us " . 3) I am not sure that they would lose MPs simply by amalgamating. There is no real precedent for provinces amalgamating that we can look to, unless perhaps there is one in another Westminster country. I do not think there is any constitutional requirement that such a move would automatically change the regular procedure of seat redistribution at all... It would have to be legislated. Also... where the Hell did you get the ridiculous idea that the Maritimes has 134 seats? Even with Newfoundland added in the Atlantic Provinces only have 32!

I think that the dissidents the article is referring to is the Real IRA, not the Provisional IRA.

While there is a lot of truth in that, I think that one could perhaps say that since the demise of feudalism, noblesse oblige has morphed into something with a stronger hint of responsibility than profit.

Though people are most familiar with Hitler, I would not think you should rule out, especially on a political messageboard, that people are instead implying that he is as evil as Mussolini, Franco, or Peron. I do not think racism, or even eugenics, are really necessary to fascism. Though it was simplistic, back in first year it was described to us that you had to add racism to fascism to get Nazi-ism; a way of stating it that has stuck in my mind. Perhaps though if an idea that could be drawn out to account for these, it might be nationalist perfectability or optimizability, whether that be of blood, characteristic, or beliefs. Also, there is always the possibility that someone could be fairly described as being between two ideologies. Surely there are plenty of folks who are a combination of classic liberal and socialism, or classic conservative and socialism, and equally so someone could be described as classically liberal and fascist. Not saying that any particular person is, but if this is a philosophical discussion what we are shooting for is if it can be ruled out...

We could reasonably ask how you came to " own " it.

It is probably simplistic, but it is definitely not " so simplistic that it cannot be credible " . " Simplisticness " is not a function of logical structure after all, it is a function of content.

"Taxation is theft," is so simplistic a statement that it cannot be credible.

If we had had the technology back then that we do now, I would not be surprised if it had been more succesful. Internet and satellite television offer opportunities for distributing French language programming into the rest of Canada that the old fashioned broadcast era did not. I think it a an absolutely massive failure of the cultural industry in Canada to not try and distribute more Quebec film and television to elsewhere in the country.

I think PIK may have been referring to the purchase of Rupert's Land by Canada. I am not sure if any money exchanged hands over the North-Western Territory.

It is you who are wrong. It is pure fantasy to suggest that the grass roots of the party can launch a complete takeover of the top in four days. That dos not mean the grass roots has not learned. It just means that learning is only part of their problem.

That is possibly true, but I think you can also make the argument that it is better for the morale of Americans that he is dead.

At the most fundamental level all societies strike a balance between the two. The idea of a free market is just that - an idea.

I am not sure how the HST narrative will go in the provincial election. Once again it will probably come down to who is better able to convince people of their story rather than any correspondance of their story to the truth...

There is no such thing as a monolithic LPC that has "learned nothing" from this election.

If I may a philosophical point, I think the problem with the charge of "naivety" is that it an accusation about the short term likelihood of something coming to pass; a kind of one step thinking on that part of the accuser. Leonardo Da Vinci probably was naieve to think he could build a flying machine, but the fact was that a flying machine could be built: in the future. Similarly, advocating for the "naive" may help tomorrow, even if it does not help today.

Only among shameless sophists.

There is still a definite sense in which Harper's majority is more egregious than Chretien's. If you ask look at the percentage of the voters instead of the percentage of the votes, you find that it has declined in every single election since Mulroney's first win in '84. Chretien's majorities had 28.7%, 25.77%, and 25.04% of voters respectively. Harper has, in comparison, 24.33% of voters. We can perhaps argue about what is the proper metric, but the fact remains that they both have a claim to saddest winner.

Well, I am not in support of the banning of groups for the mere fact of being pro-life, but I do not hold much sympathy for some of those that have banned for specific actions.

Younger generations are going to get screwed either way. With a longer time before retirement, there is going to be a longer time for the good jobs to open up.

Were I to be making a game that featured a Taliban storyline, I would probably have three " role models " for the main character to choose between: a nationalist, a fundamentalist, and a mercenary; each representing a possible reason for why the character fights. Also, there would probably be the option of choosing between the path of a " soldier " and that of a terrorist, which would represent the sort of good/evil axis in many games, though in this one it would be the evil/objectionable axis. There would probably be a very high turnover in comrades as they have a tendancy to get killed off by superior fighters and equipment. If you could make it realistic enough, perhaps in some respects it could be like the counterpart of America's Army, where the purpose is to get inside the head of an enemy fighter instead of a Western soldier. Learning to think like the enemy is never a bad skill.

Do not confuse conservative with Conservative. And as for pro-life groups being banned: perhaps they would not find themselves persona non grata if they actually bothered to follow the rules on campus. You know, the same ones all the other groups follow, including the pro-choice?

True enough. This whole argument stinks of Appeal to Authority.