Black Dog

Fearmongers take note: Harper *hearts* public health care Mr. Dithers, meet your opponnent: Mr. Waffles. It's official: the Cons are Liberal lite: same mushy taste, none of the corruption. Of course, I don't think we're seeing so much a change of heart as a change in strategy. I highly doubt the former head of the public-healthcare hating NCC had a St. Paul-esque epiphany on the road to 24 Sussex. What this seems to indicate is that Harper is trying even harde to assuage the fears of Liberal voters and paint himself as a viable alternative. Whether that means a change of policy is anyone's guess. I'd say no, and that Harper's people were probably on the phone to his friends in the private health insurance induustry and such all afternoon, working to calm their fears.

In theory, universal daycare would be boon to the economy. Think about it. A single parent is more likely to require social assistance and less likely to be able to find work outside the home due to the requirements of parenthood. A national daycare program would enable people to get off social assistance and work while ensuring their children are safe and well-llooked after. Employment, in turn means more money being circulated into the economy. That's the theory. Middle class people already pay for day care. But if financial solvency for families is a big beef of yours, perhaps the program should be indexed to income, so that we don't replace the mythical "single mom on welfare" with "SUV-driving child care abusers".

Indeed, not much wil change if the Liberal-lite CPC gets into power. They don't have a vision or a plan for the country beyond just grabbing their share of the pie. That's not to say they don't harbour a deep-seeded desire to roll back most progressive social reforms and hurry us along the path of division and marginalization, but most of the nutjobs wil be held in check by political inertia. So I'll break the deadlock and say Jack Layton and watch the hyperbole fly.

Just as fish see no evidence of water. I think the best people to speak to the nature of discrimination against women and women of clolur are they themselves. Kimmy, who the hell are you to say that "women have few serious complaints left"? Are you a woman? Are you aware that almost half of all Canadian women will experience at least one incident of sexual or physical violence in their lifetime? How about the fact that, worldwide, women work more than men, when both paid employment and unpaid household tasks are accounted for? How about the lack of political representation even amongh western nations0? Access to reproductive services? A media enviornment that constantly sexualizes and objectifies women? Methinks your understanding of women's issues is, to say the least, lacking. As for race and gender, that's an interesting subject and one that has been explored in great deal in both academic and lay circles. But I think the point RB is making is the recognition of mulitiple oppressions.

Oops! That would be 300,000. I'm not seeking to trivialize existing regional differences, just trying to put them into perspective.

There's enough. There were nearly 30,000 Liberal voters in Alberta last election. Add in the NDP's numbers, you total 40,000. Admittedly, that's still approximately less than half of what the Cons got, but the point is that those 40,000+ Albertans recieve almost no representation in Parliment. Yes, there are regional parties and regionaldifferences, but not anything close to what the electoral situation would lead one to believe. You fal to understand the actual purpose of advertising and its cousin, "spin". The ide ais not, as Soviet propaganda was, to convince people of soemthing that is objectiovely false, but to shape perceptions and re-enforce existing attitudes. Advertising doesn't attempt to strong arm the consumer into making choices against their will. It's a lot more subtle than that, hence its effectiveness.

Because you clearly need someplace to drop the kids off while you go get your fix. Most Canadians are employed by small businesses (y'know, the ones that get squat from corporate tax cuts). Corporate cuts don't encourage investment: demand does. If there's no demand (because, say, people are spending more of their income on hings like housing and child care), there's no investment. Instead, thet money simply heads offshore, never to be seen again.

Okay, I apolgize for the snark. But to me, I can't for the life of me figure out why so many people who have so much animosity towards this country and its people bother sticking around. I am genuinely puzzled by the reaction. People talk of the "left" as elitist, but I've seen more condecension ooze from Conservative supporters, now and back in June, than I've ever heard from a Dipper or a USian Democrat. Ask yourselves this: why are people sticking with the Liberals? What do you suppose the alternative is? **+/- 50 per cent margin of error Yeah, good luck with that "independant country" thing. You're gonna need it. Bye bye transfer payments. Bye bye federal government largesse. Bye bye mon cowboy.

They are. But the Libs have a tendancy to campaign left and govern right. meanwhile, for many centre leftists (read: the majority of Canadians), the prospect of a Con government is intolerable, so they vote Liberal, assuming that they are never going to be as bad as the alternative. And oil had nothing to do with it, eh? You obviously never heard of Grant Devine, have you? And look what the NDP did to Sakatchewan since: they turned it into a "have" province!

Conservative priorities: environment, social housing, foreign aid and student tuition=waste. Tax cuts for corporations (which, in Canada, are mostly foreign owned)=A Good Thing Yeah, those Cons have their ear to the street alright: Bay Street. I'v enever met an easterner of any political afiliation who's held thos eopinions. There's an abundance of misconceptions and animosity concerning our Canadian bretheren, the existence of which fails to undermine my point. In fact, it seems like, rather than making a meaningful contribution to the flow of the discussion, you just opted to slur easterners. May I make a sugestion?

Your original pioint was that Canada is sharply divided along regional lines. The data doesn't support that. What we have is a fairly healthy plurality of political alignemnts from coast to coast, a reality which is obscured by an outdated electoral system. The "regionalization" of the Canadian electorate is not, as you imply, a new phenomenon, but one that has been excrabated by a system that allows regional parties to dominate at the expense of other voices within the same region. If the preceived regional nature is a product of the electoral system, how would changing the system to make it more representative of the realities of vote preference emake things worse? Lots of reasons. Because the phony system, as well as the media environment have basically convinced people that we only two viable options. After years and years of fearmongering about the NDP, we have two main parties elbowing each other for room on the centre-right, one of which is at least clever enough to cloak its policies with the the same people-friendly rhetoric used by the NDP. I wonder, too, if the NDP's stagnation is not a byproduct of the demonization of all things left wafting from the south. I dunno. I do know the NDP have longh had a bum rap and, give the realities of FPTP, even people who would ordinarily consider voting ND would be loath to for fear of splitting the left vote and allowing a Con win (Ik know many ND's who did that last June). Another problem with winner take all: it promotes strategic voting. ...and just as I post, along comes Argus to add his two cents. Funny how the second someone trots out, say homophobic remarks by a Con MP to show the Cons are a party of bigots or cites Harper's NCC affiliation as evidence of a hidden agenda on healthcare, the whining from the righty-tighties grows so shrill that dogs scamper in to see what the fuss is about. Conservatives hate slurs based on hard evidence. They prefer speculation and innuendo to smear their foes.

As was discussed in the thread on proportional representation after the last federal election, the "regionalization" phenomenon is a bogus result of the "winner take all" electoral system. For example, the Conservatives in 2004 received just 52 per cent of the vote in the Parairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) yet took 82 per cent of the seats. By the same token, 300,000 Conservative voters in Qubec were unable to elect a single MP, yet 178,000 fellow Conservatives in Saskatchewan who elected 13 MPs. All because of FPTP. Any analysis that fails to take the system itself into account is, frankly, bullshit. But what I really really love about this thread is the utter disdain the Con partisans here have for the choices of Canadians. I'll remembe rthat next time I hear a Con talk of how theirs is the party of the people. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

All Layton has done is reveal himself to be a whore. A whore with a high price, to be sure; $4.5 billion of our money. And Martin showed he didn't mind spending that money, billions of dollars, to prop up his government. Then again, he and his people have been running around the country for the last few weeks scattering our money around as "gifts" for us. When a Con gets pissy about Layton, you know Jack's on to something. When the polls are showing the Cons dropping, the Libs rising and the NDP's holding, expect that dull whine to build to a thundering crescendo. Over to you, maestro... EDITED: As an Abertan, I know that provincial autonomy is a big issue. but I can't imagine the idea of the Cons playing footsies with the Kay-beckers (as they're known out here) playing well with their western base, given the traditional western (read: Albertan) animosity towards all things Quebec. Not really relevant, since we're talking about different legal system, diffeent precedants and the single, overriding fact that SSM is already legal in most of Canada.

Whaddaya mean? The Gomery inquiry was in full swing when the budget came down. Everyone knew already how crooked the Liberals are. Sure, and then they worked it out, just as the NDP worked with the Libs to get some of their priorities put into the government. They weren't "getting in to bed" with them as much as they were on the same side of the issues. The Bloc and NDP are closer together on most policy points than the Cons, who were quite happy with the budget as long as it was giving wealthy corporations a tax break, and less so when it incorporated things like housing etc. So its hard to see the marriage of the left-progressive Bloc and the Cons as anything but a marriage of convienience for both (the end being power). So what? Is there same law that states that no one shall be more progressiv ethan them? Their stance on SSM is irrelevant to the Canadian debate. Under Canadian law, the sepreate-but-equal "civil unions" option is not an option at all.

Keep in mind, though, that same sex marriage is already legal in Canada. The Conservative position is untenable. As fopr whether we need an election, I'm glad to see we have one party in Canada who wants to make Parliment work for the people of this country. An election will come soon enough. And with polls showing Conservative support has seemingly hit the high water mark, I expect that Harper will tone down and back off, just as he was willing to work with the "criminal" Liberals on the budget when his part trailed.

Oh God. I had no idea Sir Springer was here. Is nowhere safe from his propagandizing? Must be an election coming, the shills are out in force these days.

Just as I suspected: partisan blindness. Tell me, what part of the statements I cited is untruthful. They all came straight from the horse-face's mouth and are pretty unambiguous. What has me worried is that this harpy can be given front page puff piece treatment in a major news publication, columns in newspapers and plum TV apperances in spite of her obvious instability. That has me worried about the state of political discourse. And while I'm sure you might find her hate-filled screeds to be "amusing" and "over-the-top", I'd bet good money that if any of the quotes above came from, say, Michael Moore, you'd be howling like rabid hound instead of lapping up her schtick like a docile, compliant puppy.

And

Thing is, Coluter and the people she appeals to and, in some ways, represents don't have a level. Ther'e no depth they won't sink to. You'll note I did not call for her assasination (as Coulter once did of Clinton) to strike fear in the hearts of those in the conservative movement (as Coulter suggessted executing liberals as a warning to others). It may seem redundant to skewer her, given how often she descends to self-parody, bt the fact she's being promoted in a major mainstream media publication and that her views are called "insightful, entertaining, and refreshing" by people on this very board demand a response. And, for people like her, the best response is to not take them seriously as thinkers, but to treat them like the whores they are.

The new pontiff is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, an arch-conservative the man whose job for the past 23 years has been to protect the doctrine of the Church. The German cardinal has been widely accused of stifling dissent within the Church and has been referred to unkindly as "The Pope's Enforcer" and "God's Rottweiler". During World War 2, Ratzinger held (then mandatory)membership in the Hitler Youth movement and saw wartime service with a German army anti-aircraft unit. In his early years in office, Ratzinger moved to stamp out vestiges of liberation theology, a current of Catholic thought born in the 1960s that emphasized grass-roots organization to free people from poverty. Its association with Marxist groups and revolutionary movements appalled both John Paul II and Ratzinger. Having seen fascism in action, Ratzinger today believes that the best antidote to political totalitarianism is ecclesial totalitarianism. In other words, he believes the Catholic Church serves the cause of human freedom by restricting freedom in its internal life, thereby remaining clear about what it teaches and believes,” wrote John Allen, a journalist and biographer of Ratzinger.

Someone needs to remind the Martinites of the first rule of holes. This is a PR debacle for the Grits. The only explanation (beyond the obvious one: rank stupidity) is that the Liberals' top strategists must have backroom deals with Harper to make the Liberals look as bad as possible before the election. What next? Will they have Martin drop-kick a puppy during scrum?

Either she's a blowhead (the sunken nostrils, the gaunt face, the stick figure, the paranoia) or a post-op transsexual. Take your pick. Either way such personal attacks are good enough for Coulte rto use, then they are good enough to use against her. Who needs proof? Anybody see the puff-piece Time Magazine (which I thiought was part of The Liberal Media) did on Coulter? I'm surprised they didn't give her a centerfold spread. Aww. Isn't that cute. The "woman" who cheers for mass murder actually capable of the physiological process we humans call blushing. Of course, I'd blush too if I had a Time Magazine reporter lodge in my ass. :angry: Media Matters dissects Time's Coulter blowjob

But then, you probably also consider Tom DeLay "honest" and lynchings "good clean fun". I do wish she would go away. She represents everything that's wrong with the American media and the current brand of G.O.P "conservatism". ...if the anorexia and nose-candy don't do her in first.

What, you were expecting balance from Dershowitz? This is a guy after all, who believes in torture and who has been accussed of plagarizing parts of "The Case for Israel".

Agreed, but that wasn't the question. The question is why do Albertans let them get way with it?