ScottSA

I'd be more interested in seeing a poll after the relationship has some time to fester and GP candidates have time to say a bunch of ridiculous things.

You should become the lead rhetoritician for the Liberal Party. Their rhetoric is about as empty as that too.

They were part of Jordan. Jordan denied their right of self-determination. They became not part of Jordan only after Jordan had an oops moment and attacked Israel. At no time in hiostory has there been such a thing as a "Palestinian homeland". This "right of self-determination" you speak of applies by its own criteria to Jews too, even more so than the Palestinians, since Jews are loosely speaking an identifiably recognized 'race' AND a religion, whereas Palestinians are just Arabs. Yet this meme of "self-determination of the Palestinians foiled by the creation of the state of Israel" presupposes that Jews ought not to have had a homeland. Don't you realize that accepting this argument is a condemnation of the region to perpetual warfare?

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=8656

I have no idea what prominent Liberals are saying because I can't find any who are now speaking out after the policy has been made. We heard a few Nova Scotia Liberals express caution and surprise at the onset but now I can't find anything. I'm sure that's because they've all realized that Dion is Infallable Leader and have thrown their support behind him 100%. I'm sure there's no problem at all.

That there will always be an offensive on while Pakistan remains a threat, while NATO allies remain uncommitted and while the Karzai government controls (if that) only Kabul. That's not a point, that's an observation. And it's not a correct observation. Are you aware that the entire North of Afghanistan is operating normally, embracing the infrastructure rebuilding and the new ethos? Are you aware that the Nato offensive is in the south and that's where the deaths are? Are you aware that deaths occur during offensives? Are you aware that offensives are the only way to win wars? Are you aware that from a logistics perspective 14 deaths in a week during an offensive is something to be celebrated rather than pointed at as a failure? 19,000 Americans died during the Battle of the Bulge, and another 60,000 were casualties. The Germans suffered 100,000 casualties. Lets get some perspective here. No, things are not perfect; they never are. But if the allies had been of the same mind as you they never would have invaded Normandy because, well, Vichy France is a danger, doncha know, and we might take even more than 14 casualties. Just for the record, a rough tally of that offensive was 425,000 casualties on both sides. If your point is simply to harp against Afghanistan and try to make of it a failure, then carry on. But if you truly believe this stuff, then you need to read more. Your final posted argument is the crowning glory, of course: "If 160,000 Soviet troops and 240,000 Afghan Communist soldiers could not defeat the Pashtuns in ten years, how can 50,000 U.S. and NATO troops do better?" This is silly. How about because the USSR fell? How about because while the Pashtun are armed with the same weapons they had then, they are now facing weapon tech several generations ahead (except for the Canadian Leopards)? How about we ask a different rhetorical question: "If 2,200 English can beat 50,000 Indian troops using the same technology at the Battle of Plassey, what's to stop a few more thousand allies from scattering a few outnumbered tribesmen using outdated semifunctional weapons today?"

Actually they normally missed or got shot down. They were not an affective weapon - they were a weapon created out of desperation. They were an extremely effective weapon you idiot. Do you always just make stuff up? Kamakazis got shot down because they were travelling at half the speed of a modern airliner at a moving ship, bristling with guns, a fraction of the size of the WTC. Was the WTC cruising along the streets of NY at several knots pumping lead at the airliner? Did US ships just ignore the kamikazes under the assumption that they would never get hit, because, well, no one could manage to hit anything with a plane, after all. Christ, listen to yourself.

What makes May 2005 different from January 2006 then?The Libs had another year to embarrass themselves.Only about two months with Parliament open. Maybe 2 1/2. Naw, Martin was still bumbling around Canada saying stupid things and bumping into the furniture for a year.

There's an offensive on. 14 soldiers have been killed recently. Your point?

I don't even know if Heard is an adviser to anyone in the party right now. Seems to me that he is just making mischief with rivals who have never met him. That may be so, but are you suggesting his views are not shared by a number of Liberals? I don't know of many people who think this is a good idea from a political perspective, except of course for hardcore enviromaniacs. Dion appears to be trying to follow the old advice that one ought to concentrate on strengthening one's core competencies, and his entire leadership platform was based on the "environment", so it would follow that he should bolster his position by using May. What he seems not to realize is that: 1 ) He represents the Liberal Party, and Liberals have an abysmal record on the environment anyway. 2 ) The "environment" was and might still be all the rage with voters in a season of not hearing about much else, but when the election comes it will fade into the background of more pressing issues, and if by some chance the Cons stay in power until 09 and the economy turns sour in that time, the "environment" will actually become a Liberal platform liability. 3 ) He may be concentrating on his core competency, but in doing so he is becoming a one trick pony himself. 4 ) The type of strident emotional hyperbole he used at the May announcement puts him perceptually in the camp of the radicals. 5 ) Most important, he has opened himself to a huge liability by associating himself with a neophyte fringe party full of loose cannons, and in the process focussed media attention on the Greens, who have managed to coast along as a sort of harmless nice guy underdog before. How many skeletons ARE in the Green closet? What's their economic platform? What does their intent to "tax pollution" really mean? Anyone there with a history of enviroterrorism? Anyone there who said or is about to say anything stunningly stupid? I don't know the answers to these questions, but now that the media is looking at them, I'll bet I'll know the answers before the next election. Dion is an ass, and proves himself more asslike every day.

What makes May 2005 different from January 2006 then? The Libs had another year to embarrass themselves.

That's really the relevant question. If the CPC is not conservative enough, who are you going to vote for? The Marijuana Party? I maen, sure there are other options, but they are throaway votes or worse. I was even considering voting for a western seperatist party, and even started to help organize it until I got an email I wasn't supposed to get all about how a Jewish plot is afoot with those "kosher" labels on food. I just don't have time to start rebutting all that nonsense...the polynewbies of the world are always louder and more entrenched in myth than normal folk are, so it's pointless.

A statement which says more than enough, actually. I know it must be frustrating when every bit of mud one wants to throw at the Conservatives is already dripping off the Liberal carcass, but suck it up. Liberal supporters even seem to have trouble recognizing what is mud and what is not: "So the Liberals got in a little bit of shady trouble with a few million taxpayer dollars, but what about Emerson"?!? Not only is "Emerson" covered by Belinda, but it's not a crime to "appoint unelected officials". What gets me is you dare to trot out "misuse of military aircraft" in the face of billions upon billions of dollars scammed and gone from 13 years of Liberal asininity. Harper would have to transport himself around Canada in a fleet of main battle tanks, 18 divisions of accompanying infantry and the CAF circling overhead for twenty years before he ended up costing Canada what Chretien did. Of course it's a valid countercriticism to say the Liberals were worse. What's your response, that the Liberals were only a little worse than the CPC? That oughta be a good campaign slogan.

Don't go out on a limb or anything. I've been searching in vain since 1993 for a pre-election Liberal plan that isn't vague and uncosted. They don't exist. I'm not saying they haven't implimented their vague and uncosted schemes every once in a while, like the gun registry and that skullduggery with suitcases and cash, but they never really know what exactly they're getting into or how much it's gonna cost.

Ackowledging the tragedy is not synonymous with attributing the tragedy to our favorite scapegoats, the sons of pigs and apes. The Palestinian's tragedy is the Palestinians. They are incorrigible losers. First, as desert vagabonds, they antagonize every Arab within 300 miles, then lose a teensy strip of land and suddenly discover the angst of losing a homeland they never had, leap on their camels to get it back and end up losing more huge swathes of land instead. Not content with these great leaps forward, they manage to get pushed into Lebanon, where they bait the tiger until it damned near pushes them into the sea, whereupon they blow up an American base put there to protect them and end up getting shelled by US battleships. For some reason unbenownst to me they're then allowed back, whereupon they set about blowing up Israelis in an attempt to gain enough of their trust to get the beloved homeland they never had, and spend the next couple of decades alternating between killing Israelis and demanding goodwill from them. Finally they get the beloved homeland they never had and what do they do? Start a civil war. Monty Python's head injury patients could do a better job of setting up a government. It's a tragedy alright.

Loved it, just like all Penn and Teller BS shows.

Exactly. Except that I'm 48. And I've had lots of gardens and I've even grown, errrr..."hemp"...in my youth. I may not know all about running to warm rooms in the morning, but I'm all about running to campfires on cold mornings. I've done a fair bit of ivory towering too, and about ten years of construction crewbossing before ivory towering. I can't say I've sat up all night waiting for lambs to be born in -30 weather, or harvested a cow or milked a tractor, but I do know how to make chappattis, cook over water buffalo chip fires and navigate my way around 3rd world riots and general nastiness. But here's a hint: Folks who tend toward the rightwing are generally not 20something ivorytowerites. In fact I've never actually met a rightwing 20something ivorytowerite. Usually people have to grow up a bit and see the world before they become rightwing. Some people never do get sufficient life experience to move rightward in outlook; no doubt because they don't have time to read, what with pregnant lambs and inclement weather and so on.

Well, I suspect I can find a lot of guys like that. In fact, Memri has archives of 100s of clips of guys like that, but I'm asking if you can find me just one Christian minister who brandishes a sword and calls for the heads of apes and pigs Jews. Just one. It shouldn't be hard, since extremist Muslims are no different from extremists Christians, right? Did father Coughlin, in the dirty 30s, I might add, brandish a sword and call for the deaths of Jews? I don't recall hearing that anywhere.

I don't suppose you notice the irony here? In fact, no. I suspected not.

Ah, here we are piling one fallacy on top of another in order to twist a teensy Old Testament fringe group into moral equivalency with hundreds of thousands of "a few Muslims extremists".

Probably. Might as well put her away now, before whitey does her any more harm.

Let's all have a rousing "so what?". Dion picks up a couple fringe votes while lashing the credibility of the Liberal party to a hundred or so whacked out loose cannon Green candidates, any one of whom can go off the rails by saying something stupid anyday. Or more likely, every day. And anyone who doesn't think the CPC isn't compiling every stupid utterance every enviromaniac candidate has ever made, with an eye thrashing Dion with them during the coming campaign, is incredibly naive.

Oops. Lost me there. Whenever I see the word "ergo", I stop reading.

...behaving like this? I particularly like the sword. I mean I know it's just a few extremists, but...

lol