Wild Bill

Hey, the "suits" in all parties are going to spin with their strengths! Harper has consistently polled much higher as an individual. He has a weak point in that he's not perceived as having a great team, since he IS a bit of a control freak! Ignatieff has been just the opposite. He simply has not been able to compete with Harper as far as being a leader himself. However, the Liberal Party has some high-profile folks at the top besides just Ignatieff. So it will make sense for them to go easy on putting Ignatieff front and centre and focus on how their entire team is a better resource. It's really rather silly to criticize either party's strategy. Both of them are just trying to play their strong and weak cards in a manner that will help them gain support.

A LOT of people, Keeps! Electric heat is very common in Eastern Canada, especially in Quebec. Their electricity is not nearly as expensive as it is in Ontario. Nobody has built a new home with electric heat in Ontario in about 30 years.

You still seem to believe that you will get huge numbers to sign up and THEN you will tell them what the party stands for! Your website lists virtually nothing specific. It really lists your party's ATTITUDES, not specific policies. That is why I don't think you can be successful. The typical voter wants to know what he's getting into FIRST! You're like an energy broker knocking at a door and saying "We promise we can save you money on your natural gas bill! Just sign up and trust us, later we will tell you how much you will save and how long will be the term of your contract! You can trust us because we SAY we're different from the other guys!" I would NEVER sign up for such a deal and I can't imagine very many other people doing the same!

One point I don't think has yet been made is that often the problem with a multi-cult program is not so much how it is practiced as how some groups deliberately take advantage of it! When is the last time a Japanese or Korean immigrant group demanded to be governed by their religious laws?

So do you have a long list of SPECIFICS or don't you?

Lemme see if I understand your arguement. American planes with more advanced technologies suffered losses. So therefore, Canada should be content with much less advanced technologies, even though obviously we would suffer even HIGHER losses! As to your second point, of course there is no perfect solution and even the most advanced plane may still get shot down. I'm just arguing that you seem to be saying Canada should pick the easiest! Older, slower, less advanced and more plainly visible is what I'm hearing! Easy to say if it's gonna be some OTHER poor slob who has to fly it! Would you like to see your own son or daughter in such a situation?

Oh, so two wrongs make a right! Other guys did it so it's ok! Methinks we just got a peek at how your new party is not so different from the old ones...

The problem with your party seems to be that it promises to be all things to all people! Your own posts show it to be all over the map! The only consistency has been promises to be different from the other guys! "I can play re-gee! I can play disco! I can play anything you want!" Sorry CCEN but it seems to me that all I've heard is lots of rah-rah, sizzle but no steak! And I should be one of your easiest converts! I only support Harper 'cuz I think they stink less than the other choices! What I need, (and I'm certainly NOT the only one!) is specifics, LOTS of specifics! Let me look at a formal Party Platform list! Not just some vague promises to do good and appeal to everyone but itemized specific stands on as many specific issues as possible. I want to know what a party stands for on military spending, on interprovincial and international trade, on human rights when dealing with foreign countries that are abusers, on Canada's role in space, on immigration, on farm subsidies, on pollution laws versus job creation and protection and many, many more! The only party that did this was Reform and those party planks were ironed out in workshops of party members. They were BINDING on the leadership! The present CPC shows nothing but rah-rah on their website and so do the Liberals and NDP. To me, that makes them all the same. A smelly bunch with no real public stands or philosophies you can expect or rely on. As I like to say, I'm a techie. I'm always more concerned with how well something works than how nice it looks. So far you keep telling me your party looks nice! If you want to seriously garner support you better get a LOT more specific! Canadians have been hearing "rah-rah" for a long time and they have no reason to automatically trust your party to be any different from the disappointments they have been given before. Remember, the "new kid" is always an unknown commodity. No one wants to give him a chance unless the situation is truly desperate AND they have TOTALLY lost faith with the incumbent choices! Canada is a long way from that situation. Right now the Liberals have far more chance of getting back in power than your party does of being the totally unknown "dark horse" that comes up the middle! Ask every new member for a $10 membership fee. That will enable you to count up how many serious supporters you can count on! Remember, money talks and BS walks!

Read the FORUM rules and then get back to us! Also, multiple postings of the same message is annoying and dilutes your effect. It's like spam or telephone soliciting. Many people find them annoying and refuse to buy any products advertised in that manner.

Why, I would think that's obvious, GWiz! Stealth has to do with how easily a plane can be targeted and shot down. It would be naive in the extreme to think that no other country that we may come into conflict in the future would not have technology good enough to knock down our planes. Hell, even in Kosovo our F-18s were often given missions far behind the lines because their electronics was obsolete compared to the other Allied aircraft and we would have compromised security. China and other countries are making great strides in their own aircraft technology. Will we and they never come into conflict? Or perhaps one of their customers? Who knows to what country they will sell aircraft in the future? I've noticed in such discussions that we tend to get dismissive of such possibilities but the arguments always really seem to be saying that "no third world country will ever have comparable aircraft to the USA!" That's not the question. What's pertinent is if they will have fighter aircraft comparable or even better that the CANADIAN forces! Otherwise, we will never be considered a useful player that pulls its own weight. We will just be a "political tagalong" used to show political support and not allowed to do any REAL fighting! I don't believe this to be hyperbole. Based on my observations about the Canadian governments, particularly Liberal ones, in my lifetime, I truly believe this to be likely! Call me a cynic if you want but I have good reasons and lots of evidence!

You may have put your finger on it, PIK! I swear, many people are CRAVING an alternative to the Liberals but the Liberal Party just doesn't show enough of a change from the old, corrupt crew that we booted out! This might not be entirely fair. There may indeed have been more changes than we on the outside can see. Still, politics is all about perception and the perception is that the Liberals are "same old, same old". Even their present leader, Ignatieff, is just another version of the old "philosopher king" we've seen so many times before. The backroom boys still appear to be the same bunch. We can't tell for sure, since they're never mentioned! To an ordinary voter, that in itself is grounds for suspicion. If the gang was cleared out we'd expect the Liberals to have shouted it to the rooftops to try to cast off the old blames and look like something new! In this case, no news is not good news. No, it still seems it's all about THEM and not US! They don't really have enough time left to change this perception under their current leader. They'll just have to do the best they can and hope to find someone more charismatic to lead them into victory NEXT time! It's a bit early for polls to mean much but if Harper is indeed heading for a majority that could be a very good thing for the Liberals! Losing ground will be just the impetus needed to sweep out and reform (I LOVE that word!) the Liberal Party and truly look like a new and brighter alternative! Harper will then be the incumbent and Canadians easily tire of incumbents. As I said, I think a lot of people are getting tired NOW! It's just that they still don't have an attractive alternative!

I've already stated my position, GWiz! I don't want to see some guy like I was 50 years from now, getting quotes from our government on replacement parts for an F-18! That plane is old today. Sure, they're talking about a jazzed up version but still, at heart an old design with no stealth capability. Without that, it's a lead pipe cinch we will wind up sending F-18s to some third world battlefield where they will be the most visible radar targets in the sky! If we go with a Super F-18 I'll bet a truckload of Canadian beer that's exactly what will happen! Sadly, it's just the Canadian way, as certain as death and taxes. If you want to talk about another aircraft with stealth capability that's cheaper and better suited for us then I'm interested. However, apparently we've been there, done that and found nothing back when the Liberals first signed us up for the program! I agree that you may have pointed out some valid technical problems with the F-35 but remember, those problems will be valid for ALL users of the plane, including the USA! This plane is not yet a finished product and that's why we have engineers, after all. It's hardly fair to criticize them before things are finished. Only the Arrow flew perfectly straight from the design board to the runway! OUR engineers were unique and that's why NASA needed so many of them to put a man on the Moon!

I hope you didn't include me in your tally, Michael! For about the zillionth time, I'm NOT a conservative! I'm more a classic Liberal and very much a populist. That last label is enough to put me outside of ANY category being bandied about on this board!

I don't see how this ethically equates to the sponsorship scandal, Star. Not even close! Oda was dealing with a choice of giving a grant to some special interest group. That is routine for all governments. AdScam was a case of STEALING grant monies and giving them to the Liberal Party! It was the most unethical thing ever done by a political party ever, at least in Canada.

Yeah! Buckabeer! What a great campaign slogan! Best I've heard for an election yet! At last, something inspiring!

Well, if Bev Oda has been caught fair and square then I don't see any problem. Hang her! It would make all the other politicians a lot more careful!

Yeah, our politics does seem to always screw things up for the worse, doesn't it? No matter which party is in power. The Arrow, the EH-101, now the F-35 - it really doesn't seem to matter! We can argue about whether or not we could find a use for some cheap but really quiet diesel subs but still, did we have to let them rust before we brought them home? While letting one catch on fire? Coming from the electronic parts industry, I had direct experience selling to our government and the experience gave me a lifelong disrespect for how they operate! If the government bureaucracy had total control we'd still be living in the trees! For example, a lot of the first integrated circuits were sensitive to static electricity charges. That spark you get on a cold and dry winter morning when you pet your cat can destroy some semiconductor devices. So the industry adopted some packaging precautions. It took some years but eventually the military (and government in general) followed suit. Now, when first adopted such integrated circuits were new and rare so they tended to be purchased in small quantities. Individual special wrappings made sense and the specs were based on that assumption. However, by the time the military got around to adopting the specs these devices were much more common and usually purchased in much larger quantities. So packaging standards were modified and improved, not just for individual pieces but for bulk quantities. So when the military ordered in bulk they insisted on the old, individually-packaged specs! Since electronic parts tended to cost pennies to just a few dollars each, this added HUGE costs to the vendor to conform to the old-fashioned packaging. Most often, the vendor learned the hard way, since military orders in Canada were not that common. He would have quoted and won the order based on modern packaging, then had the package returned to be re-packaged at his expense! Now, ordinary folks would assume that governments institute purchasing systems in order to protect our tax money. Wrongo! That's just the official line! In practice, they couldn't care less. They just want their system to be followed, so it will APPEAR to protect tax money! What happened in the electronics industry was that vendors soon learned to pad on lots of extra charges to government quotes, to protect themselves from the costs of all the extra paperwork (that no other customers demanded!) and handling precautions the government demanded. Many vendors just said "Screw it!" as not worth the trouble. The military in Canada bought relatively few electronic parts compared to private industry so a lot of vendors stopped quoting. Sometimes it got actually amusing when a part was needed that had only a few vendor sources. The government would be simultaneously BEGGING a vendor to quote and supply a part yet DEMANDING that same vendor comply with obsolete packaging specs, because they couldn't find a source! Those few vendors that would play the government's game all charged inflated prices, 'cuz they knew they had little competition. Our government successfully evolved a system that cost us MORE! Another example comes from about 1989, when I worked for an older company that among a lot of other things, sold replacement aircraft parts to our government. I remember a co-worker laughing one morning. He had received a quote for a generator for a CF-5 airplane. He had received this quote many times before. Apparently, he had located 2 units which may have been among the last in the world for this obsolete aircraft. He had kept quoting on this basis but the sticker was that one clause in the quote demanded that the vendor GUARANTEE this part would be available for another 25 years! There was no way in Sweet Fanny's Apples that a vendor would be stupid enough to make such a guarantee! The aircraft was already DECADES obsolete! Nobody was making such generators anymore! If one could have been found, it would have been like finding a part for a Model T! The markup for an obsolete part would have been exorbitant! Of course, another clause on the quote demanded that we hold our price for those 25 years! I don't know how it eventually worked out. I know that we constantly refused to make such a stupid commitment and our military purchasing department just kept sending and re-sending the quote. This CF-5 example is why I favour Canada buying the F-35, to at least try to make sure we will have a reasonably modern aircraft for as long as possible. My experience has convinced me that if we go with some CF-18 variant we will be flying that old plane for another 50 years! And trying to find vendors that will guarantee parts availability for another 50! Did you know that the Space Shuttle flies with Intel 286 micorprocessors? That's because that was the last version that Intel was willing to get mil-qualified! By that time they had realized that the volumes purchased by the military was mice nuts in comparison to that bought in the commercial world. Besides, there were commercial grade quality specs that EXCEEDED the mil and aerospace specs! Because they couldn't get more modern computer chips to their old-fashioned specs, NASA chose to stay with the old ones. The very computer you use to participate on this board is lightyears more sophisticated than Shuttle technology, GWiz! Enough of my rant! If I could have become more jaded it wouldn't have bothered me so much...

Why shouldn't Mulroney have a lot of input? The party is far more like his old PCs than anything like Reform!

Well, we are talking about politicians here, aren't we? Seriously, we really don't know enough. Where did this thing come from? Did Bev Oda make it herself? Was it done under her direction, or was it just a doodle by one of her staffers? Could it have been left in a reception room by anybody who walked in off the street? We just don't know! As I said, Oda IS a politician and thus can't be trusted carte blanche, by definition. That being said, I can't help but feel that if she had have been a Liberal there would already be at least 10 posters pointing out what I just pointed out to give room for her to be innocent.

"Sorry, Wild Bill, you lost me here... I'm stricly a realist... I won't go into why trying to drop things from space is idiotic and scientifically impossible... EMPs and Nukes? Lets keep it real..." Sauce for the goose, GWiz? I was talking about PRESENT technology! Here you are blue-skying extrapolations over the next few decades as if they are fact! I'm reminded of something told to me by one of my favourite "hard" scifi writers, Robert Heinlein. He wrote about how he kept volumes of news clippings and followed trends, plotting curves galore to see where they would end up. One curve had to do with the speed of human transportation. As you would imagine, the curve began long and flat, with only a slight rise that near the end suddenly rose very steeply as we went from feet to horses to sail, from steam to cars, rockets and so on. A straight extrapolation of this curve showed we would have faster than light travel before the end of the 1980's! Of course, we didn't! The thing about predicting by use of trends and extrapolations is that Mother Nature often has limits and unforeseen factors that derail a curve. The fact that the speed of light is an absolute that can't be exceeded made his curve useless. It's the same with your predictions. Experience and knowledge may give you a high degree of confidence as to their validity but that doesn't make them Gospel. Someone who knows something you don't can make a prediction of yours worthless. That doesn't mean they can't be fun to kick around! I just wouldn't be so righteous, if I were you.

Someone forwarded me a link to this guy Pat Condell: http://www.patcondell.net/ He's a Brit who did a youtube clip commenting on the recent kerfluffle in Britain over some politico's criticism of official multiculturalism. He comments that in practice it is merely "giving muslims whatever they want and being careful not to offend them, or else you're called racist! And it never works the other way around!" Unlike some critics, he talks calmly and sensibly. He doesn't seem to be a wingnut or a racist himself at all. He's just a man who believes that multiculturalism has failed in his country because it got perverted into political correctness for the benefit of one faith alone. He's got some evidence on his side. I thought that although we are not as far down that path as Britain we certainly seem to have taken a few steps that way at times. Might be some grounds for discussion.

If they ARE doing such things, at least Uncle Sam and Israel have enough shame to try to hide it! Too many damn Arab groups BRAG about it!

How does the poet know that this is the only such planet? We have just started seeing planets over the past few years. We've only begun to learn about their orbital distances and if some are in the "habitable" zone. We are learning more each day but so far one thing we have learned is that it appears there are ZILLIONS of planets! There is nothing at all remarkable or unique about them existing! It is starting to appear that the odds of planets being very similar to the Earth are extremely good. So I ask again, how does the poet know this? Are we expected to accept this as truth?

This is where I guess you and I will never agree, BM. You see, to me there's a vast difference between a targeted retaliation and an unfocused one. It's the TACTICS that offend me! Some Palestinian group is pissed at Israel. That's not hard to understand, even if you may or may not agree with their motivations. However, too often their response is to randomly fire rockets into civilian areas, or worse yet, blow up some busloads of kids and civilians! When Israel responds civilians are collateral damage. When Palestinians respond civilians seem to be the actual targets! I just can't get past this! To me, such an approach is unforgiveable, like trying to forgive Satan. I have always believed that indiscriminate revenge is wrong. It's like if someone beats you up you spend the rest of your life choosing victims at random and beating THEM up! That's the moral code of a psychopath, not a sane human being. I've used this simile before but it's as if someone punches you in the face and says "Sorry, but someone else punched me so they MADE me hit you!" Me, I wouldn't care! If you punch me you are my enemy, no matter why you did it. Anyone who doesn't hurt me is not, by definition. So to me, while I can sometimes see that Israel may not always have taken the right action, when someone targets civilians they have crossed the line that separates us from beasts. At that point, any form of retaliation is justified, since they essentially have declared themselves no longer to be human! I felt the same way as a young hippy about the US military leadership when we started hearing reports of American atrocities. It was one of the things that made me share the hate for LBJ and Nixon. It was the reason I hated the IRA. It's why I lost respect for the native protesters at Caledonia. To me, it seems just another form of racism. I just can't side with racists!

Yep! But that's not all! McGuinty has been closing down coal and gas fueled generating stations. He claims that they are dirty and he will replace the needed power with sources that are more "green". There are several problems with what he is doing. First off, technology to clean up coal and gas burners has dramatically improved these past few years. McGuinty could have save a LOT of money buying that technology to clean up the existing generators. Of course, if he did that he couldn't claim the same "green" credit as for wind and solar. If he had have renovated and kept the old generators he would have had a lot of relatively clean power from sources that are easily revved up and down, dependent on the needs of the power grid. Instead, he went with programs like FIT and MicroFIT, that pay a huge subsidy for power with a guarantee to take it all, NEVER asking the producer to throttle down! What he's done is gone with "solutions" that LOOK good, rather than those that DO good! It all started way back in the early years of his first term, when he shot his mouth off about closing "dirty" coal and gas generators and then found out after he made the promise that if he followed through he had no power to replace them! Ontario would have been in a blackout situation! This of course was just an example of his ignorance! He had no idea that if you take away some generating capacity you have to get it from somewhere else! He and his people are just not technically aware. No doubt they thought everyone could just have a few extra plugs put in their walls. So he had to backtract, delaying the shutdowns for a few years. This was embarrassing, but not nearly as embarrassing as abandoning the idea alltogether! At all costs he must close down those older plants. Renovation with modern clean technology was out of the question. He chose FIT programs as his alternative and he really doesn't care if they cost all of us big time on our electricity bills! He explains that away by claiming there are no other choices if we want to save the planet! I think that he has made a big political mistake. Traditionally, EVERYONE wants to save the planet! They just don't want to have to pay too much for it! It's easy to kick in some bucks when you're flush but when you're hurting you feel differently about it. And these past few years Ontario has been hurting. Because McGuinty didn't understand how much and how fast electricity bills were going to rise as a result of his policies he's now in a bind. He's trying to turn the issue onto his Conservative opponents by demanding they reveal their own solutions but Hudak isn't stupid! If he revealed practical solutions McGuinty has more than enough time to steal them for himself and have the issue fade away before the next election! The Tories are going to wait until the campaign actually starts to reveal anyone of a number of better options, options that will make it obvious that McGuinty wasn't very smart.