Wild Bill

Quite right! And we should also consider, who has always wanted an elected Senate? And who has opposed the idea?

Political philosophy definitions have changed greatly over the years. Hence all the confusion. Modern terms seem to identify a leftwinger as a 'heart' person, as opposed to a right winger who leads from his 'head'. The terms are usually pejorative, in that it is assumed that the person named has only one of the attributes and lacks the other. In other words, rightwingers have no heart and leftwingers have no brain! There does seem to be a bit of truth to these generalizations. Rightwingers tend to be the ones asking how will we afford some goal or even if it is a good goal to chase. Leftwingers tend to take those points for granted, chalking opposition up to "rightwing meanness" and " a lack of intelligence to see the nobility of the goal". Meanwhile, rightwingers are accusing lefties of giving sugar water to crying babies for the ego boo of making them smile while being too stupid to notice they're causing the babies' teeth to rot out, while lefties accuse rightwingers of hating babies! As with all such emotional generalizations, the terms aren't always very accurate. The short answer is, many assume you're a rightwinger because you tend to post rational and logical arguments. If you stuck to emotionalism and ad hominem cutdowns of your opponents you'd be assumed to be a lefty.

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/276749--blatchford-protesters-clash-at-book-signing "About a dozen protesters from a group called Six Nations Solidarity stood outside her appearance Tuesday night at Chedoke Presbyterian Church. They handed out bookmarks which claimed Blatchford's book Helpless! Caledonia's Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy and How the Law Failed All of Us did not present a true picture of the dispute because it did not provide context for the land claim and only focused on “violence and lawlessness” that grew out the dispute. Two carried a sign calling the Globe and Mail reporter “Bad News” and all wore white lapel pins that said “Bad News.” Devon Ridge, a spokesperson for the protesters, said the views Blatchford is presented encourage racism “and are racist.” Now we see more of the story. If you read the entire link you'll see that the OP refers also to Six Nations protesters at University of Waterloo. So it is not an issue of "free speech and leftists" but rather "free speech and Six Nations protesters"! I've often said that some SN spokespeople seem to define racism as anyone who disagrees with them. Now we see they also define free speech as only applying to those who agree with them! Thugs and bullies, the lot of them. What's more, the people running the meetings are 'pussies' for not standing up to them. There's no difference between what these native protesters have done on these two occasions and having some David Duke Klansman crash the party. It's simply disgusting that we allow such things to happen. I sincerely hope that if the SN protesters hold a meeting someone does unto them as they have done undo these others and prevents their guests from speaking. To give a nerdy Star Trek reference : "These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs but for the Kohms as well! They must apply to EVERYONE or they mean NOTHING!"

You've put your finger on it, Mr. Ashley! I've always been amazed that most people think governments target the rich more than the working man for their tax base. Here's a simple way to see what's really going on. Set up an Excel spreadsheet. Take a wild guess as to the number of working people in Canada making whatever you think is an average annual wage and enter it into a cell. Label the cell if you want to get fancy. Set up another cell to total the income of working people available to be taxed. Now set up another cell for the number of millionaires in Canada. Again, just plug in whatever you yourself feel is reasonable. I'll explain in a minute. Then go ahead and set up a cell to multiply this figure by a million dollars. You will instantly see that the amount of money available from millionaires to be taxed is mice nuts compared to the amount from ordinary working people! Why did I say you could just pull numbers out of your ass? Because the difference is so extreme that even if you just use your own guesses, based on your own personal experience or even prejudices, you will still get an answer that makes the difference very clear! It's not worth researching for accurate numbers, although of course you can do that if you wish. What's important is to get a clear view of the "Big Picture" and not get bogged down in picking apart the model and not the point. Governments tax the working person 'cuz that's where the REAL money is! Period and end of story!

And what was their message? Seems like it was "Hi! Nice to see that you've gone to a lot of time and trouble to have yourself a meeting with a speaker that interested you. However, we're here to act like douchebags to make sure that your meeting will be ruined and you will not get to hear your speaker! We're doing this as an exercise of our right to free speech. As for your right to have your own meeting, too bad, so sad, we simply don't respect that. Now, aren't all you casual observers out there in mainstream Canada impressed with us?" I mean, calling Blatchford a racist? That just shows their ignorance! Anyone who has ever followed her writings would know that to accuse her of racism is about as ridiculous as accusing Mother Theresa of the same crime! They obviously were just looking for a convenient strawman symbol and Blatchford was the only one handy. Drama queens, the lot of them! Douchebags and thugs, as well. Just parasites who seek publicity by ruining someone else's parade. It takes wit and effort to plan and organize an event. Any adolescent moron can walk in and disrupt it. God help me if one of them ever turns out to be my surgeon!

Quelle surprise! They all do and have done for decades. Biggest drunk I ever met was the candidate the Liberals once parachuted into my riding. To my knowledge, the only party that took a stand about this practice was the Reform Party. They strongly believed that the grassroots in any riding should vote on their candidates at a nomination meeting. Afterwards, there were a few times when some KKK type was trying to sneak in and got caught with his pillow case on his head. These were immediately tossed out. One time the discovery came too late to come up with another candidate so Reform let that riding go unopposed. I found it a significant sign of character that the Liberal candidate in the same riding also got exposed in scandal but the Liberals ran with him anyway, saying "What were we supposed to do? There's no time to get another candidate!" Of course, after the PCs and Reform/Alliance merged this idea couldn't get buried fast enough! Just one more sign that the tiny PC rump actually took over the larger party, at least as far as philosophy goes. Once again, I wonder why Manning ever bothered.

You'll love it, Scrib! Better get a copy quickly before CR and his crowd start burning it...

For once, I have to agree with Nicky. In fact, I couldn't have said it better myself! I would only add that the Tories are much richer than the other parties and can afford to "raise the flag" in ridings where they have only a slim to none chance. They developed their fundraising techniques during their Reform Party days. Their demographic seems much more prepared to "put their money where their mouth is". Forgive me but I can't resist saying that the other parties's supporters seem perpetually prepared to "take the money out of other people's mouths"! With the new laws about getting your donations directly from the people and not large organizations the Tories have enjoyed a huge advantage. So you have a riding where the Liberals and NDP don't see much of a chance, have to watch their pennies anyway and have few folks even ASKING for signs on their lawns - as Nicky has pointed out. Seems to me like you're carping at someone with no legs for not dancing for you!

"Whatever happens, we have got, The Maxim gun, and they have not!" ---Hillaire Belloc Oh damn, wait a minute. They HAVE got the Maxim gun! We sold it to them and showed them how to use it! We should have pursued a "Star Trek Prime Directive" and never interfered in the culture of that part of the world. After all, they have not invented anything new technically in about a thousand years. Culturally, they appear to have traded being an area of education, innovation and learning for diehard religious fundamentalism.

You know, when people come a bit your way it's pretty stupid salesmanship to insult them, making sure they won't come any farther...

The question is, will they use it? After all, Fantino was McGuinty's stooge. Certainly provincial liberals will not make any effort against Fantino. Will the federal Liberals break step with their provincial cousins?

August, Fantino's history is not that widely known outside of the specific areas where he caused bad feeling. It's almost as if he has a guardian angel taking care of the mainstream media coverage for him. Whatever, although nationally he is known as a "tough, law and order figure" he has had a number of incidents over the years in areas under his authority where he was revealed as a bully who has no hesitation in bending the law to his own aims. The most obvious example is his term as OPP commissioner where he ran a policy of letting the native protesters away with almost anything while locking up townspeople who often had done nothing but be witnesses. When people like Gary McHale or the Caledonia town council became too active in criticizing him he instructed his troops to find something, ANYTHING that could be used to charge McHale, finally coming up with some charge so obscure that it had never been used in a century or two! The charge was thrown out but not before it was used to keep McHale in jail overnight. He sent a letter to the Caledonia town council that essentially said that if any of the councilors dared to criticize the OPP policy he would deny the town police protection! There have been a number of other incidents. As long as things are quiet Fantino seems the dutiful figure but if someone crosses him or dares to criticize he has no hesitation in abusing them or "shooting the messenger". You are probably more familiar with the protest at OKA. Imagine if the Chief of the Quebec force refused to stand up to Lasagna and his band and put only the nearby Quebecois in jail. Fantino has managed to make a town of more than 40,000 people despise him! Yet somehow most of Canada has not paid attention to Fantino's exploits. Why, I really don't know but it is truly a fault in how we care about each other's rights. Meantime, Harper chooses him for his candidate in a suburban Toronto riding. So those of us who do not respect Fantino for his actions are disgusted with the idea of him being an MP, Tory or otherwise. It offends our personal values. That is why we might support the CPC this election but NOT Fantino! Hence the admittedly odd sight of Tory supporters helping a Fantino opponent.

"Metis are not First Nation. There is a distinction, girl . Maybe you should go study that too." Well TM, there's an answer for you! I guess you're not "pur laine" enough! If that's not a racist attitude I don't know what is. Just another example of how the disease does not exclusively strike white folks. I've no doubt that you and I could get along, despite my being white! I would cheerfully buy you a beer any day. However, it might be a good idea not to include CR. I'm convinced he would immediately start a violent protest over his rights to the entire brewery!

Your statement presupposes that courts are perfect and always do their jobs. Families and society at large have a right to ask questions and get answers as to the cops doing their job properly. This is also a basic principle. One could ask if you agree that they had the right to answers, or if the court actually properly did its job in serving justice. A high profile police chief often tends to get more than the benefit of the doubt in such cases. Also, it's common knowledge that the "system" has a tendency to protect its own. Perhaps those are the principles with which YOU agree!

"Because on-reserve property cannot be mortgaged by a private lender" I've known this to be true for years, Mr. Shwa. It is perhaps the most important and unfair thing about the Indian Act. By denying natives the right to individual clear title of their property they do not have any collateral to offer for a loan or a mortage. Every car dealership near a reserve knows better than to give a reserve native a loan for an automobile. This is what happens when you put socialist social engineers in charge of an entire people and let them run wild for over a century. They successfully manage to put ALL the people under their charge into a state of equal poverty! Except for many chiefs, of course. I guess some pigs are always more equal than others. The entire Indian Act should be scrapped! I've heard some bands are exercising the option to get out of it, in order to enjoy the individual right to property which is one of the biggest assets for someone to climb out of poverty circumstances. I wish them every success!

I would agree about building settlements on occupied territory but that's about it. It's all well and good to talk about "pushing both sides to compromise". We've been doing that for decades. The problem is, it all boils down to getting the Palestinians to renounce violence FIRST! Israel tried handing back land. As I said, their enemies just seized the opportunity to have closer rocket launcher sites! Israel has to have some confidence that they will not have rockets randomly landing on the heads of their men, women and children. They need to expect that they can walk their streets without being blown up. So far all that's happened is that Israel has been made a fool repeatedly, like Charlie Brown and Lucy holding the football. Only if and when this problem is addressed would Israel be less than a full fledged blooming idiot to return any occupied land. If someone keeps whacking you in the head it just doesn't make sense to "encourage compromise on both sides". The first necessary step is to get that person to stop whacking you. Afterwards, it's much easier to compromise without the headache.

Hello? Earth to Blueblood? Contraband cigarettes are "not that big an issue"? Here in Ontario the official line is that about HALF of all cigarettes being sold are contraband from factories on native reserves, run by what amounts to organized crime! By 'official' I mean the figure the government admits to. That means its probably even higher! We're talking MILLIONS of dollars here! The lost revenue from the taxes is huge. It reminds me of the last time cigarette smuggling was such a problem, in the early 90's. My wife and I used to go cross-border shopping into Niagara Falls, NY. I was a pipe smoker back then. I used to buy a 1 0z pouch of pipe tobacco for around $11 Cdn. Across the border, I would buy 12 oz packages for $10 U$! If you do the simple math that works out to $0.83 per oz U$. At the time our exchange rate was less than .70, so that would mean maybe $1.20 CDN. $1.20 Canadian for an ounce of pipe tobacco that at home cost me $11! Giving the going rate for an ounce of weed at the time, it was more profitable to smuggle pipe tobacco than marijuana! Madness, just madness.

Show me where Israel has launched a full scale invasion of its neighbours'lands. Show me where Israel has deliberately targeted civilians. As I said, sometimes there's collateral damage. That is NOT the same as deliberately targeting innocents! Show me an example of an Israeli suicide bomber. Show me an video clip of Israelis beheading a Palestinian prisoner with a knife! If you believe that the two cultures are morally equivalent then I'm afraid you and I have no common ground on this issue. Targeting innocents to me is the mark of animals, not human beings.

Well, by that logic, I guess the Liberals have absolutely no reason to fell any guilt about AdScam! After all, they never promised to forego corruption, therefore they CAN be corrupt and not face criticism!

Oh, I definitely believe that there is considerable effort being expended to make us a society of sheep! I hadn't thought about the emphasis on education being coupled with a lack of experience before. Thanks for the new meme! It's triggering a host of new ideas in my brain! It explains some things much better than I had thought before. I have been well aware for years that there is a belief out there that unless you have passed an accredited course you can't possibly know about something. Job interviews often are little more than presenting the appropriate diploma as some kind of 'passport'. If you have a wealth of experience it is ignored. If you have freshly graduated from an appropriate course you are considered for the job. It's a great system if you're a teacher! Sadly, a sidebar to this premise is that it is impossible to learn on your own and that talent is not a factor. We now seem to have a course for virtually everything! Back in the 30's, 40's, 50's and even 60's you were expected to attain a minimum education, unless you wanted to be a doctor or an engineer. University was for those who wanted to advance and perhaps discover new knowledge, or at least teach it to new generations. Now it seems often to be a "job factory". Consider journalism! There was a time when a kid showed some moxey and was hired as a cub reporter. He worked his way up and eventually might become a war correspondent like Ernie Pyle. Today, the chances of being hired without a degree in journalism are slim to none. There was a time when most people did their own plumbing repairs, unless it was a REALLY big problem! When I was growing up kids still built their own hifi amplifiers and speaker cabinets and built their own hot rod cars. This was direct experience that often lead to a future job. Now the diploma is everything. The kid may be a total butterfingers with a wrench but if he has an honour degree in auto mechanics he gets the job. This might be worth a thread of its own. There's something deeper here that we might ferret out. The denial of experience implies that experience is unnecessary to be considered an expert. An academic with enough letters after his name outranks someone who might actually have DONE the task! Someone has no need to go out and challenge the world. They can simply spend another year at University and be considered just as capable. It also might have a tie-in to that old socialist shibboleth that "all workers are equal - it's just a matter of training and education". That premise is an obvious crock! Train me all you want but you're a fool to let someone like me be your cook! Thanks again, Pliny! I'll be chewing on this one for a while!

The 'Gateway' argument is a logical fallacy. Just because a heroin user may have started smoking pot doesn't follow both ways, i.e. a pot smoker must become a heroin user. That heroin user may also have started off with Aspirin. Or alcohol. Does that make Molson's a gateway drug to heroin? When I was a young hippy kid, I did a lot of 'soft' drugs. In that generation the vast majority did. We all knew the difference between pot and heroin, or mescaline and amphetamines. If there was anything teenagers knew about back then it was drugs. We all could have passed a pharmacist's exam! There were of course some other kids we knew who went on to harder drugs. There always were and there always will be. I don't believe that the percentages of addicts were any different then than they are today. Except for those drugs that actually cause a nearly immediate physical addiction, most folks can take or leave recreational drugs, just as they can take or leave alcohol. That includes cocaine! If everyone who had done cocaine in the 80's had become an addict half of the North American population would still be in rehab clinics right now. There is always a small percentage of human beings that 'have a hole inside' that they need to fill with some kind of addiction. I'm not sure if its genetic, psychological or what but we've all known such people. They do something and they plunge in whole hog till they are addicted. It could be heroin, pot, alcohol, gambling - these folks will find something! In fact, if you get them clean of one substance or behaviour they invariably find something else. If you watch those "Dr. Phil's Sober House for Celebrity Losers" shows note how many of the recovering addicts always have a cigarette in their mouths. Most of my hippy generation haven't touched those recreational drugs in decades. Why weren't we all 'gated' to heroin? Hell, for the past 10-20 years I'm lucky if my alcohol intake amounts to a case of beer per year! And that would be a case of 12! With our crowd drugs of any kind were always a social thing. As you get older you and your friends tend to move apart. Your lifestyles are so varied that they preclude much common time for old friends to spend together. It's like drinking alone - most people just don't, unless they have a problem. Sorry, Sir B. but it would appear you BELIEVED that "Reefer Madness" movie! One toke of pot and you're hooked on heroin! Next thing you know, you're engaging in promiscuous, indiscrimate sex, diving out a window thinking you can fly and finally, thinking that wind power will LOWER your monthly electricity bill!

You quote the official line very well. Your own experience doesn't contradict it so for you that's good enough. I have direct experience to the contrary. To me, that would indicate that the system is not perfect. Sometimes some folks get it and sometimes they don't. It all depends on luck.

Now Scrib, you know it only matters if a Tory sins! In fact, its only a sin if a Tory does it! Just ask a Liberal!

:lol: Seriously, it very nearly passed! The trend over the past few decades is obvious and the budget pressures on the California state government are not likely to get any better. The temptation to save billions in trivial court charges and costs will only grow. California is not the only state considering a "Prop 19", as well. I think it will happen sooner rather than later. However, if "repealing Prohibition" runs true to form and drastically reduces the price how will Canadian criminals be able to afford American guns, heroin and coke? Where will the money come from to bribe our politicians?

I'll call BS this time! My daughter is in her 3rd year of University. While she has managed to get some student loans, they were NOT guaranteed available! The government assesses your family's income and that of the student. They make some mystical calculations. Quite often someone is turned down, for no reason that makes sense. Your dad may be driving a Lada and your neighbour drives a BMW yet you get turned down and your neighbour student gets all he or she needs. You appeared to imply that student loans are a guaranteed source of student financing. My own daughter's direct experience and that of many of her friends contradicts that premise.