Wild Bill

I pondered that, Michael. Especially since I really didn't want to give her that much attention anyway! Still, I believe it's truly a new thread. If I had have posted it in one of the others it could have been considered thread drift. The essential point is some smartass university louts successfully stopped someone's right to free speech. The fact that it was a dillhole like Coulter is irrelevant. It shows that for a frightening large segment of our population, particularly those on the left, free speech is just a fuzzy idea they truly don't understand, that they support only for those who agree with them. I hate to quote Rush Limbaugh but even a stopped clock is right twice a day! He once said that "To a liberal, freedom of speech means the freedom to agree!" Sadly, these yahoos have proven him right!

Here's the cite: http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/abc/home/contentposting.aspx?isfa=1&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V3&showbyline=True&date=true&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20100324%2fcoulter_cancellation_100324 " 24/03/2010 10:49:43 AM CTV.ca News Staff Free speech advocates say university administrators should be embarrassed that protesters forced right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter to cancel her appearance at the University of Ottawa, an event they claim is an attack on Canadian freedoms. Coulter, a well-known U.S. media personality, was due to make an appearance at the university on Tuesday evening, as part of a three-city tour of Canadian campuses. But the event was called off after hundreds of screaming protesters showed up and organizers deemed it to be too dangerous to continue." I'd be the first to proclaim Ann Coulter to be a bona fide dillhole. Others also may remember how she came to a Canadian talk show and claimed that Canada had officially fought as America's ally in Viet Nam, refusing to be corrected. She makes Fox News sound like the BBC World Service. Still, you either believe in free speech or you don't. You can't say you support free speech and then qualify it by saying you shouldn't actually speak freely. You can't claim to support free speech if you only support those who agree with you. Those who threatened violence to shut down her meeting are nothing but fascists, by definition! I have no respect for them. Better for them to have boycotted her meeting or better yet, gone there, asked her awkward questions and laughed at her!

Like most folks, you are assuming that the goal is to reduce our hydro bills. Sez who? The goal is to get votes for McGuinty! These schemes are never driven by techies but rather by politicians. They have two very different aims. That's why we always see such huge technical holes in these plans. They never seem to work like they said they would. That's because the way they implemented them they COULDN'T work like they said they would! There was a time when we were told that the nuclear power plants would give us cheap power for a zillion years! A techie would have agreed. Build them right and they certainly could! It was politicians who used the projects as major political slush funds for themselves and their friends. That's where all the money went. Now the plants are getting old. They may not be around much longer. We have over 30 Billion dollars of debt from using them that we are still all paying off each month on our hydro bills. Yet some people blame nuclear power! Talk about letting politicians off the hook! Other countries build reactors and seem to run them profitably. It's obvious that WE did something wrong! It doesn't matter what government scheme for power they come up with. We will NOT see any savings as individual ratepayers! Just as with gasoline, if too many people get gas miser cars the price of gas goes up to cover our savings. We are taxed until we scream. As things change the powers that be tweak the "scream point", that's all. Those of us old enough to remember recall when we changed over to unleaded gasoline, "to save the environment"! Unleaded gas cost us a few pennies extra. Any techie knew this was a rip! Lead was an ADDITIVE to gasoline! How could it be more expensive to NOT put it in! Back in the 80's we began to see more diesel cars on the road. They saved us BIG TIME! Diesel was half the price of regular gas and the engines got much better mileage. Suddenly, the price of diesel shot up to nearly the price of regular. Why? Diesel fuel requires much less refining than regular gasoline. It's much cheaper to make. Why did the price rise? To keep us gouged for the same amount of money if we switched to diesel. Every one wants a piece of us. Governments are no exception. They run on taxing us for gas, electricity or whatever. They want our votes for going "green" but they don't want to lose any tax revenue. For that matter, the Greens have never said they would give us a break either! All their talk is about saving the planet, not helping to ensure poor Joe taxpayer has a bit more in his pocket to buy his family a bigger turkey come Christmas. Hell, they're on the side of the turkeys! If you want to really save money on energy, there's only one safe way to do it. You have to build your own wind, solar and whatever installation and DON"T have anything to do with any government programs! Sure McGuinty will pay you 80 cents per kilowatt today for feeding your solar power back to the grid. How long will he be able to afford to pay such a ridiculously high amount? If it gets too expensive for him, what's to stop him or whoever is in power from canceling the deal and leaving you trying to pay off your installation without it? The problem is that this just isn't possible yet for the average homeowner. He just doesn't know how! Still, there are techies out there that have been quietly getting off the grid. They can figure out how to build their own generators and don't need to get an "easy" package from WalMart. They've learned how to pay NOTHING for heating and electricity! It's not easy and there's still some initial costs. It's also FAR harder to do with an older home than with a new one built from scratch! Still, it is happening, slowly but surely. If you wait for the government or the Greens to save you, you'll be paying out till your dying day.

My point is how can you be so sure that it is an officially held policy and not a gaffe by some flunky? Your argument seems to be that it is a duly debated, officially held plank of the CPC. That seems to be to be a bit of a stretch, based on not liking them in the first place! This ALWAYS happens with any gaffe by the CPC! They all get labeled and tagged as on homogenous group. Yet when a Liberal like Hedy Fry talks about burning crosses on lawns in BC it's excused as "Well, that's just Hedy! You can't pretend ALL Liberals are like her!" From where I sit, just because you support any particular party does not give all its members immunity from being loopy...

I know exactly who Stalin was! And much of what he did! That's not my point. I referred to the logic behind the argument. Your answer is that "Well, I am RIGHT about my label!" That's your opinion, not a fact.

Well, if that makes sense to you Molly then by that logic I guess I should label all left wing people as Stalinists! There's a word for prejudging and labeling people as a group by the actions of a few...

Exactly! This professor labeled her simply by sending his cautionary email. I'm willing to bet the bottle of Tequila I've put up for that crazy Tory at the airport that no one will find any cases of leftwing speakers ever having been "cautioned" by an HRC spokesperson. In the world of the politically correct, only right wing folks can speak evil. Coulter will no doubt drop the case when she finds out just how long a process is involved! Meanwhile, she has had her fun. Because she is a high profile American, she will get a lot of coverage on CNN. The entire world will wonder just what the hell is going on in Canada with HRC star chambers. It will be internationally embarrassing, as well it should be. The best way to handle such worms as the HRC is to pull off the rocks and expose them to the light of day. The process of discontinuing HRC hearings is likely already started. It will be done slowly, so as to minimize any embarrassing fuss. Also likely is that the existing laws for REAL COURTS will be strengthened at the same time. Real courts have checks and balances to ensure fairness for both sides. The problem with the HRC system is that they DO NOT have the same fairness! I'm thinking of that restauranteur in Burlington who was forced into the absurd position of having to serve a customer who smoked medical marijuana in the lineup to enter his facility, while the fact that it was directly beside children and families also waiting to be served could cost him his business license! I haven't heard how the case ended up. Perhaps it's still pending. Originally it was reported that he intended to "cave" to the pothead who made the complaint for the simple reason that as the accused he had to fund his own defense with the HRC and he simply couldn't afford it! Then he found out that if he did he would be in violation of his restaurant license. Talk about your rock and a hard place! The HRC system as it stands is really just a tool for the politically correct to exert force upon anyone who offends them. Providing a defense for those who can't afford one on their own is one of the fundamental principles of a civilized nation. To NOT do the same with an HRC case is not only unfair but simply cruel! The worst thing about this affair is that Ann Coulter is hardly a good example to drive this issue! Yet that knob in Ottawa handed it to her on a platter!

Well, that's YOUR take on it! Seems a bit of a stretch to me. That the official policy of the CPC would be so outrageous as you imply sounds more like you're saying they wanted to commit a quick suicide at the polls. Even Hedy Fry wouldn't be THAT stupid! I just can't buy that ANY politicians would be THAT dumb!

You can't say that with certainly yet, Molly. There hasn't been enough time. You note that the initial stance was over-ruled. What does that tell you? Obviously, whoever first wrote up Canada's position didn't do it right! He or she was corrected. That is no evidence of large numbers who held the initial viewpoint. It could have been as few as ONE, with a pen! It's not Harper's style to sack someone on the spot, with a big hue and cry, unless they did something REALLY bad! As I had posted before, we should wait until the next cabinet shuffle. Even though the problem was likely caused by some low level staffer Harper has shown us before that he holds the specific cabinet minister responsible for what happens in his cabinet. Most of the wording of policies and documents is actually done by low level aides and assistants fresh out of university. Someone higher up is supposed to give a final proof reading or edit. Once in a while we get an overworked or maybe just lazy minister who fails to give it the final check. That's when something like this happens. His tactic is usually to try to soft-pedal these gaffes, hoping they will blow over. If he made it too big a deal the opposition, especially the NDP would try to make it look like a crime against the universe, blowing it all out of proportion in an attempt to score political points. Still, we've seen that there is nothing wrong with his memory! I've offered up a bet of a bottle of tequila that next cabinet shuffle somebody's gonna pay for this one! We have to keep our perspective in such matters. We shouldn't confuse a bonehead mistake with a bonehead official policy, just because we don't happen to like a certain politician or party. They are ALL politicians! I'll take these sort of gaffes over those of the likes of Hedy Fry any day!

Anyone want to take my bet that next cabinet shuffle this guy is left out in the cold? I'm putting up a bottle of tequila, if there are any takers...

I can see we both appreciate the humour of hyperbole, msj! It should be easy to identify such folks! They always toot their own horn anyway! All we do is tip off sensible people (like us, natch!) to take down their names whenever we catch them bragging about what great "eco-warriors" they are. We put all our lists together first and THEN we pass the law forbidding them to buy any "coal" gas! Sorta like the HitchHikers' Guide to the Galaxy's "B" Ark concept...

This has been done for a very long time. The Nazis had huge plants to make fuel, since they were hampered by a lack of conventional oil sources. Granted, they were probably not that "green and clean". I would support a major effort to convert to using coal in such a manner, with one caveat. I would support a blanket ban on any member of the "green" movement from being allowed to buy any! After all, these people continually shoot down any and all alternatives as always being "too dirty", too "unworkable" or "not really as cheap as it appears". They always leave us with no alternative but simply to not have enough energy supply and to be forced to use less. Therefore, if someone comes up with an alternative that works I see no reason why the green movement should be allowed to share the benefits.

Hey, let's keep it in context here. I'm not denying there were SOME! It's just that I was there and I found them to be a relative minority in the party. Yet ever since Reform was formed the "anti-Reformers" tried to pretend that the party was ALL "bible thumping social conservatives"! It keeps happening even today, in this very forum. It's a belief that was never supported by actual facts. It was simply a propaganda tool of the other parties, about as well substantiated as the idea that every NDP supporter must be a Stalinist! You've done it again with your answer! As I said, I'm not Harper's biggest fan either but I do think its important to stay in the real world in these sort of discussions. What's more, my experience for decades has been that it is indeed the left that is more prone to ad hominem beliefs and tactics. This often backfires, as witness the famous scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where Arthur and his knights come across some peasants building with mud and gets treated to a leftwing diatribe about class oppression that is as hilarious as it is ridiculous, neatly skewering the typical British socialist self-appointed spokesperson.

And of course, the Opposition parties have strong principles and will bring down the government rather than allow it to follow the wrong course, even if it cost them at the polls! Some folks are making this contraception issue unnecessarily complicated. Ever hear of Occam's Razor? Perhaps someone involved in drafting Canada's position simply forgot? Or let's assume that person WAS some kind of religious fundamentalist! They allowed their own bias to colour the stand they formulated for the whole nation! Once Harper and the other power brokers saw it they promptly corrected the situation. To make another Python reference: "The person responsible has been SACKED!" To pretend that this is all evidence of a "hidden agenda" from the social conservatives "THAT REALLY RUN THAT PARTY" is just butt smoke! No one knows better than Harper that mixing religion with politics is disaster for any party in Canada. Lord knows he's been preaching that very point for over 20 years! Are people here suggesting that there's some kind of "fundamentalist underground" within the CPC that thinks they can "trick" Canada into becoming some kind of a fundamentalist Christian worker's Paradise? That Canadians would be so easily fooled? I'm not exactly Harper's biggest fan either but for Pete's sake, let's keep it real here, people!

"Reform roots"? What roots would those be? I was there from the beginning and you'll never meet a more devout agnostic libertarian than myself! I knew there were some "bible thumpers" in the party with fundamentalist views but I never actually ran across one. Stockwell Day turned out to be one but he hid it very well during his leadership campaign. As soon as he dropped the mask after becoming leader we all couldn't dump him fast enough! If you paid attention back then that was why we had a split within the caucus, with a dozen or so of the longest serving Reform MPs leaving to sit with the PCs. I vividly remember Harper preaching to us at meetings that if Reform allowed religion to interfere with its politics it would never win at the polls! Most of us agreed with him. I think you are describing a caricature of the Liberal propaganda about Reformers that had little to do with what most Reformers were actually like! I was one of the first members from Ontario. I served as a riding Director a couple of terms, attended meetings and rallies. I never saw any of these "social conservatives with a hidden agenda". Maybe they were hiding behind trees, staying incognito! Or like Monty Python's "Upper Class Twits", trying not to be seen! If they were, they sure fooled me!

Don't you see, if your numbers are true then there should be no cross border shopping! All those housewives would be losing money! That's why I don't accept your argument!

Hey, you can use Canada Homes and Gardens for all the difference it makes! YOU were the one that claimed we have no great disparity in living standards with the Americans! You don't have to convince me with cites to every newspaper you can find. For your premise to be valid you would have to convince those cross border shopping housewives. THAT would be an ambitious task! I can see you waving your Star and Globe articles in the faces of a sea of housewives, all looking at the contents of their purses and shaking their heads at you.

Why stop at being a province? Make Toronto its own country! It has little or nothing in common with the rest of Canada anyway. If the math is indeed true that Toronto gives more than it takes, why not put it to the test? If Toronto would elect a David Miller, somehow I really doubt if they could make it financially on their own.

You seem to have a handle on the different types of CPC members but you don't seem to be very accurate as to the numbers. The Bible Thumpers and the "Bubbas" were always a small minority. The old PC party held onto the Red Tory wing until the very end but you could have filled a phone booth with the low membership they had left when they finally merged with Reform/Alliance. Stockwell Day never represented the majority of Reformers. As soon as they saw threw his camouflage he was ousted from leadership faster than he had been voted in! The Blue Tories were always the overwhelming majority. If the present CPC were to fall apart it's much more likely they would lose the Red Tories, or the former PCs. Both of them! So who cares? Whether you like it or not, several million Canadians strongly support the Blue Tory faction. They are NEVER likely to vote Liberal! Certainly not NDP! Sometimes when reading your scenarios it would seem that your idea of an ideal parliament is Red Tories, Liberals and NDP. All choices would essentially be leftwing, just differing in degree. There would be no effective Blue choice at all! The ideological split is really a split between completely different philosophies. The Blues are "head" people. They think in terms of what's steak and what's only sizzle, of what adds up and what sounds like hype. They tend to be more utilitarian, trusting more what seems to work rather than what seems more academic. The Red folks seem more about "feelings", leading with their heart. They look for inspiration. They have lofty goals. They don't worry about the numbers if they have confidence in the goals and those they elected to achieve them. I don't think its possible to bridge the gap between these two camps. What the Reds call inspiration the Blues would call hype.To a Red, obsessing about numbers seems anal retentive and refusing to see "the big picture". To a Blue, phony numbers are the first tactics of dishonest spin. I've been slowly coming to the conclusion that the cultures of the different regions of Canada are drifting so far apart that perhaps separation will become the only viable option. Albertans are NEVER going to accept the modern Liberal party! They will always be a wild pipe dream for any Jack Layton. Other regions of the country have become so leftwing, wrapped in a sense of entitlement for government handouts and seeing bigger government as a solution rather than a problem, that they will never be happy with anything BUT a Liberal government! Breaking up the country would be painful, especially when it came to divvying up the national debt. Still, in the long run we might get along better as neighbours than as rivals for the government teat. Czechoslovakia had an amicable split. Now the Czech Republic and Slovakia are each free to follow the political philosophy that suits each best. Perhaps we could do the same.

What's new, TB? We have the choice of either a bastard or a buffoon! Neither sparks enthusiasm. Still, if push comes to shove people will still likely favour Harper over Ignatieff. Harper may be a bastard but a bastard is more likely to at least do an acceptable job, even if he's not very nice about it. Ignatieff doesn't have the same advantage as far as public perception. I've only had one choice I actually LIKED in my whole life! Even then, I knew that it was an anomaly! It's all just part of being Canadian, I guess.

Smallc, are you serious? You can make all the cites you want and call them hard facts and yet the experience of all those involved in crossborder shopping disproves those "hard facts"! The Star is in the business of selling newspapers, not spreading truth. Taxation info also comes from biased sources. No Canadian government source would ever want to clearly admit that Canada is not doing anything but wonderfully! A housewife crosses over the Rainbow Bridge into Niagara Falls, NY. She buys X amount of goods with Y amount of money. She hides the goods under her baby's diaper bag or whatever and when she gets home she knows quite well how much she has saved compared to buying at her local sources. You can not only wave your "hard facts" in her face but bop her over the head with them and she will not believe you. Why? Because you would be asking her to deny the basic math of her purchases that simply doesn't support your argument! THAT's what we mean by "life experience"! Believe it or not, some of us older folks actually argued some of the same points you expound today many years if not decades ago. Life exposes us to the hidden details of a situation or a premise, details that are usually lacking in an academic textbook. To get someone to revisit one of those arguments and accept your differing POV without A REALLY GOOD NEW POINT is difficult, considering we all have only so much spare time to waste! That's not to say that sometimes a younger, fresher observer might come up with a new slant on things, making it worth examining our beliefs to see if they still stand the test of time. However, using a Star article to deny the existence of hard cash left in a housewife's pocket is almost surrealistic! Money is money and a saving cannot be denied!

"Explain how a solar cell works"?? Hell, we've got posters in this very thread who claim that our sun is the centre of our galaxy! Talk about your "techie challenged"! As I like to say, they dropped hard sciences in school shortly after their bean sprouts in that jar of tissue paper popped up and died! And they snottily insist we respect their opinion!

Perhaps I'm unique in my view but I have an impression of equalization payments that hasn't been mentioned so far. It seems to me to be just another politician's scam! Consider, Ottawa takes money from the "rich" provinces and gives to the "poor". OTTAWA has taken the credit for the money the money the "have not" provinces received. No one ever said "Thanks, Ontario!" or more recently "Thanks, Alberta!" This system has been in place for generations and nobody paid attention. Why? Because none of the "rich" provinces has been hurting! When folks are comfortable nobody pays close attention to their taxes! That's the true secret to successful taxation. Squeeze 'em just until they barely notice and keep it there! Have-not provinces didn't just suddenly develop cheaper university tuition or social programs. They've had them in place for years. It's just that if you lived in Ontario or now Alberta you didn't bother to look! Why? Again, you were comfortable and had other things on your mind. Equalization programs tend to become perpetual! They prop up provincial budgets, removing the pressure to develop other sources of revenue. Governments only try to develop more business for tax revenue when they're hurting! It's human nature when you're comfortable to slack off. Does anyone seriously believe that governments are made up of "worker ants" and not "grasshoppers"? What's changed is that today Ontario IS hurting! Some of it is McGuinty and some of it is global economic conditions. Doesn't matter. It doesn't change the fact that a lot of Ontarioans have started to feel that their tax burden HURTS! Some have looked around and bandied about the idea of moving to another province. They naturally assumed that a smaller province might have poorer levels of service. When you're getting on in years you worry about the quality of medicare available, among other things. Imagine their surprise when they saw that those smaller provinces had BETTER medicare! It showed that the equalization programs had MORE than equaled! Given the situation it's only natural for this situation to foster resentment. Ottawa of course is scurrying for cover. Sure, the whole thing was a Liberal trip but Harper doesn't dare cut down the flow of EQ payments. It would kill him at the polls in those affected provinces. He's going to do what any other party leader in power would do. He will blame McGuinty! Ontario is responsible for screwing up its own economy! This will cause so much ruckus and finger pointing back and forth that no one will have to pay attention to the ordinary, out of work and over-taxed Ontarioan. Albertans are following all this in the news. They aren't stupid! Naturally, they're questioning a system that really is just a slush fund for Ottawa to buy votes in poorer provinces, with THEIR money! Don't expect any real changes to the status quo unless the recession drags on much longer than expected. Ottawa knows that if they can just hang on long enough for people to feel comfortable again they will all go back to sleep!

The emotional tone of some arguments is starting to get rather sad, BC! Once again, Canadian pride excuses evidence or reason. Another page or two of posts and we'll have some folks claiming we Canadians have a HIGHER living standard than the Americans! Or MORE disposable income! Meanwhile, I suggest you would get a truer opinion from any of the thousands of housewives who regularly crossborder shop. While you're talking to them, please note that the American customs agents searching cars coming INTO the USA find very few groceries, or new Canadian tires on the car, or Canadian gas in the tank, or shoes, or power tools, or tvs and dvd players, or booze, or disposable diapers...on and on and on! Somehow, you can be well-versed in history but you need the actual life experience of having to pay for feeding and raising a family to appreciate these matters in your gut! It's the difference between someone schooled in the real world and an academic. The academic might have similar amounts of items of data but hasn't the same sense of the intensity of how some data bits affect one's life compared to others. I still remember in the early 90's going with my wife on one of her trips. While there I bought some pipe tobacco, given that was one of my vices, long ago. At the time I was paying nearly $12 Cdn for a 1 ounce pouch. I bought a couple of 12 ounce bulk packages for $11 each American! I couldn't help but laugh at the irony. Do the math. There was far more profit in smuggling that pipe tobacco than marijuana, given the prices at the time!

I've just read this entire thread. Nicky as usual opened with a post that was more of a setup to support his prejudgements. What else is new? Still, I was struck by how many seem to make the issue so complicated! Stats get traded, ad hominems slung but few zeroing in on the key points. Our two systems have a very different structure. The Americans have a system that is profit driven. Because of this they tend to have the "latest and greatest", with the highest service levels. They have some checks and balances to ensure the poor and old are looked after but if you don't have the money you DO get a lower level of service! Our system is paid for by our taxes. NO government run service is or has ever been as efficient as private enterprise. The Big Lie is always that "without the profit margin we will save everyone money". Somehow the savings from the lack of profits always get eaten up with high public sector wages and patronage appointments to management level positions, along with often incomprehensible inefficiencies in systems and staff levels. A "public" system always seems to become a feed bag for those who know how to exploit it. Still, if you're an average, over-taxed Canadian Bob or Doug our system has obvious advantages. Bob or Doug can rarely make enough money in Canada to pay for serious medical care or have enough left over after taxes. Our system may not have the latest and greatest or the shortest wait times but most of the time we don't NEED those advantages! Most medical care is routine and routine is what Canadians always do best. The Americans have a richer standard of living. A working man with good medical insurance pays dearly to be covered for those few times when he might need a fast MRI or a new procedure. The poor and old likely wouldn't get them at all. Our system is providing the "greatest good for the greatest number". For most of us that's enough. The problem comes if we happen to need something better than "routine". Most of the time, our system CAN'T give a same day MRI or offer a skilled surgeon with the latest technique. Canadian surgeons who COULD mostly have emigrated to the States! If we have a major flaw perhaps it would be that in our system we made it ILLEGAL for someone to pay for a private procedure WITHIN the country! This means that if we have the money for something our system does not offer or at least, not quickly enough, we have NO CHOICE but to go to another country like the States! We share this policy with only two other countries in the world, namely Cuba and Angola. Good company, eh? This is only an issue because of our pride. We don't want to believe that we have made a choice and that we have the best system for the most citizens. We want to believe that we have the best system anywhere, in all ways, ESPECIALLY compared to the Americans! We can't answer this question unless we accept that we simply can't afford to offer every advantage of the American method in a publicly funded system. Once we accept that, you have to pose the question in terms of what is most important. Do we want a system that looks after most of the people very well most of the time, accepting that a smaller percentage will likely suffer or perhaps even die? Or do we want to abandon it and have one like the Americans, accepting its costs to the individual? If someone wants to have it BOTH ways, guess what? You can't! TANSTFAAL! There Ain't No Such Thing AS A Free Lunch! If the sandwich was free you paid too much for the beer!