Wild Bill

Let me see if I understand you correctly. You know, (or should know) that this University is not run by our governments. It's run by First Nations themselves. This means that the government doesn't control the hiring and firing of the teachers and administrators of the university. They simply give a big cheque to the First Nations peoples involved. This means that they can't correct the problem! If the First Nations peoples want to hire crooks or if crooks have enough power among the bands to get themselves put on the university boards there's nothing our governments can do about it. So you say, "Give them the money anyway! Don't let the students suffer!" Well, if the crooks keep stealing the money how much do we keep pouring in? Do we have an infinite amount of money? Do we just keep pouring and pouring? I'm also curious as to why you think Harper will lose the First Nation youth vote. Do you think that those young people EXPECT Harper to keep giving their money to thieves? Why wouldn't these young folks take out their anger at the crooks within the First Nations leaders? I don't really understand why these people need a university of their own anyway. Why pay for a special university that is run by people who steal the money instead of just helping First Nations students with the tuition to attend ANY public university? Would a degree not require the same standards of having learned the same curricula? A lawyer is a lawyer or an engineer is an engineer, are they not? Should a bridge care about the colour of the skin of the person who designed it? Perhaps you could explain it better to me.

At a sales meeting in 1978 a Motorola salesman told us that within 5 years there would not be a single vacuum tube still in production. Today there are still over 800 million dollars of vacuum tubes made for the audio market each year! I buy and install them almost every day for my musician customers as I service their amplifiers. Transistors just don't sound the same, due to the physics of their construction. You're just never gonna sound like Eddie Van Halen with a solid state amplifier hooked to your guitar! Most of the people who make such predictions are really ignorant of all but the mainstream applications of a particular product. Often the niche markets represent sizable quantities in themselves.

Kimmy, you do realize that while the EU bans Canadian seal products they have no such ban on themselves? That European seals have and are being harvested? With that being true, somehow I doubt if the harvest will ever disappear. There are Inuit in northern European latitudes. It's also not just the meat. It's actually mostly for the fur and despite the efforts of PETA fur is still popular. The EU politicians just took a cheap shot at Canada that they thought would have no repercussions. While Ottawa seems to delight in embarrassing them when they attend summit meetings over here, some of us take it a bit farther. I have been paying more and more attention these past few years as to the country of origin for the food and products I buy. I avoid Chinese food products for the obvious reasons given the poisoning scandals we've all witnessed but I also am starting to turn away from European products, because of the seal product ban. I don't know if I'm all alone and I'm under no illusions that my efforts may be more than a spit in the ocean but it makes ME feel better! I have always believed that people should experience the consequences of their choices, ESPECIALLY politicians! I don't think I'm any threat to IKEA's business but I have found other folks in the supermarket aisles reading the labels, the same as me! Most of them are women. Unlike me, who is mostly motivated by memories of seeing that brave lad stand in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, the ladies care more about bad additives. There was the stuff in the pet food that killed a lot of pets, chemicals in dairy products, lead paint on kids' toys and a host of others. One women explained that she understood that from time to time any country could have problems but it appeared to her that China had more than most. What's more, with a domestic source she felt there was at least some chance of addressing a problem but when it came from another country little or nothing could be done. When she was rejecting products she no longer cared about price. A cheaper can of peas that came from China was no bargain to her if it risked the health of her children and family. So although I don't drink much anyway there are a lot of very fine domestic wines and I have no need to buy any from a EU country. Do unto others as they have done unto you. It's the only way to get through to some boneheads!

That's true, but not all jobs pay that well and not all of us have a choice as to what job may be available to us. While it's true there are many simple deadbeats it's also true that we have a large number of "working poor". That being said, governments don't just tax us to fund the services we collectively demand. They tax us for those services PLUS the percentage of waste involved in having the government be the vehicle to deliver those services! I've had some experience with how governments go about delivering their services. I doubt if they are even 50% efficient with our tax money. I could even accept figures as low as half of that! So now Dalton will hit us with another tax increase, especially on things like electricity that most of us have no choice but to buy! Even though we are starting to see programs like the new "MicroFit" that encourage people to set up home power generation systems and use it to offset the cost of what they take from the grid or even make a profit on how much they send back, the initial costs and the length of time before they're paid off are such that only the people rich enough to pay the grid costs anyway can afford to participate in wind and solar programmes! Even if you get a wood stove and kerosene lanterns to reduce your electricity usage to zero, if you are connected at all to the grid you have fixed costs remaining for the $30 billion dollars of stranded debt built up by provincial governments that used building nuclear plants as a big patronage slush fund for everyone involved and also for the transmission system, or the wires that deliver the electricity around the province. Anyhow, when harmonized the system will NOT keep whatever federal or provincial tax exemption existed beforehand! If the tax was from one level or the other it will now be applied to both. I just hope Ontarioans look up and see who's screwing them over this time! Dalton should not get away with this scot-free. Gouging us more instead of tackling public sector inefficiencies is just a cheap shot that cannot be sustained forever.

You have to understand Shwa and CR's definition of bigotry. It's quite simple, really. Anyone who disagrees with any native or native position in any way or at any time is a bigot. More simply, anyone who disagrees with Shwa or CR is a bigot. To these two, what any and all natives believe is Gospel and any difference or criticism is always wrong and springs not from any evidence, reasoning or history but simply from racism. If you remember that at all times it will make debating with them much simpler.

I am hardly a fan of Mr. Canada. In fact, I've had him on 'ignore' almost since he first appeared. The only time I read his words is when the posts of others makes the issue look interesting enough for me to click on a post and take a peek, which hasn't been that often. That being said, as a techie I have to applaud his attempts at filmmaking! He's not just making a claim about lewd and crude behavior. He's taking the trouble to attend the parade so he can film anything that he sees! To me, this is the way things should be. No unsubstantiated claims or digressions leading to excuses. If there is no such behaviour he will have nothing on film! If he's right, we all can see it! The issue is NOT one of accepting gays! It's whether or not we have a double standard with the behaviour of the participants in the parade! Being gay is no excuse for being rude! I've gotten very tired over the years of various minority groups thinking that they're "special". We're all lonely pilgrims on our weary way through this world and we are all equal, not "special"! I look forward to seeing if Mr. Canada does indeed obtain footage or if this is all just a tempest in a teapot.

Of course he lost! It would have been almost a miracle for an independent candidate to have won! What IS important is how well he did in the popular vote, and where! http://www.caledoniawakeupcall.com/election/ElectionResults.pdf http://joincanace.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/canace-executive-director-runs-in-haldimand-norfolk-riding/ "The 46-year-old civil rights advocate finished in fourth place with 4,821 votes, earning 10 per cent of the total votes cast in the riding. Conservative Diane Finley was re-elected with 19,657 votes while Liberal candidate Eric Hoskins earned 15,577 votes and NDP candidate Ian Nichols received 5,549 votes. “Obviously it’s disappointing, but at the same time more than 4,600 people at this point chose to vote for me and not for a party,” McHale told The Chronicle shortly after Finley’s re-election was announced around 11 p. m. on Tuesday. “As an independent it’s very hard to get anyone to vote for you. This also destroys the myth that somehow there are only 40 to 100 people who support me in Caledonia. Obviously there are thousands of people who want me to be a strong voice.” McHale's opponents have tried to portray him as someone with only a handful of supporters, mostly "bubbas" from out of town. Mchale's election results make that an obvious lie! For an independent to take a quarter as many votes as each of the two front runners is significant indeed. With nearly 5000 votes he showed that there are a LOT of upset people in Caledonia who appreciated his efforts! Again, his opponents would have us believe that despite the fact that the native protests negatively affected the townsfolk far more than any politicians, virtually all the townsfolk are blissfully happy with their protester neighbours and hold no bad feelings at all! The first link shows the breakdown by where the polls were. If the election had been ONLY for the immediate town of Caledonia and not Haldimand-Norfolk as a whole, McHale might have won! Certainly it would have been impossible to whitewash his results as irrelevant. H/N as a whole diluted the vote outside the town limits. You can argue about McHales ideals and differ with them all you want but to suggest that he was simply an irrelevant loser is mere propaganda that just makes the originator sound irrational and ignorant. If doing so was an attempt to make it look like the native protests have not severely damaged the historical relationship between SN and the townsfolk then the originator looks even more so.

I'll bet a beer you must live in Ontario. If you had your way I'd bet everybody NOT in Quebec or Ontario would be calling to separate! You can't have a club where some members are less equal than others. The fact that our Senate doesn't protect the smaller provinces is why so many people living there feel screwed by the bigger ones! The longer this goes on the greater the resentment grows. It's only human nature. "Representing the people of different provinces that is the job of MPs." How the hell can that work? If Nova Scotia has less MPs than Ontario then who cares how they vote? Who stood up for Alberta when Trudeau and his Liberals screwed them over with the National Energy Policy? That has had Albertans pissed off for a couple of generations now! There are two parts to the argument. Yes, the Senate has deep problems and should be fixed but when you call to abolish it you are basically telling everyone in a smaller province to "Shut up! Lump it! Who cares what you think! By the way, be proud to be Canadian!" Perhaps you should take a moment and think about what it means to be a Canadian in a smaller province. Have some empathy instead of arrogance, for Pete's Sake!

Exactly right, AW! Mr. Canada might not realize it but the tone of his writing does suggest that the excesses of the Gay Pride parade are supported by ALl gays! This of course is a logical fallacy. It's one thing to be gay. It's quite another to be publicly lewd and crude. Straight people can be lewd and crude as well but the difference is that usually if they do it in public they are charged or at least made to stop. Somehow gays in a parade receive some sort of immunity. One this one fact Mr. Canada has a valid point. I can't remember the author but there's a great quote that says "The love that once dared not speak its name is now the love that just won't shut up!"

Geez Louise, not again! I'm 57 and the words have already been changed a couple of times in my lifetime. Sometimes at various local meetings the anthem will be sung and they actually hand out cheat sheets, 'cuz nobody can remember the same words! How can something be a national symbol when it's constantly changed to fit the mores of the times. I thought flags, anthems and such were there to provide unchanging standards for which we can aspire, not the pop song of each generation.

Winning the "war on drugs" is a futile impossibility, on a par with Prohibition during the 1920's.The problem for any government is that millions of citizens WANT to do drugs! Or at least, accept that others do. They don't feel that the laws and the government are doing the right thing so they vote with their feet. The logistics of trying to bust a significant number of citizens and incarcerate them doesn't serve as a message that the law should be respected. Rather, it affects just enough citizens to be an aggravation to the populace as a whole. The message is that the Law and the government behind it is a bully! It boils down to the human instinct to feel the right to go to Hell your own way! Some folks will cheerfully do anything some authority figure tells them and others will always question that authority figure's competence and right to tell them what to do. The Tories had better soft pedal this one. If they come down too hard it WILL cost them a LOT of votes in the East! Given the demographics of the voters in every province it's obvious that they can't afford it.

Take a look down Niagara way...

Once again, diversion. My point was about the very definition of sovereignty and how the First Nations cannot meet it. This makes all your legalisms moot. So why should I bother?

You're missing the point. During Harris' reign the MRI wait times weren't an issue. What Harris DID do was to make declarations of his intentions during his campaign and when in office actually DID them! McGuinty has been nothing like Harris. There are websites that track hundreds of his broken promises, for Pete's Sake! A google will give you pages of them but here's just one showing the Top 50: http://www.ilist4free.com/rants/Dalton-McGuinty-Premier-Ontario.html The point is that McGuinty doing nothing for all those years about the MRI wait times is perfectly consistent with his style of governing. He gets away with it by being careful to appeal to the province as a whole while pissing off people only in small areas. The Caledonia protests, the Ottawa MRI wait times, the closing of a hospital in Port Colbourne, these all tend to be ignored by people who don't actually live there. Since he has enjoyed having an Opposition that has had no strong leader he's gotten away with it! Until and unless the smaller pockets of aggravation grow large enough to matter to the province as a whole he has a winning strategy.

Round and round they go, MB. They will never concede your point. You see, they are not dealing with reason. They are trying to win by changing perception. One of the basic tenets that has evolved with international law over the centuries is that a sovereign nation is one that has the power to define and enforce its jurisdiction over its territory. That's why we are seeing such a flap about areas like the Northwest Passage. Since we have such a vague presence in the high Arctic other countries are challenging our claims. That is the premise behind Harper's declaration of "We use it or we lose it!" Hence all the intentions of putting deep water ports and military bases into the region. The First Nations have no such power to enforce sovereignity over Canada as a whole, no matter what any document, map or long forgotten treaty may say. Their population and resources are just too small. They might be able to raise enough of a ruckus over a reserve or two but the idea of laying claim to all or most of Canada is just ludicrous. They cannot enforce it. Even if they got some third world Duchy of Grand Fenwick to recognize their claim on the international level they would need SOME OTHER COUNTRY to help them war with Canada to enforce their claim and that just isn't going to happen. Such claims seem mere technicolour dreams but they do serve one purpose. If they can change the perception of enough Canadians that at least some part of their claims are valid then slowly they can make wins, a little bit at a time. Like Caledonia. Rumours are strong that the McGuinty government is going to just hand them the Douglas Creek Estates. The natives will get a $65 million dollar chunk of land. All the violence of the protests will be forgotten, except for those who actually live in Caledonia. The actual legalities will cease to be debated. The protesters will have won the land so the point will become moot. Their tactics will have worked. It would only be logical to pick another area and do the same thing. No need for negotiations. No worries about being militarily outclassed. All you need are politicians not prepared to stand up to you! Was it Goebbels who said that in order to get the people to believe you must feed them a BIG lie? I know it was Carl Sagan who said that you can tell people that there are billions and billions of stars in our galaxy and they will believe you without question but show them a bench with a sign that says "Wet Paint" and they have to touch it!

Actually, people are pretty stupid if they think that proving he did not have a gun after the fact means anything. What was important was whether the OPP had sufficient reason to THINK he had a gun during the protest! When the OPP showed up they had to assume that there was a possibility that some protesters were armed. Remember, this was only a few years after the protest at Oka, where we saw Warriors like Lasagna walking around carrying AK-47s. An OPP police officer would have to be even stupider than the average politician of ANY party to not consider that this protest would be similarly dangerous. After Oka no one will ever be 100% sure native protesters are unarmed again. As Mr. Spock would say: "Logic dictates..." It's dark and you're facing a noisy crowd that may have the ability to fire a gun at you. Despite your training (or perhaps because you never got enough of it for that situation) you are afraid for your own life. All it takes is one good quick scare and somebody fires his weapon. To say afterwards that the officer had no reason to be afraid is a rather lame-ass observation, especially for someone who may never have been in such a situation. I am NOT claiming that this justifies the OPP officer shooting Mr. George! I'm simply saying that there are reasons for the tragedy other than just "Mike Harris told them to shoot all the natives 'cuz they're all really racists, eh!" Sure...and they were supposed to poison the drinking water a la Walkerton while they were at it. When both sides are boneheads there's not much hope of things being resolved.

I'm not one of those who claimed assault. In fact, if you read what I wrote I did say that the idea of assault was "a bit of a stretch". Don't put other people's words in my mouth and I'll extend you the same courtesy. I'm simply saying that Layton has a long standing rep as a cheesy publicity hog and that this video clip seems consistent with his history.

You're at a bit of a disadvantage, AW. You see, you seem to be looking at Jack just this time, with new eyes. You have to have followed Jack through his political career. He has ALWAYS had a reputation as a publicity hog! It has been joked about many times before. If this were an isolated case you would have a logical argument but as Judge Judy says, "...the preponderance of the evidence..."

Obviously! That's why I get so frustrated with one-note Tommies like our Dr. Greenthumb, who make sweeping generalizations of how "Conservatives do this!" and "Conservatives do that!" Some people seem to pick their politicians like they would pick a Billy Graham or a Jim Baker. Their church can do no wrong and any one from another church must be evil. I've noticed over the years that the more Left someone is the more likely and the more intensely they seem to think in this way. I have no cites to support this premise. Just my personal observations. Still, they've served me well. Some folks are more logical and some are more intuitive. Some have confidence based on evidence and reason and others have "faith".

It was in the early 70's. She was 14. In those days reporters didn't publish such stories. Nowadays of course, everything is fair game. He had her set up in an apartment in Ottawa. Strung her along for a few years, then dumped her and went back to his wife.

This is a fascinating article: http://digital.premierguitar.com/premierguitar/201003_1/#pg200 The page won't let me cut and paste so I'll paraphrase a precis. The premise is that our limbic system is responsible for our emotional response to situations, not just the obvious "fear or flight" but genuine emotional appreciation. Up till now digital music formats lack enough of the music information to give us that emotional "high" we used to experience, sitting around listening to our LP's of the Moody Blues or whatever. Digital has given us convenience and recordings that don't accumulate "scratches" but there has been a cost. Every tech knew that the sampling rate of CD's meant that it was NOT as hifi as good vinyl but the "suits" figured that the convenience of CD's would be easier to market. It has taken 20 years for digital formats to finally equal or exceed the specs of vinyl, with the advent of Blue Ray recordings. Besides, CD's were FAR cheaper to make than vinyl! The profits for the record labels soared! Then came Napster. Since the suits weren't technical enough themselves to change a light bulb they never saw the piracy problem coming. To any tech with even a modicum of savvy, it had been obvious! Reap the whirlwind, "suits"! This article would also explain why recordings usually don't totally carry the "feel" of a great live performance. If you're into this the article is great food for thought, well worth reading.

You keep doing this! Man, are you blinkered! Another News Flash! Lots of politicians from ALL parties think they're above the law! Were you asleep through all the Chretien years? And don't get me started about the NDP! I have first hand knowledge of one of their most respected members carrying on an affair with my friend's sister when she was under age. As long as you think that only one party can do evil you are going to spend your life being led around by the nose...

Hey, get real! It's true that "assault" is a bit of a stretch. Not that Layton doesn't stretch such things all the time but two wrongs don't make a right. Still, even if Jack had simply asked the woman nicely to move her arm so that he could get more of his face in the camera shot it would have been pretty cheesy! Can you only see "cheesiness" when Harper does it? You should get out more! News Flash! They ALL can be cheesy! Layton is no saint!

If you've worked as a waitress I'll bet you could say more about female customers, Kimmy. I've heard from many, many, many waiters and waitresses that women are almost always the very worst of tippers! Perhaps you could confirm...

I'm surprised you're supporting this position, Alta4ever, considering you seem to be a Harper supporter. While tougher drug laws may be popular in your province I'll bet you a bottle of 12 year old scotch that it can cost the CPC a LOT of seats in Ontario and Quebec! Certainly it would make a Harper majority an impossibility. The culture and attitudes in the East are just too different. Is that your goal? It might help with Alberta separation.