Wild Bill

Perhaps. Yet our living standard has also dropped, a lot! It takes two incomes today for a family to have what one income provided in the 60's and 70's. I know, I lived it and paid attention! Whenever we discuss such topics it always seems to me like the mitigating effects on the average citizen may be real but the amount of benefit in the real world seems trivial. Meanwhile, there are other much more significant factors sliding us farther down the list for living standards that are being ignored. The GST may have reduced income taxes a mite but meanwhile our version of Free Trade resulted in huge losses in higher paying manufacturing jobs, replacing them with lower paying warehouse and service positions. While it may be true that without Free Trade or the GST the change would have been more painful it still doesn't change the fact that as far as the average citizen is concerned his disposable income is lower. He has experienced negatives greater than the promised positives. This is perhaps what has made the populace more jaded. The HST might have been a much easier sell back in more affluent times. When you're hurting you tend to be more suspicious.

Unfortunately, you are offering a utopian "dream world" solution. In Canadian politics as they are today, voting for an independent is a vote for a powerless representative. If someone waved a magic wand so that we had enough independents to control the House it would be different and your dream might work. Sadly, that's just not the way it is. One of the strongest tenets of the old Reform Party was the idea of each MP voting the way the majority of his riding's constituents wanted, regardless of his own feelings. We saw that with Chuck Cadman's last vote, just before he died. Later, with the new CPC revealing itself to be just a clone of the old PC party, we saw what happened to Bill Casey in Nova Scotia when he voted for his people instead of his party. He won as an independent but it was a powerless victory. If wishes were horses beggars would ride and if my granny had wheels she wouldn't bump her ass when she hoppped, or something like that! I respect your dream but do you have any ideas that might WORK?

Has it also struck you as interesting Max, that it was Mulroney who instituted the GST, intending from the start to have it harmonized with the provinces and now the present CPC is continuing his legacy? It's plain as the nose on your face, we've gone back to the mid 80's! Once again, why did Manning ever bother?!

This link might be interesting: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/01/13/national-post-editorial-board-vancouver-s-very-own-olympic-debt-debacle.aspx "National Post editorial board: Vancouver's very own Olympic debt debacle Posted: January 13, 2009, 8:00 AM by Kelly McParland Editorial, Full Comment Jean Drapeau, the Montreal mayor who brought Expo ’67 and the 1976 Summer Olympics to his city, once famously boasted, "The Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby." How about two babies? Only last year did Montreal pay off the final instalment of its Olympic debt — more than 30 years after the event. And as details of Vancouver’s fiscal fiasco for hosting the 2010 Winter Games trickle out, it’s easy to see how that city’s taxpayers could still be paying in 2040." This seems to be the usual story about Olympic debt. If it took 30 years for Montreal to pay things off what would make Vancouver any different?

I don't understand your point. Are you saying that light is blocked by CO2 the same as it is blocked by particulates?

Biological? NO! That would be unscientific rubbish. All races of Man seem able to be equally stupid in such matters. Adopt a baby from a violent culture and raise him in the west and you end up with a western culture adult and not a suicide bomber, no matter what his race. Vice versa, sadly. Why do you disagree that culture is not a root cause? Culture is what makes a people prone to violence, or not! One of the greatest gifts to our culture was the medieval concept that justice belonged to the King or State instead of just individual feuds, vendettas and revenge. It would appear that many peoples of the middle east have never adopted that concept. Culture by its very definition explains why one society values life so highly that it will not execute even serial child killers (ours, for e.g.) and another will cheerfully blow up innocents for some nebulous political goal (middle east)! Or are you suggesting that ALL cultures are equally positive in all their aspects?

I got your point right away! I thought you had been very explicit. There must be some reason why this particular area of the world has spent thousands of years in hatred and primitive, irrational violence. I would suggest it is culture. The way the people who have lived there see the world and how it works has been and continues to be violent and primitive. They've managed to blow even Ireland's record out of the water for time spent holding grudges! When people continue to kill each other for millennium after millennium, the only possible explanation is that they prefer to do such!

Perhaps you'd like these, Kimmy! (Muppets covering Buffalo Springfield)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI3_y...eature=related (Steve Martin - Deliverance) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUwD6...eature=related (Muppets - Devil Went Down To Georgia)

You are making an assumption. The real question is, if you pay a fair North American wage can you make a product that competes in price with competition from other countries, like China? If you can't, then you don't sell your stuff. How would that be success? Some of us try to support domestic manufacturing but it's a tough go. Whenever I shop I pay attention to the country of origin label on the can. Still, in many areas like auto manufacturing you need high volume sales to be able to even play in the game. If every Canadian bought only Canadian made cars our manufacturers still couldn't compete. Our domestic volume is "mice nuts" compared to the other players. The same for toasters and TVs. I even sent an email to Heinz Canada, asking why I couldn't see anything on their cans of beans that told me where their beans came from. All it says is "Union Made". I really couldn't care less if their beans were produced in a union environment. I just don't want to buy foreign beans! The other brands told me the country of origin. I got a reply telling me that all of their beans sold in Canada came from beans grown in Leamington, Ontario. That reassured me and I started buying their product again, but I am still curious why they don't want to advertise "Product of Canada" on their label. I'm flogging a dead horse, I know. When I see all the cars in the WalMart parking lot it would seem that I'm just one leaf in the windstorm. In that store I swear the only thing NOT from China would be the music on the overhead speakers. Of course, their CD is probably a Chinese pirate copy...

I certainly hope so! This riding reminds me yet again of how far the CPC has gone from its Reform roots. Casey supported his constituents over his party, which was the very essence of the Reform spirit. How ironic that it would be Harper who choose to punish him for it! If the Tories lose Casey's seat it would be a good message that their actions had a price. I wouldn't suggest carrying a grudge more than one election, though. After all, it's not as if the other parties practice the old Reform idea...

I think your point was a bit of a stretch! As for voting Tory, when the choice is supporting the drug war or ruining everything else about the country, I find it a very easy one to make! Some of us actually worry about more than just one issue! Sometimes after reading your postings I swear you'd vote for a party that wanted to declare kittens a grocery store food product as long as they would legalize marijuana...

At last somebody made this point! All the years of Reform explaining the need for a Triple E Senate and yet still so many remain blissfully ignorant of what's involved. Most parliamentary style democracies have two Houses. One gives "rep by pop" representation. The problem here is obvious. Bigger states or provinces have far more power than smaller ones. Like Ontario or Quebec, as the rest of Canada has complained about since Confederation. The second House is a check or balance factor by giving representation by region. The American Senate gives tiny Rhode Island the same number of Senators as New York or California. If we had have had a Triple E Senate there never would have been a National Energy Policy and the Liberals may have actually grown used to having lots of seats in western Canada! Anyone who feels that the status quo is fine or that the Senate should be abolished usually lives in a larger populated province. When you think about it, it's a very selfish and patronizing attitude towards the rest of Canada.

This is what you had posted: "Will putting in strong mandaTORY minimum sentences for owning an unregistered firearm deter criminals from owning unregistered guns or not? How about adding some strong asset forfeiture laws for anyone caught owning an unregstered gun? Will these measures DETER criminals from owning unregistered weapons? Or do mandaTORY minimums fail to act as a deterrant?" Now, who suggested mandatory minimums for simply owning an unregistered handgun? The Tories? I haven't seen anything about the Tories attacking the ownership of unregistered guns. That was a Liberal thing. In fact, that was one of the major criticisms of their plan. The Tories stance on Law and Order is to have strong minimums on the criminal use of ANY firearms! Who the hell cares if they're registered or not? A gun that's not used is no threat to anyone. A gun used in a crime is not ok simply because it may be registered! The very premise is absurd! As I had pointed out before, the Liberal plan started out proposing harsher sentences for simply failing to register than for actually USING a gun in the commission of a burglary! You are attributing a completely wrong stance to the Conservative position, using that as a comparison to pot possession and then calling them down for it. Talk about your "straw man" arguments! You should be a Liberal supporter! BTW, when you claimed that all Tory supporters had to be against decriminalization of pot you forgot to ask ME! Does that give me the right to make generalizations that include YOU? After all, if you think you have the right to make such blanket labels it seems only fair...

This comparison is a non sequitur. Just because the government is stupid in handling drugs doesn't mean they automatically will be just as stupid handling the issue of gun registration. That being said, governments DO tend to stupid approaches but there's nothing positive in encouraging them as you are suggesting!

In my town we have had a local television station from the early 50's, CHCH ch. 11. Serving the southern Ontario market it was quite the trendsetter, with local productions and often scooping the major networks on first-run movie premiers. It offered a fabulous newsroom, which was important in my area 'cuz TV is dominated by Toronto stations, who can't even spell Hamilton let alone ever report any news from here. The past few years the traditional business model of commercials paying for the station has been breaking down. Advertising revenue has dropped so much that it's hard even for the networks to show a profit. Local and independent stations are hurting even more. CHCH was bought a few years ago by those Westerners, CANWEST COMMUNICATIONS. They morphed it into their "E!Network", featuring heavy entertainment programming. Imagine 24/7 programs about Paris Hilton and the love life of Brad and Angela. Many of us were revolted and watched the station ONLY for the local news! The issue with the cable companies is that they pay all the cable only specialty channels but local stations they just pick up for free and rebroadcast. The local stations have always resented this. After all, the specialty channels have a commercial base as well. Things have gotten so bad that a number of local TV stations across the country have gone bankrupt and closed down. Their communities have been left with essentially ZERO local TV news. Our local channel was in danger of shutting down for some months. CHCH fortunately was sold by CANWEST and promptly dumped all that "E!" crap! They run straight news all day long, classic movies through prime time evenings and "silver screen" classics (30's and 40's) all night. I love it! The movies are great fun (a few Japanese "Glutamoto the cheese monster flicks in particular!) with young Jimmy Stewarts and Edward G Robinsons. The local news has tremendously improved. I hope their new formula works! Lord knows the old revenue stream was suffering. If TV ads are not as popular as they used to be then new revenue streams will have to be found if the industry will survive. Meanwhile, it's not fair to blame the cable companies for making us take all those "Watch grass grow!" specialty channels in order to get the movies and sports we want. The CRTC MAKES them do it! It guarantees politically correct channels that no one would ever buy if given the choice a noticeable market share, at least on paper. Obviously, the cable channels would love nothing more than to let us buy only the channels we want. However, under the Canadian "nanny state" they have no choice.

Not a good model. How about "MandaTORY minimums" for using a gun in the commission of a crime? Whether registered or not? Hold up a variety store with a gun and having the gun buys you a minimum of 10 years, no parole, whether you actually used the gun or not. As a matter of interest, when the Liberal gun registry was first being drafted this was one of its criticisms. The initial draft wording actually called for harsher sentences for not registering a gun than what was typically given in Canadian courts for actually USING one to rob a store! Those of us who were not Liberal supporters at the time considered this just another example of how the Liberal mind was disconnected from reality.

I've seen economic textbooks from Queens that are classic leftwing economics, from before the USSR broke up. I've have friends who attended those schools who told me what they experienced. I trust their objectivity. Queens has been in the news for some years now with stories about banning Israeli speakers, or hooting them off the stage with Palistinian propaganda. Last year Queens was seriously implementing politically correct "proctors" whose job it was to hang around cafeterias, meeting halls or wherever and eavesdrop on conversations. If they heard anything politically incorrect they were to interrupt and point out the infraction to the offender! These schools are obviously NOT bastions of free speech! Here's a link: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/f...university.aspx

I suspect that what our friend is really saying is that HE can't understand the science and assumes that therefore no other layman can have a qualified opinion! Since HE must put his faith in those scientists whose "priestly" lab coats impress him then everyone else must do the same. This is absurd, of course. Many of us acquire more than a layman's education in sciences over the years, even if self-taught. Some folks actually open books for themselves, even outside or after the school room. You don't have to be a mechanical engineer to understand how an internal combustion engine works, if you're willing to get up off your ass and actually learn about it!

Of course! This idea would mean that leftist politics would predominate. Many if not most of us do not think that would be a positive thing. For that reason we would refuse to support it and if necessary actively fight against it!

No, I'm saying that I don't take for granted that every "academic" source followed the scientific method in their report! I don't believe that they are as objective as perhaps they used to be up until a few decades ago. I'm quite willing to change my ideas, but not from reports that conflict with some obvious observation in the real world. I find newspapers suspect, due to editorial bias. I swear the Toronto Star would have buried reports about Charles Manson at the bottom of page 30 or whatever if he had have been a prominent Liberal. Still, if there are vast numbers of newspaper stories telling me about suicide bombers that are mostly named Mohammed or Achmed and you or someone else were to present me with an academic study telling me that I would be wrong to profile those coming from Muslim countries I think it only logical to take the news stories as being of more value. Especially if the report dealt with a politically correct issue and the report came from Queens U or Ryerson. My direct experience has been that those schools lost their objectivity years ago, if they ever had any!

Don't bother, MH. I've developed a skepticism about academics over the years. They tend not to be "real world". Quite logical in their arguments but simply not correct. There is a difference between sounding logical and articulate and actually being right. Logic is simply a mental exercise. You can logically prove any premise if you exclude or are unaware of any contradictory evidence. Like the old joke about a statistician, who believes that if you have one foot in the fire and one on the ice you should be quite comfortable! Here's another: No cat has 8 tails. Yet every cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore all cats have 9 tails. Despite all politically correct but very logical argument, the number of crimes of political violence committed by radical Islamists far exceeds the numbers of any other group. What's more, although it is considered wrong to racially profile people it is only common sense that if you are afraid of a suicide bomber crashing your party it would be silly to start the screening of your guests with any that are Jehovah Witnesses or Christedelphians.

Not at all logical, Michael. You can't plot a curve from only one data point. Whenever someone cites an obvious numerical statistic, such as certain ethnic groups tend to predominate in certain types of crime, someone will scour the news and come up with ONE OR TWO exceptions! Then they will present that exception as if it is of equal statistical merit. It's just not true! If you have 99 examples of one premise and only 1 that contradicts it then that 1 does NOT invalidate the premise! No one said that those ethnic groups were the ONLY source of crime! Once again Michael, passion over logic. Statistically, you haven't proven a darn thing.

How do you know that ALL Conservatives are against legalization? Have you spoken to all of them? That's like saying only potheads vote NDP! Obviously, this can't be true. Pot results in pleasant dreams. An NDP government is often a nightmare. You tend to label and generalize people worse than a Southern cracker...

Retraining is a crock! What good is it if NO field is hiring! Most factories have had an aging workforce for some years now. When they go under they left large numbers of older workers out on the street. Retraining sounds great but when they get their certificates they rarely find different companies actively hiring large numbers. Even if they do get an interview if they're over 50 odds are they won't get hired. It may be illegal to age discriminate but it's the reality out there. Has anyone seen any stats, positive or negative, about the success of retraining in placing these workers in new jobs? We hear a lot about the retraining programs but diddleysquat about the results. It's just another facade to look like governments are actually doing something. More "Liberal" solutions. You know - "It doesn't have to work as long as we can say we've got one!"

As compared to McGuinty, who caused people to get beaten up and thrown in hospitals with brain damage in Caledonia? People who have seen their businesses go bankrupt and the value of their homes drop so much they can't sell them? McGuinty, who inflated our provincial debt by billions upon billions, blowing at least one of those BILLIONS on the eHealth scandal? With the money scammed with eHealth how many nurses could we add in our hospitals? Or maybe the folks down Port Colborne way might have KEPT their hospital! Harris at least left us with more beds than he closed. I guess some folks only give credit if they are LIBERAL beds!