Wild Bill

Ok, so some wingnuts attended McHale's rally. Were they involved in the leadership, or did they just happen to show up? Even if you did prove that McHale is one of those wingnuts, it still wouldn't change my mind one iota as to my opinion of the tactics of the Six Nations protesters. I might lower my opinion of McHale, but it is illogical to think that if one is bad the other must be good. They could BOTH be bad! I say again, this is why I base so much of my opinion on people's actions, not just their words. I am hardly some brainless dupe brainwashed by white supremacists simply because I disagree with YOU! As I had said in my last post, from my perspective looking from the outside I can see evil objectively. If McHale and his followers ever blow up an electrical transformer, beat up tv cameramen, try to run over a policeman or put an old man into the hospital with brain damage rest assured I would be as quick to decry his actions as I am those of the Six Nations protesters. Evil is as evil does. Perhaps using 'native pride' as an excuse for 'Hawaiian missionary righteousness' is also insidious. May I never fall for either kind of illogical excuses for harming innocents.

Well, I wasted 4:01 minutes of my time on your youtube link, waiting to see something racist or "white supremacist". I didn't see anything! All I saw was a lot of non-native protestors. I presume it was a McHale rally of some kind. They spent a lot of time waving Canadian flags. So what? Six Nations protestors wave flags as well. You keep dragging white supremacy into the mix, with allusions you never substantiate. You just tell us "I know for a fact but I can't say!" Who are you? The Pope? I'm supposed to believe you because of who you are? If we do get a racist type posting in the forum it seems to make your day! Instead of just accepting him as just one of the usual wingnuts who show up in political forums you act as if he represents vast numbers of people involved in a Caledonia conspiracy. After all, if anyone disagrees with you they must be a racist and a white supremacist, n'est-ce pas? One guy thinks that whites can do no wrong. You constantly posit that Six Nations is always and completely in the right. What's the difference? I don't think either viewpoint would make very pleasant company.

You keep making this point but I still fail to see the logic. We never have a shortage of bureaucrats. Rather, we always have a dearth of people to ENFORCE the system! Refugee claim, visas, regular immigration, who cares? We spend only a pittance on the resources to deal with those who abuse the system, in ANY such area! Even if we deport someone, they are far more likely to go underground, considering the system expects them to VOLUNTARILY show up at the airport! The Titanic is sinking and you're arguing who has the right to sun bathe on the upper decks! As for EU retaliation, perhaps we could make them feel better by setting up refugee camps for the Roma and feeding them a diet of mostly seal meat. How far would the EU be willing to push such issues if we closed our Maritime ports to their fishing vessels? As for Mexico, why on earth would anyone want to visit a country where so many tourists have been murdered, with only a cursory and primitive investigation by the local authorities, is totally beyond me!

Jonny's been around for a while. Go rent 'Blues Brothers 2000'. He did a number in that film when he was only about 16. He was great! If it was 1968, he'd be a superstar!

No, few would buy Brown's story. He's just being a 'dillhole', as they say on 'That 70's Show'. Both sides will make ridiculous claims about the other, making a mountain out of a molehill over something that was really just a bit of bad luck, easily remedied by giving those involved the sack. It is summer, after all. Politicos really have to work at it to get any publicity during this season.

The governments involved are too politically correct to state the REAL reasons Canada is re-instituting the visa requirement! My wife works for the city in the public health department and thus gets a perspective that we 'simple folks' don't. It's gypsies! Or 'Roma', as they prefer to be called. They are a unique people. Very insular and clannish. They have their own language with little or no connection or history with other European tongues. They live in wandering clans across Europe. They are assumed to be responsible for much petty crime and fraud. It's claimed that they are masters at manipulating state welfare and refugee systems for their own benefit. They are here in Canada, often under refugee claims. My wife sees examples virtually every day. And they mostly originate from <surprise!> Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania! Not surprisingly, ordinary folks across Europe consider them to be a problem. One could argue whether or not the prejudice is justified but not the fact that it is very real. Common folk want them out of their country! Dumping them into Canada is a great idea, as far as they are concerned! All this talk about 'retaliation' is just that, talk. The Czech government is well aware that while they may see thousands of Roma emigrating to Canada only a handful of people would be coming from Canada to the Czech republic. They're just trying to embarrass Canada into keeping the door open! Gypsies look on Canada as an easy mark, with all its social programs. A couple of years ago they 'discovered' us and began to come over in droves when we signed the agreement to make a visa unnecessary. Perhaps that's what the agreement was REALLY about! The Czech government may have felt they were 'snookering' us into taking away some of their problem. Re-instituting a visa will take us back to the old status quo. Hopefully the Gypsies will find another country to be an easier target.

"Years living it down"? Molly, I've seen this over the years happen to the PC's, Reform, NDP, CPC and especially my own riding when it was Liberal! It is forgotten within a month or two. Things never really change. Perhaps we expect too much. After all, we're talking about mostly volunteer help, which is always in short supply. So the parties often take what they can get and may not look that gift horse too closely in the mouth. Also, it may not be politically correct to say it but it's a sad reality of the times that minority background is so desired (especially for the CPC, which has an undeserved, untrue but real perception for not having a lot of them) that volunteers from those demographics can become almost untouchable, unless they do something REALLY bad, which is the accusations in this case. All parties can and have had a few bad apples. It just comes with the territory. That's why I judge them by how they handle such problems, not just for simply having them. Back in my Reformer days there was an election where in two different ridings racists were exposed. One was running for Reform and the other was running for the Liberals. The writ had already been dropped and there was no time to come up with alternate candidates. Reform turfed their problem anyway, saying they'd rather have no candidate at all than allow a racist to represent their party. The Liberals? They kept their guy! A spokesman said what to me are immortal words: "It's unfortunate but what can we do? There's no time to get another candidate! Rest assured if he wins he will be made to take 'sensitivity training'!"

Watched "You Do Something To Me". No big whoop! I won't shoot him. He's only the piano player, after all. I think he's more for the chicks...

Hence my point, Angus. If I can play it, it must be crap! There are a lot of reasons as to why this is, of course. We could talk about the attention span of an "X Box" generation, for instance. Me, I have a theory for the MAIN factor: "The 'suits' have successfully 'dumbed' us down!" The formula for pop music was always to make it as simple as possible. With rare exceptions that crop up mostly only because of the Law of Averages, pop music is not designed for staying power. The labels wanted a high turnover, as a tool to lift sales. Music became like fashion. Last years clothes are to be discarded and new ones purchased. Also, the demise of the 'cover band' scene in the bars was a big contribution. Back in the late 60's and 70's there were probably hundreds if not more of us, touring for months at a time, playing 3 and 6 night gigs for reasonable amounts of money. That was an opportunity for honing one's craft. Both the individual musician and the band improved tremendously from constant playing on the road. That scene is long gone! Kids are lucky to get a paying gig at all! There are no 3 and 6 nighters. You're lucky to get one Saturday night! Practicing is confined to the odd rehearsal in a garage or basement. Even the old timers today have succumbed to 'the Dark Side'. If you follow the scene you'll find that a blues or classic rock band always seems to have the same set list as all the others. That's because that means the band members never have to rehearse! They can simply show up, play the same old stuff that they could play in their sleep and go home, after splitting the meagre take. No one wants to put in more effort for a gig that doesn't even pay minimum wage when you add up all the time involved. So things have become a 'catch 22'. The pay has become so poor that the effort is not justified, which means a poorer show which commands even less pay! Ah well, nostalgia's not what it used to be!

Exactly, Muddy! This thread is yet another indication of how some folks are so partisan they can't be objective. To them, some riding volunteers ARE indicative of the entire party, if they don't like that party! Of course, when the shoe is on their foot it's a COMPLETELY different story! No wonder as a people we never seem to get ahead. We get what we deserve!

After the Shawinigate scandal, anything else is too trivial to bother prosecuting. If Chretien could get away with getting that poor loans manager fired for not lending money to a bad credit risk to buy ol' Jean's property, these guys are pretty safe!

Mullets? Thanks, Kimmy! Unfortunately, I'm older than mullets! I'm pre-mullet! I'm 56 years old and didn't see mullets until the early 80's. I very much enjoyed your links! However, I'm not sure what they prove. Yes, there's obviously still some good stuff out there. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah made me wonder if Janis Joplin had a daughter. Kasabian was great 'agitprop' rock! All your selections had great musicianship and for the most part clear vocals that painted a strong story. My argument was never that there was NOTHING good contemporary! Just that there was far less of it proportionately to the 'pop' crap! Is it your premise that your selections are mainstream? For that is my premise! The type of music that I'm talking about enjoyed huge sales and a widespread audience, in 1972! Anyhow, you've given me some great new sources and I appreciate them! Since you enjoy Knights of Cydonia, you might enjoy this one: http://www.lightspeed-rocks.net/ Local boys I grew up with. If you like Styx you'll like these guys! I thought everyone west of Manitoba only liked cowboy music? Another stereotype shattered! Is nothing sacred anymore?

So the PC's found some bad apples and turfed them out! Reminds me of a couple of incidents back in my Reform days. They found some as well and promptly turfed them out. Of course, the other parties have had similar incidents over the years. Law of Averages, after all. They just never seem willing to do any "turfing". If history repeats itself, I'm waiting for the other parties to accuse the PC's of being racist for turfing out accused sex offenders who happen to be visible minorities.

I don't follow your logic. Afghanistan had a fundamentalist Taliban government which gave aid and shelter to Osama and his suicide airplane pilots who brought down the Twin Towers in New York. Seems to me there was already a culture that hated the West, including Canada! Do you think that to those types of personalities we Canadians looked like "good old guys" with whom they'd like to share a beer? We may not have been a target as attractive as the Americans but they themselves have said that they hated Canada as well! They just found us a convenient and relatively safe country to base some operations. This assumption that the Taliban only responds to those who dare to fight back seems unsupported, at least to me.

I watched the video clip carefully. How on earth can anyone tell for sure that he pocketed the wafer? The priest hands him the wafer and then blocks the camers's view. By the time he moves out of the way anything could have happened! Harper could have buttered it before eating! Who's to say how long the priest blocked the view? With this kind of clip maybe there was an editing snip to make it seem faster than it actually was. It could be excused as just "editing for brevity". Besides, there's no way Harper would have done something so stupid! It would have been like being caught kicking a kitten! This is all just total crapola from people who would blame tsunamis and bad weather on Harper. He's not my hero either but I won't spin crap just to make him look bad! Politicians can do that all on their own. It's summertime, folks! The media are all VERY hungry for a story! Maybe they'll get a picture of Ignatief picking his nose. Or Douceppe drinking Molson Canadian. Or a man biting a dog...

I was going to make a post but I'm too choked up! Coming back from breakfast with my buds this morning the radio was playing "Free Bird". Later.

Only a couple of pages into this thread I asked why Palmer is willing to go through this when it could mean that he loses his land. The whole situation seems contrived, to me. Still waiting for an answer.

Some songs still send a chill up my spine. Like "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult. Every time I hear those lyrics I feel like someone walked over my grave. I also confess to having my eyes tear up at the Commitments version of "Try a Little Tenderness". Funny, I never used to do that until my daughters came along. Guess I'm an old softie. Might be a fun new thread, Dr. T.! "Songs that actually provoke a deep emotional response". The very definition of anti-pop, I would say!

Well, since you are one of the more 'civilized' posters on this board I do owe you fair consideration, Kimmy. Could you be good enough to give me some examples of modern music or artists that I should respect? I'll give you Wolfmother. And The Trews. If you could give me a few others that perhaps I have not heard I promise to faithfully listen to some of their stuff and try to make a fair judgement.

I think you've put your finger on part of the problem. The SN protesters, as echoed by some in this thread, refuse to accept that any native did anything wrong, ever and anywhere! So when we have a report like this old man being beaten and left with brain damage, the SN side has to be that it either never happened or if it did happen the old man was the aggressor and the young toughs were just defending themselves. To me, that's why I find it hard to give any SN version any credibility. They always sound like they're spouting propaganda rather than just reporting the news. If they had simply admitted that the old man being beaten was an unfortunate action by some young ignorant punks who weren't acting under any SN instruction the whole incident would have been deplored and then quickly forgotten. Instead, the SN official version has to be that the punks were actually heroes! I first saw this sort of thinking on a newsclip from CHCH-TV, early on in the blockade. Some protesters had crossed their own lines on a bridge and started a hassle with townsfolk. On the clip was a young lady speaking for the protesters. I'm not sure if she actually was briefed beforehand because she didn't seem at first to know what had happened. She was asked why the protesters had crossed their lines and started a hassle and she looked a bit confused. Then she denied that they had done such, quite vehemently. She was then told that the entire affair was on videotape. She answered that the tape must obviously be doctored! That was when I began to lose confidence in any report or explanation from the protesters' side. The world is not so simple that one side can be the angels and the other only devils, ALL the time about EVERYTHING! Frankly, they just sound like zealots to me! I'm not sure that the SN protesters will ever be satisfied, no matter what settlement is eventually achieved. Like the old joke, you could give them a cure for cancer and they'd bitch that it was just a hidden agenda to put their doctors out of work.

Do you see every and all people not on the 'left' as demons? You sound very 'religious' in tone. There are those of your church and everyone else must be a heretic, if not outright evil. You might do yourself some good to open up a bit. Some of my most cherished friends have political views very different from my own. That's part of why I value them. You seem to brand people as good or evil according to whether or not they belong to your 'church'. To an old hippie like me, such intolerance is disturbing, to say the least.

We should all have been so lucky! Of course, Muddy did try to spread himself around... I agree on the pawn shops. In my town, they just don't seem to be the same anymore. Blame EBay, I guess. I find the same atmosphere in shabby blues clubs. I haven't smoked in years but I miss the cigarette haze. Even after I had quit and we still had separate areas I used to sit with the smokers. I found them to be more comfortable people. The non-smokers tended to be a preachy, cheerless bunch. I think what we're describing here is an appreciation for what is real and down to earth, rather than 'glitzy' or 'plastic'. That's why I take KISS over the Jonas Brothers, and to be truthful, a whole passle of bands over KISS! Foghat, for one. Did you ever see the parody on Family Guy, where Stewie holes up in a hotel room, rolls a big joint and rocks out to a stack of Foghat records? It was a perfect spoof of my generation! Ah well, as long as ABBA doesn't make a comeback life can't be all bad!

Who cares? You don't have to convince me. You have to convince all the people in Ontario! It's just the way the overwhelming number of Ontarioans think. As I said, maybe when a lot of people who remember our only NDP term grow old and die that number may change. You would have a better chance of having Mulroney win as PM again than to have the NDP win in Ontario. You also should understand that the Ontario NDP are very different from that of Manitoba or other provinces. I listened to Andrea Horvath when she campaigned for her party's leadership. She sounded like it was 1969, not 2009! That party is still rooted in the old days, when union memberships were huge and there were huge numbers of people in factory jobs that were potential supporters. All our evils were the fault of big business and only sweetness and light would come from socialism. They just don't seem to have changed with the times, at all!

Really? I would have thought you'd say that the way to resolve land claims is by way of highway blockades and blowing up hydro transformers. Or perhaps by beating up old men.

It refers to 'Gary McHale'. You can google him if you like. His family is from Caledonia and he has been a figurehead in some of the protests against McGuinty and the OPP for treating natives and townsfolk differently. Tango and CR try to make him out to be some kind of KKK Grand Wizard, as an ad hominem way to try to pretend that there is no resentment in Caledonia and everything is actually peace, love and dove.