Wild Bill

You know, we might ask a member of the Ba'hai faith how he or she feels about the tolerance of Muslims. Do a google. It's an eye opener!

I can see it now. There's a home with a domineering man, his wife and perhaps a couple of sons and daughters. They are all of voting age and on the scrutineer's list. The domineering man intimidates the rest of his family and casts the vote for ALL of them! There's no secret ballot in HIS house! No polling station. No polling booth. No secret ballot. No choice! And how would we ever know it was happening? A vote that is made too easy tends to become thoughtless. No one seems concerned with the QUALITY of a vote cast!

Kimmy, you're confusing the issue with facts! The type of people who believe this stuff are not the kind of people who like to acquire any scientific education. They don't feel they need one! Science is hard for them and it is much easier to accept it as all 'magic'. Then all you have to do is find a magician who impresses you! He'll then do your thinking FOR you! You can't change their mind with scientific facts. They don't understand them and they don't feel the need to understand them. They have their FAITH, and for them that's enough!

Well, that's what makes it such a messy situation, oh many-eyed one! Law enforcement IS a provincial issue! It was the OPP's failure to handle the initial protest that allowed the situation to escalate so badly. However, the underlying land claims disputes are FEDERAL issues! Ontario has no legal power or authority to settle them. If they are not resolved then more protests are inevitable. Only the Feds have the power to deal with that. This is the perfect situation for politicians at both levels of government. They can hide while pointing their finger at the OTHER level of government! Meanwhile of course, the citizens of Caledonia are ignored. Particularly by Fantino. He equates keeping the peace with justice. That is totally wrong. In order to keep the peace he has chosen to sacrifice the rights of the entire town! A pyrhic victory indeed but not for Fantino. He's got hopes of becoming a politician someday and his approach pleases McGuinty greatly. It seems Fantino's definition of justice is similar to the old Ayn Rand definition of 'society' as in 'the good of society', where 'society' is defined as 'everybody in general and nobody in particular, except it's never, ever YOU specifically!' Dianne Finley has hidden so well that she has become a joke. She took a hit last election but was saved by the fact that the Liberals sent a real lame-ass candidate to oppose her. If they had ran Bob Speller, the previous Liberal incumbent, she might well have been defeated. Speller was very well respected and lost only due to the anti-Liberal wave over Adscam. Perhaps the Liberals didn't want to win! It would have meant their MP having to take a stand, which few politicians ever really want to do. The sad thing is that this problem is going to have ramifications for generations, not just for natives but for the entire town of Caledonia and many people surrounding. The OPP have clearly shown that individuals WILL NOT be protected under the law if it is politically inexpedient! Perhaps the most sacred trust in a law and order society has been broken. The very basis of such a society is the 'consent to be governed', where a citizen gives up his right to take the law into his own hands because he trusts his society to a better job of enforcing the law with its greater resources. If his society refuses to enforce the law then he is thrust back into the law of the jungle.

There we have it - the difference in values! "Almost stopped completely"? What the hell does that mean? "Gee Mrs. Goldman, sorry that rocket landed on your house where your children had been sleeping. Still, the rockets had almost stopped!" ONE rocket launched at innocents is a vile, disgusting terrorist act! To me, someone claiming virtue for "almost stopping" killing innocents as their main target is incomprehensible. It illustrates the difference in core values and is why Hamas and similar groups perpetuate the western notion that Arab protesters are "mad dogs" that cannot be reasoned with.

This link might be interesting to some: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html It talks about how today's situation mirrors that written about by Ayn Rand in her novel 'Atlas Shrugged'. Like her or hate her, there ARE some parallels!

I guess that's why the left seems to be predominately made up of engineers, technicians and such while the right is populated by actors sponsored by government grants, musicians like Bono and in the words of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "politicians, beauticians and telephone sanitizers". I mean, that's what you meant, isn't it? The practical people are on the left and the simplistic folks on the right? Only agreeing with you, mate!

They might if they get out and push! Wouldn't blame them, either.

Let me see if I understand your question. There's a nutbar down the road who has repeatedly threatened to start bashing his neighbour with a big stick. You remind him that he signed an agreement not to build sticks. So he pulls out of the agreement. If you were his neighbour, would you sleep easier? Would you trust him?

"An international group of lawyers and jurists", all of whom are Arabs from countries like Libya and Syria that make up the UN Human Rights organization... They've taken over the UN. They only want western countries for their money. Sadly, the UN has become dysfunctional and should be disbanded.

I see. So instead of answering my point you give us "Some other guy is nuts too!" Then you point out the reference was to a president and not a prime minister, picking apart my model and not my point. Hey, if that's not good reason for me to change my POV I don't know what is...not!

We all comment from our own experience. I don't know for what party you worked at fundraising, Molly. I have no experience with the present Conservative Party. To me, it has become a clone of the old PC party from the days of Mulroney and has actually deliberately removed any reference or party plank from the Reform/Alliance days. As I'm prone to say, I no longer know why Manning bothered. I comment only from my own experience of the late 80's and early 90's. Documenting anything over $20 in a passed-around bucket would have been impossible. Car washes, bake sales, entertainment nights and even street corner busking earned much more than you imply. Sure it built a sense of team involvement but it also paid for a LOT more than just coffee and doughnuts at the meetings! The effect of having large numbers of free volunteers almost has to be seen to be believed. I still remember my first time as a scrutineer at my local polling station. The usual practice was for the Liberals and PCs to have a scrutineer or two at each polling station, PAID by their party! They tended to wear suits, especially the Liberals. We had a Reform scrutineer at EVERY polling booth in EVERY polling station, volunteering for FREE! The Liberals were obviously shocked. Those days seem to be gone. The missing factor is inspiration. Manning was leading a movement that appealed to large numbers of people, targeting many of the things about our system and how we are governed that are not respected by many citizens. We seem to have slid back to the old ways. Is it any wonder that the voter apathy problem keeps growing? Our choices now are the same as they've always been; "Huey, Dewey and Screwy!" This issue of political welfare seems to be peculiarly Canadian. We like to compare ourselves to the Americans as being 'kinder and gentler' by having more government run social problems but if you look at the data you see that if we talk PRIVATE charity we Canadians are skinflints to them by comparison! We donate only a small fraction out of our own pockets as compared to the Americans to charities like the United Way, the Sally Ann or others. We are more content to let charity flow from general tax revenues and feel all warm, fuzzy and frankly elitist about it! Where's the equivalent to Obama-mania here in Canada? Sure it may be a bit over the top but you can't deny the man is inspiring. Maybe there will be a bit of a letdown when they realize they are expecting too much of him. He's a human being and not a magician, after all. Still, if a leader is inspiring it can be amazing what can be accomplished. JFK put America on the moon through inspiration. Speaking of JFK, there is that famous quote of "Ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country!" Here we are discussing having our country pay for our political parties rather than doing it ourselves. It may drift the thread a bit but I feel it is connected to say that letting general tax revenues pay parties is another symptom of our lack of inspiration and a direct reflection of why fewer and fewer citizens are bothering to vote. None of our party leaders have the inspiration of a turnip! Compared to Manning, a Harper speech could freeze water. The parties are all run by suits and admen, so busy fighting for the middle that they have lost everyone on either side of that mystical mean. Mulroney's two record-setting majorities, the two of Mike Harris and 'Trudeau-mania' were not spawned from fighting for the lowest common denominator. If anyone thinks that letting $1.95 from EVERYONE'S taxes follow his vote makes him a political revolutionary then I submit he needs to spend more time off his couch. It is about as significant as an NDP 'Rent-A-Protester'.

No, 'everyone' does NOT know! Not everyone agrees with you! What are you going to do if they get their 10,000 signatures? Declare that they are 10,000 racists and dismiss their views and feelings? Allow an entire town to lose respect for the law? Frankly, you sound rather elitist.

Molly, we never got a tax deduction for running bake sales and car washes! To get a deduction you had to give at least $100, of which maybe 75% became a deduction. So you were still out $25. Huge sums of money were raised by volunteer EFFORT and not sitting on your ass expecting the government to give tax dollars, which essentially comes from everybody's money and not just your own, in your name so you can take the credit and feel all smug. Whatever. The other parties all get the same deduction. They also could run the bake sales and car washes. They historically chose to get their money from fat cats, big corporations and unions. Somehow they either can't or won't make the effort to get money from ordinary people, with grassroots volunteer energy. My point still stands. New parties have the same opportunity. It would seem they choose not to do so, for whatever reason. Essentially, they want it for free or they won't get off their ass. Some show of passion and dedication to their ideals, eh?

Did the Prime Minister of Iran generate this report during the time warp he experienced when the aliens visited him during his address to the UN some years ago? I agree that the average citizen of Iran may be as truthful and rational as any of any other country but as far as their rulers go if they told me the time of day I would get a second opinion.

Hell, he doesn't even actually give the $1.95 out of his own pocket! It comes from general tax revenues! If someone is that poor that they can't afford a toonie out of their own pocket for a party they supposedly support then the least they could do is get off their butt and help out at a car wash rally or something. We never saw Conrad Black's $20,000 in our riding's bank account but we raised more than $20,000 when the average donation was more like $20! Some folks would appear to want revolution either on the cheap or on someone else's tab.

Even if you win your argument it really doesn't matter. If Iran gains nuclear power and along with it the capability to make nuclear weapons then it would put Israel in the position of a cornered rat! If they didn't launch a preventive attack on Iran then they would be fools. You appear to be supporting such a thing happening. Do you really think Israel could dare to just sit there and wait to see what would happen?

Reality totally disagrees with you! I personally was involved in fundraising for the Reform Party. We had bake sales, car washes, passed KFC buckets at meetings for coin and paper, yard sales, individual donations of anything from a buck to a few hundred bucks...whatever we could get! Few of the members in my riding were 'upper class'. Most were lower middle. Just ordinary working joes and retirees, for the most part. That's what grassroots means! There is no virtue in just being handed money. Or in promoting getting your money from OTHER PEOPLE'S TAXES! We did it! With phenomenal success! Why? Because we had a cause that appealed to enough grassroots folks! If a new party can't do the same, they don't deserve to survive. They would be just another bunch of parasites, sucking at the government teat for free money while deluding themselves they have significant popular support. In fact, I don't think 'elitist' would be too strong a word.

Well, given that Iran has often said that Israel should be wiped from the earth and that the reasons they cite for developing nuclear power don't seem to truly fit their situation, what confidence have they earned for other countries to believe them when they say they aren't going to build nuclear weapons? Particularly when they have massive centrifuge programs that are unnecessary for nuclear power but essential for nuclear weapons? Iran having nuclear weapons would make it the most powerful state in the Arab World, which has long been one of their goals. As for the right to stop them, it's more a case of can the world afford NOT to stop them! With nuclear weapons, the consequences of being wrong are so devastating as to be unthinkable. If Iran followed through with nuking Israel, it would be too late to say "Oops! Sorry! Guess we were wrong about that one!" If someone says he's going to bash your head in with a club and then commences to start carving one from a big piece of wood, does it make sense to wait until he swings it at your head before you decide to defend yourself? To make it worse, the middle east cannot support the Mutual Assured Destruction policy that kept things stable between the USA and the old USSR. Both countries had enough retaliation capacity to make a first strike unthinkably expensive in terms of the inevitable response. In the case of Iran and Israel, they don't have a nuclear armed submarine navy and Israel is so small that one nuclear strike would likely destroy any response capability. In effect, Iran could strike first without fear of retaliation from Israel. At that point, what would happen? Would the USA be willing to use nuclear weapons to avenge Israel, with all the problems that would bring down on its head, like dragging other countries into a nuclear conflict? Not likely. It would be more probable that no other country would want to make a horrible situation worse. Iran could get away with it! So do you really think that Israel DARES to just sit there and wait for it to happen?

I noticed I wasn't clear. I hope people realize I meant that LAYTON is looking more and more like Lenin, not the Video Professor!

You seem to have a very digital world view, i.e. on or off, all laws or no laws. Of course some laws are necessary and respected. Robbing a bank is a good example, if a trifle obvious. Some laws however have little or nothing to do with 'true' crime but rather 'morality' or 'lifestyle'. Lifestyle laws are a whole different fish kettle! They are driven by opinion. Sometimes it is a social majority opinion and sometimes it is simply a matter of a lobby group acquiring the clout to get some politician to cater to them. Also, over time social opinions change on lifestyle or moral issues. Laws against drugs, particularly marijuana and also prostitution are very ineffective, in that only a tiny fraction of drugs are ever found and confiscated, a tiny fraction of users are ever charged and as for prostitution...it seems to be perpetual, flourishing everywhere. If it becomes too blatant we see some arrests but otherwise, as long as it keeps a reasonably low profile it just goes on and on. So why are such laws enacted? Well, one thing they do well is to get votes for lawmakers! The kind of citizen who gets upset at the notion that other folks might be doing something that HE disapproves of is also the kind of citizen who thinks that passing a law by itself solves a problem. He never goes back to audit a new law and see if it actually did anything. For him its usually enough to think that some politician has 'kissed his butt' and made something he doesn't like illegal. I'm NOT just being cynical! This is EXACTLY the way the 'system' works! The way things are speaks for itself. Every politician knows that on such issues its a free shot to cater to the more 'prissy' segment of society. Most people aren't involved so they don't care. Those that are doing such illegal things are going to do them anyway! Why not, since the chances of being caught and the fines involved are so very low? So you don't lose any votes and you pick up a fair number of 'free' ones. Now consider what would happen if you tried the other approach, such as legalizing marijuana or prostitution. The people who don't like such things would immediately abandon any interest in any other issues that formerly determined their vote. They would vote as a Bloc AGAINST you! This might actually influence the outcome of the next vote and put you out of office. The real world demands that you make some distinctions. It's not black and white. There are shades of grey. Laws are no different. You can't consider lifestyle laws as being in the same context as theft or murder.

It's easy, MB! First, you demand that Harper abandon a balanced budget. Then you wait until you can lambaste him for running a deficit, after first berating him for not having a big ENOUGH stimulus deficit! If you're fortunate enough to knock him out of office, you blame the whole sorry mess on the deficit he left you. Then you can do whatever you want, take all the credit and deflect any blame that comes up on Harper for being your predecessor. It's been a tired old Opposition tactic for so flippin' long that I'm surprised there's any voter left over the age of 18 who believes it! It's about as original as a federal government opinion column in the Toronto Star. You know, "Everything the Liberals do is good. Everything Harper does is bad!". Excuse me, I'm feeling sleepy. I think I'll take a nap now.

I don't follow your reasoning here, Drea. Are you claiming that Hamas targeted a field? I find that very hard to believe. What I've seen in the media are claims that Hamas is firing rather inaccurate rockets into the general direction of Israeli cities. Mothers tuck their children into shelters at night. A number of innocent civilian parents and children have been killed. If a shell hit a field, I doubt if Hamas would be proud of their targeting skill! Rather, they'd be disappointed it didn't kill some Israelis. I just can't agree with your sense of proportion. If Hamas could inflict more civilian casualties on Israel it's certain they would. It's not for lack of trying. They're just doing the best they can with the level of technical armament available to them. It's a cinch that if they had more accurate and powerful weapons they would use them. As for the intensity of Israeli response, I agree with them! If someone was repeatedly launching random rockets into my neighbourhood and they killed my daughters, I would not be satisfied with simply killing two Hamas daughters. I couldn't care less! I WOULD want as many launchers as possible destroyed, with as many operators as possible along with them. If they used civilians as human shields I would have a moment's empathy but the people of Gaza freely elected Hamas and continue to allow them to govern. The difference would be that Israel kills civilians only as collateral damage. Hamas is deliberately targeting Israeli civilians. It's just too bad for Hamas that Israel is better at retaliation then Hamas is at provocation. That in itself is enough for me. When someone targets innocent civilians, on any side of a conflict, then to me they are no longer human beings. They are simply dangerous animals who should be wiped out. To me it seems that Hamas supporters are just primitive racists. They want to kill Israelis, ANY Israelis! Soldier or school child, it makes no difference. That makes them an abomination, in my eyes.

Well, let's see if Obama continues with Bush's policy of reducing America's dependence on foreign and unreliable oil sources, which is code for "Stop giving all our money to the Arabs and maybe they won't be able to buy bombs!" After all, the Saudis have been using all that American oil money to export Islamic fundamentalism for years. There are a LOT of reserves close to North America, both discovered and undiscovered! The move to hybrids and electric cars will also drastically reduce western demand for Middle Eastern oil. The trend away from plastics will also make a big difference. If America ever gets to the point where it doesn't need oil from that region they can afford to let the whole region kill each other off or let the Europeans try to handle the problems. It will be a dramatic change in world politics, almost certainly for the better!

The Video Professor? I thought that as he's been getting older he's looking more and more like Lenin! Seriously!