Wild Bill

Even if the promise was made exactly the way Williams claims, Harper would have had a simple choice. Please Danny Williams and have the rest of Canada refuse to vote for him! As an Ontarioan I am particularly disgusted with the greed of Danny Williams and feel like a chump for all the taxes I paid to give Newfoundland all those equalization payments. If Harper had caved on this issue I would have had a very difficult time voting for Harper. I think Danny boy is kinda dumb if he expected Harper to commit political suicide just for him!

Speaking of chickens, having Jack as the Opposition might be a good thing! Finally we would have a simple clear choice of "left and right", to put it in simple terms. The Liberals tended to be a mushy choice, never clearly standing for anything but trying to appear to stand for everything! As Opposition, the NDP would have to become a lot more practical since they might actually be called to govern. This would tend to mollify some of their more "silly" views. Canada might actually be better served with such an outcome.

"...all you Ontarians"? You wanna rephrase that, laddie? Millions of us voted consistently against the Liberals! I still have perhaps the very first Reform membership ever given into Ontario. We pulled over a million and a half votes at one time. You're insulting all of us that were and are on your side! What's more, let me tell you from personal experience that Calgary HQ often had little or no clue of how to campaign in the East yet insisted on controlling everything from thousands of miles away. They elbowed out all the local folks to fight the Sheila Copps byelection and proceeded to run a national issues campaign in a riding where local presence was everything. We all sat back and watched in horror as Sheila romped to an easy victory and our Reform candidate did far worse than the previous election. Now with the new Tories Calgary is still doing some stupid things. It wasn't too smart of Jim Flaherty to spend his time trying to tear McGuinty down instead of showing Ontario that the Tories would be a better choice. Sometimes it looks like the Tories believe that they shouldn't worry if Ontario's manufacturing economy goes down the tubes because what the hell, the West is doing great with oil and of course, it's their turn! I too will again vote Tory but only by default. As an Ontarioan with eyes I also clearly see the negatives of the Liberals. However, this doesn't make me blind to faults with the Tories! So far they simply seem to smell a bit less than the others. Meanwhile, I would be more careful of my vitriol, if I were you. You get more flies with honey. Harper is going to have to work hard to convince all those manufacturing workers that he is serious about helping to keep their jobs so they can feed their kids. What he did in Sarnia/Windsor was a good start but it will take more than that to have it look like more than a token. Calling ALL of us Ontarioans stupid Liberal supporters is hardly a smart way to help Harper win seats here. Who's side are you on?

Yeah, it seems like they will! Meanwhile, sometimes these Luddite posts get me down. I think I'll start rooting for the Vogons.

ALL of them? Besides, it's been my experience that nitrogen depletion has got nothing to do with spiritual beliefs. The soil has nutrients or it doesn't. A plant gets enough water or it doesn't. The natives either knew the science or they didn't. A plant doesn't care how you feel about its spirit, if it has one.

Well, you do understand that it might cost you $11 to manufacture them... I guess then you'd sell them under cost and expect to make it up in volume.

Last I heard she was going to run against Peter McKay in Nova Scotia - Pictou/Antigonish.

The only reason they appear to have "taken care" of the land is because they had a relatively small population! Do you really believe that primitive tribes understood eco-science and conservation? I think the historical record would show that when they hunted, farmed or fished out a given area they simply picked up and moved on to a fresh one. After a few generations the area they left behind would have recovered. Give them a few more hundred years of increasing their numbers and the situation would likely have become a lot less positive.

+1! Sadly, while I agree in general with the good Doctor's goals I just can't see him ever attaining them with emotional rather than practical approaches. A cheerleader, not a quarterback. I admire his passion but would look elsewhere for a champion. The Libertarians might be the faint hope but Canada is not likely ready for the rest of their political platform. However it comes about, it will take those possessing both leadership and the political power to make it happen. That would seem to indicate it must come from within a traditional governing party. That party would obviously have to be in a comfortable majority position in national popularity to risk it.

Agreed! Perhaps it is merely an emotional reaction but I just can't stomach the thought of someone leading the country holding two or more citizenships! I'm a Canadian and I want someone who's ONLY a Canadian as my Prime Minister! There must be no question, however soft, about where their true loyalties lie. This is Canada, NOT the United Nations!

Disco sucks! Disco sucks! Disco sucks! There, that's 3 lines!

No, we are not! You might read it that way but frankly, your posts show you simply don't have a qualified opinion. First off, a collision between two protons might spark a black hole. Would you expect that black hole to be LARGER than a proton? Physicists have known for years now that black holes don't last forever, particularly if they are very, very small. If Stephen Hawking isn't worried, why should we be? What's more, protons have been racing around this universe since it was formed. Do you really think that a collision in this machine will be the first and only time it has occurred? Why wasn't everything swallowed up long ago? Such collisions must have occurred in nature an uncountable number of times. The universe is infinite, or hadn't you heard? This reasoning reminds me of other nonsensical fears I've heard over the years. Back in the 70's I heard one protester about nuclear waste being against the idea of disposing it with rockets as "polluting space"! He obviously had no idea of what space was. He seemed to think it was another province or something. The entire earth is just a flyspeck on a grain of sand on a beach as wide as the Solar system in comparison to the size of "space". Actually, still a lot bigger! So people qualified to make opinions had no fears, considering the risk to be less than the number of deaths due to farting in elevators on a ride from the upper floors all the way down. Considering the benefits, should we not conduct such experiments because some people who couldn't even build a crystal set if their life depended on it are worried? Many of these same people think that we should whole heartedly believe THEIR list of approved climate change scientists and impoverish ourselves meeting Kyoto targets yet they won't believe the physicists who tell us their collision machine is safe! Where's the "B" Ark when you need it?

That's only witty if you believe that Chavez was indeed democratically elected. Personally, I would be doubtful of that claim. However, if you have faith then that's your right. I'll reserve my opinion, thank you. I don't find Chavez to be an inspiration of moral virtue. Even if he is, that hardly validates your argument. Just because a country has a democratic government doesn't mean we can't find ourselves to be rivals or worse over some issue or other. A government is expected to look after its own citizens' interests first, not those of other countries that they might happen to admire.

You too? Great strip! We should start a thread about such strips, like Calvin & Hobbes and the early years of Doonesbury and Bloom County.

Open your eyes! It's country music! And disco, of course.

If he was actually racing...that's what we've been talking about!

Interesting that you would take that meaning from my post. Who said anything about secrecy and sabotage? I was referring to having Canadian values and feelings. I've found that Americans are very different than us as far as their culture. Sometimes some disparage Canadians for being too polite and obliging. A far greater number seem to believe that Americans are often rude and pushy. Yet no one seems to accuse May of being a typical American. Curious. Some things have to be learned in childhood or one may grow up incapable of ever learning. Case in point is thinking by the scientific method. Apparently if a child is never taught such before a certain age they will likely never be able to grasp the concept. A lifetime of arguing with many different people has led me to believe that this idea at least is true!

How many Canadian flags were waved in Russia?

Because he or she is not a Reformer! Reform was the ONLY party to champion that idea. NONE of today's parties have this idea in their party platform. Manning used to say that an MP was supposed to represent his riding's wishes to Ottawa, not Ottawa's wishes to his or her constituents. What do you think Harper, Dion, Duceppe, May or Jack would say to the idea?

Of course I would! I don't want yet another useless law! I want a law that specifically targets real problems and is effectively enforced! Enforce laws against speeding. Enforce laws against racing. Just don't use a law about racing as a convenience to put some of the speeders you catch into a more lurid category, just so it can APPEAR that you're making our families safer! How many people charged under this new street racing law were actually street racing? From what I've heard, once again the true figure is "mice nuts". Yet we do indeed still have a problem with street racing, at least in some areas of the province. So why don't we see more police catching more of THEM?

None! May's only hope is some change to our system that will give some proportional representation. Some feel that would be more democratic. Myself, I'm not so sure. The Greens may get 5-6% of the popular vote across the country. Should this mean 5-6% of the seats? I don't think so. One of the GOOD things about our present system is that the entry bar ensures that a party must gain enough support to win a seat in ONE geographical riding! Canada is a huge country with many varied regions. We NEED to keep as much regional representation in our political system as possible! Especially when we don't have an effective upper House or Senate to defend those regions' interests, unlike virtually ever other parliamentary democracy in the world. If a party can't concentrate enough voter support in even a few ridings to win then I submit they just aren't enough of an effective show of popular support to deserve seats in the Commons! It's interesting that those parties most in favour of proportional representation are those that seem unlikely to ever get more seats any other way. It is an argument for the losers, it would seem. Whatever, if we do decide to amend our system I do hope that we do NOT follow the proposal put forth on the last Ontario ballot, where after the election we'd see party MPP's giving seats to unelected people, from a list made by the party and not by the people. Talk about a slippery slope! Why have elections at all?

Sorry to disappoint you but those flags and those hyphens are and were not daydreams. Perhaps you live on a different street but please don't ask me to not believe what I've seen for years with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. It's amazing how such observations as mine are quickly dismissed as merely anecdotal. All such observations... thousands and thousands of them! To be fair, it's almost impossible to scientifically gather such stats. Most people don't want to admit publicly that they place Canada 2nd in their hearts. It can cause problems if you're too obvious. I still remember being almost badgered by a federal employee in the early 80's trying to get me to cite something other than Canadian for my ethnicity. She asked about my parents, my grandparents and so on. Finally I told her "My ancestors came over from Ireland and Scotland on the good ship Hector, which landed in Pictou, Nova Scotia in the 1690's. How long does my family have to be here to be called Canadian? She didn't hear my last question. She had already triumphantly cried "Ah ha! Irish and Scottish!", scribbled it down and moved on.

Be fair, jdobbin! This was hardly party policy. ONE individual got carried away and has paid a price for it. It's obvious he won't get off Harper's crap list for a long time. It seems whenever one Reformer or now Tory goofs up some folks brand the entire party. There's a word for such action. It also seems that when a Liberal pulls a Hedy Fry it's always dismissed as "it was only that one person and they made a human mistake anyway." There's a word for that as well. Not that I'm accusing YOU of being that biased, jdobbin but we both know it tends to happen as an almost universal rule, from both sides of the political spectrum. As support for my argument, I put forth the entire inventory of message posts over at "rubble.ca". You might find it buried sometimes under all the vitriol and profanity but there's enough there to simply ooze through the entire board.

Sorry, I missed your point. I was daydreaming about watching all the flags waved for OTHER countries on my main street, during the China Olympics. I wasn't sawing "zzzz's", I was sawing "hyphens"!

+1! It's worse! I spent some time talking with my own teenagers and some of their friends about how they feel towards cars and driving. What a difference from my youth! It's not just that ALL of my admittedly tiny sample thought that domestics were poorer quality. It's also that they weren't enthusiastic about driving and owning a car at all! To them a car is an expensive piece of tin, pure and simple, to be avoided at all costs. If you are unlucky enough to live in an area with poor public transit then you do what you have to but there's no joy in it! What a sea change! Since Henry Ford first started up his assembly line the market has been conditioned to look at a car as something sexy that will provide fun and freedom. Now it's simply an expense. Who can afford to "go cruising" with the price of fuel today? You're right, the "suits" appear to have focused exclusively on us old "boomers". As we die off, so will the American car companies, it would seem.