Wild Bill

If you could miss Freeman Dyson then I would suggest that you really don't have the background to judge who's reputable and who's not. That's like being unfamiliar with the name "Einstein" or "Hawking"! Dyson makes Suzuki look like Carrot Top on a hangover morning...

Exactly! Russia lacks the infrastructure and the flexibility to keep up in any technological race. You think they would have learned that when the USSR fell apart. No amount of petro wealth will make up for that. The most they could achieve would be to become like a member of OPEC, only with some nukes and some space ability. They're just lucky that their nukes will never be obsolete, just old, funny looking and clunky! Meanwhile, they seem to be blissfully uncaring about looking like some kind of international slavic brute. It's as if they WANT folks to consider them a threat! If that is so then they are foolish to complain that nations install defences against them. None of those former eastern European countries would be so hell bent on joining NATO if they felt the Russians had become nice guys! Russia's own actions make aligning with Uncle Sam and installing anti-missile defences simple prudence! Russia is trying to intimidate them against ever fighting back, instead of trying to establish positive relationships. As far as I'm concerned, Russia deserves whatever it gets back from such a policy.

Am I missing something here? My understanding of a debate is that people posit their premises and then defend them against others who disagree. If you want to change someone's mind then you are obligated to defend your own premise. They are under no obligation to do it for you. If I believe that you have stated something that is untrue, based upon my own learning and experience, am I supposed to investigate your proof for you? Are you saying that I have no right to question your premises? Meanwhile, you imply that I have been doing this a lot. I really didn't think I had! Still, if I'm supposed to swallow every point you make and spend my own time doing research on YOUR points before I can differ then why should I or anyone debate with you? Frankly Stephen, it all seems more than just a fixed mindset. It seems kinda righteous, at least to me. If my responses offend you that much then perhaps you should go to the CP control panel and put me on your "ignore" list. I would understand. I have a few people on my own list myself. Actually, I suspect that it is not me specifically that offends you. There is a tendency to confuse various posters on a board and think that you are actually arguing with only one entity. So when one person gets you upset you can get feisty with someone else. If it IS me specifically then I apologize! Still, don't expect me to accept your word as gospel and spend my time on research before daring to raise a quibble. Particularly when many of the topics on this board cover a wide spectrum of opinion and cannot be definitely considered as a truth or untruth, at least by those with an open mind. I will try to keep being polite but if you have a problem with me then again, you can choose to put me on "ignore". I would understand. If you feel more strongly about it then you can raise your objections with a moderator and I would abide by their decision.

Did I miss something? The only place where I've heard about parties having a preference about including the Greens in debates is HERE, in this thread! Now YOU are making a claim that the Liberals and ONLY the Liberals want May in and you feel it makes them look good! Can you give us a link or something to substantiate your claim about how any of the parties, including the Liberals, feel about including the Greens?

We all could stand to be reminded, myself included. If this board ever becomes as rude and vile as "rubble.ca" then I'm outta here!

Stephen, you might want to tone down the sarcasm. You're starting to sound like a refugee from "rubble.ca". Have you seen the thread about "Leftwing Folks" are "bullies"?

I can't speak for other folks, just for me! J'etait que j'etait...et ces tout que j'etait! ---Popeye the Sailor Man

There didn't have to be. That's how these things work! The whip counts noses to be sure that the result will be the desired outcome. At that point you can allow some dissenters to give the appearance of a free vote. It's very easy to do and sadly, is done all the time.

Harper has SOME anti-Libertarian policies which I oppose. His party is still head and shoulders more "free" than the Liberals or the NDP. I do NOT agree that he's a social conservative in his actual governing and I do not agree he practices out of control spending. So you've put words in my mouth. Forgive me if I spit them back at you! As for voting for an individual for MP, I gave that up years ago. Witnessing the absolute party solidarity practiced in Canada's Parliament taught me that for the most part MP's are just trained seals. Study the party line because that's what they'll vote for and ONLY what they'll vote for! So I base my vote first on my impression of the party's platform, its apparent competence and most of all, it's integrity! That rules the Liberals out! My impression of AdScam is that there's no possible way it could ever have worked without those at the top being aware of it. It was obviously set up to ensure "plausible deniability". They may have succeeded in keeping specific MP's from facing charges. That in no way allays my suspicions. To believe the official line goes against my own sense of logic and reason. For a party to have such a culture where such a thing could happen means they are not the kind of people I can trust. Not every single one, of course. Tony Valeri is a friend of mine and I would have a very hard time believing such a thing of him. Yet enough bad apples had established the culture and most of those involved are still there. In my mind they have to be punished. If we allow them to get away with it they will not have learned any lesson but that they CAN get away with such things! NEXT election I might forgive them! It took me a LONG time to forgive Mulroney! Over time people leave and the makeup of a party can change. There has not been enough time for the Liberals to do so, IMHO. Besides, I have little or no agreement with the Liberal party platform. I at least have SOME with the Tories! Things might change over the next few years but for now, that's the way I see it and so far nothing has been shown to me to affect my reasons for my choice.

Sure! And is not "hypocrite" one of the defining traits of being a politician? Still, don't you think it would be more fair to wait and see if Harper does such a thing before you condemn him? You sound like my wife. She gets mad at me for things she thinks I MIGHT do!

Any time! Unless he's much bigger than me, of course! Still, guys like that are a small minority. It's much easier to get along with someone of a different race if he's of the same culture and style. Archie Bunker and Mr. Jefferson got along just fine after they got to know one another. They were essentially the same inside, just a different colour on the outside.

An apology? I never denigrated their achievement! Quit the straw man tactics! They don't become you. As for the probabilities of a single instance, in what context? I thought you were asking me to accept that because of one instance they are always and forever more to be just as accurate. That just doesn't make sense. If I win one lottery ticket, will I always win? If it's YOUR contention that Nanos' history justifies such confidence then prove your own point! Why the hell should I be expected to prove yours for you? Even the Witness at my door on weekends wants me to READ his magazine and then decide if his message is valid. You're scolding me that I should write your magazine for you! In another life! Defend your own points and I'll defend mine, thank you very much!

Perhaps you should think about why we pick targets to sue at all! Suing is not just a punitive act of revenge. It's a claim that a party damaged you and you want compensation. The Cadmans and the author appear not to be rich. Why impoverish them? What would THAT serve? The Liberal Party, however, is another"fish kettle" entirely. Besides, they were the true offenders when they plastered their claims on their website. Would it be fair to pick on the little fish and let the big shark get off scot free?

So you give no credence to my links or the history that I witnessed. Well, that's your right, I suppose. I guess I'm free to to the same.

Forgive me, but I can't help but laugh when I read or hear discussions like this. Few folks are objective. They keep twisting their perceptions according to premises accepted but never proven. First off, it's not about race. It never really was and its not now. No one really cares about skin colour. It's culture, pure and simple! When I was young we sometimes went to Crystal Beach, an amusement park town close to the Niagara border where there would be lots of American tourists. We soon learned how to tell an American black teen from a Canadian one. If you accidentally bumped into him in the crowd, the Canadian would never notice. People bump each other in crowds all the time. However, if he took it personal and tried to make an issue of it, he was almost certainly an American! Why? The difference in culture at the time. America was in the midst of its civil rights struggles, with the street fires fresh in Detroit. Multi-cult was just starting to take hold, in the early 70's. There was what many today call a "white assed liberal" concept going around that all cultures were "beautiful" and all cultures were equally "nice" by our standards. I witnessed first hand how this simply wasn't true. Our hangout was a local Greek coffee shop, run by a new immigrant who had also imported what seemed like a couple of dozen older granddads, uncles and cousins, along with their wives and children. The older Greeks would cluster together all day long at a table off to the side, talking loudly about issues from the strife in their homeland. We Canadian kids of course had no idea of what they were talking about. Their issues were foreign to us and besides, they mostly spoke in Greek. Meanwhile a lot of teenage girls from our neighbourhood took jobs in this coffee shop. Since they were friends of ours it was common for them to greet us guys when we came in. Often this involved a quick kiss on the cheek or jumping on a lap, then scurrying off to get us coffee and maybe doughnuts. We thought nothing of this. For us this was just casual friendliness, in the culture in which we had all been raised. However, it was something quite different for these old Greek gentlemen. In their culture, there was only one explanation for the girls' behavior. They must be whores! How do I know this? These old guys explained it to me! In their home culture there were only two kinds of women, family like wives and sisters and whores who were all dying to spend a night with "a REAL man!" So incidents of sexual harassment began, especially on night shifts. They would wait until the coffee shop was relatively empty and when the girl went into the kitchen on an errand they would follow and make a move, like pinning her up against the wall and/or groping her. This was documented at the time. The local cops started coming in at odd hours through the night to make sure the girls on duty were okay. Remember, this was the early 70's and respect for women issues were just coming to the fore. Today these guys would have been charged on the spot. We guys started coming in as well, to protect our friends. The girls were in a terrible position. They were young teens inexperienced in handling such blatant moves and they also needed their jobs! It all worked out in the end. The shop was closed. The owner moved his shop to Toronto. The girls found other jobs. The most ironic factor however was the case of one young girl who had been one of the loudest champions of multi-cult when she first took the job! She would gush about the opportunity to work in a European atmosphere and what's more, tended to denigrate her own culture as "boring" and "too white bread". The first night she had to frantically fend off an assault dramatically changed her value set! Now, women have had to put up with this sort of crap as long as there have been men, in all sorts of cultures. What made this different was the multi-cult idea that all cultures are equally valid. The idea that our incumbent culture was less valid was just an addendum to the point. These girls learned that there are aspects to another culture that they themselves did not find very pleasant. I doubt if any of them would have championed such cultural traits being adopted as mainstream here in Canada! What's more, many of them realized how lucky they were to live in our culture, where such behavior towards women just wasn't normal. Any Canadian male who tried such things would be considered a pervert, especially by most other Canadian males! So in these debates we should leave race out of it. It just serves to obfuscate the issue. It's culture, nothing more. We have good reason to be proud of our own culture. We have no reason to accept other cultural traits as good or better than our own without examining them and if necessary refusing to have anything to do with them. Not that our culture may always be perfect. Still, it's ours and in general it has a lot more respect and positive values to others than we see in many other cultures. It's our right to pick and chose from other cultures. We are under no obligation to treat those values we consider to be negative as equally valid, IN CANADA! If other countries want to live like that then that's a different issue. We should just make sure they don't try to bring them here or worse yet, coax some vote-grabbing politician into making changes to our laws in their favour. If we take no pride in the culture we have worked so long to build and fail to defend it then we deserve whatever we get.

I wouldn't count my chickens, if I were you. Back at the end of the 80's Reform elected Deb Gray as their first sitting MP, in a by-election. The other parties REFUSED to allow Reform in on the televised debates! Said that one MP was nowhere near enough to matter. The precedent was set. Don't be surprised if the incumbent parties stick to it!

Those poor women! And it would appear that it was all so unnecessary! I commend you for your zeal! If nothing else, you may put the 'fear of God' into some of those officials and help ensure that complacent attitudes will not be allowed to let such a thing happen again. If the details you've mentioned prove true, I will have no respect whatsoever for Mr. Williams.

How quickly you embrace partisanship over math! For that's what polls are, sheer math! Math doesn't care how you feel about things. Nanos may have better methodology but they are NOT oracles! There is no mysticism involved. You studiously ignored my point about how many times has Nanos been that accurate. I guess if you got what you needed even once for purposes of your argument then damn math, that's enough! You're entitled to your beliefs but if that's all they're based on I would never cover your bets.

This thread reminded me that you once asked for a link or two when I told you I distinctly remember how Mulroney had coerced his own MP's on a supposedly "free" Commons vote on the death penalty. Here's a few: http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/art...roneycancon.htm This paragraph is at the very end of the page: "Mulroney's political problems emerged in the fact that he had no clear and coherent value-system, apart from the belief in pure self-aggrandizement and "power-in-itself", as well as a left-liberal sentiment and instinct more appropriate to the Liberal and NDP. (As on the capital punishment issue where, according to polls, over 80% of Canadians were at that time in favour of the death penalty. It is an open secret that Mulroney arm-twisted his Quebec MPs and generally did his best to undermine the parliamentary vote taken at that time, in regard to restoring capital punishment.)" Here's another: http://netk.net.au/Death/Death43.asp "Source: 13 October 2007 Stanley Tromp The Globe and Mail “How Mulroney buried the move to reinstate capital punishment”. " The above was the last line on the page. This one is the most fun! Page 7 of the file gets into the nitty gritty: http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/pdfs/ub..._1987_07_15.pdf The above link is a .pdf file of newspaper clippings that won't let me cut and paste an excerpt but suffice to say it tells how Mulroney realized that the overwhelming majority of Canadians wanted a return to capital punishment, at least in some extreme cases. (I also remember at the time how opponents would try to make it look like it would mean capital punishment for almost EVERY crime, right down to parking tickets, it seemed!) Mulroney was personally against it but wanted the popular support so the author paints a case as to how Mulroney set up a "free" vote but then rigged it to lose! Hope these links are what you wanted.

Give me a break! I live in Ontario! I survived Bob Rae's NDP government, barely! I'd shoot my own children rather than have them live through such pain again! Well, an exaggeration of course but damn! I'd feel sad as hell for them! I couldn't describe how strongly I feel about such idea without killing the thread under Godwin's Law! Far as I'm concerned, I will never drink that kool-aid! You're asking me to live in Jamestown long enough to win YOUR issue! What are you willing to suffer to support one of MY principles?

Hey, I simply pointed out that he may be doing something that other PM's have done since Canada was founded. I leave it to you to give it a value judgement. Me, this is where I part company with the Tories anyway. I'm a total Libertarian about drugs. People have the right to screw up their heads any way they want as far as I'm concerned. It's their head, after all! I agree that there's a smell of Ned Flanders about this bunch but I still see no choice but to vote for them. As far as I know, they've never stolen from us for millions of dollars like the Liberals have! That's enough in my books, at least for a term or two.

Not mine! You could not possibly have been more wrong. I have gay friends. We are close, even if they don't always buy their fair share of the beer. Some are even Liberals but I try not to hold it against them. Some may be Christians. I would never ask if they are because I'm afraid they might tell me! I love babies and am fascinated by whales. I really have only one prejudice that I am aware of - country music! I don't mind traditional country, with dulcimers and fiddles and everyone having a footstompin' good time. I also can appreciate it when Willie Nelson tells a story. Gordon Lightfoot and Stompin' Tom are both heroes of mine. I just can't hack those whining cowboys and truck drivers! And folk singers who sing through their nose hoping their songs will then sell better as "New Country! The amazing new music genre from K-Tel!" So don't try to tell me what my magnets say. That's personal! Otherwise I'll demand to know what you and your toaster have been talking about!

I find this thread to be amazing in that for sci-fi no one has even mentioned: "Buckaroo Banzai"!!! I thought for sure Angus would have picked it! Who could forget those immortal words: "Laugh while you can, Monkey Boy!" This movie was so full of in jokes and hilarious social commentary that it made Spinal Tap look like something produced for a CBC NewsWorld documentary. I catch something new every time I watch it, from the opening scenes where a team of scientists and technicians are prepping a high tech vehicle for Buckaroo. The camera keeps cutting back to the control room where a digital display in the corner is flashing first "SINED", then "SEALED". then "DELIVERED". And what about Star Trek - Wrath of Khan? If it were anything but a sci-fi movie Ricardo Montaban would have won an Oscar for his portrayal of the lead villain. Or William Shatner in the 3rd Star Trek movie, for that matter. When I saw the scene where he finds out that his son has been killed I realized that the man could actually act! It was just the first time I had ever seen him do it!

It's from a refrigerator magnet I had for years until it became too worn to be useful. The actual message was: "Save the Unborn Baby Whales from Drunk Drivers and Nuclear War!" I had it from the 80's and it was one of my most prized "smart ass" possessions, along with a bumper sticker that said "Don't Vote! You'll only encourage them!"

Very well, then I suggest that maybe part of the problem you've experienced in getting sufficient donations is because you are representing causes that don't have sufficient popular appeal. This is not a problem with our donation laws. It is actually a true expression of populist democracy. If you don't like the show, you don't have to buy a ticket!