Wild Bill

Do you really think it fair to judge Chretien's popularity as so high, when he governed during a time of a total split in the main opposition? I mean, talk about a free ride... We'll never know I guess how well he would have done in a more normal situation.

I quite agree that it its illogical to demonize an entire people. Peoples do not commit acts, either positive or negative. Individuals or numbers of individuals do. In Caledonia however it would seem that Dalton and the OPP have made a grievous error. In trying to defuse the situation they were more worried about offending the natives than the townsfolk. They seemed to have taken it for granted that the townspeople would be less violent than the natives. In this regard they were obviously right but they have paid a price. The townspeople may have been less prone to negative actions but they have become even more hurt and resentful. When an OPP dispatcher tells you "Don't call us anymore. You're on your own!" it is quite a shock to your idea of citizenship and the way the "system" is supposed to work. Like the emperor's new clothes, no one in authority wants admit their true fear is that there are non-local militants among the protesters who would use violence or perhaps even firearms. After all, it is rather absurd to assume it was townspeople who burned out the hydro transformer and blacked out the entire area for some days. Because of this assumption, the authorities seem to feel that anything that avoids further damage or bloodshed is a success. Unfortunately, the consequences of this approach fall on the townsfolk. i guess the difference is that if they can contain the situation then it doesn't affect the government's fortunes across the whole province. Losing the Caledonia riding for the next hundred years is a small price in comparison. That's why Fantino has such an obvious hate on for McHale. McHale is shouting "The Emperor is nude!" At all costs he must be silenced, by Fantino's lights. I'm not disagreeing with you as far as the need for conflict resolution. I'm simply saying that in Caledonia the government appears to have been extremely shortsighted in their tactics and has severely compromised any hope of ever regaining the trust of the townspeople or achieving a re-establishment of a positive relationship between the two communities. The initial offense was from the OPP to the natives. The unfortunate result was that the natives used protest tactics AGAINST THE TOWNSFOLK and not specifically targeted against the OPP and government. The townsfolk feel like they were made into cannon fodder. Not surprising, since that's what indeed happened, by definition! Now the people involved in negotiating a resolution seem unwilling to admit to this, perhaps for fear of offending "native pride". So they've offended the townsfolks' pride! And made them feel that they are no longer protected by the "system" as citizens. Surely things could have been handled better.

Not as many as you might think! It's easy to confuse race with culture, even though they have only a tenuous connection. Lots of posters here on the board have negative impressions of certain cultures but couldn't care less about an individual's race.

Well, I'm hardly a theist of any kind but if I had to choose between a Baptist picnic or any event on Six Nations I'd feel a lot less threatened with the Baptists!

Here we see the inherent difference in how we perceive reality. REALITY IS A CONSTANT! THINGS EXIST! EVENTS HAPPEN AND FACTS DON'T CHANGE BECAUSE YOU CHOOSE TO IGNORE THEM OR BEND YOUR MEMORY! As opposed to thinking that it's all your own perception and that if somehow you can convince people to your view then reality will change to correspond. What utter tripe! People are entitled to their own opinions but NOT their own set of facts! If you "win" an argument by intimidation reality doesn't change to fit your argument. Your statement about reality and perception seems cribbed straight from George Orwell's 1984: "Down the memory hole!" and "How many fingers do you see, Smith? If the State says there are five fingers then that's how many there are!" A = A. The Universe couldn't care less about your perceptions. Facts are facts and actions are actions.

I must confess that these last few decades I've become disappointed with the black race. I've spoken to a couple of my black friends about this but they just laugh at me! You see, they gave us jazz, blues and rock and roll. Jimi, Buddy Guy, B B King (who is GOD!). Then they followed it all up with disco and then rap. I'm not sure if it's a conspiracy but I know its a tragedy! Meanwhile, I hold them responsible!

Yeah, wasn't that idea of foam surrounds convenient? For decades cones had solid surrounds to anchor them to the rim of the basket. Suddenly we see thin foam surrounds that supposedly add a sound improvement. It's only some 5 or 6 years later when the warranty is over that we find that the foam rots away and we need to pay for the new surrounds. Since most of the market isn't even aware of what a surround is let alone that they can be replaced they end up becoming used to the idea that speaker cabinets are a perishable product not expected to last more than 5-10 years and they junk them! It's off to the store to buy new ones!

True! That's where a different technology can be more useful. I'm not arguing to totally abandon one for the other. Your Ipod player is a lot more convenient for biking. That being said, if you took the trouble to load from clean vinyl onto cassette tape, you might miss the availability and convenience of an extensive playlist but you would have FAR better sound quality in your ears! To run an Ipod in a docking station for your car or house is like making a symphony play from a small transistor radio and amplify it for a concert hall! The sound quality difference is so extensive as to make the Ipod source appear ridiculous! But not, of course, to a marketing suit.

Yeah, it is predictable, isn't it? Who I find truly scary are hosts like Ben Mulroney and George "Snuffleupagus". I guess I'm showing my years. I don't see them as hip at all but rather the modern equivalent of David Cassidy or Dick Clark giving you all the rock and roll that has been approved by your parents! In other words: trite, manufactured and lame! Still, that's better than my impressions of Chretien. People will be talking about Shawinigate and his likely connections to AdScam long after they've forgotten Mulroney and Kurt Schreiber.

Who tore down the hydro tower? Who burned out the hydro transformer and left the area with no electricity for days? Who beat up that old couple who were driving by? Who beat up and robbed the CHCH cameramen? Who beat up the old man in that house under construction? Who stole the OPP car and tried to run over the officer? These are only a fraction of what we've all seen. This is why I no longer care if the land claims are valid. Whatever. This is becoming a badly crossed thread. Your responses however I feel are confirming my initial post so perhaps things are still appropriate.

Thank you! You confirmed it for me that the good father's argument was a little weak. He was responding to the main article(s). By definition I guess he is a man of faith and feels he must support that view. Seems that you too agree with the main article. I cited it to point out how to so many fervent protesters belief trumps truth, as with the videotape clips of native violence taken by CHCH tv and the contrast with the video clip posted on this board purporting to show how Mchale somehow deliberately triggered violence. It also explains how someone like Cross could shoot a doctor for performing abortions. Or how a suicide bomber could blow up a school yard. Some folks seem to confuse the intensity of their belief with truth. They feel that if they can demonstrate their belief in a stronger fashion that somehow makes it more true. Scary! People of that persuasion cannot be reasoned with. If a situation boils over you have to react as if to a rabid dog. There's no point in discussion!

+1! The entertainment industry could have stopped digital piracy in it's tracks by reverting to vinyl! Bring back album art you don't need a magnifying glass to see and stop filling up albums with one or two good singles and a bunch of crap filler. Production costs shouldn't be a factor. CD's cost more than vinyl when first introduced, by a lot! Still, I just can't see the "suits" bringing themselves to make such a change. They see the huge profit over the production cost of a CD and would not be able to stomach taking any hit at all, even in the short term. This trend is already strong in Britain, despite being almost underheard of here in North America. Yet even so we have a small niche of artists releasing vinyl. It's a tiny niche but it has no piracy problems and a loyal market base. A quick google will show that you can buy modern turntables of excellent quality, easily! Any true audiophile cringes at the quality of digital music anyway. We're witnessing an entire generation that has never heard true high fidelity. The MP3 was developed as a stripped down, compressed file to reduce download times with dialup modems. This means less fidelity. It's just the physics of Mother Nature and you can't get around it. The CD never had the fidelity of unscratched vinyl or tape but again, the suits saw they could sell the convenience factors and took for granted the market was too unsophisticated to notice the loss of fidelity. It's ironic that although they seemed to have been right they set themselves up for the new technology of massive piracy! Marketing suits also educated the new generation into tiny speaker cabinets that are easy to fit into a decor. Physics dictates that cabinets require internal volume to be efficient and properly reproduce all the frequencies. Small cabs will seem to work but that's why the average apartment sized receiver boasts several hundred watts of power. It needs it for the inefficient speaker cabinets! I run a stereo 30 watt a side tube receiver into some big 70's style Fisher speaker cabs and I can shake the walls! We now need all that power to drive inefficient little cabinets, because some marketing suit fooled us into thinking they would give us great "CD" quality sound! When marketing is allowed to constantly trump engineering then the record industry deserves what it has gotten! It never had to happen, except for their own greed.

well, it would help if you actually read what I said and responded to it, rather than jump into some pre-programmed response! I'LL USE CAPITALS IN THE HOPE THAT YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY LISTEN TO MY WORDS! I WOULD BE WILLING TO CONCEDE THAT ALL THE LAND CLAIMS ARE TRUE AND VALID IN THE NATIVES' FAVOUR! IT WOULD STILL NOT MATTER TO ME ONE WHIT! IT'S NOT THE CLAIMS! IT'S THE TACTICS! YOU USED THE TOWNSPEOPLE AS CANNON FODDER! TO ME THAT PUTS YOU IN THE SAME CATEGORY AS THE IRA OR SUICIDE BOMBERS! YOUR ZEAL HAS JUST NOT TAKEN YOU THAT FAR DOWN THE PATH, YET! TO ME, THERE IS LITTLE OR NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE THUGS THAT BEAT UP THAT OLD MAN OR WHOEVER BLEW UP THE HYDRO TRANSFORMER AND THE OPP "DEPUTY DAN" WHO SHOT DUDLEY GEORGE! THE MORALITY, OR RATHER LACK OF IT, IS THE SAME! Now, I wonder if you'll respond to my actual points or once again take me on a tangent with a centuries old history lesson. Sometimes I think I'm listening to a juke box with the same record on every button.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=199411 http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/column....html?id=199495 This excerpt I believe to be particularly telling: "All of which seems rather unremarkable to state, except for the fact that many people do not think this way. Belief is often treated as a private conclusion, entirely subjective and not generally applicable. It can only be judged on the ground of sincerity, not on right or wrong, true or false." I submit that part of the reason why we are reading posts from native supporters that seem so flagrantly illogical and over the top is due to the syndrome expressed in these two links. We are arguing with people high on faith, which is usually pointless. Sadly, it would appear that this means there can never be any common ground. The most that could be achieved would be some sort of uneasy truce, complete with a DMZ between Caledonia and Six Nations. I'm sure I'll now get scolded from the usual quarters but that of course will have little or nothing to do with what's actually going to happen. I'd love to be proven wrong but we'll have to look back 10 years from now to properly judge. We might be lucky. People do win lotteries, after all.

Well, he's helped prove the point to me! And I've seen no indication that he's any sort of white supremacist, unless we use your definition of that being anyone who disagrees with anything said by a native. As I said, my confidence in the police has been severely shaken and it would take more than you scolding me to make me overlook what I've seen, heard and reasoned. I've made sure that my children have seen what has happened. Someday a cop might throw them to the wolves because it's politically expedient. As citizens we don't have much choice but to call a cop when we need one but I don't want my kids to be naive and take it for granted they'll be protected. After listening to the native points expressed on this board if a native spokesperson gave me the time of day I'd want a second opinion. Then again, with McGuinty they're in good company. The irony is that before the Caledonia protests I was quite sympathetic to the aboriginal claims. I guess I still am, pretty well anywhere in Canada EXCEPT for disputes involving Six Nations! To me, when you use innocents as cannon fodder then that by definition is simple terrorism. And I can never vote for any politician who is willing to excuse such actions. Either we are all deserving of the protection of the law or none of us are. The natives have excused themselves by declaring themselves sovereign. If they're sovereign then they have no more claim to Canadian law than Belgium. You can't have it both ways.

Well, he has certainly proven his main point that the law is enforced differently for whites than natives! I'll never take it for granted that a policeman will automatically defend my rights again! I guess I was naive.

I'm convinced we are genetically programmed to find those most different from our local mating group to be more attractive. This would explain the "lure of the exotic". I never was much of a lady killer but years ago when working as a sound man/roadie for a band we played a gig in Hearst, Ontario. This was way up north in the middle of French Canadian territory. I had girls all over me! Now this was a novel experience for me, but not unwelcome! Still, I was curious as to why, especially when the sound man usually took second place to the singer/front man. So I asked one of the ladies and she explained in wonderfully accented English that it was my red hair! She told me that the entire town ran to brown or black hair, from the smaller gene pool I guess. Over the years I've remembered her words and from observation on many social occasions it always seemed to be true. I'm guessing that this is a natural instinct to mitigate inbreeding. After all, any animal breeder will tell you that mutts are always stronger and even smarter! You breed too fine and you get many problems. Moreover, we live today in more of a Star Trek society. Young folks are going to fall in love and race has little or nothing to do with it. Culture is still an issue, of course. Not many mainstream Canadian girls would want anything to do with men of certain cultures that have more primitive ideas of sexual equality. After my second daughter was born my friends jokingly asked me what I was going to do when they started bringing home boys. I told them that as long as the boys weren't country players I could handle anything!

If you're talking about PetroCanada, I remember how right from the start they were always the first to up their prices and the last to bring them down! As the Who sang it: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!"

All of our posts seem to boil down to this universal constant: We do indeed have copyright problems and as always the government intends to enact a wildly unfair and inappropriate solution! Why? Because like always the people making the decisions are unfamiliar with the realities of the problem. Or possibly worse yet, beholden to special interests. Should someone be able to get a copyrighted product like a music album or movie for free? No. Should that same someone who has legally purchased such a product be allowed to make a copy for his own use or convert the product to another media for his convenience? Of course! Does the government's proposed solution understand this distinction? As always, no. Will the vast majority of people do what they want with the commonly available tools of a technology? Of course they will.

Marking? Do they not already have serial numbers? You imply that they are unmarked in any way. And the police recommend any and all proposed laws. The more the better, in their philosophy. It gives them more choices and they obviously couldn't care less if the money spent is cost-effective. Just give them more and bigger clubs, I guess! Then they can choose to ignore such laws, if they choose. Just ask the citizens of Caledonia. I'm sorry but as an Ontario resident my faith in the police has been severely shattered. I've had a personal experience with police in collusion with illegal body shop practices that opened my eyes but Caledonia showed me that they could take the rule of law away from an entire town if they chose! It might surprise you but I'm also disappointed with the Harper government over this issue. I want them to make mandatory sentences for using guns illegally in commission of crimes! Perhaps a guaranteed five years for carrying one into a variety store with intent to rob and 10 years if you actually brandish it! No plea bargain. No sentences served concurrently instead of consecutive (like we just saw with that animal in British Columbia. Once again we are reminded that in Canada after you kill one victim all the rest are free). And no special protection in prison either. Why should all taxpayers have to pay? If a judge chooses to give a light sentence for terrorizing some poor clerk at least the gun portion would be out of his control and mandatory. I understand that Harper has a minority government and it's a virtual certainty that the opposition parties would oppose any such moves, given their previous histories. Still, it would be nice to see him make the effort. Besides, if he moved quickly Dion would no doubt vote with him out of fear of going into an election broke and with an organization in tatters. It might actually get passed! If more gun toting criminals were added to our prison populations I would cheerfully accept the increase in my taxes! Lord knows I've been paying for many things I don't approve, like canoe museums and golf courses in Shawinigan...

Well, I didn't see the answer above! More than that, I don't accept all your answers as gospel. And I don't see anyone calling for having no registration whatsoever, either. I don't think we've had such a situation since the days of flintlocks, anyway. I think the point you never seem to address is that all the ramifications of your supporting points deal with the minor aspects of gun crime. By far the biggest issue is illegal guns in the hands of criminals. So far no government but particularly the previous Liberals seems to even want to talk about this, much less do anything. So that makes those of us branded as "gun nuts" by folks like yourself very cynical. We want to see serious moves against criminals FIRST before we will believe that a group or government is truly serious about making us all safer from the illegal use of guns. All we ever seem to see are lenient sentences and programs that only law-abiding citizens honour. To us it seems that by supporting the Liberal style of gun registry we are taking part in a big "touchy-feely we are all together" diversion that wastes resources in feeling good and ignores actually DOING good! Politicians take credit, law-abiding gun owners are taxed and inconveniened and actual criminals are not affected in any new way at all. That is the perception of those who oppose your argument. Until you address these points you are not going to change any of their minds. Especially by scolding!

Here's the link: http://www.newstatesman.com/200712190004 It claims that global warming has already stopped! Should be good fodder for some more debate!

+1 and thank you for plainly stating what I was trying to say! August1991 keeps sliding around this point. Perhaps he never himself dubbed a vinyl LP that he had bought legally onto a cassette to play in his car but millions did. They had no sense of guilt because they had ALREADY bought the product! I'm not making the claim that no artist has the right to copyright protection. I'm simply saying that the record companies caused much of their own problem by trying to limit the market's choices. They totally failed to adapt to the new technologies and finally the market went its own way without them! I'm reminded of an incident in the early 80's when one of my managers wrote and tried to market a database program. He sent it to a software magazine for review. I've never forgotten what the reviewer said. There in print he told of how he tried to run the program but the anti-piracy safeguards were more involved than the actual program, to the point where it locked him out before he could even get it to boot up! My manager looked like a fool for not seeing the whole picture. I'm suggesting the record labels have done the same. It's like the horse and buggy industry railing against the new-fangled automobiles, and trying to prevent their use with lawsuits. Anyhow, the entire issue is moot. The CD is dead as a mainstream market. There are kids today who have never touched a CD. They simply download direct into a player. They make no attempt to build a permanent library of their own, trusting that any song they really like will always be available on the Net. Those who do buy CD's are like me. They buy direct from the artist. They don't mind paying 'cuz that's part of being a true fan. You want to support YOUR artist! This is part of why big chains like Tower Records in the States have gone out of business. The artist no longer needs or wants a record label or a record store (thanks to vertical market integration usually the same thing) to make a living. The label no longer gives them any benefit. The world has changed...

Well, thank heavens the school had not posted any anti-Christmas cartoons!

Not a good analogy! A song is not a bottle of milk! It is not a perishable item, much as so many of us wished disco songs would be! It is more like a painting. If you purchased the Mona Lisa and took a snapshot to keep in your wallet, should you have to pay the original price again to have the snapshot? And yes, I've got vinyl LP's that are over 60 years old. Are you saying I should re-buy them every week? However, as another poster has already said, folks will do what they will do regardless, as long as the technology is there. Legal attacks on downloading have been even less effective than with the war on drugs. What are you going to do? Put a cop in every 14 year old's bedroom? Or fine the 3 kids you caught in the entire nation and give them a $10 million dollar fine to scare all the others? Besides, it's not the artists who really have borne the hurt. It's the labels and they deserve it! The artists have long since developed their own revenue streams. They make their money with touring and concerts, live appearances and such where they sell their own promo material from the side of the stage. They can sell their own CD for $15 offstage or through the InterNet and keep a profit of $14 for themselves. If they had sold through a record company they would have been lucky to get $0.50. There's a good financial reason as to why most bands don't even bother with a record contract today. The Bare Naked Ladies were one of the trendsetters when in 2002 they walked away from renewing their contract and became totally self-produced. The idea that downloading is hurting the poor starving artist is largely a myth created by the rich, fat cat record company who was oblivious to the new technology until he thought he was losing some money. Then he tried to attack the problem with lawyers instead of offering his customer base similar ease and convenience to acquire the product. Now record labels only look ridiculous as they try to stem the tide with paper towels made from legal writs...