Wild Bill

America gave us Loni Anderson to watch on WKRP, something for which this Canadian is eternally grateful!

Hey Waldo, nothing any politician does really surprises me any more! Still, I'm suspecting something deeper here. Something may be going on behind the scenes. Chretien's Liberals hurt the traditional Jewish support for the Liberal Party, particularly in Montreal and Toronto, with their increased apparent support for the Palestinians. This trend continued and grew under Martin and the flames were fanned higher with some gaffes by Dion and Ignatieff. Now we have the Iran nuclear situation, where Israel is being pushed into a position of having to make a first strike. One can argue about whether or not Iran is truly a threat but that is a non sequitur. Israel believes it and so of course it will dictate Israel's actions. If the balloon goes up all other countries will be scrambling to take sides. Iran has almost no friends left on the international scene. Canada may be asked for some military support, although given our limited and obsolescent resources I'm not sure what that would entail. Snipers, although of course braver and better trained than any others in the world, are not much use against nuclear arms, or defending tankers in the Straits of Hormuz. Anyhow, I'm wondering if someone colourful like Baird is a good symbol to let the world know Canada is firmly backing Israel and of course, all those Jewish votes at home. Or am I once again being too cynical?

Topaz, do you know the difference between an article and an opinion piece? YOUR LINK is to an opinion piece, NOT an article! And who the hell are the Tyee News, anyway? It's like using an editorial from the "I Hate Tories!" magazine as some kind of proof that Tories are bad. This Murray Dobbin who wrote the piece is a columnist. He did NOT write this as a news article!

Hey, MPs get a couple of bucks just for having someone vote for them!

How can you say that, given Harper's in depth knowledge of hockey and its history? He's a published author about it, for Pete's Sake! How's YOUR knowledge of hockey? There is nothing more Canadian than hockey!

It's everywhere, Derek! At least shows like Star Trek understood the need for "technobabble" to explain away inconsistencies with physics as we know it. Last week I was watching that show "Fringe" and they included a bit where one of their stars was trying to find a more powerful portable generator, in order to boost the power of his "Cell phone/walkie-talkie" style radio! As a techie, this was such a blatant boner that it ruined much of the rest of the plot for me! It was like watching the computer nerd lady on Criminal Minds do amazing stuff on her keyboard and suddenly she has a guest star assistant - Gilligan from Gilligan's Island! It's just poor writing and direction! In this day and age it's unforgivable but sadly, it's beginning to go without notice. No wonder the Chinese are cleaning our clocks! As a society, we are no longer smart enough to compete.

Until and unless things change drastically, the only way I would visit Mexico is if someone put a gun to my head!

This sort of thing is becoming quite common in the MSM. There was a time when reporters came from all walks of life and usually were the type of person who who practiced an interest in many different things. This gave them a generalist's view of most issues. They wrote pertinent articles on many topics. They knew enough to recognize when they DIDN'T know something and would do a bit of research before writing. Today, reporters come barreling out of specialty journalism programs from Ryerson or Queens, not knowing how to put a plug on a lamp or even how an incandescent light bulb works! They've never even made a paper airplane yet they will write articles like those mentioned here! It's kind of scary, when you start to think about it.

Well, as an old guy who has been observing these parties since he was a kid, I see precious little difference in real world approach and philosophy between the provincial Liberals and the Red Tory wing of the Ontario PC Party. Hudak and his handlers seem to be trying to have it BOTH ways! They wish to appear like Harris to those who voted for Harris and want to be "not at all like Harris but still different from those Liberals!" to all the other voters! This is precisely the sort of thing that Harris ran AGAINST! Politicians are held in such contempt because they are like pop music, all sizzle and no steak, all symbolism and no substance. They will be whatever will win some votes, changing like a chameleon even when walking from one side of a small room to the other. Harris took a stand! He was what he was and made no apologies for it! Voters responded overwhelmingly. Ever since, no other Ontario politician has even come close!

You know, I just had an Atlas Shrugged kind of an idea! It goes like this: Vic's Bill demands that ISPs provide all sorts of things, including back doors and easy methods for the police and other authorities to find out whatever they want from the Net. They are making the assumption that they can demand anything they want and it will happen! Not only is everything they ask possible, they assume, but who cares about the cost! It's as if they think that some software guy will spend an evening with a pizza and some coke and change everything for them! This Bill is an attack on many of the values of the people who built and now maintain the Net. What if they refused to do the technical work involved? They would not have to be so stupid as to overtly refuse. They could be charged for that and I've no doubt that a personality like Vic Toews WOULD if he thought they were challenging him! So here comes my Atlas Shrugged idea - suppose all the techies simply said that they didn't know HOW to change the software? How could a government PROVE that this was bogus? Are there any politicians, let alone judges, who understand how to do this stuff? Perhaps the structure of the InterNet is such that it's TRUE! Maybe it isn't possible to do as Vic asks! I don't know for sure, do you? Would a judge? The Law would be put in the position of trying to tell a citizen what he is or is not capable of doing, in a field where the Law has no expertise of its own. Even more, some software engineers are better than others. If one said he couldn't do it, can the Law assume that they are ALL equally capable and the engineer in question is lying? In other words, Atlas the software guy Shrugs! Who would do what Vic wants? What could he possibly do about it?

Then why don't you just vote liberal?

At one time I would have agreed with you, Manny. Now, I just can't see it happening, at least for a while. You see, we Canadians are just too apathetic to get violent! However, since we seem hell-bent on importing as many new Canadians from violent cultures as we can get, the situation may well change sooner rather than later. The unfortunate thing is that those with the energy of violence tend to lack the brains to have workable, sustainable positive goals. That's why those cultures with a history of social violence tend to be countries that are perpetual crap-holes.

What would happen if we reject all the candidates? Would any politician care? As long as there are enough votes to allow him a win, why would it matter to him? You realize that spoiled or declined ballots are no longer even counted. Even if the number of voters who decided not to participate WERE tallied, how would that matter? Perhaps you believe that if that number was high enough it would embarrass the politicians. Don't you realize that NOTHING embarrasses a politician? Literally MILLIONS of voters worked hard to support change with the Reform Party. Now it is merely a footnote in history. The old style politics with the PC party of Mulroney came back with a vengeance. You are giving the official, academic line as to how things are supposed to work. Millions of Reformers tried for well over a decade to accomplish real-world progress. All of it has been a failure. Is there anything left?

This is a knotty issue, AW. While it is true that the majority of muslims abhor the practice of honour killings it still can't be denied that there are vast areas, perhaps entire countries! where honour killings are part of the mainstream culture. I'm thinking of Afghanistan and at least large chunks of Pakistan, for a start. Most Muslims in western countries don't hold such primitive views simply because they aren't primitive! That being said, there ARE more primitive countries with more primitive aspects in their culture! When we defend Islam as a whole we should not forget there are parts that are dangerous. Even Christians were dangerous in certain cultures in certain days of history.

Only true in theory, Manny. If ALL the choices are poor, what do we deserve? In my entire life of 59 years, only a couple of times did I have a choice where I could say I agreed with more than half of a party's platform and historical proof of their character. Every other time I have had to hold my nose and vote for the least rank! So if we are not given a valid choice are we truly responsible for the outcome?

Toronto? Maybe I missed something! I thought Toronto was solidly Liberal and NDP! Now, the suburbs have a lot of Tories and the rest of the province also supported them. Oh well, if you say so!

Measuring per se is not enough, Michael. The criteria you use to measure is all important too! Obviously, the same yardstick of the type and quality of education can not be universally applied from country to county. Is it not possible that Canada has lower standards, making it easier for students to achieve higher levels of schooling than perhaps in some Asian countries? Maybe in Canada the majority of those higher level degrees are in languages or Arts, as opposed to mathematics and hard sciences? There is also the argument that students in Canada stay longer in school because they can't get jobs! Also, we have become a country that insists on job applicants having school certificates for everything from the specialized to the trivial. We are training specialists rather than workers that are adaptable. The problem with specialists is that they are prone to miss the big picture. What about countries like Germany, which has always had an excellent apprentice program to bring students into the trades and technical areas? You can't get a PHD as a millwright or computerized lathe operator but for a country to prosper you of course need both but perhaps a lot more of one than the other. I'm very leery of measurements with such vague criteria as this, with no mention of a standardized yardstick. It's too open for political misuse.

Well, that's the trouble with being a blind partisan. When something is true about your side you can't say anything! Vic has been around for years. I just read the Wiki page about him. Grew up in a missionary family and entered the merged CPC from the PC side of things, rather than Reform. Sort of puts the lie to the accusations that the hardline social conservatives were all Reformers, doesn't it? Anyhow, I am rather surprised that Harper has let such an obvious social conservative wield such power. Vic has a history of pushing the envelope a bit harder than necessary. He never seems to take easy small steps towards his goals, to minimize the opposition. Rather, he will swat a fly with a sledge hammer! Whatever, while he serves as a counterweight to a very leftist judicial system he seems unnecessarily antagonistic. He also does NOT represent mainstream Canadian social views! This allows the possibility of a voter backfire on issues such hardline punishment for marijuana while ignoring areas like child pornography or pedophilia. IOW, sooner or later Vic could easily cost Harper more votes than he gains! I always thought Harper was smarter than that! Still, by letting Vic be the "front man" Harper can always step in and rescind something, killing it and then throwing Toews to the wolves to take the blame. I've been arguing for a long time now on MLW that the CPC approach to drug laws has been seriously out of step with mainstream voter sentiment. I believe that the CPC is handing a gun to the opposition parties that they can shoot the Tories with next election. What's more, Toews is attacking a trivial target and ignoring much bigger ones, which means the backfire risk is totally unnecessary. These are very strange political tactics, indeed! Preston Manning would never have made such a bonehead mistake!

Vic seems to be a bit of a hypocrite on this one! The CPC puts through a crime bill which gives a harsher sentence for growing 6 or more pot plants than for someone caught with child pornography! Now he claims that those who do not support him on giving police powers to invade privacy on the Internet must be on the side of such child pornographers! I think Mr. Toews is not thinking very clearly...

Okay! The Wiki article cites investigations involving hundreds if not thousands of people, in organizations from countries all over the globe. You cite one guy, working for one American department, who incidently makes claims that the USA exploited the tragedy to the utmost, using camera tricks and the like to make things appear even worse for the USSR. However, HE NEVER CLAIMS THE EVENT DIDN'T HAPPEN! AND HE OFFERS NO SPECIFIC PROOF THAT THE SOVIET PILOTS ACTUALLY TALKED WITH KAL 007 ON THE INTERNATIONAL RADIO FREQUENCY! I've no doubt that the Americans DID pump it up the way he said! That doesn't mean the Soviets were blameless! Or that it was all a hoax! We have the words of the actual Soviet pilot who shot the airliner down telling us that reports they had had radio contact were lies! You're sliding all over the place here!

Well, Wiki totally disagrees with you! Of course, Wiki has problems from time to time but they have a very detailed report with tons of footnotes! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007 Here's just a couple of pertinent points: Here's some quotes from the actual Soviet pilot who shot the plane down: "In a 1991 interview with Izvestia, Major Genadi Osipovich, pilot of the Su-15 interceptor that shot the 747 down, spoke about his recollections of the events leading up to the shootdown." "Later we began to lie about small details: the plane was supposedly flying without running lights or strobe light, that tracer bullets were fired, or that I had radio contact with them on the emergency frequency of 121.5 megahertz." "In 1992, Russian president Boris Yeltsin disclosed five top-secret memos dating from a few weeks after the downing of KAL 007 in 1983.[Notes 7] The memos contained Soviet communications (from KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov and Defense Minister Dmitriy Ustinov to General Secretary Yury Andropov) that indicated that they knew the location of KAL 007's wreckage while they were simulating a search and harassing the American Navy; they had found the sought-after cockpit voice recorder on 20 October 1983 (50 days after the incident),[111] and had decided to keep this knowledge secret, the reason being that the tapes could not unequivocally support their firmly held view that KAL 007's flight to Soviet territory was a deliberately planned intelligence mission." "The third memo acknowledges that analysis of the recorder tapes showed no evidence of the Soviet interceptor attempting to contact KAL 007 via radio nor any indication that the KAL 007 crew was aware of warning shots being fired." If indeed your facts are right perhaps you could dig up something to back them up!

Once again your youth betrays you. One of my personal friends died on that flight. I remember the reports at the time vividly. One point that puts the lie to your story is that apparently it was common knowledge at the time that the Russian pilots COULD NOT talk to a commercial airliner! There is a standard emergency frequency. If memory serves I believe it is 121.5 mhz but I'm sure if necessary there are enough pilots on MLW to correct me. All pilots of aircraft all over the world could use this frequency EXCEPT Russian military pilots! Their radios were only equipped with their own military frequencies. This was believed to be a deliberate act to help deter any of their pilots from defecting to the West, which still happened a few times anyway. Somewhere in Heaven my friend Larry is laughing at you!

Yeah, she got everything wrong! Still, the left defends her while acting outraged at any personal jokes. Meanwhile, they laugh at Mayor Ford in Toronto for being fat and not knowing who is the CBC Warrior Princess! Hypocrites, the lot of them!

Down in St. Catherines, here in Ontario, there used to be a company that made huge grinding stones and machinery, mostly for large factories. Every year for a LONG time the company would give every employee at the plant a large turkey as a Christmas bonus. One year some union stewards and officers got the idea that some might rather have a "glass turkey", or bottle of booze. So they went to the company management and DEMANDED that employees be given the choice! At first the company was not agreeable. They had been giving turkeys for all those years and had an easy, smooth system set up to administer the program. Besides, there were some fears about contributing to alcoholism or at least, drunk driving. What's more, a turkey could be enjoyed by an entire family, unlike a bottle of hootch. It should be noted that this bonus of a turkey had been entirely a gift from the company. It was in no way the result of some kind of worker contract agreement. It had always been a simple bonus from the company to its workers, free and clear. However, the union made such an issue of it that finally the company gave in. That year, employees had the choice and many chose the alcohol. Never again did that company give a turkey, bottle or anything else as a Christmas bonus! That company is long gone now. There are still ex-workers alive today who tell this story.

After more than 40 years of watching Canadian politics I would say that Harris was the first and only rightwing PC leader in Ontario. I realize that there are many partisans in other parties who will keep trying to use Harris' name as some kind of boogey man to try to keep another such PC leader from coming along. After all, Harris won two HUGE back to back majorities! Neither of the other parties has ever done even remotely as well! After Harris, the "red" wing of the PC party took back control and offered Ernie Eves. Not surprisingly, he bombed at the ballot box! So for some to claim that Ontario rejected the Harris style of government is a bogus statement. Ontarioans were never given that choice! I will agree that its perfectly possible that they would, if given that choice again. Or they might once again embrace it! Anyone who claims they can speak with certitude on an untested premise is running on partisan faith and not reason.