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Wild Bill

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Everything posted by Wild Bill

  1. I made no claims about legalities. I simply suggested some possible scenarios and fully expected some or all to be shot down by those more knowledgeable. I appreciate the history lesson about Reagan and the controllers. My point was that when public opinion turns strongly enough against teachers such issues become possible political tools for more votes. What's more, it doesn't always matter what is legal or not. A politician could fire teachers or at least do something very negative towards them which would not stand up in court, knowing that even when the government lost the teachers would have been severely hurt. Meanwhile, if it brought in enough votes the politician and his party would not care about the expense of a settlement! Again, as I had said, look at McGuinty's government! They cheerfully blew in excess of $240 MILLION dollars to squash building a power station that they themselves had initiated, at a point in construction where the actual generators were being delivered! All this just to TRY to avoid losing ONE seat in an election! Do you really think they would care about illegal moves against the teachers in order to reap more votes? Didn't they already do some things if not illegal at least unethical in their negotiations with the teachers? It all depends on the politics of a situation, not necessarily the legalities. Joe Average really doesn't care about legalities if he thinks the Law is wrong. He believes that the Law is supposed to represent the will of the people and that the government is the instrument of that will. This of course is naive but I believe it is true! Most people are NOT legal nitpicking MLW academics! We Canadians for the most part are a very complacent people, often compared to sheep. However, many times in the past we have shown that we do have limits. Sometimes we get riled about things that seem trivial. Remember when the cable tv companies tried to get away with negative billing? When we do get stirred up we tend to do it en masse. I am simply pointing out that from the outside it looks like the teachers are being led by an old-fashioned autoworkers union that considers public support to be irrelevant. There is a LOT of parental resentment out there! Perhaps they should be more upset with their government but for whatever reason they just don't seem to be taking the teachers' side. This means that politicians can win votes by screwing the teachers. How badly they can screw them is up for debate. We should also not ignore the converse. A government appearing to have been soft towards the teachers' demands can LOSE votes if that is contrary to how significant portions of the electorate are feeling! The Teachers' Union may feel it can ignore popular sentiment but politicians do not have the same luxury. Expecting a politician to lose votes just to give you what you want is frankly rather stupid! I'm not arguing a legal blueprint for the government here. Please don't attack my model instead of my point.
  2. Don't get me wrong, August! I have been saying all along I don't believe that Justin can give the Liberals a win next election. I don't think anyone could do that! I'm simply saying that he might be able to stop the Liberal slide into oblivion. He might even win back a seat or two but that would be about it. However, that would be FAR better than what the Liberal Party is facing now! It could buy them time to rebuild and find a leader who possibly COULD win them an election! Otherwise, we are heading to a two party state which incidently, I personally would prefer.
  3. You've reminded me of something, Greg. Why do we have to have aliases anyway? I would have no problem using my real name. There has been some discussion lately in the MSM about how the anonymity of the Net may be responsible for much of its problems. Cyberbullying is one area. There is probably some psychology that could explain how some people will post the most insulting and profane drivel yet would never do such a thing in real life. I liken it to the CB radio craze of the 70's, when anyone could buy a radio and hide behind some ridiculous "handle". In no time at all what was designed to be a poor man's radio link became a useless insane mess of buffoonery and all too often, threats and profanity. I've always believed that if you are going to say something you should be man enough to state your name! Anonymity to me is simply a form of cowardice. What I have been hearing in the MSM is that there is actually a meme growing here in Canada to make using your real name Law! What are your thoughts on outlawing aliases here on MLW?
  4. Absolutely right, wyly! I think others just haven't accepted that the LIberals cannot win the next election if they had Jesus come again as their leader! At least Justin can keep their ship from sinking beneath the waves and give the party time to patch the hull.
  5. I agree I should find a more precise term than "lefty", eyeball. It's just that it fits rather well! I use it in this context not so much for its political elements but rather as a description of a certain personality. It has been my experience that most techies and practical people are not leftwingers. It is academics, yuppies and "Double Income No Kids" who tend to be left wing. I'm talking about the people who have copies of Harrowsmith on their coffee table amongst the wine and brie they serve their guests, thinking that makes them as knowledgeable as a real farmer! The people who drive a BMW but can't change a tire. If you have a better term I would appreciate it if you could pass it along. Meanwhile, if I bother you so much then why not put me on 'ignore'? Believe me, it helps! I have a number of people I ignore and it does tend to keep my blood pressure from spiking. I feel it's a better habit than being rude and crude with ad hominem attacks, or calling anyone I disagree with a racist! And no, I did not mean YOU, eyeball! I find that while you may get a bit hot and bothered at times you are mostly quite civilized, unlike certain others.
  6. So what, guyser? The fact that they could do such a hypocritical thing at all is gobsmacking! And the only reason they stopped is because finally MIchigan told them to get stuffed!
  7. Looks like they still need some development, Bonam The amp hrs so far aren't that impressive. Might keep CMOS memory active in a cell phone but that's about it.
  8. Ted, thank you for your indepth rebuttal. Now I can clearly see exactly where I was wrong all these years. BTW, was it you at my door last Saturday pushing "WatchTower" magazines?
  9. Shakey, I look on your request as asking to research the sun rising in the East! I am not going to spend the time going back over history. I do have more to do than debate on MLW. Besides, if I do that there will be some in this thread who will immediately excuse it all by saying "old stuff don't count!". However, I WILL keep an eye out for new stuff that happens and will be glad to post that! I think I will start a new thread for it, as I think it will start filling up rather quickly.
  10. I dunno, Wilbur. To be quite honest, I think so much of the media is biased against Harper and anything that even has a few of the same letters as "conservative" in its name will get unfair treatment. I was with Reform back at the end of the 80's and I just saw so much of it that it has jaded me against the press ever since. Not surprising, considering that today journalists mostly come from either Queens or Ryerson, both hotbeds of modern liberalism. Anyhow, if you were Harper I'm sure you would find trusting in the balance and fairness of the media to be almost impossilble after the way they have burned his ass! Saying its up to him to bring them around is like telling a school kid who is always being beaten up and bullied that it is HIS job to make friends with his attackers!
  11. I don't understand. If the media has been against him for years, what difference will it make to snub them now? It's not as if the media will suddenly change and be fair to him! It's like knowing a dog that keeps biting you. You avoid the dog. Then the dog barks because it's lonely! If you go up to it so it can bite you again you are a fool.
  12. Not quite, Ted! The point is, the west was kept in unfair deals that prevented them from being anything but a source of cheap wheat and such for the East, with usurious shipping rates and legal barriers to selling into America, which of course is far closer! The West simply did NOT have the freedom to develop in ways that were good for the West. Instead, they were forced into ways that were good for the East! So you are right that the East was there to help. They didn't have much choice. They didn't want their golden goose to die! You should read some history books on the subject, or at least do some googlilng about western alienation. You always imply that the West are simply ungrateful and selfish, not willing to pay their share within Canada. That view is incredibly naive and not supported by the facts. Hence the frustration and resentment of the West towards the East, particularly Toronto. You can't blame them and until the East opens its eyes we will never see western alienation disappear.
  13. I'm afraid I don't share your rosy view of the media. You seem to be saying that they are all professionals who see their job as making sure politicians and governments stay on the straight and narrow. I wish that were true. Journalists have only one job, to make money for their media companies. If they don't have real news to report, they will stretch the trivial into something bigger than it is or even make it up entirely! The only check on a media enterprise is the threat of a lawsuit. As long as they can avoid it, anything goes. So if they think dissing a party like Reform or a politician like Harper will sell papers, then that's what they will do. In fact, they might risk a law suit anyway if they would sell enough papers to still leave them a profit! They are capitalist whores the same as any other business, CC. They are NOT the official and noble protectors of the taxpayer! Next you'll be telling us there really is a Santa who keeps a list!
  14. Might not be so bad, Michael. According to the article, a LucasFilm person will remain as manager and George himself will still be around as a creative consultant. Considering that Mr. Lucas is no longer a spring chicken this might be the best one might hope. As I said, George at least is still alive. Things in the Star Trek franchise were touch and go for a while when Roddenberry died.
  15. Is that how you see it, GH? I have a different view. First off, it's hard to attack someone when he says so little to you! Harper's strategy is to give the press no ammunition, making it more difficult to start badmouthing him and his party. Second, let's face it. Harper and the CPC are flippin' BORING as personalities! Harper could make an accountant look like a Kardashian on a sex tape! The same goes for most of his caucus. We had a bit of fun with Bernier and his Borg ex-biker girlfriend, Two of Huge. That's been about it!
  16. Chretien never faced a tenth of what Reform and Harper put up with! Back in those days, friends and I would watch some sweet young thing interview Preston Manning. We would play a game of "guess what biased or leading question she will say before she says it!" It was ridiculously easy to do and we would laugh ourselves silly. You are right that papers can be a pain in the arse but the level aimed at Reform and then Harper was greater by a quantum level! If you didn't see that for youself you are either too young to remember, too biased or you just grew up on Mars!
  17. They do have access, it has just become very limited. Again, they did it to themselves. The MSM also has a duty to be professional. With Harper, they have never been. How else can their behaviour be corrected? Are you suggesting that the media should be able to be as unfair as they want? That the media has the right to try to influence the way people vote? Why don't we just hand the CEO of TorStar the keys to the country? Or are you so partisan you would agree with such a thing?
  18. I'm not surprised it got ignored, BCSapper. This is a scheme that requires a bit of background knowledge to appreciate. It also scares the typical urban lefty voter, who sees anything about farm waste and manure and immediately turns up his nose! I am not picking on "lefties" just because of politics. I am using the word to describe the cliche of an academic or a "yuppie", someone who may be well educated and articulate but in an academic sense rather than down to earth and more practical. I am NOT saying that all lefties are airheads! I AM however saying that virtually all airheads are lefties! The sort of person who can easily afford to pay someone to fix their BMW but could never change a tire themselves. They just don't have the background to understand and evaluate such schemes as you cited but because they once read an article about it in Harper's Magazine they think they know all about it. Everyone has a different background and different skill sets. Society needs ALL of them! Still, we seem to live in times where the mix is badly unbalanced. It therefore is not surprising that we never seem to adopt positive WORKING solutions in such matters!
  19. You are probably right that most parents would not want such a drastic step taken, TODAY! Still, I can't help but think that more parents are against the teachers and that the number keeps growing every time we have a conflict. Meanwhile, it sure seems the teachers' union leadership just doesn't give a damn! Some of the actions they are taking would seem to prove that. The trend of parents being resentful of teachers' union tactics is plain. The only question is how far and how fast will it grow? Maybe it will change, I don't know. All I DO know is that if teachers truly believe that the majority of parents support them then they are dreaming in technicolour.
  20. Sounds to me like code for "We couldn't get enough people to vote for us so we didn't win but we should get to run things anyway!".
  21. CC, I think you are just being partisan. You hate Harper. Period and end of story. So you will twist anything to say he is evil and no one else did anything wrong. It is an established obvious fact that the media were very unfair to Harper and his party. Harper is entitled to give them back some of their own. That is the only way to educate the MSM that there are consequences for being unfair and that if they choose to do so there will be retaliation. Unfortunately, most reporters are too thick to learn manners any other way.
  22. What is the problem?The media DIDN't write what was true! They wrote a lot of what was untrue. They were biased and unfair! What would you expect Harper to do? Kiss them? Just because you don't like Harper doesn't change what the media did. They made their own bed and now they bitch 'cuz it's not comfortable Too damn bad! As I said, Harper hasn't totally shut out the media. He does grant interviews to those reporters he trusts to be fair and professional. He just has drastically cut down on the juicy media scrums the reporters were all used to. The job of a reporter is to get news. The Liberals gave them interviews and video clips all the time. Now reporters are starved for political items from the government. So a reporter has a much harder time pleasing his boss and making a name for himself. As I said, the media did it to themselves. There are no laws forcing Harper to give the media much of anything. Politicians do it to get good press for themselves. The media for a long time wouldn't give Harper and his party any good press. Now they expect that with him being the PM he should be nice to them? If they think that then their heads must zip up the back!
  23. Yes, there are. Who would have thought the Liberals would blow all that money to stop building that power station just to try to keep the seat? You're right about core supporters. Teachers have given the Liberals a lot of donations for campaigns these past few elections. Still, donations aren't votes or even guarantees of votes. I just don't believe that parents are supporting teachers as a majority opinion. I don't believe that parents are irrelevant in the equation of the issue. Otherwise, I would have to accept that popular wishes have no effect at all in our political system and I don't think things are quite that bad...yet!
  24. I think if the media boycotted reporting Harper he would be glad! It's better than bad-mouthing him! Harper and the media have been feuding for years, ever since the Reform days. Most of the press went out of their way to write about everything bad about Reform, later the CPC and always Harper. Anything bad often didn't have to be true, or was trivial but the press magnified it out of proportion. Anything good tended to be ignored. Harper no doubt vowed that if he was ever in power and the media needed him he would pay them back! He has sent a strong message to the media that if they won't be fair then he owes them nothing more than the bare minimum law or custom demands. He DOES talk to a few members of the media - those that he considered fair. So they get the stories and interviews. The others don't. I find it amusing, myself. I always love to see those who treat people badly get their comeuppance!
  25. Someday perhaps, but what about today? The garbage piles up and has to be dealt with RIGHT NOW! Do we have cost-effective recycling technologies today? Could we build such plants as you mentioned immediately? Or would we have to wait until the technology is invented? I'm not pooh-poohing the idea at all, just the practicallity of immediate application. Seems to me, with cities like Toronto, of the choice between high-temperature modern incineration/electricity generation and the recycling scheme your Swedish spokespeople mentioned, have chose to do neither! Instead, they just fill up the highways with all those garbage trucks and pay Michigan. And I wasn't criticizing ALL lefties! Just Ruth Grier's bunch of Rae's government that refused to even LOOK at a solution because their minds were already closed and those lefties on Toronto's council. Personally, i would be in favour of the province passing laws to force Toronto to immediately stop using foreign landfill sites with all the expense that entails and be commanded to come up with a 'green solution' right away! If they can't do it, whether because they don't have the wit to choose one of many solutions already in place in other cities or they just can't agree among themselves, then let their garbage pile up until it buries them all! It would be a great character lesson to other Canadian cities!
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