Wild Bill

Once again, we should be cautious about "digital thinking", where we believe something is all one way or the other with no in between. Fracking cannot ALWAYS pollute groundwater! There have to be pollutants already there for fracking to release. Sometimes there will be problems, likely most times not. The sensible thing to do would be to encourage drilling companies to test first, then frack. This can be done by making them legally responsible for polluting anyone's underground aquifer. If it's gonna cause a problem, then frack somewhere else! Lord knows the projects show that there's a helluva lot of shale gas down there. Some estimates are saying enough for 300-500 years at present rates of consumption. A few unfracked boreholes won't be missed.

Hey GH, it's bad enough house music happened at all!

Like the old joke: A shrink says to his patient "I have good news and bad news. First, you are NOT paranoid! However, there are people after you!"

Enough! Back to the 'ignore' list! It's not worth the raise in blood pressure.

You just have no sense of logic at all, do you? I guess I have to use capitals. I NEVER SAID MANY NDP AND LIBERALS ARE NOW TORIES! GO BACK AND READ MY WORDS AGAIN! I SAID THAT MANY OF THEM JOINED REFORM! REFORM WAS NOT THE OLD PC PARTY! IT IS NOT THE PRESENT CPC! WHEN THE CPC WAS FORMED THE OLD PCS TOOK OVER POWER AND THE PRESENT PARTY HAS NOT SHOWN ANYTHING AT ALL OF THE OLD REFORM PHILOSOPHY! NO DOUBT THOSE REFORM SUPPORTERS WHO CAME FROM THE NDP AND LIBERALS HAVE GONE BACK TODAY. BTW, IS ENGLISH YOUR SECOND LANGUAGE? OR DO YOU HAVE A READING DISABILITY?

Once again, you live in a cartoon! One of the most important planks in the Reformer platform was that an MP should represent the wishes of the majority of his constituents, not those of himself or his party. That's populist democracy! No other party before or since has championed that idea! Including the present CPC! What's more, Reform attracted a LOT of not just Liberal but NDP supporters! I suppose you're going to try to tell me that they ALL were closet right wing goons! Where have you gotten your political views? Got drunk a few times with some university students from the Junior Socialist Club? You all wiled away the hours making high school jokes about conservatives? Just because a joke got a laugh doesn't make it historical fact. You really should open a book sometime! Or even spend a couple of evenings googling some political history. It seems every time you make a post you get farther and farther out there! Keep it up and you'll be the first man to reach Mars!

I should keep my cool better, Jack. It's just that sometimes a bozo just so flabbergasts me that I react! I truly think this guy is not in the real world! He lives in a fantasy and just spits out whatever dream he has and calls it reason or evidence.

Have you ever READ much of what I've posted? When have I ever said that I approve of Harper expanding government? I don't even approve much of Harper, except to say that I find the alternatives to be worse. As for the new Bill that involves marijuana, I must now believe you've never read a word I've posted and just pulled that out of your butt! I've been ranting in favour of marijuana legalization on MLW for years now. I put a lot of threads towards posters like Angus, telling them how I thought the Tories getting tough on pot users to be the stupidest thing they could possibly do, in effect handing a big club to the Opposition parties with which to bonk them on the head next election! I said a NUMBER of times that the new laws were stupid and political suicide. Now you tell me I defended them! I don't believe I've ever said ONE WORD about safe injection sites! Why would I? I simply don't care, other than the cost to my taxes. As a classic liberal I believe that we have the right to out and out poison ourselves, if that is our wish! Our bodies are OURS, not the State's! Rehab? Don't believe I've posted anything about that, either! Again, why would I? I believe that people have the right to get hooked on whatever they want. Rehab would cost us all far less in taxes than Prohibition. Bombing Iran? You might have me there. I perceive Iran to be a nuclear threat, if not now then in the very near future. I just don't see any other option but a first strike. Show me one that might WORK and maybe I'd change my mind. Tell me to just "be happy" and trust the fanatics who run Iran and sorry, I just can't. If a country doesn't appear to be a threat I would never support attacking it! Where in hell did you come up with all this? I want some of what YOU are smoking!

Not really Jack. Lately, I don't have much respect for either of 'em! I don't really have any palatable choices, Jack. That's ok. I've lived a fair time so far and I've gotten used to it.

Yeah, you got that right Jack! Every Ontarioan knows that! How much you paying for electricity, BTW? And has anybody else died at a Niagara Hospital lately, either from C difficile or perhaps just having the misfortune to take a tumble outside the hospital door and no one will get off their ass to help, insisting on forcing a long wait for an ambulance?

You know Guyser, when the League made up the rules about being so close you could drive from Hamilton to Maple Leaf Gardens in about 35 minutes. Speed limits were 80 mph on the QE highway! Now it's more like at least 2 hours most times of the day. Certainly, if you wanted to make sure you could get parked and seated you should perhaps allow yourself at least 3 hours to be safe. What's more, the drive is always a frustrating pissoff! It just frazzles your nerves and boosts your blood pressure. Maybe the League should consider the situation in terms of the real world and how long a trip takes in 2011. It's doubtful if they would, however. The status quo is just fine financially for them. I'm of the opinion now that Hamilton should simply forget about the NHL. They should support their local teams in less-important leagues. Most important, they should completely boycott any Leaf games! Not that it would have any great effect but if the League doesn't care about Hamilton then screw them and the horses they rode in on!

Then you don't understand the definitions at all! I think you confuse the fact that I will not agree with goofy criticisms of the Tories as being the same as agreeing with those Conservatives. THAT is GOOFY logic in itself! Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Sometimes your criticisms have merit but most times to me they look like a looooong stretch from someone who simply hates Tories and seizes on even the most flimsy sins and makes a federal case out of them. Probably if you criticized any other party (which I don't recall EVER having seen from you, BTW) I'd find your carping on the same level. I get the impression that if you don't like someone then you think you can say anything negative and it somehow is correct. Likes and dislikes have little to do with reality. I agreed with very little of what Jack Layton and his party espoused but I would be the first to say he seemed to be a good man. In politics, if you want to win elections you better learn to work in the real world. Partisan fantasies are simply a waste of time. Anyhow, you claim you looked up the definition of a classic liberal. Well, let's hear it! Give me a cite or something. Even a cut and paste quote! I find it hard to believe that you don't see how it could apply to me, other than the reason I already gave that I won't agree with any mud you feel like throwing.

No, I said nothing of the kind! Lord knows he did many, many other things but not that one! So why should I back up an assertion about Chretien and the auditor general that YOU made and not me? The OP stated that "Tories are Control Freaks". I replied to that headline. I believe my answer says that one example involving the auditor general is just one of many in the scheme of things. As for YOUR implication that somehow Harper and today's AG is somehow worse than anything Chretien did, that is strictly a matter of personal opinion. You've already made it more than clear that you consider that it is far worse for Harper to do wrong than any other politician. Plus, that you consider your opinions to be facts. Let's not waste our time with repetition.

Perhaps, but it's been almost 50 years! We didn't have caps all that time! We're talking half a flippin' CENTURY here, BB!

Golly gee, Harper's a control freak! Chretien was a control freak! What the hell is new? EVERY PM of a majority government is a control freak! Next we'll be told that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west! Are these folks new or what?

Don't count on it! I just listened to their press conference. They only mentioned the product (teams) once! At the end, almost as an afterthought. Everything else was just patting themselves on the back for being a megacompany. I was 15 years old when the Leafs last won the Cup! I doubt very much if they will again before I die! The Leafs are run by accountants. Why spend a lot of money for a winning team if people still will pay a small fortune for seats? If there's no need to ensure profits then they simply don't care! And that's the long and the short of it. Meanwhile, they will do everything they can to block Hamilton from getting an NHL team, a city that actually would want to win! Might leave a couple of the cheap seats empty for the Leafs every once in a while.

What are you suggesting? That she was set up? That she was provoked? I find that hard to believe in the face of her fervent evangelicalism...

Just the tip of the iceberg...

No Topaz, all this so farmers have a choice! All this so that western farmers have the same rights as eastern ones! Perhaps freedom is a strange concept for you. You tend to sound like you support parties that always feel they know better than us and have the right to force us...

Where were you when the Alliance was around? You obviously know nothing about the Alliance Party if you could make a statement like that! It is so obviously wrong it is like saying that the NDP is run by the rich! It's a fact that there is nothing left of the old Reform/Alliance platform in the new CPC. If you had any experience at all you would recognize that the present CPC is no different than the old Mulroney/Campbell PC Party. Fiscal responsibility was perhaps the strongest plank in the Alliance platform. It was never even an honourable mention in the PC party. As I keep saying, I really wonder why Manning ever bothered. We all ended up right back where we started.

No it doesn't. The simple truth is that without holding a referendum or at least a damn good poll on an issue there's no way your ridiculous math can claim to prove ANY percentage of people agreeing or disagreeing with the government! The ONLY thing that is certain is that the popular vote won by each party is a published fact! Any claim about how people feel between elections is mere supposition. Could we add up all the Tory and Liberal voters, add in all those who didn't vote and claim that total as people who don't like the NDP? That math would be just as ridiculous! Our system works by ridings. It is the same for all parties. What's more, those who don't vote are irrelevant.

You've been hearing the OFFICIAL line but this time Topaz I think you are seeing the real world correctly. No one checks! I was a scrutineer with several elections and did some digging behind the scenes for info about some of my suspicions. The main one was with those nice ladies that come to your door and ask "How many people of voting age live here? Are they all citizens?" I asked one of them if anyone ever checked if someone were to lie about being a citizen. She instantly started to give me the standard spiel about severe penalties for fraudulent action under the Election Act but I politely interrupted her to ask "I know its illegal but does anyone ever, ever actually check? Is there anything in the real world to deter someone who is NOT a citizen from simply lying and getting on the Voters' List?" She just clammed up and would say no more! It's pretty obvious that no one ever checks. It's also a lead pipe cinch that it is common practice in some ridings. I suppose the 'system' would act upon a complaint but that is almost never likely to happen. Virtually always a non-citizen will be an visible minority immigrant, likely with an accent. If anyone made a complaint the immediate cry would be "Racism!" No one would want to run that gauntlet. Besides, if things were investigated I'm sure that examples would be found to embarrass ALL the parties! So everyone just looks the other way. The Emperor has no clothes!

I agree! Although the cost of doing so would likely be the separation of Quebec. You still can't sell margarine that's too close in colour to butter in that province!

Not an impossibility? Perhaps, but hardly likely! They're British! Their fathers were British, their grandfathers were British and their great-grandfathers back over 180 years were British! How long has your family been Americans, AW? How likely is it they would vote to become Norwegians? Also, the Falklands War is still fresh in their minds. It will take many more years to die down. Argentina has not seemed that good an alternative since long before that conflict, if ever. Can you suggest even one reason the islanders would vote for Argentine rule? I can't think of a single blessed reason, myself!

Wow! Both you and CC claim that your wishes and dreams are certainties! If any other poster tried that with either of you he wouldn't hear the end of it for days! I can't decide if you are trying to weasel out of being wrong or if you actually think that way. If either of you ran polling companies you'd starve!