Wild Bill

From what I remember, she never ambushed Chretien in his driveway! It was out front of the House of Commons chamber. All those "ambushes" of various political figures were there, in the middle of the day when it was obvious who they were and if someone didn't know about "Warrior Marg" there were lots of people who would tell them. After they had done it more than once they were a known figure at the House and everyone not only knew the score but could play up to it for political advantage. She was nice to Preston Manning, I'll give her that.

Or is it a group wanting to make political statements and if challenged HIDE behind being a comedy program?

Off limits? Not at all! It's just that I expect some impartiality from media sources. Especially with the CBC, which is publicly funded. I've never seen that with Mary Walsh. She used to make Mike Harris the butt of some jokes, all those years ago. I never heard any jokes against Bob Rae when he was with the NDP! Her bias was clear to anyone who was a regular viewer in those days. I'm not impressed with slagging leftwing personalities either but I really do think it's more prominent coming from the left. A rightwinger will say that some Leftie's proposal is stupid and ill-considered. A Leftie will say that a rightwinger PERSONALLY is stupid! He'll make some juvenile joke about his target's character. Being mayor of what to me is a foreign city anyway (Toronto the Damned!) I really don't care about Ford per se or this specific issue. I'm just commenting on what I perceive as bias and hypocrisy from his critics! As I've said before, bad character is NORMAL for ANY politician! So why all this focus from the Left? I think it's because the Left knows that Ford's policies are indeed popular with the majority of Toronto citizens. That's why he won the election! What's the Left supposed to do, criticize what the majority wanted? That will hold on to their base but it won't buy them enough other votes to get their kind of guy in next time. Toronto is feeling a "tax revolt" and there IS a feeling that there has been too many snouts in the trough! So policies are out as targets. That leaves character and personalities. They have to try hard to make Ford look like a dork personally, hoping that people will forget about the issues and policies that made them vote for him in the first place! It's really rather shallow, when you think about it.

I am very surprised after all the hot air expended on both sides for a couple of years now that no one is talking about the early snowfalls. Never since records have been kept has NYC had over an inch of snow in October! The pictures on the news of such large and early snowfalls across the continent are unprecedented. I thought we had all been taught by reliable authority that we were very soon all going to fry! Hopefully Al Gore will just put on a sweater and not turn his furnace on so early...

Tim, the alarmists have taken this tact from the very beginning. The premise that any warming is man-made is taken as a given, yet any sort of evidence has been very sparse. You'd think that if they had good evidence they would have led with it from the start but it appears that just isn't the way it is. It's another reason why so many of us have been uncomfortable with the alarmists' claims. Obviously, if it is just Mother Nature then they have no influence on their REAL agenda, which is acquire political power and exercise it in a leftwing manner. Kyoto is an obvious and blatant example to anyone who actually read the damn thing instead of just parroting the claims of their leaders. If it's Nature it's likely so large an effect that we'll just have to adjust to it, which has always been the far cheaper solution anyway. If it's caused by Man, then there's an opportunity to forcibly change the lifestyle of millions if not billions of fellow human beings away from "evil capitalism" with its industrialization and focus on providing all of us with "stuff" and also forcible wealth re-distribution, in order to help countries beginning NEW industrialization! This new industrialization is perfectly fine because only WESTERN industrialization is bad, because a century or two ago we should have known how to be "greener" in advance and we should have been far more "generous" politically! There's also the concept that today we should totally forgive any emissions or outright pollution caused by new countries like China and India because they have started so late, having "missed their turn", as it were. Again, if any warming is natural it pulls the "political" rug out from under them!

Mary Walsh has always mixed her leftwing politics into her comedy, from back in the early days of "This Hour has 22 Minutes". Most times it was funny but once in a while she obviously let her own politics colour the humour, to the point where ONLY other lefties would find it funny! She would mock the man for being a rightwinger and not for anything he may have done. The other members of the troupe didn't seem to do do that. You couldn't really tell their personal politics 'cuz they mocked EVERYBODY equally! I could never say the same for Mary Walsh.

That is the funniest thing I've seen in a month of Sundays!

So what? ALL politicians have terrible character! After enduring scumbags like Mulroney and Chretien you think Ford's character is important? What's important is what they DO from their elected office! I thought the issues were what Ford has been doing, with his budget cuts and whatnot. Should we waste our time on how he reacted to some CBC self-righteous self-described comedians? Give yourself a shake and come back to earth, CC! Life's too short!

Seems to me that almost all of the attacks of Ford in this thread are ad hominem distractions " from the concrete issues at hand"!

Boges, don't you get it? Guys like him think Ford is BAD! It doesn't matter about evidence, reason or proof. They don't like Ford! They make him a straw man for everything they hate about the right, or even everything that's not Left! You're arguing with fanatics. Don't waste your time! Even if Ford is guilty he hasn't a chance of a fair trial with this bunch! When you think with situational ethics the fact that Ford is their enemy is enough to let the death penalty apply, because he's a rightwinger! Meanwhile, they wouldn't have ever even conceived of executing Clifford Olson, because a convict is a treasured symbol for the Left. Life is so much more clear for such ilk. They don't have to strain their brains about right and wrong. It's all about who they like and who they don't like.

Who's Peggy? Uh, Betty Joe Biolowski? Oh, you mean Nancy! ---Nick Danger, Third Eye! Now we'll find out who's an old hippy and who's a young pup on this board!

How on earth do you figure that? This I GOTTA hear!

Scribb, it's not that easy for Ford to release the tapes. I'm sure a lot of his attackers know this and are salivating as they wait to see if he'll do it. You see, in this matter he's not just a private citizen. He's the Mayor! This incident will NOT be treated in isolation! If Ford releases the tapes and they prove he's telling the truth then as Mayor he has started a war! His job is to keep everybody pulling together. This is difficult enough with his budget cuts. If he proves the 911 operators and the police did things wrong do you think they will meekly bow their heads in shame and accept the rebuke? The hell they will! They will be pissed at the Mayor for embarrassing them and they will respond accordingly. Ford will have bought himself a couple of years of grief trying to work with them. Likely other services will side with the police and the operators. The problem will just balloon, perhaps out of control. I think either he's lying (he IS a politician! Just as Leftists seem to forget that their guys are not always saints the same is true on the right) and doesn't want the tapes revealed OR he's hoping that if he stays classy the police and operators will realize that and get off his back, to show a bit of appreciation. If this is the case, I think he's dreaming in technicolour! Militant unions don't think that deeply! They are going to keep giving him a hard time because he's a rightwinger and to them that makes him a reptilian kitten eater! Period and end of story! So if he's indeed innocent then he will have no choice but to release the tapes and accept all the trouble from those services for the rest of his term. Frankly, I don't see how we can tell the truth without them. The CBC has managed successfully to divert the issue from their crew being dickheads to one where it's all about Ford. We can all make a lot of noise here on MLW but it doesn't matter. We're just going to have to wait and see how things unfold.

You might be right, but I can't help but feel that diplomacy and the human beings behind it don't work exactly that way. In any disagreement, you don't start out right off the bat by blowing your rival away with a howitzer or an atom bomb! There's "a long way from thar to here!" as a hillbilly might say! By your reasoning, who needs an infantry? If someone pushes you a little, just nuke him! Yet the infantry is perhaps the most important part of a military of all! Diplomats need options. Sometimes you need to just give a swat on the ass or maybe a smack on the head to straighten out the situation. You don't have any range of options if your only possible response is to start hurling nukes! In a defensive situation, a gradation of options is even more important. Any response should be proportionate. Again, you are limited if your only response possible is all out Armageddon. That puts you in the category of a Kim El Dongo, of North Korea. Somehow, I think Canada can do better than that!

Neither! Only drummers get laid! Besides, there's always some folkie chicks who'll lay a recorder player. There's rumours about what it does for your lips...

Who can predict the future? A little over 20 years ago Russia WAS an enemy! What might happen 20 years from now? Can YOU predict with confidence that all conflict is over and Canada will never again need a military plane? What happens to my kids if YOU are wrong? What will YOU do to make it up to them? Remember, in modern times, you get no second chances. You get no time to start rebuilding your capabilities. A conflict starts and in a very short time it will be over. You work with what you have and if it's not good enough you lose. Period and end of story!

I admit that I don't know enough to answer my own question but if we went with Super Hornets, how would they stand up in a conflict with other countries? I'm sure they could hold their own against a country like Bangladesh but is there a chance that we'd end up out-classed, with our Super Hornets blown out of the sky in combat against a country with better planes? Not today, of course, but maybe in 20 years? We all know that no matter what planes we get it's Ottawa's way to get nothing better for 50 years or so, especially if the Liberals get back in power.

Don't confront me none to be part of the 10%, MM! 90% of people will bet on an inside straight. 90% of people will think they have significantly better odds at a lottery of millions by being part of a pool of 100 tickets rather than just one. 90% of people seem to think that if we're running out of bread the solution is to open more variety stores! 90% of people are not 100% sure the earth ISN'T flat! 90% of Lefties think that only someone on the Left can be a good human being! As evidence of that premise, just check out any few pages of posts here on this board! Or any ONE page on Rubble.com!

Thanks anyway, CC but I have no problems with BC. His military knowledge seems first rate and accurate. He can be a bit prickly but hey, when I post before I've had my coffee I can be crankier than I have a right to be as well! As for being a nationalist, as an American he has a right to be! We Canadians should be a bit more like them! We used to be, before we got the crazy idea that every other country and culture in the world was equal or even a bit better than us and ours! So far, he has never mistaken me for a conservative. That's better than a lot of Canadian posters on this board! He also doesn't seem as blindly partisan as many of our 'Lefties'. Besides, he knows Morse code! That makes only two of us here on MLW!

Maybe Max, but it is sad to hear the tone of some of the posters in this thread. It boils down to :"Since Ford is a rightwinger and I hate him anyway then screw him and who gives a crap about the child of a rightwinger!" It's seems like partisan callousness to me! They would care more for some abstract concept of a starving child in Bangladesh than they show for Ford's daughter. As far as I'm concerned, Ford isn't the only one showing bad character. I wouldn't want some of these posters anywhere near MY children!

"Oh it's Tommy this and Tommy that and 'Chuck 'im out, the brute! But it's 'Saviour of 'is country!' when the guns begin to shoot!" Hope my memory of Kipling is accurate but the point is clear...

Nothing wrong with a recorder! Ask Jethro Tull, or some early albums by Traffic.

BC, at first glance you would appear to hold an accurate view of Canada's capabilities but while it may seem like simple blind patriotism to you, I think you're wrong! You see, historically Canada is NEVER prepared militarily, with a long-standing infrastructure of equipment and experience! We always cut our military down to something useless in a real fight and when the balloon goes up we start scrambling. However, I think few countries are in our class in how quickly we gear up. Things like the British Commonwealth Air Training Program and how fast we called up men for the Army and got them trained and equipped were amazing for their time. We also designed and flew the Arrow in a remarkably short time. We were the first to literally fly a new plane design from the drawing board straight into the sky! We can argue about whether the Arrow was as great a plane as some believe or not but the fact is, 20 years earlier we were not a military aircraft building and designing nation at all. We're the Hobbits of the world, BC! We are set in our ways and emminently peaceful. We are perhaps TOO slow to anger! Once things cross the line however, we are formidable fighters. I would not be so foolish as to make the claim that our style is still a good one for modern times. After all, today's conflicts are "come as you are" wars. When things start you can fight with whatever you have at that point. By the time you start to call up men and build factories things are long over! You either won with what you had or you lost! It was over in a few weeks or even days, while my country hasn't even begun to debate if it is a federal or a provincial matter! Still, our tradition of being able to wake up and adapt quickly is a real one. If we purchase some nuclear submarines I have no doubt we will end up manning them quite capably. If we build them ourselves they will work well! It was never the Canadian forces who had to re-do maintenance manuals into comic book form to suit the literacy levels of their men, BC! Frankly, I believe that our typical member of our armed forces is just more literate and educated than yours! This is not meant as an insult. We work with what we have. I'm just positing an explanation. We're dumbing down our youth as fast as we can to match you! So at last we are trying to catch up for a couple of decades of neglect to our military. That takes money! I can't help but feel that Harper is going a bit beyond that. The reasons why aren't clear. I would agree that we were once the 3rd biggest and most capable navy in the world, after WWII. We threw it all away, keeping only the memory alive for politicians to use for peace-keeping missions and photo-ops, even when those like Chretien seemed oblivious to having cut so deep that we no longer had the capability to fulfill as many missions as he wanted to send them on! Why now? Why is a Canadian federal government being so aggressive about redeveloping our capability? Perhaps Harper has been told that America just can't afford to carry the western defence load all by itself anymore, since NATO has been going the way of the League of Nations. Or maybe he's been made aware of some intelligence warning that something is building, like a threat from China, Iran or whoever and we are trying to be ready for it. If that's the case, it would be perhaps the first time in our history we were proactive about being ready for a military threat! Murky waters but something seems happening below the surface. I don't see it but perhaps others on this board may do so. Yourself, Derek L and Smallc have impressed me greatly with your knowledge of such matters. Maybe you folks can ferret out the real picture. My real point to you is that you should not be so quick to judge what we are capable of in a crunch. Like Hobbits, we would surprise you! We've proven ourselves many times before and we are not so far gone that we couldn't do it again, if we had to!

Well, if that's true if the tape is released the CBC may be subject to some legal action! Way to go, Marg! You're gonna need a drink for sure if that happens!

I'm sorry Pliny but I just give up! I'm not sure if you're just yanking our chains or that in real life you write science articles for WatchTower magazine! Life's too short!