maplesyrup

THe self rightous indignations, of the ranting right wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, are about to challenged by a former Republican, gun-toting Ed Schultz out of Fargo, North Dakota Ed by-the-way is drug free. Ed's first guest, his show starts today, will be Hilary Clinton, who is the odds on favourite to win the Democratic nomination in 2008, and whom many pundits think will win the presidency. 'Left in the air? Liberals are working to make their voices heard on talk radio' http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/ar...eft_in_the_air/ 'Do you fail to find the compassion in George W. Bush's conservatism? Do you worry that neo-cons have hijacked foreign policy? Do you think Al Gore won the 2000 election? Do you wish someone would say these things on talk radio?'

The Canadian dollar. on the first real tading day of the new year, 2004, is trading above 78 cents as it continues to rocket ahead of all expectations. During the past year, 2003, the Canadian dollar has gained 22%. Someone is bullish on Canada.!

Canada's Governor General's and the American President's trips were both morale builders for the troops. Mr Bush is a politician trying to score political points with that premature banner that was installed behind him on the carrier, and he has been roundly criticized for it. Ms Clarkson is not running for any political office. Also she bought our troops a round of drinks hopefully with our tax dollars, which is a good use of government funds.

Egyptian Red Sea plane crash, was it just an accident? Egypt says no, but it seems awfully quick for Egypt to make an accessment like that. Was there a distress call from the pilot? 'Red Sea plane crash kills 148, Egypt and France rule out terrorism' http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040103/1/3h167.html 'On October 31, 1999, an EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashed off the US Atlantic coast, killing all 217 people on board. Egypt denies US assertions it was deliberately caused by the co-pilot.'

A lot of happy people at NASA tonight - successful landing for the Spirit rover.

Search for life on Mars. The US Spirit rover is about to land on Mars. Maybe they will be able to help find out what happened to Beagle2 ? They're gonna need a traffic cop up there on Mars soon. It's gettin' busy. And even if NASA's rover can't find it, Mars Express is scheduled to begin its search tomorrow for signals from Beagle 2. 'The Beagle 2 team wishes good luck to NASA's MER team with the landing of the Spirit rover.' http://www.beagle2.com/index.htm

Redistribution of Canada federal ridings, is scheduled to go into effect in April, 2004, immediately after which, there are rumours that Prime Minister Paul Martin will be going to our Governor General’s residence to drop the writ for Canada’s 38th election. Scientific polling companies probably do it, but does anyone here at Mapleleafweb know the province/territory redistributed seat break downs into urban, suburban, and rural categories for each province/territory? Once the breakdowns are completed, in order to get a grip on what general classifications of populations we have in each province/territiory, maybe we could create at least partially scientific polls of our own, and see how accurate we are, compared to the actual results. My hunch is that the folks here at Mapleleafweb could probably do quite well with forecasting. PROV--------SEATS-----RURAL-----SUBURBAN-----URBAN BC-------------36 AB-------------28 SK-------------14 MA-------------14 ON-----------106 QC------------75 NL--------------7 NB------------10 PE--------------4 NS------------11 YK--------------1 NW-------------1 NU-------------1 CA----------308 ------------------------------------------------------------- The following is a table showing a provincial/territory breakdown of population** and seats, with their respective percentages. PROV-----POPULATION-----POP %-----SEATS-----SEATS % BC----------3,907,738--------13.0--------36----------11.7 AB----------2,974,807---------9.7---------28------------9.1 SK------------978,933---------3.3---------14------------4.5 MA---------1,119,583---------3.7---------14------------4.5 ON--------11,410,046-------38.0--------106----------34.4 QC---------7,237,479--------24.1---------75----------24.4 NL------------512,930---------1.7-----------7------------2.3 NB------------729,498---------2.4---------10------------3.2 PE------------135,294---------0.5-----------4------------1.3 NS------------908,007---------3.9---------11------------3.6 YK--------------28,674---------0.1-----------1------------0.3 NW------------37,360----------0.1----------1------------0.3 NU-------------26,745----------0.1----------1------------0.3 CA-------30,007,094-------100.6-------308-----------99.9 ** Population figures are based on Stats Can 2001 Census. An attempt has been made to be as accurate as possible, but please advise if there are any errors in the calculations There have been complaints that provinces were not getting enough seats, or too many seats, but it appears that the two provinces with the biggest differences percentagewise are Ontario which is short 3.6%, and BC which is short 1.3%. ------------------------------------------------ Have you had a chance to read today's article by James Travers? 'Reform, or just same old, same old? Will Paul Martin make real changes?' http://64.4.36.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN...%3d968350116467 Some of it may please you, and some of it you may disagree with, but there is lots of material here to munch on for people from all the different political persuasions. He talks about 30 seats in Ontario up for play, and yea, he's a raw, raw Martin booster, but he talks about the Conservatives, the NDP, the Bloc, as well as the Liberals. Some of what he says makes sense and some doesn't. Here's an example: 'If that isn't enough, Martin will be stickhandling an auditor-general's report that is widely expected to suggest that in issuing generous contracts to Quebec advertising firms, Liberals somehow mistook the public purse for their own. Martin has already shelved the offending program as well as the communications agency that for decades made a science of spending taxpayer money for partisan purposes. But that won't be enough to distance Liberals from scandal if Sheila Fraser, easily Ottawa's most credible and feared official, declares that the rot runs deeper than a few scapegoat politicians, officials and bureaucrats. Convincing Canadians that Liberal ethics isn't an oxymoron is just one of Martin's many challenges. At least until April brings an election, the Prime Minister must maintain the momentum that puts him comfortably high in opinion polls and promises Liberals an extraordinary fourth consecutive majority.' Just don't know why Mr Martin needed to hire Scott Feschuk, the National Post's television critic and humorist, while he has Mr Travers to do his bidding.

Prime Minister Paul Martin has just cost the Liberals Ottawa Centre. With his gift to his buddies, Martin has just cut loose Richard Mahoney, an Ottawa lawyer and longtime confident of the prime minister, who is his candidate in Ottawa Centre. Many civil servants live in the riding, which encompases Parliament Hill. Martin froze their wages immediately upon becoming prime minister, and when the election takes place it will be payback time. This contrast in treatment won't be lost on our civil servants. Between now and election time, look for Martin to somehow try and lift the freeze, probably secretly, in an attempt to save the seat, but it will be too late. If Ed Broadbent secures the NDP nomination in Ottawa Centre, he will win. 'Raises could boost top aides' salaries above those of MPs' http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/Art...TPTechInvestor/ 'One former executive assistant doesn't buy Mr. Lague's defence of the salary increases, saying it was also his job, and that of others in his position, to talk to parliamentary secretaries, meet with MPs and deal with committees. "There's no new tasks, and who did they think used to deal with committees?"'

Although this is the Canadian Politics section some of you might enjoy this tidbit: Pat Robertson, the US religious broadcaster said that God told him recently George Bush was going to be elected for a second term. A minister, who is involved with with the separation of church and state in the US, replied that Pat Robertson got confused. Pat was talking with Carl Rove, not God. PS This is a joke!!! PPS Carl Rove is Bush's hatchet man, er, I mean, chief politial advisor.

Political pressure builds in 2004 YEAR AHEAD I Mysterious police raids put a pall on the early days http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouvers...14-3A899F649143 Quote The surprise Dec. 28 raids at the legislature and the offices of key organizers in both the provincial and federal Liberals, has reverberated through the halls of the legislature, and reached all the way to Prime Minister Paul Martin. Unquote

Progressive party will be reborn http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/Conte...d=1072870706029

For those of you who have not had an opportunity to see the front page of the Friday, January 2, 2003, edition of the Vancouver Sun I recommend you acquire a copy. The front page has a list of 27 questions relating to the Raid on the BC Leislature. http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouvers...AF-0EF9B54F455F Quote Six days after the shocking raids on the legislature, citizens still have been told next to nothing about the RCMP actions that have shaken the province's political life to its core. Unquote One of the 27 questions: Quote Does it mean anything that so many of the individuals have links to the federal Liberal party, Prime Minister Paul Martin's organizing team in B.C. and his leadership campaign? - Unquote ----------------- Roy Peterson's cartoon on page C6 of today's Vancouver Sun is priceless: It shows a quite frazzled Paul Martin reading a paper with a headline that says: 'PM Martin won't suspend his senior BC campaign aides' and his secretary on his speaker phone saying: 'A Mr Chretien to see you, sir....he says you've screwed up already and he wants the job back...'

Prime Minister Paul Martin keeps on talking about his democratic deficit and it is strictly a diversion, to try and keep Canadians off balance. Canadians know all about democratic deficits. Majority governments quite regiularly are being elected in Canada with high thirties, low forties percentage of the vote. It is unbelievable that Canadians are still willing to accept this most unfair, first-past-the-post system from their governments. It's time for all our governments in Canada to seriously address this real democratic deficit, and bring in a proportional representation system. So when a political party gets 20% of the vote, they get 20% representation in the House of Commons. Enough is enough. ------------------------------------------------- - from today's Globe and Mail 'PR would have saved the PCs' http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Pag...bhub=VoteResult

'One war cast the longest shadow, 2003 was a year defined by one war.' http://allafrica.com/stories/200312310225.html

Here's the first predictions in our new year: Liberals: 182 Conservatives: 66 NDP: 40 Bloc: 20 http://64.4.36.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN...2d1%2fTSOPINION Hummm. And the next one: http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjou...A0-1D0D03AEA3F3 ----- 'Raises could boost top aides' salaries above those of MPs' http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto.../BNStory/Front/ 'One of Paul Martin's first acts as Prime Minister was to quietly boost the pay of his new cabinet ministers' senior political staff by more than $32,000 a year. His next act was to freeze pay boosts for other public servants. The increase in salary means that chiefs of staff for his 29 full cabinet ministers will earn as much as $147,300 a year, $12,100 more than elected members of Parliament make.' ---- Note the word quietly. Why does our Prime Minister Paul Martin want to try and hide this pay increase from Canadians? While you are at it, take a look at today's Globe and Mail's poll, albeit unscientific: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Pag...bhub=VoteResult

'Ex-Cattleman's Warning Was No Bum Steer' http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...2004Jan1_2.html "Anybody who thinks we only have one mad cow in America," he says, "is smoking the No. 1 crop out of California." ------- 'Expert Warned That Mad Cow Was Imminent' http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/25/national...&partner=GOOGLE 'So six weeks ago, Dr. Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, entered Ms. Veneman's office with a message. "I went to tell her that what happened in Canada was going to happen in the United States," Dr. Prusiner said. "I told her it was just a matter of time."' Are we only dealing with the tip of the iceberg here? There sure is a lot of controversy surrounding this industry.

Some ramifications in the US for adopting Canadian strategy based on Canada's experience with BSE last May. 'Ban on 'downers' could change way cattle are raised' http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/f...dcow-usat_x.htm 'Officials said Wednesday that they believe they have found a herd-mate to the infected Washington cow. DNA test results on the animal, one of 81 believed to have come into the USA from Canada with the infected cow, are expected early next week.'

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) has been picked as Canada's top news story of the year for 2003. 'SARS picked as top Canadian news story of 2003 by editors, broadcasters' http://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id...F9-374BF5E14B8D 'The emergence of SARS, a disease which sparked simultaneous outbreaks and widespread panic in far-flung parts of the globe, was the top Canadian news story of the year, newspaper editors and broadcasters declared in an annual survey conducted by The Canadian Press and Broadcast News.' Do you agree?

Did we learn anything last time? What are we going to do differently this time if SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is confirmed? SARS has been picked as Canada's number one news story of the year for 2003 by editors and broadcasters. The World Health Organization should know in the next few days if we have another outbreak of SARS on our hands http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s1019335.htm 'The World Health Organisation has now sent a team of disease control experts to Guangdong Province, while its international network of labs tries to confirm whether the man has SARS or not.' 'It may be a false alarm, but it was this time last year that authorities say the first cases of SARS probably emerged from that same area of China, before the disease crossed into Hong Kong and spread around the world, infecting about 8,000 people and killing more than 700.'

sir__springer....thanks. When I looked at Chuck Strahl's website it was quite obvious that he is very loyal to Stephen Harper. He has a prominent scrolling message on it, that has several references to speeches made by Harper. Have you heard of someone named Warren Kinsella? I believe he was a Chretien person, but not sure. Looked at his weblog (www.warrenkinsella.com) this afternoon, and he is forcasting a minority government. Not sure if that is sour grapes, or if he is an accurate forecaster, but hope it's the latter. Lord is quite young. He still has plenty of opportunity, in future years to enter federal politics if he wishes.

Brainiac is correct in what he is saying, about the way, fairly or unfairly, the Harper/Alliance perception is., in certain parts of the country. Now maybe Harper will be able to turn it around. He does have his strengths, bilingual, going to focus on Quebec, brought about the merger, is bright. And maybe, when the police are through with that 'raid on the BC legislature' thing, the most important issue in the next election will be honesty and integrity. Harper will do fine there as well. No one has responded yet - is Chuck Strahl still contemplating running? MacKay will run, I guess, but not to win, maybe to cut another deal using his delegates, and attempt to become the kingmaker. He'll be lucky to win his seat again. Harper will do ok if he wins. But if I were strategizing for the Conservatives, for the next election, I would look at Strahl, if he was running for the following reasons: The best that could happen realistically, in the next election, and even that is a long shot at the moment, is to hold the Liberals to a minority government 1- he's working on his French - good. (I know it's a pain in the ass to some, but this is Canada, eh?) 2 - he's from BC (a candidate from Alberta isn't needed, as the Conservatives have a lock on Alberta, I presume) But having someone from BC, with Martin's BC troops in turmoil over the 'legislature raid' complications, might be a great opportunity to do well in BC again. 3 - he's perceived as neutral in this merger process due to to his role in the DRC (don't want to have resentments boiling over after the leadership contest) - look at the trouble Martin has created for himself by dissin' Chretien and his followers. 4 - he has charasma and like it or not, an election campaign is mainly about leadership. 5 - he might have more appeal in the East because he iwill not be tagged with the baggage because he hasn't been leader (My point here is not to discuss the pros and cons of what Spencer said, but if you asked the people in the East about it, all they would probably remember is that Harper is the leader of Spencer's party. They probably don't even remember Spencer's name.) Just trying to look at the big picture. As for Prentice, I don't know much about him. By-the-way, who is Deborah Grey supporting? Has she said anything yet? And what other big names are backing who here? Who will Mulroney back?

Ireland, under the leadership of Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, begins its six month turn in the president's role of the European Community today, January 1, 2004, with an agressive agenda. The Irish ambitious plan is: 1 - CONSTITUTION - break the deadlock over 10 ex- communist countries that are joining in May. 2 - ENLARGEMENT - a Dublin day of celebration on May 1 to welcome the 10 new members, also negotiate the Romania & Bulgaria admissions in 2007, and help Turkey get onboard. 3 - ECONOMY - make EU, 25 members, 450 million people, the world's most competitive economy by 2010. 4 - DEFENCE - make EU a more effective player in world affairs, with a United Nations centred multilateral order, and UN reforms 5 - EU-U.S. RELATIONS - rebuild after Iraq fallout. 6 - EQUAL PARTNER - with the United States to help resolve Middle East process. 7 - INVITATION - to President Bush to visit Dublin. 8 - JUSTICE/IMMIGRATION - improve fight against terrorism and crime. I think the Irish have a good chance of succeeding, don't you? (after all, they do have the best beer) -from Reuters http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticl...l...02§ion=news

-from today's Globe 'B.C.'s Campbell left reeling from liberal dose of sleaze' http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Art...01/National/Idx 'A comment made by Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell at the NDP convention last November was prophetic, Mr. Ruff said. "You can take these guys," the outspoken mayor told NDP delegates. "They're doable."' Premier Campbell is done, or the Liberals are done, but most probably, they are both done. The Liberals and the NDP, if you can believe it, are almost neck-and-neck in the polls. The Liberals are holding that massive majority, 74 out of 77 seats in the Legislature, but the most recent poll showed the Liberals with 41%, and the NDP with 37%. And that poll was taken before last Sunday's RCMP raid. The people of BC will have had enough. ----- For a thoroughly well researched, and well written article about the consequences of what happened last Sunday at the BC legislature please read: -from The Tyee 'Riads: How big a scandal?' by Barbara McLintock http://www.thetyee.ca/News/current/Raids+H...g+a+Scandal.htm

Nothing definite yet in Canada's search. 'Canada widens mad cow probe' 'Agency tracing animal, feed Several plants' http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/Conte...ol=968350116467 'BSE-infected cow may have come from Canada: U.S. officials' http://www.producer.com/current_news/bse/2...0031230bse.html 'Alberta premier Ralph Klein said he is frustrated with American claims that the animal has Canadian origins. "And, even if it turns out that it was from Alberta, there are many other questions that will need to be answered, such as where the cow became infected, where its feed came from, and so on," said Klein. "I ask all Albertans and Canadians not to jump to any conclusions until that work is completed. To do so would be pointless and perhaps even harmful to the industry ... ." Regardless of the origin of that Washington cow, Canada's status for BSE risk should not change. Our beef is safe," he said.' 'Canada penalized for honesty on BSE case' - note this article is dated December 4, 2003 http://www.producer.com/articles/20031204/...1204news04.html Very interesting and has given me some room for thought. This bse issue is turning out to be such a big event, it's overwhelming. I just did a search on google for 'mad cow' and received 13, 400 hits. If you want to learn and understand about what's going on, it's all out there. There are some very informative articles, I just read a couple in Forbes and also in the Western Producer. I think it is too bad that story got out about the rendering plant in Alberta, without any confirmation. It has spread like wildfire in the media, and there may not be any substance to it. And then again there may be, but it is too soon to know for sure. Morgan....I appreciate your challenging us to be careful about our sources of information. You appear to have some awareness about bse. And those dubious, devious, and dumb awards are a hoot. Gotta like that "Beneath the Call' Award. Happy New Year to you and to all the participants here at Mapleleafweb!

'Mad cow rendering report downplayed 'Hard to believe' because to infect a cow, there has to be a case of BSE in place' http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/Conte...ol=968793972154 '"While it has been reported in the media that a possible link was identified between a rendering facility and the two North American BSE cases, it is premature to draw such a conclusion at this time as the investigation is not yet complete," the statement said.'