Kitchener

Umm. Yeah. So, anyhow, Baird need not be a specialist to be a good Environment Minister. The question is whether he acts on the best scientific evidence, and puts the long-term public interest first. I think there are serious doubts to be raised on both fronts, though I don't take myself to have demonstrated this. Who would best whom in a Suzuki-Baird debate, whether Suzuki is just like Gore, whether Kirk was better than Picard, or whether Batman could beat up Spiderman are quite beside the point.

Yes, answering the thread's question directly, and pointing out the flaw in complaints about Baird's qualifications, sure wasn't "constructive". Darn me! Not like your follow-up equating Suzuki and Gore. That was pure quality.

If you mean to compliment me for pointing out just a few of the respects in which your leaps of reasoning were confused, I'm grateful. But it's unnecessary. I assume you intend this criticism (whatever its worth) to apply to the person to whom I responded -- who asserted the similarity between Canadian David Suzuki and American Al Gore. Oh, wait. That was you. Well, consistency's not for everyone, I guess.

What on earth are you talking about?

The poll doesn't give enough relevant options, in my view. Whether he should be charged with a crime depends on details we don't have, and on some potentially very finely individuated matters of law. Whether his behaviour was literally criminal can't be known right now; whether his behaviour was sleazy and inappropriate is another matter. Clearly he didn't indignantly deny any dealings with Schreiber because he was proud of his actions; he knew his actions were shameful. I can't say whether he should be charged, but he certainly should be investigated in light of any new evidence -- and the circumstances of his denial under oath of any dealings with Schreiber should be given a very careful look indeed.

Goodness. Are we all this free to construct so many leaps of interpretation in order to take offense? Obviously not all Conservative party supporters (I assume you use the capitalized form to denote the party) are pro-American; nor, for that matter, does emulating or admiring the Republican party entail being pro-American; nor is there the slightest reason to think that, e.g., supporters of the Family Action party or the Libertarian Party couldn't fit the description I gave. So why on earth would you draw the strange inference about the Conservative party? I've said absolutely nothing about the Conservative Party of Canada; this idea was entirely projected by Michael Bluth after the fact. In any case, I've explained my use of the term, which is clearly neither insulting, nor personal, nor camouflaged in any sense besides being a rather obvious metaphor for Canadians who admire or emulate the Republican party.

Please just name the person you believe I've attacked. Or have the courtesy to stop making this absurd and unwarranted claim.

To Mulroney, perhaps -- though it's a widely used term, I'm perfectly happy not to use it, if it's inconsistent with forum rules. But an insult to "the Conservative Party of Canada and its predecessor, the Progressive Conservative Party Canada"? That, recall, was your claim. I'm trying to understand how that could make any sense. I'm glad you have the book, though that's irrelevant. The points, yet again, would be these: reading media bias into at least some perfectly even-handed media behavior goes back a long way in Canadian conservative circles; and the Liberals under Chretien were a strongly anti-CBC government, cutting nearly twice as much funding from the network as Preston Manning had threatened. Anyone who wants to claim that the Canadian media, and especially the CBC, are a pro-Liberal, anti-conservative force has to take such actual data seriously. Facts trump the recitation of boilerplate mythology.

My post was thoroughly substantive, and quoted a Conservative press secretary. Are you now contending that Mulroney's press secretary was attacking the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada? Or was the insult my claim that Mulroney's followers believe him? Here's more from Gratton on Mulroney's irrational attitude towards the media: Notice that this would be actual independent evidence of an obsession with bias at the top of the Conservative leadership going back over 20 years, provided by a disinterested and almost uniquely authoritative source. It might also be worth your reflecting on who cut back the CBC more: Brian Mulroney, or Jean Chretien. If the CBC is this reliably pro-Liberal force, what would you expect to see from the Liberals in their treatment of the CBC over the long years of the Chretien government? I'm sorry if you find substantive claims and salient points to be insulting. But your virtually unintelligible claims of insult become stranger still, when juxtaposed with your own description, on the very same page, of a "flaccid and impotent attack from the Liberals leading cheerleader on this site. Devoid of decency, intellectual rigor or proper support." Why not attempt to produce some contentful posting yourself, or at least intellectually engage the ones that have been posted?

Do you mean you've reported your own insults??? Or are you under the impression that merely using the expression "Canadian Republicans" is an insult to someone on this forum? It's quite baffling.

"Canadian Republicans" is a perfectly sensible way of referring to Canadians who resemble or imitate Republicans; it's hard to fathom why you would say this "doesn't describe anything", but I suppose you could try arguing such a case cogently if you thought it important to make this claim reasonable. I didn't say anything about the Conservative Party of Canada. Upbraiding someone (repeatedly) for something s/he didn't say is not a manifestation of honest, intelligent, open-minded discussion. So, while I agree with the spirit of your remarks, the person to whom I would recommend them in the first instance is you. I do hope we can have productive discussions.

Accepted, gladly. All you had to do was ask. What I meant was that Gore has been the target of an astonishing amount of astonishingly stupid neo-con smears over the years -- many of them (e.g., invented the internet, Love Story) repeated for years after they had been comprehensively debunked. Suzuki has not been subjected to anything like that amount or stupidity/dishonesty of commentary. And it is only on this front, presumably, that they can be compared -- since surely nobody could have meant to suggest that a career politician and a zoology professor with over 150 scientific papers published have comparable expertise on environmental matters. (To think otherwise would have been to impose a very uncharitable interpretation indeed -- as if someone would say something that silly!) But the disappointing willingness of some posters on this thread to embarrass themselves by making such comparisons, or, for example, alluding to Suzuki merely as an entertainer, leads me to wonder whether we aren't seeing the beginning of a leveling of the field between Gore and Suzuki, as far as silly partisan attacks. I hope that clears it up for you.

Fascinating. Thanks for the education. However, I clearly described Baird's degree as a B.A. Which it is. And the post about which you are whining -- apparently for the second time -- is clearly not mine. Any more words of wisdom on what constitutes disrespect, and the importance of posting with integrity?

Well, I'm certainly not here to discuss things you imagine or make up -- even if they do have an amusing irony. Say something substantive and intelligent and I'll be happy to engage. You could start by agreeing or disagreeing with my carefully explained take on the near-irrelevance of Baird's environmental expertise -- a point against Baird's critics more than his boosters.

No. It only depends on whether you're speaking English. The Status of Women program was cut; it follows that a women's program was cut. If you wanted to discuss total budget, you should have said as much. Indeed. One thing that a women's group might be expected to do is lobby for women's concerns. So what's wrong with that? You write of "programs that directly benefit women". A reasonable person would expect women's groups to simply aim to benefit women, full stop -- without worrying about Keepitsimple's personal fixation on "directness". Often what will benefit women is lobbying for their interests. Who opposes this, except for someone who resents attempts to change the status quo -- perhaps even while making sad noises about it? It reminds me of the quote from Hélder Câmara, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."

I wouldn't have thought they were in the same class, with respect to the volume and stupidity of neo-con hysteria that gets babbled about them (which I can only assume is the comparison you meant to raise). Yet this thread is convincing me that there may be something to your suggestion, at least as regards Canadian Republicans.

The answer to the thread question is simple: Baird has a B.A. in Political Science. The answer to the implicit questions of how this qualifies him to make scientific judgments regarding global warming, or macro-economic judgments about the effects of anti-pollution policies, is less simple, but hardly difficult: It doesn't. But then, it is relatively rare for government ministers to have expertise in their portfolio. What they are supposed to have, rather, are good leadership skills (in particular the ability and willingness to identify and defer to the people who do have expertise), and a clear devotion to the public interest above all others. It is on these fronts that discussion of Baird's performance should focus. Does he listen to the scientific consensus, or court the outliers and unpublished conspiracy theorists, when it comes to global warming? Does he act in the public interest, including the interest of future generations, or in the interests of multinational petroleum companies? Questions about his own education are nearly as irrelevant as poisonous and moronic burbling about David Suzuki. Baird doesn't need to be an expert. He only needs to be a good Environment Minister. If he isn't, it wouldn't matter if he'd done a PhD in climatology.

I'm sure there was an answer to this... what was it? Oh, right -- because this would be "encouraging" them to raise their children poor -- perhaps in poverty -- because they'd be single-income families in households many of which are already struggling with two or 1.5 incomes. Sorry, I had to think seriously for two seconds to remember that rather obvious fact. Clearly not a barrier to posting the question, though. Maybe I was also distracted by the daft line about "handing them off to the government", since "the government" would not be doing daycare under anyone's plan -- just guaranteeing the creation of spaces, on the defunct Liberal proposal. Again, basic accuracy not a condition for posting, it seems. Awesome. Now maybe a crack about how Stalin or Hitler was in favour of federally guaranteed daycare spots...?

Well, there's no question that they cut the Status of Women program. So the answer is, obviously, Yes: they cut women's programs. The only remaining point seems to be that you think the Status of Women program was bad. Fair enough. As a piece of mental autobiography, that's no worse than any other random report of your likes and dislikes. Dressing it up as a factual matter apt to be illuminated by consideration (of what? anti-feminist bile?) "with an open mind" is rather ridiculous, though. The Conservatives cut the Status of Women program. You think that was good. Roger -- got that. What kind of ice cream do you like, while you're reciting your various non-rational preferences?

This is just a manufactured story for the consumption of neo-con outrage-o-philes. This thread shows that it's fallen on fertile ground. The fact is that political reporters work in close contact with politicians from all parties. This means, among other things, that they sometimes compare notes and posit questions -- again, with members of all parties. This story is designed to take the heat off the Conservatives, by pitching one instance of this completely unremarkable fact as if it were a grave sin. Fortunately for them, they can count on their staunchest supporters to (i) know nothing of these facts and (ii) be on a hair trigger for unreasoned outrage when the words "CBC" and "bias" are thrown to them. Of course, the belief that sauce for the goose is a criminal prejudice against the gander is long established in the Conservative mindset. Mulroney's former press secretary, Michel Gratton, writes about the journalists joining The Chin's campaign bus after having just toured with John Turner. The pundits... This was considered "refreshing" on the Mulroney buses. Yet, as we all know, when the pundits subsequently sank their teeth into Mulroney as he become the front-runner and later PM, this was depicted as an awful media bias against Conservatives. And his followers sucked it up, have never forgotten it, have filed it away in their Big Fuzzy Mental File of Media Unfairness to Conservatives. They should be embarrased by the fact that they are utterly unwilling to grasp, unable to fathom, or purely gobshite ignorant of the myriad respects in which exactly the same phenomena are experienced by every party in Canada.