the janitor

There's plenty of evidence for Christianity. The New Testament is the most verifiable text in ancient history. You will not find another historical text from the same time period with more documentation (multiple texts, lines of transmission, witnesses to the fact). The evidence for God is scientific. Every created thing must have a first cause. Science concurs that the Universe had a beginning. Nothing has ever been observed to cause itself to exist. Nothing. God does not need a creator because God never had a beginning. A beginning itself is a created thing.

I do. There is something about her that's really compelling. I mean any way you look at it, she's an improvement on Ralph Klein and Ed Stelmach.

I know Clark's election was a squeaker. Point being that Reford, Clark, Palin all DID get elected. Next time around Danielle Smith probably will. It's only AFTER they've been in office and messed up people vote against them.

It's no longer 1933. The threat is completely different and the response must be also. Besides, I'm not saying completely do away with the CF, but we'd have a problem say with fighting the Battle of the Atlantic again for instance. Despite everything spent on defence we haven't had decent maritime helicopters for a couple of decades. Despite what we spend the government still can't manage to get the equipment th CF needs. Think I'd rather not commit them to combat again any time soon.

Personally, I find Alison Redford lovely. I'm sure I'm not alone. I don't agree with most of her policies. So the question is this. How often do we vote based on what we percieve is attractive rather than on a hard look at the issues? Do we vote for what we want to be true versus what actually is true. McLuhan once said that when the media want to present bad news they graph it in curves. When they want to present good news, they wrap it in curves. (Something to that effect.) Is there a pattern? Danielle Smith, Christy Clark, Sarah Palin, And Alison Redford?

Just means the Vikings (like some other cultures) had a notion of something. It doesn't really prove or disprove anything I don't think. When trying to find the truth it's a simple matter of which version has the most evidential support.

Someone rising from the dead is about the coolest thing there is. When I was little I thought Thomas the Tank Engine was pretty cool. Still do. Only now I know it's a fairy tale. Norse mythology isn't based in historical fact. Christianity is.

There are similarities apparently between Jesus and Mythros. But anyone who actually looks into the evidence will find more differences than similarities. TThe life of Jesus is an accepted historical fact. The myth that his life was a re-telling of some other fable is absurd.

Totally different situation now. We aren't up against Nazi Germany. Even if we had all the material at the ready to defeat such an enemy we couldn't. We are in a different society. The West has no stomach for total warfare, even though it's the only warfare that's winable. Look at Vietnam...won every battle and still lost the whole dang thing. If we were up against something like Nazi Germany I'd support as big a military budget as economically possible. That's what it took to win. But we aren't, and an extra .5% GDP on defence isn't buying us any extra security. It really isn't.

.7% GDP has been the target for foreign development for years. Canada can afford it. .7% would give us a limited military but enough capability to do what we do now basically. I think more money spent on foreign aid would actually buy us more security than what we spend above that on defence (think someone posted about 1.2%). That extra .5% just goes South of the border at some point anyway. Consider: Canada has built/flown about 1100 fighter jets post-WW2. How many have acutally gone into combat? 48. Never more than 6 or 12 at a time and only for a period of a few months. We'd run out of spares with a deployment any longer than that. So spending a total of upwards 12 billion on fighter jets that never saw combat bought us security? Hardly. People always lament over the Avro Arrow being cancelled. It was a budget hog and it should have been cancelled. Perhaps sooner than it was. Nice looking plane but not a fighter, nothing more than a mission-specific interceptor for a threat that didn't exist. I have respect for the people that serve in the military (I did myself) and it should be well-equipped for it's size, but like the Avro Arrow, Canada has all along been spending billions on a threat that doesn't really exist. I think we did make some headway in Afghanistan. Hopefully we did. Because if we didn't, then we really didn't need to be there at all, not for as long as we did anyway. We sure didn't need to spend what we spent to be there. Keep in mind our security against a terrorist threat involves Coast Guard platforms, the RCMP, and Border Security Services as well as the military (and like it or not, the CF has the secondary role), and I wouldn't starve those department budgets to buy advanced fighter jets just because other countries want us to. If we really need to spend 1.2% on the CF okay fine. Let's spend that on foreign development too. Much of what is spent on foreign development comes back to Canada anyway.

Christaeofascist? What the hell is that?

Atheists are just bigots who don't believe in anything.

Given that Canada doesn't face any direct military threats, shouldn't Canada be spending .7% GDP on foreign aid (like we were supposed to do decades ago and some other nations already do) and cut back the military to the same amount (.7% GDP)? My logic is flawless.

For some reason I just don't trust Ignatieff. I get the feeling he sees his Russian heritage as his divine right to rule as some type of Canadian Tsar. I don't agree with everything the federal Tories do either, but I like Harper. I find most of the criticism leveled at him is sheer speculaltion and fantasy. It's easy to say he has some hidden agenda, but impossible to prove it.

I agree with you, poverty is a huge issue. Many homosexuals are standing up for marriage more than heterosexuals are, so in that sense a government can't justifiably allow hetrosexuals to get married but not homosexuals. But every society has the right to collectively decide which relationships it will sanction and which it will not. Its not a situation of either addressing society's sexual issues or ending poverty. It would be a very warped society that says a young girl must be given shelter, education, healthcare, food and clothing, but if she's being sodomized by her grandfather that isn't society's business. It's a much larger issue than just gay marriage or sexual acts between consenting adults.

I have some issues with the United States...don't agree with everything America says or does, but I wouldn't be so quick to write America off.

I'm familiar with the arguments you're presenting, and I think there's some merit to them. But the BC Liberals are just another form of conservative, they never would've gotten in if the BC NDP hadn't made such a mess of things. The Liberals in BC are closer to the old Socreds than liberals. I think the Alberta Liberals (to some degree anyway) elected Swann as their leader over Taylor out of fear of the same thing happening in Alberta. The claim I made in the post above about the federal NDP being more of a lobby group than a party ready to govern I think holds true to a certain degree for the ALP. David Swann has taken some heat for making it appear he;s running a healthcare lobby group instead of a political party. But at least the ALp is trying to form some type of consensus with the Alberta NDP. Ed Stelmach's tories didn't gain office with a clear majority of votes last time around, so I think it's good to give Alberta voters another option. I suppose though it reallyy depends on which party can make a better case. I have a feeling what might work in the Liberals favour is the downturn in the oil sands -- it's considered "dirty" oil -- and with the economy still in a slump and environmental concerns (the US government for instance, is disallowed by law from purchasing dirty oil) and US trade protectionism raising its head, I don't think the oil boom is coming back completely. I think the Liberals in Alberta have a shot at governing if they give themselves a good shake up. I was actually hoping Harry Chase would be the new leader, but that's a whole other argument. I tend to be a middle of the road liberal type guy, but I voted NDP last time around because I thought the New Democrat in our riding had a better chance of beating the PC candidate. That and the fact Bryan Mason promised me if I voted NDP I could get my own picture taken with Sarah Palin. I should've known the New Democrats weren't going to deliver on that promise.

First, our system, as opposed to being a republic, is a constitutional monarchy, not a "confederation". Federative principles can also apply to republics and do in the case fo the United States, hence they are the United States. Second, equalization payments are not federal "welfare" -- they are payments from the federal government to certain provinces to ensure that Canadians have near-equal levels of provincial services, regardless of where they reside. People in Newfoundland work just as hard as people in say, Saskatchewan or Alberta. Transfer payments are compensation from the federal government to ensure that provincially administered programs are able to meet at least minimum federal standards across the country. Healthcare is an example. Being from Alberta, let me say that Alberta does not receive back financial compensation anywhere close to what it sends to Ottawa. Not that I support the Conservative government in Alberta, I don't. I think they're incredibly dumb and have been underperforming for decades. Where it comes to federal politics, it's not like the NDP are even credible. They simply aren't interested in governing. You'd think that with never having more than a handful of seats, someone would wise up and think, "Gee, our message isn't getting across, maybe we should rethink out platform just a teensy bit, so people don't think we're absolute flakes." I think though that if anyone in the party even suggested that, they'de be thrown out. The NDP are more a federal lobby group for special interests than a party hoping to govern. For being in parliament as long as they have, they have accomplished two things however: 1) They are the party (so far as I know) which holds the record for being in continuous opposition for the longest period of time, and 2) they hold the record for being in opposition the longest without actually forming the official opposition. Kudos! At least in Alberta, the NDP leader, Brian Mason is willing to listen to a credible voice when it comes to oil royalties. Not that he'll ever be premier, the Alberta NDP are to stubborn to team up with the Liberals, which is what need to happen to oust the Conservatives. http://ffwdweekly.com/media/article_images/2540.jpg

Honestly BC, I don't know where these people are coming from. I'm not a die-hard conservative and I don't agree with everything Palin stands for by a long shot, but I'm not crazy enough to think she's going to cause the total destruction of the planet by using nuclear weapons! For crying out loud...and these same people think Palin is flaky? Honestly thats the most extreme view I've heard this year. It's not that these people aren't conservative, they're not even rational! No President is not going to pull the nuclear trigger without strong support from security advisors and military staff. Besides, Palin is a Republican: it was Kennedy who brought us to the brink and Truman who actually used the bomb (twice). Both Presidents were Democrats! A Republican President is more likely to use conventional weapons on a large scale...it's better for the economy.

C'mon guys, Sarah Palin cannot possibly be held responsible for all that is wrong with America even if you don't agree with her. She's only one person, and even if she did become President, she'd still have congress to deal with. Besides, when she and McCain can draw as many votes as they did last November, that's not far-right extreme radical politics, that's mainstram America folks. She can't possibly be the demon everyone has made her out to be, just as Obama is not the political saviour of America he's been cast as. Palin has influence, like it or not, and she's not going away. Of course falling back on simplistic political ideologies is more comfortable than actually having to do any thinking, and Democrats fall back on old ideologies as much as Republicans do. They think Obama represents change, but it's still the same system he has to work with. Ask any liberal in the United States and your likely to hear a political ideal that's at least fifty to a hundred years out of date as the solution to todays complex problems. The past owns liberals as much as it owns conservatives who don't do any thinking...the past is just a more comfortable place. Of course, then there are the people who like to use their celebrity status to tell us what to think and who to vote for, rip apart people like Sarah Palin, and don't have the guts to run for office themselves.

EI does more for sovereignty than the military does...they haven't done anything for sovereignty since world war 2. Who cares whats going on in Afghanistan or who has submarines in the arctic when you're an umemployed janitor from windsor or winnipeg. Besides, america makes some damn good janitor equipment and al Qaeda isn't specifically targetting janitors anyway. More moeney for EI I say!

The russians are going to help us protect the arctic from the americans and their destruction of the environment north of 60. http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=n3059799932999 GO RUSSIA!!!!

Sorry about the NASCAR shot there, army guy. To be honest, I hunt but I don't drink. Even if Canadian hunters do drink, I don't think that's much of a handicap...there's enough drug abuse and alcoholism in the US military to even things out. Quite frankly I don' think we're reliant on the US for our defence. Anyone else tries to attack North America, it will be the US that's the target, not Canada.

My sentiments exactly!!! She'll be even more popular after Obama's fall from grace (which is inevitable from the way he's built himself up).

Doesn't sound like the hunters I know. Doesn't seem you know too much about racing technology either the way you talk about NASCAR...hell of a lot more sophisiticated than a hockey puck.