August1991

I was going to say that, like the Shania Twain song, it can only go up from here. But then, true, Edwards certainly ran as a protectionist. In fact, protectionism in the States is not ideological. It's pragmatic politics. Neither Bush nor Kerry has the political will to say no to a pushy lobby group. We weren't insignificant before. Considering our US relationship, Chretien appeared to get along with Clinton, and Mulroney made a big deal of getting along with Reagan and Bush Snr. Our guys got more face time than say, the Governor of California. I'm sure Trudeau held his own in the G-7 meanings.

The saga continues. Winnipeg Sun

Left or Right, the real "voter turn out" is not an X on a ballot but tax compliance. Who pays taxes honestly? In which country, continent, are ordinary people inclined to pay taxes and implicitly vote? Certainly not Europeans. They are past-masters at fraud. (Swiss banks, Channel Islands, etc.) Japanese?(Gimme a break - an extremely precise system - with holes) Africa and Asia essentially have no consistent tax system. Americans? The IRS, hunh. How about Canadians. What does it mean to pay taxes honestly because one wants to? Canadians (born here, immigrants, citizens, 1000-holders, residents, illegals, French, English, others, Group W bench) prefer, by and large, to pay taxes rather than cheat. IOW, why do people accept to pay taxes in Canada? Well, people vote honestly when they pay taxes, not when they put an X on a small piece of paper. This should be the measure of democracy. In this, Canadians are true democrats.

Something else about Mulroney. He was born poor, in Baie Comeau. So was Chretien, in Shawinigan. Turner, Trudeau, Martin were born rich. Like Justin Trudeau, or Ben Mulroney, they had several thousand a month, automatic. They feel proud because they don't just watch TV. "We could, but we choose instead to implicate ourselves in our community." Bleh. I have compared my own past family members with politicians of similar periods. In general, the policians were far ahead of any of my ancestors. Diefenbaker was a lawyer; Pearson a Foreign Service bureaucrat. My ancestors at the time managed barely to finish the local school. King, Levesque, Pearson, Drew, Duplessis. They were out of the league of anyone in my family. I kind of respect Chretien and (Brian) Mulroney for having the good fortune of a decent if poor Dad, and the decent fortune of using their good sense. Lougheed's grandfather was a Senator. Alberta. Ugh.

eureka, I think I disagree with you often but I'll agree with you here.Klein has used his schtick on Albertan rubes. It works. schtick : a show-business routine, gimmick, or gag rube : not very intelligent or interested in culture

Has anyone posting here ever been to Finland? Does anyone here know what kind of city Helsinki is? Ever heard of Stockmann's First, you might as well say that Gimli is a great place and so, let's apply the municipal policies of Gimli to New York City. (That'll solve all of New York City's problems.) Second, if Finland is the NDP's solution, then we might as well all commit suicide now. I mean no harm to Finns and their way of life (putting saunas in Tim Horton's sounds interesting), but I frankly prefer the chaos of downtown Montreal. IMV, true life depends on it. Thirdly, Estonians know that they understand life better than any Finn. Tallinn is a Quebec City to a Helsinki Winnipeg. No contest.

Easy. In Scenarios A and B, the Imam gets one of his followers, Muhammed Buhammed, a reputable businessman in Donnybrook, to start an Anyone But Chucky movement. Or, Mr. Buhamed volunteers to help Dingle Dingbat, one of the opposing candidates. In Scenario C, the Imam does nothing. It's his opinion, he's entitled to it, but he shouldn't use his position to sway voters.

This may be a dumb question but why doesn't some create a new party/change an old party to create an alternative to the Conservatives? When was there not a Conservative government in Alberta? (Presto's dad?) I take this as evidence that Albertans are apolitical.

There you go. CTV Story

Maple Syrup, is that our major environmental concern right now? Asteroids? Of course, this is the main problem in the world now. Rich and poor. I feel your frustration, MS. I'm with you, man. ----- The NDP needs to RE-BRAND. Naomi Klein is available for consulting (and style issues). Michael Moore will shoot the video. Issue Statement: Our clientele has shifted and we need to get ahead. Counter-culture, anti-establishment, fronde, take-pride-in-being-different-for no-reason-at-all, underdogs now vote Green, not NDP. Issue Problematic: How to recapture our clientele? Solution: GREEN LITE.

He'll get DC for sure. I'll even give him Mass. I learned long ago to ignore my personal preferences in elections.I'm reading Life and Death in Shanghai right now and she notes that in democracy, leaders can see the truth - or at least, what people think of them. In this case, I don't know. But we'll see. [i too thought that Harper had a chance in the past election but then, apparently, many Ontarians changed their minds in the last few days. About 25 seats shifted. I don't think this will happen in the US.] The Democrats learned their lesson in 2000 and Kerry is one competitive bastard. He needs Ohio (Bush won it in 2000) or Florida (Bush "won" it in 2000). But my election predictions are usually wrong. Two things bother me about the US now. First, I think they should dispense with the Electoral College and go to a straight popular vote. If Bush wins again without a plurality, the US presidency will be weakened. Second, expect more cliffhanger elections in the future (and a series of Atlantic Monthly/Harper's analytical pieces about how US politics have become fundamentally divided). Both parties want to win. So of course, they will propose good candidates. And the media will help them choose good candidates in the primaries. It makes the election almost as exciting as the World Series. My prediction? Kerry 267, Bush 265. Bush calls a recount in Ohio, Kerry in Florida.

Anybody want to make a bet? Electoral Votes predictor now has Bush at 285 and Kerry at 247. This includes Florida (27 votes) in the Bush camp. If Florida goes for Kerry, then it would be 274 Kerry and 258 Bush. This prediction is also giving Wisconsin (10) and Ohio (20) to Bush. If these two states switched, it would be Kerry's too. BTW, the above site has an Animated Map at the bottom of the screen which is interesting to watch.

There are about 800 million "rich" people in the world. (US, Europe, Japan and so on. Family income is above 40,000$/year.) If we take about $100 from each person in this group (about the cost of a day at Disney World) we would have about $80 billion. I have seen this amount as an estimated cost of a trip to Mars. I think these people would be willing to sacrifice a day at Disney World to watch a guy/woman walk on Mars. [incidentally, the Left has bandied about the number $200 billion for Bush's adventure in Iraq. It is greatly exaggerated because wherever the troops are, they still cost money.]

Isn't that like Air Canada changing the colours of its airplanes? In fact, to carry the analogy further, if the NDP adopts Green policies, isn't that kind of like Air Canada setting up Tango?I mean, if people don't like your product, the obvious solution is to package it in a different bottle and claim it's new and improved. The Left, once again, confuses symbol and reality.

OMG!eureka, you say the damndest things sometimes. Thanks for my morning smile.

How do you know what Canadians want, MS?I suspect rather that since the NDP can't get elected federally, you want them to get into power through the backdoor.

IOW, make it so complicated that voter turn out will fall even further. Maybe that's the point: exclude the people who can't be bothered to figure out who to vote for.I would like to be able to prove mathematically that it makes no difference what voting system is chosen. The basic logic is that voters will adjust their voting behaviour according to the rules in place. These proposals always assume that voters will not vote strategically or that voters won't take into account the new rules. They also assume that politicians won't change their behaviour either.

Eureka, maybe we don't inhabit the same universe or something. I see a big difference between "Yost" and "Murphy". Fina Canada's True Nature shows a satellite photograph of North America at night. Did you ever study geography, eureka? Can you see the true nature of Canada? Eureka, do you have an imagination? You are making the claims. I am doubting them. I am not going to look for something that I don't believe exists. I am very, very sorry to learn that your view of Canada is limited to the activities of a relatively small group of people in Ottawa. Canada is the history of this place, the lives of people who live and have lived here, it is the languages they speak, the novels they have written, songs sang. It is the rock and trees. Canada did not begin in 1867 and it is surely much greater than Ottawa.No Chinese would ever say that China amounted to the government in Beijing. I'll change my "Hunh?" to a "WTF?". A case can be made that life is about exchanges, but many of the most important exchanges do not involve money. Are you suggesting that Harper is an ATM?

Be careful, caesar. I'm sure Hugo is just as bothered by the Canadian government having access to such information as the US government. If it's yours, why should any government look at it?As an institution, do you really trust the Canadian government more than the American government? (Or should I say the BC government?)

By creating a corporation, Thelonious didn't do that. Political processes? By incorporating, Thelonious has passed the risk on to any creditors because they now risk losing any claim on assets in the event of a bankrupting judgment in a civil suit.The creditors are perfectly aware of this situation. They probably charge a higher interest on any loans and may insist that Thelonious have liability insurance. A good lawyer would probably advise him to do this anyway. While the chance of a liability suit is small, the consequences can be drastic. [bTW, I don't know what business is in but I suspect incorporation may have been motivated for tax reasons. An entirely different subject.] The liability issue rears its truly ugly head in the case of involuntary victims. This brings me back to the innocent passerby killed by the corporation's car with faulty brakes. Taking the corporation to court, the family of the victim is surprised to learn that the car's owner, while very wealthy, is not liable beyond the value of the car. The creditors who provided the bank loan to purchase the car get nothing - but they knew the situation when they loaned the money. Now, is this situation any different from any impoverished driver who causes a tort? There are two major issues here: what incentives are skewed by shareholders' limited liability and would the world be a poorer place if shareholders' limited liability didn't exist?

That implies the Airbus accusations were true. They weren't.It reminds me of the story of two old friends meeting in the street after not seeing each for a long time. One says, "I heard you were mixed up in some watch theft." The other replies, "Yes, somebody stole my watch."

Here is the Dar Al-Madina site. The retraction makes for an interesting read. I take this one example: We in the West know this as the mumbo-jumbo of the whacky fringe of Christian fundamentalists. Anyone got a stuffed dinosaur avaliable?

eureka, Sylvia Ostry is a smart woman. I'd like to see what she really said. (Do you have a link?) Simon Reisman represented the Canadian government and Peter Murphy represented the US government in the initial negotiations. (It would help your credibility if you had basic facts right.)As to the quote about being "integrated" into the US, take a look at Canada's True Nature. Do you believe this happened because of an agreement between governments signed in 1988? When you use the word "Canada", what do you mean exactly? Do you mean the "Canadian federal government"? Canada is one thing; the federal government something else again. Hunh?

It only applied to goods (not services) produced in Canada (imports were exempt). In addition, it only covered the wholesale value, not the retail.The effect was to create many distortions in prices. There was a need to reform the federal sales tax but no Liberal government would go near the problem. Mulroney, to his credit, did. I agree with you. (This is how it is done in Europe where typically a 15% VAT is included in the price.)Michael Wilson, Mulroney's Finance Minister, opted for visibility. I think two reasons were given: 1. It would be more difficult to raise GST in the future if it were visible. 2. Every receipt must clearly indicate the tax paid. This was to reduce tax fraud. It is a value-added tax. That means each seller receives a refund on previous taxes paid and in effect is taxed only on the value added to the good or service.Everyone pays the GST, including drug dealers, prostitutes, bank robbers, illegal immigrants, and foreign tourists. (None of these people pay Canadian income tax yet they benefit from public services in Canada.)

I just found this funny because I saw in another forum that some Americans are arguing the opposite. That's a good point, Newf.