Moonbox

It's certainly something the government needs to look hard into. Realistically, the whole thing stinks to high heaven and it APPEARS she's been involved with some shady dealings, or at least some shady people. I don't really have a lot of faith in the Mexican justice system, however, and I don't think she should be left to rot in a mexican prison while we find out either.

I completely agree with you. They could wear clown makeup everywhere they go for all I care, but if we're asking to see their faces for legitimate legal reasons, such as identification (driver's license/passport) or the citizenship oath, suck it up. If they don't like it then there are some really nice third world dictatorships in Sandland that are more than happy to accomodate them.

If it's too much to ask a woman to show her face for a brief moment in her life to say a few words to become a full fledged citizen of Canada, then she doesn't deserve to be a citizen. What's retarded here is how SOME people think that Canadians and their Laws need to bend over backwards to keep minorities happy, but at the same time those minorities shouldn't have to make the most minor of concessions to us. What a joke.

Whatever it takes to boost your fragile ego Shwa. Anyone that uses 'pwning' in an actual sentence is clearly going to need whatever he can get. I think I can hear your mom calling you for dinner upstairs btw...

Cybercoma, you and I don't really agree on a lot of things, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this instead of just bullet points from an article. I'm usually a little right-of-centre myself, but I believe income-inequality and the shrinking middle class is probably the biggest problem facing the western world. The larger the number of poor people we have, the larger the number of kids are raised without opportunity, good examples and postive, supportive parents. There've been hundreds of studies confirming that kids from poor families, regardless of IQ or intelligence, are FAR less likely to succeed academically or financially. The Bill Gates', Sidney Crosbys etc all grew up in middle or wealthy class families.

No offense but this is the type of moronic degredation of political discussion that has the Americans so screwed up down south. More regulation and equitable social policies =/ communism. That's like saying mixing a tiny drop of red dye in a great big bowl of blue dye makes the bowl red. It's still going to be blue, or more technically a very blueish shade of purple.

It's going to be hard for you two to communicate then. Your thought process is so muddled up and bizarre that if he can't understand abstracts, he'll never understand a thing you say.

There are really only two outcomes for the next election. Either the Conservatives self-destruct and the Liberals redeem themselves, or the NDP maintains it's second-place status and previously small-c Liberals flee at the prospect of a completely incompetent NDP government and bolster the cons to a sweeping majority. You can dream though bud.

He's saying the Chretien used many of the tactics Harper is using today. People are pretending like he's committing gross violations of our constitution or something when, in fact, all he's really doing is barrelling through a lot of the symbolic and pointless bickering that a majority government has to contend with from a minority opposition. It's kind of like, "Yes yes yes. We get it. You're upset about EVERYTHING we do. Whining and fussing is noted and ignored. We're moving on now."

Certain provinces, particularly in the West, have been vastly under-represented for a long time. I don't think anyone could make a reasonable argument for NOT allowing a more fair distribution of seats. Realistically, I don't see why the number 308 should be sacrosanct. The population has grown significantly over the years and I see the additional seats as merely keeping up with the changing demographics of the country. It's not as if Harper is trying to skew the distribution unfairly. He's merely amending the currently lopsided arrangement. There's a reason why western voters, particularly in Alberta, feel so disenfranchized. They were something like 30-40% under-represented.

Like changing the constitution difficult.

For the love of god Topaz. What the hell are you even talking about? It's going to cost us billions in pensions and benefits? REALLY!?!? Do you even know what a billion is??? 1000 million....or 1,000,000,000. They're proposing to add 26 new seats to the legislature. Even for this to cost us ONE billion, that's going to mean around $35 million PER new MP in costs. If we're talking BILLIONS, then you're saying that it's going to cost $70+ million per new seat. From what I've read, this is going to add $15-20 million per year in extra legislature costs. Topaz is this another case of you just wetting your pants over anything the Cons do, and then making all sorts of shit up to get other people on your side? Also, for the record, yes, I think the majority of Canadians support making representation more fair. Maybe not Manitoba. Sorry.

Psst. Topaz. Your phone lines are bugged too.

Wow Topaz. Wow. Not only is the theory of conspiracy to join Canada and the USA together flat out ridiculous, the reason you're giving for it (debt) is even more ridiculous. Do yourself a favour. Try and spend more than a week off the internet (particularly forums, news sites etc) and get some perspective on the world and what's out there. Excuse me while I sneer in contempt. This is getting pathetic.

Good cashiers don't closely examine every single bill. Some of the counterfeits are EXCELLENT. In my line of work I've seen counterfeits so good that even the holographic strip on the left of the bill first glance. Realistically, counterfeiters aren't expecting their bills to pass close examination. They're not going to make much of an effort to duplicate some of the more complicated features because the operation to do so would be too large to remain hidden. Things like raised ink, watermarks, micro-print and UV features are usually not there on a counterfeit. These, however, are all things that 99% of people passing the currency don't look for, because they're largely not visible to the naked eye. What the new polymer bills do is exponentially raise the required scale of a counterfeit operation. The security features in the new bills are clearly visible for all to see. There are transparent parts, large holograms of faces etc etc...These are all things you'd see just picking the bill up and putting it in your wallet. The best part is that they'd be EXTREMELY difficult and expensive to reproduce. You'd need a large operation to put it all together.

Topaz, you already said that exact same thing. What I said is that Federal hiring made barely a lick of difference in overall employment numbers during the recession. There weren't enough new federal hires to budge the numbers. 10,000 employees = 0.0006% of Canada's working age population. If they were hiring federal workers to make the numbers look good, it would have had to have been more like 100,000 to make any sort of real statistical difference. This is just a case of you getting your underwear bunched up no matter what the cons do. "They spend too much!" but then "Oh no they're laying off workers and trying to save money!" Hilarious.

Harper didn't hire hundreds of thousands of Fed workers. That's what he'd have needed to do to make any meaningfull dent in employment numbers. Well I can't really argue with the gold-plated pensions, but cabinet expenses are a mere drop in the bucket compared to the actual budget problems we have. Laying off 10,000 fed workers > decreasing cabinet expenses, by a LONG shot. Like I said, I think it's hilarious that you'll wet your pants when Harper increases expenses, but then wet your pants even harder when he does something to decrease them. That's the very definition of a fanatical idealogue, or, in simple terms, a hack.

No, like having to deal with the welfare First Nations and the archaic and goofy institutions we have in place to continue throwing money at them pointlessly so they can continue to do nothing but complain and mooch more and more. How many big oil leaks have we had in our pipelines lately??? Actually, I think most of 'us' are tired of the First Nations and their belly-aching. Pipelines have been in use all over Ontario for decades and as far as I know there haven't been any significant problems. Pipeline technology isn't exactly complicated.

Topaz you really need to pick your battles. Just the other day you were fussing about how the conservatives were running the biggest government and the biggest deficits, but now you're wetting your bed because they're making cuts. How is anyone supposed to take you seriously when you throw a tantrum either way???

So is anyone else picturing an 8 year old girl whining to her stuffed animals at a fake tea party?

You can say that about all of William Ashley's ideas.

Yet that same 16 year old can't be held accountable for any other contract he/she signs. They can't sign a car loan on their own. That's a voidable contract right there. If they're not responsible/mature enough to do that, why are the responsible/mature enough to decide who leads the rest of the country?

I don't really see how it's any different than an opposition that votes against or abstains from every piece of the government's legislation... Of course they're idealogues.

The point is still a big yawn.

Dalton McGuinty is not all that well liked in Ontario. His record is bad and the only reason he won the last two elections is because his opposition is incompetent, much like how Harper won his majority this year.