Moonbox

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Thanks for letting us know how the system works. Yes. It is allowed to happen. Thing is that it's annoying and finding consensus among some very ideologically opposed people can lead to some pretty bad decisions.

Wow. That's the most magical and fantastical economics statement I've ever read on this board. nittany...would it be accurate to assume that your education in economics ended in high school?

Battletoads you're out of control! Could you please actually cite some of the stuff you're saying? You've linked the entire conservative platform but none of that references the so-called ability to intrude on internet privacy without warrant or legislation. I agree that this would be concerning, but I'm having trouble believing it.

August I wouldn't take too much stock in the polls. Some of the pollsters themselves have been saying the data they're using is lousy, the samples poor and the methodology bad. The Liberal Democrats were polling as a strong second before the last UK election but ended up a distant third when the ballots were cast. Less than 15% of people respond to the telephone survey. Of the people who do respond, the pollsters are saying it's usually the uneducated, the older and the people with too much time on their hands. Add to that the fact that the left has typically absymal turnout rates and I wouldn't be surprised if poor Jack ends up in third place again. At any rate, if Jack does form the official opposition (I think PM is out of the question), he'd find he has no friends in the House and no chance of forming a government should the Cons fail to win confidence. The Conservatives are so ideologically opposed to them that the NDP'd get little cooperation there and the Bloc and the Liberals have the most to lose by supporting them and giving them legitimacy. An NDP official opposition would lead either to another election or another 2-3 years of Conservative minority.

Has anyone been talking about it much? There be your evidence.....

Nope. Cost estimates are for the A variant. They're all going to be way over budget. To say that the F-35B is somehow going to be 50-100% more expensive simply because it's STVOL is ridiculous. If that was the case it'd be smarter just to design a completely new fighter from scratch.

Oh boy. Where to start? The F-35 program isn't beset with problems? You might want to let US Defense Secretary Robert Gates know that. US officials (pentagon included) are estimating costs of between $115-150M per plane, which is getting close to double what Harper and his government are projecting. The program is struggling so badly that the USMC variant, the F-35B may be getting cancelled altogether. http://ipolitics.ca/2011/03/30/pm-disputes-pentagon-price-tag-for-f-35s/ http://beauforttribune.com/archives/50736

The whole country has been selling out to Quebec for the last 40 years.

It goes far beyond getting people interested in voting or politics. The average person is completely ignorant of anything outside his immediate circle of friends, family, job and whatever TV show they're watching. My suggestion is that parents impart the importance of voting on their children, that schools teach it to their students (without the bias they sometimes present) and that the people themselves peel themselves away from Criminal Minds or Jersey Shore for maybe 30 minutes a week to pay attention to what's going on in the world. A tall order... No offense intended but it is sad that your first exposure to politics was motivated by free beer and you were presumably 18 or 19. Even if your parents are giving you biased politics when you're younger, at least you'll have been thinking about it and learning about as a youth. By the time you're 18 you'll actually have an idea of how the system works and you'll at least have some of the tools needed to understand what's going on. By the time you're 20 something it's really kind of late but I guess whatever helps those people get interested is for the better. If it's a vote mob then fine, but I highly doubt that these people are actually getting interested in what's going. Theirs will likely be dumb and uninformed votes.

As for the mob votes, I'm not really a big fan of them. I don't think it promotes an educated vote and I don't really feel that an uneducated vote is any better than no vote at all. Increasing voter turnout isn't really what we should be worrying about. Increasing electoral participation and INTEREST in the process is. When the only way you can get people voting is to peer pressure them into a mob, something is wrong.

I would think that there are more people in the 18-30 range now than there has ever been wouldn't you? The baby boom stopped in 1964 and those people's children are still coming to voting age. My parents were baby boomers and my generation is HUUUUGE.

It's not really a 'lie'. It's more like he knew his platform was BS and is worried that he's being called on it. Jack and the NDP's problem is that they've never been realistic with their policies and they're completely out to lunch a lot of the time. One of Jack's policies is to make the maximum credit card interest rate prime +5%. The banks straight up won't issue credit cards to anybody but the most reliable (and likely the more wealthy) clients. The default rate on credit cards is simply to high to bother.

John McCain is older than any of our candidates I'm pretty sure. I don't think health is the problem. It's voter apathy. We don't need a 3 month election campaign here in Canada. It's not a pageant and people have already mostly lost interest and made their decision with a week left. Draw it out another few weeks and people just get even more bored.

Prime Minister??/ :|

I went to the advance polls around 7pm Good Friday. I walked right in and was the only person there voting. Seems like you went at a bad time. For the record....... I didn't vote NDP

Your posting is a brilliant example of your infant-like logic and your rabid attempts to convince people of things they don't agree with you about. Shouldn't you be starting another topic about something equally idiotic right now?

So why are only Conservative signs getting vandalized in Guelph? What sort of intimidation tactics? Are you sure you're not completely making this up???? Rick this is so dumb you're really making me laugh! Keep it up I'm really entertained!!

As a side note, does anyone else think it's absolutely hilarious that the Toronto Star even published this article? I mean this crap goes on everywhere but the Toronto Star, being the loyal Liberal hack newspaper it is, somehow decides this is unique and newsworthy? Come on....

Oh okay that's good to know. Your testimonial about the NDP supporters you know really makes all the difference. Come to the downtown area of Guelph and meet some of the NDP wack jobs here. Those ARE the type of people who wreck signs and slash tires. Probably about 50% of the Marty Burke (CPC candidate) signs have been vandalized and although nothing has come up this year, people were getting their tires slashed in Guelph last election. I think it's far more likely the unemployed and bored NDP wackos are out there causing mischief than the CPC.

Oh man...you're so naive. I'm sorry. There's a laundry list of lies Paul Martin was pinned on. He promised to eliminate the GST, which he never did. He used a picture of Harper whispering to Duceppe at a Holocaust memorial to support fears of a coalition. The fact that the Liberals campaigned on health care throughout the 90's and early 2000's and then slashed health spending like no other government in Canadian history go to show you that he VERY MUCH the every day politician. I voted for him the first election when he got his minority because I liked that he at least went after the deficit. I saw him for the liar and politician he was, however, and I'm kind of chuckling about your comments. I'm not sure you were even voting when he was first elected though. You were probably still in highschool? The most honest politician you ever met is a pretty dubious honor. You have to be pragmatic with politicians. Understand that they will lie, and why they have to lie, and you'll be a lot better for it.

Proof that he was a liar, or conniving, or that he was a weasel? Or proof that he was all three at the same time. I think we could easily find proof that he was a liar and that he was conniving. I'm not sure about the weasel part. I'd need blood samples for that. Here's a pretty despicable lie Martin told just off the top of my head: http://www.lufa.ca/news/news_item.asp?NewsID=5203 Do you remember that one? As for conniving, his budget magic with EI reform and slashing transfers to the province to make himself look like a finance guru was pretty interesting. Do we need to go on?

I hate to say it but I think it's almost time that Harper starts taking Jack seriously. In about a week he's turned himself from a distant third to a strong second and you have to worry that the momentum could continue. Layton doing well in BC and Quebec could actually lose the conservatives some seats rather than split the vote and kill the Liberals like they were hoping.

I'm not sure what you were expecting. Mansbridge tried to do the same thing as he successfully did with Ignatieff but Harper was more composed. Harper has completely revamped his image and he's sticking to it better than anyone I can think of in recent memory. Gone is the cunning and ruthless wit, which has been replaced with a boring, yet resolutely consistent intelligence. Harper's doing it on purpose. I think any interviewer would have had a tough time cracking Harper.

Because it's not really an issue. There is some pretty obvious criteria to get a temporary visa.