Moonbox

What sort of meaningful things can the government do without the budget right now? I'm not sure that's what he said. As I recall he said they were going to wait to present the budget before they did anything.

I'll agree with that. I don't think anyone, even CPC supporters, have the same image of Harper as we did in 2004-2006. Having said that, in some ways he is still very different from Liberal idealogy and even you should be able to admit to the (increasingly more subtle these days) differences between the two. I think it is good strategy to spend where you think you'll win votes. The tories could spend billions in downtown Toronto and they'd still probably come up with nothing. Spending in Newfoundland would similarly flop. Quebec is probably a lost cause at this point too. I think fairness gets disregarded in favor of pragmatism when it comes to politics. I didn't read any of the numbers but I'd bet a disproportionate amount of stimulus is being spent in Ontario and other small C areas for the very reason that they'll pick up votes from red/blue swingers.

This was from the Globe and Mail, I read it on the Saturday hard copy: "It has been precisely 11 days since Finance Minister Jim Flaherty unleashed his whopper of a budget, weighing in at 343 pages, for an average of $117-million in stimulus spending per page. Mr. Ignatieff this week declared the plan was not working. He's right, clever fellow. It's not working. But then, it's not law yet, either, since it's still in the early stages of working its way through the House. The billions of dollars set aside for infrastructure have not been paid out, Mr. Ignatieff pointed out, quite accurately presumably because one still needs the approval of Parliament before one pays out the billions of dollars one has set aside for infrastructure." (I don't have a link sorry that's directly taken from the Saturday paper Globe and Mail) I thought this was just kind of funny. Iggy's already said the budget isn't working before it's even been enacted. With that said, What do people think of massive stimulus? Personally, I already think it's enough, perhaps too much, but there doesn't seem to be ANYONE out there forwarding that as an option. Harper says there will be no more stimulus after this, but then Flaherty contradicts him and says there could be. Iggy and the Liberals are clamoring for more and good 'ol Jack is saying that CPC policies are directly responsible for 325,000 lost jobs. I remember jdobbin and I arguing about how big the deficits would be over the next few years prior to the election and it seems both he and I were like 20-30 billion dollars off our estimates. What my question to everyone here is what on EARTH are people looking for in the budget? People right now are criticizing the CPC budget from one direction, saying that they're overspending and the massive deficits are going to be completely their fault, but then from the other direction they're supporting various parties that demanded it in the first place and in many cases are demanding even more spending. Disregard the fact that Harper increased the federal budget slightly and overspent on social programs over the last two years. How much did that REALLY affect us considering the deficits for the next 2 years will be in the area of $60 billion? The effects were marginal. Clearly Harper is a flip-flopping hypocrite and said what he needed to get elected in October, but if we're going to attack his policies, could someone PLEASE clarify how the alternatives are better? Is more spending and bigger deficits better, or is it just CPC deficits that are evil?

One thing I wanted to mention about Iggy's poll numbers and PT's comments is that the CPC has been VERY careful in the last month or so not to appear like they're campaigning again. There was an article in the Globe and Mail on Saturday where a Harper insider indicated that they want to appear focused solely on the economy. Harper does NOT want to appear to be the man who triggers the next election. His entire credence statement is based on his economic background and a perception that he's going to be the guy to fix the economy (whether or not you believe it is irrelevant fyi, that's just what he's trying to project). Negative attack adds are going to make people think he's more concerned with curb stomping the Liberals while they're down and Canadians with few exceptions aren't going to appreciate it.

Yeah 15% mortgages was a nightmare for a lot of people. While the mortgage rates people are paying now should be MAXIMUM 6% at the worst, people at large are almost just as worse off now as they were in the 80's and 90's. Why? Well first off the average household income has not kept pace with inflation since back then and now people are carrying more unsecured debt. I work in the business and believe me it is NOT AT ALL uncommon to meet people with $20-80,000 of credit card balances at 18+% interest. It's crazy. Over consumption!

More often than not I'd say yeah... From time to time I think decisions are made based more on the strict rule of law rather than what's 'right' but that's another matter altogether.

I didn't assume anything. I said it appeared to be a passing remark, meaning it wasn't something that was thoroughly researched and cross-referenced. It's not rude to ask for a citation, but it's anal and inconsiderate to ask for one when you have a good idea what the person's saying is wrong already, which is what you indicated. You're absolutely correct. If someone is spewing numbers all over the place then it's probably a good idea to ask. On the other hand, some things are difficult if not impossible to cite. Capricorn's statement, for example, is not going to be citeable. Why? Because unless it's been thoroughly researched since the founding of the Confederation all the way to today vote by vote, nobody is going to make that claim. It's easier to bring up a previous instance in which this has occured than it is to rule out it ever happened in the last 100 years. Besides, the at the end of Capricorn's post might have also helped clarify that is wasn't exactly a shining example of academia. Sometimes it's simply NOT WORTH THE EFFORT to accurately cite something. The purpose of this forum, when it comes down to it, is to discuss politics reasonably. We're not writing academic essays and few of us have the time to reference everything we say. It bogs the discussion down into nothing when a citation is required for even the smallest comments. Let the little things slide. Ask for citations on the more contentious issues and give us the courtesy of just correcting us with a few words, or even provoke a debate by saying something along the lines of, "LoL, that's not right and here's why: ." Maybe rude wasn't the right word. Anal was. I'm not trying to attack you or your intelligence. I'm attacking how you nitpick and you try to muddy things up with technicalities. This is kind of what I'm talking about. I think the rules probably allow for context and intent when deciding whether something is presented as hard fact or just simple feeling, thought or rhetoric. You'd do well to notice the difference. My politics are highly pragmatic, which how they should be for everyone. I have regularly acknowledged Harper's shortcomings. I believe some of the descriptions I've used for him have been, "Snake, Hypocrite, Lesser of Evils, Bible-Thumper," just to name a few. When I defend him, I do so by comparison to the alternatives. It was easier when Dion was leader. I'm finding it a lot more difficult now that he and Bob Rae are out of the picture. I'd be happy if we had a socially moderate leader with a fiscally conservative agenda. That's certainly not Harper. Maybe that's Ignatieff? I really don't know enough about him yet to say. As far as your postings are concerned, I really don't see much balance to the perspective. It appears your posts are more of an extension to Liberal friendly media than anything else. Anyways, you and I have definetly killed the thread by now. I've made it pretty clear what I think of a lot of your posting lately so i'll leave it at that.

I don't accept claims from anonymous posters. In fact, I ask for citations sometimes myself. Where most people differ from you is that we don't ask for citations for things we're already fairly certain aren't true. The INTELLIGENT thing to do in this instance would be to call BS and recall an instance which would refute the claim. What do you think is easier? Bringing up an event from memory and providing citation for it, or asking capricorn to look for a citation you and I both know he'll have a heck of a hard time finding and that he probably wasn't 100% serious about in the first place? There we go, now we're talking. Now we know you've observed it happening before. You know what? I'll also take that statement at face value. I find it extremely unlikely that over the last 100 years or so there hasn't been at least a few unpunished protests at the whipped vote. This is discussion. Try this more. This is what the boards are about. Citation is only worth the argument you present with it. Do you see what I'm getting at? When you do nothing but quote someone and say, "Citation please" it's just as rude as me coming right out and saying you're full of BS. The difference between us is that I have the courtesy to explain my position. I'll make the effort to stop attacking your posts when you make the effort to actually think out and write down your arguments rather than playing the dual role of citation police and partisan news broadcaster. Don't ask for citations unless you're going to provide an alternative viewpoint or clarify what the point of contention is. If all you're going to do is spam news links that promote your partisan interests then I'm going to call you on it. We are all very capable of visiting the Toronto Star, CBC, Calgary Herald etc. We don't take their political news terribly seriously either because they have VERY filtered viewpoints. I'm very anti-Liberals these days, you've probably noticed. I'm smart enough, however, not to quote Alberta newspapers when I'm criticizing them because you'd be right not to take what they say seriously. There's very little personalization in my language. My observation was you ARE unreasonably anal when it comes to citation and that spamming news links with clichéd and partisan one-liner commentary is pointless and foolish. Besides, this thread has already been derailed. It's your responsibility to use your brain. Stop acting like a victim because you bring it on yourself. "Oh gee umm...I'm pretty sure he's ummm...totally wrong...so umm...I should probably ask him for citation rather than...um....mustering the gargantuan effort to lift my fingers on to the keyboard and....ummm...explain why I think he's wrong."

Pure foolishness. If you knew ANYTHING about American politics, you would know that Obama and the democrats in general in the USA would be considered EXTREME right-wingers in Canada.

What about George Strombalopaboring's show on CBC that nobody watches? I think he's supposed to be funny, but I can never tell because I couldn't stand him on Much Music growing up either.

Because a few days ago I was rather interested in a discussion I was having with madmax and I wanted to see where it went from there. Instead I find that you've derailed the thread and baited some posters into one of your anal citation arguments. Typical jdobbin. See: Don't be stupid. You asked for a citation on a passing and cynical remark made by capricorn. Either you were disputing it to be true or you're just asking for citation to annoy and inconvenience people. capricorn, as far as I could tell, was saying a partially whipped vote excluding a whole province of MP's is unusual and as far as he knew unprecedented. It's YOUR responsibility to disprove that on your own. You're showing either an inability or unwillingness to perform even simple critical thinking if you can't see why. Over the last few months I've come to expect that from you.

Wow I'm amazed at how this thread derailed into a stupid and completely unrelated argument

That's about the dumbest comparison you could have made. WWI grievances with Britain have literally NOTHING to do with the fact that equalization formulas on the most very BASIC of levels are meant to help poorer provincial governments. Now that Newfoundland is becoming one of the richer provinces, they STILL believe they are entitled to the same sort of federal transfer payments as when they were the armpit of Canada. Danny Williams is the equivalent of a rich man crying that his welfare was cut off. The Atlantic Accord be damned, it was stupidly signed by a pandering previous prime minister (wow alliteration) and was COMPLETELY against the best interest of most of Canada. The Newfoundlanders can cry all they want and that's their place to do so, but it's pure idiocy for them to expect Ontario/Alberta etc to continue to subsidize their revenue when they are already doing better for themselves than most of Canada.

Not necessarily. Remember the Cadman Affair? Taxpayer money 100% wasted.

I suspect most people will look at this as an exception. I anticipate no repercussions for this and I think people are just making a big deal about it.

The fact that you wasted your time finding and linking an article from the National Post is commendable but it doesn't change the fact that it's frivolous news about a non-issue that nobody cares about. I don't deny the story because I don't know enough about it nor do I care. The lack of discussion this decidedly boring topic has elicited hopefully shows you that constantly linking Toronto Star newspaper articles and adding clichéd one liners to summarize them is not going to win anyone over. Add a little more depth to your postings. At one point we expected it of you.

I think political partisanship has a lot to do with the survey results. If the budget was done up by Liberals we'd probably see something like 4/10 Cons like it but 9/10 Liberals did. If it was NDP we'd see 0/10 Cons liked it and 10/10 dippers did.

I agree but it's not something that's going to change until someone has a majority.

Exactly. Idiotic newspapers like the Star are less concerned with actual news than they are with pushing an agenda.

I didn't see it and I read the Globe and check the CBC.net daily. Even so, does anyone actually care anyways?

Hahahahahaha....Not only are you bringing up mundane, frivolous nonsense nobody cares about, but you're quoting the Toronto Star (Liberal propaganda machine) as a credible source of anti-CPC news. Hold on, I'll go see what dirty news I can dig up in the Calgary Herald about the Liberal Party.

I don't think I've EVER seen more of a cheer leader on these forums than you when it comes to Iggy. Politicians should never be worshipped the way you worship Ignatieff nor the way the Americans are already worshipping Obama. He's been opposition leader for maybe two months now and has largely done NOTHING but you're talking about him like he's some sort of messiah. Your praise for him has been based on fluffy qualitative nonsense and he's done nothing to distinguish himself from a right-wing CPC member. You've regularly failed to ignore that he's pro-torture, was pro-Iraq, lived longer outside of Canada than within and that he was one of the FEW opposition MP's who regularly supported an extension to the Afghanistan mission. He's the Americanization of the Liberal Party and deep down you know it. With that said, I wouldn't cry if he became PM. It'd be like changing leaders from Harpernator model 101 to a disguised T1000 model (forgive the Terminator reference I just watched the movie). There were 1 million fewer voters in 2008 because people pretty generally didn't care. The gross CPC vote was down 3% but their SHARE of the vote increased. The BQ vote was down 11% and their share of the vote went down, and the losses for the Liberals were STAGGERING. You're absolutely right in that Harper totally blew his majority. Unlike you I can find fault in the man regardless of the fact that I voted for him. He's a snake and occasionally gaffs pretty big like the Quebec arts funding balogna. With that said, I still think he's better than the alternatives. Between the CPC right-wing hypocrite amero-wannabe and the LPC right-wing hypocrite amero-wannabe I'll take the one who at least felt Canada was worth living in the last 30 years.

Unfortunately for you and your idiotic comments, George Bush (who I agree was a TERRIBLE president) is not responsible for the economic collapse. The economic collapse can be blamed on the democrats in Washington who fought to make sure anyone anywhere could qualify for cheap borrowing that even a 3 year old could see couldn't repay. George Bush actually tried make the regulations more strict but from what I've read was blocked by a largely democratic Congress or Senate or whatever.

I agree with most of what you said. I went to a sushi restaurant a few weeks ago called Niko Niko. I asked the Japanese waitress what that meant. She laughed and told me that "Niko" means cat, and that my BBQ eel was in fact kitten. She promptly then explained that Niko Niko (written like that) actually means "A bubbling sensation" or something and that I'm actually eating real sea food. Most people don't care about a few offhand racial jokes. They're generally just jokes. People need to understand words and statements in the context that they were presented. If it was just in fun and joking, then leave it at that. If it was inconsiderate, rude or hateful, THEN get upset but otherwise lighten up. It's the people that can't or refuse to distinguish that have their underwear all bunched up.

Yes our current debt load can be blamed largely on Trudeau (curse his name). Mulroney certainly didn't help but the MATH proves that Trudeau's deficits are the reason why people vomit at the mention of deficits today. For the record I also think it's extremely optimistic to assume the federal deficit will be gone in 5 years.