Moonbox

It's obvious he has no understanding of what monetary policy is: Through most of the '80s and '90s, the Bank of Canada was the real power in Ottawa. By drastically limiting the growth of the money supply, thereby forcing interest rates up to 20 per cent, it induced one punishing recession in the '80s. Then, using the same techniques, it did the same thing a decade later Reducing the money supply generally does the OPPOSITE of what this idiot is saying. When the money supply is too high (ie the government is printing money) the value of each individual dollar decreases. This causes inflation. Inflation hurts lenders, because the money they get repaid with is now worth less. This leads them to INCREASE interest rates, which is the opposite of what he's saying happens. He's an idiot writing in an idiot newspaper. He's the LAST person I would go to for any economic theory or opinions. The whole premise of his argument is based on the absolutely moronic assumption that the economy works in a vacuum and outside forces don't affect it. He's basically saying: Fiscal and Monetary policy can't help bring an economy out of a recession because we're still in a recession that's barely lasted 5 months.

Some of the car companies have winning strategies and could easily turn things around. Letting them fail during a really rough time would cripple the Canadian economy moving forward and is not worth the cost. On the other hand, some of the car companies (GM and Chrysler to be specific) have shown nothing but total incompetence. The CAW/UAW has compounded the idiocy. I can get into it more if I have to, but if we're going to bail out GM there has to be MASSIVE changes there for it to be worth anything to the average Canadian. Chrysler has no hope but bankruptcy so I won't even go there.

We don't have under taxation. We have over-spending. Reduce spending to get rid of deficits. Harper blew it on that note. Fix the problem, don't make it worse by increasing taxes. Ignatieff should be saying spending cuts are needed badly, not that we need tax hikes. Harper and Martin spent the money, now lets see someone claw it back and bring us back to Chretien level spending.

Egypt's 'empire' can barely even be called such. It was eclipsed by many other empires DURING its time and after. Any area of land comprising of a portion of the Nile river and then from Gaza to Syria is a pretty poor comparison to the USA. What are you smoking Oleg?

We're still waiting on the election this Spring Jdobbin....it's DEFINETLY happening. Right??? RIGHT???

Do you have anything you can link to me? I'd be interested in reading. If true, I didn't know. Either way we want to be upholding the rights of women. Just because boys are being raped doesn't mean women should. NEITHER should. If what you're saying is true than Afghanistan is more a waste of time and lives than i thought.

What are you talking about Oleg?

Mine isn't based on a 200-year old scrap of paper. The US Supreme Court? A bunch of old farts strapped to the Constitution who in many cases narrowly interpret it? Is that a surprise? No it's almost the SAME as any God the way Americans cling to it. Guns and Religion. It's funny. We call it Bible Land down there not because it pisses us off, but because we find it immensely amusing. I'd bet their arguments generally come from strict adherence to the Constitution. Please explain to me how upholding the freedom to encourage ignorant hate and/or violence in ANY way benefits ANYONE. It's not as slippery a slope as you'd like to pretend. How is banning gay marriage Constitutional? What purpose does it serve other than being backwards and draconic? That barely makes sense. No beatings or killings should be encouraged through public speech. What's your point????? I think our Human Rights record stands far and above that of the USA's and I think the world's scholars would almost all agree if it was ever questioned.

Such a black and white comment. It's this sort of ignorant dogma that's responsible for most of the world's most idiotic blunders. Like I said before, freedom of speech as the Americans know it was a concept idealized with the right to question and criticize the government and religion etc in mind. It was NOT ever intended to protect people advocating for the right to pedophelia or hate oriented violence or anything like that. Strictly clinging to it like a holy proclamation from God is pure ignorance. I DO support the right to freedom of opinion. People can say they hate (insert ethnic/religious group here) all they want, but NO purpose is served by allowing them to publish and present baseless hate in public places. There's not a single reasonable argument that you could make to show there's ANY benefit to allowing people to publicly encourage gay beatings and immigrant-killing. I'll admit I think Canada's censorship is a little silly sometimes, but at others it's a lot more intelligent than the carte-blanche Americans get.

Everyone thinks what they're doing is 'right'. The problem is a lot these people have their facts and morals pretty heavily twisted up. I'm not saying the 'west' is standing on a particularly strong moral ground, but I will say that it's standing on firmer grounds than people like Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, Pakistan etc.

Who decides where it's needed the most? Various groups and people have different ideas and to some extent we very much CAN label them left or right.

Deep down they ALL secretly love Celine Dion. They'd also love Harper in the South. I wouldn't miss him

I think you've crossed the line here more than he has.

The Americans can have him.

I wouldn't even go that far. He's playing politics like everyone else does. At least he's not saying he supports exporting asbestos without labelling it dangerous.....

Most likely yes. It's really sad but giving them money really only multiplies the problems. Hopefully they find her, but I doubt it...

WELL NOW! This is an interesting surprise. At any rate, I agree. The only thing I'd like to add is it'll be interesting to see if anyone tries to spin this into a big issue. He basically said he doesn't like the export of asbestos, so at least we know how he stands personally. The fact that he won't confirm it now is likely due to, like he said, some sort of policy bog. Politics politics politics. You can hardly fault him and not everyone else, however, because it's not like ANY party is or has done anything to change things.

As I said before, I enjoy picking apart poorly formed and biased arguments. Just found it funny that you omitted the sentence saying exactly WHAT the attack was. I would think that's the most important part of the whole story. You didn't and as a self proclaimed Liberal partisan, it leads us to wonder why. I didn't say he was partisan. I said he was a Liberal MP. I said it was not news that federal parties are bickering. I criticize your perspective on things. I don't have anything to say about you personally other than I think it's sad how blind you are to Liberal criticism and how unrealistic your view of politics are. If that gets me suspended, so be it, but I think it's more a matter of you being constantly discredited and ridiculed for your VERY compromised postings and opinions. Keep hoping.

Afghanistan shouldn't have happened to begin with, the question is what do you do now that you're there?

That's your argument? It's not trivial because I come on here and tell you it's trivial? You're really hung up on the whole personalization thing aren't you? All I'm doing is making fun of your obvious bias. Are you even going to claim you take a fair perspective when you post things like this? I dare you to. Once again you're putting words in my mouth that I never said. I didn't blame the Speaker. What I said is that parliamentary bickering is hardly exciting news and that you deliberately omitted relevant details from what you posted (just like the magazine grant post). You cut out the sentence where it explained EXACTLY what the attacks were (calling Ignatieff a hypocrite) and tried to pass it off as if it was something worse. Not to deny anything happened. I responded to clarify how misleading and politically charged your posts were. Is it the 'rolling eyes', the mockery or sarcasm that leads you to that belief? Flying off the handle? My personalization is VERY tame. That's generally the angle you take when I've hit the mark and you know you can't defend yourself. If I get suspended for taking you to task for being a fanatical and totally unobjective Liberal Partisan, so be it. Like I said, it's entertaining to pick your dubious/misleading arguments apart and watch you get into a huff over it. If we're talking emotions, you rule the day in that regard. The incredible effort you take to dig up anything anti-CPC is VERY personal and your defence for the Liberal Party on all sorts of issues is beyond denial.

I really just don't even understand why we'd even stay there at this point. We're just establishing and supporting a draconic and primitive fundamentalist islamic government. Isn't that what we had there before???

I don't think that's what he was saying man. I think he was assuming that you're attacking the Afghan mission altogether. For the record, I AM attacking the Afghan mission if this is the sort of thing we're supporting. This isn't a 'culture' that we need to respect. There is NOTHING cultural about abusing and subjugating women. They're valued like animals in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. It makes me want to puke.

See my previous quote. I told you exactly what you omitted. I'm also not arguing against the speaker. I'm mocking how you surf the internet what seems to be enormous portions of the day to find anything you possibly can to support the Liberals and criticize the CPC. When you can't find something worthwhile and obvious, you find something trivial, LIKE THIS, and try and twist it into some sort of newsworthy story way bigger or badder than it actually is. I didn't say he's unfair. I'm saying that this is hardly the outrage or worthwhile news you're making it out to be. There's nothing interesting/surprising about a LIBERAL speaker (elected by the majority opposition) reprimanding a Tory MP for calling the Liberal Leader a hypocrite. Again, I'm just mocking how desperately hard you're crusading on behalf of the Liberal Party. Liberal hack is about the worst you'll get from me. The rest of the 'personal attacks' I direct your way generally criticize your conclusions and your deliberate efforts to ignore anything that doesn't support your religion the Liberal party. Take whatever satisfaction you get from thinking you're getting under my skin. The fact is I get a laugh out of watching you squirm/avoid/ignore/plug your ears when people unravel and knock down your often dubious claims and conclusions. Let's look at what you've dug up in the last few days. There was the story of the $27,000 of help a western magazine received (clearly the PM was involved with such a giant sum of money) and now we have the SHOCKING story of a Conservative MP calling Ignatieff a hypocrite after being warned not to....WHAT SCANDALS!!! You're trying so hard, but you're failing so badly. Please man, no personal attack intended, YOU MUST see how silly you're making yourself look right? This stuff you're digging up...it's garbage news...The more of this junk you throw the community's way the less likely ANYONE is going to take you seriously even when you DO have a legitimate and well-reasoned point to make. By now you've so clearly labelled yourself as living, eating and breathing LPC that it's impossible to see ANY objectivity in your posts. With this you lose any credibility you might otherwise have. I don't think you're a dumb guy, I just think your unquestioned support for the LPC is far beyond rational. It's VERY emotional.

I'm mocking your post. YOU don't get it. I'm mocking the depth to which you'll plumb the internet to find everything and anything that can be in any ways construed as anti-CPC, no matter how trivial. You've turned it into a crusade and now you've take to obscuring and omitting relevant facts. You failed to mention here that the Speaker Peter Milliken is a Liberal MP. The Tory MP in question has been warned for accusing Ignatieff of hypocrisy on a number of issues. THAT'S the personal attacks we're talking about here. Like the Liberal hack you are, however, you deliberately left out the sentence where they explained they were only criticizing Ignatieff's hypocrisy, because you'd like to spin that they're attacking his personal life or something. Nice try. The news is thus: Liberal Speaker threatens to suspend Tory MP for criticizing Liberal Leader for hypocrisy. When you give the FULL story, it's even less interesting, but that doesn't do anything to promote your Bible Thumping Liberal cheerleading, so you omit details to fudge the story.

He didn't claim to be American. He said 'we' in an American publication so as to avoid being disregarded as a foreigner in what he was writing about. If Americans thought they were being preached to by a Canadian they would have scoffed at what he was saying. Unless he has American citizenship it's pretty hard for him to claim that. What about him? Is he like...some biblical figure or something? Is it not possible that he wrote and spoke of freedom in an entirely different world and context? What's more important? The right to live in freedom of persecution for your religion/race/sexual orientation or the right to commit it? What a terrible thing for Ignatief to ask a question like that....