ReeferMadness

Talk about a softball interview. I'm sure by the end, Harper will be dropping his pants so the interviewer can kiss his ass.

McKay appropriated military equipment to be used for his personal transportation. That's obviously an abuse of his position. Once again, if it were any other party, that would matter to you. But the Conservatives can do now wrong. It's only corrupt if it's the Liberals doing it.

Speaking of which, the Conservatives are spending our money on advertising for a program that doesn't even exist!! But you guys don't care what this government does because it's Harper and he can do no wrong!!

You may like this government's scandals but I think that people less devoted than you are getting tired. Please explain the basis for your claim that Conservatives "always face much tougher scrutiny". This sounds suspiciously like right wing paranoia (the media are out to get us!). The reason that we know so much about the sponsorship scandal is that Martin brought in Gomery to do an independent review. The reason so many questions remain about all of the Conservative scandals is that they've gotten so good at covering things up and distracting media attention to other things.

Judging from the comments, I'm going to guess that some of the same people who spasmed with self-righteous apoplexy during the Chretien years are now falling all over themselves to excuse and rationalize Conservative corruption. Hypocrisy, thy colour is Conservative blue!

Speaking of Mulroney, why did he never wind up in jail?

How can we know? Paul Martin had the guts (or foolishness, take your pick) to instigate a judicial inquiry. That's how we got all the details of the sponsorship mess. Obviously, he hoped that he wouldn't wear it because he had no part in it. He was wrong. It seems like the Harper Conservatives have learned from his actions. Now, every time there is any kind of scandal, someone falls on his sword or is thrown under the bus. It seems like the Conservatives are better at covering their tracks but that doesn't make them any less corrupt. Look at their track record: In and out scandal Tony Clement's misuse of G8 money Peter McKay's misuse of military helicopters Christian Paradis found guilty of conflict of interest The robocalls scandal Bev Oda's $16 orange juice Repeated use of government funds to promote the Conservative Party (action plan ads, novelty cheques with Conservative brand, etc) The ongoing fight with the parliamentary budget officer over access to information and now we have the PM's hand-picked right-hand man writing a cheque to a senator accused of stealing money just to thwart an audit This is just a quick list - I'm sure I'm missing some things. But this does not live up to the picture of a government coming in to clean up Ottawa. In fact, this is the picture of a band of ethically-challenged individuals who can't seem to distinguish between their own money and public funds. If we start getting the full truth behind some of these events, then maybe we can compare.

I've never seen any studies on this but it wouldn't surprise me if there were something to this idea.

Clearly, you are accepting the Conservative line that Nigel took 90K out of his own pocket just to help his not-too-bright friend Duffy who was caught with his fat fingers in the cookie jar. Does that sum it up? And now, we should all be sad because of this tragic tale of this brilliant man whose only flaw was to try to help his friend??? Get out the violins and kleenex. Face it. We're never gonna know who paid whom for what? Did Nigel's money come out of his own pocket or was he compensated by some board or some bonus or some other way? What bugs me most about this whole thing is that the senators caught stealing (and that's what happened) didn't even bother to cover their tracks. Right wing idealogues repeatedly use the word entitlement when referring to welfare recipients trying to pay the rent on their miserable apartments but I don't hear it when the PM's buddies are caught stealing from the government. I don't have a lot of confidence but I hold out a tiny ray of hope that the criminal investigation will uncover what really went on here.

I know that a long time ago, it was common to hear French being spoken in Falher and Girouxville (northern Alberta). But I don't know if that's still the case and it's a long drive up there.

Oh, I see. It was all so clear when it was the Chretien Liberals under fire. Nobody had to look up the word scandal in the dictionary. But things have changed. Now, scandal has become such a complicated word. It isn't Harper's fault that some of the people he appointed were cheating the government for expense money and his own Chief of Staff was caught trying to help cover it up. Is that your contention? Harper's not a crook, he's just a bumbling idiot??? Maybe someone could ask him how things are going cleaning up the system on Parliament Hill.

Harper must be the biggest hypocrite ever. He came into power promising to clean up the system and has run one of the most scandal-ridden administrations in history.

He's been caught lying about a number of things. Why should anyone believe him about this? I believe in innocent until proven guilty but I also believe in probabilities. And here, there is a very high probability that the video is genuine. Bye, Rob.

Derek, irrespective of your lame protestations, any reasonable person would come to the conclusion this whole thing stinks. It's probably contrary to the senate rules and possibly illegal. It's clearly a matter of Harper bailing out one of his high profile senate appointments. This reminds me of Mulroney accepting bags full of cash and claiming it was all above board.

In answer to the OP, I don't think there will need to be an alliance. Chairman Harper and the knuckle-draggers (that would make a good name for a band!) are alienating Canadians and will be unelectable by 2015.

Yeah, I'm sure if the Liberals or NDP lost $3 billion, you'd be still be tripping all over yourself to excuse them, right? This isn't hypocrisy, right??

Are you embarrassed about fear-mongering about an organziation that exists mainly as a boogeyman?

That's perfect - where did you find it?

Spoken like a true believing follower of the cult of GDP. Pursuing rampantly wasteful lifestyles might be one way of developing (assuming of course that there are always sufficient resources to allow this and sufficient other places to put the garbage) but it's hardly the only one. The cleanest cities are those that developed first and are now able to export their garbage somewhere poorer. Technological garbage is sent to poor places where the residents extract rare metals out of toxic materials as their health deteriorates. And as for environmental laws, ours are weaker with each year that the Harper knuckle-dragging team stays in control.

Are you for real? Is it supposed to be shocking that an organization like CBC would be tracking what another, hostile, organization has been saying about it? You don't think that CBC (like every other organization of any size) has media relations and communications specialists who are responsible for managing the organization's public image?? What rock are you guys living under? And what about Harper's massive communications department? Do you think that they don't track who is saying what about the Conservatives??

Often union wages are not at the top of the market. In fact, for senior, more skilled positions, union wages are often lower than the market. The 'golden handcuffs' are often vacation and pension plans.

What part of the word "dead" don't you get? The victims aren't the relatives, they're the people who aren't here anymore. Maybe, some of the relatives will now be better off but there's no justice here. The right thing to do isn't to give dead people's relatives piles of cash, it's to prevent this kind of occurrence through proper planning, oversight and regulation.

Yeah, I think all those dead people should just get together and file a class action suit. That would make everything better! Some things can't be fixed.

I'm saying that your original example was a lynx. I'm saying that it is highly improbable that a lynx would attack a 15 year old girl and if one did, I'm not sure a rifle would be more useful than a stick. In close quarters, the rifle would become a club, albeit a potentially dangerous one (to the user as well as bystanders). Coyotes also would be very unlikely to attack a teenage girl - they're not that big. Wolves are more dangerous but not known for hunting humans. Bears are in a class by themselves (particularly black bears because they tend to live near humans) but even then most attacks are the result of random encounters, not predatory behaviour. My experience is that the "wild animal excuse" for gun ownership tends to artificially inflate the danger posed by wild animals. It would be interesting could someone to calculate the incremental risk posed by gun ownership (due to accidents, homicides that otherwise may not have occurred, suicides that otherwise may not have occurred) vs the risk posed by wild animals. I think the calculation is impossible (it relies on calculating the probability of events that haven't happened) but I suspect it would show that your cousins kids are statistically more at risk because they have weapons at hand. Fair enough. My experience may be different from others. Let me ask you this. Does your cousin insist that the children stay in or close to the house except when accompanied by an adult? Is your cousin always armed when leaving the yard? If the answer is no, that's an indication that they don't consider wild animal encounters a serious threat. After all, if you run into a bear a mile from home, what good is a 30-30 stored in a locked cabinet with the ammunition stored in another locked cabinet? Your survival will be dicated by chance, wits and good judgement, not by firepower. Wild animals aren't known for laying seige to rural residences. Chances are if you ignore them, they'll wander off on their own. Providng you haven't left tasty garbage out for the bears. Excuse me?? I do??? The number of times when I felt it necessary to go and grab a gun to prevent some "accident" is, let me see, carry the zero.... ZERO. I lived miles from the nearest town and hundreds of miles from a major city. But farmland is just not that amenable to large predators because there is no place to hide and limited habitat for large prey. And wild animals avoid people when they can. The difference is that we don't have companies marketing power saws and lawnmowers in cute colors to 5 year olds. Look, I'm not anti-gun. I have used rifles, shotguns and handguns. I've had occasion to shoot animals for a variety of reasons (though never self-defence). My son has had limited exposure to guns as well. However, there is a deep attachment between a segment of the population and their firearms that I find disturbing and unhealthy (see the title of this thread). Part of it is cultural (my grandpa had guns, my dad had guns and now I have guns) but it runs deeper than that. It is intimately tied to an anti-government paranoia that is common in rural areas. You won't have to dig deep on the internet to find segments of the population who believe that gun ownership is essential to prevent tyrants from taking over the government. The community also contains survivalists who believe that their gun ownership mean their survival when society breaks down. So, if people want to own guns, I'm fine with that, providing they use them safely. If you want to hunt, go for it. It's not my cup of tea but it's morally no worse than eating beef. But I don't think that asking people to register firearms is an egregious imposition.

Are you saying that she needs a 30-30 to protect herself from a lynx? Probably a hockey stick would have been enough. Or maybe just a raised voice. There is a myth that most rural people need guns on hand because they have to protect themselves from wild animals. I grew up on a farm and I see more wildlife in the city setting where I live now. Unless you're going to walk around armed at all times, having a gun around is of limited value. And the number of times when you really need one to protect yourself is pretty tiny. Well, let's hope not but we can't be sure. After all, that's why they call them "accidents". Guns can be seen as mundane when they are common. It's part of what makes them especially dangerous, people get careless. Like the people in Kentucky. Regarding a gun, being a "tool", that's just NRA doublespeak. I grew up on a farm. We had guns. We had tools. Nobody would call a pitchfork a weapon or a shotgun a tool, although technically they could be used in that way. I don't think offended is the right word. Maybe enraged would be better. You woudn't make a power saw or a hunting knife and market it to little kids. Why a firearm? Kimmy, I see a lot of typical gun-culture rationalizing going on here.