ReeferMadness

lol guess that's a better way to spot the panic than looking for the dark spots where everyone is wetting themselves.

The Russians were bombing Turkmen, which are ethnic Turks living in Syria. Turkey was looking for an excuse to take a shot and when the SU-24 overflew a sliver of Turkish airspace, that was enough.

Thanks for proving my point. I've never voted Liberal in my life and I couldn't care less whether this counts as a broken promise or not. I'm just glad that your feckless hero has been shown to be the bum he is and is now shown the door. So, whine away.

One of the big (maybe the biggest) reason there is so little progress in the war on ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is that Turkey is not all that enthusiastic in the fight. Turkey, with its large, modern armed forces and 500 mile border with Syria, could probably shut ISIS down by itself if it wanted to. But Turkey wants to fight Assad and the Kurds more than it wants to fight ISIS. Excellent piece.

Well, you have to remember they're still butt-sore because their great hope for changing the world of politics, the guy who was going to bring integrity and transparency to Ottawa turned out to be everything they claimed to be against. Then, to top it off, their broken heroes were soundly defeated by the son of Pierre Trudeau, whom they've been mocking as a lightweight for the past 3 years. So, let them have their fun. It's not a great time to be a Conservative.

You're saying democracy is back? I think JT should be credited for a bonus promise. He never promised to restore democracy.

Technically, maybe that's true but... 1. I don't care. 2. Probably most of the people here don't care. 3. The refugees who are going to spend a few extra months in camps don't care. Aside from the Liberals and their supporters, it seems like pretty much a non-issue.

See? Those refugees really ARE terrorists.

what difference does it make?

Hillier said in September, we could bring 50,000 refugees in by the end of the year. So, I'm a little confused here. Are you saying that Hillier is Trudeau's b*tch or are you saying that everyone knew this wasn't doable but him? And me apparently.

Harper is exactly what I'd like him to be: gone.

So, your contention is that Rick Hillier is under Justin's thumb?

This is a political calculation, not a security calculation. What happened in Paris didn't change the facts on the ground and some of our former highest ranking military officers said it could be done without compromising safety.

As is your pretense that your one true hero Harper has integrity. Oh, wait. I forgot - you weren't defending him, you were just "playing devil's advocate".

If he was comfortable he was going to win, he could have waited until October 20 to extend the appointments. If he wasn't, then it's a clear attempt to exert undue influence on the next PM's mandate. There is no way to excuse this. Well, isn't that nice of you. Poor Harper - everyone has been SO unfair to him. He didn't push the envelope - he crossed the line. And it's part of a long habit of him engaged in him abusing the power of his office or political cheating. In cases where he thought the public were too stupid or too inattentive to know what's going on, he would cheat. From cheating in elections to robocalls to proroguing the house when he's in trouble to the Duffy scandal to rigging election rules in his party's favor, there's a long established pattern of breaking rules or pushing them well past the point of anything that could reasonably be construed as fair or right.

Now I know you're being obtuse. In June, when he made the extensions, Harper would have known that the chances of him being elected were not great and the chances of him getting another majority were slim.

Russians were bombing Turkmen (Turkish descendants that live in Syria) so no doubt, Turkey was looking for an opportunity to hit back. It seems that the Russian plane crossed over a Turkish isthmus and was back in Syrian airspace by time it was hit.

I don't think you're stupid so I have to assume you're being deliberately obtuse because you're a supporter of the Conservatives. These are not ordinary employees - they are high level appointments and include some key positions with ability to affect the way policy is interpreted and implemented. If Harper had simply allowed the appointments to expire, nobody would have complained, even though the appointments would have carried over well into the Liberal mandate. That's part of keeping the government operating. However, that isn't what happened. He renewed appointments unnecessarily and it was a clear attempt to cause problems for the Liberals and/or push his pathetic influence into the future. As I said earlier, the rules on this should be set such that it contains the ability of one government to constrain the mandate of future administrations.

Video of the plane going down here.

NATO has convened an emergency meeting. Putin called Turkey's action a "stab in the back by the terrorists' accomplices".

That's funny - I used to live in Millwoods - although it's been a while. I wouldn't have a problem going back. I'm not worried about anyone going on a rampage - I just used that as an example of what could happen And is that fear of hateful attitudes based in ignorance or based in knowledge?

First, the Turks shot down the plane. Then the rebels claim to have shot the pilots while they were still in their parachutes. Then, a Russian helicopter that was sent to look for the pilots was shot down. What a clusterf*ck. Agreed but it will never happen. NATO (ie the Americans and the British) find it too handy to have an ally in the Middle East and Turkey has been the least crazy of the bunch. Until now, anyway. Fighting by proxy - this is how WWIII could start.

Certainly, it's beyond the pale for a PM to appoint someone effective a date when he is no longer PM. I don't get how anyone could fail to see that's just beyond the pale. And Harper didn't do it once - it's 49 appointments that take effect past the election date. That's outrageous.

Really? If you want to run for office in this country how many choices do you realistically have?

1. I don't know what you mean by "large numbers". The proposal at the moment is 25,000 people which would represent less than 1 tenth of 1% of the overall Canadian population. So the percentage of Muslims would rise from 3% to 3.1% (or something like that). 2. Is anyone suggesting raising the Muslim population to 30%? Or even 10%? 3. Really?? Are you REALLY suggesting that Americans kill people because they have guns and Muslims kill people because they have hateful attitudes?