Sir Bandelot

Are you saying, the Progressive Conservatives were actually another Liberal party? Maybe, when compared to the CPC? Its just a question of how much right wing, and where we are being right wing, and where we are not...

A new conservative party would be welcome n Canada. I bet a large number of cpc members would leave to join it. Of course they would fight tooth and nail to stop it from happening. Bring back the Progrssive Conservatives, we need a revival. Take away the phoney legitimacy of these radical right wing nut jobs. Keep them marginalized, where they belong.

Not true!! I think he has an excellent and promising future, writing the little paper notes they put into fortune cookies.

Owww... I'm tellin Mommy!! Sarah!!

Unfortunately, I suspect that this story is not done yet. She will be back. But maybe first she'll just go on another wolf hunting expedition... by helicopter. I hear that out on the open tundra, its like shootin fish in a barrel. I guess Sarah would know all about that

Cheney has come to her ranch to hunt quail once a year for at least 15 years, and she called him "a very conscientious hunter.""I would shoot with Dick Cheney everywhere, anywhere, and not think twice about it," she said http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/12/cheney/

"Boom", eh?

Hardly that... he was just sending a message

I can easily imagine Cheney willfully shooting someone in the face, at point blank range... Are you saying that Cheney is incompetent?

Of course, Cheney blew his "friend" right in the face, with a shotgun. Heard something like 20 pellets had to be extracted?

Do you by chance, write fortune cookies for a living? If not, I suggest that you consider making a change to that field...

No, not end of story. All that means is, not all the aspects of this "mystery program" was implemented. We are not told what these aspects are. But for some reason the director immediately cancelled this program. This suggests that it was something quite out of line with the objectives of the current government. If it was merely a directive to capture and kill the terrorist leaders, I'm sure it would have been allowed to continue. But all we can do is speculate about it, for now. And I'm saying, it's likely they will never fully reveal it or investigate whatever it is, that Cheney wanted to hide from congress.

I think that is a mis-characterization. The health care system is something that everyone in the country uses, even politicians and doctors, and their families. It affects us all and I'm sure everyone wants it to do well. The government monitors the system, using international standards as benchmarks to see how well it is doing, in terms of response time and success of treatments, survival rates and so on. There is no reason to believe that Canada is not doing as well, or as badly as other countries. In fact our medical personnel are considered among the best in the world. In the end, its the skill of the medical staff that makes the system work or fail. Any such system where there are billions of dollars involved will come under criticism by groups who seek to make profit on it, by changing it to give themselves an advantage. As such we only hear about the bad news, not the millions of treatments that went well and were delivered in timely fashion. Of course, there are some significant problems and the system must be constantly scrutinized and adjusted. As such it will always be in a state of flux.

The analogy ends, beyond that simplistic comparison.

What does marxism have to do with it? Marxism primarily means constant revolution, to remove power from the elite so they cannot gain a foothold. Marxism does include socialism as its economic principle but it goes further beyond that, such as removing powers of ownership. Socialism does not require these things. People who confuse socialism with marxism and communism are simply confused. The rich elite want to make socialism a dirty word. Yet now ironically that the capitalist system has collapsed, of its own accord, we see the ideas of socialism raise again. Much to the horror and confusion of the misled capitalist public, no doubt. Yet the evidence remains that those northern European countries, and to some extent Canada have shown themselves better able to weather the economic storm. The problem is that our economies are tied to the US in many ways. When the big one goes down, we all get pulled down with it. The wise thing to do, is start to disconnect. Somebody cut the cord

"The unidentified program began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex30DYwQlHU

Feinstein said the law shows Congress should have been told about the program, and the Bush administration's failure to do so "is a big problem." http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/home/cont...showbyline=True Seems to me if someone breaks the law, there should at least be an investigation. If not outright criminal charges. But Obama is going to show himself for what he really is in this case too... he won't allow an investigation. Obama is just more of the same... a smooth criminal

We cannot use the competitive business model for all things. Certain things should not be driven by profit. Like those things which are the core part or the very fabric of our society. The government itself, or the legal system, for example, are authoritarian and in some sense, monopolies. Whatever applies to the health and safety of human beings, should be run by the state to ensure that greed cannot take advantage of it. As we see with insurance companies... it comes down to, who do you want to make the decision as to the health care you get? An insurance company, which will seek to minimize the amount of health services their customers get, to keep their profit margins high? Or the doctors themselves. The government does not really "run" the health care system, it provides the overall funding. It makes broad decisions on providing services, such as number of hospitals or MRI machines per popula but does not micro-manage the cases of patients. When there is no net gain or profit to be made in providing care then the important issue becomes the well being of the patient. This should be left to medical professionals, not bureaucrats or corporate agents.

"Prime Ministers cannot- must not- get bogged down in the details of government or try to micromanage the business of the nation. Rather, it is their Job to establish priorities, develop strategies, supervise crises, handle the toughest problems, communicate the complicated issues in simple ways and delegate as much as possible to their ministers." - Jean Chretien, My Years as Prime Minister Harper fails on all counts.

This article offers some kind of an explanation of what his Popeliessness is talking about: God's economics: What the Pope knows The Pope's timing is immaculate. Two years ago when the Vatican began preparing this economic letter, most of the world would have hooted at the suggestion that greed was bad. In those days, unethical markets were the engines of growing wealth. The market advocates pointed at moral versions of capitalism like the high-minded high-tax Nordic countries and sneered. But now, after the crash of all those greed-driven banks and hedge funds, the Pope has an audience primed to listen. Those Nordics, with their well-funded social programs, remain healthy capitalist economies. Moral. Sharing. They also repeatedly score highest in all measures of well-being. They have high levels of universal education. Nordic businesses, from Ericsson and Nokia to the folks who created those Metro free tabloids that millions around the world read on public transit, are innovative and competitive. Their logging companies continue to make money. Their energy fund continues to dole out money to the public purse. It may be that being ethical, cooperative, and helping others to succeed does not make businesses fail. It just makes the world more efficient and a little bit nicer place to live. ---------- "We are the world... we are the children... we are the ones who make a brighter day, so lets start givin..."

Ok fine. But the system is susceptible to this problem, so that it can happen in some circumstances. There should be better rules to spread the balance of power, to "govern the governors".

I'm all for it. No such person should have these powers at their own disposal, because they are affected by other influences. Industries, special interest groups, religious groups seek to manipulate the office of the PM, either by getting their guy in there, or by offering incentives. These powers should be distributed amongst a group, and depend on the interests of the public, at large. Beyond that there should be a single person, a king or queen who is endowed with the utmost privileges, so that they are incorruptible. They would hold the power to overrule parliament where it comes to laws concerning the freedom of individuals, to protect the rights of human persons (as opposed to the rights of corporations and big money powers).

So the Central Party of Canada does not support the United Nations?

"Peoples integrity" surely played no role in the protecting us from the current crisis. People will only have integrity, when there is a price to be paid for doing something illegal, If doing it is not illegal, and there's money to be made, you bet they will do it, despite who else might lose money later on. By removing protections it opens the door to such fraud, where they make bad investments that will harm the company they work for, but don't care as long as they get the profits and bonuses in the short term. Laissez faire is what we've had in the past several years. The removal of regulations happened, its a fact, and it made matters worse. Because of unchecked greed. Theres no ethics, no sense of sharing, no integrity without law.