ironstone

You neglect to mention that some prominent Democrats initially supported military action against Iraq.As for Obama,history will be the judge of his time in office.So far,his popularity is very high,but not with Wall Street which speaks volumes about his stimulus package.I'm no expert in economics,but everything that I have read implies that the seeds were sown for this recession a long time ago basically by governments forcing lenders to make credit easily available for those who didn't earn it otherwise.

I think the protesters are the stupid one's.Peaceful protests are fine,but all too often they resort to violence.

So why wasn't there any peace before all the land was "stolen"?

The question perhaps should be,can the West contain the Taliban instead of defeating them once and for all.They have long had a stronghold in Pakistan and the Pakistani government is openly showing their weakness in allowing Sharia law to be imposed by the Taliban where they are strong.Almost certainly this will continue to spread in the Muslim world if nobody is willing to stand against it.The Taliban are every bit as brutal(although on a smaller scale...for now)as the Nazis or Communists were in their time. The appeaseniks must be squirming right now since the most popular politician in the world wants to dramatically increase the number of troops in Afghanistan.

The acquittal was correct in that he was not really promoting hate,although he is clearly a bigot.What most people are afraid to admit is that our hate laws are not really meant to be applied to visible minorities in any case.There,I said it.

The extreme left wing portion?!! That is the COMPLETE makeup of Human Rights Commissions! By all means,disband them,cut off their funding,whatever it takes.They are stacked with ultra left wingers with their own agenda.Common sense and fairness are NOT part of the equation.The scariest part is they feel they are accountable to no one.

So I guess in hospitals in the Middle East they don't use rubbing alcohol at all?

I did see the video of this incident on MSNBC a week or so ago.It's a horrible thing to see,believe me.Elsewhere in this thread someone mentions that six of the officers involved have been on paid leave for 16 months,and counting!After seeing this video,my sympathy lies with the victim and his family.I've always been a strong supporter of the police but I these days I think less of them.It seems there are more than just a few bad cops out there and often they themselves are almost immune from the laws they are sworn to uphold.What's the most common punishment a police officer recieves?A lengthy suspension....with full pay and benefits,often exceeding a year!Sounds more like a vacation to me. I believe the victim in this case was tasered,not once,but six times.Why could these officers not make more of an effort to calm him down?Do they have no training for just such a situation?Maybe they were trigger-happy and anxious to use their weapons. The guy was going to live with his mother that he had not seen in years for crying out loud!Being in an airport makes me stressed out ,so I can only imagine what it was like for this poor man,unable to communicate and obviously scared. I doubt anything good will come of this and the officers will milk the situation for more vacation time.

I know it's not politically correct to write this,but sovereigntists in particular and Quebecers in general are very thin skinned.Watch out for the outrage!The indignation!The nerve of it all! In Canada there is an unwritten rule that Quebec is the centre of our universe,everyone is just too afraid to admit it.

Obama represents hope you say?He certainly campaigned on that premise....and little else in my opinion.Since the time that he was sworn in he could hardly be said to be promoting hope.How about plain old fearmongering?http://www.dangardner.ca/Coljan2309.html You can't expect to be taken seriously here while using phrases like"eight years of evil stupidity".Bush may be many things to many people,but he was in no way,shape or form evil.The word evil can describe someone like Hitler(National SOCIALIST German Workers Party) or Joseph Stalin(Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics).Don't use a powerful word like evil to describe former President Bush,you are only embarassing yourself.He likely won't be ranked among the best Presidents but he did do some positive things during his eight years.There were no successful acts of terrorism on American soil after 9/11.The U.S. economy was relatively ok for six of eight years. Under Bush,the U.S. contributed more funds to combat the spread of AIDS in Africa than any other President did.He should be given credit for that at least.

You have been clearly too caught up in this crazy Obamamania phenomenon.According to you,the only thing that matters in politics is popularity....and nothing else.George W.Bush was popular at one time as well,and the fact that he ended his term as an unpopular leader does not automatically make him the worst President ever.Time will tell. A common misconception is that Harper and Obama are polar opposites and that Harper was a carbon copy of Bush.You should do a bit more research on that subject.Here is an article you may want to read.http://www.dangardner.ca/Coloct0308.html Why does style trump substance these days in so many aspects of our lives?

The CBC is not exactly what I would call government-run.On the whole,I find them rather left- leaning to say the least.There is one difference between the Alberta oil sands project and the CBC that comes to mind.One of them provides billions of dollars to fund other parts of the country,the other entity consumes over one billion dollars of taxpayers money annually. I would also like to point out that according to the ratings,not too many people actually watch or listen to the CBC as compared to the competition. If it were up to me,I would love to see the CBC have to work for their funding,similar to PBS in the U.S.Their funding should be reduced annually until it recieved zero taxpayer dollars.

More certainly needs to be done with the oil sands from an environmental perspective,and this takes lot's of time and money.The Americans have plenty of coal,but from what I read,it's worse than the oil sands.The Chinese are building many coal fired plants right now to meet their energy demands,but there is little protest from the environmentalists about that it seems.There are so many things to consider here.The stupid part is,here in Canada some of those protesting the loudest about Alberta's oil sands(Quebec springs to mind),are the biggest recipients of money from Alberta.

Taxpayers will take the hit,lol. One can't keep up with who owns what in the automotive world these days.I read that an Indian car company owns Rover now?How the world has changed.

Ideally,welfare should be considered temporary relief during hard times.Unfortunately,there will be many that fall through the cracks through no fault of their own.However,I do have a problem with those that are on welfare for life and have no intention of ever getting a job.I don't know what it's like currently,but at one time it was apparently very easy to defraud the system.Back in the 80's I remember one guy that never worked at all,he just collected welfare from different provinces under different names.This guy owned property in B.C. and could afford to have his sister flown out from there to Ontario!Hopefully the system has been tightened up since then.I also remember a series of articles in the Ottawa Sun about welfare fraud,particularly one fraud artist who said Ottawa was his favourite city because he could go to every welfare office on the same day....and recieve money,lol. My heart goes out to any honest person ending up on welfare because of circumstances beyond their control.

"Buy Canadian" is bad policy,unless the Canadian product in question is the best available and provides the best value.This sends the wrong message to countries which buy our exports.Just more drivel from the powerful union bosses.I want the freedom to choose what I want to buy thank you very much.Protectionism is NOT the answer!

So if a President's popularity is high,whatever he does is always right?

Obama on Reverend Wright"I never heard him say any of that stuff." Obama on William Ayers"I thought he was rehabilitated." You're joking right?....

I have my doubts about the stimulus package.It's about massive spending.....and little else!The way that this package has been passed is outrageous to say the least.Almost 1100 pages that were not read by ANYONE!Is this the more open government that Obama promised Americans during the campaign?Quite an about face,from "hope and change" to the message of fear which we now get from the White House. I hope Obama will eventually shine as President(even though I think he pulled off the biggest con-job in history by winning ) but time will tell. I'm no expert,but how about getting a handle on what caused the problems in the first place before the reckless spending orgy?

I think this is clearly a foolish idea to start with.Is there such a thing as "black" math or science?There should be outrage from all sides here but because this idea seems to have some support among blacks everyone is afraid to touch this one with the proverbial ten foot pole.I wonder what the early pioneers in the civil rights movement would think of this.

I could use some help here please.As I only have dial up internet available where I live,Youtube is a site I can't really check out.What exactly,is this car video about?

If indeed the knives are being drawn behind Mr.Harper's back,it's too bad.Yes he does keep a rather tight rein on his members,but so did the morally bankrupt Jean Chretien.Funny how his supporters described this as an example of fine leadership,but Harper is portrayed as a dictator.One huge difference between Harper and Chretien though,for all his faults,real or imagined,at heart he an honest man.The same certainly cannot be said of someone like Chretien.If Harper is on the way out,at least there are many talented people to choose a successor from. As for King Iggy,he is a good fit to lead the Liberal Party.He seems to change like a chameleon,depending on what he thinks the people want to hear.Iggy certainly has the Liberal "royal jelly" as far as arrogance is concerned.He had better win the next election big time,or the knives will come out for him too....

Does deficit financing help the economy?I'm not sure really.I think about the many decades of deficit financing by Liberals and Conservative till around the mid-nineties,and to what end?Ultimately,we and future generations will be saddled with huge debt.The interest alone is in the tens of billions of dollars annually,money that could be spent more wisely elsewhere. There is one thing a sitting government could do to alleviate the situation,at least a little bit.Imagine having efficiency in all the many levels of government in this country.Currently,every single gov't department in Canada adheres to the "use it or lose it"mentality as it regards to their respective annual budgets.This encourages and promotes waste,and it never get's better.Imagine the savings if Canada didn't have an enormous,bloated public service.I know a number of people in the public service and I shake my head in disgust at the stories from the inside.Wouldn't it be nice to severely limit public funding to special interest groups as well?I wonder how many exist for the sole purpose of collecting public funds. Government does not really create jobs,they have the power to create an environment which may help,or too often,hinder the creation of jobs.High taxes,red tape,a veritable sea of bureaucracy,too much of which does not help the economy.

This is kind of an ugly topic to be honest.It's true,every President recieves death threats,be they Replicans or Democrats.If I were American I would have never voted for Obama,but I also don't want to see him,or ANY President recieve death threats.There are many nut cases out there,from the left and right. Obama deserves a chance to show what he can do at least.Watching the O'Reilly Factor the other night,they brought up a good point,will Obama prove to be a pragmatist or an idealogue?I hope he turns toward pragmatism given his association with the likes of William Ayers.

If Omar Khadr is repatriated back to Canada,he stands a pretty good chance of being set free almost immediately.If this is the case,he will be reunited with his family.You know all about his family don't you?Daddy was an close associate of none other than Osama Bin Laden himself.With the possible exception of one family member,all others strongly support terrorism and have an intense hatred for the West.I wonder what the reason was for them coming here in the first place?Do you suppose it's because Canada would be an easy place to openly promote Jihad? If(when?)Omar Khadr get's back with his family,he will have graduated from a so-called child soldier into the big league of terrorism.Think about it...