Molly

Yes, Blue, and the creation of the Bloc had no impact on the stability and ongoing good governance of Canada. We COULD talk about airplanes and envelopes of money, if you want. Not really necessary though, since the electorate passed the ultimate judgement on Mulroney and the PCs. Poor Kim, left holding that bag of poison apples.

That's a hellaciusly huge 'if'. Whose word are we taking? A guy whose testimony doesn't match his notes, that were taken during the commission of what some folks believe are war crimes.

Brian Mulroney 'rolled the dice', and created the Bloc. He played awfully fast and loose for the leader of a conservative nation. (And we just won't even mention anything about airplanes.)

You clearly have a higher tolerance for representatives that don't give a ratsass about the well-being of the nation than I do, Blue. C'est la vie. You're a voter, too. I guess that's how we got where we are.

.. or have US in such a mess. I've never much liked the man, and have always been disturbed by the nutbar right wing streak of the party, but watching that 'update' stirred me to rage. How dare they play games with the nation?! How bloody DARE they? That was beyond a throw of the dice. Unfit for office. Hands down.

In other words, the Conservatives would bring down the government-- ... IF... they could get the Bloc to join them.

"The Coalition needs the Bloc more than the Tories would." ??? And what is that magical source of votes in the house, that is NOT the Bloc, LPC or NDP members, yet would provide enough support to the Conservatives to pass a confidence vote?

It's nuance, not contradiction. We have a weak and discredited government, that can't be trusted to use the least modicum of judgement. In an ideal world, I'd love to see an election; riddance of the Conservative party; an end to the rediculous hyperpartisanship... but our current situation is hardly ideal. We had an election three months ago, and are in a crisis that demands that i someone be at the helm and get on with governing, SOON. The potential coalition has already moved on from its own terms, with Iggy now leading the Liberal party, so although it remains an option to consider, it would have to be rebuilt in consideration of events since the prorogation. While it is strengthened by having a more viable potential PM, it is also weakened because that potential PM has had no real ratification from his own party--- It would be very, very fragile. An election, and further delay of governing is.... not at all desireable. No doubt it would result in a more stable situation, but the delay is hard to justify. So we have a choice among three very unhappy options: A government that has rightly lost the confidence of the house; a shockingly weak coalition; an election entailing even more delay in an emergency situation. I'd go with the coalition, but there are as many dragons on that path as on either of the others.

Uh uh. They've had the 'progressive' beaten out of them, and I doubt many 'progressive' conservatives would go back. Once burned, and all. Ignatief, as a right leaning Liberal, has already reclaimed a great big chunk of the centre, and is poised (if he handles it right) to re-grab the rest of it, and return us to being governed by a party of the centre, with the opposition divided between right and left. It's nice to see a sane option again, instead of a choice between the rock and the hard place.

Like I said, not one word from there is credible. Too many people are wa-ay too vested in trying to get everyone to swallow almost anything that will make them look a little less awful.

LOL ...so he's just proving how far out of the loop he really is. (And that if it needs reviving, he's still game.)

I'm not saying whether there are or are not holes in the Arar story. I haven't mentioned it. (But... I'm an equal opportunity skeptic.)

Um.... Thanksgiving is secular.

Or.... that the report that he made the identification is a fiction cut from whole cloth. The fact is, we have absolutely no reason to believe anything that comes from Guantanamo, and plenty of reason to suspect it's self-serving fiction, from folks who are demonstrably far out in the territory of 'wrong'. We, as a nation, are perfectly capable of questioning our own citizens, without input from some other nations torturers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06Vote-t.html I found this to be an interesting article. One of the points it seems to make and re-make, without really meaning to, is that the only machines worthy of much trust are those that produce, and/or store a paper record of ballots- the best being the sort that just optically scans , and then keeps, paper ballots marked directly by the voters. What is being proposed by our revolutionary is an even greater reliance on the ethereal than is practiced in the US. By the way, Bill, your point about secrecy/privacy in balloting is not only accurate, but huge. I would have asserted agreement but for seeing it as an obvious, very important criticsm. Apparently that problem is not so bovious to some, though, so here's 'Hear! Hear!'

Argus, it still comes back to the voters choice. Elect a pawn, get a pawn. Elect a quality individual, get someone whose opinion is sought by the party of which he is a member, get something a little more nuanced than a rubber stamp. You get the representative/representation you vote for, and rightly deserve.

"The job bank offers have slowed to a dribble of Nanny and personal care worker requests." Do you ever actually read before you comment?

... so ones eligibility to vote is in the hands of Mom and Canada post... and the 'interweb'. Yup. Uh-huh.

There'll be no election unless Harper opts to be as collossal an ass as in the 'fiscal update', because for better or worse, someone has to get on with the act of governing. Unless he's that outrageous again, we'll be stuck with the devil we know for at least a few more months. The 'fiddling while Rome burns' simply can't continue.

....... so much easier to believe that there are no American asses to cover, in the US rush to war (crimes). This falls into the same category as the US knowing that ther were WMD in Iraq because they kept the reciepts. They are accurately reporting what the boy said, because they handed him the script. Nothing credible in it, Mr. C. Not a single, solitary word worth hearing. The only reason that prison even exists is because it can't stand scrutiny.

I didn't for a second doubt profitability, but cash FLOW can be a major issue even where profitability is not in doubt. (Sometimes it is the overwhelming success of an enterprise that runs it into cash flow difficulty, since there is inevitably delay between putting cash out to create inventory, and collecting payment for it after it is delivered.) However, I wouldn't put it past these guys to be playing dog-in-a-manger either. Either way, we know for sure that they aren't shut down because demand for their product has dried up. That is just a non-starter entirely.

For every one of you, Capricorn, there is one of me, who votes candidate over party, and thank my stars that those things have only been in conflict for me a handful of times. You vote for a schnook or a fool, you deserve a schnook or a fool. A good rep in opposition is far, far better than a jackass in government.

Again, that assumes that there is a weekly paycheck from which to make deductions. Around here, those weekly paychecks are becoming scarcer, and the ones that exist are becoming smaller. I was laid off at the end of October, because the company I worked for blinked out of existence. (Not a big deal to me, thanks be. It was what you might call a recreational job.) Consequently, I've been casually following the moment-to-moment employment situation locally, and what I see scares the bejeepers out of me. No one is getting any overtime. Enterprises are closing shop-- a hundred employees here and 200 there. Job offers in the papers are drying up. Temp agencies take resumes, but don't have anything even for their regulars. The local bastion, Honda, is shutting down a shift, and minimizing the number of layoffs. (A month ago, they swore NO layoffs. The job bank offers have slowed to a dribble of Nanny, and personal-care worker requests.... Folks are scared, and rightly so. This is the heartland of Ontario manufactuing, and it's creaking to a stop. This province is in deep doodoo, and since this has been the economic engine of the nation, so is the rest of the country, though it may take a little longer to feel it.

I don't think there is a darned word coming from Guantanamo that can be trusted. Not one word.

The real beauty of the paper ballot is that it can't be messed with in any meaningful way. Even if someone tries, there are those pesky slips of paper that can be reviewed, and reviewed and reviewed. There is simply no more secure way to do it. Anyone here ever have a login problem, or a power outage, a crash, a virus, or info stolen, or lost to someone elses keystroke? Happens every day. The US uses quite a bit of electronic voting, and has had consequent questions about the validity of votes. The 'machine voting' used in some local municpalities has also been fraught with security/accuracy problems. Sorry, but the technology has a long, long, long way to go to be up to snuff, even under 'show up to vote with our protected machines' terms. It's i miles away from having stay-at-home voting up to viable option status.