idealisttotheend

I agree with your statement in principle but not in practicality. The best defense against nuclear war was and is not having one side think that it can 'win' because it's defence capacity is superiour. If you think your defense system will work you will be more inclined to risk nuclear retaliation than if you are guarenteed not to have any defences and that both sides will lose. MAD may be the sort of doctrine that seems insane in another 100 or 200 years but it works and we survived the cold war. I repeat my assertion that terrorists are not likely to use ICBMs for various reasons, including the expense and lack of infrastucture for it. If you think about it if you shot only one ICBM it would be easy to have a human intercept it with a jet fighter (even ejecting before impact). You would be better off with a device you could move on the ground and hide until detonation. Between nations, MAD is the best defence. Against terrorists, intelligence and vigilance is best. Missile defence does not work (even technically) against either.

I voted today and voted for the NDP candidate. In my riding it is between the Cons and the NDP with the Liberals not really being a big factor. Last election I was living in Alberta and I voted Liberal because the NDP was not a real factor there. I did though, like many people in this thread it seems, feel guilty about not voting my conscious and am glad that I don't have to apologize this time. I really think that poliing parties during elections should be banned so we could get rid of strategic voting even though I have done it myself.

For the same reason that Romanow can tinker with health care in Saskatchewan without the media blowing a gasket and Klien can't do the same in Alberta. People trusted Romanow to tinker with health care and not gut the system over an ideological bias toward privatization. They did not trust Klien to do the same. With the use of S. 36 of the Charter, people trust that Martin would do so responsibly if at all, and not start using it left, right and centre to defend a party's ideological position vis a vie social conservatism. Many people don't trust Harper to do the same. Rightly or wrongly I think that this is why these things happen this way. This is Canada, and we tend to trust middle of the roaders and distrust people who stray or are seen to be straying too far one way or the other.

I.m sorry but Canada is almost the most decentalized country in the world. The Federal stranglehold simply does not exist over basically any area. Maybe the military but even foriegn policy is "encroached" upon by provinces that set up their own consulates. Remember how the provinces went to Britian to fight the 1982 Constitution? Provinces have juristiction over Health and Education which are by far the most important areas of government involvement. Even the enviroment is now partially under provincial control. People who want to protect "provincial rights" are usually seperatists or isolationists from either Quebec or Alberta. Your right to disagree with homosexuality is not in doubt, it is your right to disagree with other consenting adults right to agree with homosexuality for themselves that is in question. Child molestation is a criminal act and poligamy may well beup for discussion. Neither has anything to do with homosexual rights (though I do disagree with calling homosexual 'unions' marriages for purely traditional reasons). Appointing judges is not undemocratic. It is the nature of the judiciary that it not be elected else we might as well just call the people who enforce the laws politicians like we call the people who make the laws. It is clearly not dangerous and I have yet to see an example of where a legitimate legal bias has been determined by congressional hearings in the US.

Why is it necessary for everyone to have less in order to fairly distribute the benefits of new gains in productivity. If the gap is reduced then the poor may be able to better contribute to the society and then everyone will have more. Plus crime and welfare costs would drop again giving everyone more. There is no evidence to suggest that the rich must have more in order to make society more productive. Yes cheap labour makes more goods but with the wage economy everyone realizes that people must also buy more in order for the money to circulate enough for everyone to have more, (much to the distress of enviromental economists). Furthermore, what is more. Is it GDP, if so I'll pay you 20 dollars to pay me 20 dollars and the GDP will rise by 40 dollars. What about cigarettes or alcohol, if we had more of those would it be better? Hockey cards, a television for each room, at what point is the more frivilous. Unfortunately starting from a premise and then working backwards works for a lot of researchers these days (generally ones now paid by someone with an interest one way or the other). I'm thinking of the Fraser Institute as a glaring example. This should rightly offend a scientific mind, but it is more often the case than not these days. At least it seems that way to me.

Let the man who would deny another man the vote stand up and say that he is wise enough to decide who does and does not make a valuable contribution to society. And then let him live in fear that another man will stand up and say that he too is wise enough to decide the value of his fellow men, and find the first man wanting.

Takeanumber is right, lol. It does seem that every time the Alliance-Conservatives get it together and get some control over the agenda somebody opens their mouth wide and it is six days of more cleaning. Maybe he'll start nailing boards over their holes.

I think that those are good points. Even now, everybody still wants the pork, (for sure the Grand Prix was pork). It's only a scandal if I don't get any.

Touche! Well put Rev.

Atl:32 CPC 4 Lib 14 NDP 14 Que:75 BQ 55 Lib 20 Ont:106 CPC 46 Lib 52 NDP 8 SK/MB:28 CPC 14 Lib 3 NDP 11 Alta:28 CPC 26 Lib 2 BC:36 CPC 19 Lib 6 NDP 10 Grn 1 Terr: 3 Lib: 1 CPC: 1 NDP 1 CPC 110 Lib 98 NDP 44 Bloc 55 Grn 1 Libs leave the CPC to try and govern under these circumstances so they come back in the next election for the majority with Harper looking like a buffoon. I just guessed though at the numbers (i.e. lifted them from other people on the thread), I never paid enough attention to individual ridings to be accurate. I expect that Lib/NDP vote splitting will be a real factor in Ontario and my CPC numbers are probably low. As to the left, I think that we judge things by how much profit is made also. The question of difference is who made the profits and how are those profits are distributed. You could say the left looks more at the mean average while the right looks more at the higher end of the range.

I like nor trust either man, but Mr. Harper is probably twenty times smarter and more competant than Mr. Bush. I may not like Mr. Harper's policies but I respect the fact that he knows what he is talking about when he espouses them. I don't really think they are that much similair at all except that they both serve primarily buisness interests.

What if the most accurate polls were no polls at all until the actual day? Would that best reflect how people really feel. What exactly is the real benefit to society of polling at all during an election? Polling issues I can see, but why poll parites? It has become apparent to me that voting is really an act of faith. If I don't vote on Monday the chances that the result will be a one vote difference is so small statistically that I wonder if it has ever happened in any part of the country in any election. Therefore I could conclude that there is no reason for me to vote at all since I can be assured that if I sit at home instead of go vote the result will be the same. Yet if everyone thought like that then no one would vote and democracy would fail. So we all must have faith that our individual vote does matter even though statistically it really doesn't. I wonder if that faith would be strenghthened if I didn't know who was likely to win and which party had no chance of forming the government (since this can often become a self fulfilling prophacy). If there were no polls might I simply vote my conscious and might democracy be better served?

LOL. What exactly are the chances of getting everyone on this board to agree on the colour of grass never mind a charity, August?!? It would take twenty different threads and much nattering of teeth if it could be done at all I think.

I agree that Moore and Nader have no buisness trying to 'influence' the result in this country. Moore should stick to America until and unless he proves he actually understands the issues etc. As for Nader, I thought it was common courtesy to stay out of other nation's elections? I think if the provincial premiers got involved in the federal campaign it would only cause confusion. After all the Charest and Campbell Liberals are really Conservatives, the PC party doesn't exist federally anymore and the NDP is quite electable on the east coast and in the west which is different from the NDPs situation in Ontario.

I though Mansbridge went pretty easy on Harper until the end where he did come after him a bit. But he went after Layton too and asked the key question of Martin (would you resign if you got fewer seats than Harper). The CBC does have some bias (more on Radio than television I think) but so do a lot of other media outlets and I think far to much is made of it.

I disagree with August, if you want the goods on Tredeau there is a two volume set by Clarkson and.. (I forget) but it is the best to really understand both the man and his policies. Best book though, I vote for Simpson's Faultlines for modern times. It covers all the divergent elements in Simpson's straight forward style. Anything by Newman is good too.

"Outlaw homelessness" Hmmmmmmm. At risk of being overly glib, when someone wants to "outlaw" homelessness you know for once and all that they were a pretty faced golf caddy and not in some useful occupation for a reason. Maybe Harris hated teachers so much because he had a bad case of envy for their intelligence. Look how well we've done at outlawing drugs or prostitution. And you can actually argue that those things are morally wrong and unnecessary to the maintance of human life.

The Cons have only themselves to blame for not having any seats in Quebec. It was Mulroney's greed and ego that led to his courting of the soft seperatists like Bouchard (trying to get votes in Quebec the easy way instead of working to it the hard way) that created the Bloc and Mr. Bouchard. In fact the political reality may be that no one gets a majority government in this country for a very long time after this. I don't think that anyone in the Bloc has the same complete lack of honour and personal integrity that Mr. McKay did so I don't see a merger in the future. Plus the Bloc are probably to the left of the Liberals not the Right so that is also an interesting aspect, if the Cons make gains in Quebec it would be at the expense of the Liberals. Interesting though that of the four major parties, three can be imagined to work together with each other and only one cannot count on any support in a minority. It tells you a lot about the political reality in this country and I wonder if Mr. Clark isn't laughing at his old capadres the same way Chretien is laughing at his old capadres.

I heard that the Patriot system failed over 50% of the time even with multiple projectiles launched. Even if the Americans figured out how to do it with any degree of statistical accuracy (I don't think they can do it now even when the interceptor knows the exact course of the incoming missile) surely someone else could find a counter if they can build ICBMs. In fact I don't see why you couldn't use the American's own GPS system combined with a decent FLIR to fly in under the radar and make interception very difficult. SO another wasteful arms race is born. In any case if the American's want to be successful in their agenda in the 21st century they have to learn how to fight in Afghanistan not refight the cold war.

Mr. Harris and Mr. Eves left Ontario with a massive deficit in the middle of historically low interest rates and a long period without serious stuctural recession (Sept 11 excepted). It was quite an impressive feat.

If it is trueit would probably work well for Canadian ranchers. America would have to open it's borders or risk having the rest of the world shutting their borders to said Americans. This could actually be the breakthrough a lot of people have been waiting for.

Even the most insane third world despot would have to realize that launching an ICBM against America is suicide. America is either just doling out pork to defence contractors or they are gearing up for an arms race with China. In either case it is stupid as the Rev is right that MAD would be a better system with a real second superpower like China. If Kim wants to send an nuclear bomb it would come in a shipping container where it would be harder to trace and more likely to be successful not via a trackable and traceble ICBM. Star Wars is fighting the last war and is a massive waste of money and could be a de- stabilizing influence if America lost it's status as sole super power.

I agree that more Cons and NDP will show up just like more Cons and NDP post on boards such as these. The Liberals natural constiteuncy is the silent middle who have no reason to vote in this election save to stave off the Conservatives. Yet the fact that it is so close may bring Liberal voters out for that very reason to stave off the Conservatives. The question for the Liberals will be whether or not they have convinced the electorate that Harper will destabilize the natural order and so get their vote out.

good one TN lol

Today: Today's CBC story Last Week: CBC story May 17 The key to the story is here: In fact this "consultation" will take place in the fall. Interesting to do consultations on more reforms right after you announce new reforms. The cart before the horse and all that. The Alberta Conservatives have written the book on how to do 'consultation' to build 'consensus' directed at the result the Alberta Conservatives want. You see, you hold a focus group, you put 11 buisnesspeople/farmers/conservative small town folks on a 12 person comittee and give the last spot to a union leader. You then conclude from the group what 'Albertans' are thinking. You ask loaded questions on questionaires to the general public and report only the results (in a general fashion) that you like. I can guarentee everyone on this forum that barring Shirley Douglas pulling a miracle out of her hat, Albertans will 'want' more privatization in the fall. There is no doubt in my mind that Klien intended to violate the Canada Health Act, since he said as much just last week. But now to support Harper, the Alberta PCs are backing down (until the fall) to defuse the situation. While I like the result (that they backed down) I think it is an insult to Albertans and Canadians in general for Mar and Klien to pretend otherwise. And I hope this little charade is remembered when Alberta institutes the reforms they wanted to June 30th. And memo to Martin: Never give the other side the initiave (ask them to tell you details which only they have and can easily change) or you will look foolish.