takeanumber

You list all of these anectdotal examples, as though you're building a case against any sort of social safety net. The real outrage should be that people are exploiting the social safety net, and worse, taking resources away from the people who really, really need them. Instead of chucking the baby out with the bathwater, why don't we tag these exploiters? Surely, the United Way could build a database that all the charities could access.

Saudi Arabia and Iran both harbor terrorists. And worse, they nearly executed Canadian and British expats on trumped up charges just to get some of their own terrorists out of Gitmo. So where's the outrage? Moreover, Bush and human rights. The high road is very important in this war. What has in fact happened at Gitmo and Abu is really aweful, plus these secret trials. It makes the Americans come out as a bunch of Saudi's or Iranians (Kazemi). The answer that just because all US presidents have human rights records that would make them comperable to Alliende doesn't make Bush's current behaviour any more 'right'. If anything, given the environment, it makes it all the more 'wrong'. You can't simultaneously fight to defend 'the american way of life' and undermine human rights.

Because it's boring, but alright, here goes. It has shifted traffic to the early morning hours, so many people get into work much earlier and leave much later. It has driven consumers out of the city core, hitting inner city businesses. It has caused severe traffic and increased congestion all around the ring of the fair zone. Instead of driving straight through, people are driving around, so although traffic is better for a small part of the city, it has gotten especially worse in other parts. The Tubes were already over capacity. Now they're much more so. With recent upgrades and repairs (which are being done by a private company, BTW), it has become much worse. There are popular tourist areas which are now relatively desolate because of the fares. By some accounts, because of the increased commute times, pollution may be down in the inner core, on a net basis, it's up. and on and on and on....

Actually, it's funny. The Fraser Institute depends on those big corps for money. Yet, lol, big corps don't like it when the Fraser Institute publishes anti-subsidy, anti-pork papers. But the Fraser Institute still does it. So the control isn't 1:1. I know many people who work at the Fraser Institute, and I respect many of them. In fact, one of the profs who had a great influence on me worked there for many, many years. ----------------------- No, poor bashing isn't the answer. There's a policy gap with respect to the poor.

She's entitled to speak her mind. (What happened to the Cons complaining that backbenchers were gagged, uh? Guess their 'principles' only applies to opinions that they agree with.) Anyway, her comments arn't helpful, but at least they're reflective of many Canadians, who really don't want anything to do with Bush and his shield. Moreover, it's bad enough that we're going to be in the business of 'acceptance', but we'll have to kick some money into it. And you know 2.5 billion dollars might be a fraction of the cost, but it's still a lot of money. (Unless the Cons don't think 2.5 bil is a lot of money, which would be funny given their incensesant (sic) nandering about the 'boondoggle'.) I don't personally agree with her. I do think she's a little flaky.

He's not going after the money hard enough. He's coddling the Saudi's He's coddling the Iranians. Iraq. Radical Islam in the prisons system. Undermining human rights and damaging the moral high ground. Unravelling alliances because they don't suit him. "We can't let the coalition set the mission." Undermining liberalism when he should be holding it high. For those reasons, I think he's soft on terror. ---------------- You're right on Harper. ---------------- Sadly, I don't think most portions of the public care about the policies, but they realize that they won't be implemented anyway. The US system makes promises impossible to be upheld.

The negotiations would be long, and might feature land being traded for debt. There's the aboriginal question. The treaties are with the Crown. Aboriginals would more than likely stay in Canada. The island of Montreal is another important question, along with areas that voted to stay in Canada.

I can literally go on for a few hours on the London example. I won't bore everybody with it. I'll just say this: that policy has had several negative, unexpected consequences.

I've posted on this board, repeatedly, that Bush is soft on the real war on terror. The problem with the Dems, as I see it, is that they're very similar to French Socialists circa 1933. They would rather rationalize the Nazi's than face the facts. You gotta crush terror. Live and let live policy simply won't work in this case, because just like the Nazi's, these Islamists don't believe that we have the right ot practise the religion of our choice. (And oddly enough, these Islamists share that value with some Christian Fundamentalists, who believe that everybody in the United States should abide by their religion.) If I were an American, I'd conclude that there's nobody to vote for. Bush is soft on Terror, worse, imperilling the whole war for selfish reasons. (Iraq). And Kerry and the Dems are just as bad, because they want to rationalize the situation and square the circle. Bah.

Arguable about the intentions...you say Tomayto, I say Tomaato. The outcomes are similar. I can go on forever about tolls and economics. It's a mixed bag, at best. But yeh, applying the free market isn't always a silver bullet you know. Blind adherence to an ideology (as the Harris government demonstrates) leads to extreme policy and it leads to extreme outcomes. The 407 and Waterton are good examples.

The Globe has gone to the 'register' format, which, I don't 'register' for spam. So I don't visit that site anymore. The reason why there's no outrage is because its Toen's. Everybody knows what he thinks about gays, women, and minorities who arn't Conservative.

The problem isn't with the monarchy. The crown hasn't had any real power since 1837. The problem is the responsiveness of parliament, which is in fact rooted in the public-party interface, and the party-leader interface. The interfaces need to be fixed.

There's no point of being in any back room in Canadian politics. Power is so centralized in the hands of so few (4 or 5 in each party) that the chances of ever having a chance at influence, little though actual influence, is very, very slight. I think that if things change and the legislatures matter again, and if ever bothered to run, and win, I might rise to the stature of prominent backbencher and eventually the 'fixer'...the type of guy that is made minister of a department to decimate the resistance inside the civil service, and then take my place in the backbenches again. But how often does a premier, or a legislature, want anything really fixed...for real. I just couldn't be a minister, or somebody totally without a voice, in the legislature the way it is today. It's bad enough to be irrelevant right now. It would be far worse to be so close to mattering, and not.

Reforms need to be moderate and progressive. That's the only way anything ever gets done in Canada. Here's one sensible proposal: For Senate Reform...since each province has it's own set of seats, why not hold elections for those seats at the same time provincial governments are holding their provincial elections? You could elect the Senators using pure PR from each province. Since PEI has 4 senators, if the Cons get 25% of the vote on the Senate ballot, the federal (or provincial) cons get to appoint 4 members. We can quibble about how many seats each province gets, or better yet, redistribute the house of commons (which isn't bound by the consititution on seat distributions) to reflect what Brown wanted in the first place, that's right, representation by population. Does it sound like a moderate, sensible proposal? We don' t have to tinker with the Constitution (the PM, just as he doesn't use reservation anymore, could simply agree to appoint, by way of tradition, the 'recommendation' of the people of a given province. It could be a new tradition, and a well honoured one that no PM would dare invoke, much the same as Laurent refused to use dissallowance after McDonald thoroughly abused it. That sorta thing.) Alberta would get a baby step. There'd be a good check on Federal power in the commons. We'd have some measure of PR that wouldn't result in an Italian parliament. There's usually a provincial election every year, so the balance of the Senate could keep any federal party on its toes. Responsible government is held intact, and best of all, the government in the commons doesn't collapse all the time. Oh well. I know that it'll never happen, but I think it's pragmatic, moderate and progressive.

http://www.p3watch.ca/news%20items/Region%...20abandoned.htm http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/C.../08/573173.html http://www.mapleridgenews.com/portals-code...id=285021&more= http://www.finance.gov.ab.ca/publications/...04/capplan.html Four linx. Enjoy.

I don't doubt that many war crimes were committed on both sides during that war. Kerry was well within his rights to call a spade a spade when he came home. It's not going negative when it's true. Moreover, pointing out Kerry's many connections to 527 groups doesn't make Bush any less guilty. If anything, it makes them both all the more dirty. I think Bush's only real issue is that Kerry is fighting back. Bush certainly wasn't distancing himself from attacks from the same group of funders when they called ppl in Georgia and told them that McCain had a black son; or spread the story that by being captured, McCain had dishonoured his country. Bush can certainly tolerate the feces when it's chucked at others, or at arabs in American prisons, but he certainly can't take it. They're both in the wrong, but since Bush et al won't stop, neither should Kerry.

I don't subscribe to the Globe online, so I can't provide a link. (and I recycled the newspaper already, lol.) But it's in there. On this we agree. But mainly that's my proletarian side grumbling. The real shame is that he taints the cause of victims rights and real justice. You can't whipe your butt on the charter and hold high the banner of justice. It's contradictory. Harper should have had the sense to punt him sooner. A failure of leadership I think.

Was Klein doing the popular thing when he was pushing the P3 hospital in Calgary South? Or is he doing the popular thing now that he's backed away from it? Hmmmm. It's an interesting question, isn't?

Blue: I'm a free market liberal, and even I think it's a debacle. There are other uses...but it's the cost to future taxpayers that's the really big issue. Somebody who is born next year will have to be paying tolls on that road his entire life. They probably won't live to see the day when they use it 'for free'. (It's not really free, taxes, yadda yadda, yadda, at least most taxes stay in the country now that the debt is nearly entirely Canadian owned, etc, as opposed to the profits skimmed from the tolls...which leave the country.)

Thx for pointing out the typo Blue. I thought I hit that 'o' twice. Such a rookie mistake. Yeh, they don't have terrific job security.

Why isn't anybody talking about Cheney and Haliburton. I mean, the Republicans were harassing Clinton on Travelgate... but you look at Haliburton... it's unbelievable. The company admitted to commiting fraud while Cheney was CEO, plus all those contracts from Iraq that were untendered.... It's just incredible. And these are facts, not dirt. And they're being stonewalled. Whatever. Republicans are just good at carpet bombing people. Look at what they did to McCain, or how they portrayed that triple amputee. The ppl behind SBVFT are pretty sick, in my opinion, for doing what they're doing. The SBVFT are no better. Moveon.org is just as bad. ------------------------------------------------- I think Kerry needs to start fighting back, and fighting back hard. As Clinton says, it's not going negative when you're responding to a republican smear.

SPRING??? Why so late? It should have been held this summer. Way overdue. ---------------------------- If it was registered, and the system working, when the restraining order was issued, the cops coulda gone over and taken the guns. But again, it's more than just a black and white issue. There ARE problems with the registry, I blame that f*** Allen Rock. Moreover, how can a guy who beats his wife and kids for years get off with just one month? I'd like to see something done to the judge in that case. Perhaps their name and picture published in the newspaper? Of course, you won't get Harper talking about domestic violence issues. When it comes to the beating of wives and children, the Cons tend to be very Conservative indeed on that topic. {The Liberals being of course more guilty because they've had the chance for 10 years to do something about it, and refuse to because of the extra cost in locking up those bastards so they can have a turn at being beaten for awhile} I'd enjoy Harper's reaction on that. ------------------------ Too many back room shenanigan's for what is supposedly a 'grassroots' party. If you're going to call a spade a spade, at least have the balls to admit that you yourself are really the same thing. Don't pretend to be heart when you're not. Hipocracy is something else I really take a hating to. When Harper avoids the media, I feel as though he's avoiding me, and I take exception to that.

Wow. We agree on something. Let me go change my pants. Ah. Better. Well, Alberta has really low taxes. The provincial tax is flat, so physicians can work as long as they want and not get hit on the provincial side, or get hit double regressive for it. So that's always a bonus. I'm not big on the Pharmacare program though. It should be split 50-50; not this 'here feds, you take care of it' type thing. i think the Globe was right when they said that it's just a trojan horse, but meh. There might be good economies of scale to it. (Incidentally, a terrific trade weapon canada could use, then lose the trade war on, would be drug exports. A lot states depend on us; imagine if we slapped huge export fees? rourrrr.) Anyway; I'm not happy with Dosanje, and I'm really not happy with the Liberal gang bangers or the Con Possy at the momment. The feds need to close the Romanow gap, pure and simple. And the feds got the money. Less needs to be going to Quebec and ACOA and WOA patronage scams and more into health. But whatever.

I'm wondering if the positions have changed. BTW: the toronto incident was a sawed off long-gun. There's one set of realities in the country side, and another set in the city. Of course, an idealogue like Harper is incapable of seeing a comprimise, he's 'principled'. Missile defence: shouldn't the ppl of the NWT be consulted? Why hasn't he consulted them? Has he consulted them? I believe it was Toens who implied today that the two women were not qualified because they were both women. He didn't say it outright, but it was certainly implied. Next, with respect to this backroom dealing with the other leaders....I thought it was supposed to be different. The media has been asking him what's been going on. He wont' tell the media anything. I don't know about you, but I want to know what's going on in those backrooms.

I know what I know and I know what I don't know. I know that I know that I got an ice cubes chance in Brian Mulroney's butthole that I can ever make a difference. I'm impatient, short tempered and intolerant of stupidity. I'm also rather vengeful. Maybe I could have made it in the 1800's, but these days, a politician has to be either a 'principled' (read: fanatical idealogue) or a waffler (read: a Liberal) to make it. There just isn't any room for somebody like myself who is a fervent centre of centrist. Everything in moderation. Don't let idealogy cloud your judgement. And worse, most people in the Centre arn't pationate about anything. So meh. I'm just much to smart for any political party.