Reverend Blair

The problem with using Sunday as a day of rest is that it interferes with getting people two consecutive days off. One of the days is limited to either Saturday or Monday. I am old enough to remember when stores closed on Monday to give the workers a full weekend. Now they are open 7 days a week and Sunday is one of the busiest days. A lot of retail workers can take two days off in the middle of the week instead of one on Sunday and one on Thursday. It wasn't that long ago that bars and off-sales were closed on Sundays here in Manitoba. I know a couple of waitresses who love working Sundays because the people are better behaved. They tend to take their time off at the beginning of the week. Having a standardised sabbath is increasingly a non-workable idea. People want to shop on Sundays, people want to go for a drink. Some people enjoy working on Sundays because it offers them options during the week. Others take advantage of time off of their regular job to work part-time or persue other interests.

I dunno...which are you in? Should a country like the US? Korea does not have a recent record of invoading sovereign states against the will of UN. Nothing wrong with it at all. The US starting a new arms race and Canada joining in does not put the odds in my favour though. It wastes my money and makes me a target. Nothing at all if you are too dim to have learned anything from the last Cold War. It is far more likely to be used for "pre-emptive" attacks on nations that won't bow to the US. The laws of physics still apply, Stoker. You are talking about shooting a bullet out of the air. They aren't saying that it's impossible, just that we lack the technology and would need a huge breakthrough and buckets and busckets of cash to make it work. The Canadian physicists are smarter than either Harper of Martin, BTW.

I quit reading when you accused me of inaccuracies and lies Krusty.

I do not live in Alberta. We do not have a "patch" to go to in the off season here. We have some snow plows and maybe you can get a gig bouncing. It's 20 below for six months. Do you guys even look up enough to realise that the world is a wide place? Most of us do not have to exist on your narrow reality, even those of us who work all year around. I know a lot of people on pogey out ther in the "patch" too. I grew up in Saskatchewan. I've seen what the packing plants in Brookes do to people too. Funny, I know 70 year old men who were butchers all their lives and never had to give up their hands...or their souls. There is a little more to life than money, boys. Sit out there in Ralphland and tell me how rich you are though...how sour gas and strip mines make you feel like men.

Nobody they are worried about has missiles, Mike. Korea has a couple of ICBMs. China has a peck or two. Russia has a passle and then some. Wht has kept us safe until now, and I grew up with the sure knowledge that I could be vapourised at any minute, is MAD...Mutually Assured Destruction. That's what keeps North Korea from blowing up Seattle and kept Andropov from killing Droolin' Ronnie Rayguns, and Krueschev from doing any more than whacking his shoe on the table at the UN. George Bush has upset that balance. The present US position is the same insanely stupid gunboat diplomacy and crap that caused the original 9-11 (Chile, 1972) and the rise of the Ayotollah and the power of Saddam and the continued reign of Islam Karimov. Let's not piss around. There is no difference between missile defence and every other bad idea to come out of the US.

Sorry dude, won't work. I've put a bunch of links up and you have read read one of them. You decided you didn't like it, but you don't want to argue substance, only statistics. You've headed us down the road of blind rhetoric, but iof you refuse to look at my arguments then I have no reason to look at yours. Let's cut to the chase then....You are advocating people as a means to profit. I'm advocating people as a means to having somebody to hang out with. I figure we should have beer. You figure we should provide a corporate-owned brewery with the means to encourage breast implants. I advocate being simple, you want want to improve yourself over that by a ton.

I cast no aspersions at all, just stated fact. Your sabbath is no holier than mine, and I don't happen to have one. You want a day off? Hey, so do I. I want two in a row, guaranteed by law. Do you want one to be Sunday? Good, but do not even dream of imposing that on me. I was working as tech support for a retail business when they opened up on Sundays here. I was the only tech. It meant I was on call seven days a week instead of six. 9-9 weekdays, 9-6 Saturdays, and 11-6 Sundays. Did I think that was a good idea? Nope. I did it though because I would not grovel and claim to believe in something I did not believe in. You will never get me to agree to Sunday openings on the basis of religion though. Two consectutive days off? No problem. Family consideration? I can buy that. Religious and/or racial celebration? Sure. Want to keep the stores, bars, and restaurants closed because you belive in a god? Sorry, I will not back you up on that.

Is Duff still allowed to have thrills? No, I don't mean health-wise.

Here is a clue, August. ... I'm an NDPer, always have been, and will be until something better comes along. By something better I mean something that more closely matches my beliefs. Harper has some core support like that. You likely fit into that category. Mostly he's trying to cobble together support from a bunch of people who don't believe in what he does though. They might buy his business angle, but Martin offers that, so do the Greens. They might agree with his social/religious angle but the CHP and others offer that and aren't afraid to say so. You might be a core supporter of Harper, but you seem to have this odd idea that you deserve to win...that you are somehow RIGHT. Sorry, dude, that ain't how it works. What happens is that you and I go naked mud wrestling with the nearest Liberal and the people choose the one that disgusts them the least. The Liberal gets to keep his shorts on though, for reasons of hygiene and decency that only apply to him. That is no way to represent people, or to make them terribly interested in being represented. It is one step up from bikers kicking the crap out each other...the US system...but it's a baby step at best.

Because it won't stop there, Blue. That has to do with NAFTA and greed and kickbacks and thuggery. The Hell's Angels could learn a thing or two from corporate medicine. Live and learn, child. Don't do it at my expense though...I've already seen how organised crime works, I don't need the medical system shaking me down to prove the point. What is really being suggested by the Conservative/Alliance/Reform is an American system. Study after study has shown that to be more expensive than ours. Less fair too, but just concentrate on personal greed for now. It costs more. You have to pay. If we were to properly fund our system it would still be cheaper than then the US system. Mincing words would be silly at this point. We can find an alternative, but we won't find one if we keep looking at the US system. It's a system designed for greed-hogs...those who put money before people. That is not the way I see Canada.

...and Ontario suffered deeply because they went for Harris.

No, it matters whether I need what my wife buys on the credit card. If she buys dog food, that's one thing. If she buys cat toys, that's another. One is to sustain one class in my house, the other is to please the pampered class. The Conservatives and Liberals, judging by what they've said and done since I've been looking around, prefer buying cat toys. They like the purring that it brings. I sit in my back yard with the dogs and howl....

I prefer that things should be walked. Haste makes dead bodies in the ditch, after all.

More frightening is that those who wanted regime change in Iraq are so willing to kneel in front of George Bush. The man clearly doesn't swing that way, Stevie...it's time to stand up.

The unsigned editorials are the view of the editorial board of a publication. A balanced paper will publish opinion pieces that support and counter the editorial board's viewpoint. If you want a good example of what the op-ed pages should look like, pick up a Winnipeg Free Press for a few days. It is, editorially, a pretty conservative paper. If you read the opinion pieces (the signed bits) in the same paper you will find that it shifts left, right and centre. Yes they should. Our policies affect them and theirs affect us. They, and their citizens, cannot vote in our election but they should be able to scream from the roof-tops, just like we scream from ours when they have an election. Everything is "just politics." Politics have a very real effect on all of us though.

That's actually something I respect about a lot of "right wing" fringe parties. Hell, I have a lot of respect for Pat Buchanan even though I've never agreed with a single word that sprang from his mouth. He actually speaks what he believes (Nixon speech-writing time notwithstanding). There are a lot of people I don't agree with, and I'll argue my point to the death with them. There aren't a lot of people I actually trust though...that I believe that they believe what they are saying, or even care about it enough to realise what they are saying.

Okay, first let me say that I find the Christian Heritage Party a bad idea. That's being extremely censorous of myself. I find them so repulsive that I'd have to make up words to accurately describe my feelings. Still self-censoring, but I think that gets it across. So what? They are Canadians and they deserve a voice. I have no doubt that if I created a party of Atheist Evolutionists With Odd Ideas they'd be as repulsed as I am at them. Or maybe they already are. Again...so what? The point is that everybody deserves a voice. If they aren't allowed a voice how can I yell at them? How can they yell at me? I hate to harp on the proportional representation thing (no I don't, I love to harp on it) and I'm pretty sure that DAC doesn't read Hunter Thompson books while listening to Bruce Cockburn tunes and drinking mass quantities of beer but the Christian Heritage Party does deserve a say in Canada. They took the time to organise a party, they have a viewpoint, and we claim to be a democracy. Let's have a real good go at it, DAC....Proportional representaion isn't just for the left, you know.

Most of the "unskilled" workers get less than $10.00/hour. I don't know if that's "pretty good money" where you come from, but it wouldn't pay my bills. First of all nobody without skills or experience gets that in the construction industry around here. That's the kind of wage a heavy equipment operator might expect, or a skilled carpenter. Second of all, how long would you survive in an "unskilled" labour job, Argus? I can tell you that if had your ass tied to a shovel on a crew I was running, you'd be in tears by noon of your first day and I've always been generous about time for leaning on shovels. Let me make it clear. I would pay you ten dollars an hour, expect you to know at least enough to know what questions to ask, and if I ever saw you not sweating I'd rip your head off. Friday afternoon there'd be a free beer or two. When I was running my reno business, I was considered a softy because I paid so much and let the guys get away with so much. Tell me again how labourers are just lazy bastards who lean on their shovels and get paid too much. I've been the labourer and the boss. I've worked white collar and blue. I know career civil servants who belong to the union. I was raised by civil servants who were one step above the union, You know who the biggest dog-f**kers are? Men in suits and ties who work for big corporations.

I'd prefer one tier that incorporated the university-biased system we have now with trades and arts. I went out of my way to learn a bit of each, although I thought I was just having fun, not going out of my way, and it wasn't easy. The result is that I can write a sentence (except for the one in the last paragraph ); understand layouts etc, draw a thumbnail sketch that gets my point across (no artistic talent there, sorry); and build a simple house. We don't need a two-tiered system, we need a system that turns out people who can do many things.

Oh...let's start at the bottom. Noelandmero....My grandmother in Saskatchewan got her knee replacement surgery in a couple of weeks. Do others have to wait longer? Yes, my grandfather on the other side waited two years for his hip replacement. Of course he turned it down three times because they kept trying to send him in during harvest or seeding, and his was diagnosed much earlier because he isn't nearly as stubborn as Lucy about going to the doctor. Hey though, let's all spout about how long it took for Ed and never mention Lucy. Michael...Who cares what they get accused of? I've accused Paul Martin of having sexual relations with pigs and he never wrote to say I was wrong. I've accused Stephen Harper of committing consensual sodomy with George Bush, and when Stephen never complained I said that he must have liked it. Stephen has never once contacted me to deny liking it. I think it's time we had something closer to democracy than our present system gives us. I do not think we can rule by having a referendum on everything, although I do think that for major electoral changes a referendum (with clarity, open debate, and maybe a cage match) are needed. The reason I don't like referenda on most things is the same reason I think the Supreme Court should be free to strike down unconstitutional laws. There is a tyranny of the majority problem in any full democracy. We become a lynch mob really easily. The Supreme Court helps to limit that, holding too many referenda supports it. Caesar...I want more fringe parties. I say that as a supporter of the NDP, likely the party that has the most to lose from fringe parties. The reason new parties pop up is that people do not feel represented by the old parties. Just because I do not agree with those people's views does not mean that they do not deserve representation though. Proportional representation gives them some influence, a way to be heard.

I dunno...I've been an off and on member of the NDP for ever. The demographic they most appeal to though...the angry young men (and women) are the most likely to blow off the election though. The Conservatives...the men (and women) who like their Grey Flannel Suits...are more likely to show up. They may not be imaginative or decent, but they are regular. The Liberals. Ah, yes...Canada's "natural" ruling party. They've got the best of both worlds. The worst too. Martinites are still putting on their Grey Flannel Suits every morning. The left of the party is still as dependable as the NDP supporters. The Greens. I don't know what the heck to think about them. A bunch of conservative hippies? Progressive businessmen? Dope-smokin' Republicans? I really don't know, but oxymorons are kind of fun. I see them as a bunch of Joe Clark-tories. I like and respect Joe and I like and respect the Greens. I even encourage people to consider them, but I'm not voting for them. The people I've met who say they are voting Green are pretty solid though...not a lot of soft support for the Greens, but a lot (percentage-wise) of people who will be at the polls.

Is there money riding on this? If there is I'd like to put the...38 cents in my pocket on Kanada Dry as being the closest. I'm not sure what my wife's thoughts are, but she bought beer in cans, so I'm guessing she thinks the Conservatives are going to win. Some friends are coming over on Monday, and a couple of us have a reputation for throwing things at the TV.

I thought you and I would never agree on anything, Stoker, but there you have it. Wanna go on a date sometime? I do like Jian's now dismembered band, and I do think that some musicians make excellent political/social commentators. Ghomeshi isn't Steve Earle though. Other than having the eyes of an Arabian princess and a cool singing ability, he really hasn't got a lot going for him. I will be watching the CBC on Monday though, as well as CTV, Global and CPAC. I'll likely miss as much as I see because they never seem to rotate their commentaries so that we can all see all of them. What usually happens is that you see the talking heads, then see numbers for 45 minutes, then see some more talking heads. There oughtta be a law about that...no two competing segments on competing channels at the same time.

PR has worked fairly well in many European countries, Michael. It forces the parties to work together and try to find solutions instead of playing silly games. It also tends to bring more people out to vote because they feel their vote matters. Even if they are voting for a small party that will not elect more than one or two members, those members will have some sort of a voice. The NDP are not the only party championing it. The Alliance was behind it before they thought they had a shot at winning an election. The Greens support it too and they could well grow in size over the next few years if their European track record is any indication. That's all a matter for a different thread though. This one is about Harper vs.Martin. I don't quite get the good and evil part because they are both evil, but I didn't start the thread. That's my take on it, the first thing I thought of when Martin said that he wouldn't seek government unless he won more seats than Harper was, "He wins either way." The next thing I thought was, "He's likely lying."

If somebody admits to not voting, I try to explain to them how democracy works and when they argue that I usually make fun of them. It doesn't get them out to vote the next time, but they tend not to whine about the government when they are around me.