kimmy

That's it in a nutshell. Pure grandstanding, just like McCain. -k

So what you're really saying is that black people are good at basketball? How do you sleep at night, you despicable bigot?! -k

Man, I misread the title and was thinking "most of these kids are way too pale to be Obama's kids." At the risk of infuriating both "the left" and "the right", this reminds me of the Jesus Camp movie. The video's creator explains: Obama is not a Presidential candidate, Obama is a state of being where we embrace our shared experiences and grow our mutual self interests into a collective whole that touches all of our hopes and aspirations and gives voice to that inner being that yearns to cry out "Yes! We are all Americans!" (except for those of us who are Canadian, obviously.) Obama is not a Senator, Obama is a world view where we are all singing children with the audacity to call out across this great great playground to greet each and every one who would like to come play with us and share our toys. Obama is not partisan politics, Obama is a spiritual awakening that gives each and every one of us the courage to literally become change and transform ourselves into the transmogrifying agent that will redefine ourselves and our country and our world into a place of hope and dreams for everyone. And Slim Shady, if you can't feel that spiritual awakening, if you can't see that world view, if you can't reach that state of being, it's probably because you're just a hard-hearted, bitter white-person who is just afraid to get onboard the love train with people who are differently colored than you. -k

The obvious Obama laughs would probably be at the expense of his scrawny physique. His tiny pipe-cleaner arms, his head bobbing about, barely supported by a tiny stick frame, "like an orange on a toothpick", as Mike Myers once said in a movie. Obama makes Stephane Dion look like Arnold Schwarzenegger by comparison. Americans may soon elect a president who doesn't look like he's ever lifted anything heavier than his microphone or his iPod, a president who looks like he will need the power of prayer to help him reach home base when he throws out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game. When the Obama family rearranges the furniture in the White House, will it be Barack saying "A little to the left, honey" as Michelle does the lifting? One can only wonder. Barack Obama shatters many racial stereotypes; the hardest hit will probably be the stereotype that black people are athletic. (No, BC Chick, that wasn't racist. It was certainly sexist. But not racist.) -k aw, @#$&*, apparently it is racist after all. ^##$@*!@

I don't agree. The polls, from the time of the Liberal convention even up to not that long ago never showed that the Liberals were not so far behind. The Conservatives had maintained a bit of a lead since the last election if I recall correctly... but never a lead that suggested the public had either fully embraced the Conservatives or fully rejected the Liberals. The Liberals were never so far out of it that a good campaign and a good platform couldn't have turned things around. I believe that the past couple of elections, for instance, have had major polling swings from the Liberals to the Conservatives during the course of the campaign. The Conservatives have been better at it in the past couple of elections, but they're hardly some juggernaut. The problem for the Liberals isn't that the Conservatives have transformed into some kind of unstoppable election-winning machine, the problem for the Liberals is that the Liberals brought a knife to a gunfight (or a pop-gun to a knife-fight, or something along those lines). Having a platform that Canadians would buy into would have given the Liberals a fighting chance. Having a leader who could go in front of Canadians and communicate and persuade would have given the Liberals a fighting chance. Both of those problems relate directly to the choice of Dion as leader. Not to the damage to the party brand that occurred during the final months of the Chretien era. Not to the Conservatives being any kind of powerhouse. The collapse of party fiancing in the wake of the sponsorship scandal plays a role, and probably the loss of key backroom people due to infighting plays a role, but those are also problems that would have been helped by the choice of a better leader. The Liberals problems trace in large measure to the inexplicable choice of The Absent Minded Professor to carry their banner. ... I think everybody who has been here for a while knows that I am an enthusiastic Harper supporter. At the risk of sounding like a raving kook, I will say that what Harper has accomplished since becoming CPC leader has saved federal politics in Canada. I think that forging the remains of the PC party and the regional phenomenon of the Reform party into a genuinely credible national alternative to the Liberals was something federal politics (and federalism) in this country desperately needed, and Harper's victory in the 2006 election was the cap-stone on that achievement, the moment that people will look back on and say "yes, federalism in Canada was functional again." I think that without a true national alternative to the Liberals, regionalism and discontent in this country would have fissured this country beyond repair. I think Stephen Harper saved this frickin' country, to put it bluntly. That said, my view of the first 33 months of the Harper era has been only luke-warm. There are lots of areas where I don't think the results lived up to the talk. I think they've done ok, I'd certainly give them a passing grade, but I don't think they've been exactly overwhelming. I think they could have been better in many respects. What I'm getting at is that if somebody who supports Harper as enthusiastically as I do can only say luke-warm things about the first term of his government, I am sure that people who have lower opinions of the man might be much less charitable in their assessment of his government. (I suppose the corollary is that while somebody like me who had high expectations for Harper might be a little less than thrilled with the government's performance, those who had lower expectations may have been pleasantly surprised.) (hmm.) I guess that's a strong possibility. However, in the last election we saw swing voters swing away from Harper in the final days of the election. I would not be surprised to once again see some Conservative support slip away in the final days as I still have a hunch that voters in "battleground" ridings are still not completely sold on Harper or the Conservatives. -k

The current NDP ads contrast Jack Layton directly with Stephen Harper. "That's their idea of strong, this is our idea of strong," is the message. "The new strong takes care of families, not corporations," etc. I think they're excellent ads. A lot of people might not agree with NDP policy, but I think most people think Jack Layton is sincere and firm in his convictions, and yes, strong. Could anybody imagine the Liberals trying the same thing with Stephane Dion? For months we've been hearing that "once the campaign starts and Dion has a chance to get out there in front of Canadians, they'll like him. When people get to know him, they'll like him." Now that the campaign is approaching its final 2 weeks, the "once people get to know him, they'll like him" theory is going over so well that his wife is now hitting the trail to assure Canadians that he's a strong leader. I'm sorry, Liberal supporters, but no sale. Pick somebody else and get back to us in a couple of years. You're not familiar with Oleg's work, I gather. -k

Nice find. I guess somebody at the network read Mr Carlin's report after all. I am amused to note that the infamous piece has finally been removed from CBC.ca... do you think Heather Mallick still feels as smug and clever about her little column as she did a couple of weeks ago? Cruikshank: "We failed you in this case. And as a result we have put new editing procedures in place to insure that in the future, work that is not appropriate for our platforms, will not appear." Translation: "We have put editing procedures in place to insure that in the future, the editors actually read what goes on the site." Cruikshank: "Ombudsman Carlin makes another significant observation in his response to complainants: when it does choose to print opinion, CBCNews.ca displays a very narrow range on its pages. In this, Carlin is also correct. This, too, is being immediately addressed." Translation: "We are worried that Mr Harper might win a majority government. Very, very worried." Cruikshank: "CBCNews.ca will soon expand the diversity of voices and opinions and be home to a diverse group of writers with many perspectives. In this, we will better reflect the depth and texture of this country." Translation: "Frankly, I'm tired of hearing Rex Murphy reminisce about his fucking Studebaker too." It will be interesting to see what actually comes of this, what diverse voices they actually bring onboard. -k

I think oil prices made a boom in Saskatchewan an inevitability. What I wonder at is why Saskatchewan is so far behind Alberta when it comes to developing this industry. Saskatchewan has significant conventional oil reserves of its own, yet the province was for years one of the poorer provinces while Alberta cashed in on its natural resources. If I understand correctly, Saskatchewan's oil industry remains largely serviced by Alberta companies. And Saskatchewan has its own massive tar-sands resources as well, yet they're only starting to get the ball rolling. Why did it take so long? For decades people left Saskatchewan to work in other provinces because there wasn't any opportunity at home. Maybe the province wouldn't have lost whole generations of its young people if the governments had been able to put some kind of sensible strategy together far sooner. -k

Indeed! When people complain about the quality of current day TV, it seems like inevitably the next thing out of their mouth is something about "reality show crap". However, I think that the rise of "reality show crap" has come mostly at the expense of sit-coms, not anything worthwhile. When I was young, it seems like the TV schedule was full of sit-coms, and now there are hardly any. I think networks have mostly just replaced old junk (sit-coms) with new junk (reality shows). Argus and I had a huge brawl over this a few years back and it's still interesting to visit that thread to see what I thought at the time. I pretty much still feel the way I did back then. There's been some brilliant programs on TV in recent years. And people tend to romanticize the past (which is a diplomatic way of saying that they remember a handful of good shows and forget how much crap was on TV when they were younger.) I think Boomtown remains the network TV show that I found the most brilliantly written. Recently the show that I've found most fascinating has been Dexter. It is apparently a cable network show, but made it to CBS as a fill-in during the writers' strike; I was so enchanted that I went and obtained the whole first season from ... unscrupulous sources. The title character is a homicidal psychopath who, out of loyalty to his adoptive father, confines his violent urges to exacting vigilante justice on other killers. At first it just seems like a wickedly funny and grim show having some fun with a gory premise, but as the series advances, it evolves into a great character study. Dexter, having barely any human emotion himself, gets through his day to day existence by essentially faking everything; each episode is full of his observations about people in general, what he has to do to try and act like everybody else, and the futility or stupidity or comedy of it all. Dexter's inability to really connect with anybody, his fake relationship with his emotionally damaged girlfriend, his relationship with his sister and his co-workers, and his increasing belief that the serial-killer he's stalking is the only person on earth he has any real connection with, it all provides this interesting perspective about human connection through the lens of this character who is fundamentally disconnected from everyone. Watching this almost inhuman monster stumble through his life trying to understand humans and normal daily life has (as strange as it sounds) given me many moments where I felt like I completely related. -k

I don't think you'll convince people that mandatory drug testing in certain occupations is a discriminatory practice. It is in the public interest that people in safety-critical occupations be deterred from drug use. However, if other means of drug testing would provide equally valid results, then I see no reason why they should be stuck on the idea of urine samples. Perhaps there is something to this. -k

That makes more sense. CBC probably has a more left-leaning audience than the country as a whole, which would be reflected in the viewer calls and emails. Does the CBC tend to have more left leaning hosts because they have left leaning viewers? Or do they have more left-leaning viewers because they have left leaning hosts? It's a chicken or egg question. As I've moved from Edmonton to a much smaller community, my choice of media is a lot more limited and I find myself listening to CBC Radio 1 a lot. Last week I found myself listening to Anna Maria Tremonti's show as she breathlessly explored the possibility that a new Youtube video might sink the Conservatives' chances in Quebec. It reminded me of August's long-ago comment that the CBC fails not because they put someone like Anna Maria Tremonti on the air, but because they provide no countering voice. If one looked for small-c conservatives on the CBC's roster of opinionists, who is there? Rex Murphy, perhaps? Rex shows up every once in a while with some uproarious anecdotes about the time his Studebaker broke down while trying to get to the Diefenbaker speech; I suppose he might be considered a small-c conservative voice. I dunno. -k

I'm not actually aware of the "Canada Votes" program. CBC has a "Canada Votes" section on their website, which seems to have a wide variety of news and resources available. Is this a TV program you're referring to? Is it a series or a one-off? Is the whole series western-focused, or just an episode that you saw? I kind of wish I'd seen that, because I've never actually heard of anybody accusing CBC of doing anything that was too western-focused (other than "The Beachcombers" and "Little Mosque...") CBC western-centric news programming? Neat! I'd like to see it just for the novelty value. My impression of CBC election reportage as pertains to regions is more or less a Toronto studio with a Toronto host talking to three Montreal academics and journalists, and three more Toronto academics and journalists about "the Quebec question" ad nauseum, while Roger Gibbins (reprising his role as Token West Of The Great Lakes Guy) sits at the far end of the desk catching up on some light reading. At some point late in the show the host mentions the electoral map, points out that the west has once again crapped on the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, and asks Roger "Why have western Canadians tuned out the traditional parties to such an extent?" and Roger says "Well, I think that there are several factors in that, Peter, and--" and they get interrupted by breaking news and go live to a speech from Montreal and go back to talking about "the Quebec Question" for the rest of the night. I mean, that was pretty much every election night wrap-up show from the time I actually knew what an election was right up to a couple of years ago. I don't know that it was Roger Gibbins each time or if they had other Token West Of The Great Lakes Guys, but overall that's the way I'll always remember election coverage gone by. -k

News content has different standards than editorial content. Mr Carlin discusses that in his review of complaints regarding Neil MacDonald report repeating the Sarah Palin pregnancy rumors. I think ombudsman Carlin drops the ball on this one a bit. He defends MacDonald's mention of the rumor because the rumor was still circulating at the convention. However, the rumor had been completely debunked 2 days earlier, which MacDonald's report utterly failed to note. Carlin mentions that MacDonald had submitted several reports which had a more general theme, but the editorial staff at the National selected the one that aired because they wanted to focus on the pregnancy rumor. So again, one wonders at the mentality of the people making the decisions at Mothercorp as well as at the reporter himself. -k

I am not surprised, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or let it pass without comment. Are you as accepting when people insist on mentioning Obama's middle name, for example? There has been some extraordinarily stupid stuff that has been said of Palin that simply would not have been said of a male candidate. Re-read Heather Mallick's "viewpoint" piece, if you're not convinced of that already. And while you're re-reading it, note this piece of wisdom: "But do they not know that women have been trained to resent other women and that they only learn to suppress this by constantly berating themselves and reading columns like this one? I'm a feminist who understands that women can nurse terrible and delicate woman hatred." She notes how petty and stupid women can be toward other women, then immediately proceeds to write an entire editorial proving how petty and stupid women can be toward other women. Tomato, tomahtah. "Have it all" and "succeed despite children" mean the same thing. I can only assume the latter carries some connotation you object to. Support for abortion access is a great bellweather for someone's beliefs, except in situations where it's not. So you're really just saying you can extrapolate things about people from their position on abortion access? Which is really not much different from August thinking he can extrapolate things about people from their position on nanny-state programs. -k

I'm confused about what you're saying. What in the report do you feel is "right about many other CBC programs"? That they fail to present a broad range of viewpoints? -k

While I am sure many people are not happy about mandatory urine tests, there are often legitimate reasons for them. What occupation are you in, Craiger, that you are required to provide urine samples? -k

Nice find, Riverwind! The ombudsman's analysis is very fair, and backs up what some of us here have been saying. This portion... ...is something August has been saying for years about the CBC. This part... ...supports my earlier comment that the real fault was with the editor who put Ms Mallick's piece on the CBC website. However, Mr Carlin is off-base in his suggestion that Ms Mallick could re-submit her piece to comply with their editorial standards. Why would she resubmit it, when her article remains on their website, unaltered from its original form? There's nothing on the article's webpage indicating that the article was found to not comply with CBC's standards, no link to the ombudsman's report, not even an acknowledgment of the complaints against it. In short, good work, Mr Carlin... too bad your boss doesn't care. If an ombudsman's report falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? -k

A face? That's really a really arbitrary way to make this distinction. One could argue that insects have faces while an octopus doesn't. Yet, the octopus is the one that is highly intelligent and far more deserving of our sympathy. I think most people who are pro-life (and pro-choice for that matter) view human life differently from animal life. I think experience is somewhat overhyped, as pertains to McCain, Obama, and Palin. Perhaps being young and Canadian, I think of Stephen Harper as an example of why experience is overrated. Before becoming Prime Minister, Harper had never been in charge of anything except for the "National Citizens Coalition", a lobby group. He had been in parliament briefly as a back-bencher, and the remainder of his political experience was a back-room policy-analyst. Yet he's been a very capable leader. Of course, Harper is a very smart guy who spent a lot of time studying issues before stepping out in front of a podium. So Obama (and not Palin) is the inexperienced politician I'd liken to Harper in that respect. -k

That one isn't Palin Derangement, that's just plain Derangement. Ok, this one sounds like Palin Derangement. Quickly! Call the Moose-Boat Veterans For Jews! -k

The argument that since miscarriages are statistically quite common, abortion is not inherently wrong? That's about as sensible as saying that since old people have a fairly significant chance of dying soon, killing 'em isn't really that big a deal. -k

Political correctness is when you've got a black boxer and a white boxer in the ring, and the commentator is differentiating them by the color of their trunks. Political correctness is when Crimestoppers tells you that Tran Ho Nguyen is 5'10, 170 pounds, has dark hair and was last scene wearing a leather jacket. Making a vicious attack on someone because she holds a particular view, that's an attack on everybody who holds the view, which is in this instance a significant portion of the population. It's being belligerent to a point that merits inclusion in a thread on "derangement." Imagine how mad you'd be if this came from Ezra Levant and was directed at swarthy folk, and that's about how I feel about this. White? I suppose the argument is that since she's white (and presumably, being attractive helps) she was able to succeed despite children, while a woman who is black (or perhaps a fat or unattractive woman) would be less able to? It's a great bellweather! For example, in India abortion is wildly popular, demonstrating that the country has such a strong feminist tradition! "A few hundred rupees now could save you thousands of rupees later!" One can only envy the women of India and all the ladder-climbing they'll be doing. (low blow? whatever. you deserved it.) Statistically, there might be some amount of correlation between support for abortion access, and (for example) support for employment quotas or support for equal pay for equal work legislation. Who shivs a git? A "bellweather" is only relevant if you're trying to predict the behaviors of statistically significant groups of people, and I can't imagine why that would be relevant to anything being discussed in this thread. -k

I'm not sure about the War Room, and I'm not sure how often the phone rings, but the part about living on phone-in pizza and hanging around in his jammies sounds believable. -k

I keep making mention of that choice of words because it captures the vitriol of the authors' remarks. What the authors (of the quotes I referenced back in post #47 were expressing was not simply a disagreement with Palin's political opinions. And they were not expressing a sincere belief that she might actually be a dude in drag. They were expressing a sense of betrayal, and of scorn and contempt for a woman that doesn't share their political agenda. This is what piqued my attention. This was not a couple of women advancing a feminist view of Palin's merits, this was Johnny Cochrane calling Christopher Darden "Uncle Tom". And while you'd like to brush off those comments as a "poor choice of words", I am not as forgiving. Because it wasn't a poor choice of words: they said what they meant to say. And you're too smart to have thought I was being literal-minded in repeating their "not a woman" comment, so why don't you take your accusation of pedantry and go drive into a wall. (I leave it to you to decide whether to interpret that figuratively or literally.) Are things really so tough out there that a commercial fisherman and a sports reporter are now considered "people of privilege"? I mean, this is where they were at at the point in time when they began raising their children, yes? Her parents are schoolteachers, right? His family are also fishermen? This is the Alaska version of the Hearst family or something? What exactly does "privilege" mean in this context, anyway? Is a woman who has a stable marriage to a guy with a regular job "privileged" for purposes of this discussion? I certainly do. However, I'm perplexed at the idea that abortion access is the sole "women's issue" of note, or that for most women it's anywhere near the most pressing issue facing them. It borders on monomania. I was hoping to illustrate that your litmus test kind of sucks. Well, I am happy that your friends are happy. Personally, I haven't conducted research into the subject. I don't presume to know how most, or many, or some, or even a few women who've had abortions felt afterward. I saw a CBC (?) news feature on it at one point or another, in which those interviewed explained that it was a decision they didn't make lightly and weren't certain of either before or afterward. Beyond that, I don't know anything beyond how I'd feel if faced with that decision. -k

"We" don't decide that. But she should certainly have the option of choosing to save her own life. I can't think of any situation where a person is expected, obliged, or required to risk grievous harm or death to assist another. For the benefit of those joining us late, I'll fire up the WABAC machine and transport us back to the thrilling days of earlier this week: Simple as that, indeed. -k

50% or 80%, the point remains the same. Well, what you said was: "The dead skin cells that wash off or flake off every day are human life too if we use the rules of absolute antiabortion proponents, who want to give a fertilized egg or an embryo the same legal recognition as a baby or an adult person, for that matter." But you're obviously someone whose done his homework on the subject, and you understand that there are very substantial differences between a zygote and some random skin cells, and I'm sure you're well aware that these differences are at the heart of the discussion. I'm sure it's not a picnic, but clearly the analogy of being imprisoned in a hospital while providing life-support by IV to this comatose person fails. It's not a prison sentence, it's an inconvenience. A significant inconvenience in later stages, perhaps, but most women are able to live normal and active lives right up to the final days of their pregnancy. Someone who believes that a fetus is a human life would reply that 2 crimes will occur regardless of the outcome, and that the greater crime would be terminating an innocent human life. If one is committed to the belief that a fetus is a human life, then one is committed to the belief that terminating it is immoral. Arguments about whether it's her "fault" that she got pregnant are irrelevant. "It's her fault she got pregnant" is a lousy reason to make anyone carry a pregnancy to term whatever the circumstances of conception. We allow people to correct mistakes under almost every circumstance. If somebody makes a mistake while skiing, we don't tell them "yeah well it's your fault" and make them spend the rest of their life with a wrecked knee. If somebody shows up at an emergency room with a stomach full of toxic chemicals, we pump their stomach whether it was an accidental poisoning or an ill-advised attempt to get high. We don't make that distinction in any other medical situation, so why should it be a consideration as regards abortion? It shouldn't. It's a ridiculous distinction to make. I would be all in favor of abortions in whatever situation a woman wants, any situation at all, whenever she feels like it, as surely as she has the right to get a wart frozen or a tattoo removed. Except that I can't convince myself that a fetus isn't a human life. BTW, next time you get into an argument over abortion, this is something you should press them on. You'll quickly find out whether they have the courage of their convictions. It seems to me that once somebody goes down the path of saying it's ok if it wasn't the woman's fault she's pregnant, they've opened a huge hole in their logic that you can easily tear apart the rest of their argument. -k