kimmy

Absolutely agreed. Palin is overwhelmingly considered to be a poor choice... among people who are already enthusiastic Obama supporters. Whoever he chose, would have been absolutely the wrong choice. His VP candidate would be either too white to add to the already overwhelming whitey-whiteness of McCain's whiteness, or a token minority and pathetic attempt to placate non-white voters. His choice would be either Yet Another Middle-Aged Man, or a cynical grab for female voters who supported Hilary. His choice would be either a complete unknown or somebody tainted by their political history. His choice would be either too Northeast, Too South, Too Texas, Too California, Too Midwest, or apparently in Palin's case, Too Nowhere. Either too old or too inexperienced. Either completely inexperienced, or part of the Political Insider Culture That Obama Is Fighting To Change ™. If McCain had chosen a mysterious person of indeterminate age, gender, and ethnic background, it would have been dismissed as too nothing, but if he'd chosen anyone else, they'd have been dismissed as too something. There is absolutely no candidate on earth who the Obama enthusiasts would not have considered a poor choice. I can't buy the idea that this choice hurts McCain. It's dubious whether it helps him any, but I doubt there were any alternatives that would have helped much either. I doubt there's many people out there who were seriously considering supporting McCain if he'd picked (for example) Mitt Romney, but are going to support Obama now. She will certainly be a popular choice among conservatives. Will she be a popular choice among women? Not necessarily. But despite what Obama enthusiasts say, it's not a given that Hilary supporters will scoff at Palin and support Obama. I heard during CBC coverage of the convention last week that as many as 40% of Hilary supporters might be leaning towards McCain, and that was before any mention of Sarah Palin as VP candidate. Personally, I can tell you that while I don't care for Hilary Clinton, I found the idea of a woman winning the top job in the world to be kind of exciting. (just as I suspect that for many non-white people, the idea of a non-white man becoming POTUSA is an exciting idea even if they don't agree with a lot of Obama's ideas.) As much as we're admonished to not get caught up in "identity politics" as it has become known, there is a human instinct to identify with people who are like us, and to want to see them succeed. Obama supporters will have to treat Palin with the utmost respect. Nearly half of his own party wanted Hilary to win, and among that contingent his standing is not super solid to begin with. If the Obama camp is smart, they won't give Hilary supporters any reason to remember that they wanted a woman to win in the first place. -k

I think one of the most amazing aircraft ever is the XB70 Valkyrie. It was conceived during the height of the cold war, as a means of delivering a very large amount of nuclear destruction, extremely quickly. It was a ghastly mission, of course, and one that was rendered obsolete by the arrival of the ICBM. Nonetheless, the Valkyrie is an astounding feat of engineering, particularly that the design was begun over 50 years ago and that the prototypes were in the air during the early 1960s. It was as large as a B-52, yet had a top speed of over Mach 3, faster than any jet fighter that's in active duty today. Although the project ceased to be of military value during the early 1960s, it continued on as a testbed for aeronautics research for several years afterward. Two prototypes were built. The first one survives and is in an aviation museum. The second one incorporated design and manufacturing lessons learned from the first, and achieved the Mach 3 goal set for the project. Tragically, the second prototype was destroyed in a mid-air collision, when its tail was clipped by an F-104 sucked into its wake during a formation flight for a photo-op. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz-b05dQ430 It is still an amazing feat of engineering, and so pretty. It is also apparently the loudest aircraft ever. -k

I don't particularly care for beauty pageants either, but the competitors tend to be extraordinarily confident, highly poised, and very ambitious. These are traits that make for highly successful people in our society (Palin is probably an excellent example.) Dismissing someone whose background includes an activity that tends to select traits that make people highly successful strikes me as being somewhat counterintuitive. I am continually amazed that you're able to operate a computer. -k

I have no interest in debating her merits as a potential Vice President. I don't know, don't care, don't think she'll win, and wouldn't support her if I had the chance. That's completely beside the point I was making. Re-read the Stephen Best's posts in this thread. While to some people it might be an interesting aside that she competed in the Miss Alaska pageant in 1984, Stephen is so taken with that tidbit that he mentions it in each of his first 3 posts in this thread, seizing on it as a means of ridiculing Palin. I reiterate: Now, Stephen obviously fancies himself some kind of "progressive"... but does that seem very progressive to you? If a man who'd competed in sports when he was 20 ran for office, would the idea that "Jock seeks public office" be hilariously funny? Of course not. People think athletes have character and admire competitive drive. People also tend to assume that a man has amassed considerable life-experience between the time he's 20 and the time he's 44. When a 44 year old man sets out to do something, I don't think people view him in the context of being what he was when he was 20. So why is Sarah Palin still "Miss Congeniality"? And she was apparently also a student leader and a standout athlete when she was in highschool, so if we're defining people by what they were when they used to be, then is Palin "Miss Congeniality" and not "captain of the basketball team" or "Christian-club president"? To summarize, Argus, I don't care much about Sarah Palin, but I care a lot about the terms in which she's being discussed, and I find it pathetic. -k

I think this begs the question "what kind of idiot would you have to be to trust anything Alex Jones says"? -k

I love how "progressives" are completely opposed to sexism ...unless it's directed against someone whose political views they oppose. Dubbing her "Miss Congeniality", mentioning repeatedly that she competed in a beauty pageant 25 years ago, suggesting that McCain picked her because he thinks she's hot and that Mrs McCain should be jealous... this kind of stuff lumps you in with the "progressives" who mounted sexist attacks against Belinda Stronach when she announced she was entering the Conservative leadership race. Hey, Steve, women might not support Sarah Palin yet, but if you "progressives" keep up this kind of crap, women will support her before long. -k

When details of this shocking event first started trickling through on the news, someone who had heard the killer had a shaved head started speculating that the victim may have been black and the killer may have been a nazi skinhead. When the erroneous report that the victim was aboriginal came about, there was more speculation that this was a hate crime (see Topaz earlier in the thread.) Now that it is known that the victim was just a white guy, and the killer was a Chinese immigrant, I suspect I wouldn't have to look far to find the same sorts of people saying that Li was pushed to violence by racism. (The suggestion that he was pushed to violence because he couldn't get a good job in Canada is awfully close to rationalizing Li's actions as a response to racism, I would say.) And on the other side of the spectrum, people seizing on the murder of Tim McLean to support their anti-immigrant views. And now the Phelps family claiming that Li was expressing God's anger at Canada's moral corruption. What a bunch of nonsense. I wonder if R.E.A.L. Women will claim that Li's rampage was triggered by an abortion? -k

Hi guys! Thanks for remembering me. Of all the things I've written on message boards, the message August quoted was probably the message of which I'm most proud (or at least, the one which was the least wasteful use of time ) so I am glad that people liked it. I haven't been around for a while. I have been working extremely long hours and have a lot going on in my life right now. And, I had gotten tired of a lot of the content of the message boards. There have been a lot of one-note posters who try to make everything about their pet cause, and that's so tedious. And summer is for much better things than politics! But as we approach elections both at home and south of the border, there'll be a lot to talk about and I am sure I will be around a lot more as we head into fall. -kimmy {reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated!}

Susan Riley (of the Ottawa Citizen) was on my radio a few minutes ago. She had completely opposite take on things. She felt the results were a setback for the Liberals and a major disappointment for Dion personally. Rae and Hall-Findlay were undeniably star candidates. Hall-Findlay's unexpectedly strong performance in the Liberal leadership race gave her national recognition... Riley thinks that Hall-Findlay is the strongest female politician Canada has seen since Sheila Copps and Deb Grey left Ottawa (I'm not not sure that is high praise, but nevermind.) Rae, of course, needs no introduction. They are "controversial" only in the sense that they fought for Dion's job. Outside of the two landslides wins by contenders to Dion's job, the Liberals lost one riding they held and squeeked out a 1% victory in a riding that's been Liberal for years and was won by a huge margin in prior elections. Vancouver Quadra the kind of riding that has been automatic for the Liberals before now. The powerful wins by two high-profile candidates don't do anything to endorse the theory that Dion is winning English Canada over. The loss of a prairie seat they held, and particularly the squeaker win in urban Vancouver, strongly suggest that English Canada isn't as excited about Dion as Liberals had hoped. Byelections are often taken as the opportunity to send a complaint to the government in power, but in this case people declined the opportunity and sent the Liberals a big question-mark instead. Susan Riley's view was that yesterday's results will dampen the Liberals' enthusiasm for an election. -k

Maybe they'd be less poor if they quit smoking. Maybe it's just me... but if you're poor to start with, it seems like blowing $100 or more on cigarettes is a pretty stupid way to spend what little money you have. (Is it just me?) -k

I doubt they envision special patrols to go out looking exclusively for people smoking with children in the car. (are there special patrols roving the street looking exclusively for people who don't have their toddlers secured in child-seats?) If an officer does see somebody driving with an unrestrained toddler bouncing around the car, that person probably gets pulled over and gets a ticket. I see no reason why this new law would be enforced any differently. In fact, most of the arguments ("it's unenforceable!" "it's telling people what they can do in their own vehicles!" "next thing you know, they'll be telling people they can't go snowboarding!" "don't the police have better things to do?") are just as applicable to child car seats as to this new rule. -k

Harming your kids is ok provided you do it over a long period and not instantly? -k

I'm not the one who decided that passive smoke is dangerous. The medical community decided that, after extensive research on the topic. Opening the window doesn't work if the car is stopped at traffic lights, or a drive-through lineup. It doesn't work if the car is idling along at 5 km/h in congested traffic. (The pressure differential is a function of the velocity, according to the highly-touted Bernoulli's Principle that I keep hearing so much about.) Opening the window doesn't work if the driver doesn't actually open the window because it's cold or it's raining or they can't hear their cell-phone because of the noise. You see no difference between someone telling you not to do something that affects only yourself compared to someone telling you not to do something that's harmful to your children? How is it that you guys can't argue this issue on it's own? How come you have to make some attempt to conflate it with some other issue, then argue the other issue instead? Denying people health-care coverage based on risky behavior is a slippery slope. Obviously. There is no denying that point. But what on earth has it got to do with telling people they can't engage in behavior that's been proven harmful to their children's health? Ok, so if I know my neighbor is doing something that's harming their kids, I'm a bad person if I try to intervene? -k

I never disagreed that alcohol is frequently a contributor to violence. What I disagreed with is your claim "The only drug that actually leads directly to criminal behaviour happens to be the one the government approves of and sells." Alcohol is NOT the only drug that leads directly to criminal behavior. It's one of many. -k

I feel the same way, but darn it, some of the arguments being put forward in this thread are just too much fun to leave alone. "It'll cause road rage!" "It'll cause diabetes!" "Bernoulli's Principle proves that there's not actually any smoke in the car!" "It's my car and I can do whatever I want in my car!" Not very long ago there was another discussion where for some reason we were discussing the hypothetical case of somebody driving around with unsecured kids in the back of his pickup truck. My thoughts in this situation are a lot like my thoughts on that one: you can't have a cop on every street to enforce it... but if a cop does catch somebody doing that, I'd like the cop to be able to stop the guy, give him a warning or write him up a nice little ticket, and tell him to stop being an asshole. I sometimes find it frustrating that many irresponsible idiots seem to be having children. I sometimes find it frustrating that people want to stand up for their right to be irresponsible idiots regardless of the welfare of the children. If I'm in the parking lot at the shopping mall on a hot day, and I see a car with a baby in a car seat, the windows rolled up, and no parent in sight... what would people suggest I do? -k

If somebody wants to feed their kids asbestos crackers with benzene jelly, should that be a crime? So, if somebody was feeding their kids asbestos crackers with benzene jelly, you'd be ok with that as long as they did it at home? Their place, their rules? The cure is worse than the disease? I'm not sure that asking people to not light up until they've dropped their kids off is worse than lung cancer. If somebody is so stupid that they don't see a problem with smoking with their kids in the car, or if they're so selfish that they can't wait a few minutes out of consideration for their children, then maybe they deserve to be told what to do (or where to go, at the very least.) -k

Being morbidly obese is bad for your own health, but it's not hazardous to people around you, unless you accidentally sit on them. -k

Alcohol is the only drug that leads directly to criminal behavior? That's pretty doubtful. Marijuana and Ecstacy might make people pretty benign and mellow, but some drugs cause users to become agitated, violent, and destructive. Also, people with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome making up a disproportionately high percentage of the prison populace isn't actually an example of alcohol leading directly to criminal behavior. The high incidence of alcohol being a factor in violence and in criminally bad driving is an example of alcohol leading directly to criminal behavior. But again, there's other drugs that often cause people to become violent. And there's other drugs that often cause people to drive erratically too. -k {"Relax, man. If there's one thing I know, it's how to drive when I'm stoned."}

I'm aware of the scientific principle. And yet, smokers' cars still smell like crap. This is empirical evidence that suggests rolling down the window is somewhat less than 100% efficient at removing smoke from the vehicle. -k

Ok... so if just rolling down the window is so effective at removing smoke from moving vehicles... ...why is it that whenever I'm in a smoker's car, it smells like an ashtray? -k {and what happens when the vehicle stops at traffic lights? "I'm sorry I ran the light, officer... but if I stopped, my kid might get sick!"}

So, when I walk past a school and see morbidly obese kids, they're recovering smokers? Maybe instead of gastric bypasses we should just start these lard-balls started on cigarettes. I've never smoked in my life. You'd think I'd be huge by now. Maybe the supposed obesity epidemic has less to do with the decrease in smoking and more to do with people adopting sedentary lifestyles and ramming fast food garbage down their faces instead of eating real food. Being obese causes high cholesterol? Fat people have high cholesterol for the same reason they're fat in the first place: either they eat the wrong stuff, or they're genetically predisposed. Same thing with diabetes. People don't develop diabetes because they got fat. People develop diabetes either because of genetic predisposition, or because of bad eating habits: routinely high blood-sugar levels caused them to produce insulin at sufficient levels that their bodies became resistant to insulin. Smoking causes no long-term health problems until you get terminally ill and die? Wrong again, my wheezing friend. Smoking causes a variety of chronic respiratory ailments, as well as heart problems and high blood pressure. Cancer is caused by many things. Smoking is one of them. Road rage is caused by smokers who can't smoke while they drive? Even though there's not actually any law presently preventing them from smoking while they drive? If even brief withdrawal from this drug causes episodes of berzerk raging, maybe this substance should be prohibited after all. These arguments all fall under the category of correlation vs causation fallacy. That is, just because most crime is committed by people who eat bread is not evidence that eating bread causes crime. -k {Thanks for the chuckle, though.}

I was thinking long term as well, though perhaps not quite as long term as you. To someone my age, a generation seems pretty long term, and I'm having a hard time convincing myself that my generation is as rich as my parents' generation. When my parents were my age, they both had college educations, they owned a home on one income, and already had 2 children. I doubt that many in my generation will be able to say the same. By the standards of their generation, my parents were successful but not to an exceptional degree. By today's standards, my parents were *rich*. I strongly suspect that if one measures the wealth of this generation in real terms against their counterparts of a few decades ago, you'd find that real wealth has declined. -k

Indeed. But the industry tried to sell voters on the idea that the royalty review was bad for the industry, or would cost Calgary jobs, or was a slap in the face of Calgary voters, or variations on that theme. I got the impression that they wanted to create worry that it would be bad for employment in the province, and then realizing that the voting public had zero sympathy for the petroleum industry when they're paying a buck a litre for gasoline while oil companies produce record profits, tried to turn it into a north vs south issue. The results show that neither strategy was successful, obviously. Yesterday's results bear that out. -k

I am not sure about the "more or less rich" part. I would think that people who are "more or less rich" would be able to own homes, but in every major city west of Winnepeg at least, it seems as though the rapid rise of home prices has far outpaced incomes. I would suppose that in small towns, the Maritimes, and probably Ottawa, homes could be purchased for pennies per square foot, but living in a place where there's nowhere to work is as futile as working in a place where there's nowhere to live. -k

What is surprising is the manner of the victory. People had expected that the oil royalties review would hurt the PCs in Calgary (as well as the perception that Stelmach is "not one of their own" as Klein was, perhaps). Instead, the PCs largely held on to Calgary. More unexpected was the PCs taking back the Liberals' foothold in Edmonton. My impression is that the Calgary oilmen were hoping for the PCs to receive a rebuke in the south-- sending some "Wildrose Alliance" members to the legislature would have probably been the hope-- might have caused Stelmach to back off from measures perceived to be unfriendly to the oilpatch. The failure of southern voters to send such a message to Stelmach, combined with the retaking of Edmonton, gives Stelmach a powerful endorsement. -k