kimmy

I bet nobody will dispute this one: Alfonso Gagliano needs a fashion makeover from the guys at "Queer Eye for the Corrupt Guy" -k

Well, as an Albertan, I'm quite honored that PM Martin is saving the confidence vote so that it can be part of the royal visit and centennial celebrations. Sure. I think so. The Liberal Party has obviously been victimized by criminal infiltration. Martin has been consistent in attemptng to root it out. Victimized in the same sense that the James Gang was victimized by bank robberies? -k

Perhaps that's what you wish I said. What I actually said was that Mandela could arguably be called a terrorist because he founded a paramilitary group that attacked targets within South Africa: Character counts? That you would so blatantly distort and misrepresent what I wrote is a pretty telling indictment of your own character. -k

I think he was hoping for some rostrums. -k

yah I can tell The Sopranos are an extremely well-known fictional crime family. The similarities between some of the activities seen on the Sopranos program and the activities described in Jean Brault's testimony are obvious and were widely noted by reporters at the time. I recall hearing a national news reporter saying "...like a scene from the Sopranos", and another comparing it to something from the Godfather. I don't recall Italian-Canadians up in arms over those characterizations. Nor do I recall Italian Canadians comparing CTV to the KKK for airing a couple of seasons of The Sopranos. The intention of the parody was obvious, and the comparison would have been equally valid had the fictional crime family been "The Davidsons", "The Dmitriuks," "The Wongs," or any ethnic background you can think of. In short, if Italian-Canadians have a legitimate beef, it's with the producers of The Sopranos program, or with CTV for putting it on Canadian TV, not with a parody which makes reference to said program. To argue otherwise requires logic that is at least as contrived as Inky Mark's claim that Alcock's "gene pool" remark was a reference to Mark's Chinese genetics. And none of this even gets to Volpe's KKK remarks. He went on at length about hoods and cowls. Granted, my knowledge of KKK beliefs and history is not very strong, but was there some kind of KKK persecution of Italians that I don't know about? I thought they picked on Jews and non-whites. -k

I take it very seriously. I take it exactly as seriously as I take the claim that the "Librano$" joke shows a KKK mentality. This is very serious stuff indeed. Most serious. I can hardly contain my seriousness at the seriousity of these charges. I'm not one to joke around with something this serious. -k {seriously.}

That's certainly faint praise. You've seen voter turnout numbers for the past several elections, right? -kimmy

I'd also hope the real Scott Brison would have a better grasp of spelling and grammar. Indeed. A cheesy use of contrived outrage to try to damage one's opponent. Not nearly on a par with Immigration Minister Joe Volpe's response to the "Librano$" incident for contrivance, but at least as contrived as the faux outrage that launched this thread. -kimmy

IMO the true crisis will come if the Liberals are re-elected, even with a minority govt. There are many citizens who will give up on this country completely, people that would find that unimaginable until now.. I agree, but I think the question is what form will this giving up on the country take? For Quebecers, perhaps it will translate into even stronger support for the anti-federalists, but for the rest of the country (outside Ontario, perhaps) it'll more likely just mean further disinterest and cynicism toward this country's institutions. It's debatable whether that's a crisis or just a national embarrassment. -k

... ... -k edit: d'oh.

I'm busy with other things today, but I'll pop in when I get a chance to post some thoughts. I'm sure you're all quivering with anticipation. I just mention this by way of saying that nobody should have a tantrum if I don't respond to their favorite argument right away. I'll get there, eventually, if I feel so inclined. I'll address the Rob Anders comments first. Rob's an idiot, quite obviously. I was tempted to leave it at that but I'll elaborate. Rob Anders was, technically, somewhat correct. My information seems to indicate that communist ideology was indeed a feature of the ANC's early philosophies. And, in response to the government's crackdown on the ANC, Mandela founded the "Umkhonto we Sizwe", or MK, which was an armed, paramilitary group that attacked targets within the country. One can certainly argue that their actions were justified by government oppression, and further justified as a response to the Sharpeville massacre. Morally I have no problem at all with taking up arms in a situation like that. But terrorism sounds like an accurate description, from an objective, technical standpoint. Perhaps it's the moral shading of the term that's uncomfortable here: people we *don't* like are "terrorists", people we *do* like are "freedom-fighters". Uprisings we *don't* like are "revolts" or "insurgencies", uprisings we *do* like are "revolutions". At any rate, what makes Rob Anders in this instance is not that he was wrong, but that he thought it would be a good idea to talk smack about an internationally revered human rights figure. There are other incidents where Rob Anders proves he's an idiot as well, they seem to occur on occasions when he opens his mouth. My research of the incident indicates it occured when John McCallum introduced one of those fuzzy-wuzzy motions to declare Mandela an "honorary Canadian" or something like that. Anders' objection denied the motion a unanimous approval. The motive was to spite the Liberals, after the Liberals had denied the official opposition the chance to participate in a celebration of the Queen's 50th wedding anniversary. Anders was playing tit-for-tat politics; he chose an extremely poor issue to do so. Why didn't the Alliance censure him? well, they did. According to Don Martin and the "vote out Rob Anders" website, he was muzzled by the party. Why didn't they publicly rebuke him? Well, I found a quote from Chuck Strahl criticizing Anders; I'm sure there were others. But mostly, I think it boils down to the same reason Harper was restrained in his comments about Cheryl Gallant during the election. He has to walk a line between giving his MPs the freedom to speak, and the need to present the party in a positive way. Sometimes those goals are at cross-purposes. Why is it that when Rob Anders says something dumb, he's assumed to be voicing the unspoken opinions of the whole party... but when Hedy Fry says something even stupider, she's ... uh, well, ... what was it, again? It couldn't have been that she was just a rogue element or something, because she was a long-standing cabinet minister. Perhaps it was that she was just off her medication or something; Chretien didn't feel her comments were of importance, and if I recall correctly didn't even remove her from Cabinet. -k

Action Jack seems to be better-liked than his party. Or perhaps it's just that he's better liked than Martin and Harper. Either way, it does seem like faint praise... However, I will give Layton his due: he has maintained some sense of decorum this past month or so. He seems mature and patient (something he should have tried during his regrettable English-language leaders' debate performance.) I do think he is doing a good job for his party. I think that in a democratic system that wasn't as fundamentally busted as ours is, Jack and his party would do better. -kimmy

One notes that at the time the last election was called, a Liberal majority seemed like the most likely possibility. as Pateris mentioned, you might want to hold off ordering those party hats. CTV: Good News For Liberals Who Love Bad News Highlights: -Conservatives regain slight national lead over Liberals. -Conservatives regain slight Ontario lead over Liberals. -Martin seen as the most dishonest leader by 63% of Canadians Good News/Bad News for the Liberals in Quebec. Good news: they're back in 2nd in the hearts and minds of Quebecers. Bad news: they're 40 points behind the BQ. Legitimate good news for Jack Layton, who seems to be seen in a negative light by the least number of Canadians among the national party leaders. I've maintained for a couple of weeks that the Liberals regained the lead in the polls because the Conservatives have taken the focus off of the Gomery inquiry by causing all of this election speculation, not because Canadians have changed their feelings about either party. And I think the most likely explanation for this latest poll is that Canadians still haven't changed their feelings toward either party, but have now grown used to (or bored with) the election speculation. -kimmy

I would encourage 'our friends' in Manitoba to undertake absolutely anything to reduce their chronic reliance on the federal teat. Good times in the socialist paradise, at our expense. The have-not provinces are now essentially Manitoba and the Maritimes. Go figure. For sure. I just don't think it would exactly be "progressive." Moving all this coal-burning activity from Ontario to Manitoba would be progress for Ontario, I suppose (in a "Not-in-my-back-yard" sort of way, at least) but for Manitoba, it kind of looks more like the 1870s version of progress than the 2000 version of progress. ("Ok, so maybe we ARE content to be the hewers of wood and drawers of water ...and suppliers of watts... for Central Canada.") -k

As I said earlier this week, I don't think there's been any serious suggestion that they can form a majority without any support in Quebec. I don't see how it would be considered a humiliation to win a minority government; many people in this country, even a year ago, said they could never form a government at all. Whether he'll need a majority, on the other hand, is an interesting question. He could certainly try to do it without forming any formal coalition, as Paul Martin has done for 10 months or so. After the next election there won't really be a lot of incentive for the BQ to cause another federal election, as they'll have flattened the Liberals federally in Quebec; there simply won't be much left for them to win. The Liberals and NDP, I'm sure, would take the country back to the polls as soon as they got the chance, but they'll face the same challenge that Harper is currently dealing with: how to force another election without looking like an opportunist, at a time when people are still annoyed from the last time they went to the polls. So I'm sure that Harper would have some length of time to work with. -k

A gem? Since I assume all you really have to talk about on these 4 points is the Conservatives' position on same-sex marriage, I'd describe this as hyperbole. Suggesting that farmers, or rural Canadians in general, have some kind of privileged access to services that urban Canadians lack is utterly nonsensical. Considering how much of Canada's wealth comes from resources, and how many urban Canadians are employed by resource-related industries that are dependant on Canada's rural areas, I don't think the rest of the argument really flies, either. Coming from a guy who said this: earlier this week, I think you protest this cynicism a bit much. Who wants to repeal seatbelts? Who wants to shut down womens' shelters? Who is calling Nelson Mandella a terrorist? -k

I think its the opposite , i disagree with ideas that could make this country relationship issues even worst. Indeed. I wonder if what Mr McGuinty envisions is a new NEP-- a National Electricity Plan... Although, I doubt the federal government would dare suggest anything that would mess with Quebec's lucrative power export biz. Paul Martin has shown testicles the size of raisins (metaphorically speaking ) when it comes to dealing with the provinces. What I suspect would be more likely would be our friends in Manitoba slap together a bunch of coal-burning generating stations to take advantage of this east-west energy grid. -k

I can't imagine a party leader resigning right after being elected prime minister, minority government or not. -k

If the next election gave Harper a minority government, he should resign? That seems like a rather odd notion. -k

Another reference to an "East-West power grid" in today's news. CTV article on Ontario/Ottawa deal Hokay. So. What's the idea here, anyway? I don't know that us prairie-folk have any particular excess electrical capacity. And in particular I don't know that there's any exceptional "green" electrical generating capacity on the prairies. There are wind-farms, and east of Edmonton there's even a new project that quite literally turns bullshit into electricity, but these sources of green electricity are a drop in the bucket compared to the power needs of the region, let alone what Ontario needs. We're as dependent as fossil fuel as Ontario. Our neighbors in BC, on the other hand, do have loads of green electricity to export. But why would they want to send it east when they're making a killing sending it south? What's the thinking behind the talk of an east-west power grid? -k

Don't forget his hair cut is worse then Donald Trump's! This is just more Eastern spin. It's scientifically impossible to have worse hair than Donald Trump's! :angry: Stephen should probably go back to SuperCuts and ask for his $10 back, though... -k

Alberta has a lot of money. This makes almost anything easier to carry off. Except, seemingly, a sense of perspective. Of course. But that wasn't the question. Look around on the net and you'll find Alberta lefties (like Black Dog) or Klein critics (like takeanumber) charging that Alberta doesn't spend enough on things like education and healthcare, and that Alberta's wealth is just wasted on corporate welfare and so on. I read an article yesterday saying that Alberta students have obtained the best results in Canada in standardized testing (and in fact, Alberta students scored better than any country in the world except Hong Kong.) Ok, so I suppose we could give the Alberta department of education some credit, or we could just say they must have got the results by spending an unfair (relative to other provinces) amount of money. (I don't actually know what the spending per student was, relative to other provinces.) Now, if people who are accusing the government of underspending on education turn around and attribute these excellent results to overspending (relative to other jurisdictions) that's a bit of a logical dilemna, yes? Sometime last year (probably during the health summit) I linked to a Globe % Mail article called "Alberta Doesn't Wear A Black Hat On Healthcare," probably written by Globe health-guy Andre Picard. I tried to find the article just now and couldn't; perhaps it's been recycled or something. Anyway, the theme of the article was that while Canadians tend to think of privatization when they think of Alberta and healthcare, Alberta also leads the country in areas like improved access to homecare, alternative delivery methods, and preventative medicine. While having money helps a lot, I don't think it's the whole story. -k {I've got a Big Rock ale in my left hand and a barbequed buffalo-burger in my right hand. How Albertan is THAT? }

The National Post isn't predicting NDP success in Quebec. The National Post is merely reporting that Jack Layton is predicting NDP success in Quebec. There's a rather fundamental difference between what the article says and what you're claiming it says. Although, I also think defeating the budget would be a big risk. -k {I think the Fingal's Cave overature must have been the Lateralus of its time.}

You have to sacrifice family to succeed in a great many professions. It was never considered that big a deal when it was men who were making the sacrifice. There were many times that I didn't see dad for days at a time because some project was behind schedule or there was some project crisis that needed to be resolved quickly. There were other times when I didn't see him for months because he'd taken a contract in some location and it wasn't appropriate to move the whole family. Perhaps the balance between work and family is not a women's issue, but a society issue. There is a hierarchy at the hospital for a reason. First of all, the doctor has had far more training than the nurse. Secondly, and more importantly, the doctor has been tasked with primary responsibility for the patient's stay. The doctor makes decisions; the doctor bears the blame if things don't work out properly. I audited a medical course last term at the university. Of the students in the class, fully half were female. While there were no black students in the course, I did notice that of the female students, a disproportionate amount were Asian. By disproportionate, I do not mean "too many Asians". I mean that in a typical day in Edmonton, I would guess that perhaps 1 in 4 people I meet are Asian; in this class, fully half of the female students were Asian. I'd suggest that either minority women are doing quite well, or white women are doing rather poorly. I notice that your writings often make mention of black people, RB, but almost never mention Asians, who make up a much larger portion of Canada's populace than black people. It makes me wonder if you're using American sources for your data. -k

I guess somebody had to pick up the conspiracy slack when mapleleaf got banned. (banned? or was this "banning" just a cover for something more sinister? ) -konspiracy kimmy {I know a guy who knows a guy... no names...}