overthere

Politically stupid translates as 'having some stones'. The size of a politicians cojones is in inverse proportion to the number of years left until the next election. Christie Clark has at least three years left. Much of the province- those with kids getting screwed out of an education by their teachers, and many of the taxpayers helf to ransom yet again- would be quite pleased with finding somebody in Victoria that owns a spine.

I listed some of those that were major world leaders of fierce opponents of the US. I guess you are more than a little ignorant to of world history if you think all those listed are from the 40s and 50s, when in fact only one- Hirohito- is from that era. Castro led Cuba until a couple of years ago, Chavez in Venezuela until last year, Ho Chi Minh and Brezhnev in the 70s. Mao until 1976. Now get yourself back to Google and find some US Stae Department pronouncemnts that proclaimed all these world leaders insane, as you claiim. Not some eedjit blogger, but official US sources. The irony is it is you that is demonizing the US........

That is just silly. I have never seen anything from official US sources that labels Emperor Hirohito, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Brezhnev, Chavez, Mao or many others as crazy. Please stop inventing goofy theories like this.

The creation and existence of the EU has absolutely nothing to do with the common good of humanity. The benefits of membership in the EU are reserved for members. Why do you permit your hatred of America to warp your perspective so often?

I haven't seen or heard from Mulcair in months. Is he on vacation or something?

All of those arenas sell out every night, with or without the Leafs. The reason there are loud and vocal Leafs fans in attendance when the Leafs visit is that the locals with season tickets are only too happy to sell their $100 ticket for $500. The Leafs themselves are not a draw for locals because they have no star players. Locals don't sell their tickets so much when Crosby or Ovechkin are in town.

That is the central question for the EU now. Until 2008 it was full steam ahead, members were ceding sovereignty slowly but surely, both the Eurozone members and others. The 2008 crisis made it clear that joint monetary policy was not nearly enough to fashion any kind of timely coherent response. The recession could have been mitigated had they been able to act decisively. But few were willing to take marching orders from Brussels(Berlin really), and now the European Parliament elections illustrate the reaction from the street. Far too much is invested by far too many to back away from the EU entirely, so the next couple of years will be a period of laying low and retrenching. As for the Euro, it would be calamituous for the weak sisters like Greece to drop the Euro. You can print all the drachmas you want, but if your credit worthiness is nil they are worth absolutely nothing. It would be equally calamitous for Germany to revert to the mark. They are an exporting country and it is very much in their interest to keep the Euro at a moderate level- not too high, not too low. If they reverted to the mark, all their exports would be instantly unaffordable as the value of their standalone currency soared. Greece is not bankrupt when they still have access to credit- and they do.

One thing for sure: if you are entering a second marriage(common law or actual) and there are children on either or both sides, you better be damned sure you have both a will and a pre nuptial or everybody can end up disenfranchised.

Which three are you referring to? Dickey has absolutely sucked since he arrived, with occasional bursts of average. Hutchison has 23 major league starts and 9 wins in his career, with a 3.99 ERA. He has some time to go before the adjective 'formidable' applies. Baseball is a long long grind and everybody needs to calm down just a little bit.

Easy enough to repeal the law, and get cracking on giving all those kids in BC a future where they can read and write.

Herr Shicklgruber was not insane, just misunderstood. I blame society.

Nope, been saying the same thing from the first post here: industrial societies like ours must have 100% security of energy from reliable sources, plus some redundancy to cover breakdown and maintenance., also from reliable sources. . Adding feed from wind solar etc. is just more reduindncy and expensive. Until those sources can be stored, that won't change. Show me where I said anyhting else or shut your piehole.

Quick was not that great in the Olympics. He and the team did well when facing weak opponents, but when they played the big dogs he more or less folded.

The term used for that relationship in pretty much the entire First World is 'marriage'. You may have heard of it, often called 'common law marriage' also. But here is a revelation: not only does it come with obligations, it comes with legal rights for both parties!!!

Is it OK to like the team but not like Toronto?

What is Hudaks Secret Agenda?

The biggest reason industry has left Ontario is that in a global context it is too expensive to make things there. And the biggest component is labour cost.

Greece has been a gong show for decades. They don't collect taxes. The Greek ecomony would be about equal to Somalia without EU membership and help, help they got before and after their 'crisis'. If they leave the EU, they are instantly bankrupt and in the worst possible way. Monetary policy- really mostly a currency used by some but not all of the EU members, is teeny in impact compared to a joint fiscal policy, which they don't have and won't have now for some time. Nobdoy gives a shit about Greece really, they are a blip and a potential minor embarassment for the EU. Their economy is at best 40th in the world. The countries that the EU worries about are Spain and Italy, much much larger economic players who have some of the same problems as Greece but on a much larger scale. Every international agreement or pact any country enters into entails a loss of sovereignty. NATO, trade agreements, UN membership- and the EU. Some more than others. I thinjk you are confusing moneary and fiscal policy. The Greeks don't toe the line because they want to keep the Euro, or because there is some larger toe the line kind of monetary or fiscal policy forced on them by somebody including the banks and the EU... They do it because they absolutely must have the money and therefore must follow orders from the moneylenders. They'd have to do that from inside or outside the EU, though they almost certainly would not get money if they weren't a member and were backed by some real economies. It wasn't the EU that dforced Greece to piss away their future it was their own incompetence. The only reason they survived at all was not in spite of EU membership, it was because the EU - reluctantly- continued to back them. Would you have lent them a farthing if Bonn was not behind them?

The Rangers are going to have to fight harder than they've had to all season to get close enough to the net for a decent shot.

It is always instructive to know who your enemies are, and it is very kind of public unions to identify themselves like this.

Kings have beaten San Jose, Anaheim and Chicago Rangers have beaten Philly, Pittsburgh and the Habs. It should not be close. The Rangers are more rested and maybe faster. They might look OK early, but the Kings should crush them. If Lundquist is a problem, they'll have a fourth liner skate over top of him. On a related note, the Canucks organization and fans must vomit a litle bit in their mouths every time they see Vigneault celebrating another series win. The Rangers and Nucks swap coaches. The Nucks fire Tortorella (owing him $8 million), fire their GM, their best center wants out, their team is in complete disarray. Their old coach, who wasn't good enough apparently, takes his pretty average team to the Cup final the same year. Yikes.

This is the classic 'Archie Bunker' proposal. At one time aircraft around the world were being routinely hijacked by a wide assortment of idealistic loons. His idea was that everybody who boarded an aircraft would be issued a loaded handgun. They'd be handed back in at the end of the flight. The critical physical factor was that most people know if you start blasting away inside a pressurized aircraft it is fairly likely that there will be a catastrophic failure and everybody dies. The critical psychological factor is that a hijacker has to believe that they are the craziest person on the plane. That is a tough assumption when there are 200, 300, 400 armed strangers on board. How can a villain predict who will or won't start shooting for any or no reason when he jumps up and shouts Allahu Akbar ? It's like the nuclear equation of mutually assured destruction. That has worked for almost 70 ears. Archie Bunker might be right.

There are far fmore guns that go the other way, into Mexico from America. You may have noticed that they have a major war going on there bewteen the govt and various drug cartels. The cartels buy their weapons in the US, using cash generated from drug sales.

No, Greece would be in immediate and desperate trouble if they left the Euro. Their nationalist politicians posture and preen , but in the end they know: their country would be immediately bankrupt, pensions schemes woyuld be bvoid, and they would not be able to borrow a cent from anybody because their credit would be complete crap. You are overestimating the reach of monetary policy. It is not as strong as you make out, several countries in the EU do not use the Euro at all. It is a big problem for the EU, since the recent global financial crisis made clear that joint monetary policy accompanied by random and numerous fiscal policies do not make for a strong joint response. But a common fiscal policy is far more subversive toi individual nations than simply sharing the same currency. Europe did not respond well at all to the globall financial crisis, and they need to sort out common mechanisms to prevent that from happening again. Their own structure limits what they can do. It was an example of the strength of the EU, more than it was illksutrative of weakness. They rest of the EU basically told Greece that if they wanted to survive without major and very real calamity, they'd do what they were told regarding many internal issues. And they did it, after some routine rioting and grumbling. No, not at all from their perspective. It has saved their asses bigtime now both to join the EU and to adopt the Euro. One of the prime reasons for joining the EU(and for many joining the EuroZone too) is that the little fish member states get access to cheap and plentiful credit. It allows them to provide simialr and huge social contracts to their people, similar to those in Northern Europe, rich Europe. And they can do it despite not having anything really in their economies that would warrant having those benefits. In return, the more industrialized North Europe exporting nations have what they need in the South and East: a ready supply of captive customers who have to buy their expensive goods first. There a a few hundred million people in the South and East that are trying desperately to move into the middle class, and the North has all the toasters, cars, TVs and washing machines ready for them to buy. It's a model that still may work for Europe. But right now, they have to sort out the limits on loss of sovereignty, and wait out this backlash.

You'd have probably lost those jobs with any government, really. When the global economy restructures, lots of indstries get affected. It's been going on in earnest since at least the Industrial Revolution. The change in Ontario from an agrarian society to an industrial one was part of a previous cycle. Adapt or die. The furor in Ontario over possible civil service downsizing reminds me a bit of the situation in Alberta 20 years ago. One difference of course is that I don't see any politicians in ON with sufficient spine to both state what they'll do and actually do it.