overthere

Not really. Did we see her or Tyrion at all last episiode?

There is a significant difference or two between Pierre and Justin. Pierre enjoyed a PR holiday because he was the smartest guy in nearly every room. His innate intelligence carried him for a while, until arrogance and wholesale inability to manage a national economy doomed him eventually. Justin is not the smartest guy in many rooms filled with adults, but his charisma factor will carry him less time than Daddy, because in this age of information every boner is exposed in real time. It took a few years for Seniors lack of interest or understanding of the economy to manifest and resonate , it won't be long with his son. And poor Justin does start out with at least a few people wise to his game, while Pierre had to convince taxpayers that he had no clue. Wage and price controls? Wow. In the meantime, we can only hope against hope that Justin does not actually create a recession. Maybe Morneau will develop a spine and clue him in that a balance sheets has, incredibly, two columns and both of them matter. Largest global recession since the Great Depression!!! Did you know that was An Actual Event? lol!!!!

I actually like how they move the plot along without showing us every step of the journey. How could they, with such a complex story?

Maybe if your fisherman got organized and delivered every Commons seat in the region to The Natural Governing Party they'd have some leverage for a better deal. Like the Maritimes. Canada is a country that now features several regions in bitter fights with each other to get their own tax money back from the federal government to pay for programs and services that are provincial responsibilities. Crazy but true. And if you toe the line, you'll get a little more pogey. Get used to it, it is the harsh reality. It is 2016!

Whaaat? My comment there was on this topic "The CBC is trying to create a forum where people will take responsibility for their opinions". They are doing nothing of the sort, and I had no comments about coalitions..... Signed Spartacus.

I thought Gawker was toast after the big lawsuit award? To be sold, at best outcome.

Betsy, have you been to The Creation Museum is Big Valley, Alberta? http://www.bvcsm.com/ It really is a mandatory stop if you are a Creationist or believe in Intelligent Design. I won't say the quality of your arguments here will be improved by the experience, but the quantity of them will rise. I went last year, and they try to cover and refute all the evolutionary evidence in detail. It is not far from Drumheller, with the nearby Royal Tyrell Museum which has an astonishing amount of evolutionary evidence in the form of loads of actual dinosaurs. The Creation Museums founders thought there needed to be another viewpoint presented, just down the road. The small town of Big Valley(a different place from where they hold the giant annual Big Valley country music festival) is also a quite lovely village to just visit. The Creation Museum is situated to nab people heading to or from the Royal Tyrell.

Bubber, would the karmic scales be balanced if they put the mother into the cage with the surviving gorillas? Because the DNA.

They explain nothing of that process and made no mention on air that their poll was nonsense. Nor do they refer to the larger poll that contradicts theirs entirely. It is far more sinister than 'silly', it is an outright lie. But their target audience just laps this dose of turd up, cheerfully. To do so would expose their bias, of course. Nobody at Mother Corp is going to admit to that.

Fact: An expression of support for any industry takes less time than organizing one selfie. Oh wait, another fact: He is officially a 'referee' on this file, by definition a disinterested bystander with no interest in outcome to an the industry which is a major contributor to our trade balance and the actual, current and future health of our national economy. Is that an illusion?

The location of the Olympics in Korea is not an issue. Hockey was very popular in Nagano, Turin and Sochi: all 'not in prime time' locations for the most part. In Alberta during the Sochi Olys they changed the drinking laws temporarily to allow sport bars to open at 3 AM! I watched two games in packed bars in the middle of the night with 'beer and waffle' specials. There is some influecne of course: Korea is not a hockey hotbed. No, what it is about is the money. That means the Chinses Olympic committee will instruct the IOC to make NHL hockey happen for their turn in 2022. The NHL does invest heavily in all Olympics so far: they shut down a lucrative pro league to do it, and risk exhaustion and injury to their very best players. But the IIHF and IOC changed their stance on paying for the pros to attend, and for the NHL it was too much. In fact, the NHL would most certainly have not gone to Sochi, but the Russian players as a group said they were going to their homegrown Olys, not matter what.. And the IIHF ended up paying for insurance and travel, as usual. Nobody but the Canadians care about the World Juniors, which is a shame since it is great hockey. When it is held in Canada, its a raoring finacial success. Anywhere else: the stands are often empty. It isn't carried on TV in the US for the most part. The games are in the middle fo the night in EWurope, so few watch them there. Canada will probably send some kind of halfassed team from juniors, AHL and pros playing for third rate Euro teams. JUst like in the pat, when Canadas 'National Team' went there very four years to embarass themselves mostly. I actually think the NHL really wants to play in the Olympics overall, it is a terrific showcase since all the best players play in the NHL. But as both Bettman and Daly have pointed out, It is a really hard sell to NHL owners to take the NHL on tour, at their own expense.

I see we are in agreement: the Raptors are not contenders at this time. two levels below where the big dogs bark. I wish them well, and they are making plenty of dough while we wait!

No, the CBC is trying to -and will succeed- at creating a form where opinions are tightly moderated and conform to their view. They do it on other platforms, why not online? I expect they'll edit and correct spelling and grammar too, wouldn't want that unanimity of opinion spoiled. Example: try to get on a program like Cross Country Checkup and express a view that is not in line with the CBC view of Liberal support/Harper hate. It is nearly impossible as the radio 'moderators' - the production aides that interview every caller - and filter out nearly every person that has a dissenting opinion. Example: on a recent Power and Politics program, Barton posted a CBC poll that 'showed' 69% of Canadians did not want a referendum on electoral reform. A much larger non-CBC poll at the same time had the desire for a referendum at 70%. The online comments are one of the few things that CBC could not control, and message control is a major part of both what Trudeau and his TV/radio network need to control. Mission accomplished.

Yes, that was my point. You raised the Super Hornets as part of the US Navy. Why? WE have no carriers and no naval fixed wing fighter capacity. Never will, unless Trudeau follows the Chretien model of buying superior surplus naval equipment from the UK.. Do you see a broken carrier purchase on the horizon? Did you mention the US Navy purchase of Super Hornets as a mere irrelevance, or to look foolish in this context. Stop dodging. If the Super Hornets are a stopgap to 2025, why bother at all when it is confirmed that the F18s are good until then, and there is certainly time to assess all aircraft instead of undergoing the idiocy of having two aircraft to support. Or if the Super Hornet is a long term solution, why does it need to be sole sourced? I get you don't want to answer, and why. Embarassing, innit? I get that it is humiliating to see your boy not just making the wrong decision, but making one he does not have to make except to avoid a minor embarassment of not filling one of 200+ election promises. Leaders make hard decisions. Your boy ain't that until he does the right thing here. Then you'll get to puff up and crow about his maturity, but not before. It may be soon, he will have to backtrack.

I hope nobody thinks that was a criticism of Ottawa or Trudeau. Not seeing or hearing from there is a good thing. a really good thing. Having no expectations at all means never being disappointed, right? And every time a Trudeau gets sniffing around the AB economy, major trouble follows. Pipelines anybody? No? Big surprise there.

Good morning John. I am Spartacus.

Yes you are. Allow me to commend you on using your real name Moonlight. Or would you prefer Mr Graham? Do you also play Delta Blues on an old acoustic guitar?

So you approve a sole source contract to buy this aircraft, not as a stopgap while dithering on an actual F18 replacement but as the only aircraft for generations? Ahhh the rampant hypocrisy..... We barely have a navy, they will have no ships in short order and will never have aircraft in any case. Your point is... what? The US military has several fighter aircraft in use and is not shy about buying and developing more. We can afford one. Or maybe it is two now. Three actually. Wait, WTF are we doing? You want us to buy an old aircraft in bulk now that is enaring the end of its life? Isn't that what we have now? Oh, and about that sole source decision by Trudeau........... Very transparent and probably diverse too. Convenient. Sidestep. Political. You admire a man who does not correct an error by doing something right, he sidesteps it by compounding that error and making a political statement rather than a national defence judgement and doing the very thing he promised not to do: sole source a very important national defence acquisition. I admire a man, or more accurately a leader, that makes the hard decision for the right reason, then takes the heat no matter what. That man is not Trudeau, not on this file. You can be sure that our allies, all of them, are now wondering.... what is wrong with this guy? Has he no spine at all?

I am a bit surprised that the IIHF has not done more to get the NHL into the next Olympics. They appear to have a good relationship with the NHL. Obviously the IIHF takes the stance that the World Championships is the premier event for the three years between Olys. The hockey world knows knows that is simply not the case. The Stanley Cup is far better hockey than any World Championship. The NHL Olympic cost is around $10 million for insurance, travel and lodging costs. It seems like peanuts, especially considering it has been paid for every Olympics since the NHL started playing- was it 1996? It seems like peanuts when mens hockey is the premier event at the winter Olys- I know I won't be tuning in to watch much luge or winter biathlon in 2016.

Why do you think the Raptors are contenders? I mean contenders for winning a championship, not winning a weak division. I know they were in the final four, but they come out of a weak division and barely got there. Clearly they are a large step behind OKC and Cleveland, and not close to even being in the conversation with the Warriors. Keeping their current stars, they are still one or two quality starters from stepping up to the Cavaliers shelf. They excelled at milking the whole 'We the North ' blarney for major revenue, but on the court they are still very much a work in progress.

Have you seen the Rogers Sportsnet ads promoting the tournament? If you haven't , you will soon. Rogers has a multi billion future riding on the health of the NHL. We are going to hear about the Leafs -bound Auston Matthews every day now, and as the World Cup approaches it will ramp up to many many times per day. The funniest ads are the ones about teams 'playing for the name on their chests', meaning their national flags. They don't mention the two teams that are invented by the NHL/NHLPA Communications department and have zero national affinity. Usually players -many of them- opt out of these lesser tournaments because they don't get paid and they have no meaning. This one might attract more, but only because the NHLPA will get a big payday. Players also participate in lesser tourneys (World Championships a prime example)because they are basically tryouts for the real deal- the Olympic team which is the best of the best. But this Septemeber tournament is not that, since the NHL is almost certainly not attending the next Winter Games until somebody pays up, and says they are sorry.

Time to scamper down to the credit union and borrow a few billion.

Yet in your mind it does make sense to purchase an aircraft new to DND, one that will require training air and ground crews on a second, then a third brand whenever the govt gathers the balls to simply buy the next generation? Why exactly are we buying an aircraft that is nearly at the end of its service life, to replace an aircraft also at the end of is service life? You won't say it, so I will: to get Trudeau out of the embarassment he personally created by a foolish, uninformed promise during the election. By buying SuperHornets, he can put off the decision to buy f-35s until a few weeks after the 2019 election. You can be certain that the election campaign of 2019 will have far fewer than 200+ promises. It should also feature fewer voters believing the whoppers he does make. Clumsy. Stupid. Expensive. And it will backfire on him.

Since we are assured by non politicians that the F-18s will be OK until 2025......What prevents us from simply going through an open procurement process and replacing them with an aircraft that we want and need? Oh right, Trudeau has promised not to buy the frontrunner for that replacement - the F35. Is there any reason to buy the Superhornets, other than to fulfill a foolhardy election promise?

Is there an estimate on how much borrowed cash the purely politicial decision to buy unnecessary aircraft that nobody wants will cost us? Just round it to the nearest $5 billion or so. Ta.