overthere

Yes, of course military power and the willingness to exercise it are major component of being a superpower. Always. Directly, by proxy or both. That is a false and delusional statement. In large part, we have lost the will and ability to build infrastructure projects that are clearly of benefit to our country, with recetn examples pipelines or LNG plants. In time, these projects would help pay for the social contract we are so distressingly smug about. But only if they get built. It is quite pathetic.

even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

That unions are no different than big business, and are in fact big businesses themselves- with their own agendas to benefit their members. Like I said. Duh.

Yep it is pretty late already to answer a couple of pitching questions. like: 1) who is the closer? and 2) if the Jays did somehow make the playoffs, who would be your ace, the guy who starts the first game? I think they'd have to draw straws and just go random. Their baserunning boners hurt them againstt the Mets. In the meantime, they are pretty entertaining. I doubt that anybody wants to play them- too unpredictable and they have some scary bats. I wish they could find a solid lefty batter to stick into the string of right handed power in their order. One thing I like is that the Jays have a couple of candidates to replace Reyes at the top of the order. Noen of them are quite ready yet, but Reyes is bound to hit the DL again soon. Pilar has cooled a bit but has some tools, Travis will be back and could do it, Goins is coming around at the dish too..... but the pitching..... yikes.

The only reason she was accepted was because she lied about being a member of said community. No, the facts do not support that statement. The NAACP nationally and local leaders all said that race was not a determination for leadership or membership in the NAACP. She left because eventually the heat was just too much for her and the NAACP. There is no question she was accepted as part of the black community in Spokane, and that did not change much with her outing by others.

Agree, but the media refocus is already happening. The first overt sign I've seen of this was Michael Enright(CBC radio fixture and unapologetic Harper hater) in his interview with Mulcair. Fawning, suckup questions throughout. It would have been embarrassing had it not been so very predictable. You're right about the media shift, they resent that Harper has alternately ignored and manipulated them for a decade. They can see that JT is a hollow shell , and guess who gains? Speaking of laff riots, anybody watch The National last night? A big story was expense scandal at the Mint. The plucky reporter was claiming it was just the first of many expense exposes to come on CBC TV aimed at Crown agencies and departments to reveal waste. I asked my TV screen several times, but the reporter and Mansbridge could apparently not hear me. My question of course was 'when we could expect an investigative report on waste at the CBC itself?'.

Is there any reason to think that propprep would work any differently here than elsewhere. If so, tell us. One thing FPTP has going for it is relative simplicity. The result of an election is pretty easy to understand much of the time.

It does not happen here, there are no parties at the civic level.

If you;d like a real chuckle, read Trudeaus promises to restore home mail delivery, and the section on when he'll allow his MPs to have 'free votes' in Parliament.

In my experience, a prerequisite for identifying as a particular ethnicity or race is acceptance by that ethnic/racial community. In this case, this woman was accepted by black people and the NAACP as black- or at least as a memeber of their community-, which should be the end of it. But the media heat got pretty intense, so she had to move on and so did the NAACP.

Worse: he will have to loudly and publicly move to the center, part of which will involve exorcising/gutting the left wing of his left wing party. The other part will be convincing centrist Canadians he is sincere in that. Good luck with both.

The NDP in Alberta banned contributions tp poltical parties from both unions and corporations. Yesterday. Oh, I see, you want us all to pretend it was in the spirit of 'improvements to democracy'. I get it. Let's all pretend that it wasn't done because the NDP doesn't get much in the way of corporate donations in AB, know that the level of union membership is low so that avenue of fundraising for themselves is limited, and that by doing this they starve their competition of a source of funds unavailable to them in any case. Should we be whispering? And oh yeah unions nationally ARE big business that are also very secretive about what happens to their members money........Here is some more 'false narrative' about what big labour is up to to the tune of millions of bucks: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/unions-centre-left-interests-to-begin-ad-campaign-attacking-harpers-tories/article24924913/

Ontario is also getting 15 new seats, which will drop your average. Ontario also has some seats with very low population/electorate. My point though, was that there is an attempt in the Commons, however weak, to apportion seats in relation to population- in spite of constitutional guarantees to small places like PEI. The imbalance in the Senate is much more profound, and unfixable. I made that clear, yet you chose to quote out of context. Don't do that again.

PEI should have at most 2 seats in the House, instead of 4. One would be more accurate If they were represented in the Senate proportionally, they'd have about 1/3 of one Senator instead of 4. Rebalancing the Senate is basically impossible. The original acts of confederation, BNA Act, and subsequent legislation have essentially made it impossible beyond what Harper did a few years ago in ON, BC and AB. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it cannot be fixed. Quebec and the Maritimes would never give up their numeric advantage in the Senate without massive compensation elsewhere. The 'representing the regions' concept of the Senate has become 'what's in it for me?' in modern Canada. It's dead. Bury it, one way or another.

I know why the decline has happened in Alberta( a province that has had universal provincial based skills testing in Grades 3,6,9 and 12 for some time now ). The declining math skills -as tested objectively by international organization PISA- was once routinely tops in Canada and near the best in the world. Neither is true now. About a decade ago, the Discovery Learning method was forced upon school boards and PISA test results declined quickly. They'd have really plummeted if not for a quiet rearguard defence of simple common sense by experienced teachers. Those are the skilled teachers that recognize that different kids flourish under different methods, and that both 'teaching by rote' and forcing the Discovery method on each child are equally ineffective.

Every provincial NDP govt has had proportional representation as a policy up until the point they got elected. Then they have an immediate memory lapse. When given the opportunity to change, to implement a new system- no action. Gee, why should I be cynical?

The NDP is also a corporate machine- big unions are big businesses too, with self serving agendas.

Let's not forget all those other idiots elected at the 40% mark: Chretien, Wynne,Chretien(again) Notley,Chretien(yet again)

both ON and PEI already have representation proportionate to their population- more or less- in the Commons via elected MPs. PEI already has disproportionate representation in the Senate via four appointed Senators. How exactly do people suggest that be changed?

You left out the last half of that sentence, which is ", and have somebody else pay for my entertainment and news feed". hth.

In Canada and the US the goal was the same: to make native populations extinct. The reason was that they were seen as a threat to the Europeans taking their land, all the land, for their own use. The reality si that they were a threat to that goal. The most effective way to exterminate them was a matter opf traial and werror. The methods tried were varied. Simple slaughter of every Indian encountered(mostly in the US) was tried but there were always bleeding heart whites who backed off from killing every Indian person. Forced mass relocation to hopeless places with no food was pretty effective in both countries. Introduction- planned and accidental- of deadly disease worked quite well in both countries. Taking away all the children in forced assimilation attempts was popular in both countries, but was slow and expensive. It did have the side benefit of forceefully indoctrinating generations of children into religions- and not coincidentally into religuions that would force the kids into beleiving they themselves were somehow responsible for their own personal torture and guilt. And of course both countries continue formal assimilation plans via govt departments that try their best to keep the population under govt control at all times. Anybody who thinks that assimilation is anything other than institutional cultural, and physical, genocide is fooling themselves. It is understandable, who wants to be though of as supporting policies that kill so many people in such a generous, friendly, helpful way? No matter how hard we try, there is no denying that what we have done and what we now do with relation to First Nations is not to their benefit. It is unquestionably to their detriment, as any cursory review of health outcomes, death rates, incarceration stats, income levels, education outcomes and many other stats confirm. We're still trying to help them join us, or having them die from us trying. Time for a different approach perhaps. admit defeat in exterminating them?

"refused"? They have maintained/increased production as a strategy, not a reaction.. OPEC control of the oil cartel is threatened by the new sources of unconventional oil, the US in particular. The Saudis have the resources to keep pumping at low prices, their production costs are low. The Saudis/OPEC still have massive influence on price, as we have seen in the last year . American shale exploration and production have lessened as a direct result of their action.

??? And how- in the real world- would you allocate that power from the imbalance that now exists between the province? You know, PEI having four Senators while by population they should have about 1/10 of one Senator? In fact, reallocating Senators is pretty much impossible to do since there will be winners and losers, and the losers are not interested at all in change. You cannot change the duty of the PM to appoint Senators without constitutional amendment, which I hope we can agree is essentially impossible. Provincial elections and nominations? How does this eliminate the partisan hackery that is at least part fo the problem, and somehow is also part of a solution?

'Alberta separatist' is an oxymoron and always has been. The Notley govt appointed so many out of province staff because there is simply not enough experienced homegrown talent to fill key jobs. Keep in mind these are not government jobs aka public service positions. They are paid political appointments who will ride herd on the public service within each ministry and keep the message/policy on a defined ideological path. It is entirely predictable. What will be more interesting in coming months will be how many deputy and assistant deputy ministers are dumped in coming months. How far will the politicization of the public service go. And of course the monster fiscal questions. Alberta teachers, nurses and public service are already the highest paid in the province. How will Notley meet their expectations for more of everything- in an environment of declining revenues? Her only options are to tax more and borrow more- actions that are not historically popular in AB. Taxing the corporations much more to raise revenue won't increase net revenue, just create a flight of capital- a flight that may happen in any case. The notion that oil companies stick around because the oil is in Alberta,no matter what, is just plain silly. There is oil available everywhere in the world now, both conventional and otherwise, and the money will go where it gets the best return, not where 'Albertans get a better deal'. Citizens aren't the only ones looking for a better deal.

I think Joe Clark is still alive, unemployed, and interested.