.
Watching the reaction from some in the “progressive” camp over Harper’s habit of closing his speeches with “God Bless Canada”, my suggestion to our incoming Prime MInister is this: Faster, Please.
The greater part of the success of the Bush administration’s ability to win elections lies, not in the electoral support of the so-called “religious right” (which is more media mythology than reality) , but in their ability to provoke the “loony left” to come unhinged in front of ordinary Americans.
When a conservative invokes God, no matter how generically, the left cannot help but expose their seething intolerance of all things Christian – thus, shining a spotlight on the highly selective nature of the “diversity” they champion.
The Paul Martin Liberals started well down this path during the last election campaign, the last few days illustrated by the bizarre behavior and “warnings” (abortion! child labour!) erupting from the leader himself. What Conservatives can do now is to quietly keep pushing them along on that path. With a little luck, and the inevitable cheerleading from media, a few more “God Bless”‘s might just encourage the type of Harper “Derangement Syndrome” from “progressives” that helps keep US Democrats out of office.
See above.
Addendum:
Fact Checking the Calgary Herald:
Gore warned that Harper wants to remove Canada from the Kyoto accord, which the United States signed under former president Bill Clinton, but has refused to ratify under President George W. Bush.
False. Clinton signed Kyoto, knowing full well that it would be rejected by the Senate – which they did, voting against it unanimously – 3 full years before Bush came into office.
See also: Who knew Beausejour was in Texas?
Green Canuck to Gore: “Right on, dude!”
Okay, you guy’s are scaring me. You keep bashing Gore like this, and, and… You’ll wake the Tipper Beast!!!
Tipper will start wanting content rating labels on Blog’s.
There you go, next it will be NetNanny for Blogger’s. Don’t fuck with Tipper man… she’s a rightwing, left handed, something or other with weird 50’s hair and a hate on for Ozzy.
“Blame Canada”
I’d respectfully modify that sentence, changing “Christian” to “Judeo-Christian”.
Wonderful, now we have hyphenated Christianity to go along with hyphenated Canadians.
Small s, You are welcome to your pal Gore. I am not interested in debate where theatrics reach the apoplexed gall-stone attack stage over a mild *God bless* discussion.
Is Gore giving a demo of attack tactics he used in Viet Nam? Maybe that is just a mild expression of intolerance. Tiresome. TG
O/T but gag warning in effect: CTV has ‘bought’ a reality TV series Canada’s First Great Prime Minister. Contestants get to define and ‘create’ the ideal PM. Timing is interesting given that Stick Chick will likely be running for the leader. Papa Stronach is shameless in his attempts to buy his daughter some credibility. Programme to be hosted by (GAG ALERT) Seamus O’Reagan. Sigh. Bring back Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman. I’m tired of slimy Liberals and the friends they support.
I’m a bit oddity here. I’m a regular reader of this blog but I’m a leftie. Nevertheless I think Harper deserved to win the election even though I don’t support him for a variety of reasons which you folks might find interesting.
I for one am not happy with the way the Liberal party conducted their campaign. Finger pointing at Harper instead of cleaning house earned Paul Martin a long overdue pink slip. The Liberals became arrogant that’s political parties with no real opposition do.
Keep in mind that this is only a minority government. The conservatives have the most seats but most of the population voted for left of center candidates. Canadian politics haven’t made a tectonic shift to the right. If anything it’s let’s make a deal time.
The Liberals need to do some serious housecleaning. Paul Martin’s ejection is long overdue, the man didn’t have what it takes to make a good PM.
And I do its a good thing that the political spotlight has shifted to Calgary. The old Ontario/Quebec troika wasn’t doing the countries politics any good.
You done good Calgary my hat’s off to you. The next two years should be interesting.
Jose
no offense Jose but i think i’ve heard everything you just said repeated over and over on the CBC. i know this election was a small step, but it was a step in the right direction, and i hope this country continues its journey.
Hey TexasCanuck,
Then you obviously didn’t listen to the reporters questions at the end. They asked him about SSM and he stated what I said above.
I’m all for civil unions… as long as it’s for everyone. Get government out of the marriage business totally and let churches handle that.
Texas Canuck:
“…secret agenda to change the laws of physics.”
And of course when that happens, the ship of state runs straight into Hans Island.
We are a rock and will not roll.
Congratulations Prime Minister Stephen Harper; sovereignty is not a negotiating point in the balance of trade!
This is all working quite nicely so far.
CPC? Coalition? Hi-ho, comrades: from Moe Strong & Paul who? >>>
CPC & Other Parties
The multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is China’s basic political system.
The system means that the CPC is the only party in power in the People’s Republic of China while under the precondition of accepting the leadership of the CPC, the eight other political parties participate in the discussion and management of state affairs, in cooperation with the CPC. * * **
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-09/02/content_1061737.htm
Al Gore on one had is saying he doesn’t want to run for President. On the other hand he is getting some very extensive media lately.
I expect a “draft Gore” movement to continue to grow. Read More and see what you think.
Gore is not a foolish man, lets not get caught up in the name calling and other tactics of dirty politics.
TIZ
Yes Jose,
The first thing your party needs is a *Liberal* leader.
Paulie used his position in Canadian government to borrow massive amounts of money in order to take over Canada Steamship lines.
He did not have any collateral, but I will reserve opinion on the distant chance that he may have been tempted to use political promises as financial backing.
Having taken over CSL and many other corporations and then consolidating power and wealth by various means such as avoiding Canadain taxes by registering enterprises in
Barbados and other places offshore, one could say Paulie was more of an industrialist Czar rather than a Liberal.
Paul built budget surpluses by starving our National Health System costing several people
their lives due to extended waits for medical attention.
One has to wonder how many of those lives would have been saved if the $Billions of dollars lost in more than 219 scams stringing back to 1993 had been applied to our Health Care System.
I will resist the suggested label to apply here, but *Liberal* is not what I had in mind. TG
I’m waiting for the anti-americans to start raging about Gore sticking his nose in Canadian affairs.
I’ll give em 24 hours before I point out the blatant hypocracy.
Oh and Todd, don’t get stuck on stupid okay.
Harper gets slapped down…
US rejects Harper’s Arctic Plan
“There’s no reason to create a problem that doesn’t exist,” David Wilkins said Wednesday as he took part in a forum at the University of Western Ontario in London. “We don’t recognize Canada’s claims to those waters…”
Al just forgot to have breakfast… it’s not good to swear on an empty stomach.
Mr. Angry?
Actually, most of you may not know this, but there is no formal treaty in existance which recognizes our definition of the Artic borders, other than NWT border, Yukon, and Nunuvit. The waters above are completely in dispute, and have never been formerly acknowleged as Canadian territory. International treaties do exist recognizing our mineral rights, but not our rights regarding who owns right of way through the NW passage. In fact, maps from other nations depicting the north, often show the NWT as the end of Canada’s territory. It is actually a serious situation, which has been put off for much too long.
I am always amazed at the bigotted anti-Christian remarks coming from “progressives.” Their ignorance and intolerance is so hypocritical!! Oooh no, Harper dares to mention God. As for Kyoto, it is political science, in fact total fantasy. Volcanic activity in one year puts more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than two hundred years of human activity! CO2 represents 5% of all greenhouse gases, and human activity 3% of CO2 emissions – .15% of greenhouse gas emissions. What’s next, outlaw water vapour! Canada has an opportunity to look at carbon monoxide, to reduce these emissions with clean energy technology. Then we can share our technology with the world, particularly the developing world, so they can modernize without polluting. Besides our Kyoto commitment is impossible without reducing us to the stone age. It’s amazing that the radical enviromental movement finds an ally with anti-modernism. You know, the ones who don’t think Africans should have electricity because they would just sit in their huts and watch TV! The drivel coming from one of the references, blaming the USA, essentially calling it a backward society (compared to the progressive world of course), is typical blindered reasoning. I don’t recall the Americans, in spite of their mistake in invading Iraq, targetting civilians for execution, as Hussein did and the “insurgents” do now. BTW, the US has done a lot of good in the world, which anti-American bigots never mention. Gore the bore.
Put another way, international Law says that it’s fair game up there. Harper is exactly right to put a base in and some ships. Possession is 9 tenths the law, and if you can’t protect it, you can’t keep it. If we wish to impose soveriegnty over the Artic, we must get there first. Tuktiuktuk doesn’t constitute ownership of the island chains in the artic.
Still trying to figure out how to make a baby.(SSM)
I enjoyed watching Primetime Politics on CPAC that one evening when John Bennett went up against a professor of earth sciences from the U of Ottawa, and the professor proceeded to eat Bennett’s lunch.
Kyoto tries to tie climate change to production of carbon dioxide, a development that has only been really tracked for what, the past hundred years or so? It seems to reject the previous millions of years of climate change as immaterial compared to the effect of CO2. Not only that, the left fails to realize that Kyoto will do nothing to reduce actual POLLUTION, including many toxins that can be much more easily linked to deteriorating health and air quality. Then again, it’s a lot easier to take the Bushies to task than to question the efficacy of a protocol that will still allow countries to pollute (provided they have the dollars to buy the credits).
Rather than giving money to the Russians so we don’t have to change our polluting ways, can’t we use that money to clean up our own act?
If favouring the status-quo on abortion (i.e., no restrictions whatsoever), and civil-unions for homosexuals, is “ultra-conservative”, could someone please tell me what would constitute “ultra-liberal” on these same topics?
Requiring leadership candidates to perform an abortion on live TV perhaps? Divorcing one’s wife and marrying one or more men to show you’re really “with it”?
The extremist language of the left is in and of itself evidence of their own extremism.
Phil…I refuse to have a battle of wits with unharmed person.
“Phil…I refuse to have a battle of wits with unharmed person.”
whoa! Where did you dig up that fosil?
Dear god, you have to check out this article, it totally proves climate change
http://www.globalclimate.org/Newsweek.htm
And this one too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
“Canada was the first Iraq. They tried to invade us once. There are a lot of Canadians buried in Ontario over that.
Posted by s at January 26, 2006 02:27 PM”
You’re so right on the mark with that. I can still recall the stench of all the mass graves in Southern Ontario. The torture rooms, the murder and mayhem. Thanks god we stopped them!
Hey Big Al, do us a favor don’t you preach to us about our leader’s & we won’t preach about yours, good god you still don’t know if you won or lost yet! Ooops did I say God, By the way can we still say God save the Queen? Ooops did I say Queen, sorry about that Iam just not sure anymore, Merry Christmas Oooops there I go again, you politicaly correct lefties have just got us rightie’s too confused but God Bless You Anyway’s, Ooops used it again!
Funny, my many greats grandfather’s diary says it was more of a barn party than a war… 1812 I mean. Didn’t we almost burn down Washington in a fit of peak in return? How many poor Americans suffered needlessly at the hands of sadistic Canadian troopers bent on pillage and rape. How many needless deaths as a result of drowning when forced to drink Maple Syrup by the godless French.
Kyoto (Ky/o/toe): the art of removing massive amounts of money from hapless Canadians so as to enrich dictator’s and tyrants from third world countries, who in turn use that money to buy weapons from the Russians, British, Chinese, French, and Americans… instead of just spending it at home.
Still trying to figure out how to make a baby.(SSM)
Look at it this way, there’s no need for abortion. heh
What I find interesting about the SSM debate is how it’s okay to claim that gays and lesbians are discriminating against freedom of religion as long as it’s YOUR OWN religion. There are several religions such as the United Church which do allow marriages for same-sex couples. Why should THEIR religion be deemed as not valid? Or is it freedom of religion for only certain religions that is allowed?
Mr. Potato, “Can someone please tell me what an “ultra-conservative”
When appealing to simple minded bigots with code words it is sometimes necessary to super size them with an adjective.
If “He’s a Jew you know” doesn’t scare them, then make it a greedy Jew.
If “He’s a fag” doesn’t scare them, then make it a flaming fag.
If “He’s just a Nigger” doesn’t scare them then make it an uppity Nigger.
If “He’s a conservative” doesn’t scare them then make it a far right ultra conservative.
Dr. Tongue, a former student of mine, just couldn’t grasp the concept of the adjective.
Are you not alway’s amazed at how certain outspoken American’s like to tell Canadian’s what is best for us, good God most American’s don’t even know where Canada is & if they do, they think we live in igloo’s, eat nothing but bacon & are all hockey player’s for god sake, Geeeez their I go again using God.
Don’t forget that at the outset of the 2004 campaign, the Martin Liberals conducted a series of push polls over the phones (only in strategic areas of Ontario, where it mattered), asking those who answered if they would be more likely or less likely to vote for the CPC if they knew it was being run by a small group of extreme right-wing Evangelical Christians.
Of course, the objective of the poll was to have the word spread that what was being alleged was, in fact, true. (A “when was the last time they beat their wives?” kinda question.)
This most disgraceful of all political dirty tricks was forgotten in the media, which is unusual (not really, because the media are Liberal shills) because in the same campaign, Harper was hunted down by the media and asked if he would personally apologize for the staements/actions of others.
Can you imagine the uproar in the media had the CPC down the same, except substituting Evangelical Christian for Hindu, Muslim or, let’s take the analogy to its extreme conclusion – JEWS.
Imagine if the CPC phoned up people and said, “Would you be more likely or less likely if you knew that the Liberals were being run at the top by a small group of Jews?”
We know how the media would have reacted.
Global warming:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/01/26/ukraine.cold.deaths/index.html
tell them!!!
When did we start having right wing science and left wing science?
There is a consensus in the scientific community on global warming. There are a variety of models to be sure and the issue isn’t as black and white as wether or not the earth is say 6,000 years old or a few billion.
Global Warming has its skeptics to be sure but prevailing wind of the evidence has pretty much flattened them in the past three years.
Regardless of what your political afiliation is the scientific consensus is fact not fantasy.
But I’m not bothered if you don’t believe me. I actually think we’re going to be fine regardless. Advances in alternative energy technology over the next 10-15 years are going to render Kyoto superflous. There’s plenty of commercial incentives to move beyond fossil fuels anyways.
Kyoto is basicaly a stick but we’ve got a pretty big carrot on order.
The US and Canada should be more with it when it comes to energy. Just look at GM and Ford, they’re big push towards SUVs isn’t doing them any favours now. We don’t need to be giving the asians yet another competitive advantage over us.
P.S. You’ll have to excuse me if my earlier comments seemed to parrot what you’ve already heard. I live in the UK so other than sticking an oar in the Canadian blogosphere I have no exposure to Canadian media.
Jose
Global Warming has its skeptics to be sure but prevailing wind of the evidence has pretty much flattened them in the past three years.
“Wind”, good description. They can’t even predict the weather seven days ahead.
Sean,
There may not have been a specific reaction to the incident you are describing but there has been a reaction to the Liberal parties tactics. A signifigant number of people turned their backs on the Liberals precisely because of they way they’ve been behaving politicaly.
I may be lefty but that doesn’t mean the Liberals automaticaly get my support. Historicaly I’ve tended to see them as the lesser evil however.
Note that Sam Bulte a Liberal MP got taken to task by a bunch of Left leaning bloggers. They’re blogging gained signifigant traction and may have played a decisive factor in her losing her seat.
Jose Said
“There is a consensus in the scientific community on global warming. There are a variety of models to be sure and the issue isn’t as black and white as wether or not the earth is say 6,000 years old or a few billion”
How can you have a concensus when a large portion of the worlds best climatologists refute the claim, discredit the evidence supporting human created global warming, and demonstrate their own evidence that suggests the variation in global temperatures are caused by long standing temperature cycles?
You can’t claim that Global Warming is even based on science because for a scientific conclusion to be reached you must impartially look at the evidence; our society looks at evidence that supports global warming as gospel and yet treats all opposing evidence with hostility. 10 Years from now when “Global Warming” starts a “Global Cooling” trend people will still be talking about how we have to Tax the Oil industry before the world freezes; 30 years from that the world will be afraid of Global Warming again …
NoOne, just a heads up:
Go to the very bottom of your link on Wikipedia and note the process that is open to this particular ‘information’ source’.
“This page was last modified 09:47, 21 January 2006.”
It is worth noting that anyone can edit, however they choose, biases included, and many are not aware of that fact yet.
Actually I think, at least from what I’ve read and I’m as skeptical a bastard as there is, that the consensus is pretty much in on the fact that Global Warming is happening. What there is not consensus on is what, if anything, is causing it.
To even begin to suggest that Kyoto, which only deals with Carbon dioxide. Which is a naturally occuring element on the earth, and necessary for our own survival, while ignoring every other chemical we spew into the atmosphere, and telling us we are going to die if we don’t do something about it, is specious at best.
Frankly, Kyoto plays on the fears of the ignorant, and is without question the most useless, poorly thought out, waste of energy ever to come from the international community… so you know it has to be French. Just kidding.
That accord is almost specifically designed as a wealth transfer tool created by the European community in the hopes that the North Americans would be stupid enough to sign it, thus potentially hobbling our industry and providing a leg up in competitiveness for the Europeans.
Canada, in it’s infinately wishy washy way (read French) bought in to this hook line and sinker… the worst part is, we can do so much more on our own, if we but try.
Get rid of it, put it out to pasture, and tell the European Community “Nice try”.
Imagine if Martians landed on our planet and the first thing they saw was the politician Al Gores’s photograph. Might they not conclude that our politics was stupid? Dangerous?
We could explain that many of us had not caught the demagogic plague . That many of us were trying to connect the dots between politics,philosophy,socioecology,culture, integrity and simple human decency.
With luck we could get a pass mark on the Martian hygeine code.
Gore didn’t invent the Internet – but he made sure that it grew as fast as it did. In the process he was integral to kickstarting the vast new economy that now employs tens of millions of people.
He did this without ever becoming President.
Bush has done nothing but lose jobs.
The reason that Republicans keep winning elections is two fold: A complacent and biased media (For example: Limbaugh), and rigged elections (Ohio/Florida)
Here is one approach…
The Anti-Kyoto
World’s largest polluters will work with industry to address climate concerns.
“The inaugural meeting of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate began today in Sydney, Australia. Nearly half of global greenhouse emissions are produced by the six nations participating in the summit�the United States, Japan, China, India, Australia and South Korea.”
Anyone who uses the words “consensus” to back up a scientific argument is treading on thin ice.
Please go back to the main page and reread the post with that title, again, to gain an understanding of how powerful a force “concensus” is, and how meaningless.
To suggest that a transfer of wealth needs to occur in order for all countries to be competitive and their citizens to be free (read: political freedom is not even remotely possible without economic freedom) is not ridiculous.
However, to attempt to redistribute wealth through an agreement that makes people believe that their climate and environment will be improved is patently ridiculous.
I can’t help but wonder how many European countries, faced with the unsavoury prospect of cancelling Third World debt and unfair farming subsidies, opted instead to create a backdoor agreement to toss a few dollars at developing countries in order to keep them down while absolving themselves of the responsibility to clean up their own backyard.
Too many people hail Kyoto as an environmental achievement while ignoring its effects: stagnating development in the Second World, continuing to ignore the reality of dwindling fossil fuels and their potential effect on the standard of living in the First World, and allowing the production of other toxic elements to continue. Rather than taking a leadership role in their own countries to develop a reasonable timetable to eliminate pollution and nurturing ‘green industry’ (how many auto jobs in our country could be saved by dedicating resources to smart car technology/production?), they took the easy way out by placing blame on a relatively inert gas that promotes growth in plant life and tossing around token subsidies. I simply cannot understand how anyone who professes to be on the left on the political spectrum could support this.
THAT proves climate change? My @ss it does!
I haven’t been able to find much scientific evidence supporting the Global Warming skeptic crowd. If you point me in the direction.
Its going to be interesting to see what’s to become of these global warming sceptic think tanks that don’t seem to publish anything other than press releases after the funding dries up from the oil industry.
In any case I’m not ultimately interested on preaching any cause. We could very well see a closing of this debate within the next ten years.
I find the case for global warming very compelling but I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to deal with it.
And I agree Kyoto isn’t the answer, investing in new technologies is. I’d like to see more government leadership here but the market may very well have the matter well in hand over the next fifteen years. Alternative energy technology has always been high-tech’s ugly stepsister but there are encouraging signs that it may take off.
I’m hoping to be tooling around in an electric sports car in about twenty years time. It’s not as crazy an idea as you might think. We’ve already got models that can do 0-60mph in four seconds flat and they’re only going to get better.
I haven’t been able to find much scientific evidence supporting the Global Warming skeptic crowd. If you point me in the direction.
http://www.lomborg.com/
Jose:
A good discussion of the use and misuse of statistics involved in AGW theory:
http://www.climateaudit.org/
A good place if you’re really into math, but there are also some good discussions here regarding scientific policy (not directly political) with respect to publication and funding.
Look in the ‘links’ section as well as ‘weblogs and resources’ on the right sidebar. There are links to sites representing different sides of the argument.
Reluctant Ninja wrote:
To suggest that a transfer of wealth needs to occur in order for all countries to be competitive and their citizens to be free …. is not ridiculous.
Actually it is. Transfer of wealth is wealth destroyed. INVESTED wealth, or capital accumulation, is the ONLY route to prosperity. Sadly, tho, the progressives think of global capital investment as “exploitation”.
KATE is absolutely right about the spurious notion of scientific “consensus”. Scienfific proof is not a popularity contest.