71 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Hardboiled: “I always wonder how partisans rationalize their beliefs.”
    You asked the question and ET answered: Ignoring your comments, lying about who to blame (but always blaming “the other party” because “our party” is perfect and can do no wrong), going for the technically-correct-but-missing-the-whole-freaking-point spin.
    Next time you might do yourself the favour and not ask the question. The answer may turn your stomach even more.

  2. ted, how like a Liberal you are, to assert opinions with no evidence.
    How is Harper ‘greasing his palms’, Ted?
    Posted by: ET at April 28, 2008 4:09 PM
    ————-
    ET, how like ET your are, to asset comments with no clue. Reading comprehension problems, again, ET?
    This is a classic, ET, commentary. You put “greasing his palms’ in quotations, ET. In English grammar that means you are quoting someone and, in this case, quoting me. Now – and don’t squirm away from a direct question this time – please show me where I wrote that.
    Like I keep telling you over and over and over: When you see my name below a post, pause, think about it, read it again, pause, think about it, wait some time, type in a response slowly, pause, re-read what you’ve written, re-read what I’ve written, think about it and try to think if there is any connection between what you are writing and what I wrote (usually there is not) and then, after maybe pausing and reading a few more times… and only if no one is around to help you understand… click on “Post”. I’m not sure there is any other way around your obsession with my comments.
    Posted by: Ted at April 28, 2008 4:53 PM

  3. Ahh, typical ted, doing his usual semantic slithering, trying to get out of accountability for his statements:
    You wrote:
    “No vision or direction,just power so they can go back to greasing their palms as well as their friends”
    Now, whether you originally posted that or reposted it from elsewhere doesn’t matter, ted, because you then went on to SUPPORT that opinion, by writing,
    “The Right Honourable Stephen Brian Jean Harper learned fast, didn’t he h.ryan.”
    So, since you SUPPORT that opinion, and are now trying to do your usual slithering, I’ll ask again – why do you support the opinion of Harper ‘greasing his palms’? Hmmm? Can you, just once, try not to slither out of accountability?
    Or is your Liberal nature unable to permit you do be accountable?
    And repeating your posts isn’t accountability. It’s just dithering.

  4. Ted, all this latest poll shows is Harper is polling ahead of his party on ability to weather economic change, and Canadians have no confidence in Dion or any other party leader. So, 53% aren’t confident in his ability to manage economy, which translates into Tory majority, if only about 40% of the remaining 47% are. This polls seems to roughly follow party voting intentions, with a boost for Harper’s leadership. So what’s you point. You’ve already argued Dion and the Liberals are idiots, so you don’t have to tell us again.
    Keep spinning buddy, while your leader waits until “Canadians” want an election, at which time they can get rid of this “unhelpful” government.
    I can’t wait to see Dion on campaign trail, with his “gaffe a day” campaign. He will lose, in spite of MSM cohorts giving him all the free advertising he wants, with no pesky campaign limits to worry about. A spring election would be great; let’s see how the polling goes then; the one that actually counts that is.
    The best part will be hearing Dion explain how he will lower gas prices by increasing its taxation, and how he will be more “helpful” for the economy by proposing to dramatically outspend the Tories, with the resultant bigger surpluses.
    Yeah, can’t wait.

  5. oooh, ted – there’s more to question from your posts. You and facts don’t get along, do you?
    What ‘flip-flops’ on the ‘nation resolution’? It was Ignatieff and the Bloc who started it, and Harper stopped their ‘nation’ resolution by switching it to ‘Quebecois as a nation within a united Canada’. So, again Ted-The-Man-Without-Facts, what are you talking about?
    Oh, and what ‘musings about constitutional change? Did Harper do that? No? Oh, again, ted, you are bereft of facts. Oh well.
    What ‘fundraising laws..to rake in oodles and oodles of cash’? Well? Provide the facts, ted.
    And don’t slither. And don’t claim no-one understands you.
    Again, you claimed that Harper had ‘learned’ to ‘grease his palms’. Provide an example. Don’t slither. You used that statement, and inserted your own claim about Harper. Prove it.

  6. “Stephane Dion for a hungrier, poorer Canada!”
    Stephane Dion: Higher taxes make Canadian food more appealing
    Maybe there is a subtlety to the economic principles involved that I’m not getting. But according to Stephane Dion, if I force a Canadian farmer to pay more in taxes, he’ll be selling more produce than a foreign farmer who pays none of those taxes.
    Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion is a visionary. That is to say, he sees visions. Well, to put it more bluntly, he’s seeing things. He thinks a tax on Canadian carbon emissions will make Canadian produce more cost competitive:
    Putting a price on carbon emissions will lead to a more restrained use of oil, gas and coal and even help stock the shelves of Canadian supermarkets with goods produced by local farmers, says federal Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion. He was in Peterborough April 24 visiting Trent University’s Water Quality Centre and holding a town hall meeting at RE* on George Street.”
    http://stevejanke.com/archives/261260.php
    Commenter mecheng says:
    “The only way this could get any better would be if Dion turned around and used the funds from the carbon tax to buy carbon offsets from the countries we were importing from….thus subsidizing them and punishing us.
    Wait…that is the whole concept of Kyoto, isn’t it? I thought that dog was dead?”

  7. Ah, ET. You are actually kind of cute. Cute in the way my 2 year old is cute when he tries to act and speak like an adult when acting out his play fantasy world, all serious as though he knows what he is talking about. Except he only pretends he thinks he’s in a fantasy world.
    And he does lie about what I’ve said. But I will at least thank you for admitting you lied. Admitting you have a reading comprehension problem and a difficulty discerning the line between your world and the reality-based world is a good first start. Someday we’ll work on this weird idea you have that private citizens have some mandatory legal or moral obligation to answer to you or your inability to understand English words (while no doubt thinking private citizens don’t have that obligation when it suits your purposes wrt the HRC, naturally). And THEN, if we are successful with that therapy, highly doubtful as it is, we’ll get working on this stalking-like obsession you have with me. As I’ve said, I’m flattered by your obsession, but you really needn’t bother.
    You know, ET, unlike what others say and believe, I do think you are an essential part of the political process, so I mean you no ill will personally. None of the parties could really function well if they didn’t have their mindless, unthinking, yes-men/yes-women, kool-aid drinking, my-side-is-godly-your-side-is-evil partisan zealots. Indeed, the US elected one as Vice President in 2004 and the Democrats have tended to rely only on such types for their leaders. I personally prefer the thinking and original types like Harper used to be, but I recognize the value to a party of blind unthinking partisanship. I just think it’s a little moronic.
    Have a good night and please come back to give me more smiles and chuckles tomorrow.
    And if we have an election this spring, please please please go campaign for Harper.

  10. ted – you are slithering. Again. As usual.
    You posted a reference that Harper was ‘greasing his palms’. I asked you to prove it. You refuse to do so. Why? You posted it.
    What ‘flip flops’ on the ‘nation resolution’?
    What ‘constitutional change’?
    What ‘bending of fundraising laws’?
    I know! You are a typical Liberal! Constantly accusing, constantly smearing others – yet, when confronted and asked for factual data to substantiate your smears – ahhh, then, like a True Liberal, you start to slither. You can’t provide any facts.
    Notice how whenever anyone asks you to substantiate your allegations, ted, your immediate response is to slither. You claim that you ‘didn’t say it’ (heh, very like ‘Lucy’, eh?). You claim that you’ve been ‘misunderstood’. Heh.
    Spoken like a true Liberal. You simply cannot substantiate your smears and you start to accuse people who ask you to be accountable.
    heh – asking a Liberal to be accountable is like asking a chicken to stop pecking at nothing. Cheers, ted, go back to your slithering out of being accountable.

  11. “Unlike the Bloc and the Liberals, he said, “we don’t want to revive the old quarrels between the separatists and the centralizers.”
    It’s the first Quebec theme of the next campaign.”
    …-
    “Quebec just keeps getting better for the Tories
    Conservatives have emerged as the real ‘block-the-Bloc’ party’
    “Dion finds himself in the same predicament as he was following the CROP poll – a bad third place in Quebec and nowhere off the Island of Montreal. Leger vice-president Christian Bourque offered him no encouragement in Le Devoir, suggesting that the Conservatives’ support was steady overall because of their strength outside Montreal, “where they’ve become the only solution for replacing the Bloc.” In other words, the competitive alternative. Or, to turn a Liberal slogan from the Chrétien years against them, the Conservatives have become the “block-the-Bloc” party in ROQ, the Rest of Quebec.”
    http://tinyurl.com/5fat7e (montgazette)

  12. How can some of you allow Ted to hyjack Kate’s ‘Reader Tips’ post ?? By ‘Reader Tips’, I think Kate means just that – TIPS !! She doesn’t mean to give clowns & trolls a soap box to spew mindless trivel from. Take the flame wars to private email. You are allowing the nut-jobs to degrade the #1 blog in Canada – more than 4 years running.

  13. No, ET. I’ve just answered those questions dozens of times but obviously facts don’t work so well for you.
    But here ya go anyway ’cause I’m just sitting here watching the game:
    – fact: I did not say Harper was greasing his palms. Complete fabrication by you as usual. So I’m not about to try to “prove” something I didn’t say.
    – bending the campaign finance rules: where do we start with this one? Harper refusing to tell anyone who is big leadership donors were? Who paid off McKay’s leadership debt? The convention fees scheme for which they were caught red handed (and only then did Harper pay back the money)? Paying off a candidate not to run (remember that funny one? Denying there was a deal all the way to court then claiming they owed Riddell nothing because he broke that non-existent deal?)? And then there is the in-and-out scheme – and I’m being generous calling it bending but nothing has been proven in court… yet.
    – nation: no one but an extreme blind kool-aid drinking partisan thinks Harper is being consistent when he breaks with the Progressive Conservatives and campaigns strongly against “distinct society” and no different treatment or acknowledgement of any particular province, and then introdues a motion calling them a “nation” – and doing so reclessly and without ever caring enough or thinking enough about Canadians to bother explaining what he means.
    – constitution: read the bloody platform, ET. It is right in there under the heading “For a Stronger Federation”. Also, his Quebec minister recently on “nation” and the constitution – you think that wasn’t scripted? Are that naive. Also, Harper himself on federal spending powers and greater “autonomy” for Quebec. If you are going to comment, at least make an effort, OK.
    If you want a clue as to why I despise Harper as much as I do, this is a big part of it: his utter recklessness with fundamentally important national unity issues for petty partisan purposes.
    I really don’t know why I bother schooling someone so uninterested in staying informed at the most basic levels about what they are commenting on.
    Now, off to bed, ET. As cute as you are, it’s way past your bedtime.

  14. And just for the record ET: I had already lost and faith in Martin when he ran his insulting “scary conservatives” campaign the second time, but where he really got me fed up was when he recklessly introduced – in the middle of a debate no less – a proposal to amend the constitution for petty electoral gain.

  15. What is SocialistLiberal Citoyen Dion’s policee ekonomic today?
    Blahblahblahiggysaidwelibrano$$$$didntdoitkyotodeadIknownuttink …-
    “Liberals warn government driving Canada into deficit” (canwest)
    “Ottawa surplus reached $12.9B in February
    On track to beat forecast
    By Julian Beltrame, THE CANADIAN PRESS”

  16. Ron – Liberals have to be held accountable; they can’t just post without being challenged that their drive-by smears are without any evidence.
    Ted – your post at 3:24 called Harper ‘greasing his palms’; you clearly stated that he (and you only mentioned him) had ‘learned fast’ to do just that.
    Harper did not declare Quebec as a nation. Kindly stop slithering and differentiate between the Quebecois (the population) and ‘Quebec’ as a geographic and political entity. Plus, you utterly ignore the context; Ignatieff introduced Quebec as a nation. Remember- that’s the geographic and political domain. The Bloc supported it. Harper changed it to only the population. Get your facts straight.
    The stronger federation, ted, is not focused on Quebec but on a federal decentralization. It’s a movement away from the Ontario-Quebec focused centralism set up by Pearson, Trudeau, Chretien, which saw Canada governed from Ottawa, in the control of Quebec. This change is back to the BNA act of decentralization, with more powers to the provinces. That’s all the provinces. Not Quebec. The movement back to decentralization is an important and constructive action. Canada is too large for a centralist govt.
    Bending finance rules? Has nothing to do with revealing his donors, with Peter MacKay and so on.
    What constitutional change? None was mentioned.
    Goodnight ted. Slither away.

  17. My goodness, ET. Tonight, you amaze even me with your inability to read English words and to ignore facts. Just because you don’t like certain facts, doesn’t make them non-existent. And just because you want me to have said something I didn’t doesn’t mean I did. I mean, wow. Your problems are more serious and elemental than I thought. This is really really well beyond kool-aid drinking.
    Here, despite my better jugdment – knowing all too well that you are more than likely to continue to just make stuff up, fabricate, ignore and lie – I take the time once again to give you answers and – surprise surprise surprise – you just go on and make stuff up, fabricate, ignore and lie.
    As for your egregious deliberate lie about Harper never wanting to make any constitutional change: it’s right there on page 43 of his bloody election platform (www.conservative.ca/media/20060113-Platform); here’s (tinyurl.com/5kot8q) where a high level cabinet minister in Harper’s tightly controlled cainet talks about recognizing “nation” in the constitution and even to give more meaning to their recognition of Quebeckers as a nation (he even acknowledges with glee the many votes such a move will get in Quebec); here’s (tinyurl.com/6bdd9s) where Harper himself says “There will have to be constitutional changes“. I know that reading involves, well, reading which is difficult for you and, worse, giving actual words their actual meaning, but give it a try. Harper is more reckless than Mulroney but at least Mulroney was competent and knew what he was trying to do – and it wasn’t just to try to get votes.
    Ignore the reality-based world all you want, ET. But Canadians and – finally a little bit – “The Media” are waking up to what Harper is and what he is not. Dion not being a “leader” does not make Harper any more of one.
    You really are beyond anyone’s help so pleeease stop obsessing with me and pleeease campaign for the Conservatives in the next election.

  18. Harper 1997:
    The goal of the secessionists is to transform our country into two nations, either into two explicitly sovereign countries, or in the case of weaker separatists, into some kind of federation of two equal partners.
    The Reform party opposes this on all kinds of grounds, but most important, Reformers are highly resistant philosophically to the idea that we will have an open, modern, multi-ethnic society on one side of the line, and the other society will run on some set of ethnic-special-status principles. This is completely unacceptable, particularly to philosophical conservatives in the Reform party.
    The problem with recognizing “distinct society” to pre-vote pandering Harper?
    “Nobody really knows what it would mean.”
    Once upon a time, Harper did stand for something other than getting and keeping power.

  19. Ted — this comment is just silly: “He (Harper) governs for the next day’s headlines. ” Your are so boring and out of touch. I know this is name calling or ad hominem (or whatever), but seriously, your views make me tired. I don’t know how you manage to stay interested in what you have to say — it is SOOOO predictable. I apologize if I have offended you, but really maybe my comments will inspire you to reflect on the banality of your political analysis — I think you really need to get a life.

  20. That sure killed readers tips for the day. Let’s put that last nail in the coffin:
    hardboiled – just a few items. Posted by: ET at April 28, 2008 4:49 PM
    First, the CPC’s advertising money wasn’t taxpayer money. The money was totally private, from private donations. =====> Bull. When the Cons submit eligible election expenses, they qualify for a taxpayer funded rebate for 60% of the spending. The Cons are in your wallet – whether you want them to be or not. Same as Libranos, the Communists, and the Greenies.
    Second, what they were doing isn’t illegal ====> You must be Kreskin. A court will determine that – not you, nor the spin machine of the communications hacks. Further, even if it is deemed legal, I don’t like having political parties running around in my wallet. They are parasites.
    The CPC did not lie about Income Trusts. ===> You give me a promises versus lies argument? C’mon. I mean, really. C’mon.
    What is this ‘full run untested election law’? What is it and how does it grab your wallet? See the first point above – the in n’ out has never been done on this scale before by a political party, nor within television spending. I meant that the Cons went very big to get $700k in taxpayer funded rebates.
    The Accountability Act? That was totally damaged by the Liberal Senate who changed it completely
    Appointed an ‘unelected bagman’ to Senate? What are you talking about? ====> Micheal Fortier: Lawyer, ‘Financier’, Conservative bagman appointed to cabinet with billions of dollars in government spending. And without all that bother of actually facing the voter. ET – if you want to ignore every single other criticism of the Cons, that’s your choice. This Fortier, and the Cons actions around him, is pure banana republic, and is contemptuous of the citizen, in the extreme.
    Caledonia? Ever heard of the OPP who are supposed to be enforcing the law? Obstructing the peace is not a federal offence; it’s up to the OPP. ====> Until then Indian Affairs guy Jim Prentice came in and directed police action. That makes it their problem.

  21. Kate Makes CBC – again 🙂 She must be doing something right!
    KATHERINE WALKER: FIRST PEOPLES
    Saskatchewan presents interest case studies on bigotry
    Ahenakew raises more questions than answers
    April 28, 2008
    Does Saskatchewan have more than its fair share of bigots? Should I plan my summer canoe trip to detour around some river of intolerance that only exists in this Prairie province?
    Consider the three following cases of bigoted speech in the province that recently made the news:
    The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations votes to reinstate David Ahenakew, despite comments he made in 2002 about Jewish people, comparing them to a “disease” and advocating support for the Holocaust, explaining that “Jews would have owned the goddamned world.”
    A videotape from 1991 surfaces in which Tom Lukiwski, now a Conservative MP from Saskatchewan, makes statements about ‘B’ people (he’s an ‘A’ person, apparently), who include “homosexual faggots with dirt under their fingernails who transmit diseases.”
    Popular, award-winning Saskatchewan blogger Kate McMillan posts an awful rant dated March 28 and entitled “Tommy Douglas: Not Dead Yet” about impoverished, drug-addicted people in Saskatoon’s inner city. She suggests that intravenous drug users in the neighbourhood should share needles with friends as a “quicker solution” to their problems. She also tells them “cross your legs” and “try parenting your sticky-fingered brats.” (If you go to her website, http://www.smalldeadanimals.com, you will find a note that indicates the blog entry was accidentally deleted and reposted but some comments were lost.)
    That all these people were somewhat highly regarded among the general public in Saskatchewan leads some to believe that the comments are endemic of a larger strain of intolerance that runs throughout Saskatchewan, especially among First Nations, because they advocated support for Ahenakew despite his comments.
    Questions over Ahenakew vote
    In fact, a lot of aboriginal people in the province have tried to show that they do not support forgiveness for Ahenakew. Many chiefs, including the entire Prince Albert Grand Council, denied any support for the reinstatement. Individual aboriginal people have been forming groups on Facebook and writing letters to local newspapers to show that they oppose the FSIN move. Roland Crowe, the elder chairperson of the FSIN senate, stepped down when the agency voted to reinstate Ahenakew.
    Then it was revealed that the crucial vote was held without full discussion and process and involved only 46 chiefs, not all 74 that comprise the FSIN. Even so, three of those present voted against the move.
    The divergent responses to Ahenkew’s comments, five years after they were made, have created a rift among aboriginal people in Saskatchewan and stirred up discussion about the legitimacy of the chiefs and the FSIN’s actions.
    No easy answer
    Does Ahenakew deserve to be forgiven? It’s a question with no easy answer. He said some very bad things, and he said them with conviction. He wasn’t making an offhand attempt at humour.
    But how many of us have said some things we shouldn’t have at one time? Does that mean we should be alienated from our present company for the rest of our lives? Does that mean our value to society plummets to zero?
    Ahenakew has suffered, no doubt about it. He has been stripped of his Order of Canada, been blacklisted in virtually all political circles, and faces a new trial on a charge of wilfully spreading hate, a charge on which very few people in Canada have been convicted. (His 2005 conviction was overturned in 2006.) It’s a charge usually reserved for people who have run organized campaigns of hatred against a group, with large amounts of written and spoken propaganda. For all his flaws, Ahenakew did not do this.
    On the flip side, he was a highly respected leader. So should he be held to a higher standard? Should his words and deeds not only be decent, but more honourable than those of the rest of us? And how can 43 Saskatchewan chiefs forgive him when they were not wronged in the first place?
    Other than a comment here or there, Jewish organizations have said little about Ahenakew. In fact, many Jewish organizations have demonstrated their willingness to build bridges with aboriginal people, and there have been many examples of overtures from Jewish and aboriginal groups to educate, rather than alienate one another.
    Ahenakew polarizes opinion
    It seems to me that Ahenakew has been pursued with much more vehemence by politicians, government and the media than the other Saskatchewan cases.
    Tom Lukiwski appeared to deliver his comments with a certain amount of conviction as well, albeit with a beer bottle in his hand. But it only took a day for his political cronies to forgive him. He didn’t really lose anything, not even a parliamentary secretary posting.
    Blogger McMillan lost some credibility as a result of her comments. Her endorsement of the Saskatchewan Party was removed from the party’s website, and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall publicly denounced her comments as “intolerant” and “unacceptable.” McMillan has noted that the Premier’s actions “would have no impact on her blog.”
    And those who want to forgive Ahenakew aren’t being treated the same either. Anyone who forgives Ahenakew, publicly at least, runs the risk of becoming as politically alienated and isolated as he is.
    Shortly after the reinstatement, Chuck Strahl, the Minister of Indian Affairs, said in the House of Commons that his staff would not meet with the FSIN on any matters with which Ahenakew is involved. What this means exactly is ambiguous, as any matter could conceivably be construed as involving Ahenakew, as a member of the organization’s senate.
    Strahl also commented that he would be “reviewing” the relationship with the federation, including its funding arrangements, which basically translates into a thinly veiled threat to cut funding.
    Similarly, June Draude, minister of First Nations and Métis relations for Saskatchewan, said that no funding proposals would be discussed with the FSIN until the matter was addressed.
    Those who spout vile words about another group deserve to be taken to task, but let’s at least be fair about it, otherwise we’re little better than the bigots themselves. And let’s let Saskatchewan off the hook — it’s a part of Canada and a part of all of us.

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