d_rawk

Law & Order: mandatory sentencing Financial: the shared income tax for couples thing (there's a snappier name for that ...) Oh, there's a good bulleted list of their platform from the last election at Wikipedia - Conservative Principles and Platform

Heh :laugh:

That's a good point, but remember the reasons

The Globe has generally been pretty balanced, and is definately the paper of record in Canada. The editorial position has been centre/centre-left for as long as I remember ... funny, I just picked up a G&M this morning for the first time in a long time, though it was a daily addiction of mine for years. If it ever consciously lurched leftward, I imagine it had something to do with the unapologetic conservativism (and Canadian Alliance connections) of the National Post and trying to stake out unique ground.

Yes! Thank you I've seen it replayed a few times on CTV and CBC, with nary a comment about all the dark, unfortunate (unintended) irony that such a comment contains. It's a rights issue, that two of the four parties with seats have identified as a fundamental issue of human rights, that many of the courts in the country have indicated is a matter concerning the judicious application of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that the majority of Canadians see as a matter of recognizing the rights of their peers, but Harper says ... GAH!

So, equal marriage is back up for debate in the house this week. Harper's bill will be defeated, yadda yadda, not too much to see here. But I just heard Harper say, while talking about why he hoped that Dion doesn't whip the Liberal caucas to vote to uphold SSM, that it is important to allow a free vote on this issue because "the rights of Parliamentarians are some of the most important rights we have in this country" (hope I got the quote right). GAH! The man is self-parodying.

Yeah, I'm anxious to see how that plays out, if he chooses to run ... seems he's indicating that he will. He'd have to pick carefully in Ontario. Rae/Chow? Hmmmmmmm. Or does he pick a riding that he's got a good chance at losing, just to save face and say, "well, I didn't bail. I'll ride off into the sunset now, thank you very much."

4 spoiled first round ballots. (source at parl.gc.ca) Manley had joked during his CBC commentary that two of those ballots had "Stronach" written on them, and that one of those was his. I'm sure he was kidding about one of them being his, but not sure if the number was made up or not.

Umm, meggo, what in the world does this have to do with the Liberal leadership convention? Wowza, I hadn't heard about that. Even so, he still comes out a lot less scary than Rosales, from the little I know about Rosales.

Not too sure about the first ballot, except that there seemed to be some confusion about what time delegates needed to be there or something. On CPAC that night one of the organizers was looking a bit put out about the whole thing and mumbled something about not having done a good enough job getting the word out to delegates. There were a lot of missed votes on the second ballot (first ballot on Saturday morning) that were attributed to people sleeping in. (As Hux said, free booze ...)

Don't get me wrong, it will be great if the Liberals win the next election ... but it isn't a 100% yet. No doubt he'll run and win, but he could run and win and end up in shadow cabinet. Ack, I hadn't really considered that one. I figured there's a good chance he'd oust Peggy Nash in Parkdale High Park.

If an election were held today: * Liberal: 37 per cent (+5) * Conservative: 31 per cent (-1) * NDP: 14 per cent (-3) * Bloc Quebecois: 11 per cent (unchanged) * Green: 7 per cent (-2) Approval of Dion as choice of leader: Quebec Only: 62% approve, 29% disapprove All of Canada: 55% approve, 19% disapprove A 5 point bump nationally seems a bit low to me for a honeymoon poll, considering all the positive attention the leadership race has been getting. I guess the positive spin is in the Quebec approval numbers, and a 12% spike in Ontario (at the expense of the NDP and Greens) Link

nattyMatty, PM me your address and I'll send 'em out for you.

This is an angle that I expect the other parties will probably want to hit home with. Dion, after all, does have a record as Minister of the Environment -- and it is a record that can be painted as heavy on expenditure, light on results. I suspect that Dion himself seems so genuinely committed to environmental causes, however, that they won't get too far with that (but who's to say ...) Rae would have been shinier, I agree. Ignatieff, to me, would have been about as shiny as a spot of mud. But both the Chretien and Martin camps had their money on losing horses, and there are a lot of up and coming new faces that are going to play a heavy duty role in the (shadow) cabinet - ie. Kennedy. There's a bit of a new era-ness about the whole party right now, and the party hasn't looked this fresh and clean for a long time. The faux 'renewal' of the handoff to Martin just never washed with anyone outside of the party itself. This is the first time in awhile I haven't felt something akin to contempt for the Liberal party. Probably I'm just trying to savour it while it lasts :laugh: I've been back and forth on this. You might be right, and all the pundits at the moment seem to agree with you. But the same thing was said about Chretien -- a francophone unpopular in Quebec, and he ended up doing pretty well for himself What remains to be seen is whether, in the end, he'll prove to be as unpopular with actual Quebeckers as he is with the francophone media. The one sometimes surprises the other.

Wow, Ken Nordine ... I've got Word Jazz (1 & 2) and Colors kicking around here somewhere on CD.

I think you're underestimating Dion. On the environment and Afghanistan alone, he is going to score a lot of points with Canadians without ever evening opening his mouth. The Liberal party is looking all shiny and new, people are tired of talk about corruption (and it wouldn't stick to Dion, anyways), and Dion seems to actually have something approximating a vision (which was part of Harper's appeal even to those who disagreed with what that vision entailed) Dion is a solid, credible threat to Harper, Layton and May. Layton and May already know it. Harper will discover it soon enough, I think.

Nice one, PT! Wondering the same thing. If Dion can really sell a progressive and G/green vision, the Liberals might be able to reverse the - slow but steady - growth of the Greens, and further marginalize the NDP. Not to mention really distinguish themselves from the Conservatives in all those ways that people suspected the two major parties differed only in rhetoric, but not action. Should be interesting.

Delighted Tories say they helped knock Rae out of Liberal race

Any time now. Looks like Iggy/Rae have struck a deal. This may be the death knell for Dion.

Voting is well underway ... third ballot results should be in relatively soon (an hour?). Down to Ignatieff, Rae and Dion. Kennedy crossed over to Dion as expected. Iggy seems pretty much stalled at thirty-someodd percent.

The oldest organic matter ever discovered. 4.5 billion years. Neato. Linky 1, Linky 2

Sounds like the Dion/Kennedy deal is in the bag. Enough to push one of them past Rae for second place?

Hey whaddya know ... I was poking around Odeo looking for an interview with Garry Wills about his new book, and came across this interview with Barry Lynn (the founder of Americans United for Seperation of Church and State) He talks about running for office and jokes about political candidates trying to memorize a few quick passages from the bible for campaign purposes somewhere around the 20 minute mark. Good interview.

Oh absolutely -- the religious right in America has been very effective in forging an alliance with the Republican party, which has all sorts of (unfortunate, I think everyone here would agree) implications. And as you say, their entire political history is informed on many levels by religiousity - particularly of the puritanical protestant flavour so typical of conservative America. But in terms of the institutional mechanisms and hierarchy of the state coupling with the institutional mechanisms and hierarchy of a particular church/state ordained religion, such as typified England, the seperation is well maintained. (ie all the - unnecessary - fretting caused by JFK's election and the questions of how a Catholic could be expected to negotiate his obligations to the pope with his obligations to the American people, etc..) [edit:] I was hinting above that the seperation of church and state isn't nearly as comprehensive as it is often taken to be (used as justification for why it is acceptable to disallow hijabs or kirpans in public spaces, or to argue that religious institutions should be outright prevented from interaction with or influence on government in any way), but I need to acknowledge that I was mistaken and it is meant to be more comprehensive than I suggested. Reading through the interpretations of Justice Black's 1962 Supreme Court decision, it's pretty clear that his decision is widely taken to mean an expanded interpretation of seperation to include much more than just the establishment of, or an explicit 'coupling' with (to reuse my language from above), a particular religion. So my definition was too narrow by far. I think I'm getting worn out on playing at resident theist. No wonder evangelicals seem so humourless. Where's my secular politico hat?

You're very right that the notion of seperation of church and state doesn't occur until much closer to our own time (the notion of state is a relatively recent development in fact), but I'm not sure about your chronology here. The time of Jesus was the time of imperial Rome, and the laws were the laws of that empire except insofar as the Romans condescended to allow pocket communities (such as the Jews) to also maintain their own codes of laws in parallel -- so long as doing so didn't impede or displease the empire in any way. It was the cult of Caesar and Caesar as Lord that gave the rules by which that part of the world was goverened, which is what the Jews were hoping to rebel against and liberate themselves from. Jesus even as a simple historical figure doesn't really bring much in the way of law at all except of the non-legal spiritual sort (love thy neighbour as thyself) much to the dismay of those who were following him expecting a military messiah who would lead the rebellion against the political authority of Rome. It is only much later when Constantine sees within the growing cult of Jesus - which Rome has been persecuting - a way of re-unifying the Roman empire, and makes his famous conversion, that Christianity makes the strange switch from an underground movement of those operating in defiance of authoritarian governing power to a tool used by the power wielders themselves. Now an emperor with the church in his pocket, Constantine has consolidated power and the power of Rome can continue unabatted (for awhile, anyways). The laws were still the laws of Rome and its emperor. But you're quite right, I think, that point of the seperation of church and state was something very different than what it is thought to mean now. And in fact church had to be wrestled away from the control by state at the cost of much blood and misery. I'm not sure, and admitedly haven't RTFA, but I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case. This seems to be what the role of the homeowners association is all about. I've lived in a neighbourhood were I had to sign on to all manner of little rules (including what I can or can not put in windows, etc..) before moving in. This oughta be fun ... :crazy: P.S. - are you high right now?