BLOG, FEBRUARY 25, 2008
I’m living in a place where there is nothing taller than a silo or a grain elevator. Those are the skyscrapers.
*****
Here I am watching the spectacle of Pearl Harbor (the movie Tora Tora Tora). One of the biggest organizations even known by man, the US government screws up in every possible way. In the meantime, I’m dealing with the Bank of Montreal and Bell Canada and I’m watching this movie now because they can’t keep track of $570 of my money. And people want governments and big companies, industrial champions, to direct our affairs and solve our problems? What? Are you psychotic?
Every time someone says the government should do this or that, or the government in tandem with big business should do this or that or that big business has to do this for us, we should simply ask the question if they have ever had to deal with the DMV or the government or the phone company or your bank about anything. How fun was that?
The first thing I want to know is how come the Japanese look so elegant and admirable and brilliant and insightful and they still lost the war? The margins of history appear to be three aircraft carriers and fuel bunkers.
*****
I have to say that on one level, Lisa and Bart appear to be the analogy between Barack and Hillary. It’s not because Barack is bad or idealist, but it does often look like that. As one person put it, she could have said she gave a $100.00 cheque to everyone in the room and people would have yawned. If he said he had taken it back from them, they would have cheered and fainted.
*****
The political science spectrum of parties and ideologies is a false model. It runs from left to right as a single line, with the far left being on one side and the far right being on the other. The moderates or centrists are in the middle. I think it’s more like a circle, with the far left and the far right meeting at one side of the circle and the moderate leftists and rightists and the centrists being on the other side. All the variations between them fall in the circle. It would be like a circle with the opposite points being far similar then we ever thought.
There are the New Democrats and the Reform Party who are in the quarters. Reagan Republicans or the McGovern Democracts would also be there.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
New thoughts on the election
If I were the Liberals or the NDP, my economic plan would be to add the two points on the GST back, maybe another three to round it off, give one point to the cities to shut up Mayor Miller and set up a national infrastructure bank or fund similar to the one Hillary is proposing but one that involves standard banking practices and that eventually is privately owned and that relies on private financing and other unconventional methods of funding various infrastructure projects around the country through tolls and other user fees.
In the meantime, I would propose to flatten the tax rate, perhaps such as the Federation of Taxpayers was suggesting of 25% and 15%, or maybe even simply to one flat tax rate, and stop taxing investments, interest and savings as well as capital gains. Let’s see how that would be a great trade-off for Mr. Miller and the rest of them.
Bay Street will boom while the cities get lots of new money for various projects. But you have to agree to unconventional support and financing such as bond issues to pay for them. That would be something that the Liberals and New Democrats could run on if they were smart enough to do it. But I don’t think they are. Thank God!
If the Liberals proposed such a program, I would vote for them.
*****
The margins of luxury are getting harder to justify, especially for cars. With fuel and insurance costs the way they are, one day, everything will be standard. One day, we’ll be like the Germans. Everyone will drive a BMW.
In the meantime, I would propose to flatten the tax rate, perhaps such as the Federation of Taxpayers was suggesting of 25% and 15%, or maybe even simply to one flat tax rate, and stop taxing investments, interest and savings as well as capital gains. Let’s see how that would be a great trade-off for Mr. Miller and the rest of them.
Bay Street will boom while the cities get lots of new money for various projects. But you have to agree to unconventional support and financing such as bond issues to pay for them. That would be something that the Liberals and New Democrats could run on if they were smart enough to do it. But I don’t think they are. Thank God!
If the Liberals proposed such a program, I would vote for them.
*****
The margins of luxury are getting harder to justify, especially for cars. With fuel and insurance costs the way they are, one day, everything will be standard. One day, we’ll be like the Germans. Everyone will drive a BMW.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Gray Men
Except for Bill Clinton, Barack Obama shows up that long line of gray men that the Democrats have been nominating since Kennedy. That’s why so many people want to support Obama. He speaks aspiringly about his country in a way that is inspiring.
The Democrats haven’t gotten the vote of the majority of white men since Lyndon Johnson. That’s not counting Ross Perot who should have a wing at the Clinton Presidential Library.
The Democrats haven’t gotten the vote of the majority of white men since Lyndon Johnson. That’s not counting Ross Perot who should have a wing at the Clinton Presidential Library.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
It's Hard to be President, even on West Wing
BLOG, FEBRUARY 13, 2008
Am I the only one who had noticed the strange coincidence and eerie similarity between the situation we are facing now and the final two seasons of West Wing, which essentially the campaign to replace Bartlett as president.
In the West Wing plot, a generally moderate, McCain-like liberal Republican from a Western State (California) who is getting on in years comes out of nowhere effectively to win the nomination after being not spoken of as a candidate. In the Democrat case, a visible minority candidate comes out of nowhere and pulls of a stunning victory after a hung convention over more conventional, traditional and powerful candidates who split each other’s votes. Does this all sound familiar? Isn’t it rather haunting? The only question is will it go down the same way the original West Wing went down where the McCain figure finally ends up losing because of a nuclear reactor blow. I certainly hope that won’t be the case for McCain, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
An interesting reversal, however, it was the Democrat in the West Wing plot that at one point blatantly uses his military service and background to advance his campaign rather than the Republican. He was a pilot too.
It’s too bad McCain missed an opportunity to show he was a different politician and straight talker by voting for this stimulus package. Had he voted against it, in a stroke he would have shown himself to be far more of a conservative than anyone had thought and he would have almost certainly done a better job of showing he was a conservative in any number of flowery, high-blown speeches about how he knew Reagan when he was in diapers would have ever done to improve his credibility with conservatives. He would have railed against the Washington convention. We all thought it had been thrown out a long time ago, that Keynesian bumph that we know doesn’t work, and has never worked.
My wife says she’s never seen someone run so hard to be vice-president as Huckabee. Pickett’s, or Huckabee’s, Charge continues.
One of the saddest scenes was John King showing the blue tarps over the roofs of many houses in New Orleans, which indicates that they are still flooded out, two-and-a-half years later.
Barack Obama – "Nothing anywhere in this country that was any good has ever happened without some hope." He is also, by the way, in favour of a version of a national service idea similar to the one that the American Interest talked about.
I’d like to be ageist and say that our time is the most important time of all. Goodness knows we do live in interesting times and there are challenges and problems and issues and I hope we do rise to them. Perhaps it’s because I’m sitting here in Canada where things are relatively better at least on a fiscal level than they are in the US, but David Gergen, who just continues to astound me with his flourishes, was on AC360 on CNN with Fareed Sakaria, which shows you the wide breadth of discussion of "extreme challenges", proved to me that he is really losing it. He said that in his opinion the president in the next term was facing bigger challenges than any president since FDR. Roosevelt, who had 30% unemployment, an economy that had shrunk by about one quarter and was still shrinking, tyrannies and dictatorships of the worse sort that were killing tens of millions of their on the horizon and being led by the biggest enemies of freedom and democracy that we have ever seen with some of the most dangerous militaries that were ever arrayed. All of these things were faced by FDR. Forget about the 70’s. The Cold War. The severe recessions. The overwhelming consensus to support the worse sorts of economic ideas and panacea.
Am I the only one who had noticed the strange coincidence and eerie similarity between the situation we are facing now and the final two seasons of West Wing, which essentially the campaign to replace Bartlett as president.
In the West Wing plot, a generally moderate, McCain-like liberal Republican from a Western State (California) who is getting on in years comes out of nowhere effectively to win the nomination after being not spoken of as a candidate. In the Democrat case, a visible minority candidate comes out of nowhere and pulls of a stunning victory after a hung convention over more conventional, traditional and powerful candidates who split each other’s votes. Does this all sound familiar? Isn’t it rather haunting? The only question is will it go down the same way the original West Wing went down where the McCain figure finally ends up losing because of a nuclear reactor blow. I certainly hope that won’t be the case for McCain, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
An interesting reversal, however, it was the Democrat in the West Wing plot that at one point blatantly uses his military service and background to advance his campaign rather than the Republican. He was a pilot too.
It’s too bad McCain missed an opportunity to show he was a different politician and straight talker by voting for this stimulus package. Had he voted against it, in a stroke he would have shown himself to be far more of a conservative than anyone had thought and he would have almost certainly done a better job of showing he was a conservative in any number of flowery, high-blown speeches about how he knew Reagan when he was in diapers would have ever done to improve his credibility with conservatives. He would have railed against the Washington convention. We all thought it had been thrown out a long time ago, that Keynesian bumph that we know doesn’t work, and has never worked.
My wife says she’s never seen someone run so hard to be vice-president as Huckabee. Pickett’s, or Huckabee’s, Charge continues.
One of the saddest scenes was John King showing the blue tarps over the roofs of many houses in New Orleans, which indicates that they are still flooded out, two-and-a-half years later.
Barack Obama – "Nothing anywhere in this country that was any good has ever happened without some hope." He is also, by the way, in favour of a version of a national service idea similar to the one that the American Interest talked about.
I’d like to be ageist and say that our time is the most important time of all. Goodness knows we do live in interesting times and there are challenges and problems and issues and I hope we do rise to them. Perhaps it’s because I’m sitting here in Canada where things are relatively better at least on a fiscal level than they are in the US, but David Gergen, who just continues to astound me with his flourishes, was on AC360 on CNN with Fareed Sakaria, which shows you the wide breadth of discussion of "extreme challenges", proved to me that he is really losing it. He said that in his opinion the president in the next term was facing bigger challenges than any president since FDR. Roosevelt, who had 30% unemployment, an economy that had shrunk by about one quarter and was still shrinking, tyrannies and dictatorships of the worse sort that were killing tens of millions of their on the horizon and being led by the biggest enemies of freedom and democracy that we have ever seen with some of the most dangerous militaries that were ever arrayed. All of these things were faced by FDR. Forget about the 70’s. The Cold War. The severe recessions. The overwhelming consensus to support the worse sorts of economic ideas and panacea.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Predictions for the nominees
Jack Layton talking to Stéphane Dion on his initiative about Afghanistan is sort of like the pinkie talking to the hand.
It is ridiculous to talk about how alcohol and firearms are legal and tobacco is legal and regulated and they cause lots of damage so that is why we should not allow drugs to become legal and regulated. They’ll still cause a lot of damage and problems for addiction. But you don’t see any cigarette or booze gangs running around running those things. Only someone who doesn’t have to live in the neighbourhoods that deal with these ruthless, murderous gangs would say something like that. Isn’t it easier to deal with the problem if the person doesn’t have to hide all the time whenever he wants to use whatever he is addicted to? Aside from that, I don’t remember anyone running a gang for cigarettes, unless they were taxed or tariffed too much.
There are many people who vote for the NDP in the average poll or election would trade their Canadian ballot for an American ballot in an election. That says it all.
I wish to further memorialize the February 6, 2008, that McCain and Clinton will be the nominees of their parties. They have won in California and I don’t see how they can be stopped mathematically. Probably, the Democrat race will continue on as a sort of curiosity, especially if Obama can somehow win a couple of the remaining big states. In the likelihood that he doesn’t, Clinton will probably win the nomination.
McCain will almost certainly win it now. He seems to have more delegates that Romney and Huckabee put together. Clinton only has about a 10% lead on Obama. On the Republican side, it looks more inexorable that he will take the nomination.
It is ridiculous to talk about how alcohol and firearms are legal and tobacco is legal and regulated and they cause lots of damage so that is why we should not allow drugs to become legal and regulated. They’ll still cause a lot of damage and problems for addiction. But you don’t see any cigarette or booze gangs running around running those things. Only someone who doesn’t have to live in the neighbourhoods that deal with these ruthless, murderous gangs would say something like that. Isn’t it easier to deal with the problem if the person doesn’t have to hide all the time whenever he wants to use whatever he is addicted to? Aside from that, I don’t remember anyone running a gang for cigarettes, unless they were taxed or tariffed too much.
There are many people who vote for the NDP in the average poll or election would trade their Canadian ballot for an American ballot in an election. That says it all.
I wish to further memorialize the February 6, 2008, that McCain and Clinton will be the nominees of their parties. They have won in California and I don’t see how they can be stopped mathematically. Probably, the Democrat race will continue on as a sort of curiosity, especially if Obama can somehow win a couple of the remaining big states. In the likelihood that he doesn’t, Clinton will probably win the nomination.
McCain will almost certainly win it now. He seems to have more delegates that Romney and Huckabee put together. Clinton only has about a 10% lead on Obama. On the Republican side, it looks more inexorable that he will take the nomination.
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Beat Goes On To Super Tuesday
I was shocked at how few people have asked any presidential candidates what they want to do when they become president and how willing the candidates are not to talk about their plans. Romney is more pre-disposed to talking about this, but there is still a reluctance to talk about anything big or new or bold. Is that Bush’s fault? I don’t think so. It’s not like America could not use a few big ideas. One of them might have bee to say to John McCain, when he carped about how many manufacturing jobs left Massachusetts, to say: "Look John, this country has been great because it has reinvented industry, economy and how we live. This is by bringing about innovation."
Look at the latest Apple laptop. You can fit it in a file envelope. Does it get built in the US? No. It gets built in China. Does that matter? No. The US makes its money through innovation and ideas. It invents new services and new ways of living. More than ever, the slogan of every American when they get to customs is: "I have nothing to declare but my genius." It would have been great is Romney has rhapsodized on that instead of allowing McCain to suck him into the usual old pejorative of lost jobs. As if 1,000 auto workers were worth more than 10 Einsteins. I thought Romney was best equipped to think outside the box. Does Obama? I suspect not. I don’t think we get someone like that in 2008.
Romney could have also said: "I’ll do everything I can to make the US safe. I hope that I’ll measure up. I don’t think any of us can promise that we’ll prevent anything like 911 ever happening again or a crisis like on the Iranian border that happened just a month ago. But I will do everything I can. Like John McCain, I’ll rely on all the people gathered around that are there to protect us that do such a wonderful job. But I want to talk about something else: living life for more than just being safe. I want us to live the big American life with big dreams, taking chances, thinking differently… That’s what everyone admires about the US. That’s what Reagan celebrated." Emancipation and the Louisiana Purchase were big ideas in their day. That’s what presidents should do: provide big ideas for their people. It’s got to be about being bigger and better than before, not just holding on to what you’ve got.
The problem with John McCain isn’t his ACU record: 82% is fine. After 20 years in Washington, he doesn’t trust the private sector. His instinct is that it depends on the government. He believes that most businessmen are essentially out to make a buck and don’t make much of a positive contribution to the community except for some vile motive. His semantics and his rhetoric give that away. After this amount of time in Washington, you can’t imagine a world without government or without government being this large. While I agree with Gerson that we need to put a more humane face on conservatism, and while capitalism should be unbridled, one has to wonder why it is immoderate or extremist to believe that the government needs less than $2.8 trillion. For all of McCain’s talk of reducing government and spending and lowering taxes, he votes against tax cuts and fundamentally doesn’t trust the private sector. He talks a good game about it, but in the end he shares, with most Democrats and with a good chunk of the Republicans, the same sort of big government attitude. He uses words like greed and lost manufacturing jobs because he buys into the rhetoric of the day and also because he is a politician.
While Mitt Romney may not exactly outdo him on the rhetoric side and sometimes does things that are just as off-putting, such as to say that the government’s responsibility is to head off the recession, he does seem to have a more innate understanding of the role of business and seems to believe in it. No wonder. He made a fortune from his work in the private sector. Does that make him traditionally distrustful of government? I think his record shows otherwise. His work in Massachusetts showed a belief that government can work and can bring about innovative and imaginative approaches to solve problems. His work with the Salt Lake City Olympics is a prime example of his ability to turn things around managerially using many government agencies. But he understands that the engine of the economy is not the government and that business and profits are not a swear phrase.
It would be interesting to see if Mr. McCain voted for Sarbanes-Oxley.
Mr. McCain needs to realize that there needs to be a base of power outside the government or the government dominates us completely and begins to appropriate people’s rights without just compensation. Many of those rights are priceless.
I believe Mr. Romney understands this. This is the difference. His mentality of not one of a politician. He doesn’t seek to exploit people’s class divisions and dislikes. That Mr. McCain does this shows he would not be a very good president.
Clinton did this too, but he allowed commerce to proceed. I may therefore exaggerate this point. But McCain makes me wonder. I’d love a different message from one of the big two parties. When we only see a difference in personality, it isn’t democracy anymore.
Look at the latest Apple laptop. You can fit it in a file envelope. Does it get built in the US? No. It gets built in China. Does that matter? No. The US makes its money through innovation and ideas. It invents new services and new ways of living. More than ever, the slogan of every American when they get to customs is: "I have nothing to declare but my genius." It would have been great is Romney has rhapsodized on that instead of allowing McCain to suck him into the usual old pejorative of lost jobs. As if 1,000 auto workers were worth more than 10 Einsteins. I thought Romney was best equipped to think outside the box. Does Obama? I suspect not. I don’t think we get someone like that in 2008.
Romney could have also said: "I’ll do everything I can to make the US safe. I hope that I’ll measure up. I don’t think any of us can promise that we’ll prevent anything like 911 ever happening again or a crisis like on the Iranian border that happened just a month ago. But I will do everything I can. Like John McCain, I’ll rely on all the people gathered around that are there to protect us that do such a wonderful job. But I want to talk about something else: living life for more than just being safe. I want us to live the big American life with big dreams, taking chances, thinking differently… That’s what everyone admires about the US. That’s what Reagan celebrated." Emancipation and the Louisiana Purchase were big ideas in their day. That’s what presidents should do: provide big ideas for their people. It’s got to be about being bigger and better than before, not just holding on to what you’ve got.
The problem with John McCain isn’t his ACU record: 82% is fine. After 20 years in Washington, he doesn’t trust the private sector. His instinct is that it depends on the government. He believes that most businessmen are essentially out to make a buck and don’t make much of a positive contribution to the community except for some vile motive. His semantics and his rhetoric give that away. After this amount of time in Washington, you can’t imagine a world without government or without government being this large. While I agree with Gerson that we need to put a more humane face on conservatism, and while capitalism should be unbridled, one has to wonder why it is immoderate or extremist to believe that the government needs less than $2.8 trillion. For all of McCain’s talk of reducing government and spending and lowering taxes, he votes against tax cuts and fundamentally doesn’t trust the private sector. He talks a good game about it, but in the end he shares, with most Democrats and with a good chunk of the Republicans, the same sort of big government attitude. He uses words like greed and lost manufacturing jobs because he buys into the rhetoric of the day and also because he is a politician.
While Mitt Romney may not exactly outdo him on the rhetoric side and sometimes does things that are just as off-putting, such as to say that the government’s responsibility is to head off the recession, he does seem to have a more innate understanding of the role of business and seems to believe in it. No wonder. He made a fortune from his work in the private sector. Does that make him traditionally distrustful of government? I think his record shows otherwise. His work in Massachusetts showed a belief that government can work and can bring about innovative and imaginative approaches to solve problems. His work with the Salt Lake City Olympics is a prime example of his ability to turn things around managerially using many government agencies. But he understands that the engine of the economy is not the government and that business and profits are not a swear phrase.
It would be interesting to see if Mr. McCain voted for Sarbanes-Oxley.
Mr. McCain needs to realize that there needs to be a base of power outside the government or the government dominates us completely and begins to appropriate people’s rights without just compensation. Many of those rights are priceless.
I believe Mr. Romney understands this. This is the difference. His mentality of not one of a politician. He doesn’t seek to exploit people’s class divisions and dislikes. That Mr. McCain does this shows he would not be a very good president.
Clinton did this too, but he allowed commerce to proceed. I may therefore exaggerate this point. But McCain makes me wonder. I’d love a different message from one of the big two parties. When we only see a difference in personality, it isn’t democracy anymore.
Friday, February 1, 2008
The American Interest
In the American Interest, Hilton Root’s analysis of capitalism and democracy is flawed by the simple fact that the alternative is far worse. If there is no evidence that democracy and free trade bring greater stability and less corruption and the rule of law but in fact the opposite, then what evidence is there to suggest that less openness to trade and less democracy do the opposite and create more rule of law, less corruption and more stability? I guess there is stability, but is that the sort of stability we want?
Who said that China or Russia or any other country should have democracy overnight? Let’s face it: 20 or 30 years is not very long in historical terms. It took the US and Britain hundreds of years to develop their democracies. Some people think that both countries still haven’t developed the democracy they should have. It’s a constant experiment and a constant project. By the same token, it took hundreds of years for the burgeoning bourgeoisie in those countries to go from being ravenous, inquisitive capitalists to being interested in the political system or getting involved in it or carving out their position in it, let alone the workers of those countries. Why should we think that all of these things are going to happen overnight for those countries that are just beginning to democratize now? Why should we expect this when the US. after all, still has many electoral and democratic inefficiencies after hundreds of years of democracy, that a country such as India, or for that matter Iraq or Slovenia or Lithuania, are going to have perfect democracies after barely a generation of this form of government? To me, that approach is very experience-centric. It doesn’t have to do with the long game. It will take patience and generations for some of these things to develop. It doesn’t mean that we wait forever before true democratic institutions take route. The US should take the lead to open up those countries to more and more democracy and more openness of trade. But at the same time, it should not be instantly disappointed when those things have contradictory or less than satisfactory results. It will take a slow, steady approach, and if there is a criticism of the Bush administration it is the creation of the impression, however well intended, that these things could be done overnight. One should never forget not only the admonition of Churchill that democracy is a terrible system but it is the best of the worst. There is no real alternative.
We should also recall that history still tells us that democracies usually don’t fight with each other, especially those with free trade agreements. This is either an enormous historical coincidence or it’s something genuinely encouraging that we should continue to support and reinforce. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.
I’ve also heard tell that shareholding corporations and other such limited liability companies are actually one of the reasons democracy thrived in the Anglo-American countries making it possible to do business, to invest and to have capitalism without being constantly exposed to the vicissitudes of the state directly. If it has changed into an evil form of super-capitalism, I don’t think that’s the fault of the original idea of limited liability and shareholding. I think it’s the fault of the governments who don’t regulate well enough and have forgotten that even Thatcher agreed that Schlessinger was right in that there was no unbridled capitalism. Smith would certainly agee.
Mr. Reich makes the same mistake that all critics of capitalist do in that they attack capitalism for mistakes caused by people and governments that are often anathema to capitalism.
Who said that China or Russia or any other country should have democracy overnight? Let’s face it: 20 or 30 years is not very long in historical terms. It took the US and Britain hundreds of years to develop their democracies. Some people think that both countries still haven’t developed the democracy they should have. It’s a constant experiment and a constant project. By the same token, it took hundreds of years for the burgeoning bourgeoisie in those countries to go from being ravenous, inquisitive capitalists to being interested in the political system or getting involved in it or carving out their position in it, let alone the workers of those countries. Why should we think that all of these things are going to happen overnight for those countries that are just beginning to democratize now? Why should we expect this when the US. after all, still has many electoral and democratic inefficiencies after hundreds of years of democracy, that a country such as India, or for that matter Iraq or Slovenia or Lithuania, are going to have perfect democracies after barely a generation of this form of government? To me, that approach is very experience-centric. It doesn’t have to do with the long game. It will take patience and generations for some of these things to develop. It doesn’t mean that we wait forever before true democratic institutions take route. The US should take the lead to open up those countries to more and more democracy and more openness of trade. But at the same time, it should not be instantly disappointed when those things have contradictory or less than satisfactory results. It will take a slow, steady approach, and if there is a criticism of the Bush administration it is the creation of the impression, however well intended, that these things could be done overnight. One should never forget not only the admonition of Churchill that democracy is a terrible system but it is the best of the worst. There is no real alternative.
We should also recall that history still tells us that democracies usually don’t fight with each other, especially those with free trade agreements. This is either an enormous historical coincidence or it’s something genuinely encouraging that we should continue to support and reinforce. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate.
I’ve also heard tell that shareholding corporations and other such limited liability companies are actually one of the reasons democracy thrived in the Anglo-American countries making it possible to do business, to invest and to have capitalism without being constantly exposed to the vicissitudes of the state directly. If it has changed into an evil form of super-capitalism, I don’t think that’s the fault of the original idea of limited liability and shareholding. I think it’s the fault of the governments who don’t regulate well enough and have forgotten that even Thatcher agreed that Schlessinger was right in that there was no unbridled capitalism. Smith would certainly agee.
Mr. Reich makes the same mistake that all critics of capitalist do in that they attack capitalism for mistakes caused by people and governments that are often anathema to capitalism.
Notes on the Election
John McCain reminds me of Cousin Fester and Giuliani is Gomez. Or they’re actions figures: Giuliani, Scharzenegger and Stallone.
This was the final arrogance from Giuliani in believing that anyone cares who he endorses.
If Romney was smart, the first thing he’d do after the campaign is get a guest spot on SNL. I suggest the first skit is him coming up sheepishly towards Lorne Michaels and saying: "John McCain told me this is a great way to get nominated." At the debate last night, there were so many things he could have said. 1. There you go talking about the past again. 2. There you go again sounding like a Democrat again.
John McCain may very well go down as the first Sunday morning chat show candidate. Like Ross Perot who went down as the Larry King candidate. I’m afraid that both have definite similarities. They were both in the Navy, both officers and gentlemen and both are crazy as three-legged rats. It’s time that all good Republicans close their eyes, spread their legs and think of the United States.
In the Globe and Mail, Mr. Mason had a column and I didn’t want to waste my entire blog dealing with his unmeritorious submission. I point out that it is very easy for a province like British Columbia to be holier than thou about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. I don’t remember seeing that many oil rigs in Vancouver. However, I do think it’s important for us to keep a level of civility in any discussion, including those about climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and the environmental agenda. I think it’s wrong and pompous for us to presume that anyone is an enemy of the rest of Canada just because they disagree with Mr. Mason about these issues. It’s certainly pretentious to describe a whole province as an enemy of the rest of Canada if it doesn’t go along with your agenda. It seems to me that it is Toronto-based pontification like this that is one of the reasons why we have unity problems in this country. I can’t believe anyone in Alberta is going to be convinced by a polemic that persecutes one province for the sin of not only having a mainly carbon-based economy (who doesn’t?) but one that is exceedingly more prosperous than ours right now. It is a province too far to demonize and vilify Alberta simply for not sharing one’s view. PS: Am I an enemy of Canada because I don’t agree with your climate-change agenda? PPS: I’m not very concerned about whether people might relocate to Alberta, but whether, if this system is brought in, they’ll relocate to China or India that bothers me.
This was the final arrogance from Giuliani in believing that anyone cares who he endorses.
If Romney was smart, the first thing he’d do after the campaign is get a guest spot on SNL. I suggest the first skit is him coming up sheepishly towards Lorne Michaels and saying: "John McCain told me this is a great way to get nominated." At the debate last night, there were so many things he could have said. 1. There you go talking about the past again. 2. There you go again sounding like a Democrat again.
John McCain may very well go down as the first Sunday morning chat show candidate. Like Ross Perot who went down as the Larry King candidate. I’m afraid that both have definite similarities. They were both in the Navy, both officers and gentlemen and both are crazy as three-legged rats. It’s time that all good Republicans close their eyes, spread their legs and think of the United States.
In the Globe and Mail, Mr. Mason had a column and I didn’t want to waste my entire blog dealing with his unmeritorious submission. I point out that it is very easy for a province like British Columbia to be holier than thou about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. I don’t remember seeing that many oil rigs in Vancouver. However, I do think it’s important for us to keep a level of civility in any discussion, including those about climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and the environmental agenda. I think it’s wrong and pompous for us to presume that anyone is an enemy of the rest of Canada just because they disagree with Mr. Mason about these issues. It’s certainly pretentious to describe a whole province as an enemy of the rest of Canada if it doesn’t go along with your agenda. It seems to me that it is Toronto-based pontification like this that is one of the reasons why we have unity problems in this country. I can’t believe anyone in Alberta is going to be convinced by a polemic that persecutes one province for the sin of not only having a mainly carbon-based economy (who doesn’t?) but one that is exceedingly more prosperous than ours right now. It is a province too far to demonize and vilify Alberta simply for not sharing one’s view. PS: Am I an enemy of Canada because I don’t agree with your climate-change agenda? PPS: I’m not very concerned about whether people might relocate to Alberta, but whether, if this system is brought in, they’ll relocate to China or India that bothers me.
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