ecnarf

A strong free market is important, though. You won't find any serious politician in the Western world who doesn't agree with that. Throughout history, a strong free market has spurred development and invention. To avoid any extreme economic recessions and ensure a high standard of living, social programs are important. That's essentially my take on politics is, if you'd care to hear it, and I think that's what Canada has been for the last quarter century... a strong free market with certain elements of socialism thrown in, and I'll be darned if we aren't ranked as one of the best countries in which to live by the UN (although we still have a long way to go before we can extend that claim to all our citizens). Stephen Harper just happens to favour a strong free market to strong social programs. I don't find anything wrong with that right now, because the rest of the political parties won't delay to punish him if he tries to steer too far away from the social programs. As for the crime thing, getting tough on crime that's happening right now is important. It's been proven that the "broken windows" approach to crime, like they did in New York and are doing in LA is effective in reducing crime. That is, cops will punish petty crimes like gang members loitering around in streets because that upholds a high standard... it reduces neighbourhood decay by stopping it in the first place. On the other hand, providing meal and education programs for kids in poor areas before they turn to crime in the first place is important for finding a long-term solution to both crime and poverty. Anyone who denies that proper social programs will have a long-term effect on crime and poverty is nothing short of foolish.

A lame sense of humour is close enough.

Bush is Harper's stupid clone. I wouldn't be surprised if Harper ended up wearing the pants in the Canada-U.S. relationship.

I thought you were talking about the federal surplus.

What I meant was that the Western MP's are going to want to shit on Ontario for voting liberal all these years. Toronto, specifically, as nobody's voting conservative here anyways.

She'll get around to it eventually.

Nobody got to speak for any more than 5 seconds. Those guys up in the control room were too busy in a collective circle jerk to allow opinions from George & the Gang. Other than that, is it just me or does Matt come across as considerably less intelligent when you hear him speak his opinions, rather than written? Kind of like he's already come to the conclusion of what's being asked way before anyone had asked him, and as though his answer doesn't contain as much rational thought behind it as you'd think.

Don't let Meg hear you. She'll break you.

Now that I've thought about it a bit more, I'm slightly concerned about the following: -the rural and western centered conservatives all wanting to take a collective shit on Ontario

Then everything will explode. Clearly.

How would declaring a state of emergency make a difference? And what does the social spending thing have to do with it?

How could there be a door on one side if it's symmetrical?

When I was little and playing hockey, I was always ridiculously pissed off at the referees for their utter incompetence in calling games. I mean, really, you had to be there to see it - I saw kids get hooked by other players around the neck and brought down to the ice, had play stopped because the kid got hurt (duh) and no penalty being called. Another time this referee came within an inch of giving a penalty to a kid on my team who had been tripped, until my coach decided to correct the idiot. So this one time, I ended up getting tripped by this other kid, and I lost it. I started yelling at the referee that that was tripping, and started throwing my gloves at him. Needless to say, I ended up with a penalty.

I'm not happy about a conservative win, but I can't complain about the outcome. The way I see it, a conservative minority now will probably better long term than another liberal minority (what would hte point of the last 6 weeks have been if we just ended up with the same government?) The good news is, of course, that Harper is on a very tight chain.

Jon Stewart has made Canadian politics funny in in a way Canadian comedians haven't done since Rick Mercer was on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Stairway to heaven, fool.

Uh... huh...

Unless all those polls have somehow managed to miss an incredible majority of NDP voters... somehow... So much for the "accurate to +/- 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20", eh?

Yes, but the claim was that the federal government gave no aid.

Maybe this is one of those fedex commercial type things... they pretend to live ahead a day of the rest of the world in case their packages arrive late.

Not if it's symmetrical.

The sad part is, he's right.

I'm sorry, but anyone who takes pride in being a caker deserves what's coming to them.

Actually, the second line of that thing should read "every ball loose". Look in the credits for Avalanche, you'll see it lists that Avalanche used a sound recording from "There Is Only One Jimmy Grimble".

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a mathematical impossibility that they could actually win.