Rick Mercer rants against the erosion of public debate under the Harper Government® concerning various issues of the day and its paternalistic “My house, my rules” approach to enacting various decisions… Um, sorry, but isn’t this semi-dictatorial kind of behaviour the nature of majority governments in parliament and, truth be
Continue readingTag: Debate
Progressive Proselytizing: Toronto NDP Federal Leadership Debate Reactions
I attended the Toronto Area Council NDP Federal Leadership Debate. What follows is a range of reactions about the candidates, policies, and themes in this debate. Crowd: The crowd packed the 850 seat theater at the Bloor Collegiate Institute leaving 150 outside and unable to enter; an excellent showing, especially given that this is
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The appeal, and vacuousness, of sports team politics
Last Tuesday, the second game of the playoffs took place in New Hampshire with front runner Massachusetts Mitt leading the pack going into game three in South Carolina. For six months of the regular season the candidates squares off again and again and again, jostling for position in the rankings going into the playoffs. It
Continue readingpolitics on CAPS LOCK: Liveblogging the first NDP leadership debate
The first NDP leadership debate is about to start. I’m not even going to liveblog in caps, THAT IS HOW SERIOUSLY I AM TREATING IT 12:03 Robert Chisholm, he is already somebody that I like. Here comes Niki Ashton, I like her too. So yeah, it’s going to be 120
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: GOP Leadership Contest: The Likeability Factor
Pundits seem to love to profess multitudes of differing explanations for the see-sawing GOP leadership contest that has seen, respectively, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Newt Gingrich surge to the front of the pack in challenging Mitt Romney. These alternative explanations range from the simple to the complex,
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Congress Says No To Free Climate Service
NOAA.jpg This week, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives sent a strong message to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – they’re not concerned about climate change. The NOAA had asked Congress for permission to create a new National Climate Service within the NOAA’s own offices, but Congress decided
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The OWS movement and the Media
The long winter in Canada and the United States is going to challenge the OWS movement. Living in a tent sucks at the best of times, but add snow and cold temperatures to the mix and the proposition becomes quite untenable (at least to my delicate tastes). I hope that the organizers of the OWS […]
Dead Wild Roses: Relativism – Obscuring the Line between Shite and Shinola – Terence Mckenna
Mr.Mckenna on relativism and how it makes us into polite but foolish people. I see the religiously addled beginning to froth thinking perhaps that once we get rid or relativism we can get back to the unctuous vapidity of absolute morality…no no kiddies, what we are talking about here is moving debate back toward rational […]
The Happy Wanderer: Conservative Champions of Wasting Time
Heckling has returned to the House of Commons with a bang. Once again, politicians of all parties engage in this enormously hilarious act! According to Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner, Deepak Obhrai said Mr. Speaker six times in a 30 second period. This allow…
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: The Truth about Tim: Hudak outright lies he called hard-working Ontario citizens "foreign"
Tim’s record speaks for itself:
Continue readingTrashy's World: Le “débat”…
Gee, these so-called debates are becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing election. Really now, because of the long period of time that Ontarians have had to cast their ballots (great idea, BTW… it’ll be interesting to see if the turnout is bumped up) and the lateness of the debate AND that these things […]
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disservice – Charity?
Well, not charity in the most traditional sense of the word, but in the sense of regarding arguing with people about ideas and reaching a conclusion or at least more of a mutual understanding of what the other is saying. Inauspiciously, this rarely seems to happen on the internet, as the sectarian nature of […]
Progressive Proselytizing: 2011 Ontario Election: Parkdale-Highpark All Candidates Forum Response
The following is my observations and reflections from attending an All Candidates Forum for the riding of Parkdale-Highpark. Click here for an overview on the candidates for this riding. While this post will obviously be specific to this particular On…
Continue readingCalgaryLiberal: (4) The Challenge: Learning to repeat ourselves: The Four Challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party
There are challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party forming government in Alberta. In this series of posts I’ll write about some of the challenges that Liberals face in this province and some solutions to them. (4) The Challenge: Learning to repeat…
Continue readingThe Happy Wanderer: The Scary Republican
In the Debate Last week the Republicans were asked some questions. Some I found slightly interesting, but one question just made me scared! The Question was that if their was a budget deal that for every 10 dollars in cuts their will only be 1 dollar i…
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Debt Ceiling Debate is Moot: USG Owes More Dollars than in Existence
Image by Images_of_Money The current debate in Washington as to whether or not and under what conditions to raise the debt-ceiling has for the past week dominated global news coverage and the public mind. Absent from the debate and mainstream coverage is a discussion of the debt limit in the
Continue readingThe Happy Wanderer: First Real Debate!
The race for Obama’s opponent is now almost at the beginning. It’s not quite there to say many candidates are still not fully in. Candidate’s like Bachman, Palin and Giuliani all major factors at this point at least according to the polls aren’t even i…
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: The Debate: Canadian Values Win
The most interesting thing I noticed about the debate was where all the leaders, or at least all of the federalist leaders, agreed. These were on what I would consider to be the most basic of Canadian values, but values that many of us suspect are not …
Continue readingThe Global Express: To Green Party: Don’t Blame Democracy, Use It!
There has been a lot of talk lately about the exclusion of Elizabeth May in the leaders debate. May is the leader of the Green Party and was included last election, but left on the outside this time around. May has gone as far as taking the decision by the
Continue readingPample the Moose: Debates, Debates, Let’s Have More Debates!
Most of my current students are too young to remember the now infamous election debate clashes between Brian Mulroney and John Turner. So I like to show them the Free Trade Clash from 1988 or the patronage kerfuffle of 1984. Both debates were widely …
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