The primary goal of this site is to provide mature, meaningful discussion about the Vancouver Canucks. However, we all need a break some time so this forum is basically for anything off-topic, off the wall, or to just get something off your chest! This forum is named after poster Creeper, who passed away in July of 2011 and was a long time member of the Canucks message board community.
Island Nucklehead wrote:A timely piece from the New York Times.
"The union that represents federal scientists and other professionals has, for the first time in its history, abandoned neutrality to campaign against Mr. Harper."
Yeahno, nothing political going on here....
The author of that NYTimes piece is Canadian journalist Stephen Marche.
Marche has a political agenda and it should surprise no one that he received his doctorate in drama
(University of Toronto)
Here's a nice response to Marche's article by David Frum:
Yikes. That sounds awful! So what did Stephen Harper actually do? How precisely did the Canadian prime minister silence debate, suppress information, and squelch democracy? In which dungeon do his critics languish? What are the secrets he has concealed?
Even after reading all 17 paragraphs of Marche’s indictment, it’s hard to say. As so often happens with anti-Harper invective, the accusation combines intense outrage against the man with gaseous vagueness about the man’s offenses. You’re supposed to just know. If you don’t know already, it won’t be explained to you.
::::Frum goes into detail on each Marche accusation and concludes with:::
None of this is to defend everything that Harper has done. It’s just a call for perspective. You think the prime minister has been slow to act on climate change? You object to his preference for tax restraint over big new spending programs? He’s too pro-Israel, too anti-Putin? You don’t like his voice, face, or haircut? Vote against him!
But remember at the same time that Canada has posted the best economic record of any G7 country through the worst global economic crisis since the 1930s: more jobs, faster growth, and lower public-sector debt. To dismiss this record as creeping authoritarianism, and to cite as proof that press conferences are less rowdy than they used to be, is to reveal an appetite for grievance so ravenous that it will swallow anything and pronounce it a meal.
Yeah, all this "muzzling of scientists" is straight political bullshit.
Can't the lefties come up with any legitimate reasons to vote against my man Harpo?
In the run up to the 2015 federal election, the Harper government will try to convince Canadians that the prime minister and his crew have been excellent managers of the Canadian economy and that only they are capable of delivering the same stellar results in the future. Heading into this election, they had intended to present a balanced federal budget as proof of their sound stewardship. But as I write this in spring 2015, the latest projections are that the Harper government will have difficulty delivering the long-promised surplus this year. Thanks to the precipitous fall in oil prices and revenues, the government's budgetary watchdog, Mostafa Askari, estimated a deficit as high as $1.2 billion for this year, and as much as $400 million the year following.
However, if the government is determined, Askari said, a balanced budget is still feasible should they choose to slow spending or delay capital projects. With the government's earlier forecasts in a tailspin, the budget for the current fiscal year was delayed, no doubt to allow time for a wizard to conjure new numbers that will allow Harper to pull a triumphant, balanced budget out of the proverbial hat.
But Harper's fiscal management is a tale of reversal and failure, not triumph. Department of Finance Fiscal Reference Tables reveal that in the years before Harper became prime minister, there were nine consecutive years of budgetary surpluses, from 1997 to 2007. In eight of those years, Ottawa amassed a surplus of over $79 billion. Yet In Harper's first eight years as prime minister, he managed to produce a deficit of almost $127 billion.
As Saskatchewan MP Ralph Goodale points out, Stephen Harper put the country back into deficit "before (not because of) the recession which arrived in late 2008."
Harper has delivered six years of budgetary deficits since. Goodale sums up the impact for Canadians: "Since 2006, [the middle-class has] endured nine years of frustrating stagnation, insecure jobs, declining job quality, flat incomes, ballooning debt, escalating education costs, low savings, inadequate pensions and the growing spectre of the current generation of young Canadians not doing as well as their parents did."
Can the Canucks just win a Cup within the next 5 years.
Wasn't David Frum the guy that wrote speeches for Harper's good buddy, George "is our children learning" Bush?
And I can think of a few reasons to not vote for Harper and his party of bible-thumping rednecks. Duffy, Brazeau, C-51, Action Plan Ads, RoboCalls, Del Mastro, surgically attached at the Adam's apple to Israel's dick, Lifetime unAchievement Fossil award winner, his pot policy, his relationship with First Nations, the Supreme Court, veterans, public servants, the Provinces, the UN, Academia and civil society at large... basically anyone that's not a rich Jew, a Republican, or working in the oil patch. Even real conservatives are pissed about his skyrocketing of the national debt and his inability to balance a budget.
Island Nucklehead wrote:Wasn't David Frum the guy that wrote speeches for Harper's good buddy, George "is our children learning" Bush?
And I can think of a few reasons to not vote for Harper and his party of bible-thumping rednecks. Duffy, Brazeau, C-51, Action Plan Ads, RoboCalls, Del Mastro, surgically attached at the Adam's apple to Israel's dick, Lifetime unAchievement Fossil award winner, his pot policy, his relationship with First Nations, the Supreme Court, veterans, public servants, the Provinces, the UN, Academia and civil society at large... basically anyone that's not a rich Jew, a Republican, or working in the oil patch. Even real conservatives are pissed about his skyrocketing of the national debt and his inability to balance a budget.
Awesome, so no more "Muzzling of Scientists" bullshit!
Island Nucklehead wrote:Wasn't David Frum the guy that wrote speeches for Harper's good buddy, George "is our children learning" Bush?
And I can think of a few reasons to not vote for Harper and his party of bible-thumping rednecks. Duffy, Brazeau, C-51, Action Plan Ads, RoboCalls, Del Mastro, surgically attached at the Adam's apple to Israel's dick, Lifetime unAchievement Fossil award winner, his pot policy, his relationship with First Nations, the Supreme Court, veterans, public servants, the Provinces, the UN, Academia and civil society at large... basically anyone that's not a rich Jew, a Republican, or working in the oil patch. Even real conservatives are pissed about his skyrocketing of the national debt and his inability to balance a budget.
Anyways, enough politics for me. ABC folks.
Awesome, so no more Muzzling of Scientists bullshit!
Oh no, I still fully believe that... I just figured you wanted more.
Island Nucklehead wrote:Wasn't David Frum the guy that wrote speeches for Harper's good buddy, George "is our children learning" Bush?
And I can think of a few reasons to not vote for Harper and his party of bible-thumping rednecks. Duffy, Brazeau, C-51, Action Plan Ads, RoboCalls, Del Mastro, surgically attached at the Adam's apple to Israel's dick, Lifetime unAchievement Fossil award winner, his pot policy, his relationship with First Nations, the Supreme Court, veterans, public servants, the Provinces, the UN, Academia and civil society at large... basically anyone that's not a rich Jew, a Republican, or working in the oil patch. Even real conservatives are pissed about his skyrocketing of the national debt and his inability to balance a budget.
Anyways, enough politics for me. ABC folks.
Wow, much of that list is exactly why people should vote for Harper.
Over the Internet, you can pretend to be anyone or anything.
I'm amazed that so many people choose to be complete twats.
dbr wrote:
I guess I'm not "man enough" to get into a days long exchange with you over this
Hell boy, you ain't even man enough to handle a cup of my notorious coffee!
*takes another swig*
Doc, I love your huckster routine as much as the next guy, but yeah.. not really anything else to say to this stuff. I'm glad that it brings you amusement, I suppose.
And yeahno, any "scientist/journalist" credentials the person may happen to hold doesn't impress me.
EVERYONE is political these days to the point of not giving a shit about what the truth may actually be.
I don't really agree but I can appreciate the temptation of that viewpoint - it allows you to discredit absolutely anyone whose views don't agree with yours without having to expend any intellectual effort.
Choose a camp and spout the party line amirite?
Well I hope that's the only reason you're using David fucking Frum (who was ridiculed for wrongly accusing the NYT of photoshopping images last year, then backed up his claim with a blog that you can't even use as a source on Wikipedia!) to support your claims
