When Barry met Steve

Barry & Steve
This was just a show.
Now what?

Andrew, you said, “5. That said, Harper certainly didn’t take long to throw Bush under the bus. To listen to him today, you’d think that his government had been champing at the bit to tackle global warming, but was held back by those laggards to the south: “Canada has had great difficulty developing an effective regulatory regime alone … It’s very hard to have a tough regulatory system here when we are competing with an unregulated economy south of the border…. I’m quite optimistic that we now have a partner on the North American continent that will provide leadership to the world on the climate change issue and I think that’s an important development…”

Yeterday, when I read the above, your 5th point, I didn’t like it, as I don’t think Harper would want to throw anyone ‘under the bus’. Did you see Mr. Harper’s interview with Tom Clark this afternoon? He spoke to this issue, and what he mentioned during this interview discredited what you had assumed. He had been, after all, answering questions off the cuff at a news conference, and I’m sure it happens that things don’t come out exactly as one intends. His statement this afternoon shows that he hadn’t meant to throw Mr. Bush ‘under the bus.’

Two other points: It has been reported that Condolezza Rice said that meeting with Canadian officials was like a meeting of a condominium association. During the news conference, Prime Minister Harper said he wanted to emphasize that he and President Obama talked about big picture items. So, it wasn’t about the picky little things, i.e. not like a condo meeting. This, in contrast to Mr. Ignatieff who brought up the Kadhr case.

When Tom Clark asked the Prime Minister what he had talked about with the President, Mr. Harper said that it was a private meeting, and therefore he wouldn’t divulge details. He is proving himself to be trustworthy. This is quite in contrast with Mr. Ignatieff who wanted to tell all.

point 5 was indeed taken out of context by Andrew:

It was well understood during the last election that Harper had presented guidelines for future emission standards, and that the proclamation of such targets was lukewarm, because, as he so explained to Ms.May and others who were really willing to listen in on the debates: ” environmental protection must be handled in relation to the economy ” Our ecomomy is directly related to the US economy and any environmental target setting could not be done in isolation from the US. Within a framework of basic logic, that is self explanatory.

It’s funny how so much of what is logical needs to be emphasised these days. It seems that if Harper does not point out all the dots in connecting he is not to be followed.

Yes, Harper is even less than lukewarm on co2 emmission target setting because a lot of that target setting is pure bogus, (not all of it, but a lot).

But let’s consider the mindset of the voter. It is alleged,. over and over again, that the CC is of supreme importance, yet when the Liberal party came out with a detailed plan (the Green shift) the collective vote did not come out in favour of that detailed plan. Now why was that? Is the collective concern over CC bogus or was the Green shift bogus?

I would say both: the Green shift was bogus (it in fact ran the chance of causing greater pollution – imports from China and India becoming cheaper in comparison) and the supreme concern about CC is bogus also (if the concern were real, the cheap imports from China and India would not be consumed, but they are…….) The voter could not quite come to terms with what dangled out in front of them because the details within the Green shift pointed to directly at the concerns of the voter and those concerns were not environmental in nature…….

To add to this mixture the bizarre stand of the Liberal party itself and by Ignatieff in particular, when first dismissing the Green shift, to embrace it toward the end of the campaign, to let it sink like a brick when all was said and done. Who here is claiming the Liberals have an environmental policy???

But go ahead, come down on Harper because doing so will hide all that which the Liberals don’t have a clue about.

i wonder sometimes…

1) Obama can get along with anyone including those who tried to derail his bid to become President; those who by doing so cast aspersions on his race and Hillary’s gender in the NAFTA scandal (intended or not); after all, neigher could be trusted solely by virtue of their superficial characteristics and not the contents of their character. it’s like Nelson Mandela having to shake hands with ppl who up until his release were quite content to have him rot in jail. hypocrite much?

This “is” a show. attempts i’ve heard from the media to justify PM’s lack of emotion as him being all business are totally lame; i know a lot of gruff business types who still have hearts and a sense of compassion; some even have a very dry/wry sense of humour; they are actually funny and not mean or bullying. President Obama is an honourary Gen X/Y/Z as far as i and others are concerned; the other one is not and is too “me first” for even most “me firsts” i know.

and President Obama is a man who got his hands “dirty”: first by being “needy” himself and then choosing to help the “unwashed masses” instead of taking cushy job positions first; so i think he has some street cred and demonstrates he has the capacity for understanding others and has the “for real” mature caring faith that Christians are supposed to have, express, and represent to the rest of us (which i for one expect of them); or didn’t you know that “Jesus” was a socialist?

now, having had a chance to watch President Obama in action, i understand the need to bring him down at any cost; Obama is a threat to all those truly elite types who think it’s ok to benefit from the hard work and misery of the many so they can “rule” (gag) and use whatever means, including governments like toilet paper to rake 16% income from the very productive, hard-working poor and middle class as has happened here in Canada. pure shame.

2) a) Afghanistan: PM didn’t duck on Afghanistan; to paraphrase he basically suggested it wasn’t his fault, that his hands are tied; LAME.
b) NAFTA; not an issue PM would like to revisit because it means a better chance for fairness for labour concerns and probably greater focus on the environment.

3) Security: define lax. you’d think that all of a sudden CSIS and the RCMP disappeared. i guess by getting tough you mean it’s ok to let a 15 year old boy (child soldier even) be abused into a confession based on questionable evidence and skewed testimony? i wonder what the child soldiers from other countries must be thinking about the lack of response to Khadr? and i question the lack of response; and the treachery of “outsourcing” (kidnapping really) ppl like Maher Arar, voiding their human rights–not accounting for their rights as citizens of our country–or their innocence for that matter. Peace, Order, Good Govt. and a Charter of Rights.

i believe Americans just showed how unimportant the Republican/conservative ideology really is by electing President Obama with a majority of support. and Canadians will soon join Americans in what we decide to do with the posers we have right now. regardless, i hope we always have minority governments. shame we lost the PROGRESSIVE Conservatives who caved like idiots to Reform.

4) KYOTO. so poor Bush huh? “Sympathy For the…” who? PM campaigned against it even in 2008; conservatives here have 0 credibility to actually do something reflective of Canadian’s wishes today about the environment; sure they got plans for 50 years time when they’re dead and gone; there’d have to be an election if they do an about face. remember, Canada got the fossil award in Bali, hello? and the blood of Dion’s career is on their hands (re: MacBeth; karma’s somethin’ aint it?). they’re waiting for someone else somewhere else to solve everything so they can continue to follow and pretend to be doing something. you know, import the idea like the conservative opposition’s smash-n-grab of Australian President Howard’s ‘support for the “wrong war” in Iraq’ speech. embarrassing

nice try attempting to use other countries as an excuse not to act when the Western World “led” them economically into abusing the environment. because of its influence the US will probably bring China and India onside. i’m seeing US mayors on CNN talking positively about Kyoto; Americans are openly discussing “Green Shift” too and related jobs down there–all the ideas that Dion presented; even Exxon in the US advocated a carbon tax on CNN; so, whatever.

Canada will be penalized (can you say imposed carbon tax?) for having “dirty oil” by the rest of the world. Dion’s idea was to shift the tax responsibility to consumption–a dirty word for ppl who like to shirk responsibility. and his idea was for us to do it ourselves; not have it imposed on us; and so that our children could have a better future than we currently enjoy.

anyways, Canada will soon find itself in the tarsands of history; because history has already passed the conservatives in North America buy (spelling intentional). for the Republicans in the States to rely on the US government to fail or other stupid pet tricks to try to be relevant and to be oh so RIGHT is PATHETIC.

5) PM likes to lecture; especially someone he sees as inferior i notice. from the get-go he aped President Obama so bad it was pitiful–wore red (i guess he understands the Liberals are in control of him then?).

the gens behind the baby boomers have to deal with the cost of the “stimulus” deficit that those in gens ahead of us have left for us to deal with (or lose things of national pride like the CN Tower perhaps–more Avrow Arrows by conservative need to be right); so who’s gonna want to or will be able to care for the “me firsts” when they’re old and grey if they couldn’t be bothered to invest in our future?

also i noted the PM alluded to some kind of “synchronized global recession” during the press conference with President Obama. very interesting Freudian slip–yeah i know Freud’s ideas are dated–kinda like conservative governments. no one i know is truly inspired to help make Canadian conservatives look good (that’s the whole point of their schtick). it’s even more costly than the consequences of the $64B deficit we’ll have to deal with.