And congrats on the double-down. XD

Lot of people got new mayors, actually. When there's a recession, blame the people in charge, eh? (however, over here a contributing factor was our mayor's husbands arrests...)

Nobody I voted for made it in.

FuzzyLobster wrote:Nobody I voted for made it in.

Same here. Two elections. I voted for the best person on the fray. I checked all their records; whether or not they had criminal cases pending against them, their education status [nothing against illiterates but I honestly don't think a city can be governed by people who can't read or write - you've got to read and sign many documents etc. so you can't be fooled], whether or not they are in debt and the amount they owe in debt (if they are in debt one can't really blame them for being corrupt later on, but if they aren't one can), assets (luckily, many independent groups put up that. They show the percentage increase of assets in 5 years. If there is a big jump and the person was previously elected too, I assume the person made a lot of money in office) and their party (if it is a fanatical one, I won't ever vote for the candidate, however good, but I doubt it is ever is like that. All the members in the crazy parties have several criminal cases against them).

So yeah, in spite of 20 or so people standing for each constituency amazingly very few people fill in the above criteria. So I'm never spoilt for choice. And the persons I've voted for never even made it. :'(

But I think it is a bit too early to complain about it now though. :P

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:

FuzzyLobster wrote:Nobody I voted for made it in.

Same here. Two elections. I voted for the best person on the fray. I checked all their records; whether or not they had criminal cases pending against them, their education status [nothing against illiterates but I honestly don't think a city can be governed by people who can't read or write - you've got to read and sign many documents etc. so you can't be fooled], whether or not they are in debt and the amount they owe in debt (if they are in debt one can't really blame them for being corrupt later on, but if they aren't one can), assets (luckily, many independent groups put up that. They show the percentage increase of assets in 5 years. If there is a big jump and the person was previously elected too, I assume the person made a lot of money in office) and their party (if it is a fanatical one, I won't ever vote for the candidate, however good, but I doubt it is ever is like that. All the members in the crazy parties have several criminal cases against them).

So yeah, in spite of 20 or so people standing for each constituency amazingly very few people fill in the above criteria. So I'm never spoilt for choice. And the persons I've voted for never even made it. :'(

But I think it is a bit too early to complain about it now though. :P

wow... :blink:

Nero wrote:NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!111one1one!!1one!11!!eleven!1! Why HIM, ANYBODY BUT HIM

My mom was saying taxes are going to go up because Toronto will have to pay so much more for etiquette training and image branding

wrote:Aren't you in Mississauga, anyway? Cuz over there they've got the cool old lady.

There's no suspense. This year 17 people went up against her and she had a political scandal that the newspaper was slamming her for and she still won with 76% of the vote.

Luciene wrote:

wrote:Aren't you in Mississauga, anyway? Cuz over there they've got the cool old lady.

There's no suspense. This year 17 people went up against her and she had a political scandal that the newspaper was slamming her for and she still won with 76% of the vote.

We trust her too much. She still does a damn good job, better than most politicians, and does so many events that Rob Ford would probably collapse from exhaustion.

Heart attack, I'm telling you. Three years, tops.

So, I imagine you all have doubtless heard of the Wikileaks...

There has been many embarrasing bits of info released by the genius hacker. The most notable are US foreign relations.

Which does include Canada.

Diplomats notice increasing distrust of US by Canadians

wrote:A trove of diplomatic cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of publications, disclose a perception by American diplomats that Canadians “always carry a chip on their shoulder” in part because of a feeling that their country “is condemned to always play ‘Robin’ to the U.S. ‘Batman.’ ”

It's a little hard to not think so when our culture is pretty much America's. Or the fact that America seems to always take the spotlight over the most Canadian influenced events.

For example, Canada has always had tanks in Afghanistan. Seeing how the conflict is a guerrilla warfare, this seems foolish.

But in fact, they have saved the asses of thousands of troops. Doubtlessly American ones too.

Just last month, American sent their first tank battalion. Any mention of us? Zip.

And anything they do mention of us seems to be patronizing.

Admittdly, America always does this to countries. We're just the rest of the world.

Of course we're gonna distrust them. flooping 'eck did they expect us to bow before them as before God?

wrote:But at the same time, some Canadian officials privately tried to make it clear to their American counterparts that they did not share their society’s persistent undercurrent of anti-Americanism.

Of course. Any time they don't spend flooping 'ecking around with our money, they're kissing American ass.

wrote:It also noted that Canadian officials worried that they were being excluded from a club of English-speaking countries as a result of their refusal to take part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The United States had created a channel for sharing intelligence related to Iraq operations with Britain and Australia, but Canada was not invited to join.

Seriously? Of all the things they're worried about, they're afraid of being excluded from a group that we have no business in? I, for one, am glad we didn't go into Iraq. So I don't get why they would want to get into this when already losing influence in more important groups.

wrote:The Canadian government “has expressed concern at multiple levels that their exclusion from a traditional ‘four-eyes’ construct is ‘punishment’ for Canada’s non-participation in Iraq and they fear that the Iraq-related channel may evolve into a more permanent ‘three-eyes’ only structure,” the cable said.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh...

wrote:the embassy reported that Canadian officials had a different potential irritant: Mr. Obama was far more popular in Canada than they were.

This is most likely because he's one of the few politicians that truly seem to care for the people. Perhaps if our "officials" did more, they would be more popular than Obama. I.e. please see Hazel McCallion

wrote:Still, just a few months earlier, during a national election in Canada, the embassy had marveled that “despite the overwhelming importance of the U.S. to Canada for its economy and security,” parliamentary candidates were rarely mentioning anything about relations with their southern neighbor.

“Ultimately, the U.S. is like the proverbial 900-pound gorilla in the midst of the Canadian federal election: overwhelming but too potentially menacing to acknowledge,” the cable said.

Yeeessss...because the politicians need American votes rather than Canadian votes...

We're worried about OUR issues. Jesus.

/rant

Deep, calming breaths, dude.

Generally speaking about the Wikileaks, I thought that American diplomacy wasn't very bad. Sure they portrayed themselves differently to the world and thought and behaved differently in private (only to a certain extent, that too). But every country does that and foreign policies are made officially and with the larger picture in mind, so delegates can't express their private sentiments when carrying it out. So seeing some leaders described in colourful terms and the clashing personal views by American diplomats on various matters doesn't surprise me. In fact, if anything, I'm surprised it isn't worse.

In my opinion, the reaction of a large number of American politicians to the leaks has been infinitely more damaging than anything in the actual leaks. Calls for treating Wikileaks as a criminal organisation, the hunting down of Julian Assange, and the death penalty for the suspected leaker reveal a) highly telling paranoia about being held accountable, b) a complete inability to judge the actual effects of the leaks, and c) a staggering failure to understand how the whole thing works - kill Assange, shut down Wikileaks, and the next leak just gets circulated with no obvious central point whatsoever, much as this one started being distributed via BitTorrent once Wikileaks was DDoSed (not to mention that they'd already given the information to newspapers).

Yeah, their reaction has been really stupid. Most of the information in the leaks are rather harmless and in some cases, rather helpful (like the recent one about Russia's secret service and politicians have close links with organized crime; though I think everyone knew that. =p). And it is good to know about how our leaders operate under our names. One can easily forgive what individual diplomats think about a policy, another country or leader. And I think leaders in other countries aren't delusional enough to believe everything that is being officially said. Ultimately, in foreign matters, more than what is being thought and said unofficially what is being done is far more important. America has got to fear if they have been planning some secret operations [like that plan to remove nuclear rods from Pakistan (the country is their ally, after all) and and that spying campaign against UN officials and about gathering their facial images, fingerprints, iris scans and DNA]. And since they shouldn't be doing all that, it is a good thing that it came out.

But I do think there should be some self-regulation from Wikileaks side. All the documents produced this time are harmless, but the ones they released about Afghanistan should have been edited. I'm not talking about the details of the things the US did there, but the ones which included the names of some spies. Such information was unnecessary and risked the lives of people.

Sentynel wrote:In my opinion, the reaction of a large number of American politicians to the leaks has been infinitely more damaging than anything in the actual leaks. Calls for treating Wikileaks as a criminal organisation, the hunting down of Julian Assange, and the death penalty for the suspected leaker reveal a) highly telling paranoia about being held accountable, b) a complete inability to judge the actual effects of the leaks, and c) a staggering failure to understand how the whole thing works - kill Assange, shut down Wikileaks, and the next leak just gets circulated with no obvious central point whatsoever, much as this one started being distributed via BitTorrent once Wikileaks was DDoSed (not to mention that they'd already given the information to newspapers).

Very true.

And about my big ass rant, I'm just really pissed at our politicians' desire to stay as America's bitch. But I'm good now.

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:Yeah, their reaction has been really stupid. Most of the information in the leaks are rather harmless

ikr, honestly, Wikileaks seems overrated for the most part. Like the Bank of America thing will be about huge bonuses or something that we've all suspected anyway.

But you're right, maybe if the politicians are freaking out, it's because they have something to hide....

Oh the irony, all the Nightly News broadcasts did not have a single mention of anti American attitudes.

Noo. Apparently Russia is more important.

Soo...how about those tuition hikes?

Jeez. Before you guys used pay less than us. Now you pay over twice our tuition.

I'm just hoping the rumours about Scotland following suit aren't true <.<

Nero wrote:Soo...how about those tuition hikes?

Wankers.
That is all.

I was about to go all indignant rage - then I realized that it wasn't in my country. XD

But seriously, that's insane. Usually I'm kind of unsure about whether a lot of the things people protest are warranted, but that much of an increase is messed up. However, Imma thinking attacking Prince Charles will be completely useless - does he actually have a say?

FuzzyLobster wrote:However, Imma thinking attacking Prince Charles will be completely useless - does he actually have a say?

Does he have a formal job? The article says the Queen would have to sign it before it becomes law. But I don't know whether she has much of a say anyway. Over here, the President has to sign something for its implementation. But if the President doesn't sign it the first time, the Parliament can again pass the law and than the President would have to sign it. No choice really.