Election Day

[normaM]

Cause Okanagan is the whitest place on Earth and doesn't have a good number of temples, pagan houses, and mosques?

no kidding

[steven lloyd]

I've voted in more schools than I have religious buildings over my many years of voting, so that "convenience and availability" probably isn't the best answer. Governments and religions are very bad bed partners. Didn't you ever wonder why nothing government does is ever held in anything but a Christian building? Why not in a mosque or temple or pagan meeting house??

I've noticed voting stations where people go to vote in Sikh Temples in the lower mainland before. Does that make the "bed partners" with government too ?? Maybe they were "Christian" Sikhs ? Or is it just not that big a deal ?

[Lady tehMa]

I've noticed voting stations where people go to vote in Sikh Temples in the lower mainland before. Does that make the "bed partners" with government too ?? Maybe they were "Christian" Sikhs ? Or is it just not that big a deal ?

Probably the latter. It isn't a big deal, really. Mountains out of molehills.

[daria]

I don't think this is a grammafreddy hate on, as you suggest GF, but rather you were the one to bring up the issue, so now you're the one expected to respond to criticisms of your point of view.

I am curious as to why you have such a problem with the federal government providing money to churches, so that people can go and vote there, but you do not seem to have a problem voting for a party that has done this:

As Harper doled out millions in academic infrastructure funds under his economic stimulus package, veteran university administrators were astonished to discover that, for the first time in memory, the federal gravy train had stopped by at least fourteen private Christian colleges to distribute more than $26 million in grants, each one unveiled at a splashy press conference featuring a local Conservative member of Parliament. Atlantic Baptist University in New Brunswick's Bible belt lucked into $6 million, the largest handout by far, while Redeemer University College, located outside Hamilton in the riding of Conservative MP David Sweet, the former president of Promise Keepers Canada, received nearly $3 million. "The fact that this money is going to private institutions--and fundamental Christian ones at that--is something we haven't seen in this country before," said James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

(That's from The Armageddon Factor on pages 46-47.)

Aren't you the one who always argues that private businesses and institutions are better than public ones, because they fund themselves without the use of taxpayer dollars?!

[grammafreddy]

I don't support the funding of private religious schools or churches.

However, to think that only the Conservatives do it is a mis-think. They all do. The only reason I might have voted Con is that they are the only ones wanting to pay down the national debt but their religious aspect is something that gags me - and always has.

So where does that leave anyone for choices? Too bad the Libertarian Party isn't more of an entity as it might be a good choice.

Actually, I think I will vote NDP in the federal election - they are promising me more benefits in my old age and y'all can just dig a little deeper into your pockets and paycheques to pay for me and millions of boomers like me over the next 20 years. Sure, it'll drive up the national debt, but since I won't be working to pay it off, what do I care?

[The Green Barbarian]

Aren't you the one who always argues that private businesses and institutions are better than public ones, because they fund themselves without the use of taxpayer dollars?!

That Marci Macdonald book has been completely discredited as a complete hack-job full of complete lies. Trying to use it as a "source" is just plain ridiculous and reeks of desperation.

[Bagotricks]

Aren't you the one who always argues that private businesses and institutions are better than public ones, because they fund themselves without the use of taxpayer dollars?!

That Marci Macdonald book has been completely discredited as a complete hack-job full of complete lies. Trying to use it as a "source" is just plain ridiculous and reeks of desperation.

Just like all those articles about climate change GB? ;)

[The Green Barbarian]

Aren't you the one who always argues that private businesses and institutions are better than public ones, because they fund themselves without the use of taxpayer dollars?!

That Marci Macdonald book has been completely discredited as a complete hack-job full of complete lies. Trying to use it as a "source" is just plain ridiculous and reeks of desperation.

Just like all those articles about climate change GB? ;)

Yup - all the ones that are pro man-made climate change - definitely! But everyone already knows that man-made climate change doesn't exist - at least everyone except the Green Party anyway.

[daria]

Aren't you the one who always argues that private businesses and institutions are better than public ones, because they fund themselves without the use of taxpayer dollars?!

That Marci Macdonald book has been completely discredited as a complete hack-job full of complete lies. Trying to use it as a "source" is just plain ridiculous and reeks of desperation.

She's a well-respected journalist, the recipient of the Canadian Association of Journalists' investigative feature award, a former bureau chief for Maclean's in Paris and Washington, she has interviewed Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton, and spent five more years in the United States as a senior writer for US News & World Report. Ms. McDonald is somebody whose research should be respected.

[The Green Barbarian]

Aren't you the one who always argues that private businesses and institutions are better than public ones, because they fund themselves without the use of taxpayer dollars?!

That Marci Macdonald book has been completely discredited as a complete hack-job full of complete lies. Trying to use it as a "source" is just plain ridiculous and reeks of desperation.

She's a well-respected journalist, the recipient of the Canadian Association of Journalists' investigative feature award, a former bureau chief for Maclean's in Paris and Washington, she has interviewed Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton, and spent five more years in the United States as a senior writer for US News & World Report. Ms. McDonald is somebody whose research should be respected.

yet the book didn't surive even basic fact-checking. It's a complete joke.

[UnknownResident]

Aren't you the one who always argues that private businesses and institutions are better than public ones, because they fund themselves without the use of taxpayer dollars?!

That Marci Macdonald book has been completely discredited as a complete hack-job full of complete lies. Trying to use it as a "source" is just plain ridiculous and reeks of desperation.

She's a well-respected journalist, the recipient of the Canadian Association of Journalists' investigative feature award, a former bureau chief for Maclean's in Paris and Washington, she has interviewed Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton, and spent five more years in the United States as a senior writer for US News & World Report. Ms. McDonald is somebody whose research should be respected.

yet the book didn't surive even basic fact-checking. It's a complete joke.

What lies? Why has it been discredited? And discredited by who? Sorry for the inquiry, not trying to grill you, just very curious. Just claiming that it's ridiculous is not a sound enough argument for anybody with a logical mind to side with you, I need facts and names please. (Real facts, and your name doesn't count either! )

[Al Czervic]

What lies? Why has it been discredited? And discredited by who? Sorry for the inquiry, not trying to grill you, just very curious. Just claiming that it's ridiculous is not a sound enough argument for anybody with a logical mind to side with you, I need facts and names please. (Real facts, and your name doesn't count either! )

Ask and ye shall receive…

I am directly familiar with only a few of the subjects in Marci McDonald's book, yet I was able to spot dozens of errors immediately. I'm sure there are many more; I've spoken with a number of people McDonald wrote about extensively, who tell me that McDonald didn't bother to actually interview them, and neither did any fact-checker from Random House.

Some of McDonald's errors are just plain weird.

For example, on page 39, she says that Jason Kenney "served as Stockwell Day's chief of staff." I presume she makes that point to show just how dominant the Christian influence in Day's office is. But as anyone on Parliament Hill knows, Kenney has never been Day's chief of staff --Kenney has been his own MP since 1997, years before Day even came to Ottawa. Day's chief of staff is a Montreal Jew named Neil Drabkin. Day's manager for his leadership campaign was a hard-living, pro-choice Red Tory named Rod Love. Unfortunately, the true facts don't fit McDonald's narrative of a Christian conspiracy.

McDonald makes other amateur errors like this. For example, on page 395, she writes that Rob Anders is an MP from Edmonton. Actually, he's the MP from Calgary West. It's not an important error, but it does highlight the problem with McDonald -- who spent her career in Washington, D.C. -- trying to write about Canadian politics. She just doesn't know her subject that well.

Being out of the loop means that McDonald misses things. On pages 39 and 368, for example, she claims that Kenney's ethnic outreach efforts were "revealed" in a "leaked strategy paper" published by The Globe and Mail in October, 2007. That might be how McDonald found out about it; but the rest of us learned about Kenney's role in ethnic outreach a year and a half earlier, when Prime

Minister Stephen Harper appointed Kenney his Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism.

It is useful for McDonald to cast Kenney's role in ethnic outreach as a secret that had to be revealed, because that supports her thesis that Christians such as Kenney have a hidden agenda. But anyone who follows Kenney knows his courtship of ethnic communities--most of whom are not Christian -- is hardly a subject that he likes to keep to himself.

On page 39, McDonald calls Kenney a "charismatic Catholic," a reference to a denomination that mixes Catholicism with elements of evangelical style. That's news to Kenney. McDonald seems to have just plain made it up.

So, too, is the claim on page 65 that Ontario politician Frank Klees was a Baptist minister. He wasn't -- not that McDonald bothered to check with him before writing it.

Many of McDonald's errors seem to point in the same direction -- to make Christians look more scheming or powerful than they are.

On pages 69-70, for example, she claims that the Canada Family Action Coalition "scrambled" to put out a political report card "pinpointing acceptable social-conservative candidates without taking a partisan stand that would jeopardize their charitable tax status." Sounds like those scheming Christians were trying to bend the tax laws--except that CFAC is not a charity and is not bound by laws against partisanship.

McDonald talks about things that never happened, like on page 164 where she claims a Christian activist named Faytene Kryskow visited Stockwell Day's home in B.C., or on page 119, where she claimed Terry O'Neill wrote a column without disclosing his role in a pro-life group (in fact, he did disclose it -- as his letter on today's National Post letters page attests). And on and on.

Is McDonald's case really so weak that she has to rely on this many factual errors to make it? Why didn't she interview many of the key people she wrote about? Why didn't Random House fact-check her clangers? Did none of her editors really know that Jason Kenney is an MP, not a political staffer?

[The Green Barbarian]

What lies? Why has it been discredited? And discredited by who? Sorry for the inquiry, not trying to grill you, just very curious. Just claiming that it's ridiculous is not a sound enough argument for anybody with a logical mind to side with you, I need facts and names please. (Real facts, and your name doesn't count either! )

And here we go with the merry go round - I supply sources, you guys cry and whine and say they aren't credible or the even more basic rote response "they are all just right wing guys" without looking at the points they make and round and round we go. I'll save you the trouble - if that is going to be your only response then I am done. That crappy book was a hack job - plain and simple.

Here's one review:
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blog ... ython.aspx

I suggest that you guys make Google your friend from now on - it really is simple to type "Marci Macdonald - Armegeddon Factor - discredited" into Google and you'll get all the links you need. You young guys - you want everyone to do the work for you.

[UnknownResident]

What lies? Why has it been discredited? And discredited by who? Sorry for the inquiry, not trying to grill you, just very curious. Just claiming that it's ridiculous is not a sound enough argument for anybody with a logical mind to side with you, I need facts and names please. (Real facts, and your name doesn't count either! )

And here we go with the merry go round - I supply sources, you guys cry and whine and say they aren't credible or the even more basic rote response "they are all just right wing guys" without looking at the points they make and round and round we go. I'll save you the trouble - if that is going to be your only response then I am done. That crappy book was a hack job - plain and simple.

Here's one review:
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blog ... ython.aspx

I hope at this point I've discredited this illusion that somehow I am left-wing because I don't support the Conservatives. I have not shown that I agree with the NDP platform (in fact I've blasted it), and I have made it known I don't support Iggy either. I'm merely trying to get the facts so I can form an informed decision. However if you supply me 'facts' from extreme right-wingists then I'm going to call you out on it. However the sources you've posted appear to be credible, and deserves further inquiry. So my opinion right now is that the book in question should not be referenced until it is investigated further. But please stop trying to make me into a leftie when I am not a true leftie.

You young guys - you want everyone to do the work for you.

It would be nice!

ETA: Google is not always a credible source. The great thing about the internet is anyone can say anything, the crappy thing about the internet is anyone can say anything.

[daria]

Ask and ye shall receive…

Do you have a link to go with that post?