Missile Defense and U.S. appeasement

We won't join officially! Yeah!! Now conservatives are saying we won't have friends in the U.S. administration. Others are saying our economic ties exempt us from repercussions. But the conservatives retort that we sometimes need the office of the president to get through the red tape or to defy congress's protectionist tendencies. This is nonsense since softwood lumber and beef have been on the agenda for a long time without any help.

Also, to receive some retaliation we'd have to irritate those in charge of the US, that's not the president or congress. It's the corporations, as the 146-billion dollar tax cut during a year of 500 billion dollar deficit year demonstrates. So I think our trade will continue just fine as long as the corporations keep making money.

Abortion, real arguments?

Are there real arguments against abortion without invoking god/religion and other nonsense?

It seems odd to me that there are women against pro-choice who have had abortions and regret it. Pro-choice means woman can choose not to have an abortion. I don't think it's wrong at all that they inform woman as to the side effects, but that should help a woman make a more educated choice. Key word choice!
As a male it ain't my call, but pro-life is really just a misnomer (it should be pro-birth i.e. get the baby out and deal with it).

Confederation and Martin's Fall

I think Martin has made a huge mistake with his deal for the Atlantic provinces. This is further exacerbating the provinces interrelationships (since the federal government is just all the provinces). Provincial leaders are now whining that they deserve a "fair" deal too, and the definition of fair is widely disputed. I can't blame them since it it their job to do their best for their province, but the federal government should have realized this is Pandora's box. I've said it before provincial politics is outdated and this incident will show why. A strong federation should share all of it's resources equally. Natural resources should be national not provincial this way everyone can gain. Instead each manages their own but we try and equalize the money! Canadians need to decide once and for all are they Canadians or provincial people. Right now we are heading for more provincial autonomy and that's bad. Instead of a strong nation we will be 10 moderately friendly trading partners.
Mark my words, Confederation is in trouble!

Maybe some good could come out of it. If only we had a charismatic intelligent person to pitch the idea of redrawing the balance of power for the modern era. This would be a lot of work but that's why it would be worth it. Redo the provinces to be amalgamations of rural Canadians and small cities and let metropolis govern themselves. Make the distribution of power based on reason not tradition. For instance make healthcare federal with a regional (elected!) senate. I could go on but since I don't have the charisma or tact to execute this I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

Messed up people in charge

A bombshell in view happened this week: North Korea admitted to having nuclear weapons. Or as we also know them WMD's. Seems like that acronym isn't mentioned much any more. But Bush has said they won't use force if they talk. Now Saddam had the weapon inspectors in Iraq and was talking to the UN. So the US will go into Iraq because it has faith there where WMD's but won't go into N. Korea because they admitted it! So either Saddam should have lied that he had WMD's or the Bush administration has changed it's ways. Knowing about the Iran situation, the latter seems unlikely. I wonder what the stand-off would be like if North Korea had oil? But you must admit it's a messed up world when on top of all this, Austria sells 800 rifles to Iran! But then why would an Austrian company abide by the embargo against Iran when the U.S. vice-president's company does this.