When Paikin got around to Tim Powers, he curled up the fingers on one of his hands and said, 'see the blood dripping from my dragging knuckles? 'Ya got a bandaid?

'Best line of the night–and well deserved by Paikin and his team for having asked it. I somehow can't see a similar question being asked of the LPC, NDP, or the Greens: “What about those envelopes overflowing with cash left in Montreal restaurants? Does this connect the LPC with other somewhat unsavory envelope stuffers in la belle province?”

It'd never happen. Double standard, anyone?

When Paikin got around to Tim Powers, he curled up the fingers on one of his hands and said, 'see the blood dripping from my dragging knuckles? 'Ya got a bandaid?

'Best line of the night–and well deserved by Paikin and his team for having asked it. I somehow can't see a similar question being asked of the LPC, NDP, or the Greens: “What about those envelopes overflowing with cash left in Montreal restaurants? Does this connect the LPC with other somewhat unsavory envelope stuffers in la belle province?”

It'd never happen. Double standard, anyone?

I'll try again.

I wanted to say that I thought Steve Paikin was alright until he brought up the “barbarian” comment. I have no idea where that came from but it was entirely inappropriate. Am I right that someone on the panel said something like “just a minute here”? I thought that everyone sitting there seemed a little stunned by it, and thankfully, all had the sense to dismiss calling our PM just that. I think that Steve P. really should apologize, it was uncalled for and very unprofessional. Strangely I haven't read anything by the media about it.

Typical….

I've lost all faith in any media reporting I hear on tv or radio or read in the newspaper. I'm finding that searching the net better informs me about the things we don't hear about….possible the right things.

“The back and forth brought out, for me, the variety of view points to believe there were better solutions working together than I’d heard from any one party.”
Could you please list some of the points in that “variety of view points” with some of those “better solutions”? I'm having a hard time interpreting what you mean, so I'd appreciate it if you were more specific.

“That we continue to bash humour (silly sweater and “you learned the French word for last night?”) and be riled by the expression of different ideas is bothersome.”
Once again, I want to make sure I understand what you mean.
Do you object to the sweater comment during the debate, i.e. Jack Layton's question about whether the Conservative platform was hidden under Mr. Harper's sweater?
Or do you object to conservatives finding such a question silly, and thus “bashing humour”?

“My vote will go to the candidate who recognizes that, if it is important, then it is complex. If complex it will not be ‘fixed’ by a simple one thread solution.”
Well, you seem to object to the opposite of complexity, i.e. simplicity.
Personally, being a simple kind of person, I would have welcomed more simplicity, more directness in your comment here, not veiled references … to a certain candidate's complex plan, perhaps?

Please allow me to leave you with a couple of pertinent quotes:
“Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple.” Edward de Bono

“Expansion means complexity and complexity decay.” C. Northcote Parkinson

“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.” Frederic Chopin

He presents well, he comes across as measured and, apparently, objective, but if you watch TVOntario's The Agenda on a regular basis, you discover that his panels, nine times out of ten, are stacked about four to one with anti-c/Conservative commentators.

A case in point was his Cuts to Arts funding program this week. He had three dyed-in-the-wool lib-left-arts cheerleaders, who clearly disliked PMSH and his party, one businessman/arts patron who occasionally mentioned that it's the responsibility of the government to do cost-effective studies and to curtail grants/subsidies which are not producing results, and Tim Powers, a CPC spokesperson. Thank G*d Tim Powers has a genuine sense of humor and enough self-esteem not to have been completely steamrolled.

The stacking of the deck happens all the time. So, no matter how “temperate” or “measured” Mr. Paikin appears to be, he and his producers have set up the discussion to tilt largely to the lib-left side, which means that the viewers are hearing 3/4s lib-left viewpoints to 1/4 right-of-centre ones. 'Hardly equitable.

No wonder the Canadian public is so ill-informed about what's actually happening, seeing as they're getting a heavy dose of lib-left propaganda and spin every time they turn on their televisions. I seldom watch The Agenda anymore. I've got better things to do.

On the other hand, Steve Paikin and TVO did themselves proud on last night's program, which dealt with the subject of voting for someone you could see yourself having a beer with. The panel was evenly split between lib and not-so-lib commentary and, IMHO, the conservative commentators did an admirable job (Deb Gray was GREAT!) . If more panels were composed like this, I'd tune in more often.

That we continue to bash humour (silly sweater and “you learned the French word for last night?”) and be riled by the expression of different ideas is bothersome.

In fact, I had to find the American vice presidential debate to give a later listen, since I was enthralled by the Canadian version. The VP affair was indeed, two speeches, running simultaneously, Stephen.

My vote will go to the candidate who recognizes that, if it is important, then it is complex. If complex it will not be ‘fixed’ by a simple one thread solution.

Dion said Harper views artists as “enemies”, that Harper was behaving like “big brother” or “President Harper” whereas Duceppe referred to “ideology” and “moral standards he [Harper] has” in that irritating nasal twang of his. The cuts were not an economic decision, they were an ideological decision, according to Duceppe.

When Harper explained the reason for the cuts was the ineffectiveness of some programs, May went on about the “tiny amounts of money” involved, and how they were intended to increase Harper's political power. May then raised the spectre of a giant Conservative database which according to her would enable Harper's tacticians to increase the Conservatives' votes, and ended by calling the cuts “stupid.”
Sooo – Ms May gets the prize: she implied that the Conservatives were trying to appeal to a certain segment of the population. Shall we say … the unrefined segment?

Layton brought up the “freedom of expression” angle – the names of Gwynne Dyer and Avi Lewis were mentioned by May – and then Layton went on to describe artists' subsistence level.

So, they didn't really lie, as I concluded previously. Actually, they were quite true to themselves.