This is an excerpt from the Washington Post today:
Obama's pledge to work with Republicans reflected his campaign rhetoric. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, met last week with leading GOP lawmakers, and Obama has pledged to have at least one member of the opposition party in his Cabinet.
"I think what the American people want more than anything is just commonsense, smart government," he said.
"They don't want ideology, they don't want bickering, they don't want sniping. They want action and they want effectiveness."
Why can't we do the exact same in Canada?
Just found a great Blog about why we should not bail out everyone
http://thestar.blogs.com/globalfinance/2008/11/whats-good-for-general-motors-is-good-for-the-country.html
An Angus Reid poll has confirmed what most Canadians already know: We don't think much of politicians.
The online survey, conducted last month, found only 25 per cent of the 1,015 randomly selected respondents had a "great deal" or "fair amount" of respect for politicians. That put them at the bottom of the list of professions included in the survey, well behind highly respected doctors (94 per cent), and police officers and teachers (both 83 per cent). Even lawyers (44 per cent) fared better.
It is lamentable, if not surprising, that Canadians hold their elected representatives in such low esteem. Who can blame them when scandals and partisan barbs have elbowed out substantial policy discussions at all levels of government? It's not hard to see how voters might conclude that most politicians are motivated less by public interest than self-interest.
Unfortunately, the low regard in which politicians are held risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. The less respect politicians command, the fewer good candidates will want to stand for elected office, justifying ever-lower public opinion of politicians.
It is notable that journalists, who serve up the sound bytes on which ordinary citizens base their opinions of MPs, MPPs and city councillors, didn't score much better than the politicians they report on. Only 49 per cent of respondents thought highly of journalists, compared with 73 per cent in 1994, the biggest drop for any profession.
Perhaps this survey will serve as a wake-up call to both politicians and journalists that they need to raise the level of their game.
Nestle gets approval! (with conditions) LOL!
A question that no one from the ministry or Nestle seems to
want to answer is:
- If the water supply is so sustainable, why is it that
Guelph is consistently under a water restriction program?
- City staff and consulting companies have determined that
the city cannot grow pass a certain population size with
current water supply and usage (I think the population
number is 170 but you would have to verify it with the city).
The point is that there is a threshold and for some reason
no one wants to admit or accept it.
On a sidebar - the ministry is taken its time and so called
due diligence because its a political issue for our current
MPP (Liz Sandals)and she was heavily criticized during the
last election because of her inaction and indifference. In
fact there was a quote in the Mercury during the election from
her that Nestle was a good corporate citizen and created jobs.
Between you and I, Nestle got permit to its permit, however
Mrs. Sandals will be able to say that her perfect government
went through the necessary process and determined through
extensive analysis that Nestle has no adverse impact on our
water table and case closed.
Meanwhile, we will continue to have water issues, water
restrictions etc.
BTW - The KW Record newspaper, published a story from the
Grand River Conservation Authority that is quite contradictory
to what
the Ministry is saying about watershed issues. It was a great
story that interviewed the head of the GRCA and he provided
startling facts about the decrease in water with in the GRCA
and the increase in water temperature.
So maybe the ministry could start there - lol!
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