SpankyMcFarland
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Posts posted by SpankyMcFarland
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On 4/1/2024 at 6:12 PM, WestCanMan said:
Not as big of a faux pas as giving the muslims their own country in India though.
TBH, if MEers outside of Israel/Palestine weren't such God-damned religious bigots this all would have been sorted out 75 years ago with relatively few problems.
But why did European Jews need a place like Palestine to flee to in the first place? I don’t think Muslims were involved there.
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Hong Kong under Xi lacks error control. What company there is going to criticize how the place is run any more? Which gives Singapore a massive advantage.
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Unfortunately, like many populists, Modi has a strong basis of support among Hindus esp. from the upper castes or those who like to think they’re from those castes. I have to listen to praise of this guy from my own in-laws. He’s a nasty bit of work but sadly a lot of India is cheering him on at the moment. Elections there have always been a murky affair with oodles of dodgy dealing going on. That regrettable aspect hasn’t changed much under the new man.
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Russia and China are existential threats to the West, Russia in the short-term, China for much longer. Iran is not that kind of threat. It’s a local problem.
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I know nothing about this topic. Based on my own ignorance, I’d like to suggest that politicians should not make major military purchases into political issues at election time. We civilians just don’t know enough to decide which helicopters, boats or fighter aircraft should be bought. The main thing is buy SOMETHING in a timely fashion, based on the collective expertise of our military, before the older equipment becomes useless and or dangerous.
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China just made a big leap forward in the field of pig kidney to human transplantation. BTW they transplanted a pig liver too.
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On 4/8/2024 at 2:53 PM, ExFlyer said:
His announcement is all after the next election so...guess what...Defence gets nothing, zero, nada....again.
Agreed but our problems with military spending and a coherent long-term military policy precede this particular government by a fair few decades. It seems difficult to change this in a democracy unless we have an imminent military threat on our doorstep. At least Putin has managed to wake Europe up a bit.
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On 2/24/2024 at 3:13 AM, August1991 said:
Quebec now has hydro-electric resources.
Some of which belong to Newfoundland and Labrador…
I’m glad I’m only a Come From Away when I think about the Churchill Falls deal as otherwise green slime would be shooting out of my head on a regular basis. If Hydro Quebec had negotiated something so inequitable and nakedly colonial with a developing country it would have been shamed into walking away decades ago.
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Other countries have number crunchers too and let me assure you they are looking carefully at Canada’s sky high per capita production of greenhouse gases. The notion that we can hide our profligacy just because we are few in number and it’s cold up here is childishly naive.
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Oh no, something I didn’t hear of until today. While in hospital, the patient had an episode of acute cellular rejection. Apparently it has been treated.
Quote…on the eighth day, the kidney began showing signs that it was struggling. Doctors performed a biopsy and discovered that white blood cells had started to infiltrate the transplanted organ, causing swelling and inflammation — classic signs of the most common type of acute graft rejection, known as cellular rejection. It’s something transplant nephrologists like Riella see in about 20% of patients receiving kidneys from human donors, and is treatable using high doses of steroids and a drug that depletes the body’s ranks of T cells.
Slayman’s doctors started him on these drugs, and after a tense three days, his body began to respond to treatment and his new kidney’s function improved. They also upped the immunosuppressant regimen he will be on for the foreseeable future as a precautionary measure against future rejection episodes.
They had to advise him he couldn’t go back to work for at least two months. You wouldn’t have to tell me that.
https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/08/xenotransplantation-pig-kidney-rejection-richard-slayman/
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11 hours ago, blackbird said:
Of course the earth is warming. It would warm anyway because that is what climate change does. It is normal. Learn to adapt to it, not tax Canadians.
You discuss a serious problem for our planet, the only known home of life in the universe, in the same breath as increased taxes. In the greater scheme of things they are hardly comparable.
Adaptation is a different issue and we are all going to have to do a whole lot more of that. It will be forced upon us. Our country is on fire and that fire generates country-sized plumes of smoke in the summer. Lord knows what awaits us in the next decade. You better start praying to the lad upstairs because we’re not getting much done down here.
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1 hour ago, blackbird said:
I believe there are around 200 countries in the world. A small number produce most of the man-made CO2. Canada only produces 1.5 % of the man-made CO2, which is insignificant. Most countries do not punish their citizens with punishing carbon taxes as Trudeau and the Liberal/NDP coalition does. The carbon taxes are already fairly high and will approximately double by 2030 if Trudeau gets his wish.
The U.S.A, China, and Russia do not punish their people with carbon taxes. Since Canada only emits 1.5% why are we paying the price for the world's CO2 emissions in that way? It just doesn't make sense.
Perhaps Trudeau is trying to make himself look good with the U.N. in hopes of getting a good position after he leaves office as PM.
All the carbon taxes in the world on Canadians will not reduce that 1.5% significantly.
Why do the climate change alarmists and all the websites making much of man-made CO2 never mention water vapour. Water vapour is by far the largest greenhouse gas.
What did I just say? 1+1+1+1…= 50. We can’t wiggle out of our responsibilities just because we are one of those ones. It all adds up.
In addition, our output PER PERSON is far greater than the vast majority of people in the world. Do you honestly think they’re going to let that go? This is a small planet and we are all stuck here.
Like shingles in the ad, nature doesn’t care. If we humans all bury our heads, nature will bury us.
1 hour ago, blackbird said:Man's total contribution to greenhouse gas total in the atmosphere is very miniscule. I don't believe all the hype about it.
Too many people have their shirt in a knot over man-made CO2. I think one day mankind will look back and think those people were nuts.
So all the science on this is wrong? Are you following what is happening in Antarctica right now? Unprecedented temperatures? Huge ice shelves breaking up? There’s no joy for me in being correct on this issue. What do I get for that? A ruined planet is what.
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On 3/21/2024 at 8:15 PM, blackbird said:
1. Man-made CO2 is 0.1% to 0.2% of the total atmospheric greenhouse gases.
2. The fossil CO2 emissions of several countries in percentages of all fossil emissions for all countries for 2022 is:
Canada 1.511%
Australia 1.021%
Brazil 1.212%
China 32.884%
Japan 2.810 %
U.S. 12.600%
India 6.991%
Russia 4.956%
--- List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions - Wikipedia
The total fossil emissions are so minute it is extremely unlikely in my opinion that this has an affect on climate change. It appears that 99.8 or 99.9% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are natural. This is according to information on wikipedia.
China's emissions are 32.884% of total man-made CO2 emissions. So no matter what Canada does it will make no difference to the total fossil emissions in the world because Canada's emissions are only 1.511% of the world's fossil emissions. That should be obvious to any reasonable person who looks at these figures.
Assuming those figures are accurate, half of the greenhouse gases come from somewhere other than China, the US and India and every one of those countries is going to come out with the same lines as we do about not making a difference even though together we produce half the output. Two other things to consider. Most countries have contributed less than the West has to the excess gases up there already and Canada’s per capita production is enormous.
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Leon Panetta has some harsh words for Israel:
QuoteLeon Panetta, former defense secretary for the Obama administration, said it’s “not surprising” that Israel admitted mistakes after an airstrike killed aid workers earlier this week, because in his experience, “the Israelis usually fire and then ask questions.”
https://www.aol.com/israelis-usually-fire-then-ask-155158452.html
Israel investigated the WCK killings because nearly all the victims were Westerners. Does anyone believe it does the same for Palestinians killed under similar circumstances.
As I understand it, the two main objectives of this invasion were to bring all the hostages safely home and to eliminate Hamas. Objective one is already only partially successful and I don’t see how objective two can be achieved by Israel alone. Many of the children watching Gaza being levelled and their relatives slaughtered will be highly vulnerable to Hamas’s message.The pictures from Gaza are also having a woeful effect on Biden voters in swing states. Words alone are not going to save Joe:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/04/wisconsin-democrats-biden-stop-gaza-war
Israel would be far better off not sending either Netanyahu or Dermer back to Washington again. They are poison for their side’s interests.
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On 2/16/2024 at 10:53 AM, carepov said:My take on history:The Jews are the closest thing to an "indigenous peoples" to this land. It is very ironic that they are labeled as "colonizers".1947: the UN Plan was to create 2 states, the Arabs rejected the plan, started a war and lost. When you lose a war, you lose land and people need to move. This is not fair, but the sad truth for millions of the least fortunate people. ~700,000 Palestinians became refugees, around the same time ~900,000 Jews were forced to move out of other Arab countries. During this time there were literally 10's of millions of refugees around the world (eg: Germany, India, Pakistan...)Between 1949 and 1967, the West Bank was controlled by Jordan and Gaza by Egypt. Why was there no Palestinian state declared sometime in these 18 years? There were no "occupied territories". The PLO was founded in 1964, which part of Palestine did they want to "liberate"?More wars in 1967 and 1973. Again the Arabs tried to drive the Jews into the sea and lost.Peace was offered in the 1993 Oslo accords, rejected by Palestinian leadership. As well as in 2000 at Camp David. Other offers for peace have been refused by Palestinians.In 2005 all settlers were were withdrawn from Gaza, Hamas was elected, there was a war between Hamas and the PLO. Hamas's constitution states that they want to destroy Israel and kill or drive all Jewsout. Their actions are in-line with this.This history, like all history is filled with evil people and acts. There is no possible way to completely reconcile the injustices of the past. We could compare Arab atrocities against Jews, and vice versa, but what's the point...***There are now 14 million people on this land (Israel, West Bank and Gaza) 7 million Jews, 7 million Palestinians. Perhaps with a few exceptions, all have the right to live where they are now. All people should live in peace and security. This is what is stated in the Israeli constitution.10/7: As I learned about the horrific atrocities and saw Palestinians celebrating, I told myself, "well at least now the western world will realize how evil Hamas is and will support Israel in eliminating them." I was so wrong and I still can't figure it out:Israel, warts and all, are defending their people (note: this includes 2-million non-Jewish Israelis):-As I mentioned, their constitution is one of peace-As a country, they have the power to kill/displace all Palestinians, yet they restrain-Practically every young Israeli goes through military service and walks around with a machine gun, yet they restrain-Build bomb shelters and the Iron Dome to defend their civilians-In Israel, there are 2 million Arab-Israelis with full citizenship and rights living in peace and security-Israel is among the best countries in the world for women's rights-Ditto for other minority rights-Ditto for free speech, religion and other civil rightsHamas, in contrast:-Openly calls for the destruction of Israel in their constitution-Rapes women and celebrates this and violence-Kidnaps babies and seniors-Promises to repeat the attacks of 10/7-Rewards people and their families for killing Jews-Fires rockets into Israel-Uses civilians as human shields-Kills homosexuals-Women's rights?-Minority rights?-Free speech and democracy?I'm sure glad that it's Israel with the dominant military, not the other way around.For peace its' simple: Hamas must be defeated and the hostages returned. The support of Hamas is prolonging the suffering of innocent Palestinians.
Starting in 1947 is way too late. You have to cover events from 1900 at the latest. That’s when migrants born in Europe began to flood into Palestine without any consultation with the majority population there. Imagine if 20 million Chinese arrived in Canada over the few decades and then they said, ‘let’s be reasonable, we only want BC and the Prairies for our new country’. Would you be keen to compromise and agree? If you say they weren’t indigenous and that’s important to you then imagine if a world-dominant China gave the same land as a new country to First Nations people in 2060. Fair?
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On 3/30/2024 at 3:46 PM, ExFlyer said:
You forgot to include Canada in that list of countries not accepting Jews.
I did. There’s lots of blame to go round.
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At long last I have some good news to report on this thread. Richard Slayman, the man who received a pig kidney last month, was discharged from hospital today.
Quote“I want to thank everyone at Massachusetts General Hospital who cared for me before and after my historic transplant, especially Dr. Williams, Dr. Riella, Dr. Kawai, and the countless nurses who looked after me every day of my stay,” Slayman said.
QuoteSlayman is a system manager at the Department of Transportation, who has worked throughout his battle with diabetes and kidney failure.
Quote“I’m excited to resume spending time with my family, friends, and loved ones free from the burden of dialysis that has affected my quality of life for many years,” Slayman said.
“Lastly, I want to thank anyone who has seen my story and sent well-wishes, especially patients waiting for a kidney transplant,” he added. “Today marks a new beginning not just for me, but for them, as well. My recovery is progressing smoothly and I ask for privacy at this time.”
Of course it is early days yet. Let’s hope this brave man does well.
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On 4/1/2024 at 9:14 PM, Perspektiv said:
Taxing us won't fix this.
The world is still highly fossil fuel dependent. Industries such as automotive, air, manufacturing, farming, are still emissions heavy globally.
Canada based on comparisons to similar G7 nations, are insanely clean.
Fear mongering makes absolutely no sense, as it doesn't look at the reality.
It would be like panicking in crossing an intersection on your light, because of the volume of people who get hit by cars, every year.
Panic would not be rational.
This is no different.
The danger is there. However, panic literally ignores that this does absolutely nothing to resolve the issue at hand.
Paying high taxes, or being punished for "pollution", is ridiculous.
Investing in greener innovative alternatives to polluting means, maybe is a start.
Panic to me, is just someone not understanding how little influence they have in the state of the world right now, and is fueled by emotions and fear vs logic and pragmatic
I don’t advocate panic but we need to be concerned enough to deal with the problem which we are not at the moment. Our fire season doesn’t stop now. I can see a day coming when the number one request from the US to Canada will be to stop our smoke choking their cities.
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Putin could be killed or overthrown tomorrow. It’s why he spends so much of his time hiding these days. I suspect that happy event would end the war. And he could choose to end it tomorrow if he was a normal human being.
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Throughout history, statements like ‘we are good - they are evil’ are followed by ‘we deserve their land’ in short order.
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Violence or threats of violence against other Canadians for any reason are not excusable so that is easy enough to condemn whenever it happens. Also demonstrating outside places of worship, schools or hospitals should be punished by criminal charges. I am a secular social democrat. Theocracy in any form, indeed anything less than complete separation of religion and state, is anathema to me.
However, as someone who came here from a part of the world with its own troubles, I would caution anyone who talks about one side being the good guys. If you’re willing to look back into the history of any such situation that is virtually never true. For starters, there are often more than two sides. In the current conflict, yes, Hamas are to blame. However, the Palestinians didn’t drive Jews out of Russia after 1881, or block their entry into Britain in 1905, or slaughter them by the millions in Europe after 1933. On top of all that, the British saw fit to or open the borders to Jewish immigration to Palestine after 1917 without consulting the majority population at all, setting two nations on a collision path, and then ruthlessly crushed the Arab revolts that resulted. Anybody complaining about the effect that immigration is currently having in Canada should ponder that for a second. Even words to the effect of ‘from the river to the sea’ were used by Likud long before they became a slogan for confused millennials. Furthermore, Likud relentlessly turned those words into ‘facts on the ground’ in the West Bank which is surely far more offensive than just saying them?
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2 hours ago, myata said:
Look, from the first days of this event the picture was clear that the risk for the younger age groups, outside of compromised ones, was minimal.
In the age of Internet, there shouldn't be any problems with finding evidence upon evidence of experts" calling for total "vaccination" including infants groups that were never at any noticeable risk. It went full way from pseudo-expert "advice" to plain out propaganda that pumped fear and wrong, possibly worse, deliberately false messages.
In a number of European jurisdictions vaccination" of healthy under 18 was never recommended. Possibly EU as a whole did not have this recommendation, needs to be checked.
How was it justified? In a democratic society which we are or not, that question demands an answer. Were these actions and policies justified by any objective evidence? Or was another example of arbitrary, bureaucratic overreaction, that yet again resulted in real, measurable damage including undermined trust to a critical public system.?
I don’t speak for the state and these are genuine questions. For men 20-40, can you compare the risk of getting the vaccine with the risk of getting Covid in Canada? How many men have died from Covid vaccine-induced myocarditis in this country?
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On 3/23/2024 at 7:37 PM, CdnFox said:
No problem - moonbox posted a different one that got very similar results as a backup
Sorry guy - but there are more than one studies out there now. Can you post one that studied this particular specific issue and concluded there WASN'T a significant risk to healthy males under 40 from the vaccines? Because like i said there's a fair number that say there are.
And until they actually find something wrong with this one - it's still perfectly valid.
I don’t dispute there is an increased risk of myocarditis after the vaccine, esp. in young males who have received particular types of vaccines. Properly conducted studies have shown this. Many other adverse events have also been detected in the largest international studies too BTW. The questions I would ask include: how many people are affected in Canada and how severely - what is the mortality and morbidity associated with this, in other words the clinical significance? For example, how many of them were classed as mild myocarditis, a typically self-limiting condition? Is what is happening enough to restrict the vaccine in certain cohorts? I don’t think the final answers are in but some suggestions have already been made on the type of vaccine to be given and the timing of them in younger males. Why don’t you contact the local experts in Vancouver if you have such concerns?Yes, McCullough’s article is valid for now (valid should be enough - perfectly valid sounds like something completely legal a dodgy accountant would come up with) but I still think it was a bad one to pick at the start of this thread. VAERS data was never meant to be used this way. It’s a screening tool that can easily overstate the numbers if misused. He has had to retract at least one paper already on Covid, a serious embarrassment for any researcher, and has had numerous other issues in his work.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10897748/
The magnitude of the problem matters a great deal. If these vaccines are damaging a significant number of young peoples’ hearts then something should be done.
And just to clarify lest anybody else reading this might have any doubt - I know nothing about this subject.
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On 2/11/2024 at 8:05 PM, OftenWrong said:
The issue is disgustingly politicized, so that no one can tell what the truth is directly. The bought-media liars will only obfuscate and deceive with contradictory information.
However, it is a fact Trump was given HCQ during Covid by his medical team. We can't know the truth about these non-MRNA treatments technically, but we can derive it by understanding that the president of the United States, as with most world leaders, will always get the best, most up-to-date medical treatment available.
So in that light, HCQ was given because it was beneficial.
The fact one person chose to receive a particular treatment proves nothing by itself.
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Anti-Semitism or playing with the truth?
in The Rest of the World
Posted · Edited by SpankyMcFarland
The Balfour Declaration in 1917 was a response primarily to Europe’s antagonism towards Jews and their desire to migrate westward, not least to Britain which Balfour himself blocked.
You may want to consider editing that last post. There’s a whole lot about Pakistan when there didn’t need to be much, if any. BTW I am aware of atrocities committed by humans of every creed and colour.