SpankyMcFarland

If you want a deal between A and B you really have to go to them for it. This ain’t 1917 any more.

With whom was this deal negotiated? Usually a bilateral matter is worked out out by official representatives of both entities. In this instance, it sounds like another stitch-up along Balfour Declaration lines where only party was at the talks.

I’d say those concerns are mixed together. There is a visceral fear of receiving an animal’s organ that is understandable.

These unsavoury Arab regimes have no skin in the game. The only potential problem is explaining to their cowed populations what they are up to.

An Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal negotiated with whom exactly?

Firstly, I wouldn’t be singling out the Catholic Church alone there among Christian denominations although it certainly played a big role. One person who did try to stop the blood libel hysteria was actually a pope, Innocent IV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel Unfortunately, Martin Luther was fanatically anti-Semitic. Not a great start to the Reformation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism Secondly, the impetus for a Jewish state arose from the plight of European Jews, above all in the Russian Empire after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. Fleeing the pogroms, a great wave of migrants headed west. It is curious that Arthur Balfour as Prime Minister oversaw the passing of the Aliens Act in 1905 which, despite his protests to the contrary, had the particular effect of preventing many of these refugees coming to Britain itself, not exactly what one would expect from someone often described as an ardent Zionist. It seems such ardour ended at the cliffs of Dover. Instead he offered a piece of Palestine to them in his infamous 1917 letter to another posh Brit whose text was finalized after extensive discussions with Zionists but absolutely none with Palestinian Arabs. We don’t know how serious the British were about this - at the time they were promising sun, moon and stars to everybody to save their hides in the Great War, including the Turks - but Balfour’s contempt for the wishes of the ‘existing non-Jewish communities’, as he described them in his declaration, seems to have been genuine enough. It mystifies me how anybody can be devoid of sympathy for Palestinians watching powerlessly as their land was swamped by migrants, especially those who propose restrictions on immigration to Canada. Essentially, in their thirty years in charge, the British set up a situation where conflict was well nigh inevitable.

I think a lot of people in North America are genuinely ignorant about Likud’s implacable hostility to a two state solution. There are two reasons for this. Party leaders in Israel took care not to emphasize it in their speeches and interviews in English and American journalists, anxious to avoid trouble, took care not to publicize it. Here’s the party platform from nearly fifty years ago: Above all his predecessors, Netanyahu has played this game of ambiguity in English similar to the nuclear weapons policy. But now the mask is off. Why not divide Democrats over Gaza and help his buddy Trump if he can?

I think such activity is always with us. Politicians can’t help themselves and in the US they have to make a fortune to stay in the game. One of the worst for this is RFK Jr. who isn’t even an elected politician. He’s made a lot of money from his various crusades, esp. the anti-vaxxer stuff.

But what about adaptation? Have you given up on that too? All regions of this country with trees face the threat of unprecedented wildfire frequency and severity. We have to take much more serious action to fight this ever growing threat. If we don’t the Americans will step in and make us do it.

Any mature person should see the world and its past as clearly as possible. Human history is tragic and climate change is extremely serious, becoming more so each year. That doesn’t stop a person from marvelling at the beauty and preciousness of life. If anything, the fragility of our plight makes life even more valuable. For all I know, conservatives in general may be happier by some measures. I doubt some of the ones who post here are happier, though. They show little sign of it.

Actually, I see quite a lot of that activity on the right too. What do you think DeSantis is doing to educational institutions in Florida. These vices are human ones. I’ll leave it to others to decide which of us exhibits more anger in their posts.

Would you consider yourself an angry person? Do you ever wonder whether people might see your posts that way? To any genuine socialists out there - I know it’s absurd to consider me left-wing.

So you’re going to revoke citizenship for what, attending a demonstration? Would that be a positive development? There might be repercussions across the political spectrum in due course.

Small ‘c’ conservatives expect less than liberals. The status quo is closer to what they think they deserve. More of them are religious which may make more grateful for their lot in life.

Anger-posting is an exclusively lefty thing? This site shows abundant evidence to the contrary.

Much as I’d like it, I have seen no enthusiasm for PR among the Canadian public.

The rising cost of housing is a widespread issue in the world and certainly not confined to Canada. Governments have to address all the issues involved on both the housing unit supply (e.g. zoning, planning) and demand (e.g. immigration) sides. Even then, turning this ship of a problem around is going to take years. In any case, the banks wouldn’t welcome any sudden resolution that results in lower house prices and a more precarious balance sheet for them.

Lord knows how many factors are involved there in that contrast. I do know new Canadians who dream of living in Mississauga(!) for social reasons but the changing nature of work and society also plays a role in the surge towards cities. We need far fewer farmers now as a proportion of the total population, for example, and our pulp mills are becoming a thing of the past. Well paid service sector jobs are concentrated in the major centres and young graduates seek out their own kind in the city. That’s one of the major reasons we don’t have enough GPs in the outback anymore.

If fundamental supply problems aren’t addressed won’t that just increase rents and home prices?

We seldom see wrong in measures that reward ourselves.

Across the West, except for the US which has its own problems, the political landscape is fracturing. At Canada’s founding the two biggest parties earned over 95% of the vote - now they are lucky to break 70%. This leads to a situation in FPTP where small regional parties can earn a disproportionate number of seats, e.g. the BQ here or the SNP in Scotland. Even with FPTP the decline of the major parties means we may be headed for a lot more minority government, an inherently unstable situation other countries address with coalitions (shock, horror).

I have no idea what Chauvin should have been charged with but I am convinced he was guilty of something. There is no doubt he caused Floyd’s death.

I never asserted that Chauvin’s racism killed Floyd. I just never said that, did I? Again, you don’t seem to understand the importance of the video evidence here. I think it needs to be integrated with the pathology findings at autopsy to interpret what happened. Thirdly, you need to understand that factors contributing to a death do not negate a causal link between an action by a person and the death itself. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to prosecute a person for asphyxiating a victim who had underlying diseases, and that would be very bad news for the elderly.

Yes, Napoleon was authoritarian but he offered the ordinary people of Europe a far better chance in life, an escape from the old way of doing things into modern meritocracy. He was an extraordinary reformer who sought to unleash Europe’s potential. If you seek comparisons, think of both Hitler and Woodrow Wilson. That’s why the British hated and feared him. They conspired with the tyrants of Europe to keep those dreadful empires going until 1918. After WWI, from Ireland to Estonia, captive nations threw off their yoke but a hundred years had been lost.

Oh my Lord. That is not a coroner’s report as you can actually see in the text you have quoted. It’s a medical examiner’s report. Not all coroners are doctors, let alone pathologists. Even in this report, the most favourable to Chauvin, a causal link between Chauvin’s actions and Floyd’s death is not denied. Hennepin County medical examiner Dr. Andrew Baker testified that heart disease and drugs contributed to but didn't directly cause Floyd's death. …He said the law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression "was just more than Mr. Floyd could take by virtue of those heart conditions. If what you are claiming was true then every asphyxial death of an old or sick person in custody or during an arrest could be ascribed to some pre-existing pathology - not a situation any reasonable member of the public would like to see. You are still free to make the daft claim that Chauvin’s actions were normal police procedure. I will leave it to others to shoot that down.