SpankyMcFarland

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.

Pre-existing conditions complicate murder trials all the time. In this case, I don’t think any reasonable person would deny a causal link between Chauvin’s actions and Floyd’s death.

The fact that only two political parties have run America all that time is one of many signs that all is not well down there but there have been some changes. The segregationist etc. wing of the Democratic Party in the South largely defected to the Republicans long ago.

People aren’t always the best judge of what is going on in their own bodies. Do you mean the Medical Examiner’s report? The system in that state is a bit weird and has both but I don’t think a coroner was involved here? In any case, go back over the opinion as presented at trial and explain how it absolves Chauvin of guilt. No, I won’t get that right because it sounds like rampant, delusional paranoia to me. You’re not actually obliged to defend every bad cop in the world.

Criticizing the outrageous behaviour of one cop is actually good for the police. It reaffirms the fact that there are standards they are expected to comply with and do in the vast majority of cases. Those who defend him don’t seem to understand this very, very basic point.

Again, I urge you to read Tobin’s testimony. His opinion that Floyd was killed by Chauvin does not depend on what Floyd said. He also asserted that a healthy person would have died if put in Floyd’s position. On the question of heart disease, you may not be aware how common it is in middle aged men. Narrowed coronary arteries are frequently found in men over forty who die in accidents. In fact atherosclerosis is visible long before that.

The defence didn’t challenge Tobin’s evidence. Can you challenge it with a similarly expert opinion?

Didn’t have anything to do with Chauvin…I don’t think anybody will buy that particular claim. You have a basic problem that you fail to address. The expert testimony of Martin Tobin, which sealed Chauvin’s fate, was not challenged by a similar witness for the defence. Why were they not able to find somebody as well qualified to dispute Tobin’s evidence?

AFAIK Tobin’s evidence was not challenged by an expert in the same field. It laid emphasis on the restriction in breathing rather than pressure on blood vessels.

Do you think it is revealed truth passed down from the Almighty? Sometimes in natural deaths the autopsy findings basically explain themselves, eg a ruptured atherosclerotic abdominal aneurysm, but not in asphyxial deaths. That’s why we are having this conversation.

The medical investigation of death involves bringing together all available evidence and arriving at an opinion. That usually involves medical notes and the scene of the death as well as the autopsy itself and the toxicology report. In Floyd’s death, however, we have something else - a video of the death as it occurred. Martin Tobin examined this evidence hundreds of times to assess many things, including the changes in Floyd’s respiratory rate. In this way he was able to exclude the presence of significant fentanyl intoxication which would have depressed the rate.

Have you read the opinion given at trial by Martin Tobin that the pressure applied to Floyd would have killed a person completely free of any drugs? Do you have some specific objection to that testimony based on medical pathophysiology?

India will look into what exactly? That they’re conducting a campaign of extrajudicial assassinations across the globe? You think they don’t know that somehow? That’s not how diplomacy works. When a country does that on your soil they have zero respect for you. In this particular case, the Americans are more constrained than we are. They need Modi on their side against China. Again, we have no idea what evidence Trudeau had when he correctly accused the Indian government of outrageous conduct in Canada.

Yes, Hamas are entirely responsible for this horrendous attack. Let’s leave it at that so there is no room for misunderstandings.