crazymf

I think the very nature of war is to abandon diplomacy and rules of civilized conflict. A civilized war is a fantasy of yesteryear when Britons duelled and slapped each other in the face with white gloves. Only the side that appears to be winning honors the morality of a 'Geneva Convention'. At no time in history has North America been seriously threatened to the point of extinction of it's inhabitants, at least once the white boy took over. It's easy to sit back on the computer 10000 miles from any danger and criticize what other people do. I suspect the tune would change around here (ie BD) if a few suicide jockies walked into some Canadian cities and said 'honey we're home' click, BOOM!!! Torture probably doesn't really work because the info probably is coerced. However, I'm sure the CIA and every other Intel Agency out there has great ways to extract info that aren't palatable to the public. I say let them do their work and leave them alone for the same old reason as always: Better over there than over here.

Harper will win by default. The Liberal government is a joke with all the scuttling in the gutters like rats about the sponsorship scandal. A labor government run by Buzz Hargrove in the background would bankrupt the country and the Bloc just can't get enough support outside Quebec to be serious. That's my prediction......unless eastern Canadians really are that stupid enough to vote Liberal again.

It's ok guys. Every now and then we get one of these around here. Edmonton has IMT, Calgary has this person. Most of the rest of us are true stereotypical Albertans.

I can tell you this for sure. Anybody east of Sudbury doesn't matter to the federal election and we may as well not even discuss it. IMT, we are in the same boat in this regard.

Probably due to more queers coming out of the closet and getting married. They want to look respectable.........

OK here's another twist..... First off, well said everyone. Your point of view are well taken. It's a further sign of changing society that the prenup is supposedly becoming a piece of valid paperwork in marriage. My personal opinion is it's a degradation of society. However, that goes hand in hand with the fact that less and less young people 18-20 years old get married to their high school honey. More people wait, whether for education, finances, or just because it's becoming 'normal'. I think you get one true innocent chance at life. In a perfect world with perfect parents and a perfect job, everything can work out perfectly. The role of spouses, parents and children used to be fairly well defined in our society, and I'm talking rural Alberta here. Men worked, women cooked and kids went to school. (No flames please, it's true) Everyone knew their role and complimented each others skills and responsibilities. Think 'Waltons'. For a bizillion reasons, society has changed and we now have a general degradation of 'those' values that are getting replaced with fringe values learned by exposure to media, daycare etc. It stands to reason then, that when traditional values are jumbled up and people begin to have different ideas about how life should be conducted, there's going to be more discontent and domestic conflict. Women need to work to make ends meet because of financial difficulties due to the fact that the TV says you should be living in a large house on Terwilligar Drive. They begin to resent the fact that they must bear kids maybe and begin to not have a happy life. Men go to work chasing the dream and have no one at home waiting with supper so they go out to the bar, whatever. Kids get abandoned in the mix and learn values from who knows where. It's no wonder people are screwed up nowadays. Basic traditional values seem to have become nonexistent. While I still want to believe people are generally good natured, I do not believe one can rely on them to hold any of the values ones self might have. I think people are confused because some of the basic childhood programming has been tainted. Prenups, gay marriages, and virtually all issues of todays society can be traced back to a degradation of traditional family values. The best thing people can do is fall in love young, get married before you're too smart or rich, make a life together, and realize you're stronger together than apart. Don't believe the television telling you that internet day trading will make you the head of a large corporation by the time you're 20. If it was easy, everyone would be rich. Wakey wakey..... Oh yeah, what values do you think Tom Cruise has? I say none. He's probably some empty headed bozo that thinks with his little head and does what his agent says. I parrot an earlier sentiment and also don't really give a crap about what he does with his personal life.

My wife and myself went to counselling before we got married. We discussed everything from finances to having kids. I meant that and not after the fact counselling. I frankly don't have to worry about this as I plan on being married as long as we are both alive. I get a kick out of you younger farts telling what works and doesn't work for marriage. The stats aren't with you my friends. Come clean on how long each poster here has been married and we'll talk. I'll actually listen to anybody married over 15 years, otherwise you should be listening and not talking.

That's what marriage counselling is for. Prenups merely make the marriage a presumed short term affair. Think about this; if my wife and I signed a prenup 23 years ago, how much of it might be valid today? Not much, because life and fortunes change drastically in that amount of time. It is like a will in that regard.

HEY! Getting married is a major leap of faith on both parts. A prenup is just a way of saying "I'm in control and hold all the cards and am only commiting myself x-much to this marriage" Not signing a prenup is good judgement. Divorce laws are a separate subject, not that I disagree they're biased. If there's lots of money involved and the bitch needs a vacation, push her over the side of the ship at night. End of story.

BING!!!! Only I see it like this: Being human, people change, and to hell with the spouse. MEMEME. I think that people have to change to make a marriage work and last, not the other way around where people change to be incompatible. Divorce is no longer frowned upon? It bloody well frowned upon where I come from. Divorce is a failure, period. Only screwed up people get divorced. For better and for worse? I guess people forget to understand that. I've been married for 23 years and anybody who thinks it's easy should give their head a shake. It's not, and I wouldn't have been single or had different spouses given a chance. You must have qualities that compliment each other and a common goal. I just shake my head when I hear these idiots getting divorces after a couple years. Today's society: Is going to hell in a handbasket, fast.

Or perhaps it's a sign of prosperity in Hollywood to have many wives. I think it's a sign of screwed up people that can't keep their life together because it's clouded by fame and wealth. Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy the kind of misery I can enjoy. I think prenups are a cop out. If you truly have a lot of money and it's more important to you than a long term relationship, then you shouldn't get married at all because you obviously don't have enough love in you for the person to risk it. On the other hand, prenups level the playing field a bit with the unfair divorce settlements that seem to happen regularly. A marriage vow after all is a life commitment to not divorce. Why isn't that contract honored?

..until they're extinct. ..but they have a mandate to operate that way from the federal government, who can ultimately shut them down if necessary. At least I hope they could. Kind of like letting a killer attack dog off leash I guess. You always really don't know if you can call it back. I'm saying necessary evil. That's an unattainable ideal imo. That's like differentiating between the guy who pulled the trigger or the guy who held the victim to be shot. Neither is clean and both had the same intention. I don't believe we just grab people off the street for no reason and call them terrorists. Listen, we can banter back and forth all day. I like to lean toward solving the problem even if the end justifies the means and you like to remain high, just and diplomatic no matter what. I can live with that. I'm done this.

I would tend to disagree with this. In this day and age, more marriages end in divorce than not. In the case of someone like Cruise, who has a considerable fortune, why risk losing a very large sum in case of divorce. The same argument you are making could be made in reverse; by fighting the pre-nup, she is in effect saying that she thinks the marriage may well end in divorce, and wants to be able to go after Cruise's money when it does. Personally, if I was worth $20-million (or more, as is Cruise's case), I would have no problem saying in a pre-nup, "hey, if we divorce, you get $2-mil, no questions asked. If someone can't get by on that, too bad. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So why get married at all then? He can jump from hole to hole, just like a gopher.

Go Burns!!!!! I'm not for leaving Canada to become an American. We're all (north) Americans. I'm for normalizing or standardising things such as currency, politics and laws so we can travel seamlessly around our continent including Mexico. I believe with the age of communication and travel, borders will become redundant as will structured countries. Business and trade will dominate the world. Governments will become reduntant as it will become easier for people to self govern. I don't think freedom can be worn like a patch on your sleeve. It will merely be expected and acheived through understanding and cooperation between peoples. ....after we kill everybody who opposes it.

Well, when the most important person to you is yourself beyond all others and your ego is bigger than everything else in your life, prenups make sense. Actors are a bad example to go by. They live in a bubble. Prenups just preclude the hope of a successful marriage by admitting defeat in advance and sending the message that total commitment isn't there.

Howdy, CRAZYMF: I have to take issue with at least part of this statement. McCarthyism??? Reacting to a situation that made perfect sense at the time??? Are you aware of McCarthy's role in trying to have comic books banned??? You see, it was a "proven fact" that comics turned kids into murderers and, worse yet, communists. I can't really see the "perfect sense" there. I would agree with your statement if it included the phrase "would have made perfect sense to a paranoia-stricken person at the time". Some people always fear the worst, and when there is no worst, they invent one. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ok, OK I was generalizing about the communist threat that was sure to infect the world. That was reactionary to the situation after ww2. Also, paranoia about communism surely wasn't rampant, but a few after the fact whackos like McCarthey made things difficult. He was for sure a radical, just like Pat Robertson is a modern day radical of a different sort. I was merely trying to make the point that the times dictate what is the right decision and may look absurd at a later date. We've had 4 years since 911 to understand that the muslim extremists will do anything at their disposal to eliminate anyone who doesn't share their ideals. Like it or not, we have other ideals and are merely human like them. We feel ours are right, they feel theirs are. That looks like an impasse to me because just like the Palestinians about Israel, they won't be content as long as we have a pulse. Taking the Canadian middle of the road stance may merely weaken us in the end and cause a real inability to act if it becomes necessary. I'm not saying we should grab guns and start shooting. I'm saying lets let the CIA do their work and hope they are successful at it so we don't all have to get involved. BTW, do you think Canada's intelligence division is squeaky clean? I think they're just better at hiding their activities because we never hear about them.

Now that's truly a Canadian stance. View both sides and try to walk down the middle. You'd lose your moral compass by blowing away some sob in self defence? That's providing he didn't blow you away while you ponder becoming him. I guess that's honorable enough, but you'd be dead. Yes. That's why there's checks and balances. McCarthyism, Vietnam, Korea, all examples of a state reacting to a situation that made perfect sense at the time. I believe there are people in the world ie.USA, that have learned by those encounters. Are there injustices in the world? No doubt, but there are times when indecision doesn't cut it. A war is one of those times. The difference is this war at the present time doesn't really have an immediate chance of making us lose our land and society. If times got tough, I suspect I wouldn't hear too much whining about human rights violations. That's why I don't mind the CIA doing their work and trying to stomp this out before it gets out of hand.

Your political compass Economic Left/Right: 0.38 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.82

Well BD. The way I see it, if somebody picks up a gun and points it at me, to hell with his human rights. You make semi valid points all within the spectrum of your scope of argument. The bad guys aren't in your spectrum. What would you do then? Keep argueing while they slice your jugular? I'm thinking that's where we are with the CIA and their bad guys. I don't want to know, just do what needs done, get rid of the problem and call it a day. And Israel handing over Gaza wasn't a major concession? At least Israel tries diplomacy before they shoot. Last time I checked, they don't send 16 year old self propelled bombs out to kill people either.

I voted Green in the last election mainly because there wasn't a Bloc rep here and I didn't recognise the Conservative guy. If he can't be bothered to show his face around here, I don't like him. Next time I vote Liberal will be shortly after I lose my mind as I know it. I was hoping the Bloc would get in so they'd hurry up and separate.

I'm all for going back to the republic of Buffalo idea, oh, I mean province. I sincerly hope that the west doesn't wait on the sidelines while Ottawa self destructs in the face of Quebec. We all need to move on and if localizing our federal government somewhat does it, oh well......

I really don't know many details of the sponsorship scandal, but when the finance minister of a country pleads ignorance of his governments spending habits, don't some of you find that just a teensy weensy bit ............ unbelievable?? Let common sense prevail please. Of course this is federal government we're talking about.

Well, to be blunter than I was before, when those people continually plant roadside bombs, which are generally banned and called mines everywhere else, and routinely cut peoples heads off with knives to make their point, I don't really consider them human enough to express human rights in their direction. We must deal with them in a way that THEY understand so we may prevail. Just like the Palestinian thing nowadays. Israel continually tries to reason and concede to their demands, to no avail. IMO, give them what they understand, death. Send them on because they obviously don't like it here.

If you adopt the "enemies" tactics, you surrender any moral highground you may have had, which kinda terminates any claim you may have had on dictating right or wrong. Now, I'm realistic enough to know that there's going to be a fair amount of unpleasentness in any war between immoral or unscrupulous characters. C'est la guerre. The problem is that the way this has been conducted, the lack of oversight, the fact that people are bing pulled into this system (originally designed for "high value" targets) who have little or no appreciable intelligence value. That's not to say that torturing people is okay only if they are unrepentant bad guys, but all of this is pretty much anathema to democracy and the principles upon which it is founded. All this to say that stories like this blur the lines in a narative that depends so heavily on clear "good guys" and "evildoers". What good does preserving your way of life do when, in the process, you become that which you oppose? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> In a fantasy world I totally agree with you. However, we need to sacrifice as few of our guys and as many of their guys as we can to win a war. If our rules handcuff us to the extent that the other guy can merely circumvent our beliefs to win for his side, where does that leave us? Would you and your family and our society rather be dead or be accused of stooping to levels deemed unacceptable to win? That's why it must be necessary but covert. And to address the other issue, that's why leaks must be dealt with severely and the general public must never know about it. That way, most people can take high ground on the issues and pretend we are better humans than them. Our god is better than theirs, etc, etc. Of course, I know nothing about covert operations and am just theorizing. My point is we must win somehow, and if that's how we do it, ehhhh, whatever. I can for one live with myself.

I'm going to play devils advocate here. I believe the basic charter of human rights can be discarded in circumstances where the enemy does not recognise them, and he is actively engaging in the willful destruction of your society. In other words, if your rules of war aren't working, use his or whatever it takes to defeat him. It eventually comes down to doing whatever it takes to preserve our society and way of life. As it isn't politically viable or publicly acceptable, it must be done covertly. A foul tasting pill with the right medicine to cure the illness. What else can you do when you plead the Geneva Convention and instead they slit your throat?