BHS

Who are you talking to?

So... your point is that it doesn't matter how the Liberals behave, since we aren't really a country anyway? That's the only connection I can see between the topic of this thread and your post. Those are some pretty deft threadjacking skillz on display dude.

That's enough to make you one of the global warming denial nuts. My theory is that the truth is just too much for then to handle. It's too depressing to think people would actually take the position soley on the basis of financial concerns...although I guess there are such evils on the world. I'm not interested in debating global warming with denial nuts anymore than I'm interested in debating with a person who thinks the WTC towers were brought down with a controlled demolition. Agreed. I too have no interest in arguing with any jackass that buys into enviro-hysteria propaganda and considers any alternative to be nothing more than some sort of evil corporate scheme. The fact that you envoke "evil" as a means of trumping my arguments only serves to confirm for me that the pro-Kyoto crowd have started their own religion. You can take it from there whether or not Church and State seperations arguments might be applicable vis-a-vis the environmentalist lobby's stake in environmental law-making.

I get the feeling that your questions are rhetorical, but I'll jump in with a few points of my own. 1) Why do Saudi Arabia and Kuwait import cheap labour from the PA and Bangladesh? They way they treat their guest workers is a good deal closer to actual slavery than the "slavery" of living and earning a paycheck in the West. 2) Russia, Congo, and Croatia don't bring in foreign labour because no one in their right mind would choose to move to those countries, when they have the option of moving to the Anglo countries instead. Moving to Russia, Congo or Croatia means lower pay prospects and unsafe working conditions combined with ethnic tension and an unstable political environment. 3) European countries like Germany and France do have populations of foreign guest workers, from North Africa and Turkey. There's a lot of ethnic tension in Germany and France because of their refusal to integrate these populations into their own. You might want to look it up. 4) China doesn't need any more slaves. They have too many as it is. 5) The last of the genuine slaves imported to the Anglo countries were freed 140 years ago. If you're concerned about slavery you should expend your efforts righting the wrongs perpetrated in Africa, where slavery is still in practice. Right near Congo, actually. 6) The Anglo countries are always looking for more immigrants because they've been so successful at integrating the immigrants that have come over in the past, unlike the other countries you've mentioned. A third generation American of Lebanese descent is more or less indistinguishable in manner and dress from any other American his or her age. A third generation Frenchman of Lebanese descent is as likely as not to be less integrated than his grandparents were when they arrived. America = acceptance and prosperity. France = marginalization and unemployment.

1) I get the feeling Gerry works for one of those crusty little free papers that like to point out how flawed the regular media is in between bursts of crazy leftist agitprop. I'm no fan of the MSM either, but the tone and frequency of his posts in this thread are almost frantic. Yes, the NP fallen for a bad story. It's not the first time a national daily in the West has published before adequately confirming the details. It isn't the end of the world. No one thinks badly of you personally because of it. In the words of some people you may respect more than me, it's time to Move On. 2) A couple of points that make the story plausible even though it isn't true: i) Islam has a history of imposing a dress code on religious minorities. The dress code even has it's own name: the Zhimma, or Dhimmitude. ii) Iran currently employs a dress code based on gender. iii)Ahmadinejad is exactly the sort of guy you'd expect to revive the Dhimmitude dress code, if only to irritate Westerners.

Up next: Mel Gibson vs Tom Hanks in a no-holds-barred Hollywood smackdown to determine the veracity of the existence of God.

By voters at election time. If the bureaucrats are not doing their job right we have the power to fire their ultimate bosses. Two words: Stan Koebel. Good luck with that.

A for profit company has no incentive to reduce consumption because more consumption means more 'sales'. Fresh water will be a incredibly valuable resource in the future which, unlike oil, cannot be replaced by alternate sources so it makes sense to have it managed by a non-profit organization which can make decisions based on what is good for society as a whole instead of what is good for stock holders This is one of the most shockingly ignorant things I've ever read on this forum. Water is them most easily renewable resource on Earth. Fresh water literally falls from the skies. The amount of water on Earth stays relatively constant over time. It isn't destroyed by it's consumption, but merely recycles back into it's own self sustaining system. In Canada we make use of a fraction of one percent of the amount of fresh water that is available to us. The only thing that adds value to it at all is the treatment required for safe consumption of water that contains natural and man-made pollution. People who live on untreated well water get it for free. It would be a million times more difficult to replace oil as an energy source than it would be to replace the Great Lakes as a source of fresh water for Southern Ontario where the bulk of the population currently gets it's water from the Lakes exclusively.

Absolutely you should be able to opt out. Isn't that what toll roads are? If you opt out of paying you opt out of using. Similarly for the infrastructure such as sewers, electricity etc. Even with private infrastructure such as telephone lines or internet you can opt out of the service. If more services were structured along a pay-for-use model, it allows society to allocate cost to those who actually benefit from the infrastructure. I couldn't quite follow what you meant by the sentence "Similarly...electricity etc." so forgive me if I'm reiterating your point. Where I live, both water and sewer services are already pay-per-use. Water is metered - the consumer pays by the gallon. Then your four month water bill is doubled to cover the cost of maintaining sewers, based on the idea that the water that goes into your house has to come back out and the most likely egress is the big stinky drain. I think geoffrey is confusing mono infrastructure with monopoly service provision. After all, there is only one phone line, gas line, sewer line, electricty line, water line, cable line etc. going into the average home. But as you've pointed out, most of that infrastructure can be currently be passed from competing provider to competing provider based on consumer demand. And there's no reason why those things that the government still monopolizes couldn't be treated the same way. Where I live garbage collection and landfill is carried out by a private company under contract with the city. Water and sewage could be too, except the city actually does a pretty good job of providing those services. I'm not complaining.

Sad to hear. Always sad to hear about terminal cancer. From what I've heard, though, pancreatic cancer is a death sentence whether it's metastasized or not, and because it's always inoperable and aggressive. So, as much I dislike our healthcare system, it's hard to blame this guy's death on poor healthcare.

This reminds me of the old Monty Python insurance skit where the vicar discovers he bought into the "Neverpay" policy.

From the May 15 Best of the Web Today by James Taranto: Any dissenting voices?

Meaning what? That intelligence and facts are being cherry picked to support a policy doesn't make them less factual. Look, you can have this argument. I'm not going to go any farther with this, it's been too done before. Enjoy your pyrrhic victory.

Good grief. Another global warming denial nut. Thanks for pigeon holing yourself, now we can get back to our regular programming. I'm not denying that the global average temperature is trending up. It would be as disengenuous of me to argue the temperature hasn't risen since 1970 as it would be for you to deny the global average fell between 1940 and 1970. What I'm denying is that human activity is the cause. I would also argue against the notion that changing human activity will have a significant impact on future temperature fluctuations. The enviro-alarmists who currently wail and moan about global warming are lead by individuals who in the 1970's were certain that an ice age was just around the corner. I'd say their predictions have not gotten better with age - at least the ice age theory has an established geological pattern to back it up. If I had to put my money on either runaway human-induced global warming or a geologically induced ice age I'd bet the farm on the latter. It's kind of ironic that the people who claim to put nature first have such little faith in it.

You seem to have quite a time seperating opinion from truth, at least when it comes to your own opinions. And the current status of the law seems to weigh against what you believe. While it's true that in recent years (1964 onward) medical students have favoured a more modern Hippocratic oath (an adulterated version of the original designed to accomodate the hipper attitude of the modern medical profession, which no longer precludes euthanasia, abortion, having sex with patients, etc.) there are still medical graduates who prefer to swear to "do no harm". Regardless of how warm and fuzzy the concept makes you feel, it's still against the law to commit or abet suicide. Doctors who "help" someone "choose" to die only get away from it because they are licensed to admininster poisonous substances and aren't criminally responsible for accidental deaths, not because their profession is morally, ethically or legally entitled to do so.

Good points all BD. New York Times, December 23, 2005 According to this article the practice dates to before Sept. 11 2001.

I don't see this issue as a question of what the patient desires. I don't think there are too many who want to spend their final days. I think the preference for a quick death by overdose is probably universal for people who find themselves in that situation. The question for me is whether it is appropriate that someone charged with keeping you alive is also the one charged with managing your death. I think there's a conflict of interest there. But I'm not really sure how that conflict might be overcome. Perhaps the creation of a new specialty that deals strictly with euthanasia, maybe even their own legislation outside of the current healthcare legislation.

Again, my understanding of economics is limited, but irrational doesn't mean crazy when applied to economic modeling. It means unpredictable. Economic rationality is based on the understanding that an individual will always act in his own best interest. This is necessary to limit the effect of outside influences. A model attempting to incorprate irrational behaviour is vastly more complicated and inaccurate than one which assumes rationality. Even genius economists lose their minds trying to account for irrational behaviour. Get up for the downstroke.

And then there's that nasty Downing Street Memo. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html The Downing Street Memo makes it clear that those who were privy to it believed Saddam had WMD. They discussed what the fall out would be if he used such weapons on Day 1 of the war. Let's recap: - Saddam had a history of using chemical weapons. - Saddam had a history of attempting to develop nuclear weapons. - Weapons inspectors in the 90's found WMD in Iraq. In 1998, when the inspectors left Iraq for the last time before the run-up to the war, there were still stockpiles of these WMD whose destruction had not been accounted for. - Also in 1998 Clinton signed a bill declaring the American government's intention to remove Saddam from office. - The ceasefire conditions from 1991 and subsequent UNSC resolutions left open the possibilityof military intervention should Saddam fail to meet the conditions of the ceasefire - Every intelligence agency worth a grain of salt on the planet believed that Saddam had WMD. The Downing Street Memo authors believed it. Sabri believed it. Saddam's son-in-law believed it. But in the no-win situations you guys are forever trying to cook up the US administration is either right about every last detail, right down to their syntax in ad libbed public speech, or else they are moral degenerates.

My guess is that it's seperatist sympathizers who're afraid of losing market share to the Tories.

This is an almost textbook example of "perverse incentive". There isn't enough work to keep people employed on the East Coast, so we pay them more unemployment benefits so that they can afford to keep living there. Your first sentence reflects simple supply and demand. An increased supply of labour decreases the necessity to pay higher wages. People with fewer employment options will work for less. This is the consequence of living in a high unemployment environment, not some Machiavellian scheme on the part of business. Cheaper labour is the only thing that makes the East Coast attractive to business. If the government said, "Sure, you can build a plant there but you have to pay whatever wages you'd have to pay in Alberta" there wouldn't be any point and it wouldn't happen. I think you'll find that the right to free association is more of a Constitutional right than a human right, the former being an agreed upon social contract applying uniformly to the citizenry of a nation, and the latter being the ad hoc demands of international jetsetting NGO harpies like Bianca Jagger. But it is interesting to me that you think of the UN before the SCOC in resolving domestic issues.

If you examine the sidebar under my name you'll note I'm from Southern Ontario. I don't know that EI is specifially geared to apply differently in different regions, but it most certainly applies differently to different industries. Southern Ontario is full of construction workers who make a good living only working part of the year. The one and only time I ever applied for EI (and didn't receive any) I was forced to attend classes geared toward finding a new job. Half of the guys there were in construction. None of them paid any attention to the instructor or filled out anything besides manditory paperwork. They had no intention of looking for work outside of the industry that had laid them off, many of them for the tenth time or more. For them the class was just another hoop that had to be jumped through every year. It makes me ill that these asses make twice as much as I do working half the time, and I'm forced to pay into the scheme that makes it possible. And they're bitter about having to attend the stupid class every year. Ingrate sons of bitches.

Give me a break! Haiti? Senegal? Does anyone really care? Harper's got better stuff to do than listen to these guys piss and moan about how we're not giving them enough foreign aid. I mean, honestly. Can you think of another reason why they'd be here? It's not like they're trading partners. Chretien missed the King of Jordan's funeral because he was too busy skiing and nobody batted an eye. It says a lot that the Quebecers are now hyperventilating about two members of the vaunted Francophonie not being treated like they have the keys to the country.

I believe Che Guevara was the doctor( a physician), and Castro studied law. Interestingly, Joseph Goebbels had a doctorate (of philosophy, I believe) and was known in the Nazi ranks as 'The Doctor'. I'm refering to his many honorary doctorates here. The point being that GWB actually earned his MBA, but it still counts for naught among those who idolize The Mighty Beard.

Oh, come on. Have some faith in Hillary. Reagan was able to fix all of the stuff that nincompoop Carter broke in his first term, and I'm sure a smart lawyer lady like her can do just as well.