BHS

I would guess that 'bastard children' probably made up more than 50% of the earth's aggregate human population. Okay, I'll bite. What does marital status have to do with my post?

Monty: I demure to your superior grasp of Australo-Anglo internal politics. I should have looked this up. It's just that the Conservatives have been such a brazenly weeny group of tools since Major that I assumed their Kerry-esqueness. And even Major was a loser.

Dude, you may be sticking your hand into the lobster pot, so to speak, by including condescending generalities in your post. I'm interested to see how some of the East coast members reply to this. That said, it's pretty sad that paying jobs in the fishing industry can't be filled in a region full of unemployed fisherman.

I agree with the sentiment, but ... deported to where? Where did they come from? If they don't have papers it's a pretty tough call, especially since they're probably lying about their country of origin. We don't want them here, so why should another country be willing to take them without proof of citizenship? If we just start shipping them out based on quick assumptions we're going to make a lot of foreign governments angry and uncooperative.

The CBC is a corporation, and as such it reserves the right to maintain control over who is allowed to reproduce content it has generated. That being said, it is a corporation wholly owned and paid for by Canadian taxpayers. It's entire reason for being is that is functions as a public service. All of it's content should be made public domain in my opinion. Maybe I should start some sort of letter writing campaign. If your call to privatize the CBC was answered the new owners would retain the CBC's rights and there would be no chance whatsoever that it's content would be open for public use. So unfortunately the blogger you mentioned would be in the same boat.

It's a pretty big leap from "No teen should be forced to have children" to "No teen should be having children". There's quite a note of finality in that second statement. Possibly this because teens are themselves children and are therefore incapable of living up to adult responsibilities. I agree with that sentiment, if not with actually enforcing it. It's almost as if your'e saying that not only should abortion be legal, it should be manditory for minors. Then you state that teens, who being children otherwise rely on their parents to be responsible for their welfare, should be allowed to sneak around behind their parents' backs to make one of the biggest choices of their entire lives. They aren't responsible for their own livelihood, they aren't responsible enough to practice safe sex (or abstain), and they aren't responsible enough to care for children, but somehow they are magically capable of responsibility when they make a choice that's popular among progressives. Ironically, their newfound responsibility stems from the fact that they are otherwise entirely irresponsible. I don't know that I buy that.

Actually, according to this article published May 13, the bill hasn't passed yet. There are serious doubt that it ever will. The concept of suddenly having 10+ million felons wandering around the country isn't appealing to anybody.

Bull. Clearly Sabri wasn't the only source of intel. Clearly Rumseld believed there were weapons to be found in the Sunni triangle. To reiterate, it's not a lie to honestly express your belief. Any rank amateur should be able to reason that out. It's interesting to me that you can't.

Blair lost an awful lot of seats and lost more control in elections last week. The only reason he was re elected is that the Conservatives are worse. Bushy stole Ohio and his second election. I see now the polls have bushy at 31%. Further more we should grant refugee status to any deserters of this war. It is an illegal war and therefore it is our duty to accept these soldiers as refugees and if Harper does not want to abide by international law he should be charged. The British Conservatives were against the war. If voting against the war was the primary consideration for British voters the Conservatives presumably would have won. And if they had you would be making that claim. Bush stole Ohio by taking the most votes there. He stole Florida that way too in 2000. I think you should look up our national policy on what makes a legitimate refugee claim. And while you're at it you might want to review the resolutions the UN Security Council has passed over the years concerning Iraq, and how they might be enforced. Also, "illegal" doesn't mean "something I disagree with". It means "against the law". Could you point out which international law has been broken please? (Please don't say "Article blah Section blah of the UN Charter". If it's some sort of hard and fast rulebook for the whole planet why is it that only the Yanks have to abide by it? What about France going into Cote d'Ivoire? What about Russia going into Chechnya? What about China occupying Tibet? Where's your ire in those cases? The Charter is just a sop that international lefties cling to to justify their anti-Americanism. It appears to serve no other purpose. We sure as hell won't be taking any "refugees" from France, and I guarantee you they treat their military deserters less kindly than do the Americans.) What crime precisely would Harper be charge with? Under what law? Under who's enforcement? What international legal body other than the UNSC (which, as I've infered, supports intervention in Iraq's affair) can do something like that? These are all critical considerations that you really have to flesh out here.

There was a short period of time, before the 2004 election, that I thought Bush might win a similar place in history for himself - a President who made judgement calls that were unpopular or even reviled during his term in office, but whom history would regard as making the right call. Not anymore. His second term has been one dropped ball after another, starting with his long term response after Katrina. He basically said, "Natural disaster? Oh, here's 130 billion dollars to throw around." You first response to problems like that shouldn't be throwing stacks of money at them without a plan, especially if you call yourself a conservative. Clinton wouldn't have done that. Ditto fixing medicare by radically increasing entitlements. Nominating Harriet Miers made him look absolutely clueless about the gravity of Constitution. Getting all huffy about Dubai Ports World and proposing leniency for illegals made him look like he was putting his own pet interests ahead of national security. It's hard to see how any of these things are going to be fondly remembered thirty years from now.

Not at all. "Barbarism" is a perjoritive term that implies someone is acting out of malice or selfishness. In this case, the suicide was an act of selfishness and altruism. You mean "selflessness". And I've looked up the definition barbaric, and the concept of "selfishness" doesn't enter into it.

Only because you are imposing your prejudices on people living in a different time and place. A stone age society like the Inuit did not have surplus resources that could be spent keeping elderly people alive for long periods of time. By choosing the commit suicide the elderly were helping their children and grandchildren by ensuring more of those scarce resources are spent on the young. There is nothing barbaric about it at all. Isn't "stone age" pretty much the definition of "barbaric"?

That would be like saying Hitler and Stalin simply helped millions to commit suicide. I believe that the individual must meet certain prerequisites, such as repeatedly confirming their wishes, etc. Back in the old days, elderly eskimos would find a nice 'ice floe' to retire on, and no one thought that this was wrong. And years ago it was the landlord's right to sleep with the bride on her wedding night, and everyone thought that was cool too (except for probably the bridegroom). Do you want to live like the Innu used to? I don't. Even they don't do that sort of thing anymore. Probably because it's friggin' barbaric.

I suppose. But below 30% is awfully low.

Not mentioned: Bush's real polling headaches began when he nominated Harriet Miers, and took another hit when he came out all peevish about conservative concerns over the Dubai Ports World deal. Before that his poll numbers hovered consistently around 50% despite the issues that were mentioned above. Nixon having low poll numbers I can understand. Carter too. It's pretty interesting though that Truman rounds out the trifecta. History certainly doesn't place him in the same league as either of the others. It doesn't really make sense, unless you believe that the American people felt the same way about Hiroshima in the later forties as they do today. Does anyone happen to know what caused his numbers to go so low?

We need that like an impacted wisdom tooth. How about this for noble causes: "The right of the KLA to ethnicly cleanse the Serbs out of Kosovo." Somehow I don't think that would fit in with Cindy's worldview either.

This is pretty telling. The three biggest players in the war, President Bush, PM John Howard and PM Tony Blair, were all re-elected after major combat operations ended. But that doesn't fall into line with Cindy's worldview so it's completely ignored, in favour of mentioning instead that Italy has once again changed Prime Ministers. Without mentioning that Italy has changed Prime Ministers an average of once a year since WWII, making Berlusconi one of the country's longest serving democratic leaders, if not the longest. It's also pretty telling that Sheehan would make assertions about how unpopular the Conservatives are at a time when their polling numbers are increasing across the country. She seems to be on the wrong side of a lot of arguments. I don't think that Canada's switch between Liberals and Conservatives has anything to do with either party's view of the war. But Harper's strong stance in support of our mission in Afghanistan hasn't brought him much negative publicity, and again, his poll numbers are going up.

Since when did "fault" enter into this? And then 53% of American voters decided that the Administration had chosen the correct course of action, even though WMD hadn't been found where Rumsfeld said they would be. But that's not the point of this thread. The point of this thread is "RUMSFELD IS A LIAR BECAUSE HE BELIEVED AND REPEATED INACCURATE INTELLIGENCE" and "SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER IS A BEAUTIFUL THING. LET'S GET NAKED IN PUBLIC AND AND CARRY RIDICULOUS PLACARDS AND PLAY BONGOS AND STUFF." No. If Person A believes what Person B is saying, it is not a lie for Person A to repeat what they've heard even if it turns out not to be true. Lying requires intent to mislead. I gather that you believe Rumsfeld harboured such an intent. Good for you. Doesn't make it true though. Just truthy. (Colbert's comedy cuts both ways.)

I think the whole concept of assisted suicide is contrary to good medical practice and places undue pressures on medical practioners. I think that if you give people the suicide option it's just a matter of time before you're going to see people dying because they're depressed or because they've lived too long to suit the tastes of their heirs.

Excellent post, Renegade.

Right. A blanket amnesty is the wrong approach. It would be far better to cut back on immigration requirements to speed the process up, and allow illegals an avenue to apply that way. I mean, if you're considering granting illegals legitimacy by way of amnesty, how can you possibly be against increased immigration? It's not like it would be less secure.

That's one of those studies that really makes me question just how much the scientific community has their act together. It sounds like those studies that showed that people who live near high tension lines have an increased risk of cancer. Which sounds plausible until you realize that given a random sampling of people you can find all sorts of increased cancer risk trends, none of which are borne out by clinical examination. My gut response to this is, "Saying that cutting into a woman's uterus increases her risk of breast cancer is akin to saying that having warts removed increases your risk of brain lesions, and I'm sure that if they tried hard enough these same researchers could discover a statistical co-relation that would bare my theory out."

Exactly correct. I'm trusting that the upper eschelons of the Conservative party have already figured this out. Abortion won't be a political issue for at least the duration of the present government, unless the Liberals can figure a way of goading dimwitted Conservative backbenchers into taking it to the media. Which is probably a really good strategy for them and I should just keep my mouth shut.

After a lot of thought, I've come to the conclusion that abortion is a medical option that doesn't require it's own special legal remedy, though I'm personally not in favour of the procedure. I'm hoping the Conservatives can at least pretend like they've arrived at a similar conclusion. I've mentioned the Roe Effect in previous threads so I won't go into further detail here. Suffice it to say that as time passes and more abortions are carried out there is a decreased zeal for the procedure. And as you've alluded, there is a long-term negative psychological effect on many women who undergo the procedure, especially if later attempts at pregnancy fail.

Did you read the blog post, or are you just going to stick with the Pelosi-style talking points and ignore an inconvenient explanation that doesn't jibe with your bias?