MightyAC

I've heard that she is claiming that she is too bitter to work...is that true? If it is I think she could have come up with a much better strategy.

I agree. Life imprisonment without chance of parole seems like more of a punishment than death to me. I would much rather a criminal rot away in a little box forever than be allowed a quick and painless exit. Also, after all appeals are exhausted it is just as expensive to kill someone as to keep them locked up. Plus, as horrible as it is that we lock up innocent people at least we have a chance to catch the mistake and make partial ammends if they are still alive.

I personally don’t think that terrorism is our most pressing concern but fear is great way to manipulate the people. Our current federal government would love it if we lived in fear of terrorist attacks. It makes it much easier to sell military expansion while simultaneously slashing all spending on environmental protection. I’m not saying that our military does not need more funding but the idea that a government should focus on 5 priorities and forget about all other areas is ludicrous. Whoever decided that cancelling EnerGuide and completely ignoring the Kyoto accord was a good idea should be forced to spend a week visiting the many thousands of people who can’t breathe and will die prematurely do to our poor air quality. Oh well they are probably right people should probably be forced to stay indoors, in ventilated rooms after the age of 65 anyway. Also, has anyone else noticed the increase in kids with asthma, allergies and skin problems? That couldn’t have anything to do with increase in toxic irritants we are in contact with could it? I understand that governments have to deal with many issues simultaneously and it’s not easy but continuously treating the environment as an afterthought is utterly stupid.

I don't really have an answer to your question, except to say it is a flawed system of justice yet it is still one of the best in the world. The only solution is Kaizen... a Japanese word meaning something like "continuous incremental improvement". I completely agree that it is horrifying that we convict the innocent. Take the Truscott case for example. I can’t imagine loosing 47 years of my life due to a false conviction and a police force desperate to make an arrest and possibly protect the reputation of a military base. Considering the risk of false conviction can anyone tell me why there are still people that believe in the death penalty?

Whoops, I didn't notice that Michael had already said the same thing..

People confuse the new mega-city of Toronto with the GTA. The mega-city simply combined the governments of what was Metro Toronto into one. So the city itself is made up of what was Toronto, North York, York, East York, Scarborough and Etobicoke. The population of Toronto itself is something like 2.5 million. The GTA is an area description used for planning purposes by the province, it is made up of Toronto, plus the regions of Durham, Halton, Peel and York. The population of the GTA is roughly 5.6 million. Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, Pickering and Vaughn are not part of the T.Dot but are part of the GTA.

I might desert too it's hard to say without knowing what those soliders actually witnessed. However, I think I should then face the consequences for my actions and stand trial as a deserter.

Oops.. It looks link to the newspaper site is no longer active. The publisher link still works though. Here is the text of the newspaper article if anyone is interested. Scholar doubts Bible's inerrancy Researcher says changes occurred to the Good Book throughout history By Yonat Shimron Raleigh News & Observer RALEIGH, N.C. -- For more than 30 years, Bart Ehrman has been driven by a quest to explore the origins of the New Testament -- a quest that has made him one of the most distinguished scholars on the history of the biblical text and the early church. Now he has written a new book outlining his research, which has led him to lose his faith and others to re-evaluate their relationship to the Scriptures. "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why" is Ehrman's attempt to explain to non-scholars some of the findings of New Testament historians and translators during the past 300 years. For those who believe the Bible emerged more or less intact, his research may be eye-opening. Ehrman, who is chairman of the department of religious studies at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, hopes the findings challenge readers to see the Bible in a new way. "For most people, the Bible is a non-problematic book," Ehrman said. "What people don't realize is that they're reading translations of texts, and we don't have the originals." The premise of "Misquoting Jesus" is that the New Testament has evolved over time. In the first few centuries after Jesus' crucifixion, scribes manually copied the books that would ultimately compose it. In the course of reproducing the manuscripts, they accidentally or intentionally made thousands of changes to the texts. Although most of those changes were insignificant, Ehrman argues some were theologically driven and intended to settle disputes that raged in the early church over doctrine and belief. Among the many examples he cites is the story of the adulterous woman who is brought before Jesus. The story, which appears in the Gospel of John, includes one of the most familiar verses in the New Testament, in which Jesus tells the group who brought her, "Let the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her," John 8:7. This story, however, is not found in any of the oldest manuscripts of John's Gospel. Until the fourth century when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, scribes were not professionals but simply educated people who knew how to write. They took liberties with the text in ways unimaginable in today's world of standard practices and copyright laws. In the case of the passage in John, scholars think scribes added the story in the margins of the manuscript and eventually other scribes inserted it into the text itself. Then there are the more theological changes made to the text with the intention of silencing alternative theologians who denied the full divinity of Christ. When scribes translated the Greek manuscripts into Latin, for example, they embellished on a passage explaining the Trinity, which is the Christian belief that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The oldest versions of the epistle of 1 John, read: "There are three that bear witness: the Spirit, the water and the blood and these three are one." Scribes later added "the Father, the Word and the Spirit," and it remained in the epistle when it was translated into English for the King James Version. Daniel Akin, the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., said he continues to view the Bible as the inerrant, inspired word of God, even as he accepts that changes were made in the text, including the embellishment on the Trinity formula. "Inerrancy of Scripture pertains to the original documents," Akin said. He concedes that there are no original documents, only copies. But through studying the ancient text, scholars have been able to recover 98 percent to 99 percent of the original words, he said. "I don't know any reputable scholar who would say that the changes bear significantly on doctrine," Akin said. Others disagree. More liberal interpreters say the changes made by the scribes are nothing if not troubling. They say the centuries of edits lead to one conclusion -- that the Bible, rather than being a divine document is, in fact, a very human one. "The mechanism by which the Holy Scriptures came into contemporary form is much more messy than most Christians like to admit," said the Rev. Jack McKinney, the pastor of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh. Indeed, for Ehrman the changes were so messy they caused him to lose his faith entirely. "Given the circumstance that (God) didn't preserve the words, the conclusion seemed inescapable to me that he hadn't gone to the trouble of inspiring them," Ehrman writes.

There are far more than a few misspelled words and I'm not going by the DaVinci Code. A great book on this topic is "Misquoting Jesus: The story behind who changed the Bible and why" by Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is chairman of the department of religious studies at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is one of the most respected religious historians in the world and he has proven that some very significant changes have been made. As a result of his findings Ehrman, formerly are very religious man, has lost his faith entirely. I have posted two links. The top one is a newspaper article about the book and the second is a link to the publisher’s page. The book may be available at your local library, I urge you to read it and investigate your faith. In the end you may decide to believe that the changes, omissions and added stories are not enough to alter your faith but you should always keep it in mind when you use the Bible to defend hatred of any kind. http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti.../601280384/1007 http://www.harpercollins.com/global_script...isbn=0060738170

I disagree with the war so I am barely off the fence on this issue. As a result of this illegal war the Iraqis will be freer than they were. Do the ends justify the means when the means are many thousands of dead bodies? I don’t know. What I do know is the soldiers who morally disagree with the actions of their country only have two choices. They can suck it up do their jobs and take their government to task when their tour is over, or quit and face a military trial. War is an ugly necessity and it will be for a long time to come. I wish it was simply a horror story of the past but that’s not the case. For military operations to be successful soldiers must carry out orders without question. They are part of team that depends on them, lives are at stake. By quitting they are putting the lives of their teammates in danger. As a country we cannot harbour an ally’s deserters while being silent about their actions in Iraq. I think Canada has two choices. Deport the deserters or accept them as refugees and publicly denounce the US occupation of Iraq. Either way we will have consequences to face as well.

How much responsibility (or condemnation) do you place on the soldiers (non-deserters) in Iraq relative to the responsibility borne by the American administration? Responsibility Soldiers - 0% Administration - 100%

Harper’s old buddy, the current president of the NCC had qualms about the $1,000 personal donation limit as well. He had two main points the first being that it infringes on the rights of individuals to restrict how they can spend their own hard earned money. The second was that this limit is really just an attack on other parties. The Conservatives receive most of their donations in the form of small cheques from individuals. This is mainly because of the grassroots origins of the Reform party. The NDP and Liberals tend to receive fewer but larger donations. Also, it would drastically inhibit the ability of fledgling parties to gain support. Typically smaller parties like the Greens get a start by receiving large donations from a few interested individuals. Over time they use the large donations to build a larger following. It would be almost impossible to start a new party with the $1,000 cap. So the personal donation limit may really be an attack on other political parties disguised as accountability. Also, I have heard that the new ethics package actually opens up 10 new loopholes that would allow the government to hide money from auditors. If those loopholes still exist then I really do hope the Senate blocks this bill.

I think it's great that we are now harbouring deserters as it opens up so many new career options. I think I will join our military, get in shape, collect paycheques, learn a trade, maybe have them pay for another degree and then when I am about to be shipped off to Afghanistan I’ll quit. What a brilliant idea. Why isn’t everyone doing this? I can easily find moral grounds for not going to any war or peacekeeping mission. If I really worked at it I could probably find some ethical reason why I shouldn’t help clean up after hurricanes and ice storms too. I don’t agree with the war in Iraq but I am vehemently against deserters and supporting deserters. If they were draft dodgers I would let them stay in my home, but they signed up. These people were aware of both the risks and the rewards. They happily accepted the rewards and then they shirked their responsibility and ran away.

Blah blah blah blah. Is any of this useful? NO! Another Bible hater who wants to find the meaning of life from tea leaves! I do not agree with people who will use the Bible for their convenience or people who will use the translation argument for anything that does not suit their cause. Homosexuality is wrong according to the Bible and Sodom & Gommmorah is a fine example of that, I am sorry to be the one to tell you that and it really hangs a cloud over what you believe, but I believe the Bible not you. I'm not using the Bible for any cause. I'm just pointing out that it has been proven that the Bible was continuously changed by humans to suit their purposes for hundreds of years. Since it is simply a flawed human text it would be foolish to use as the grounds to condemn any other religion, gender, race or sexual orientation.

The sheer number of people that use the bible to justify their hatred astounds me. A comedian once said that Christianity is a lot like the telephone game. It starts off with “Jesus loves you” and ends up “You must hate gays, jews, blacks, women and any member of an opposing sect” I am not at all religious and for the most part I’m indifferent to it. However, it is hard to remain indifferent to such a vehicle of hate. Like Oddman tried to do, I often ask religious folk why they are so opposed to equality for homosexuals. Most often their opposition to same-sex marriage comes from the bible. They believe that God is against it. The idea that people could hate any group simply because it said to do so in a book is mind boggling but that seems to be the case. It seems that Christians believe the text in the bible was directly inspired by a god. Again that is ridiculous to me but let’s go with that. Let’s say that a god spoke to some humans and they wrote down her words. At that time there were no printing presses. People had to copy the text by hand. The copies these educated people produced were then recopied by others. The original texts no longer exist and all we have now are copies of copies of copies, etc. However, some very old texts still exist. Historians have found examples from different time periods that show the texts weren’t simply copied but were in fact altered. The evidence shows that people took poetic license with the texts and exaggerated, altered and rewrote sections to support or discredit various religious movements at the time. Even if we believe that a god had inspired the original document it has long since become a very flawed human text. Many religious historians have discontinued their faith after researching this topic. So now many people are using a flawed human document as a reason to hate other people. Like Mark Twain said “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.” A good book on this topic is “Misquoting Jesus: The story of who changed the bible and why” http://www.harpercollins.com/global_script...isbn=0060738170 http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti.../601280384/1007

Currently in Ontario there is a citizens committee studying our electoral system. Their job is to determine if it needs to be changed and if so propose a new voting system. Their proposal will appear as a referendum at our provincial election in October 2007. It’s very exciting that the government will give us little people a chance to decide on the fate of our own electoral system. This process has already been tried in BC and PEI, however some very undemocratic conditions were applied to the referendum. A 60% threshold was required for the changes to pass. In the BC example 58% of the people voted in favour of a new proportional rep system and were denied. Meanwhile only 46% of people voted for Gordon Campbell and he won a majority. I can't believe such undemocratic processes occur in a first world country like Canada. Democracy is about majority rule not 42% minority rule. Dalton McGuinty has actually kept his word on allowing electoral reform to be voted on. However, he has not yet set a threshold on this vote. Please help to make sure that Dalton and the Grits do not attempt to apply the same ridiculous threshold that was used in BC and PEI. Please help ensure that the government applies the same democratic standards to this referendum as it does to its own affairs. If more than 50% vote for reform, then reform must be implemented. Likewise if more than 50% vote for the status quo then the status quo must be maintained. I urge everyone to contact their MP and ask for democracy. For more information on this issue please see this fact sheet: http://fairvotecanada.org/files/FVO%20fact...un%206%2006.pdf

Everyday social conservatives like SamStrange and conservative Christians make me regret the fact that the PC party was gobbled up by the reformers. At one point I really thought that the ends would justify the means and MacKay’s dishonesty would turn out to benefit the country. Now the shear number of socially regressive Conservatives and pushers of theocracy have made me realize that the latest incarnation of the Reform party will have very little time in the sun. So many people voted anti-Liberal not pro-Conservative last election so, in time the scary agenda that isn’t hidden anymore will scare off them off. I wish we had the socially progressive, fiscally conservative PC party of the past. Sadly the Progressive Conservatives have been turned into the Regressive Conservatives. Maybe that should have been the name of the new party.