Spiderfish

Great...I agree! Rob Ford should be out of office. But there is contradiction in favoring the legalization of hard drugs and criticizing and condemning Ford for his drug problems (ie. - addiction).

Used...yes. Derived?? Okay. So these silly little play on words and opposition to the idea of drug use leading to negative social consequences is just a juvenile game of gotcha...you and I are actually on the same page. Got it.

No, not likely. I guess the term sober second thought has little merit and is simply derived from an implication of metaphorical impairment. Do you think that drugs and alcohol impair sound, rational judgement or are you actually arguing against this notion?

Many of the social consequences resulting from drug use come from an impaired ability to make sound judgement and the loss of personal control that results. For example, many people who decide to drive drunk or high would not make the same decision sober.

I'm not sure, you'll have to ask Guyser. It's hard to know how you could be in favour of legalizing hard drugs, but heavily critical of the social consequences.

Correct. I agree somewhat, although I have known many people who drink socially without a problem. I have known a couple of people who have struggled with crack use and resulting addiction and from what I have seen, there is no such thing as social crack use. Their loss of personal control under the influence of such a drug is unquestionable. I agree. He also appears to have difficulty controlling himself sober.

There's nothing to clear up, really. My comment made no mention about hookers, absence from work, drinking in public, etc. I only referred to those who criticize him for his elicit drug use. You obviously have no problem with Ford's drug use, only the impact that results from it. Of course, the general correlation between elicit drug use/abuse and unethical, immoral, or illegal behavior is pretty well identified and one of the main arguments against legalization of elicit drugs, so an argument could be made that your viewpoint is in itself contradictory.

So, I was merely illustrating that if sentiment on this board regarding the legalization or decriminalization of all drugs (including crack) at all reflects general population sentiment, the statement you made is not accurate.

You sure about that? A poll taken on this website not too long ago had 44% of people on this board voting that all drugs should be legalized or decriminalized, and a further 40% voting that some drugs should be legalized or decriminalized, with 73% of those people indicating that drugs other than weed should be legalized or decriminalized. I think the point is that there are some on this board who condemn Ford for his drug problems, yet those same people champion the legalization of those same drugs.

Breach of trust, fraud, and likely a charge of mortgage fraud...it probably doesn't matter what he calls himself. I don't think he's going to find retirement all it's cracked up to be.

You mean "former" Liberal...now retired Independent, right? Because we all know there are no Liberals sitting as Senators anymore, with a wave of his magic wand, they all just gave that gig up...'member?

Maybe...or maybe in this case there's some merit in TimG's post. Why did they take it down and apologize if it was just some dumb, reverse-standard, anti-pro enviro stunt? Surely they would likely want to leave it up and grind out as much mileage as possible. No doubt they were going for the shock factor to get attention, but I don't get the sense that this organization is a bunch of anti environmentalists (all 100,000 of them). I think you may be reaching a bit here.

I agree, this is a pathetic and obvious effort at trolling. However what is your opinion on the 10:10 group itself which sells itself as "taking positive, practical action to tackle climate change." Does this approach seem positive and practical to you? http://www.1010global.org/no-pressure This was apparently intended to be inspiring and supportive to people in reducing their own carbon footprint and bring down emissions. They were able to muster enough sensibility to admit they made a mistake after the negative reaction they received, but who in their right mind would have found this garbage inspiring enough to make a conscious decision to release it in the first place?? Ridiculous.

I have seen a lot of changes in this forum over the last while mainly in the loss of good members. Many of these members were long-time participants and seemed to have constructive, well received contributions. Gaining new membership is important, but saving existing membership and trying to stem the rate of attrition should be given some consideration as well. There are two things that I can see that may be hurting this site. The first is this obsessive idea that thread drift is not constructive to a debate. While blatant thread drift can be a problem and can derail a topic, exploring related ideas within a topic that do not pertain directly to the subject is constructive and should be encouraged. Also, some posts that may appear off-topic actually may have merit and lend support to a premise when reflected on. It is easy to just react by declaring something as off-topic and demand that it be removed and have the corresponding warning points doled out. I have personally experience this several times recently, where one of my posts was declared off-topic but was actually meant to support a premise that directly pertained to the topic. It was subtle and not in your face, but not off topic. Meanwhile, a large number of responses from other members within the same thread was blatantly off topic when measured by the same standard. The double standard is unfair and destroys creative interaction. The second thing that is likely not helping membership is an apparent lack of respect by certain members toward other members. Debate can get heated sometimes and this is to be expected. I have no problem with the odd response being worded sharply or the odd jab, this can be constructive and stimulate the discussion if it isn't over the top. But when every single response from certain posters comes off as arrogant, condescending, and provocative, I lose interest in participating altogether. Without mentioning any names, some members on this site seem to be well researched and have knowledge on certain issues (or at least one side of the issue), and have many fine graphs and colourful charts to back up their argument. but all the charts and graphs and opinion they bring to the table is meaningless, because their delivery is so abrasive, condescending and self-inflated their point gets lost. Then when effort is made to avoid further interaction, they can't drop it but instead come at you even more aggressively with more condescending crap to provoke reaction. It's something that some may have a tolerance for, but many others are completely put off by this and choose simply to go somewhere else.

I guess it's easy to be bold and cocky if you've got no skin in the game. Not sure its the case if you're a snake and you've shed your skin.

It's quite the game Trudeau appears to be playing. First he boldly declares in June that he is going to be publishing all Liberal Senate expenses online in an effort to lead the march to increased transparency, and "hoping the other parties buy in". Justin Trudeau details plan to publish all Liberals' Senate expenses online Now it seems that after a few details on a month's worth of Senator travel expenses were published for the month of October on the Liberal party website, the details of the expenses have mysteriously disappeared. Trudeau has made the assurance that the third quarter expenses of all Liberal senators who were part of the Liberal caucus will be online as of next week. However, the third quarter of the fiscal year reports will be the last of the senators' reports as they are no longer in the Liberal caucus. His solution to unethical and poor behavior appears to be to let the crap flow freely, make a sudden declaration of accountability, and then promptly disown the offenders and wash your hands of it, but not before you encourage everyone else to shake out the skeletons. What a true visionary...pure class.

Or following him like a blue and red cloud of impending doom. Yep.

I hope you're not confusing my post as being sympathetic. Aside from you and your buds drunken run-ins with the jaywalking police, it seems rather unlucky generally speaking to be caught and fined for jaywalking. I mean...jaywalking??? I didn't even know that was a real thing anymore. I see it happen literally dozens of times in the average day.

Likely would have heard about it had this been the case. It's interesting that the RCMP was in the immediate vicinity at the exact time of the infraction. This guy sure has some dreadful luck, must be exhausting being a natural magnet for bad karma.

You mean...like other PM's from all governing parties have done for decades?

Harper doesn't control the number of vacant senate seats that need to be filled, are you suggesting that somehow he does?

Regardless, it's not without precedent as you claim.

I'm not sure if that number of senate spots recently vacated sets a precedent, maybe... but that does not have much to do with Harper. He still won't be able to catch up to Chretien's 72 Liberal appointments before the end of the term.

Looks like Harb and Brazeau will be formally charged today. Mac Harb, Patrick Brazeau To Be Charged By RCMP. So much for enjoying retirement.

Actually, it's not without precedent. Chretien elected a total of 75 Senators during his 10 years as PM, 72 Liberals and 3 Independents. Harper has elected 59 Conservative Senators to date.