Wilber

So what? How does that factoid relate to Afghanistan? How does it not relate to Afgahanistan? What makes you the final arbitrator of which elections constitute a democracy and which don't? This is getting really stupid.

Elections do not equal democracy. True, but try and have a democracy without one.

"And why did I say elections are a fetish and for whom are they a fetish? Because any time doubts are raised about how successful the bid to democratize Afghanistan (or Iraq, for tthat matter), the response inevitably mentions the elections, as if elections alone are sine qua non of democracy. Follow?" No.

"Nice strawman. Care to debate me instead?" Just wondering where you get the information that makes you write the country off when those who are there taking the risks have not. You are the one that said elections are a fetish, not me. "And it was still a wrong-headed, utterly pointless waste of life that did not serve Canada's interests." It was most certainly a wrong headed, utterly pointless waste of life but historically it was very much in Canada's interests. Wars generally are wrong headed and pointless but unfortunately that doesn't mean many of them don't have to be fought anyway. It is said that Canada became a country at Vimy Ridge. Maybe that is an over simplification but WWI was a defining moment in determining the country Canada would become. Countries just don't come into being as a finished product, they are the sum of their history and the actions and sacrifices of its citizens over a period of time. WW1 and WWII have everything to do with the peace, prosperity and good fortune you and I have enjoyed in our lifetime. I don't know if Afghanistan will become a defining moment in this country's history but it may remind us that all we have is not some divine entitlement but was paid for with the blood of Canadians in years past. Peace keeping is wonderful but first someone has to pay the price of peace.

That's the kind of thing I meant by a real need that is not self inflicted. I just don't believe that people should automatically think they are entitled to have others pay to raise their children. That's social engineering.

Diesels have a long way to go when it comes to potential. It's only now that the kind of R&D is starting to go into diesels that has gone into gas engines for passenger vehicles. In additon to being more fuel efficient, they produce about 20% less CO2 than a comparable gas engine. Particulates are their biggest problem at the moment and that is largely because of the quality of fuel. Diesels are far more user friendly than they used to be. Turbocharging has given them the power and common rail injection systems have made them quiet enough that they compare very well to gas engines. Most manufacturers have diesel versions of vehicles you can only buy with gas engines here. 60% of Chrysler products sold in Europe are diesels. You can buy diesel Cherokees, Liberties, Caravan Mini Vans and PT Cruisers just about anywhere but North America. The Liberty just became available with a diesel here. We are just getting started.

So everyone should have to put their kids in daycare and go out and get a job. Sounds pretty Orwellian to me. You live your dream, I'll live mine. I prefer a country where I get to choose. I just don't expect to be compensated for it like you.

Seems typical. The cost to government is more important that the cost to society. That's the way our system has been working for years. It doesn't matter how many offenses someone has and the financial cost to their victims or society through higher prices and insurance rates. Any hit to a government's budget trumps it every time. Nobody really wants to know when it is actually cheaper to put someone in jail. Army Guy Tell that to the cop who spends his life arresting the same guys over and over again and doing hours of paperwork for nothing. Even if his arrest warrants show up in the US, they will just boot him back across the border. Why would they want our problem? Sane people made their immigration laws, they would have him back across the border in a heartbeat if it suited them.

Haha, I hate to disappoint you but any idiot should be able to do his own taxes as it is. Most personal income tax returns are quite simple. And quite boring. Anyway, it is precisely about the kids. I am not at all convinced that it's better for the kids to be raised at home, in fact, I have seen plenty of evidence to the contrary. If it's not better for the kids, there is no point for the parents to lose income, careers, etc. There is no point for others to pay taxes to help the parents to stay at home. In fact, I think that staying home is a mistake and I don't want to help people make that mistake. Finally, having more people stay home is bad for the economy. I mentioned that one conservative said that the baby bonus is bad policy but good politics. Harper is an economist and knows it's bad policy (no he isn't stupid or naive) but it was a good sell to get more votes. That's all. I've been doing my own taxes and using E File for years. For most people you are right, it ain't difficult, particularly if you have a PC. You make your choices, I'll make mine. I'm quite happy with the way my kids turned out and would have made the same choice whether it had any tax implications or not. I don't think government should subsidize children period unless there is a real need and by need I mean one that is not self inflicted, certainly not just so the parents can have a nicer car or a bigger TV.

Actually, I am aware that quite a few studies have shown that kids who went to daycare have better social and linguistical skills than kids raised at home, do better in school and are more likely to go to college than their peers that are raised at home. This is true for the kids of families of all income backgrounds, even though attending daycare tends to be more beneficial to kids from lower and middle income families than to kids of rich families. Care to explain to me what makes you think that raising kids at home is better for the kids or anyone else? Or is it ignorance and hearsay that makes you believe that? Your claims are hearsay as well unless you have a source? A parent is the best person to raise their child, not the cold hands of a government employee. The government can't love kids, its heartless. You are just dumb. Loving has nothing to do with raising. I loved my fish when I was a kid but they kept dying on me because I wasn't competent enough to take proper care of them. My teachers didn't love me, but they gave me a good education. I have pediatricians in my family and you'll be terrified to hear how people who love their kids make them sick simply because of incompetence and ignorance. Again, giving birth doesn't make you a competent parent nor an expert in early-childhood education. Cold hands of a government employee? The emergency room doctor is a government employee, so you can't trust him to treat you? Firefighers are government employees, so you can't trust them to get you out of a burning building because they don't love you? Maybe only your mom will do it because she loves you? Or your beloved military won't protect us because they don't love us? Blah, blah, use your brain once in a while. You probably have one. Lets ship em all off to camps as soon as they're weened.

What does this mean? How is a family with one income subsidizing a two income family? I dont follow your logic. You think one income families don't pay taxes? There we go again. As someone who's worked as an accountant and done thousands of tax returns, I can tell you that one-income couples with kids pay substantially less taxes than two-income couples with kids. This is because 1 - one-income families generally have less income (surprise surprise), so they pay less tax, and 2 - because the tax system transfers a lot of credits from the no-income parent to the working parent, so they pay less tax even for the same amount of total income than the two-income couple does. So effectively, discrimination against two-income couples is already built into the tax system. On top of that, I already mentioned the $6000 per child benefit that one-income couples are much more likely to receive than two-income couples. I don't mind too much paying benefits to parents (it's not their kids' fault that the parents made the bad choice to deprive them of income) but enough is enough. Even more benefits for stay-at-home parents will make more stay-at-home parents and who's going to pay for those benefits when we are all sitting at home? Getting benefits is fine but someone has to work and pay for them, no? Ah, that explains it, this isn't about kids, it's about money. In that case, lets not give anything to anyone. No deductions for dependents, Not subsidizing daycare. Works for me. Even better, a flat tax. Would hardly need accountants at all. Any idiot could manage their taxes.

What does this mean? How is a family with one income subsidizing a two income family? I dont follow your logic. You think one income families don't pay taxes?

Hey, where does the government get the money to pay for the day care spaces? Does it fall from the sky? I'm willing to argue whether the government should give money directly to families with children, or give it to them indirectly by creating daycare spaces, but for heaven's sakes, can we at least agree that in either case, the money comes from taxpayers? In addition, how is this in any way connected to "laziness"? Whether the government gives the money directly to families, or gives it to them indirectly through day care spaces, the money is not dependent on their laziness. There is much to criticize in Stephen Harper's policies, and in the child care policy in particular. But this criticism is just dumb. Ok, genious, at least you should read before you talk. There is no question that the money comes from taxpayers. My point was that it comes from working taxpayers and goes to those who are too lazy to work and use their kids as a convenient excuse for not doing so. There is a huge difference in how the money is spent. If it is given to people in the form of daycare spaces, then it makes it easier to put your kids in daycare and get a job (or at least you will not have an excuse for not getting one). In this case, you are both being productive (and paying for at least part of the daycare through your taxes) and are also creating other jobs (for daycare workers). If the money is given to you for staying (lazy-ing at) home, then you are not being productive, you are not paying for any of it (i.e. and are living off other people's efforts and effectively taxing the economy) and you aren't creating any jobs. In short, in the first case you are a productive member of society and in the second case you are a lazy bum who burdens the economy. Get it? Or are you arguing that sitting on your ass is an activity one deserves to be paid for? You don't get something for nothing. Someone has to pay to raise a child. A family that supports themselves on one income while they bring up their children is subsidizing two income families with their income taxes so those two income families can enjoy a higher standard of living than they are able to. Life is full of choices, don't expect society to subsidize your choice at the expense of someone else's.

Hey, where does the government get the money to pay for the day care spaces? Does it fall from the sky? I'm willing to argue whether the government should give money directly to families with children, or give it to them indirectly by creating daycare spaces, but for heaven's sakes, can we at least agree that in either case, the money comes from taxpayers? In addition, how is this in any way connected to "laziness"? Whether the government gives the money directly to families, or gives it to them indirectly through day care spaces, the money is not dependent on their laziness. There is much to criticize in Stephen Harper's policies, and in the child care policy in particular. But this criticism is just dumb. Ok, genious, at least you should read before you talk. There is no question that the money comes from taxpayers. My point was that it comes from working taxpayers and goes to those who are too lazy to work and use their kids as a convenient excuse for not doing so. There is a huge difference in how the money is spent. If it is given to people in the form of daycare spaces, then it makes it easier to put your kids in daycare and get a job (or at least you will not have an excuse for not getting one). In this case, you are both being productive (and paying for at least part of the daycare through your taxes) and are also creating other jobs (for daycare workers). If the money is given to you for staying (lazy-ing at) home, then you are not being productive, you are not paying for any of it (i.e. and are living off other people's efforts and effectively taxing the economy) and you aren't creating any jobs. In short, in the first case you are a productive member of society and in the second case you are a lazy bum who burdens the economy. Get it? Or are you arguing that sitting on your ass is an activity one deserves to be paid for?

My wife quit work to home to raise our kids until the last reached middle school. Then she went back. She chose to sacrifice a career working and the money she could have made over 15 years for the benefit of her kids. I dare ya to call her lazy to her face. My daughter and her husband dairy farm and are raising four kids. I dare ya to call her lazy to her face. Well, I don't see why a working parent should be punished once by paying taxes so that your wife could sit home and a second time by not staying home with his/her kids. Generally, I don't care what your wife or any other lazy parent thinks. Sitting on your butt at home is laziness any way you look at it. It does not produce goods or services or anything else, so it should not be rewarded at the expense of people who work for their money! Come to think of it, if you said that to my face, I don't know whether I would laugh in yours or smack it. Take a little friendly advice, don't ever say that to anyone who has gone without what a second income could do for them materially in order to bring up their own kids rather than have a stranger do it for them. Having kids doesn't mean just having kids, it means taking responsibility for bringing them up. If you aren't able, don't do it. I don't really think government should be providing assistance for daycare or a baby bonus for those who stay home.

I know they've been telling us the folks "we're" fighting are Taliban. But that don't make it so. It's a little surreal to have people go on about the threat posed by the big bad Taliban when just a few years ago, we were being told that Al Qaeda and the Taliban were broken and scattered, their leaders dead or captured, yadda yadda yadda. So what are we dealing with here. I sure don't know, but I find any model where anyone who fights the U.S. and company in Afghanistan is automatically labeled "Taliban" to be mighty simplistic and highly questionable. Again with the fetishization of elections, as though that in and of itself was evidence of any thing. Well, Saddam Hussein held elections too. So did the Soviet Union. That doesn't make them meaningful. And in a country where the government can't even leave the capital, where government members are routinely targeted for assasnination and where much of the country is run by local tribal warlords, an election is an empty excercise indeed. There's an actual discussion happening here: your masturbation fantasies are not necessary. Boy, you sure know a lot about what is going on over there. Where do you get the real truth. Elections are a fetish and murder to maintain power is where it is at. Stalin would be proud. Back to this "Is it my fault that the last few ill-conceived military adventures were spearheaded by the Yanks? If this were 1914, you can bet I'd be wondering what the hell we're doing sending our boys to die in France." WWI was not spearheaded by the Yanks. I doubt very much you would have reacted in such a manner but don't take it personally. Canada in 1914 was a very different country with different allegiances and different standards. Nearly one Canadian in ten joined the military and every one was a volunteer. Right or wrong it was a war that had great support from the vast majority of Canadians and actively opposing it might have proved dangerous to ones health in many parts of Canada.

"Rushdie and Van Gogh had nohing to do with the cartoons." So the death of Van Gogh and the Fatwa on Ruhsdie have nothing to do with certain Muslims reaction to criticism because they had nothing to do with the cartoons. "That's an overly simplistic view IMO. Any depiction of the Prophet is offensive, so whether the particular depictions were offensive or not by our standards is beside the point. What's more, the controversy over whether or not to publish the cartoons simply gave the story legs and caused it to last a helluva lot longer than it would have otherwise. It gave Ezra his chance to grandstand (two weeks and change after the story broke). The point here is that there's really two stories here: the Muslim reaction to the original publication of the cartoons and then the endless hand wringing "debate" by western publications to publish the cartoons." It only gave the story more legs in Canada, which it should have. Arab papers have no scrupples about printing far more insulting pictures in their papers but you don't see Jews and Christians threatening them or destroying their property over their cartoons. If they want to be offended they should practice what they preach. "Well, I can't imagine a Muslim making such an image, even to provoke other Muslims. I duno where they came from, but I'm well aware they weren't among those published originally. However, those "fake" images were the one's that caused the most offense." When did you come out of your comma? There have been people involved in almost every movement and religion at some time or another who were willing to lie and fabricate in order to influence others. The Reichstag fire etc. You think radical Muslims are somehow exempt? So Levant is being offensive by not publishing the pictures that weren't published in Europe, which were only published in Arab papers and nobody knows where they came from. Well someone knows but they aren't about to tell. I'm glad that doesn't make any sense to me.

It's because successive governments have fed Canadians the line Canada is the only country in the world that is so fundamentally nice it doesn't need a military that might actually have to fight someone. It has worked with too many.

My wife quit work to home to raise our kids until the last reached middle school. Then she went back. She chose to sacrifice a career working and the money she could have made over 15 years for the benefit of her kids. I dare ya to call her lazy to her face. My daughter and her husband dairy farm and are raising four kids. I dare ya to call her lazy to her face.

Don't expect much to change. When that work mate of my wife's got cuffed in front of his kids and shipped home, the guy that didn't inhale was running the place.

Every time a car bomb or suicide bomb goes off, the majority of those killed are almost always Iraqis, killed by Iraqis and other Arabs, not by Americans.

I don't like it. It was secrecy and what was done under it that sewered the Liberals and will eventually do the same to the Conservatives if it goes on long enough. I don't send my MP to Ottawa just to have the party leader stick a sock in his mouth.

"I assked for examples of people in the west who were endangered as a result of the cartoons. Neither example applies. But I know what you're getting at. Because X was critical of Islam and had bad things happen to him, therefore Y is in the same danger because Y published cartoons also critical of Islam. I think there's a major difference (though I also think a lot of right-wing people would be pretty stoked if some Mulsim nutter shanked Ezra over this). That difference is it wa sthe cartoons themselves, the content, not the messenger, that was the problem." Holland is not in the west? Salman Rushdie lives in London I believe, still under the protection of the British Secret Service. I always thought that was in the west as well. You not being a right wing people would rejoice if some Muslim nutter shanked Ezra or at least say he got what he deserved. Shoot the messenger right. It was not the content of the cartoons that was news, all political cartoons insult someone. It was the reaction that resulted from them. We are not talking about graffiti scrawled on the side of a Mosque, Church or Synagogue here, or the desecration of a cemetery, just cartoons. "We don't know who added the offensive images (which are in your link)." True, but you assume they originated in the west. We do know that they were not among the ones printed in Jyllands Posten or any other European newspaper which where the subject of the controversy and the ones the Standard published. "And the media is free to publish (or not publish) whatever it chooses for whatever reasons they choose." Yes, but even they know the difference between news and advertising, or at least they should.

Yes, good for them.

"Such plaintive hypotheticals are about as valuable as saying "If i were a tree, what tree would I be?" Well, what tree would you be? Would you have us throw all our alliances in the dumpster and only react if Canada is attacked directly? Who could we depend on to support us in that case? Well, you know those big bad Americans would in spite of ourselves. Thats the beauty of being a Canadian, those big bad Americans have to defend us no matter how much we trash them, in order to protect themselves. This war started when the Taliban backed Al Qaeda attacked the US on 9/11, or was it when they attacked their embassy in Nairobi, or was it when they attacked the USS Cole, or was it when they tried to blow up the Trade Center the first time in 91, not when coalition troops invaded Afghanistan. What news have you been watching? Who the hell do you think they are fighting over there? It was the Taliban that attacked the outpost where those two soldiers were just killed. Do you think the war lords will suddenly unite against them if we leave? What do you mean by the government we give them? Who wants to give them a government? The idea is ridiculous, no government we impose upon them can last. The present government was elected. Many Afghanis thought it important enough that they risked getting murdered on the way to polling stations and some were. How many Canadians would have the guts to do that? I don't believe the Taliban ever held an election while they were in power nor do I believe they gained power in the first place by being elected, or will they if they happen to gain power again.