bleeding heart

You're an elitist. Congratulations. You also have zero clue about democratic principles. Again, good work.

Mr. Canada,if you read the article you'll see that this remains, at least at the moment, speculative.

Well, like I said, it might or might not be the case. Evidently a profoundly controversial opinion.

Yes, it might be. As I stated.

No reason not to give both the fine gentlemen credit.

At any rate, the real story here is the astoundingly horrific story itself, which is jaw-dropping in its depravity. The "keep the Muslims out" implication is a case of politicization trumping the real horror.

Damn, cybercoma. Very thoughtful....and you just made me rethink my position. (So if I'm wrong, I'm taking you down with me.)

You just outed yourself as a leftist...which you've diligently been trying to hide from us.

I'm saying that the opinion of one left-wing MP is as valid as the opinion of one left-wing MP. But the "fears of being labelled racist" and "political correctness" themes depend entirely on a single, subjective response, given a disproportionate amount of weight. I'm not even claiming it's false. But I look at such stories and their discrete elements rather...conservatively, you might say.

Nicely said, and I agree.

I think we should note that the "police being petrified of being called racists" bit--which has been repeated in each article, and several times on this thread--is the opinion of a single person, an ex-labour MP. Seems slightly disproportionate, doesn't it?

That's heresy, Bonam. On the other hand, I support heresy.....

Wayward hasn't been here very long, but science and reason genuinely appear to be his "agenda," if we can call it that.

Of course not. I took it (maybe incorrectly) that the differences between historical French and English law makes separatism of the English (that is, the hybrid which speaks English) less likley to separate. The Scots separatists, to a person, are English speaking citizens of the UK.

I believe you're touching on the key matters here. There is often a twinned (and, frankly, thoughtless) belief that 1.) human behaviour is "unnatural," (but, oddly, didn't used to be); and that 2) because human beings have often accidentally poisoned themselves in one way or another, that this is the dominant paradigm of--in this case--large-scale agriculture. And honestly, I think also wedded to all this is a distrust of Big Business generally. And personally, I don't think distrust of Big Business is at all irrational...there are plenty of reasons to be suspicious of it on numerous grounds, not least that those with lots of influence on our lives need to be watched extraordinarily closely. (In a saner world, this would be an inherently conservative view...but it isn't.) But it's not a catch-all, and can't be extrapolated to every bit of corporate activity, because that's simply irrational.

I did it all my life...but it's true that now I've got one, I can't ever go back!

That's true!

All this is irrelevant to the uncontroversial truth that there is a separatist party in Scotland.

Why in God's name is the "o" a sacred letter that must not be typed? Kidding aside, I'm sympathetic. Canada's speech laws are out of whack.

How is his statement "appeasement"? It's the same thing Bush said. Virtually identical. I thought it was supposed to be true, in fact, that Americans are not the enemy of the Muslims.

Now where the hell did you get that?

So where are all the conservative publications that did publish them, kraychik? The magazines, the newspapers...do tell. Again: just like everybody else, the conservative outlets and publications refused to print the cartoons. OK: read this carefully: I explicitly, unequivocally said that, to my knowledge, virtually nobody published the cartoons--and that it was newsworthy; and that's why I applauded the left and right wing magazines for publising them. There is no other sane way to read what I wrote, since it formed the crux of my argument. Oh, that's rich. When conservatives behave in a manner with which you don't approve...it's...wait for it!....the left's fault! So much for people being responsible for their own behaviour. The Left is responsible for all bad behaviour...including that of conservatives! The tautology is pitch-perfect. Listen closely, so you can learn something about taking responsibility: like anything and anyone else...conservative is what conservative does. Period.

I think you're arguing with yourself, or with a phantom of your imagination. I understand this is conmforting to the I-Hate-the Left obssessives--who, let's face it, tend to be somewhat hostile to thought--but unfortunately for your worldview, this is flatly untrue, and edges close to the opposite of the facts.

Not to my knowledge. In fact, I live in the officially bilingual province; and government bilingual signs aside (which makes perfect sense here, anyway)...no, certainly not. The majority of businesses have English-only signs (and in the East and the North, some have French-only signs, though these are relatively rare).

Isn't it odd that a joke really loses its effect after the eleven thousandth time it is spoken to the same listeners? I guess people crave some variety.