Canuckistani

And those people demanding they squander the money have elected the politicians - wonder how that works. Yes, Norway has it figured out. High taxes but a strong welfare state with high incomes and very little poverty. People aren't all about chasing the buck. And of course the other Scandinavian states are right up there too, without oil, they too have a winning formula. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland are ranked by the World Bank as being in the top 10 countries to do business, yet they have high taxes and as strong social safety net.

I do too, but don't hold much hope for a positive outcome. The "govt" lacks legitimacy, there isn't really anybody to hand over the keys to once order is restored. And the terrorists just melt away, only to reappear as soon as the French leave. I doubt if France or her allies have the stomach or the money to maintain a long term presence there. And even if they do, Nato has had a long term presence in Astan, and everybody knows as soon as they leave it will sink back to anarchy or Taliban control. Karzai, our boy, has no legitimacy either, and isn't exactly clean. Mali could easily go the way of Astan and just turn into a quagmire. Maybe, but SA does't look to ill yet, and it's really a one off in exporting jihad. But look at the countries of the Arab spring - not looking too good there.

Good luck with that. Take Egypt - promoting stability meant helping to prop up dictatorship that played a role in creating Islamic extremism that now is running the country. Pakistan, supporting a govt that supports the very terrorists we are fighting. Saudi Arabia - exporting the religious underpinning to jihad, right in Canada and the US by funding madrassas. I don't think we have a clue on how to promote stability in a positive way, and stability at any cost can come to have a pretty high price.

Muslim immigrants may not bring terrorist ideas with them, but some groups certainly import imams that preach jihad in the mosques. That's got to have an effect. The Council on American Islamic Relations, and it's Canadian counterpart, which at one time was a go to organization by the US govt says right on its website that its goal is to have the US (and Canada) become a Muslim state. They may not promote violence for that aim, but it's not a far jump for some people. And yes, some fundamentalist Christians have the same idea for a Christian state, much more so in the US, but do we really want to bring in more people with that mindset. My impression of the Canadian young jihadis we've heard about is that they are social losers and this is a way for them to attain an identity and sense of status in their lives. Worldwide, in fact, the radicals mostly come from middle class backgrounds, rather than being poor and oppressed. It's middle class people who feel stymied in their lives for some reason and externalize that to a greater cause. I think this was true of radicals in the 60's as much as it is now.

Safer than not having one. That's part of the problem, guns have reached critical mass to some degree in the US, where you'd have to be a fool not to have one yourself, living in certain places. It won't help you much if the other guy draws down on you first, but at least if he misses you can fire back. Seems that the really smart ones would wear body armor as well as strap on a gun.

Didn't John Lennon write a song about nihilism? I haven't read Harris and Dennett (did read one of Dennetts books about consciousness) but as humans we do have the awareness required to see that moral values can be adaptive for both the individual and the species. Seeing ourselves interconnected with other people and the world around us and acting that way would seem to create the best environment for the individual and the species to thrive. Unfortunately, of course, there are other facets of our beings that are not that evolved and get in the way of this ideal. But I think as a society we've come quite some ways in bringing these ideals into our laws and other codes of conduct. They may have their origin in Christianity, but really only seemed to come to the fore once a lot of the shackles of organized Christianity began to be thrown off.

Gun control isn't a panacea to stop the insane levels of violence in the US. But it sure couldn't hurt either. Americans following the actual teachings of Jesus, as his early Jewish followers did, i.e., "turn the other cheek, give away all that you have and follow me, look not for the mote in other's eyes but at the log in yours, judge not lest ye be judged, the kingdom of heaven is within" etc would stop the violence, but it would collapse the economy. Besides, the Americans aren't big on communalism.

spirituality =/ religion

The only way out of this conundrum is that God is not omnipotent and omniscient. But what kind of God is that? Those guys are a dime a dozen, eg the various pagan pantheons.

From wiki: It seems his prayers were answered.

God can exist without Lucifer. God created everything, contains everything. That includes evil - ie God is evil or all evil springs originally from God, since in that schema he is the beginning of everything. The debbil is just Christians' way of trying to absolve God of responsibility for evil, but that doesn't work unless evil co-existed with God at the beginning, ie evil is equal to God.

http://articles.chic...l-sands-poutine Of course this is from the limited world view of the US. The Conference board of Canada only gave us a B overall in quality of life, vs Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland Austria got A's. We got D's for working age poverty, right along with US and Japan, which got D's overall as well. http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/society.aspx So as usual, we're doing better than the US, but that's a mean feat. We could do a lot better, get an A next time like the good kids.

These sorts of mass killings do seem to be on the rise, while violent crime is down. I think it does have to do with the breakdown of society, I just don't think that returning to Betsy's ideal society is feasible nor desirable. I would say that substituting Mammon for Jesus hasn't done us much good, but then "Christians" haven't been followers of Jesus for a long, long time.

No, no no, you don't understand. All evil is done by people with free will. When someone is saved, that's because the loving God intervened. He can't help it if the beings he created with free will choose to do evil. He can't intervene all the time, he's just too busy. Just a helpless bystander in that case.

Bit of a red herring. The company has had at least 5 years lead time for this project. There is a school in Pennsylvania that teaches long wall mining. It would have been no problem to train Canadians for this job. Blame the Federal and Provincial governments who allow this sort of thing to happen, while blabbing on about the great job opportunities they are creating for Canadians.

Again, the same logic why is was needed could be applied to the Hasidim. But of course being Ashkenazim it's not.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/28/israel-s-ethiopian-birth-control-story-reflects-a-broader-problem.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gave-birth-control-to-ethiopian-jews-without-their-consent-8468800.html http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-admits-ethiopian-women-were-given-birth-control-shots.premium-1.496519

It's their law, they can do what they want. If the US bars you entry, you should be glad - much reduces your chances of getting shot. But don't worry doesn't look like it will be the law much longer anyway.

Not unless they want to play Betsy's game of "science proves the bible is true". If they want to accept the scientific evidence for a particular bit in the bible being true, they also have to accept the scientific evidence that contradicts most of the bible. Well, they don't have to, as we've seen Betsy's game here, but that hypocrisy is what set me off.

The OP is about teaching this stuff in public schools. That should never be allowed to happen, and I'm surprised it's deemed constitutional in Texas. Bible class belongs in church.

first off, sorry for your troubles. I may face something similar in the near future. I'm not even sure I would take chemo for myself if I had cancer, unless the prognosis was really good. I think a lot of it is personal decision here, and your parents, when lucid should be discussion this with you and your family and put some legal provisions in place for what they want if they are no longer able to make lucid decisions. And what they want period, how far they want medical measures to be taken. I think your family should listen to your parents and honor what it is they want. But really, of course, each family has to figure this out for themselves, there's no once size fits all.

Sounds like Jbg's parents still have quality of life, so they should be provided with medical treatment that makes sense. Eg. they would not be eligible for a heart transplant anyway. But the real costs come when the aged are seriously ill and bedridden, but heroic measures are taken to keep them alive. I don't agree with that, it just prolongs suffering. Repeated cancer treatment when the prognosis is poor is another one. As long as they are lucid tho, they are the ones that should get the most input into what treatment they get. Many seniors seem sensible enough to know when further efforts are futile and it's time to make their passing as easy as possible, even help it along as in Holland or Switzerland.

I guess this is a Godwin and all, but I bet the Hitler Youth taught great leadership skills. Well, except for blindly following the dogma of course.

Remove the govt from DC, and all you'd have is poor people, no income inequality. Usually it's the right wingnuts who accuse the left of seeking this result, but it turns out it's the other way around. I guess the right is just ignorant of the difference between correlation and causation. Another good example is Boulder, CO. Highest ratio of population with at least a bachelor's degree of major cities in the US, many high income people. Besides CU-Boulder there's the National Center for Atmospheric Research both government institutions. Yet a significant segment of Boulder's population has little or no income. They're called students, but by Slim's way or reckoning it must be the govt that's making them poor.