Rue

Yah but eating ham I mean come on society has to draw a line.

You call the commentary fair because you agree with it. However you need to read what Dershowitz talks about. He is a civil liberties and constitutional lawyer. He has not discussed or commented on the morality of what Trump has done only on whether some of it not all of it was legal or illegal. The fact that what a politician does is legal does not suddenly make it moral and with due respect you are taking a legal opinion to suggest what Trump does is morally acceptable. No it is not. G Blaming the media or trying to claim anyone but Dershowitz who criticizes Trump is unfair is crap. When in the history of the USA has a President hired and fired so many people in so short a time period and with just that alone how do you deny there is a serious problem with a man who hires and fires so many? How do you defend a man who praises autin and Kim, openly supports a leader (Saudi Arabia) who engaged in open murder making a farse of the purpose of an embassy and openly admits he ordered the extradition of someone from Canada to use as trade leverage with China which is not what the system is intended for. What world do you live in where he is surrounded by people convicted of lying that he hired and he took advise from and you think its unfair to criticize him? I think for people like you who deny what this man is and what he is done is even more amazing then the shit he pulls. If this is the kind of person you are inspired by God help you literally.

First off Christmas is a pagan holiday. Secondly Christians and pagans should have full rights to celebrate any version of it and I think its a farse its become politically incorrect and I am a Jewish guy. The majority of Canadians are Christian and Christians let me have two days off and give me presents. They are its too strange people but what is the big deal? Why does everyone pick on them? O.k. they do have that wierd habit of serving ham with a hairnet. That is a tad kinky. Look Christians invented golf ware, , sunburns, golf, Oldsmobiles,, pet food (think about that one) ear-hair, bushy eyebrows, we should appreciate their contributions. p.s. not all of them are pink-grey-green-blue, some are yellow and brown.

Now again I agree in theory but we have not had statespersons, you know larger than life figures with visions like that since Churchill, FDR, Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, Disraeli, Woodrow Wilson, Konrad Adenauer, Dag Hammarskjold, John F. Kennedy, for so many years now. I think that is part of the problem. Our leadership is not made up of people of forward thinking visions anymore. Our educational system are producing institutional mandarins, people used to following not initiating and brought up to see themselves as preserving an existing structure not creating new ones. Now I may be a depressed old man, but I see a drastic change from creative to preservative leadership styles that do not promote the kind of things you say. I wish I was wrong but the leaders coming out of China, the US, Europe, Russia, not anything to be inspired by. In the corporate world I just don't see anyone...just blandness status qup stuff. The weird thing is what you suggest is probably a lot easier than what we have now with all the duplication from distrusting competitors.

Well let us take a moment on that issue because its more complex than that. Teaching children to be aware of adults does not necessarily require sex education but when it does yes it can help but not all the time. Pedophiles are masters at lying, manipulating and engaging in coercion. Even the most well educated of kids can be vulnerable. What, when and how children are taught should depend on their age and maturity level and children mature much differently and in surges of strength in some areas but not in others. Because of our schooling, it has to be done by age of grade. As well persons of specific religious and cultural groups prohibit certain kinds of awareness and education causing such children to repress and develop parallel worlds, one for the one with their parents, one when in the outside world and they are vocal, not interested in discussion and pull their children out. As well children and unfortunately very young children are exposed to all kinds of sexual messages as soon as they can work an internet, tv or cell phone but certain ethnic and religious communities are in a collective denial about the media they came to Canada and live in. They try resist it and order their children to avoid it causing unrealistic confusion and conflict. Here's the real issue. Parents who don't want children taught sex education often do not differentiate between anatomy education and sexual education with moral values attached. It is the latter that upsets them most times not the former once its explained. Teaching children requires first and foremost not projecting adult bias on children. The person who designed the Ontario curriculum was a pedophile and so necessarily I would argue like all pedophiles has a psychiatric illness that prevented him from understanding the difference between adults and children when he decided to design sexual curriculum and I argued that openly in public with others when it was first introduced. I think he actually harmed and set back efforts to implement a far more effective curriculum that would have avoided the moral lessons he injected. Kathleen Wynne also had a sexual bias to project to children that being gay is o.k. so much so that she could not and can not see any way but her way and wanted that taught to 4 year olds. Most gays I know who are parents never asked for that no more than heterosexual parents did. The fact is we have been and can teach children at a very young age why their sisters are designed differently than them and why their mothers and fathers look different. All parents have done it but it should limit itself to anatomical differences not lessons on who is gay or straight. As for anti-bullying you can teach kids not to bully anyone who looks different without going off on tangents about why this one is different because he wants to be a girl. They don't need that. Its information overload. Simply saying the child is different is enough. Children do not need all the answers for everything until they are older. Today kids at 4,5,6 go on to web-sites explaining the anatomy in detail if it has no discussion as to sexual behavior they absorb it matter of factly without having any sexual behavior shoved upon them before they are ready. My nephew loved to explain where feces came from and how the body produced methane gas at 4 and had a site where he showed me food going down into the colon and he loved the gas scenes.Teaching about anatomy is one thing. Teaching about sexual behavior is another and the two need to be distinguished because children have no problem learning about anatomy when they are young. Its when we talk about sexual behavior it gets tricky. I argue and always have and I have taught sex education and mediated disputes with parents over the issue, that anatomy education is not dangerous and I try show religious parents it has nothing to do with teaching moral values. What many are concerned of is when do you discuss homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, abnormal sexual behaviours that endanger children, violent sexual behaviours,. That is a tough one because each child is unique as a fingerprint and that includes their emotional, cognitive, psychological, intellectual and physical levels of maturity. If you are asking me someone who has arrested and put away pedophiles, mediated famiy issues for over 20 years and volunteered counselling child victims of sex crimes, sex assault victims, and been a co-facilitator of groups managing violent men and yes pedophiles, I have pretty much the same views as the police, social workers, psychiatrists, teachers, nurses. We all believe children at 9 to 11 need preliminary explanations as to sexual behavior without discussing rights and wrongs just what it is and what could be dangerous for their health. At puberty which averages 11-13, that is when children need and are ready for sex education. As for making choices, the key to sexology is explaining to children, there are serious problems when any sexual behavior is violent, or their is a power imbalance including age, life experience, wealth and when it is not consensual. Good touch bad touch must be taught to children today when they go to kindergarten or day care. I know of documented cases of sexual assault by 5 year olds. Sorry the world is sick but the level of education and what is taught should be done gradually and depending on the level of age. Obviously if a child has severe intellectual impairment or has been molested they may need exemption from such programs. Certain religious parents want the right to teach their children homosexuals are sinners and stay away from them. That clashes directly with Canadian values. So does their views to not discuss female anatomy, or their beliefs they support that they should cut the clitoris of their daughters to prevent sexual enjoyment or that women are dirty when they have their period and women are lesser than men because of their period. We have religious values coming into conflict with Canadian values and our progressive leftists embrace and welcome the very ideologies of extreme religious views that reject their views on say homosexuality or feminism and they flip and flop about not knowing what to do fearing alienating both sides. I am a middle of the roader. I argue we need to teach human anatomy at 4,5 6 ,7,8 very limited and matter of fact and not in a way they can't understand . Children can deal with that. In regards to sexuality I stated gradually starting at 9-11 once anatomy is not a mystery, then at a higher level from 12-14 and another level for teens after 14. By 9 if it has not been presented in a healthy way its already been taught through musicians and t.v. Our curriculum must definitively say sex with violence, sex with power imbalances and no consent, sex as a tool to coerce and manipulate is unhealthy and should not be welcomed. In regards to choosing one's sex partner, if we equip them to understand it should be consensual, no power imbalances, no violence, we did our job and if they choose to be gay, straight, bi, we should remain neutral and let them come to it. Most do naturally-they should not and do not need anyone imposing their preferences on them, That said I myself do have some confusion over how parents treat children they call transsexual and I will explain why. Some children or young adults are I n fact homosexuals or gay and they were born that way. Some of them, not all of them, may have learned being gay as bad so feel if they change to the other gender they will become normal. This is why some in the gay community and for that matter straight community belief some not all supposed transgender persons are maladapting to being gay and instead should learn to be comfortable with their bodies before they make such decisions and their parents should not tell them how and what to do. We call their discomfort with their bodies dysmorphia and its no different than why certain people engage in multiple plastic and cosmetic surgeries or pump up on steroids. They don't like the bodies they have for many reasons. If indeed a child feels he or she is the opposite sex at a very young age, I am of the school of thought to tell them and encourage them to accept the bodies they have, not worry about their feelings and just be who they are with their bodies and in later life after they finish growing then they can pursue the matter further. I tell their parents to cool it. I think some parents project their views on children to protect them and in fact unintentionally pressure them to change sexes or repress their feelings. Its not easy being a parent trying to do what is right. That is the one area I leave and stay away from. Its the domain of psychiatrists and pediatricians and parents I always believe when you have any issue with your children have and talk to your pediatrician. Start there. Please start there. Don't expect the teacher or principal to solve the problem. Hope that adds to this debate and explains to you it is true sex education can help children be less vulnerable to pedophiles but not all the time. I appreciate we have to balance the privacy rights of families, their religious beliefs and right to have a say in their children's decisions up to 18. I don't automatically claim to or want to discard it. I only advocate that under dire life threatening circumstances.

It will yes. We provided valuable advice on how to do it and why in Holland, the Dutch never built their wind technology over a certain height. They knew if you made the structure too tall, it could become counter-productive changing natural electro-magnetic currents causing havoc with not just birds and animals but the neurology of humans. The studies on seizures, headaches, migraines, triggered by the large wind towers in Ontario and the death of thousands of birds as well as animals becoming confused and ill is there for all to read now. In the case of wind small is beautiful. The self contained igloos I saw invented by the University of David Ben Gurion for the Negev Desert were like a mix of teepee and igloo and used solar, wind and captured rain. They were not very expensive and basically just an updated version of what the Beduins already did and do in the desert. When you talk to certain native peoples of any country and Amish and you tell them you need electricity they look at you like an idiot and why not. They lived in connection with the earth's natural energy and thermal sources for thousands of years before we idiots who thought we were mightier than the earth and its rules, came onto it. It is idiotic how we build. In hot climates natives to the land build using the ground and digging down to stay cool-they use rocks that collect heat and act as a coolant. I have also seen people build homes out of nothing but what the environment discarded as dead. Go tell a beaver you can't make a house without electricity to get you through the winter or a bear or a wolf. For apes we seem to have gone backwards. No wonder Sasquatch stay away from us well except for some Russian women they mate with in Siberia apparently,

Solar can store in one hour of sun what can be used for 12 hours depending on the kind of panel it is. Also do you talk of the North. They do get sun, in fact so much sun it can lead to blindness if you don't wear slit glasses. Solar is used now in the Antarctic, Siberia. In fact it may be a possible alternative for isolated rural native communities off the main power lines. You can install a combo wind and sun type device on rooves that is not expensive, made of biodegradeable material or plastic that can be installed relatively easily.

I doubt China could stomach that. It seems the antithesis to what they seek to achieve in trade. I do think the Western model could handle that but multi-nationals you see ignore governments and supercede them now. in their own organizations that form temporary alliances for mutual interests. How does your system avoid that, I mean those huge multi-nationals and their influence on market places? Again in theory I get you, in reality I am just not sure.

Kadr wants to be in regular contact with his sister an open and admitted terrorist extremist supporter. Omar (we are on first name basis I have lunch with him often at the Rich Boy's Club) is an arrogant whining ass-whole. His sister and mother live in Brampton in a large home collecting welfare and preaching at Mosques and gatherings that Canadian democracy is weak, a joke and we are all morally corrupt and the world needs to be cleansed by a Muslim holy war and he wants to be in regular contact with Sis and these views? Listen Omar is married. He has a wife to complain to about his unibrow werewolf look. Or he can get a Gawd damn therapist with the money he has. Boo hoo I want Sis. What a damn joke.

He does that a lot.

Your comment makes zero sense. Only a government can invoke the above clause and for that matter only a government with the jurisdiction to deal with the subject of the law they want to use the clause on. Hey don't let reality hit you on the ass on the way out of Leftist la la land.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL You got me comrade. p.s. I spent 15 years welcoming home stay students, most from China. My mother was born in Shanghai. I would not be alive if a kind Chinese diplomat allowed thousands of Jews to escape Europe and come into China So I joke because I would hate a war between China and the US and China I believe has a super tough President who sometimes over plays his hand. He needs to not react to Trump so quickly. China could be a powerful positive force that acts as an alternative balancing act to the other financial networks and Trump. China-US trade is good for the whole world if its done fairly and peacefully. I hope it does and neither has to feel it has to swallow its enemy. Also Canada needs to trade with China. Let's be fair and avoid this nonsense. Trump is a meaningless side show. The people in the US government behind the scenes are who do the deal and they do it competently. They want a fair deal like China. It will happen.

My dear Comrade XUL: Greetings from the nation known as Project Alice. Please understand we Alicians do not wish to be caught between yourselves and the Americans in your trade battle. Now I understand you have 2 billion mouths to feed and so you are ruthless and unforgiving in your quest for market control to sell your products but may I suggest dear Sir, that your monopoly on all your businesses has grown far too large to control and so corruption is rampant. As well, your masses who are in fact hungry and do not share the profits and I am sure you know why. our profits are not being distributed to all citizens but remain coagulated in small cells of bank accounts run by elite Communist Party members. Look around dear Comrade, your Communist Party has so many layers of bureaucracy this enables the perfect cover for certain Party members to hide their misallocation of money. Of course any institution that grows to large suffers from this so please do not think I pick on you. You do have a real problem dear Comrade because unless you clean up your corrupt government, the masses in your country will rise as they always do when elite Mandarins run it. You see we Alicians avoid such things. We are very polite. We don't push in line and spit on the streets. We do have our virtues. Listen Dear Comrade, I appreciate Donald Trump is a pain in everyone's bum-bum, but your trade war is with the world not Canada. Kidnapping Canadians will not mean a thing to Trump. In fact it was a rather stupid thing to do. Do you really think he cares about Canadians? One other thing Comrade. You see in Canada contrary to what you think, that boy with the pants pulled up to his arm-pits and the delicately plucked eyebrows and manicured nails and who walks like he has a pretzel stuck up his ass, does not, I repeat does not, have the power or ability as Prime Minister to tell Judges how to handle extradition requests. No politician in Canada does. Tell the idiots in your Foreign Ministry to learn about how other countries' legal systems work. Your Foreign Ministry is inept and so are the idiots we react with knee jerk anger. Trump has made monkeys out of you. Why would you react and have a tantrum to his taunts? You think it shows strength to act like him in response? Are you people that collectively mentally retarded? Comrade, please its nothing personal, our government and pretzel-assed Prime Minister are not one and the same with our courts as your system is in. Have your comrades think before they act. They twitch like North Koreans. Have them think logically not with reactionary, subjective, irrational anger. For a nation so rich in Taoism and other philosophies that taught you not to allow anger to cloud your judgements, your Commie comrades clearly need some basic spiritual training. The problem with you atheists is you turn into absurd robots. Do watch Star Trek and in particular the Borg. I do believe it capture the essence of your weaknesses. Also your fondness for goose stepping in parades we can discuss later. Between me and you, I know your pilots have no idea how to fly your gets but your Navy is amazing. Very large. Oh come now Comrade after invading Vietnam and creating an artificial Island do they really want to attack Japan or Formosa? Really? You got all the Vietnamese oil. What next, Indonesia, the Phillippines? Really? Lol. You woke Japan up and Formosa has a navy and air force as you are well aware trained by your naval ally Israel. Stay calm. No nation wants problems with you. Relax. Let the Canadians go. Wait for the courts to decide. Appeal the case to the Supreme Court of Canada if necessary. By the time it is then decided, Trump could very well be out of office or someone in the US will drop the extradition matter. In the interim as its appealed, you can always use that fiasco to portray your nation as victims and not the nasty predators you truly are. Play that idiot Trump's hand. When he puffs and farts at you, play the victim underdog. He likes to be top dog tough guy for local media portrayals of how he stand up for America. The same media he is trying to use to get to his people with the message of how tough he is fighting or them is also running stories he is stark raving mad. Relax. You see in the US the media is your best friend. Oh come now. You know that. You worked with the Late George W., Bill, Hilary, you know damn well how to manipulate the government and media and bribe the politicians in the US. Your foreign spokesperson looked like an angry baboon. Tell him to stop flaring his nostrils. The ooh I am angry shtick he plays, it reminds us of the Angry Martian reacting o Bugs Bunny. Have your foreign Ministry find out what that means. Listen to me Comrade, Trump stated like the idiot he is that he would use that Chinese clone who runs Hua Wei as leverage. He opened that up to his own courts and our courts to maybe being able to determine by a Judge that the extradition request is for political reasons not legal ones and that may vacate the order. So shut up and wait and let the system of law we have work itself out before you continue having tantrums. Now before I say goodbye, please stop celling cell phones and electric equipment to spy on us. Just ask. We are Canadians. We will tell you everything. Buy our maple syrup and oil, and we will tell you anything you need to know about how to make a snowmobile. Also have your people drive more carefully and try have them comeout of Scarborough and Vancouver, and travel and talk to Canadians . We are nice. Also stop over programming your children with math and after school, school. You might want to let them play sports, engage in art, woodwork, nature hikes. You have a lot of fat soft children who can't handle walking let alone lifting anything. Comrade, I have welcomed Chinese children into my home for years as they learn English. Some do well, namely the ones I teach how to throw snowballs and eat something other than boiled rice. The others well my dear comrade, you have a generation of very soft, useless pampered Princes more concerned about their hair and nails than working. Good luck on that. Regards Rue, the Political Shadow Man

I again sympathize with your intent but defer to MH's comments. May I say free trade agreements are an silly term. There is no such thing as free trade. I am sure you know that. These agreements try facilitate trade between nations in the agreements but if we had genuinely free markets no government would be able to regulate the market places which of course all Free trade with other countries is not the same as with the US. The only other country we can compare it to is China. China like the US is a monster economy and when they enter agreements just like the US they will dominate us. China uses its government monopoly on owning all businesses to make sure the Yen currency is always lower in value then any other currency in nations it trades with so it can dump its products cheaper in their countries. . China like the US is not interested when it deals with nations in quid pro quo or a balanced trade deal. They are in it to win and win big by achieving trade imbalances, i.e., selling more to countries than they buy. Free trade? Well no. The huge corporations that run the world's economy form coalitions all the time to assure they can control pricing and not allow it to be free which would mean pricing being determined purely on supply and demand. The only free markets these days so to speak are in small countries where you go to the market place to trade for fruit an vegetables. Western governments in fact do the bidding of large self operating businesses. Its a symbiotic relationship. You can't survive as a leader of a nation without having Dow Chemical, Dupont, Colgate Palmolive, Coca Cola, etc., reminding you of what their needs are and how your policies should best support them. That is the way you keep people employed and your economy running. Its not exactly a secret. Its out in the open as each day millions of people go to jobs in such corporations which in Western democracies act as independent nations with their own gdp's, intelligence agencies and budgets larger than many government budgets. The actual world markets are chaotic and ever mutating in shape and size, made up of a complex web of financial networks coming together on some issues, then splitting to compete with each other on other issues which in turn causes a forever changing market place in size and value, We do have nice neat illuminati conspiracy theories to try make sense of tis quagmire reducing it to one family or 13 families running everything to make it easy for conspiracy theorists to see order in the world of economic chaos. The fact is you can't accurately predict as some claim all market changes. Many are started by panic or irrational assumptions not carefully planned market manipulation campaigns. Money is in an illusion because money's value is never and can never be constant. As soon as a dollar value is defined in one currency another country changes its own. This is of course caused by huge corporations working in a symbiotic relationship with the governments in the local they wish to trade in changing the currency value to facilitate their being able to trade their product in the market place of the currency they want to control. They want that currency level as favourable as possible to aid their trade price. So we don't determine price by supply and demand but by large business interests lobbying the government to do that. The one exception, China. Because China's government owns all its businesses, it controls the yen making it a far more efficient way to assure all its businesses have a trade advantage rather than have each Chinese company compete with other Chinese companies and have a constant chaotic competition as to what the value should be. Now we can bitch about the US or China but we chose to allow their economic influence. As well, we do engage in the practice China does of lowering our currency to below the American one, to assure our products are cheaper which then triggers US retaliation in the form of tarrifs to tax our imports to offset their cheaper value.

If it was anyone else I would think he would have been tossed by now. This guy seems to be Teflon. The more dirt they find on him the more his supporters love him. The other day he orchestrated a tough guy wall talk with his Democratic opponents baiting them during a photo op. They should have known better but he quite deliberately baited them and began to talk directly to American people about the wall and portray the Democrats as bad people. I think he succeeded. I think in some ways he's insane, mentally disturbed, etc. but he is a deliberate manipulator. He knows how to play the cameras. The man simply has to puff his face and say no, over and over and people love him in the US thinking he's tough. This ridiculous fiasco he started with the detention of the Chinese CEO of Hua Wei to bargain with China was for his audience. Look how tough I am in the middle of negotiations I will arrest one of their big shots and demand better access to soya bean markets. That's what gets him votes. He did the same thing with us orchestrating the aluminum and Wisconsin milk fake issues. Americans worship rudeness and in your face arrogance and attitude against others. They love it. They never understand their swagger is viewed as a joke in the rest of the world and breeds loathing. This he will go at it on his own against the world crap, what is that? With Global Markets so inter-twined and his own mega national corporations demanding that who is he fooling.? Go it alone, who Coca Cola? MacDonald's? Dupont? Exxon? Colgate Palmolive Is he kidding? The US is one weird political area. It was strange watching people at the Bush funeral get little brown envelopes and look shocked and all of them Republican and Democrat looking like someone was after them all. Man its weird. How is someone in this office for such a short period and has managed to fire so many people calling them all liars and idiots and no one says, but Donald you hired them if everyone is an idiot and liar, what does that make you? Americans seem to love this guy.

No you call black people spades. Hey, get back to me when you explain who came to Canada before aboriginals. Yah I know, it was your ancestors in 2,009 b.c. Archeologists found their ancient artifacts ...a trailer and some beer cans. Look around bro. Who you kidding, most of your fellow inmates are petty thieves arrested for drug and alcohol related addiction crimes or have a mental illness. Criminals? Innocents? Oh save that shit for someone who didn't spend over twenty years listening to your lame assed stories of you being a victim. The only difference between inside and outside your prison and you and them is in your mind. You put yourself where you are.

Oh man its a complex topic. I mean I sympathize with your intent but from a purely practical consideration with out economy as problematic as it is I doubt any political party would risk any trade with China at this time. The reality is the entire world is dangerously dependent on Chinese imports and trade deficit debts with them. Personally I think they are a cancer preventing free trade and genuine fair trade because of the size of the Chinese Communist Party and its control of all its businesses. Its basically a monolith monopoly a large out of control Walmart to a world of what used to be small grocery stores it swallowed up if I can use that analogy. . I think the Borg analogy is appropriate to their manner of operations. I also don't think Donald Trump makes for a James T. Kirk as much as he thinks he is that man. Putin Trudeau or Jar Jar Binks is not up to the task of handling these Borg.

Let me say we all agree there are problems in certain ethnic communities with police. It doesn't make all blacks criminals, it doesn't make all police racist. Surely we all agree on that. Surely we all agree that using negative stereotypes against an entire category of people whether it be based on their chosen profession, skin colour, religion, ethnicity, gender, et al, is not going to help any of us if we want to make sure our laws are enforced fairly. When we get into such debates and I say we as in me too, all of us necessarily generalize when discussing the issues. Sometimes its intentionally negative, sometimes its only meant for discussion purposes and not intended to label negatively. I do know some things from my days in the criminal legal system and police will always be candid about it and admit it: 1-its difficult for them to know how to deal with mentally ill people out of control-there is no one size fits all approach 2-its difficult for them to know how to deal with people on the streets, in car stops, at any time-there is no one size fits all approach 3-sometimes they are too lenient, some times to physically aggressive, sometimes orally aggressive. I am not excusing excess violence or abuse. I am saying when you deal with people on the front lines, whether you are a police officer, social worker, teacher, nurse, doctor, complaints taker, you are going to be excused to a lot of abuse and it to expect you to react perfectly at all times is naïve. People are not robots and all the training in the world can not guarantee they will act the same way every time. In fact with police, if they were to use a one size fits all approach to situations, they can die. They have to ultimately, listen to their gut instinct to stay alive in certain situations and its easy in hindsight to say they were wrong. Those of us after the fact did not have our adrenalin at critical levels, our fight or flight response and blood pressure triggered so we see things far differently after the fact without our bodies on high alert. So what I am arguing is every time we discuss this issue it becomes all or nothing-either the police are racist, or blacks are responsible for their excessive arrest and detention treatment because they commit more crimes. Neither is accurate. Fact-blacks are far more likely to be stopped, questioned and arrested by police than any other group of people. That pattern is there so because of that pattern, people will automatically infer that means racism. If a police officer is Asian or white or non black, they will be less likely to distinguish physically from one black man to another. Does that make them racist? Is a black police officer unable to tell between two white guys or two Asian guys racist because they have more trouble differentiating their facial features than with fellow blacks? It is human nature to make more mistakes distinguishing people with different facial features the more different they are than your own reflection. That is an inherent primal behaviour tying back to us being homo sapiens, a type of Ape or primate. Simeons, apes, such as we humans, define by pack marks. We define our packs by how similar their fur pattern and colour is. Only today with no hair, we look to skin colour, nose shape, hair texture. So we still are programmed to feel endangered by those whose pack features are different, because not so long ago, packs competed against each other in the same hunting grounds or for the same mates and we were violent, and even at times cannibalistic about it. Have we progressed past that in evolution? Certainly not and so if I was an alien of course I would not introduce myself to humans. We fight over our secondary genetic characteristics differences how the hell would we handle an alien... On this issue I want facts. I want statistics and patterns of behaviour measured with objective not subjective methodology distorted by political or other bias that selects only things it wants to see. I also want direct correlations between cause and effect of behaviour not just assumptions because there is a pattern of repeat behaviour that exists. Even if a pattern of behaviour repeats, it does not in itself explain the cause and effect of it as so many assume it does. For example, reason blacks are far more likely to be stopped, arrested, detained, have criminal records which have been followed up with by examining fully cause and effect are: 1-they are more likely to be unemployed and therefore be more prominent to be on streets and in public places than those working at all hours of the day; 2-non black police officers answering descriptions of "suspects" have difficulty differentiating blacks from one another as do all humans when looking at people whose facial characteristics are different than their own; 3-police see as do doctors, teachers, nurses, social workers, repeating behaviour in the black communities and whether those doctors, teachers, nurses or social workers are white, black, Asian, they all because of those experiences start to generalize about what they see and who is more likely to do it, and then their repeat exposure to repeat patterns of behaviour with the same group, enforces their bias. Saying 1-3 automatically are not relevant and the above are just racist assumptions won't help. The fact is when we do look at racial profiling of statistics, at the very bottom of the scale are Jews, Japanese but at the other end of the scale by far are blacks, then aboriginals. Again does that mean because Japanese have such low crime rates, there is no racism towards them, ditto Jews? Of course not. Another well known cause and effect phenomena in the black community for their high crime rates is as follows: 1-because they are more likely to be out in public from being unemployed, they are far more likely to encounter police in public; 2-because those encounters are much higher, there is a higher rate of encounters becoming conflicted leading to detentions and arrests and hostile reactions to both; 3-because of that, more blacks are arrested and charged and because they have to wait in jail for a bail hearing, when they go for bail after a delay to get a legal aid lawyer, that legal aid lawyer swamped with cases says-" plead guilty with time served and you are out...however if you plead not guilty, since you can't afford bail, they probably won't release you until trial under your own recognizance since you are not working (have ties to the community), so you could wait weeks for trial in jail, even if innocent.."-so because of that more blacks plead guilty even though they might not have actually been guilty of anything and so they now have criminal records-because of that the next time they are stopped on the street, the police see they have a police record and are hanging on the streets, and so it reinforces the impression of the police they may be up to no good-thus the higher rate of stopping blacks-its a vicious cycle. In the real world, if police know and are connected to communities, they stop and shake down blacks they know are in gangs. The gangbangers know why they are stopped. They are stopped because they operate in communities terrorizing other blacks not just whites. The police shake them down on behalf of all citizens who are not gangbangers to keep them moving. They don't want one gang member in another's turf triggering a war. Black community members want police protecting them from gangbangers period. The people who defend gangbangers who are black as victims of racism, I can tell you are not and have never been a majority of blacks nor represent the majority of them. In fact they are not popular in black communities, but black people who speak out against them run the risk of being called sell outs so they are careful in how they choose their words so as to not trigger black on black fighting that could detract from legitimate concerns about inappropriate policing. Its complicated. Its far to complex to call racism. If it was only a matter of skin colour then black police officers would never arrest blacks ever. Here is what I can tell you are positive solutions that have worked to reduce friction between any community and police not just blacks: 1-having police officers volunteer to live in the neighbourhoods they police; (very difficult to do, it takes a very dedicated officer to want to do that and have his off duty hours constantly challenged helping the community) 2-having police officers work as coaches in organized recreation and sports activities at community centres, i.e., play basketball, hockey, baseball with youth in those communities where the youth have negative interactions with the police; 4-having police meet with community members at cultural, public events, in schools, community centres to interact and talk and share experiences; 5-using volunteers with therapy-comfort dogs at police stations or at trauma situations; 6-outreach to members of communities most likely to encounter police in negative situations to explain: a-when stopped and asked questions do not take it personally b-please carry and be willing to show i.d. c-do not swear, yell, refuse to answer questions, lecture the police about the law or engage in hostile or physical behaviour that escalates the situation; d-address the officer as Sir, Office, PC, Constable and tell them your first name e-smile and keep your hands out of your pockets f-stay calm. In regards to police training, they can and are being asked to attend seminars on how to deal with the mentally ill, people of different ethnic communities and it has reduced conflicts. As well outreach programs dealing with myths associated with policing are an excellent tool., because the vast majority of people watch t.v. which presents false myths about police and policing they then use to falsely assume certain behaviour. Welcoming police at public events of all kinds, churches, synagogues, mosques, houses of worship to pray and/or speak and me welcomed congregants also has had enormous benefit. The Los Angeles Police Department noticed benefits from posting mini police stations in large hospitals. Mini police stations in malls, public areas is very beneficial for relations. Believe it or not the most effective ways to encourage positive police interaction have been: 1-police walking the beat or riding bicycles and stopping to talk to people; 2-police officers on horseback; 3-police officers with comfort dogs. In the latter 2 situations, animals have provided absolutely incredible benefit in bridging the gap between public and police. This one you will find of interest-teaching police officers to smile and nod hello. That in itself is powerful. So I focus on what works. Calling people racist frustrates me. It actually empowers racists or abusive people as victims. Police hate when neo Nazis or anti police, extremists on other side claim to speak about them. They do not welcome neo Nazi support any more than they appreciate blanket condemnation from alleged progressive social groups. The fiasco in Toronto with the gay pride parade interestingly didn't start with police. It started with "Zionist Jews" and "Israel existing as a Jewish state" then moved on to police. Specific interest groups hijacked gay pride for their own agendas. Unfortunately the media, provides platforms for splinter minority groups lending them the appearance of having wide spread and far reaching authority in their communities when they do not ignoring the more moderate groups who won't grandstand and seek media attention to avoid sensationalizing or inciting inflammatory perceptions which the media can easily do. For years the media portrayed the late Dudley Laws as a spokesperson for the black community against police. His group never amounted to more than 40 individuals. Mr. Laws who is now passed away admitted to illegally y smuggling people into Canada. Some members of his community also claim he was a pimp at one point and did other activities that were criminal in his community against blacks and had a vested agenda against police. There are certain lawyers who claim/ed represent the black community but did not and only spoke for themselves and their own opinions. The current police chief was called by a fellow competitor for his job who was also black very unflattering terms that if said by a white candidate who competed against him, would have been considered racist. The current police chief has been roasted for all problems with blacks and the police by blacks which is racist for them to do. The fact he is black does not mean as some of them assume, he must automatically do what they want simply because he is also black. All minority police officers face that in their communities-they are expected to act differently and favourably to people in their own communities and when they do not they have their reputations attacked. I know black men unfairly arrested or stopped. I know black men shaken down. I know abusive cops. I know good cops. All I know is I do not know. Every situation is different. I do know the system has problems but I also know it take a hell of a lot of time to try improve any system of public interaction.

Whale watching is amazing. You see them live, it's out of third world how majestic they are and how puny we are in comparison to their beauty.

I agree and I am a strong environmentalist. I think Trudeau is to frightened to admit his green opinions. Then again I believe a safe pipeline is possible. I worry about ships at sea not pipelines. Today's engineering makes pipelines safe unless it's attacked by a terrorist or I an earthquake zone.

That is probably why it will not happen.

Please explain how wage increases increase job supply without any correlation to market conditions. Please provide your sources. Do explain. Also please explain how you determined the sources I provided were written by right wing shills. Clearly you have zero clue about economics let alone the relationship between market conditions market regulation, and how prices for goods and services are determined. An "increase" in wages that does not surpass inflationary rates of the current market conditions in which that increase is given is not an increase in wages but a decrease in wages relativevtonthat market place. Giving you an extra dollar when the inflation rate subtracts any positive net effect in purchasing power for you is still a decrease in wages and certainly can't generate new jobs when you spend it. The value of the currency you are paid in relation to what it can purchase in your market place where the purchase takes place, not its actual numerical amount, is what determines it's value and its ability when spent to create a spin off effect from its circulation by a purchase transaction to create other jobs. That has nothing to do with left or right-wing ideology genius. it is called common sense. 3 + -2 is one not 5. When you add a negative amount to a positive one there is a decrease not increase. Zip over your head. never met a comrade who could grasp life let alone add they haven't a clue how to minus 2 from 2 Trudeau takes away four and gives him back one and he giggles and finds it fun yah you learned in economics class that it's fun to have Justin stick his head up your ass Viva Justin, Karl and Che and you payin' taxes every day

With respect Bush-Chaney, you are comparing two individuals with stained panties, one from urine the other from doo doo. They both stink. Whether you need a proctologist or urologist to cure what ails....either way someone has to poke something up their asses. Don't look at me. Its also too late for penicillin... it's already spread to their brains and is too late too cure.

Can't argue with that.

Well of course the Netherlands is used as the classic example of a nation that manages heroin addiction with methadone. Myself I prefer giving addicts methadone not needles.