Rue

No there are no stats to back this up. However analysis of pedophiles who have been interviewed by forensic psychiatrists or police in creating the pedophile profile indicates they are predators and look for weak, vulnerable, confused, alienated children who have low self esteem and crave acceptance and affection. So if a child who is young and knows he is gay but is not comfortable with it, the pedophile might smell or sense his or her vulenrability and exploit it. The pedophile doesn't pick them because they are gay - the pedophile has no way of knowing they are gay - they pick them because they are alienated and vulnerable. The pedophile simply will take what ever he can get. The only thing stats do show clearly is that 80% - 90% of sexual molestations are done by men against girls. The rest which are men molesting boys has not been broken down because it would be too hard to be able to define which children were gay and not gay and no your pretending to turn this around to back up your idiot stereotype that molested children are turned gay is obnoxious. The notion that gay children are more likely to be molested because they want sex with men if that is where your brain is headed with the wow, aint a fact at all. Gay children do not look for sex with adults.

' Not all gay people were molested as children, but there is probably a higher rate of gays molested as a child as opposed to heterosexuals molested as a child." I am not aware of any criminology or forensic studies to back up such a thesis. In fact all the statistics show is the vast majority of children molested are girls by men. After that there does not seem to be any statistics to suggest gay children are molested more then straight children. What we do know is the pedophile does not have a preference for gay or straight boys or girls for that matter-he takes what he can find. But I agree with your other points so see below. "Most pedophiles are looking for the easiest access to their victims. In many cases, that means a male molester will seek victims where he is trusted, namely, while acting as a chaperone to young boys. It does not necessarily mean he is gay, it just makes him a wily hunter." That is precisely the point and what police and forensic psychiatrists believe. "I think some molesters choose some victims who are already deemed by their peers as outsiders, kids who are isolated and who have a smaller social network of friends they can confide in, maybe a strained family life. It's not uncommon for little kids who will grow up to be gay adults (as I said, I knew I was gay by age 5) to fit that profile and present themselves as a perfect victim to someone who wants to commit and have it never be discovered." Bang on. That is the point. Now whether that means more gay children would be molested we just do not know yet because the stats aren't there but what you said is absolutely bang on and again the investigations by forensic psychiatrists and police of pedophiles and asking them why they chose certain child has shown in many stats to back up absolutely what you say. Does it make gay children more likely to be molested can't say but if they are feeling confused and alienated, etc., it could very well make them more vulnerable so maybe one day someone will get stats to back up this finding. You made excellent insightful remarks and while you were intellectually honest to make it clear it was your opinion from what I have read in my graduate studies and the stats they have, it seems to strongly support your comments about children being selected precisely because the pedophile looks for vulnerable children. Pedophiles are predators, they do what predators do, pick off the vulnerable.

He same with me! I think Steed, was that his name, her partner, I think he was gay. Remember him? I am not sure he was really interested in her. He semed more interested in his clothes. I mean geez. You have her around in leather like that and he never seemed flustered. OOOOPS reported! I was joking! But think about it, Batman and Robin, Superman and Jimmy Olsen, Wonder Women and those Amazons, Flash and Kid Flash, Green Arrow and Speedy, can you not understand? All men with boys. All gay! You see they want boys all gay men do. I give up. I give up.

Kapitan my ference to lesbians mentoring straight men was tongue in cheek. Now as for your comment most pedophiles molest the same sex you are absolutely wrong and I wwent out of my way to probide statistics to show that is b.s. and it is b.s.80 to 90% of pedophiles are men who molest girls. Get your facts straight.

Palestinians have not controlled the section of the Middle East where Israel is today since 1517 - nearly 500 years ago so current Palestinian claims to the land are baseless. From 1517 to 1918 the area was governed by the Ottoman Turks. From 1918 to 1948, the area was a protectorate of Great Britain. Great Britain turned partitioning of the territory between the Arabs and Jews over to the United Nations. No party had valid prior claim to the lands and do not have at present. The decision was made, Israel was mapped out became a free nations and the Arabs were unhappy. Life happens whether we are happy about it or not. If Lebanon is really a sovereign state she is responsible for the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel as the rocket attacks came from Lebanese territory and constitute an act of war. When a nation condones or commits acts of war from its territory, it can expect a retaliatory strike. Israel’s recent invasion of Lebanon was perfectly justified under international law. I completely agree with you. However I am one of those I guess you would say is a typical Labour Party supporter. I mean JBG understands me better then anyone else. My reluctant concern is that when I criticize the choice of air war Israel used I do not want people misunderstanding I am saying they do not have the right to fight terror. However me personally,a nd that is all it is, a personal feeling said with the reservation I am not there in the line of fire of the Hezbollah missiles, I would have preferred Olmert not panic and initiate an immediate air war, and instead have allowed the IDF to prepare a series of strategic commando strikes. I think they could have achieved the same political impact but have avoided many more civilian causualties and have had a better chance to turn the non shiites in lebanon against the shiites. i think the air war turned potential allies into shell shocked enemies. From the get go I have been someone on these posts who talks of elite swift moving commando strikes again terrorists. i have a strong prejudice for such tactics. i don't like air wars or conventional armies. I appreciate your bluntness.

I share your frustration as I scan many papers and journals. It might interest you to know that one of the reasons intelligence reports are of such poor quality is precisely for the same reason. Not only that the attempt to translate original content from Arabic to English often misses valuable nuances. when I do read translations into english of certain arabic articles, i appreciate nuances may have been missed. however what really frustrates me is what the arab world reads and what we read, are NOT the same thing. As well when PLO and Hamas speak to their people they say one thing, when they speak to the West they say another. To be able to understand that difference and how it plays out is difficult. I wish I could read and understand arabic. when i read israeli newspapers and journals, of course I do not have this problem as there are many english and french israeli newspapers and journals, two languages i can get through. most english wire services of arb media i am aware of coming out of the arab world are of course censored by the governments of the host countries. i have had the fortune of having arabic speaking friends who help translate certain articles for me and explain nuances that would otherwise be missed.

Sorry I just read this now. I referenced your pee pee to lighten this up a bit. It was getting too heavy. Not meant as a personal insult just some comic relief. I actually regret having stated earlier I was straight. In hindsight I should have not told you that. I admit I am straight to try show that straight people can and do respect gay people but I also don't want gay people thinking I say I am straight to distance myself from them. I am just trying to talk about sexuality in an open and healthy way. I think for you its important you know I am straight but for gay readers they should know I would be proud to be called gay and associate with gays. Its just I can't dance and I really don't like testacles. But other then that its cool. If gays were good enough to be slaughtered in the holocaust by Nazis, they have my respect for sharing a pain we Jews often think others can't understand. It gives us a bond. Anyways I answered you in another post Sharkman and I note your debating is civilized and I mean to debate you with respect nothing else. I know you are trying hard to debate without being deliberately hateful to anyone.

I do what I can...what's this, you are taking figgy's side in something? I must pm him on this! Hey, I've been wracking my brain trying to remember who it was that commented on their childhood saying they knew that they were gay from an early age, was it you? I only ask because cybercoma has been on my case claiming how bigotted I was to say you or he(her) was gay. Do you find me bigotted? No. I knew I was a lesbian from an early age though. No seriously, a lot of gay people really know they are gay at a very young age. You have to believe me on that or simply talk to gay people. I have worked with a lot of young gay kids. No one puts the idea in their head. Their being gay is just who they are. There are also transgender kids who believe they should be the other sex. Gay kids don't want to change their gender, transgender kids do. Neither are faking it. Yes there is a difference between that and say a confused adolescent or kid. Straight kids experiment and go through same sex stages. There is a difference. Skilled psychiatrists and psychologists, nurses, pediatricians know the difference. Now as for you being a bigot I can only say this - I am a bigot, we are all bigots. Everyone of us has preconceptions and sometimes we find it hard to push ourselves out of our comfort zones on certain issues. I only can talk about myself and I can honestly say I am a bigot a lot of times but do not mean to intentionally hurt anyone. Many people say a lot of things that are bigoted but do they intend to deliberately hurt and hate no-they are simply doing what humans do-preconceive and work within labels and categories of generalization. Look I am not gay and make no pretentions about how they must feel but I listen to gays. I just treat gay people the way I want to be treated. I did work in the court system with people who have been abused both straight and day. I am a lawyer with a graduate degree in Applied PSychology with training in investigating sexual predators and sex abuse but I can tell you this all the training I was given means jack shit if you don't listen to people. Most people will when you give them the chance and they do not feel they are being judged - level with you as to what is going on in their minds. with the exception of socio-paths pathological liars, and psychotic people, or people with severe mental illnesses-they will give you the time of day if you let them know you will take them as you find them and not judge them and simply listen and respect them for who they are. For me I see gay people no differently then I do straight people other then they choose the same sex. The point is they do not have sex with children and no more have the desire to then you or me. Yes I can tell you kids know they are gay. Of course they know. That's why it can be so hard on them. They have to keep it inside for years for fear they will get beaten up at school. If a gay person says they know they were gay at a young age they have no reason to lie about that. Look I am not sure about you, but when I was 5 I remember this, I used to love girls and try kiss them. How is it any different? I had a good friend in university who died of aids who told me he knew he was gay when he was very young. I have no reason not to believe him. This guy had no reason to lie to me. I would have given him my last dollar and vice versa. He was a good guy. He was just trying to explain to a bunch of us one night about when he knew he was gay. We were all sitting around in university. There was about 6 of us. It was funny because he decided that night to come out and he made this huge deal about it but we were a bunch of stoned straight guys and of course we all knew he was gay so when he made the big speech I think he got one reaction like "no kidding now sit down and pass the joint ugly". I mean we could get into some real fancy technical explanations as to what goes into being gay. I personally believe its a biological or genetic thing. For me, learned homo-sexuality or situational homo-sexuality such as what we see in prisons or when men are isolated from women for long periods, is not the same thing because such people revert back to hetero-sexuality when there is a supply of women again. I also think the preference you have for a gender, is a built in sex preference and it has to do with a sex drive for people of the same age as you NOT children. Do I think people learn their sexual behaviour? I think we learn how to consider sexuality from our parents culture, religion, environment yes but I think that is different then their inherent sex drive which is already there. Attitudes towards whether sex is dirty or normal is one thing, the preference you have is another. whether you hate someone who is different then you is one thing, who you choose to be attracted to is another. I think some people are genuinely gay and others are genuinely bi and most of us are straight because nature intended it that way. I think how we treat each other and difference, that part is learned. Yes some people are genuinely confused about their sexual identity but when given non judgemental counseling with a neutral person who does not impose a set of rules and simply helps them to feel comfortable with what they are, they come to what they always have been. You have to trust me, transgendered people, people who really feel they are in the wrong body don't fake such a thing. Its genuine. Also people with a same sex preference didn't sit there one night and say -hmmm I am gonna screw people of my gender -its just there and no if you get molested by an adult of the same sex, you don't turn gay like its a contagious germ. That is not what happens. Some people believe if at a certain stage of emotional development, a child is exposed to trauma from someone of a certain sex, it may cause them to turn away from that sex and formulate their sexual preference. That theory is a bit different then the genetic one and its extremely complicated and not easy to define because for example a woman raped by a man as a child, may fear having sex with men and turn to women for sex, but probably if she was born straight, deep inside will still have that desire to have sex with men but repress it and eventually it comes out. As well, this notion a boy molested by an adult male will turn gay is not why they turn gay. Two seperate phenomena. They probably already were gay for other reasons. However the emotional damage to them from that adult is something else and unless you are a properly trained psychiatrist ot sex therapist you will not understand these things. They can be very complex, subtle, and hard to analyze. Sometimes it takes many years of work with a patient to get to their true identity. You have to strip through layers of behaviour that has come about as a defence mechacnism. Anyways that is it. I am not expert on this. I am like everyone else on these posts. I just am on the side of the debate that says gays are human beings no different then the rest of us and I don't use my religion to define them. I also am the first to admit I find penises and naked men gross but it doesn't mean I hate gays. Also I think if it weren't for gay men, none of us straight men would know how to dress or shave. I also think lesbians should start a program to adopt a straight man and mentor them as to how to do things properly. It would cut down on the divorce rates I think. Not that I need such training. I am from Quebec originally. we are a tad more advanced then shall we say the rest of Canada about certain practices. Could have something to do with Celine Dion but that is all I can say for now. You must have known at least one boy growing up who thought he was a girl or vice versa. I mean it is not as uncommon as we might think it is. All cultures, all races, have this. I think the aboriginals have the best way of dealing with it. They simply refer to it as someone with two spirits. Now as for me I remember how young I was. I couldn't have been more then 6 when I fell for Diana Rigg of the Avengers and I definitely had the hots for angela cartright on Lost In Space.

Forget miracles for a second, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you claim to have some sort of monopoly on reality and others who see things differently are insane. Is my understanding here correct? Nothing to wrap your head around. The choice of words changes but the dillusions, arrogance, presumptions, remain the same.

It was only a matter of time until you began prosteltzying. That's the problem with people who claim to know the truth and tell people their version is the right one, and anyone else's is flawed-its only a matter of time until they try proseltyze. You are no different then any conventional religious missionary. Now get off my lawn.

"Occupations tend not to go down well with the native populations - which results in misery for both sides." Once again I agree with Gruffy I mean Buffy as to the above. You can not get anything but problems using a conventional army as a political occupation force and its precisely why Olmert chose an air war which was just as problematic for obviously other reasons. "How has Hezbolla occupied her? Do you even know the origins of Hezbolla? " You must as I have done speak to Lebanese on that last question. What they have told me and what I saw with my own eyes, is that Hezbollah is armed to the teeth and does not have any time of day for anyone outside Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanon cower from it. The Lebanese Army is powerless to confront it. Hezbollah is a Shiite fundamentalist military cell that believes its goal is to destroy not just Israel but take over Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, and probably Syria and turn it all into a Shiite theocracy. "If Israel had not attacked Lebanon previously I doubt that we would be seeing anything of the sort of militancy demonstrated now and again by the likes of Hezbolla or other organisations on all sides of this conflict. " On that you are wrong. Whether they had attacked or not, these demonstrations have continued to go on for years. I do not doubt the air war added to the reasons for the demonstrations and served to fuel them and incite the masses even more, but I would descriobe that as an exasperation of what was already going on, not creating it for the first time. The bottom line is this-its a cold brutal reality- it doesn't matter what Israel does or does not do, Hezbollah wants them destroyed and so does Hamas, Syria, Al Fatah, and many other terrorist cells. It also doesn't matter much what Israel does, it will always be hated. So when Israel makes its decisions believe me it isn't too worried if the world or its enemies hate it. When you have been the subject of hatred for as long as Israel has, you become dettached from such factors. Its called siege mentality. To survive the day to day life and not blow up, you aren't thinking whether anyone likes you, you are thinking of what you need to do to survive until the next day. Its a hard thing to understand say when you live in Canada and our whole personna is based on wanting to be a nice guy and liked. The best analogy I can give is a rape victim. They could care less what the rapisy thinks about them. It is also the same kind of phenomena that manifests itself in the mentality of terrorists. Violence tends to cause humans to shut down certain feelings while rage, anger, take over. The human body under seige manufactures steroids and adrenalin and over a prolonged period of time that causes depression and an inability to feel and in the short term provides bursts of energy usually directed outwards in the form of brutal attacks and killings. Because the feelings of sadness, fear, disappointment, debtrayal, can't be expressed, they are bottled inside, and when they do come out its in the form of a rage. Interestingly Hezbollah who pride themselves on being Shiite fundamentalists, tend to sexually mutilate their victims while the IDF for a conventional army has very low rates of sex crimes again probably resulting from the manner in which each side can express itself when it is not fighting. The IDF when not fighting go back into mainstream society while Hezbollah remain isolated.

In response to Tuffy I mean Buffy: "To be frank, I don't think that it would have mattered if Olmert or Bibi was in charge - it wasn't a war meant to be won. " It may suprise you but I totally agree. "IMO the desire was to set Lebanon back 20 years by destroying her infrastructure and flaming the divides of society there. It backfired." I again agree and I think this is precisely why Olmert has been criticized for not understanding how you use the military to achieve political goals precisely because he thought he could destroy the infrastructure feeding the weapons to cripple Hamas not realizing Hamas had already figured that out and prepared a contingency plan for when the roads went out. Many of Hezbollah are highly educated engineers and they built elaborate tunnels. I also think Olmert did not understand that those Lebanese who do not like Hezbollah would turn on them seeing their country get blown up but it did the opposite, it united them with Hezbollah and I think Olmert failed to understand that effect. The psychological devastation to the country only reinforces hatred against Israel not Hezbollah. "Meanwhile, Lebanon has requested time and time again the records of where all the cluster bombs were dropped in the final few days before the 'truce'. Israel will not release it - and this war keeps on giving in the form of children, adults and animals being blown to bitsy by these ordinances (a war crime btw)." Both sides most certainly used cluster bombs. "Nothing much will happen to Olmert, outside of sinking into obscurity after his little stint on stage is up. My fear is who will replace him." Well Israeli politics are fascinating. Israel spits its politicians out with no mercy. Its press is vicious and the knesset is at any given time a combustable mix of coalitions that can fall apart at a moment's notice. At this time Olmert's coalition has a 75 seat cushion. For it to fall apart Ehud Barak would have to take back control of the Labour party which there are rumbles he might do and if he does that, Benjamin Netanyahu for Likud would show up again meaning those two would start fighting to see who could put together a coalition. Netanyahu is a tough tough inflexible right wing no nonsense guy pretty much a modern version of Menachem Begin. Barak who was thrown out of office being accused of being incompetent with the way he dealt with Arafat is itching for a come back to prove to everyone he was right. Barak is a typical Labour leader in that he is a battle smart commando who is not afraid to fight a war but talk peace. Netanyahu is also a former soldier.Olmert was not. He is considered an anomoly in Israeli politics someone outside the IDF involved in running the country. It explains a lot of the breakdown between himself and the IDF during the Lebanon war. Personally I believe Olmert is financially dishonest. I do not like the coruption around him and his wife. Will he survive, Well there is no doubt he has been a teflon man playing the sides off each other but on this one you have to watch one thing. Israel is very very small. Everyone knows everyone. If the sentiment of the people is he is incompetent and has to go you will know within the next two months as the final report comes out. If you don't see major street actions and demonstrations in the next 2 months or so, I would say he survived again. However summers are always hot and volatile in Israel. A leader can be tossed out on his caboose very quickly. Shimon Peres by the way at 84 while he may appear old, is still itching to get into power as well. He is a wild card. If I am a betting man I say Barak and Netanyahu bide their time yet again. What I can also tell you is there is major dissension within the IDF not only over how the war was conducted but with the lack of equipment given to the soldiers sent in on the ground. Israel prides itself on being prepared for wars but went in on the ground without proper weaponry t fight Hezbollah. Hezbollah is not your usual terrorist unit. It consists of older men many in their 30's and 40's with engineering training. These are excellently trained killers and adept at building tunnel systems and camoflage. The Hezbollah use Viet Cong tactics only they have better weapons and their people are extremely disciplined. You don't have people in Hezbollah who do drugs, or run amuk. They are very fundamentalist Shiites. They are a lethal opponent and they will kill anyone who gets in their way. They want a Shiite theocracy in Lebanon, Israel and Jordan and probably Syria if they had their way. Ironically the Muslim Brotherhood which is the unit behind Hamas does not like them at all and if they did not both hate Israel equally would have turned on one another. Syria only supports Hezbollah, because Hezbollah supports Syria against its internal battle against the Muslim Brotherhood. A minority Islamic sect runs Syria closely aligned to the Shiites but against the majority population which is Sunni in Syria. As well in Lebanon everyone may now hate Israel because of the bombings but the Sunnis, Duze and Christians have no love for Hezbollah at all. Its a mess. A major mess.

An art you say? Yegads. Excuse the pun but I was tempted to say I find that hard to handle as a concept. I better get a hold of myself and stop this before I get reported for these bad puns. Also its not polite to point at people. Man you have to be kidding but why does it not suprise me. Good grief. Am I the only one not going what? Now I am curious, did the people watching this have rain coats or something to protect them from the fall out? Yech! I say.

I completely agree with you. In regards to the reporting, you will be reported. It is only a matter of time. I like to report people on these posts to my cats by the way. Now I want to make you feel at home so... REPORTED!

"No, you argue for the sake of out-arguing the other person, not analyzing to see who might have some common ground. Do you ever wonder why you draw the ire of so many people on this forum? You may not mean to, but you come off sounding like a know-it-all. I am not interested in trying to debate something with somebody who thinks they know it all. " Sharkman I must say that was excellent. Hey it would be racist to call you a Great White Shark or probably be unfair to call you a Blue Shark as that would infer you are depressed or yxygen deprived, but given the line of these posts I suppose we should call you a "Tiger" Shark. You made my day.

"At the eviction hearing a tennant can raise any issue the tenant wants and the Board must hear the evidence." The Landlord also has the same right. More to the point, if you read the RTA even though the tenant can bring up anything they want, it won't mean a thing if they haven't paid. If they haven't paid there rent, no arguements they raise can go to that issue or prevent an eviction for not paying rent. Even if the landlord is harassing the tenant, the issue of harassment and arrears of rent are seperate legal issues. The Board might fine a landlord for harassing a client, but they will not let a tenant stay who does not pay rent. You missed the point on that. It makes no diff. letting tenants bring up what-ever they want if it doesn't go to the arrears of rent arguement. "The landlord is not notified prior of the issue the tennant will raise " Again you have to be a bit more realistic. If you think landlords have no clue as to the arguements the tenant will make you are joking....there is no suprise...they know what will be raised...how much suprise is there in saying the landlord was rude, didn't fix the apartment or harassed the tenant? It aint rocket science. "and therefore cannot prepare for it and may not be able to respond to it at the hearing." The Board has the power to adjourn any proceeding to allow the Landlord time to prepare a response to allegations that require time to respond-its part of the rules of natural justice, so you are wrong-however the board proceedings are also informal so when a tenant brings up stuff like the landlord is rude or mean or harassed him/her, landlords most of the time don't want extra time to respond, they simply respond at the hearing and what you also have to understand is, 90% of such arguements are ignored by the Board-they only get involved if there is a serious allegation and someone could be physically hurt, on most of this he said she said stuff they tell each party to cool it and settle it with a mediator or they simply rule on who did the damage-board members want witnesses when it gets into a he said she said fight-they aren't stupid. "The landlord will likely need a deferrment in order to respond to the issue leading to additional costs for him and loss of rent." Clearly you are not going to the Landlord Tenant Board to see how it really works. This rarely happens. "At the next hearing there is nothing preventing the tenant from bringing up a different issue." Wrong again. At the first hearing when the tenant brings up all kinds of other issues, the Board Member will flush out every single arguement they have and quickly throw out most of them and only deal with ones that can be proven through a witness. So if there is an adjournment which is rare, the Board member usually stays seized of the matter and if a tenant suddenly brought up new issues at the second hearing, the first thing the Board member would say was why did you nto bring it up the first time -because if they can't answer that, their arguements are thrown out-that is how it really works. "The cycle can go on endlessly. this is nothing but "trial by ambush" and is unheard of in any other legal process." You are absolutely wrong because that is not what happens at the hearings. The Board members take control and do not allow the proceedings to drag out as you have said for the reasons I stated above. I have no idea what Board hearings you are talking about because in the ones I go to none of what you are describing has ever happened. "[*]The landlord can be forced to rent to someone they don't have a contract with." No the RTA does not say that and again I do not know what law you are referring to. A landlord can't be forced to rent to anyone. Read the provisions for subletting and assignments of rent. The landlord can evict any one in the dwelling who takes over the dwelling without the landlord's consent. "A person claming "spouse" status of the contracted tenant is now included in the definition of tenant. For example, lets say a landlord carefully screens a tenant for a good tenant history. At the end of the term, a "spouse" with bad credit show up and claims to be a tennant under the lease. " What are you talking about? When a landlord rents out an apartment or dwelling and they do a credit check, they are supposed to do a credit check of both spouses. If they don't they should have. Spouses are responsible for each other's debts jointly and severally, so what you are saying makes no sense. If the husband has a good credit history it doesn't matter if his spouse has none. Vice versa if the husband has no credit history or a bad one and his wife has a good one, then it also doesn't matter. If you are a landlord anr you rent to spouses and you think one is a bad credit risk and the other isn't then you have the right not to rent to them. " A tenant can unilaterally leave a premisis at the end of the lease for any reason at all." Uh hello what are you talking about. The tenant must give a notice period when they leave. If they don't respond to the landlord with a notice to renew the lease then the lease is up at the end of the term and they leave. What are you trying to suggest-we put tenants under house arrest and never let them leave at the end of their lease? Its a contract for heaven's sake. Contract's expire. If they expire and you don't renew them, you leave. The tenant pays first and last month's rent at the beginning of the lease. "No such symetrically arrangment is accorded the landlord." Would you please look at the notice periods for termination required for both sides. It most certainly is symetical. Are you reading the same statute? "He can only termiate the arrangement for a small number of specific reasons." Wrong wrong and wrong again. A landlord is not required to continue a lease with a tenant if they have good reason. If the tenant has not broken any laws and continues to pay their rent, and has been lawful and wants to stay, tghe landlord can not just throw them out so they can get a new tenant and jack up the rent since with every new tenant you can jack up the rent higher then what rent control allows from year to year. Think about what you are saying. If landlords could simply say to lawful peace abiding tenants they must leave at the end of the lease-you would have thousands of tenants forced to move constantly and rents being jacked up out of control. Nice try misrepresenting that one. What the RTA does say is if the landlord wants to move in their own relatives, demolish the dwelling, convert it to a condo or renovate or repair it, it has to show good cause and other then with the relatives, the tenant gets first right of refusal provided they have paid their rent. What you say makes no sense. If a tenant is a good tenant and pays their rent and are law abiding and peaceful, the landlord has NO reason to get rid of them unless its to move in relatives or the grounds I stated above which you misrepresented. "There are more. So when you say the legislation balances the rights of landlords and tenants, it does not seem justified by the actual legislation." Well I have heard enough. I am not sure if you understand the RTA or have ever been to the board for hearings. I am not even sure where you get your conceptions from. "The bottom line is a tenant who doesn't pay rent can drag out the process a couple of months, tops. Exactly. More than that the tenant can destroy the property within that time. There are many business who would not survive the loss of revenue for several months as well as the destruction of their assets, yet you expect that landlords shoud." The above comment I must agree with you on. This is the problem for landlords. Its true. Its the weakness with it. when a tenant destroys a dwelling it drags on physically removing them. You are right about the above and if that is what you are referring to, I have to agree with you. I also said to you I have to agree the rental increase formula could cause landlords hardship although in theory its not supposed to and allows landlords to be compensated when taxes go up but allow tenants a rebate if taxes go down. I also concede your point that screening tenants is problematic and hard to do. "I believe landlords need protection from unethical tenants. "\ Again I can't disagree with the above. Its a fair comment. "Again in a free society any vendor should have the ability to sell his good at any price he wishes. A consumer is free to refuse. It is only "illegal rent" because the government says it is." Well again I am not arguing with you on that point because you are raising a political issue not a legal one. You are right in the sense that rent control is a restriction on the concept of a free marketplace determining the level of rent. I am as you noticed only giving you hemmeroids over the legal issues not the political ones. "Who says they are not complaining? Did you see the presentaion I linked to? It was created when the legislation was proposed to show that the legislation was not needed and should not be passed. " Seriously after that, many landlords changed their mind. When new laws come in people get their nose all out of joint until about 6 months to a year of using the legislation then they usually say...oops all the stuff we are worried about never came true. I agree with you that certain landlords and their reps did not like the RTA but I would also tell you there were many more tenant groups that complained saying the RTA was bias in favour of landlords. So I tend to take both sides who say the RTA is unfair and say to them, well yah, you are looking at it from your narrow perspective and agenda and interests and I can appreciate that but when the government comes up with the law honestly it doesn't try to pander to one side more then the other-when it came to the RTA they did the usual jello routine of wiggling from one extreme to the other trying to find a middle point for their legislation. Yes it has some problems. Specifically the one you mentioned about tenants smashing the place up or committing drimes out of the dwelling. Its true it is hard on the landlord. It drags out because the RTA doesn't want the landlord taking things into their own hands and getting hurt or getting themselves sued. Look I was just there and watched a hearing. The tenant had gotten one adjournment. Showed up again saying he never did get a lawyer because he was depressed and broke. The Board member said he was proceeding. The landlord brought out their witnesses. Man oh man. The tenant chased someone with an axe trying to murder them, was constantly high on drugs, selling driugs from his place, pimping from his place. Just a nightmare. I agree with you in that case the hearing was dragged out. It was delayed three weeks from the original hearing but this time round the Board member let the tenant say what-ever he wanted then ordered an eviction. The police were one witness. There is no doubt the landlord lost money on this idiot who did damage. Some of it is a tax write off as you know. In any business you run a risk when you deal with people. Its not a perfect world. You just hope you can do a credit screening properly. So sorry, I do not agree with your analysis of the RTA but I concede some points. By the way I am not condescending. It just sounds that way when you write these things. I appreciate your opinions. Just debating them. Don't let the tone of my responses mislead you. I enjoy this debate. I respect your opinions. Just playing devil's advocate because you wrote in about a subject you obviously care about, so someone's gotta keep you on your toes.

Why is it that your landlord has the power to physically intimidate you whereas your grocer does not? You have two rights when a Landlord harasses you. One is to call the police if he is threatening you physically and file an assault complaint and if need be get a physical restraint order. The other right is to apply to the Landlord Tenant Board, claiming the Landlord is interfering with your right to enjoy your rental unit and is harassing you. In such a case, the Landlord Tenant Board can issue an order telling the Landlord to cease and desist or levy a hefty fine. So you have rights. You just can't take the law into your own hands.

"Residential Tenancies Act...unnecessary and more over unfairly penalizes and restricts the ability of landlords..." Have you even read the RTA? Get real. The RTA balances the rights of both tenants and landlords. You might want to argue over the formula that allows rent increases as being unfair to landlords but other then that the RTA is pretty neutral. We have an RTA so that landlords don't take the law into their own hands with bad tenants and to provide both tenants and landlords a civilized way to resolve disputes so they don't end up in a fight. Most matters that end up at the Landlord Tenant Board in any province, are evictions being requested because the tenant hasn't paid rent. The bottom line is a tenant who doesn't pay rent can drag out the process a couple of months, tops. The key and all landlords know it, is to do proper screening of tenants. Believe it or not some tenants need protection from unethical landlords. In Toronto, the mentally disabled and new (poor) immigrants are often taken advantage of and asked to pay illegal rent and expenses and to live in filth. The RTA tries to balance that with the bad tenants. Its actually a good piece of legislation. Landlords are not complaining about the RTA. They might have concerns over the rent increase formula but not the rest of the act. Its actually easier to read and the forms are easier to use.

Well now THC may not be carcinogenic but who says that is the only thing in dope? Of course when you smoke dope whether that be hash or grass, you are inhaling; 1-tar 2-carbon monoxide 3-cyanide 4-benzopyrene. Now please you going to tell me the above 4 chemicals are not carcinogenic. Yah right. Also keep in mind there's no filter on a joint and you breath this stuff in deeply. So please get real. Of course it causes lung cancer.

If it were, we would see all kinds of studies linking Rastafarian lifestyle with high incidence of lung-cancer. Tell that to Bob Marley.

In my personal opinion Olmert should do the honourable thing and resign so he won't. As for me, I find sex scandals not as bad as coruption ones unless of course its with kids. Then its bad. But I think who you have sex with I could care less about (unless its a kid) but if you screw with people's money-then look out.

What is amazing is that he has been able to survive as long as he has. I mean his wife was caught red handed in a charity fraud and he survived that and so many other things. As well the Israeli press spits its politicians out, it has no mercy and has been relentless. Then add to that the scathing report of his incompetence during the Lebanon war and its amazing he still stands.

"According to your definition, this is true, but that's like me claiming that green is a color except in the case of pine trees, in which case it is a hue, and cannot therefore be considered a color. It's simply defining the issue away by using arbitrary definitions." Just to clarify-These are not my definitions. They come from the DVSM psychiatic manual and what both the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association and their counterparts in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa all agree on. More to the point it is you not these associations making the arbitrary designation that if a pedophile molests someone of the same sex, you will use the same term as someone who has same sex with adults. If these associations were being arbitrary they wouldn't take the time to carefully distinguish the terms so that people like you would not use them incorrectly and encourage the stereotype that homo-sexuals and pedophiles share the same sexual behaviour because the gender of their preference is the same. Being sexually attracted to a boy is not the same as being sexually attracted to a man. You are confusing the fact that the gender is the same. The gender being the same is not what defines it as deviant by the medical community. What defines it as deviant is when an adult has sex with a child. You also ignored again the most salient feature of pedophilia probably because it doesn't fit into your pedophiles are gays theory-and that is these so called gay pedophiles when given access and opportunity will molest girls as well. The notion that a pedophile will only have sex with boys because he is a homo-sexual pedophile is not true. You are trying to create a phenomena that does not exist. Pedophiles will not restrict their molestation of children to just one sex. That is absolute b.s. If they have its because of opportunity and access and not preference. A pedophile doesn't say-gee I will only molest boys never girls. They molest what is available and what they look for is an asexual or ambiguous physical body that doesn't threaten them with any overt sexual features. What they are attracted to is the asexual appearance of their victim. They are attracted to boys precisely because their features are ambiguous, they are not pronounced, they are similiar in either girls or boys-they are attracted to this asexuality precisely because they can't handle their own self-hatred-they don't want to be reminded of their own bodies. Take a look at Michael Jackson. Most of his victims appear to be boys but he did molest girls. The alleged preference for boys was not a homo-sexual pathology. It has nothing to do with being attracted to the male body. He would recoil at pubic hair or muscular features or a large penis. He wants to be reminded of himself when he was a child. I speak from the experience of getting in these peoples' heads. They are no more gay then. The thing that attracts them to boys is precisely what makes them not gay. They couldn't handle the gay world of developed male bodies. It would make them impotent and probably panic. Try read the literature and find out the difference in the pathologies of cosnensual adult same sex to the pathologies of adult to child sex. The equivalent gender of the victim and offender is a classification you use not what the psychiatric and psychological worlds use because the very mechacnisms and reasons for arousal and desire are completely different. You are simply saying since they both are red, they must be the same. They aren't. Two things can have the colour red and be completely different. Its that colour read you are using arbitrarily to make them the same, not me. That said, if you are worried about homo-sexuals recruiting and molesting children I again repeat, there is far more likelihood of hetero-sexuals doing that. More to the point people who molest children very rarely have sex with adults and when they do its 90% of the time straight men who have molested girls. However most pedophiles fail to have any intimacy with adults. They can't. They are unable. When we get into the pathology of someone who screws children and adults its a very are phenomena and then its usually inter-related to all kinds of other personality disorders.

"They (gays) have been given the Midas touch." The above is your subjective generalization and bias as to gays,. "So every sexual deviance is approached with this bias." You then make the irrational conclusion that since others do not share the above bias you have, based on a subjective generalization of yours, it makes people bias towards the issue of sexual deviance. This of course makes no sense what-so-ever. The fact that I do not make subjective negative generalizations about gays and define them as sexually deviant doesn't make me bias, in fact all it does is evidence your biases and in particular your bias that gays are sexually deviant and are given preferential treatment by not being referred to as deviants. "If a healthy gay is attracted to adults, then an unhealthy gay could be attracted to boys." Using that logic an unhealthy straight could be attracted to girls. The problem is the above comment shows you refuse to acknopwledge that the attraction of an adult to a boy is not homo-sexual behaviour. There are specific clinical designations for it. The fact that you choose to ignore the psychiatric manual classifications and continue to repeat the completely incorrect statement that being attracted to a boy is homo-sexual behaviour, simply repeats your refusal to distinguish between a pedophole and homo-sexual and insist they be called the same thing. "To merely use the description these obviously sick people choose to describe themselves - heterosexual - is kin to asking the patient to figure out what desease they have. " You of course completely missed the point. Using your arguement of course, these pedophiles may call themselves straight, but they are homo-sexuals anyways. No that is not what I said and that is not what I explained. These pedophiles when they do have sex with adults describe themselves as straight. They are not describing their activities or preference with children. People like you who insist that when a pedophile has sex with the same sex its homo-sexual and no different then the sex homo-sexual adults have. What I have stated is that describing sex between an adult and a child as hetero-sexual or homo-sexual to refer to whether the gender of the molester is the same as the gender of the victim is not accurate and is a use of the terms heter-sexual and homo-sexual. Whatr you are trying to do is say a person who has sex with a child of the same sex is a homo-sexual. No they are not. They are no more a homo-sexual then an adult who molests a girl is a hetero-sexual. They are pedophiles. "Their diseased minds are not to be trusted simply because their descriptions are helpful to gay culture." Now you have shown once again not only could you not understand what I said, but keep coming back to this entrenched bias that pedophiles are gays. "As far as Nambla goes, if you think they didn't care what the sex is of the young person, then why did they call themselves, North American Man Boy Love Association?" They called themselves a lot of things not just that name. You clearly do not know who they are. I do. I worked with 10 of these so called members. They were pedophiles. They would have had sex with any male or female who looked asexual, i.e., no hair, ambiguous features. "And if you think they are shut down, try again. They just went underground." Of course they went underground. There is a world wide network of pedophiles who interact and are incited by child pronography on the web sites and in world wide prostitution rings of children particularly in third world countries. Your point? "At any rate, I am not suggesting that all gays are child molestors, only the ones who have sex with kids of the same sex." That is precisely the point. So if you want to use the term homo-sexual incorrectly to describe pedophiles who have sex with children of the same sex, continue to do so. However I will challenge you just as I would if you said men who have sex with girls are hetero-sexuals. They are not and you are using the terms incorrectly and the use of the terms incorrectly simply fuel and justify the incorrect stereotype that gays are pedophiles. "Your last comment was very telling, for you suggested that to find out the difference between a sexual deviant and a gay, I only need to speak with a gay. Not a molestor. Get it through your head, gays are capable of molestation just as straights are." No you get it through your head, that calling pedophiles hetero-sexual or homo-sexual is incorrect and you keep repeating it because you deliberately ignore the proper terminology because you have a preconceived bias that gays are pedophiles are the same. "The game the medical community is playing with names and terms won't change that." It is not a game. The fact that the medical community properly defines these behaviours and you wish to ignore them and make up your own terms because they are more compatible with your personal prejudices against gays is the game. Perhaps you should ask yourself why you are so fixated in insisting gays are pedophiles and then dismissing the medical community as playing games. I would also like to know what your medical qualifications are to dismiss the medical community as playing games because they don't classify sexual deviancy the way you do. Wait don't tell me...God told you...the Bible told you right?