Charles Anthony

What if his gun was bigger than yours? [i am not too sure that sounds right.... ]What if you were of a lower rank on the team and the trigger-happy moron was the captain? I wonder whether the Canadian military shares equal power in such a dilemma.

That is not a fair question because there is more than those two choices. Also, shooting up in a "safe-injection site" is actually "in my backyard" if I am the one paying for it. Uh...because you assume there's a finite supply of drug users?Can the "safe-injection sites" deal with an infinite demand? Ultimately, no matter what we do (except for decriminalization and privatization of health-care) we will always face limits. Why can his arguments not be applied to all junkies? It's a site in which addicts inject drugs safely (at least compared to doing it in an alley with a dirty needle). Where's the hypocricy?The hypocrisy is in the fact that the activity is deemed "illegal" and we pay people to enforce that illegality.

Why should the problems be different or more?? So.... where do the SafeInjectionSites fit into your equation??? Unfortunately, the power of the law could not help her nor prevent those consequences.

Can you imagine if the government told us the truth?? If the government came out and said: "In general, we need more of your money. Demand for total expenses is higher than total revenues. Total demand includes healthcare but it also includes: cronyism; waste; skimming off the top; education; pocketing the change; yadda yadda yadda. Therefore, we will raise taxes." it would be difficult to defend. How long would such a government last? I am cynical. I believe that it was an easy way to mislead the public since everybody asks for health care. Regardless of the province, nobody would accept the alternative: less health care services. I dream of a day that more people demand less extraneous spending from their governments. If everybody closely examined all public expenditures, there would be more of an expectation to trim the fat instead of reduce "essential" services.

Read the rest of the article. Your answers are there. It does not matter what I think because I did not say it. What matters is what Ahmadinejad said and how to properly translate his words. He did not speak in English.

I personally feel that this emphasis on the 'wipe them off the map' thing is a rhetorical trap that Israel's leaders have fallen into. They've internalized their propaganda, so to speak.Some people insist that the "translation" of "wipe them off the map" for English speakers is a fabrication and a blatant lie. Putting Words in Ahmadinejad's Mouth by Virginia Tilley http://www.counterpunch.org/tilley08282006.html Read the rest of the article, it goes into a lot more detail about his mis-translations.

No, but not for that reason. Rather, it would be incredibly expensive to extract compared to working our gold mines on Earth. It is all relative to what is available now. This deposit is described as more expensive to extract than current Middle East Oil. Therefore, it does not matter how much is contained in the deposit. If it is incredibly expensive to extract, it will stay underground. The only time that we can say: "the end of Middle East Oil Dependancy!" is when there is physical geologic depletion in the Middle East. Until that day, as long as the Middle East is extracting oil in a cheaper or more accessible manner relative to elsewhere, we will always be affected by Middle East production.

The only thing that I see as being wrong is that the government raised taxes when they said that they would not. Whether a tax goes into general revenues or not is a triviality. You can not trace an exchanged dollar. We do not ask our government for a 100% complete breakdown of every cent that each individual pays in taxes and how it relates to total expenditures. Why make a big deal about health care?

Hear, hear! That is a true definition of compassion at work. However, it requires courage and strength on the part of the intervenor. It probably works faster but requires less do-gooder bureaucrats who make a living by pretending to "help" drug addicts.

I like that definition. I will be a little nit-picky by suggesting that it be re-phrased: "The right of a human being to sustain itself without interference from any other individual or the state and without interfering with any other individual's rights."

Without beating around the bush: I believe that the "safe-injection sites" should be completely shut down and I believe that illicit drugs should all be decriminalized. Drug abuse should be handled exactly like alcohol, smoking, gambling, sex and whatever other prudish addictions or SINGLE-PERSON behaviors that most people (but not all) believe are harmful. Get the State out of people's private lives (even if they are making deadly mistakes) and let them fend for themselves or be at the mercy of charitable organizations. Period. In general, my stance is intellectually easy. To be fair to the drug injectors, I have the same attitude towards all of health care. We would not be having this stupid discussion if health care was 100% privatized. The source of this dilemma comes from our self-imposed nebulous "social contract" responsibility of "universal" healthcare. By extension, I treat drug abuse in the same way as I treat people who get injured in contact sports or people who do not brush their teeth or cigarette smokers who get emphysema. Behind all of the controversy, I honestly believe that we are up against a make-work drug-industry bureacracy. There are twisted do-gooders who make a living off of "helping" drug addicts and there are police officers who make a living off of enforcing our stupid drug laws. Now for some fun: I agree. It should be labelled: "State Sponsored Pimping and Pushing Facility" or "State Sponsored Aiding and Abetting of Criminal Behavior" instead. Calling it a "Safe Injection Site" is the height of hypocrisy. So do I. However, I object to forcing everybody else to pay for them. Your comments are not fair. I do not dismiss addicts nor judge their "worth" at all. What YOU fail to understand is the concept of LIMITS to everybody else responsibility to their fellow man. This "safe-injection site" FORCES everybody else (whether they agree with it or not) to be responsible for addicts. I have a question for you: how responsible should non-addicts be? Maybe we are already doing enough without the "safe-injection sites" compared to other forms of charities and needy people. Allowing drug addicts to kill themselves benefits society in a couple ways:1) One less drug addicted person supporting a criminal sub-culture. 2) A high death rate will help convince people with less serious problems to clean up sooner and cause less damage to themselves and others. Many people do not think about the importance of 2). People don't become addicts overnight - it happens gradually over time. Often there are many opportunities to help a person before they become a street level addict. Anything we do to make street level drug use less harmful actually makes it harder to reach someone who has not reached that level yet. As heartless as the above attitude may seem on the surface, I agree with it completely.On a relative basis, when there are poor people who have little to eat and nowhere to live, I have NO SYMPATHY for a person who can afford the luxury of illicit drugs. Why not hasten that by executing addicts on sight?Your comment is stupid: it does not further the argument on either side and it is insulting to people who believe in respecting eachother's freedom (inlcuding the freedom to do risky behavior). You may be getting things confused with methadone clinics. I always wonder what happens to street drugs that get confiscated by the police. The cynic in me thinks of dirty cops. Exactly. As cold-hearted as it may seem, in a "free" country that means the incentives are more effective if they do not include sugar coatings. I have heard drug addicts talk on radio condemn unequivocally these injection sites for this exact reason. Why??? Every single drug user may a completely different reason. How could a bureaucrat possibly know what is going on in a drug user's head??? I would like to see details of one example of how to do that. They are not Neanderthanl attitudes, they are limits. Since you mention family, that is where the responsibility with drug help should start: with family. For people who do not have family, it should be with friends. For people who do not have friends, it should be with charitable organizations. For people who live away from any charitable organizations, it will have to come from personal responsibility and cold-hard reality. For lone lumber jacks who fall from trees doing their honest job, it will also come from personal responsibility (normal safety precautions) and cold-hard reality. Drug addicts should be treated the same. If we MUST come to the aid of people, why should we come to the aid of people who WILLINGLY self-destruct??? This is disgusting. A "counselling referral" is supposed to mean something??? Have you ever heard of reading between the lines??? If the best thing they can provide as evidence is a "counselling referral" it is excessively feeble-minded to make the association with true help. Saying you made a "referral" is fool's way of hiding the fact that nothing was accomplished. By the way, if only 1,600 of them were for addiction, what were all of the others for??? Talk about sugar coating inaction!!!! Sheesh! Paying people to help addicts shoot up. Paying people to maintain drug addictions. What has our warped do-gooder "social contract" mentality got us into??? I can not make this loud and clear enough: EVERY SINGLE PERSON ASSOCIATED WITH THESE "SAFE INJECTION S(H)ITES" SHOULD BE ASHAMED. SHAME. SHAME. SHAME. I have said this about other issues: If there were three buckets: good, neutral and evil, "safe drug injection" helpers go in the same bucket as murderers. Drug rehab specialists would go in a different bucket. As a point of order: this thread should either be in "Immoral & Irreligious Issues" or "Provincial Policits" instead. It is not a federal jurisdiction.

That is like saying: "Now that we have discovered Pepsi, we are no longer dependent on Coca Cola!" The Middle East has a great impact on world oil prices. If we discover that the whole of planet Mars is gold, will we be rich?

From the sounds of the first article, separatism does not sound like a priority. Maybe the Bloc Quebecois will have to change its political strategy and unfortunately act like every other federal party by singing different songs everywhere it goes.

I think the kid should just go home and count his blessings. Most schooling (particularly public schooling) is an insulting waste of time! However, I will not deny anybody the right to abuse themselves if they want it. Slow down: the dog in question is a poodle. This whole episode is ridiculous. First of all, school has not started yet. I think the mother is just being a mother-of-a-dog with her human rights complaint. I think this mother is setting a bad example. Also, the following still makes no sense: The doctor's note raises the bar a little and makes it more difficult for people to make spurious claims to need a dog or other aids in school.It now sounds like the board is being spiteful too. There is a chance that before school started there was a normal conversation between parent and school. However, the two parties hit it off poorly and there was a clash of personalities. What we are seeing is an escalation. Parents can be very beligerent with respect to their second-chances-to-live-ther-life-dreams -- I mean, children. I have a very hard time with this human rights complaint.

What do you recommend we do?

As much as I despise all Liberals in Canada, I find The Western Stardard to be even more despicable for hosting such disgusting bigotry on its webserver.Furthermore, your argumentative style will never be as neurotic as mine. Give up.

So, any rebuttal to what Jack Layton says? Well, quoted directly from your citation: Unless, anybody can state clearly what the direction of the mission happens to be, the goals, an exit strategy and a criteria to judge success, I would say Jack Layton has it right. Not everybody in Canada supports what Canadian troups are doing in Afghanistan. Maybe Jack Layton is speaking for them.

Yeah, like The Beachcombers.

You're joking, surely.Not in the least, you make (hopefully) rational decisions and are effected by the outcomes. There is risk, but risk can be mitigated through good choices in life. You choose the current position your in.Risks can be accepted, avoided, mitigated, or unplanned, none of which changes the reality that random outcomes may nevertheless happen. The classic one, of course is that no-one chooses who their parents are.Frankly, a position that ignores the reality of uncertainty is one that smacks of dogma, not pragmatism. You should plan your life as you would plan your golf game. Just as you would consider where your ball might miss if you don't hit the shot as well as you planned, every decision should be designed to leave you an out you can manage.It takes luck out of the equation. Its a lesson I have learned the hard way. It's a risk minimization strategy,What is? The post before or the quoted post before or the quoted post before or the quoted post before that one....?? I forget: what type of minimization strategy are we talking about?? Mathematically speaking the probability of successfully following a thread is indirectly proportional to the number of inline quotes contained therein.

No. A tall bearded man in a cave did.

You are kidding?? Forgive me but you really have no idea how parts of the world (and even Canada) are different from your own. Not everybody has the luxury of a hospital nearby. What are the other choices??? Now we are getting closer. Do you object to her choosing to leave the kid on the ground? Personally, I would let her. If I could pick that child up and find foster care myself, I would. Otherwise, I would leave the kid where she left it. If you do not let her leave the kid on the ground, you are forcing her. It really is that black and white. No, it would not because there is no other person involved -- just me. You are side-stepping the issue. You are refusing to address letting the kid die of exposure after it is no longer "physically dependent" on the mother. You are also refusing to address exactly what obligations (if any) are made on the parent after the "physical independence" criteria is met. In other words: 1) does a newborn have an inalienable right to life (as any other person might have) and; 2) if so, who is obligated to fulfill that right ? Agreed, it is different. However, you are side-stepping the issue of control over her body: would you let her drop the kid on the ground and let it die of exposure?? Why or why not?

Sorry, I can not think of an excuse for your ignorance.

Bravo! M. Dumont! You simply can not. I think the only solution is to take your kids out of the school and send them to a different (private, it will have to be) school or teach them yourself. Afterwards, you can try to beg for your taxes back. The trouble with teachers and politics in a public school system is that practically EVERYBODY either has a close friend, a relative or a spouse who is a teacher if they are not a teacher themselves. Questioning teachers creates political stonewalls and wars. What I find confusing is the seemingly fence-sitting of the Quebec education minister. He states: « Il y a peut-être deux ou trois cadres syndicaux qui envisagent ça, mais on n'est pas rendu là. » after stating that he is convinced that the teachers will not abuse their position? I do not know what that means. Interestingly enough, it sounds like a war between sovereignists and federalists. http://www.matin.qc.ca/quebec.php?article=20060829165044and it is the sovereignists who are behind the propaganda. I support their cause! I do not know enough about the psyche of Quebeckers (both the public and the students) enough to predict how they will receive such a propaganda campaign or whether it will make a difference. I wonder if this will back-fire on the teachers union? I would hope that this issue in Quebec leads Quebeckers (and by extension the Rest-of-Canadians) to thinking twice about how much control they relinquish to the State when they send their kids to daycare --- I mean, school.

There is hope. I guess I do not have to go anywhere to find my utopia!

Yeah? And? As you would say: so what?Easy. The issue of abortion centers around the pregnant woman's right to control her body. You said that. She (like every other person in the world) should have that control all of the time. Placing an obligation of finding a foster parent for the unwanted child becomes coersion or a loss of control over her body. Not placing an obligation of finding a foster parent for the unwanted child becomes accepting infanticide. If you give the woman the right to control her body at all times, you must accept infanticide.