Charles Anthony

This is national Mental Illness Week. Television shows and movies glamorize super-heroes with extra-ordinary powers all of the time. Various religions depict analogous experiences. Often the distinction between hero and ordinary person is muddled. St. Catharines Standard onlineMost of this guy's art is just as good -- if not better -- than what I commonly see for sale in local galleries and on display in public galleries. This may sound cold-hearted but if somebody buys some of his work, that might provide a different therapeutic benefit. Hopefully, he sets a trend: encouraging other potentially mentally ill people to express themselves as artists or to find some other peaceful outlet.

To what service are we entitled?There are costs to receiving everything. The students also have to show up on time to their classes. Should they be allowed to repeatedly walk into class late? Should exceptions be made for students whose parents just died the night before? Discretion is always applied and that is what children need to learn. There is precious little else that needs to be learned in "school" that can not be learned elsewhere. In that case, you should be able to cite whichever administrative or constitutional law was violated. I eagerly await that citation upon which your argument hinges.I really think it is no big deal for a teacher or a school to say: If you insult a teacher in any manner whatsoever in or out of school, you will be barred, at our sole discretion, from participating in non-essential school services such as extra-curricular activities. Personnally, I think that is the most valuable lesson a school can teach.

We should consider the possibility that it would be mutually advantageous for Canadians and Americans to harmonize how we deal with migration. We need public service cuts.Because that'll speed up passport processing, right?No, it will make room for people who respect the taxpayer. Too many foreigners in Canada???? What is that supposed to mean??? Your true colors are coming out.

Mr. Dancer, I actually re-told that joke last Friday at a party and ironically, the last person to get it -- in fact, we all had to explain it to him -- was a StarWars geek.

Why bother this? Why bother that? Why? Why? Why? These questions are silly and I also believe that Dion handled this issue in a silly manner. Dion should have looked whoever asked him this question in the face and unequivocally said: "Look. You follow me every step I take. If I ever go to France to exercise my right to vote in French election, I will invite YOU personally to follow me with all of your cameras into the urn and watch what I do. After that, we will have a glass of French wine, eat some French cheese and you will go back with your video. Are you happy??? Now, buzz off!" If he was not quick enough speaking in English, he could have said it in French. The Canadian public would laugh and realize how trivially inconsequential this issue truly is. Dion should have learned from Chretien.

Coerced, and exceeding the schools authority. Nonsense contracts that violate the law don't count.How is there coercion? Do you really dispute that schools have a duty of fairness toward the students within them?I do because the concept of fairness is not black and white. If you can present a concise Law Of Fairness for a school, I would like to hear it.

Most members of the media write to earn a salary. Very few writers can survive without paying their bills. Interestingly, the second link actually proves this point -- probably unwittingly by its author. This is just a convoluted way of describing a market. I agree. I followed the links and found that it was still muddled. From the second link, the concept hinges around how one defines "morally sensitized" which is what the public is supposed to do in a moral panic. However, nowhere is that defined. A heat wave occurs and, because of its nature, the media decide it is worthy of dramatic coverage. People go to the store and buy air-conditioners but target polluting industry as the cause of the event. Laws are passed against polluting and against industry. As a result, the cost of supplying air-conditioners rises. There is also a fringe group that develops which wants to outlaw the reporting of bad news but this latter group is out-numbered by the "morally sensitized" majority. This satisfies the public who feel they are empowered politically by the media. I think I know who you mean (some are just drive-bys while others just keep going and going outlasting the EveryReadyBunny) but "moral panic" is not how I would describe those participants. I would simply describe them as individually hysterical.

The concept of Socialism/Conservatism or Left/Right in France are completely different from what they are in North America. I have never been to France but I know people who have. Defeating socialism in France sounds like a joke.

I do not know who is the worst but I know for sure that I could be the worst if given the chance. I would campaign on an airy-fairy platform of "restoring public trust" and "being hard on crime" and "putting a chicken in every pot" and "reducing taxes" while "maintaining services" and "bringing people together" to "move the country forward" and "ensure prosperity for the future" for "a kinder, gentler nation" yadda yadda yadda. If I get a majority government, I will throw my platform out the window and slash and slash and slash public spending. People who complain about not getting their passports on time will be surprised when they find out that my government does not issue passports anymore! Would that make me qualify for the worst Prime Minister? What kind of opinion do you want?

Why do you qualify it that way? It certainly seems childish but it also looks one-sided: Duceppe does not come across as participating in the fight. In fact, it seems like he is making an effort to keep the peace by diplomatically encouraging sovereignists to stick together.

He was one of the few people out of New Jersey who spoke to the media after they were eliminated. Good on him for being a gentleman. Was everybody else too eager to play golf??? Good one! Let me try to work that one through... I want to rant about the officiating again. I do not see it getting better. One thing that was pointed out to me is that icing calls are being whistled BEFORE the player touches the puck -- giving more time on the clock. I realize that a few seconds here or there is almost trivial but goals have been scored and denied within seconds of the siren.

I will. -- and some public servants in this thread clearly do not care about the tax-payers.

You are getting apples and oranges mixed up. I am saying that the concept of "rational" is subjective. One person (i.e., The Final Decider Of All Things Rational) can not conclude somebody's actions as being irrational without imposing a subjective judgment. Evaluating whether somebody is acting rationally or not is the same as investigating "Do people always act they-way-I-think-they-should act?" That company's success depended on corrupt third world governments and I genuinely want that sort of thing to stop. I am not condemning local governments and defending foreign governments. I am not defending ANY governments.

We need public service cuts. First of all, YES, the mechanic for the customer and the customer pays his salary. [Do you get your car fixed in some bonus public service garage???] More importantly, nobody needs to tell the mechanic anything. Everybody understands the deal. Public servants do not have the same level of accountability. -- and I do not care. Do they still use punch-cards too??? Let us look outside the box. The day that a politician: - introduces a more advanced technology - God forbid, outsources the passport service - Hell! even agrees with the U.S.A to share a visa will be the day that the Canadian public servants in the passport office will be crying Boo Hoo themselves. I used to work in a public library when they still had a card catalogue. I bet a lot of people remember thoses. Somebody was paid to update and type those cards by hand. Her job disappeared when the library moved to computers. This: gives me more and more and more reasons to advocate cuts to the public service. I remember when Mulroney started his first wave of cuts to the public service. My father was a federal public servant at the time. He laughed at the strikes because his colleagues eventually admitted that the public will realize how little they need public servants.

Everybody should make an effort to stop re-quoting entire posts. There is an excessive amount of whitespace permeating this thread. NEW RULE! - Trim Your Posts, Please take the time to remove the bulk of the post your quoting Using the [ Quote ] Feature:, Avoid using more too many quotes! Trim Your Posts and Quotes, Don't just hit "Reply" The forum Administrator wants us to reduce the amount of extra quoting and this thread is becoming a scroller-coaster ride.

Perhaps... ...but this: is not a serious argument. One example here or one example there does not sway me. There are probably zillions of situations where people had to defend themselves in guerilla warfare and a rocket propelled grenade was their key to freedom. Irrelevent. Kitchen knives have been used as assault weapons, self-defense weapons and culinary implements of destruction. Following your logic, I have no idea what I should do with a kitchen knife. So? What is your argument? Quite the contrary. Once you step outside of the borders of your State, your world is anarchist. Mu. I do not think you realize that your question spins around depending exclusively on how you choose to define your terms. What does "rationally" mean? Given that you use the Coase Theorem to justify coercion, why would you even care? Cut-To-The-Chase Answer: everybody acts rationally -- except for the comatose. You can not impose YOUR subjective value system on an other hypothetically irrational person. I have always wondered why that should be a concern.

Yet one more softwood lumber thread? How many more do we need???

It depends where the transaction occurs.If it occurs on my property, it is a violation of my freedom. And this I am afraid to say that this is a dangerous mentality, and one which is a legitimate threat to society, and should be dealt with. RPG's are not commodities like frying pans, or jeans. While some groups may be outrages at low cut jeans, RPG's will no doubt add exponentially to public instability and unrest (i.e. the chaos we refered to earlier).You are correct. Owning or maintaining or using or selling rocket-propelled grenades are all exceedingly expensive compared to frying pans or jeans. You are wrong in attributing that to a threat to society. Not many people have a use for them nor do many people have the budget for them. It is no wonder at all that agents of States are the ones who deal with rocket-propelled grenades. Is there any circumstance in which you do own the victim?-- only if the victim is myself. And if our nation is attacked by a hostile force? Some would no doubt contribute to a private army, but others would not. What would be the the plan of contingency.Like what? Two passenger planes flying into two towers? Yeah, I am quite sure the government will be able to easily fend off such a hostile force. Your fear of a "hostile force" must be balanced with the concept that occupying a large population and being productive in the long run do not go hand in hand. I will assume that you understand the concept of mutual trade advantage. War is not cheap. If you enjoyed sugar and cream in your coffee, you will not go down to South America to subjugate the farmers. You will trade your domestic dairy products. This is what you are missing: a concept of private ownership of all material goods and land. That is anarchy and that is what I advocate. If all land and all goods are privately owned, each individual will have the need and thus, the incentive to: - engage in mutually beneficial commercial trade - protect one's own property - contract out services that one can not supply on one's own Not many people -- except for statesmen -- will do business with somebody who carries a grenade. It will be very difficult for an aggressive person to survive with other people.

No. I am not telling you to filter or edit your sources. I am telling you to minimize the effort that your audience needs to witness your proof. You should still provide the entire source. I am NOT suggesting that the original source should be edited. I do not think you understand what I am suggesting. I am a little bit surprised. Maybe I was not clear. I will try again with the following simple analogy to the old-fashioned method of referencing texts and bilbliographies: footnotes. Have you ever written a research paper with a bibliography and footnotes? A footnote contains a title, an author and A PAGE NUMBER among other things. A video link without a precise time-counter is the same as referencing a text without giving a page number. You are expecting people to read an entire book when one page reference would suffice. I am NOT suggesting that you tear out a page and hide the rest of the book. I can not be more clear than that about my opinion.

Given our current State of affairs, what do you think should be done about that -- if anything? No, I am going to refuse to answer your questions in this thread. I genuinely like the Opening Premise of this thread and your line of discussion is thread-drift. If you do not like my invitation to pursue this discussion elsewhere, here are some other suggestions: Justification of a Coercive Government Do we Ask the Government for Too Much? -- Misplaced Expectations Is government necessary? -- Would society be better without it? or start your own thread.

I agree but I truly do not know what the role of school should be. Are going to out-of-town school trips part of that role? I agree and I think that is the harsh reality of life. Would you teach your child to denigrate teachers?

I see nothing wrong with them taking the liberty of deleting your post. Why did you need to send out a mispelled j3w15h blessing? I will be so bold as to say your post was trolling because it was deliberate. Modern txt-mssge-orthography is silly and they may not want any of it.

I disagree. There are very few things that are best taught in school which can NOT be taught elsewhere. One of those things -- albeit, indirectly -- is social power, consequences and the most bitter truth of all: life is not fair. This is an issue of freedom of speech and many people do not realize that exercising their free speech has repercussions. These kids learned repercussions. If their parents do not like it, too bad. They should send their younger kids to a different school or keep them at home. Outside of their parents' home, kids are no longer the king of the castle.

Nothing.I have no imagination.

I can. You can not.