myata

Well, you see, you need that concept of "another power" to justify the need for God to guide you in struggle against it. It sounds a bit convoluted. If we assumed that there isn"t any such power, but only people with their weaknesses and problems, it would eliminate the need for the first, and consequently, for the second. In sciense there"s a notion of "Occam"s razor" - meaning that where there"s a simpler explanation, it should be taken as the correct one. However logic has little value in the domain of faith. Regarding placebo, I thought that it"s widely used in medical tests as a factor of "zero efficiency" to compare the effect of various drugs. I.e. a drug is considered to have effect only if it"s statistically proven to have better (significantly and consistently) results than placebo. Which kind of puts in doubt that mysterious effect.

You could also say that if a teacher was any good, all his/her students would have A's. But it doesn't work that way. The student has free agency to do well or to do poorly. The bad in our world is a result of our negative choices. Then ... if all that happens in this world is the result of our choices ... why do we need the concept of God? What does it add to this world? If one can make bad choices bypassing God's will, one should be able to make good ones too - all without any divine interference. What is it that existence of God would have added to this picture?

I do not consider atheism as a mission to disprove the existence of God(s). More like a commitment to accept any viewpoint only on a platform of conscious and rational evaluation. From this point of view, I don't really care which God and how someone believes in, only about their actions whether inspired by their beliefs or not. For the author of the pseudo-scientific text cited in the opening post I suggest this simple experiment: take a statistically significant number of children that are being brought up in non-religious (but neither agressively atheist) background, wait for them to grow up, sort out those who went through abnormal events, and see how many end up adepts of any religion. Unless he comes up with convincing statistical results, we can safely write it of as quite meaningless.

Thanks for clarification. Yes that's what I meant (probably "state owned" would have been a better term). And that's OK with me. They don't need to be genii in the market there everyone has no choice but to buy from them. Maybe, the mercedes people (wrongly) assume that it's their business prowess (and not monopolistic 100+1% guaranteed nature of their business) that creates those wonderful results and thus provides rationale for the outrageous perks. Seriously, where's a place for a great contribution by an ace CEO in the power generation business? Power plants are running as they did decades ago. When a new one needs to be built, it's us (the government) who pick up the cost. And the price is set by the market regulator. What exactly is the guy being paid for? To make sure gears are oiled and greased and cleaned up regularly?

Here's something else that is common for all three episodes: all occurred in the conflict zones which developed in the areas of recent interventions and/or interference by the powers of the West. Which of course were benevolent and well-intended (but didn't happen to go they should have). Want to explore this aspect as well?

OK, this is the best account of expenses in question I could find (without the pain of going to the auditor report itself) and it does seem to confirm geffrey's comment that they were "business-related". It also provides some details about Mr. Parkinson's contract. Which I find outrageous, given that it's all coming out of our pocket. I only see two alternatives to this problem: 1) Set a salary cap on what an exec could get in a publicly owned company; 2) Privatize it so that it'll be left up to the shareholders to monitor exec's behaviour;

As far as I can recall from the news story, the expense was reported as "personal". Which makes a huge difference (and contradicts Geoffrey's take). Did anyone follow on that? Now, putting a personal expense on the corporate card would qualify as fraud and will get anyone but the top exec fired with cause and no severance. What's wrong with putting this same clause in the top exec's contracts.? And if no "best and brightest" can be found to do the easy job, we could do with a second rate (it shouldn't be rocket science, by business standards) as long as they held accountable and comply.

That is a fundamental flaw of logic in itself. The West had polluted at will for close to 200 years and it is only natural that it should show the lead in combatting the effects. Not to mention that even now, it's emissions, in absolute terms (forget per capita) by far exceed those of third world countries (source). Unless, of course, we are at our usual self-righteous self.

Should we remind who created the fiasco in Iraq in the first place? Or is that at least (if not how to get out of it) well understood?

Me neither. Should all prayers (and religious practices? even and however discreet? be prohibited from political conventions? all public events? Please say clearly what you mean to say rather than building up the smoke.

Because: 1) in 44 years (of limited action) situation will have much greater chance of getting to the point where changes will become irreversible (or even runaway, as in some models); 2) because waiting for obvious effects of climate change to show to start reacting would probably be too late and cost uncountable times more to manage (imagine a ball tipped off a top of a hill; it takes a lot less to keep it in the balance than to stop it when it's already gathered the momentum). 3) society has certain inertia, it takes persistence and committment (and time) to overcome it; 4) fossil based economy's time is counted and it pays in the long run to develop next generation power technologies which will lay foundation for future prosperity; But most of all, it's a matter of perception. Middle class is quite confident in their present prosperity and is anxious to preserve at least some of it for their children. Conservatives programme just does live up to the expectation.

The only way to find out is to try. Status quo looks very much like a dead end. Permanent members can gloat in their superiority reflecting the state of affairs 50+ years back, but to make a functioning body they need willing cooperation of other members. Such would hardly be forthcoming given UNSC grossly misbalanced setup.

Let's also remember to say a word of thank you to Saddam for when he was fighting ayatollas preventing spread of radical Islam.

I doubt Harper has a lot of credibility on the environment, or Malroney would'n need to come out with such a strong address. I also doubt that people keep a copy of the Clean Air act for constant reference. It all comes down to residual perception. In my case (I can't speak for others), environmental policies of the previous Liberal government associate with (correct) "One tonne challenge", Energuide programs (rebates for efficiency renovations) and 30% upsurge of emissions. Sounds like half harted attempts at getting something for nothing. Now, Harpers present government CAA is firmly linked (again, in my memory only) to that figure, 2050. So, both are tied with the lacking of will to act immediately and strongly. Now, if a new leader comes forward with a strong envirnmental program, and a commitment to act, I somehow feel that people just may give him a chance.

You're absolutely right, Rue. The five permanent members of UNSC wield greatly disproportionate powers. So, logically, they, and not the "UN" should bear the greater part of esponsibility for the actions (or inaction). Remember, no taxation without representation? There're only two possible alternatives (other than pretend that there's no problem and coast along): the five will take on responsibility adequate to their position in the UNSC (meaning first of all, material and financial responsibility). Which does not seem very plausible at this point. Or, to share the power (and responsibility) with the rest of the world.

Last time I checked on the issue, we had a commissioner who carefully examined all the evidence and spent months (and $$) investigating the it. I believe he has concluded that Mr. Arar was, in fact, tortured. To contradict that resolution I'd expect MD (or anyone else for that matter) to conduct at least equally comprehensive research (and reference evidence thereof). Otherwise, these statements should be taken for what they appear to be: pointless and useless BS. Now that Mr. Arar has suffered through no fault of his own, he's of course free to pursue whatever remedies he feels is adequate. The court will determine if he has a valid claim.

Too bad Chile haven't come up with a resolve to try him for all the abuses. Agreed. May he get the very worst of whatever he believed in.

What gives me some sort of consolation is that at least, now, these kind of practices are coming into the open and causing public discussion. From here, hopefully, it's not that far to the point where the "tout me due" culture will die out even if slowly and painfully, under the light of public scrutiny. This is btw where I think that Conservatives got the accountability thing totally wrong - accountablity can be achieved by introducing and promoting the culture of openness and transparency and not through multi-layer oversight.

That's definitely a valid point of view. However it is equivalent to saying that power structure of the UN must (continue to) be dominated by West. It's unlikely that any nation would willingly accept open and obvious domination. Hence, UNSC is destined for more and more stalemates. The only way to escape this destiny is to share the power with the world as it is, not as some want it to be.

Here we go .... again (Toronto Star story). Nice exercise in accountability: $3,000,000 as a reward for improper spending. And nice lesson to the future execs in case they were wondering what this new era of accountability is all about. Here's the real question though: do we really need these expensive execs to manage public utility? The adage goes like this: "we need to attract best and brightest from the private sector blah blah and to attract them we have to pay them exorbitant salaries and perks". One of those that sound right and make you nod in agreement, until one moment you stop and think. Do we really need them "best and brightest"? Let's compare: in private sector, one has to come with good results, year after year, to satisy shareholders; to achieve it in the competitive marketplace one has to constantly innovate, create new products while keeping costs under control. Deal with constantly changing market situation. And so on. Now, turn to OPG: there's no shareholders to make you stand on your toes; the product is the same (was the same 50 years as now and will be the same 50 years on). No competition, either. And the market is, like, guaranteed. Better than morgage, and 100%. No wonder that "best and brightest" get bored to death with the lack of real challenge and start doing bizzare things like putting triffle private expenses on corporate account while being paid six digit salaries. So maybe we don't need best and brightest? Lets leave them to face (and overcome) real challenges in the cuthroat marketplace. And get the reward well earned. Here, we can do with those who can simply follow well established process and keep things running. With a contract that includes responsibility for the results and obligation to follow corporate policy like everybody else. And possibility of termination with cause (and no severance).

Here's a worthy topic: UN security council in its current composition is grossly outdated. 3 out of 5 permanent members representing 400 mln people - roughly 7% of this planet's population; continents as South America or Africa have no permanent representative; India, with 15% of world's population has none while UK and France, with about a tenth of India's have two. One can continue statistics on and on. In it's current composition it's very much doomed to a slow death by paralysis. What are the the options? Radical reform? Is West prepared to share the power in crucial decision making, fairly and for real?

Your memory fails you, it seems. Africa and Rhodesia were white colonies and enjoyed much support and cooperation from the West at first. What decided their fate is that as all colonies, they were unsustainable and were eventually abandoned. At this point we could safely unleash our moral superiority. And yes, do complain about Sudan and Darfur for all you want, but can you deliver a working solution?

What you do is what you get.

There's nothing to get to the bottom of, what more can anyone say, he promised he'd do it to satisfy those who wanted it - it won't pass - case closed. If you mean to say that he did it to satisfy the socon fraction in his party then I can but agree. And no, the case isn't closed (no matter how much he may wish it was) because nothing can assure us now that he won't do the same thing with other issues (for the same reason) if the opportunity arises.

I don't know that it was totally against his will but he is doing it only to keep a promise to the few anti SSM people many of whom felt that as shown, Martin fasttracked the previous bill. It serves to fulfil the promise and to close the issue. Nothing more to it. OK let's get to the bottom of it. If he makes a promise to those socon people, would that, perhaps, seem like him being sympathetic to their cause? No? Then why make the promise? Then, some may perhaps "feel" that other issues like e.g. (any of of the list of well known and extremely popular on this board) were fasttracked too? How can we be sure Mr Harper won't feel obliged to reopen them as well, should he get in his prized majority situation? And you know what - I think we can't. Period.