SirRiff

i dont think its wrong to point out Isreal itself was a creation of violence and terrorist activism. a fanatical devotion to land and religon. thus its only after the passage of time does Isreal gain legitimacy and palestinians are considered savage. i'm sure the first zionists where known to be savage in thier own time. of course the people most suffering from palestinian terror are the palestinians, mostly the young people who will be doomed to a life of poverty and occupation. their leadership is corrupt like most arab states, and unfortunately when you have nothing, you are far more likely to devote your life to whatever you have left, yoru religion or land or family. the best way to stop extremism is to creat a middle class that ismore worried about soccer games, and morgages, and getting to work then dodging bullets and burying thier kids. expect desperate people to act desperately Sirriff

its funny when people say saddam had links to international terrorism because he delt with bad people. as if aiding a coup in Chile, arming and dealing with Osamas crew, and giving intelligence to Iraq so they could gas Iranians isnt international terrorism. and the whole linking saddam to 9/11 is insulting to every person who sympathized with the US post 9/11. it just shows some people are willing to pervery anything in a fanatical attempt to pull off some policy goals. SirRiff

Bush snubbed Canada so i know he wont be up here till our new PM comes in at least, and most likely never since we aint gonna believe this whole Iraq song and dance. i'm sure he will be telling Australians how they would be lucky to die in iraq, adn he has hired the same people OJ hired to find the real killers to find all the WMDs. oh, and we still arent sure if Saddam was flying the 1st plane into the WTC, we are still checking on that one. SirRiff

wait, are you telling me whites have an advantage in the work force? my god, does the press know yet? SirRiff

if you still think it was all about WMD, and the UN was wrong but Bush was right, you just might be clinically insane. SirRiff

its funny to watch people claim they are oppressed when gays are just trying to marry and live thier lives and nobody will ever care enough to arrest bible thumpers anyways. SirRiff

is this the same Bush admin that told the EPA to delete cautions about the air near ground zero after 9/11? yeah, i would really trust a gov that screws over its OWN people and the EPA which sold thier soul to politics. SirRiff

yeah money, the top 1% go for the gold. but as we see in this and other studies, the other 99% is better off with the education policies of Canada, Japan, and some European nations. that manifests itself in the general makeup of the nation in day to day life. if the US adopted the better polices along with its academic freedoms and economic strength they would benefit themselves greatly. and no, lesbians have nothign to do with the lack of math and geography skills of young americans. i rembmer in 4th grade we started class with some bible based morality stories or something. it didnt harm my devlopment. SirRiff

i'm sure the first free blacks would have recieved the same reception had they gone back to the south. "free blacks? sorry we dont recognize your papers" in several years this will be another example of outdated US social thinking. SirRiff

i am running away from this thread and taking my memories of AP biology with me. SirRiff

RONDA its not a stupid question because you yourself use genetic equivalence to claim developing embryos deserve the same consideration as sentient adults. i would think you would see the obvious parallel to your own logic below. well once again i must state as someone who has actually cloned and sequenced DNA, i could explain to you the process of maping an entire animal genome and establishing statistical coverage of all DNA base pairs. but somehow i doubt you would be interested in such boring details. so i will just sumerize it and say humans are known to share 97-99% of thier DNA with chimps. this takes into account it would be very time consuming to sequence all humans and all chimps obviously, AND no two chimps or humans are truly identical, so there is a small sampling error too. happy?

for the love of God nova_satori, dont bring up genetics again. HUGO; everything you say about the USSR and Nazi Germany is no doubt true, i know that soviet dictators killed millions without mercy, however i see no reason that the evil of another someone elevates the actions of the US by comparison. in fact, by looking at the worst situations, i think it actually elevates the responsibility of the US and other western nations. i think its insulting to lesson the mistakes of the US by comparing them to the worst situations on earth. its like saying that the race problems in the US pale in comparison to the race problems in south africa, where white farmers were threatened and kicked off thier land in a national policy. well yes, the race problem in the US isnt as violently institutionalized as south africa, but look at the differences. the US is the richest nation, highly education, with a very productive middle class. they dont have war or famine in thier borders, they have oceans on either side, good climate, and the best technology in the world. can you really dilute their failure by comparing them to war torn, famine starved,arid third world nations? no, because the US has gained the most from the world, and it has the greatest potential. when america sits back and lets people suffer it is far more immoral then desperate south africans doing the same. why? because america has prospered by exploiting its power on earth and because they are on of the few that can make a difference. that is really the greatest failure of a human being, one who has great reason to intervene, who has great potential to intervene, yet does not. it also extends to nations, america after prospering from the world so much, and while having the potential to act, is MORE tarnished by innaction then some poor third world bastard who has neither the debt to repay nor opportunity to act. if some backwards white trash guy in some small town in the US grows up without an education, without good role models, without a positive direction becomes some KKK asshole, so be it, its understandable considering the circumstances. if some middle class son of an accountant in chicago, who has been loved and protected his whole life becomes a racist, it is FAR more of a failure, because he had every opportunity and option to be better then that. same with the US, they have both the obligation and opportunity to act in meaningfull ways. so do Canada, and France, adn Germany and several others, but the list is not exceptionally long considering he state of the world and the US leads by far in both its historical obligations and opportunity right now. THAT is why its of no practical use to discuss the 20 million that died in russia. as horrible as it is, it does not lesson the crimes of the US in the past, it does not lesson the USs obligations to the world as the nation who uses the most resources on eath, and it does not lesson the responsibility of the nation with the greatest power to influence world events. russia cant even feeds it people and keep subs floating at the same time. no its not that simple, you dont know the circumstances involved. if they were sentient and healthy then its murder. if someone had to make the decision on thier behalf because they were so sick they couldnt function as a humanbeing it could be easily be considered mercy. only those who made the choice know for sure.

nobody is ever gong to make churches marry gays, everyone knows that. seconly, gay marriage should only be a government designation, a civil union or whatever but surely Canada must have better things to do let gays get equal recognition from thier government, let the churches continue thier traditions, and stop wasting tax money debating the obvious. SirRiff

i dont belive that. my university, and all of my friends university degrees have fielded job offers from teh states. if you did the same study on recent university grads we would find teh same trend i suspect. if you look at where the brightest people end up going, then yeah, the money might get them to teh US, but that has nothing to do with our school system at any level. studies like this show us there is no reason to claim that any part of our society (except our military maybe) is broken or lacking compared to the US. we are obviously on par or better in most areas, SirRiff

everytime i cross the border i knew this was the case. so craig, you spend all you time saying that Canada is the biggest failure, yet time after time, we always come out on top on the most important social measurements. its all because of progressive social polices. isnt this along with the many many other measurements that we are in fact nearly an ideal country by any measurement, and we in fact the sky is not falling? its so obvious in everyday life that Canadians have among the best society in the world. studies help to quantify it, but if you travel around you can see it in reality. and its not just the brainwashed flag waiving we see down south either, it manifests itself in positive ways as we have seen, once again, science states the obvious SirRiff

oh come on ronda, that means being unique within a broader group. the words "from other" should tip you off humans are classified within the animal kingdom. yeah well we share ~97%of our DNA with chimps, so should chimps get 97% the rights of humans? HUGO; whoa man, stop pretending anybody cared about little girls. the question should be stated: how bad is it to support and train horrible men without questioning the impact in order to kill other horrible men who you oppose in a struggle for power. in some cases you could make an argument for it, and in some cases you couldnt. most of the time there is no "moral" or ethical answer. especially when you consider the additional innocents who ALWAYS suffer in silence. there was no morality involved, just power, and both sides were willing to kill to get it. some people just kill more covertly then others, thats all. some do it in suits some in uniforms. thats really justifying the ends by the means. i'm sure we could grind up babies to make an alternate energy source, but there are somethings that can never be justified. this boogy man talk about communism is unrelenting. humans went through slavery, the dark ages, the holocaust, WWII, the cold war, and so on and so on. communism isnt going to end humanity, it ist this evil force that people make it out to be. its just oppression like any other that came and went. the world wont end if we all call each other comrade. its not the universal incarnate of evil. uh, were these little kids dragged away and shot in the head like Nazi germany? because european nations have a much different outlook on life, and much life myself, find that ther are plenty of cases for mercy made by family and doctors and society. post the entire report of this mass murder for us. if i'm in a vegatative state, pull the damn plug.

one astonishing thing about current american view is that they largely believe they can maintain thier lifestyle and fight the most desperate violent people on earth at teh same time. it just cant happen that way. to win the war on terror the US will need to become a police state which spends most of its time in fear and loathing, which is exactly what the terrorists want, becauase that is what they themselves have become. as i said before, no matter how nice your house is, you are only as safe as your worst off neighbor. SirRiff

it....it...well.... it almost sounds like you think america can do this alone...my...what a strange opinion. look at whats happening in iraq, look at the intelligence sharing needed to secure US interets abroad, look at the world reaction when the US acts alone. its obvious even the US cant do it alone, and the arrogent attitude shown by american leaders and its citizens, that somehow the other civilized nations of the earth dont know of suffering and fear and have no role in global security is insulting. wait till iraq gets really bad, afganistan falls back into chaos, then we will see how fun going it alone is.

killing arafat would set a precedent of targeting leaders under vauge justifications. he has been holed up ina compound for 2 years under israels watchfull eye. he obviously cant partake in or plan attacks. thus Sharon could just as well be targeted under teh same bizarre argument that he associates with terrorsts, or was a terrorist (as many arabs look at him in past wars), and so on and so on. arafat is now a politician, and is thus protected from targeting, just like presidents and prime ministers. what he did in a war along time ago, or what violence is associated with his politics is not the point, you could make that argument against many world leaders. if he kills someone, then you get to kill him. else you deserve retaliation and it starts all over again.

sounds to me like a sampling bais dnsfurlan, just picking out a few stories here and there. there are literally hundreds of political news stories everyday in ontario, anything mentioning liberal probably gets your attention more, and if you dont like them, then they all probably seem more pro then neutral. considering the current conservative government in ON, i dont see how the media machine is liberal. elections wouldnt be so closely balanced if there was this pro liberal slant on everything. its just perspective. SirRiff

when i debated the pros of genetically modified food once i put up some stats from the US dept of transportation citing something like 40,000 deaths on US highways every year. if they really wanted to become safer immediately, they could save thousands a year on the roads. i think its a bit nuts to think that a young arab male would try to get by with a forged passport of anykind considering the scrutiny that they would get. most likely any potential terorists would get all the papers legit and just blend into the mass of travel in and out of north america. there is no need to forge identitys when its impossible to track perfectly legit ones right now. the biometrics will be of great help for your run of the mill morons who used to photocopy picture and stuff, but international terrorists are not stupid enough to take on the security system head on. and as greg said i think its misplaced. i think its comforting to americans to think its all Canadas and mexicos fault for lax security, when in fact the modern complexity of globla travel makes it impossible for any nation to both interact with teh world convienently and be 100% secure. nobody has ever launched an attack from canada. but any technology upgrade we get from this should benefit us in the long run. SirRiff

an embryo is not a child. it doesnt have any characteristics of a devloped child, nor should it be treated like one. its a potential child, a developing fetus. nothing more, nothing less. it cannot be given rights equal to the mother, who is a sentient human being. isnt it kind of narrow minded to convert all those that disagree? if it was so obviously right nobody would disagree with it now would they? i know in some parts of the world women are forced to get abortions, but in first world nations they actually make an appointment themselves, they are not crying to be spared from anything. its empowering to have a choice about the destiny of your own self. anythign less is oppressive. instead of wasting time and effort rescueing the women who dont need it, pretending that a ball of cells is the same as you and I, and trying to convert people, why dont you educate everyone about birth control, help out poor young women, and strengthen adoption organizations? SirRiff

OMG i completely forgot about Panama. man, tehre are SO many secret CIA blackops going on its hard to remember them. the average person doesnt have a clue how many people have died in US supported wars for some vauge concept of security. if you wanted to achieve real security, they could have stayed in afganistan and fought the warlords. by now it would be fairly rebuilt. i dont know why people cant take in the string of illegal violent secret wars the US has led with brutal allies, for extreme political reasons, and at the expense of millions, and hold them to a higher level of conduct when they go attack iraq under false pretense and misusing the fear of 9/11. when world opinions goes against them (as it is) americans will suffer in the long term. SirRiff

its not my fault you think Canada is small man. take it out on your school or something. because we all know north of toronto is covered by glaciers right? SirRiff

thats a pretty strong opinion for someone who doesnt live there. how exactly do you know that? where is your magic news source that gives you the 'truth'? i have lived in pakistan, and i can assure you, 99.9999% of muslims in the middle east and asia dont want america there. not to mention its just common sense they see ameircans as outsiders and the cause of thier suffering via sanctions. they want money and to be left alone. of course its probably better to have US security, but they dont care. Sirriff