SirRiff

well i liked clinton cause at least you could tell he was smart. i like cretien because he used to say all those stupid things when abroad. at least it was amusing i actually respect blairs loyalty to the US, however misplaced it is but all in all none of them are great men i think. but then again, even the men thought to be great men are just blown up by history. real great men never get so much power, cause they dont sell out. sirriff

its been reported (And never refuted) that he got into yale with a c- average. hell you cant even get into many canadian universities with a c- average. was a drunk till he was 40? or something. then turned born again christian or something. not a very impressive record. i dont see anything impressive about the man, just another guy in power who does what his system of power tells him to do. but then again, only the people who play the game make it big in politics/corperations, so its the question of teh chicken or the egg. there is also significent accounts of the conservative christian movement warning him not to give land to the palestinians, else they would not turn out in 2004. one reason why he isnt engaged in the peace talks, it will surely lead to land concessions.

djpark121, you dont think the %50 divorce rate mocks marraige? the high rates of infidelity? the small yet alarming % of children that after paternity tests are found to not have been fathered by the previosly assumed husband? the emotionless commercialization of marriage to mean nothing more then an expensive dress up party for women which has been sold to them since little girls. it is INSANE to believe that modern marriage as a social institution is anything but a an industry driven, hyper-romanticized, failed relic of past times to which women childlessly embelish for self esteem (like cosmetics) and to which men accept because of lesser alternatives. marriage is what people like to believe is "eternal" and "ever lasting" yet the reality is that nobody is really ready to sacrifice as all the vows claim. sirriff

i would also just like to propose that the only way for force to be seen as legitimate, is if it is sanctioned by a majority of those infoved (Death penalty in the states), if the argument for it is believed to be transparent and honest (unlike vietnam), if the proponant does not stand to gain substantially from the violence (Oil?), and if the actor does not have a questionable history of abusing these very same conditions (US secret wars). becaues the US fails all of these conditions, no matter how real the need for intervention could be, it can never be considered justified. there is a reason that those in society (cops) that serve out justice via authority are so harshly scrutinized, this is why every accusation against the police is investigated these days. else we know that corruption if bred. this moral and ethical and self-protectionist argument made by the US goes against all american actions taken in the last 50 years. unfortunately, this obscures the real threat from saddam, and will hamper further legitimate attempts to intervene in humanitarian crisis. sirriff

the core aspects of sexual behavior are not just learned, they are hardwired. lots of fluff that goes along with gender/sex are learned obviously, we have a bery complex society. but the fact taht the hornomes kicking in at puberty chances everything is just one sign of how biology primes us to find certain things sexually desirable. the ratio of womens waist to hip ratio for example is one aspect of measuring partners that seems to be conserved accross almost all cultures. the entire "purpose" of evolution is to pass along the necessary and needed information that best benefits the next generation. nothing can be more important then the core issues of sexuality. that is the basic attraction, basic sexual identity and mating behavior. from a biological perspective that possibility has no support at all. not even a theory as to how this abnormal behavior would be supported if its not genetic or so harmfull to teh species. in every generation of society, people dismiss what is clearly normal and natural as abnormal and unnatural simply because they dont like it. these same "theories" of biology have been used against every social change since the beginning of time. and the arguments about being unnatural usually including nothing about biology, which is the definition of natural. so we are left with "they are weird, i am not weird, therfor i am natural and they are not". not much of an argument. and just to enlighten everyone who cites biology in thier arguments...a disease is... an impairment of the normal state of an organism that interrupts or modifies its vital functions. a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning if gayness is a disease, so is choosing not to have children, or taking risks with your life, or being a bigot, or beating your wife, or being a criminal, or doing drugs, or cheating on your wife and on and on. hell by that definition everyone is diseased. by any definition a lesbian can live a long productive life just like anybody else. she is not diseased because of the gender of the person she chooses to pair bond with. once we are all dead, the next generation will care very little about gays i suspect, qualify of life is more important then what your boss does in his own private life.

once again i posted a very plausable and biologically based model of how the evolution of sexuality could produce homosexual behaviors in a small portion of the population. just because a homosexual couple would not normally produce biological children by choice, DOES NOT mean that it must defy nature for gayness to exist. thats just not true. i wrote it out in more detail elsewhere, but the entire sexual behavior of all life is hardwired into our genes. else every generation would need to learn how to reproduce all over again and life could not continue. for modern humans, the complexity of sexual behavior has evolved not only to deal with biological instincts, but the added complexity of human society and our advanced consciousness. thus because we have a huge complex set of genes that cover a spectrum of behaviors, the fact that a small proportion of humans inheret a combination of genes, and get exposed to a combinatio of stimuli that produce unusual sexual behaviors is not going against the laws of nation. nature governs populations, and in order for populations to succeed over many generations systems that may be needed may produce unexpected results. humans would not have been as successful in the past without the same complex sexuality that produces gays in the present.

thank you udawg, its good to know that although my genetics degree seems incapable of making me lots of money, its always usefull to discuss this stuff on the internet. wait....thats depressing....someone hug me.... RB: i'm not sure what you are saying here. that its silly to assume that everyone could be a little gay? what exactly are you extracting from the genetics thread and my biology argument above. please restate, there are so many sources you are drawing from i dont follow them all i think there should be a NOT in there right? well that comparison is invalid, because the argument for or against social behavior does NOT NEED to rest on the philosophy of what you can and cant control (although that is a valid part of teh debate) a child molester is a danger to society REGARDLESS of whether his danger is genetic or environmental. regardless of whether he chooses or has no control over his action. the behavior is judged by society in terms of its interaction with society. harming children is obviously dangerout to society, thus childmolesters should be treated with hostilty regardless of the actually root cause of the behavior (which is near imposible to determine) homosexuals on the other hand, actually pose no danger to society in thier behavior that is different from heterosexuals. there is no sane argument to be made that with all the rape, unwanted pregnancies, STDs, and abortions that occur between heterosexuals that there is any significent additional dangers from the homosexual subpopulation. thus, we can even ignore the root cause of gayness, and just on the impact on society, reasonably determine that it is not worth societies resources to try to alter a behavior that is not harmfull to society above and beyond what we already accept as tolerable and normal. there just isnt any reason to differentiate homosexuality from heterosexuality if gayness posses no additional harm to society. and it doesnt. once we get poverty and murder cleaned up, maybe then we could scrutinize people sexual behavior a bit more (not that we should or that its our concern) but if you look at our society and the problems that we face on an everyday basis, consenting adults in the privacy of thier own home isnt even a blip on the radar screen.

djpark121 this is a purely biological argument against gay marriage. i have some background in biology. one thing that is very very dangerous in society is to label things as being "natural" or "unnatural" because its an attempt to use the inherant "rightness" of examples in the animal world to justify human conduct in society. often there is no such need to do this. this sort of oversimply equating the limited instincts of animals with the conscious capabilities of humans is fundamentally flawed because it does not account for the giant leap between simple biological design and real human intelligence, emotions, conscious, and free will. as Derek said but a closer examination of this "nature" logic finds it cannot even attempt to rationalize the differences between biological programming and cultural expansion. firstly, there is no need to find a "natural" example in nature to justify human behavior. nature has few advanced societal behaviors that are comparable to the instituations that human society requires to function. nature has no taxes, no schools, no health care, no armies, no democracy. by limited to nature the behavior that is justified, the argument fundamentally implies limiting human behaviors to those which can be "justified by nature". this goes against the most important gains of human intelligence, namely the ability to go beyond teh behaviors necessary for simple existance (hunting, reproduction) to include actions that develop technology and societies that improve our quality of life (roads, food safety, human rights) second, the examples that are cited as being "natural" are often only the most easily visible ones like heterosexual mating or mothers protecting thier young. this is not a real study of nature, its just picking an obvious and easy example of behavior you want to justify. certainly nothing that can be considered so strong and so representative that it should govern the relations of men. i mean really, how many species get married anyways? monogy is not natural and never has been, its only a evolutionary strategy used by some species but not by many others. and why should humans limit themselves to what is "natural" anyways? in nature, a sick infant may be left to die. i society, we pool resources (hospitals) and we all bear the expense of healing that infant. the difference humans benefit from the sick becoming well, while in nature the cost of the pregnancy and loss of the infants potential are born by the population. thus what is natural is neither moral nor more productive. humans have evolved beyond simple instinct or simply behaving to hunt and reproduce. we can experience joy without striving to live each day. it is crazy to limit our social abilities because we are the only species to have evolved this far. unless something is harmfull to society, there is no reason to limit it because its unnatural.

i got no sympathy for the Liberals. my philosophy is that by being part of the party, you bear part of the blame. my concern is with the absolute lack of alternatives to the liberals. i mean, in a really strong democracy, there should be another party there in a second that would take over. yet the liberals had 12 years of dominating rule, and i cant imagine the PCs actually winning a majority due to this. it would take alot more droping in the polls. but man, this is a perfect opportunity for the conservatives sirriff

while that argument relies on the traditional structure of marriage, the role in society is not examined. how long of that 6000 years was marriage used solely to move property into generations? how long have women had a say in this instituation of marriage. how long has it been since free blacks could choose to marry? if you cut out all the time marriage was used by men for thier own property interests, for men to sexually dominate women, or that marriage was denied to blacks, you see how pithy and insignificent the modern track record of marriage is. maybe it resembled your inferred ideals from the 30s to the 80s, but certainly not for 6000 years. there was nothing grand about marraige for all the 6000 years and i dont see then why an argument based on tradition is valid. however, i can definatly see how an argument made on family structure if valid. mother-father-biological children has been the most stable unit of mammal life for a long time, even in communal primate settings. a reasonable argument can be made that by looking at nature, the hetero family unit is the "natural" way for our species to exist in most harmony. no way to measure, any by looking around society there is no way to specifically correlate why some familes self destruct and some dont, i do not think you can find fault with a society favoring htero marrige on the gounds that all humans are likely influenced positively towards stability when the interests of thier biological offspring produced by thier current sexual mate are involved. the biological progeny bond is the strongest in nature and on a societial level, i dont think you can argue that the bond between heteros which can produce biological offspring related to both is equal to any other configuration, or that the hardwired biological link towards related offspring is equal to non-related. but this are almost philosophical and natural debates. in societies like US/Canada, we still have crime and poverty and murder and kidnappings, so it seems silly to go out of our way to prevent others from doing someting that will have little if any negative impact on society as a whole that is comparable to what we accept on a daily basis as part of normal life.

just to get some perspective on this issue... by the time scientists could really make the socalled cloned slave "monster" we are all afraid of, 3000 canadians die every year on the roads, i'm sure there are hudnreds of murders every year, thousands of homeless around teh country, underage prostitutes and childmolesters in our nation. i dont think the potential of tampering with the ethics of life 10 years from now is more important then the hungry child today, or the rape victim, or the drunk driver killing a family on the highway or whatever. in reality, far more harm is done everyday right now that we have to worry about and are not moving close to solving right now. yes, the idea of cloning people is distrurbing, but i think there is far more suffering we can reduce right now that would improve our quality of life in the future.

as opposed to lying to teh world about WMD and rushing to war under the guise of morality? yes, i will take the france/germany UN stance over the US WMD/morality ploy anyday. they may both share guilt for creating saddam, but its obscene for america to pretend to be undertaking some great cause.

BAHAHAHAHAHA!!! where have you been living? marriage was a process by which to assign PROPERTY RIGHTS! it has nothing to do with god or religion. women NEVER had a choice in who to marry till just recently in the western world, and still in africa/middle east/asia women have far less say them men. often treated like property still. americans have the best lifestyle in the world and they choose to end marrage over 50% of the time. not to mention the numberous social studies that show infidelity rampant and many men incorrectly believeing they are the fathers of children conceiving out of teh marriage. my god, this idea that marriage was somehow a divine creation or that its demise reflects anything other then its modern failings is nonsense. marraige never was anything other then a social construct, and its failure has become proof that humans rarely choose to fufill thier obligations, no matter how good they feel about making them.

uh, The Baron of Banality, when i say the points are nonsense i mean it. none are worth debating further, hell i thought it was tounge in cheek for a while since i couldnt figure out what any of them really ment. like sounds like a little girl which is pretty weird to base a conclusion on "liberals" believing gossip more easily then others with these two in the first 3, everything after that is likely to just be typical ranting and raving and it seems like you arent really in the market for a real answer anyways, since you end with this so no, few will accept you are looking for a serious discussion. write seriously, and we may take the time to respond seriously. to RB: i also gree the conservatives are not a credible alternative to the liberals yet. there is no reason to believe they will handle money any better over the long run. and the insane right wing social baggage they come with is just not worth it. a drop in the polls may be enough to light a fire under martin on the corruption issue, else his leadership will end before it begins.

suddenly??? why do you think the US sent weapons to afganistan? because they knew osama and his crew were ruthless and would fight till the death against the russians. they were also so evil they destroyed thier own family. why do you think the US sent weapons to saddam? because they knew he was evil enough to put them to good use against the iranians. unfortunately it was obvious he would kill anybody he didnt like, not just iranians why do you think the US suppported the "contras" in iran? same reasons. lets not dumb down the truth and pretend saddam "suddenly" went ruthless. every day of his biography is filled with violent evil ruthless behavior. the US knew EXACTLY what it was getting. which is why they also helped the afgan terrrorists/rebels and iranian terrorist/rebels when they needed it. and it is why they do it in secret, its not polite to assist murderers in public. then they wash thier hands of them till decades later, afganistan, iran, and iraq become global deathtraps and americans need to be able to pretend to be disgusted by the violence. no, saddam was known by all to be evil. at least france and germany dont insult out intelligence by pretending not to have known they were supporting dictators and are now motivated only by moral virtue.

someone please sum up all these numbers for me.... so we got that goveners generals visit planned 1M actual 5.3M gun registry planned 2M actual 2B?????? sponsorship? how much money are we talking about? how much was lost vs redistributed via corruption. i havnt seen any numbers sirriff

the thing that people consistantly gloss over about the oil thing is that OIL STABILITY is a huge componant of the oil demand. the US can absorb an oil price that is 10% or 20% higher. but as every oil expert on the news said before the war, its the unpredictability of the oil market and the big swings in crude flow that would play havok with US productivity. that is why its nice to have nice pet unelected "royal" families in saudi arabia and kuwait. as long as the oil is flowing, the US calls them "royal family" instead of "unelected dictator" and they know it. they get protection and little scrutiny. even when they funded terrorists they are almost off limits for retaliation from the US. its all about a stable oil market. sirriff

well most of that post is nonsense so i will just say, that since i am liberal, i really have no alternative but to vote Liberal. as the NDP guys are total nuts. the PC guys are so focused on pretending they have strong moral values they are completely unappealing to most. so IF there was an alternative party that really really really did treat money with respect, but didnt come from insane religous nonsense that nobody cared about, i would consider voting for them. unfortunately, they dont exist. thus if i have to choose between the Liberals who waste money and wont set Canada back socially 20 years, or the PCs who waste money and get thier noses out of Canadians business, i choose Liberal. lesser of two evils. corruption is not linked to political philosophy. else Liberals would never exist and PCs would rule.

if the world was really a moral collection of nations, all free nations would contribute some military power (ships/planes/troops) and make it OBVIOUS that the gov of north korea is over. EVEN if they threaten to use nukes, we all go in together. the number of people who could possibly be killed by thier crude nukes is probably less then have already died or that will die in the future. but nobody will do anything about it sirriff

KrustyKidd or righturnonred, any of your familiar with the US/UK assisted coup in Iran in 1953? the declassified CIA documents spedificially lay out a political/oil angle to teh whole thing. i believe nytimes.com has the documents on its site in a section dedicated to the 1953 coup. this is basic knoledge for those of us who cite this and many other US actions is immoral and based on power. if YOU cannot be bothered to read easily available and damning documents of the US goverment itself that are smoking guns of violent policy, dont accuse others of not providing facts. its all very available. so if you want to be considered informed, find the CIA documents that are available on the internet, read them, then come back and tell us all why the black and white print in them dont really mean that the US wanted to overthrow the gov of iran in order to gain access to huge petrolium reserves. that is being informed. learning what is out there and easily available. i'm sure if we had this debate in 1981 you would be asking for proof that the US was supplying weapons to afganistan and osamas crew. the fact is that documents only come to light after all the old white men who did the crimes are well into their golden years. read the 1953 CIA documents related to iran and tell us all what you found sirriff

nothing like a pretty faced women who got her wealth handed to her on a silver platter and has been a figurehead her life to bring legitimacy to a party. please at least harper doesnt need to resort to playing dress up after a life of lavish underachievement. my god, desperation for PCs creates some odd qualifications considering the traditional philisophies cited by the party sirriff

usually i dont give a rats ass about the particular politicians in canada. namely becaause they are all crooks anyways, and individials dont seem to be so influencial like in the states. that being said, i usually go for Liberal because i figure they are the least extremist and most productive of the bad list of alternatives. but my outrage is equal opportunity for al parties. this report that basically says the entire federal goverment for several years was corrupt and secretly funnelling money to its supporters, means that the Liberal party needs to suffer for this. suffer badly. i dont care which party it is, people that do this should be first publicly humiliated, then voted/kicked out of office, then face criminal prosecution and real hard time. i dont care if its cabinet ministers or PMs too. but alas, no chance of real punishment. i would classify this crime as a "Crime against Society", that is, so large in scale and such a violation of the entire populations trust that nothing less then harsh crimnal prosecution can restore some faith. what can i say, i'm a liberal thinking person who votes Liberal because its the best of the worst. but i'm a canadian before a liberal, certainly before a Liberal, and every person who ever touched this money knowing it was wrong needs to DO TIME IN JAIL. god i hate corruption. in other nations they would just take them behind the building and shoot them. i got no problem with shooting the top few guys on tv. sirriff

its odd that people here have all the "real" reasons for war. if the people actually launching the war cited a false reason for war: direct current WMD threat, which according to this thread is the false reason for war, how exactly are some people certain they know the "real" reason for war. i cant be certain what information the conclusion of the "real" reasons are based on. i think its more reasonable to conclude that while the stated reason has obviously been proven false, no "Real" reason can be determined without insight into Bush & Cos minds. which isnt available. thus any conclusions are really just guesses based on the same garbage pile of information that is available to everyone. i think its unreasonable to think you alone can deduce the "correct" answer, firstly- when you believed the previous lies in the first place, and secondly- because an equal number of reasonable people come to dissimilar conclusions. who knows what devious thought processes are behind the WMD lies.

if everyone hate the liberals why do they keep getting elected? simple: canadians must want that till they want the conservatives more, thats the way it stands stop bitching about it as if the will of canadians is something that you're qualified to judge.

so because david kay a scientist says iraq is "Dangerous" that justifies an invasion of a soveriegn arab state by the US? uh no, america has spread alot of violence of its own in the last 50 years, doest give other nations the right to bomb it and kill its citizens because one of their scientists declares its dangerous. the obvious reality is that IRAQ WAS NOT DANGEROUS no useable army no useable WMDs sanctions keeping the country ruined no fly zone patrols constantly watching and no moves by saddam in 12 years against anybody the crazy neo cons are so stupid. they should have made a case that the humanitarian crisis is a future threat just like afganistan. nobody can really debate that after 9-11. but this lying just shows they dont give a rats ass about anything other then some crazy power grab/oil bath/neo con party.