Figleaf

People who find that their attachment to foreign interests and causes prevents them from participating in the policy discourse of a Canadian political party do the honorable thing by acknowledging that and resigning. We surely don't need a situation where people whose primary focus lies abroad unduly influence our government into mistaken choices. (As, for example, it seems may have happened to our unfortunate neighbor to the south, with Perle and Wolfowitz appearing to basically act as fifth-columnists.)

1. Israel only imperfectly accords with so-called western democracy. It is founded a principle of ethnic/religious exclusivity, and it has significant internal policies which favor or disfavor persons on those bases. Moreover, it continues to act in defiance of the rule of international law espoused by the west. 2. Irrespective of similiarity or friendship, to be honest and ethical one cannot support a friend in commiting wrongful deeds. 3. A friend who expects another friend to follow her into cruelty, destruction and folly is not much of a friend.

[...

Likewise with Israelis.

IF

[

It has been discussed but not as a topic unto itself. I raised it in the context of abortion being cited as helping to reduce crime. I know some demographers have said that an aging population has helped reduce crime. Perhaps Levitt thinks abortion has helped prevent an aged population from getting younger. His thoughts on abortion and crime are about 1/6 - 1/8 of the book and represent the only original thought therein. He su gests that crime dropped due to increased abortions being most frequent among the socio-economic classes most prone to criminality.

I can't begin to imagine how you can say that a worldview based on faith-above-reason, asserting a self-created man in the sky who only a small number of people even pretend to ever see, and requiring the acceptance of impossibly self-contadictory beliefs (omnipotent and omnibenevolent), as well as belief in things readily disproved, can 'sound more logical'. But then I remember that to true believers 'logic' has no meaning other than what coincides with the faith, and that so, believers' reference to a concept of logic is, like other religious assertions, basically meaningless.

Sorry, but it is different. A person who accepts given assertions of science without any reflection on them may fit your complaint. But not so for someone who, knowing the nature of science and scientific inquiry, accepts established consensuses of science as "very probably mostly right" to the extent they perceive no merit in chasing the question any further. That is not 'faith' in a religious sense. It is a calculation of probability based on real knowledge.

Since there's no economics forum, I guess I'll post this here... I just read this book, "Freakonomics". In case anyone is thinking of getting it, I'll tell you what I thought: Superficial. Obvious. Over-written and under-thought. Self-congratulatory. Repetitive. Misrepresented (more sociology than economics). Lacking rigor. Disappointing.

[

[qu

It is no more "hypocrisy" than a scientist pretending he understands evolution of species when he clearly does not. What scientist are you talking about? Anyway, whether she is hypocritical depends on whether she knows she doesn't understand. That may be true for some people, but as I pointed out above, the difference is that with science it is at least possible to make rational assessments of it, whereas religion precludes that possibility.

ll

1. The UN is nothung more or less than what the member states make of it. Criticizing it in isolation of the members is ludicrous, and demonstrates either ideological bias, ignorance of international affairs, or both. 2. Hypocrisy is clearly rampant among security council members. Why should Pakistan be allowed to have nukes and not NK? NK is not violating any treaty or laws in seeking or having its nukes.

.

[

Can you say 'hypocrisy', kiddies?

[

I knew we the CPC should have pulled the election trigger when that gentleman was the interim leader. (edited to reflect that I should not be saying "we" since I am not a CPC member, not being Canadian). Why would you want to say 'we' about the Conservatves anyway, since you claim on another thread to be left-wing? You sound increasingly full of the brown-and-smelly.

I guess this confirms something I've wondered. There are simply NO limits on the ludicrous nonsense Israel's apologists will propagate. The offending soldiers, eh? What about the offending regime?

l

[

Charles: There are people who accept religious eksplanations without applying rational assessment, and people who accept scientific eksplanations without applying rational assessment. The difference is that when someone does choose to apply rational assessment they will find that it's possible with science, but not with religion.