Figleaf

Excellent post, PeterF -- thorough and well thought out. Question: who are the Voltageurs?

What's wrong with questioning capitalism? Or is it the concept of questioning anything established that is really the beef?

No need for paranoia. I would have put that issue on the list if I had remembered it, and now that you mention it, wasn't the RCMP itself used to funnel out some of the sponsorship scandal dough? That should have been there too. This morning's Glob & Maul had a couple of columns on the subject with other instances too that I didn't include. I kind of blew it with this poll.

Tune in next week!

Kudos to the CBC for showing edgy, interesting content. It sounds like some of the complainers here would like to have a special clause in the Broadcasting Act that says TV stations should clear their choices with the Pope first before going to air. Well, here's an update: there's no free-pass or special kid-gloves for religions.

No, that would only occur among the paranoid and simple minded. Actually, you are mistaken. The teacher's pressure on the students to keep her actions secret is very much in line with abusers' tactics, as is the use of inappropriately mature media to 'groom' victims for later abuse. I'm not concluding that is what this teacher intended, but it certainly is in line with behavior that is recognized as suggesting warning signs.

Damn! I forgot. I meant to have a none of the above too.

Support? Sometimes. Many technological advances are merely the application of someone elses new technology. Your improved pen could be simply due to improved materials. IWC the materials guys may have though critically and the pen guys not. The point is, not all seeming advance comes from critical thinking. I'm not denying that critical thinking exists, and that its possessors will sometimes benefit from using it. My point is no-one values critical thinking itself (though they may afterward want the improved bucket or pen). No. Not whatever. The above reveals that you are using a far too expansive concept of critical thinking. A bright idea, even a very fortuitous one, is no necessarily any indication of critical thinking. Please refer to the definitions I offered above.

Here's an interesting site: http://www.rcmpwatch.com/

Great posts, Cybercoma. As long as religious impulses lead people to assert that government can't change the laws of marriage, that women should be forced to undergo childbirth, or that tax money should be spent to teach fraudulent 'science' they should expect to have those impulses examined.

I figure these teachers had been drinking. Get a load of this... http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2...r_teachers.html

Critical thinking is necessary in almost every job to deal with the unexpected - even the most tedious and repetitive job. Jobs that don't have an unpredicable element can be done by machines. You are describing simple consciousness with a basic human intelligence, not critical thinking as I mean it.

Together these two definitions capture what I think I mean. If you need me to be more precise, let me know.

Okay. Why do you feel implicated in criticism directed at those who are not?

That's true, the key word being 'wonder'. You are now making a straw man argument, I think. Or perhaps a fallacy of equivocation.

Oh, and (how could I forget!?) the most important of all ... ASS COVERING.

Employers know what tasks to apply math to. They either have no clue how to apply critical thinking to tasks, or they don't want to. The answer to each one of these is "Maybe. If you're lucky." The contribution of rote procedure, established precedents, conflicting incentives, self-aggrandizement, desperation, gut instinct, intuition, laziness, inattention and just plain misunderstanding involved are usually much more important than critical thinking.

Interesting comment. I agree that critical thinking is useful when it does get deployed. So it may be that it is (supposedly) taught sort of in spite of the short shrift it will get in reality simply on the chance that someone might someday use it.

It's pretty frightening to imagine religious fanatics infiltrating and controlling the armed forces. The possibility of a point coming when the commanders prefer their religious convictions over their professional obligations should concern all citizens. There should be rules against formalizing religious belief in the military similar to the rules against religion in schools. Okay the people in the military are grown adults who can make up their minds for themselves, but beyond supplying chaplaincy services, the military organization itself should be totally god-neutral.

In case you couldn't tell, I was just joking. I'm thinking of starting my very own special UFO cult. Would you like to join? ... are you joking again?

Source? Some of those I don't recall at the time. Anyway, 39 out of c. 160 isn't all that high.

The claim is not false, it is a fact, demonstrable by a comparison of the definition of the term rational with the characteristics of religious belief. This comparison shows a fundamental incompatibility. Well, the real subject here is not whether it is studied, but whether (and how) it is believed. No-one rationally believes religion. Well then, it should be possible for you to explain how religious belief complies with the criteria of rationality. Until and unless you do, your insistence that disagreement with you shows everyone is 'ignorant' grows increasingly ridiculous.

There is just SOOO much wrong with your assumptions there -- 1. First of all, Iraq did not have any WMDs. It's astonishing you haven't heard that yet. 2. Bush did not 'put his faith in questionable intelligence'. He and his circle of advisors selected intelligence to match their goals. 3. The "entire world" was certainly not behind the United States 'war on "terror"'. And almost NONE of the world was behind the invasion of Iraq, a country with no rational connection to the 'terror' that prompted GWB into action.

I would agree when it's a stereotype or when being sexy is presented as the sole criterion for value. But as one attribute among others, sexy is positive, not negative. Seriously, try to actually listen to what I've said ... I did base my opinion on actual observation.

Except that deployed number isn't static. There may be 14,000 deployed but the number of US troops that have been cycled through Afghanistan may be in the 100,000 plus level, just as the number of Canadian troops must be over 5,000..... Yes. The appropriate measure would be to find a weighted average of numbers deployed at any given time.