Black Dog

My only question is why a story about these yokels is in Federal Politics?

Noooooooo. Transitional fossils have been found. Okay, we need to find some examples of IC systems. ... .... ..... I hate repeating myself, but: Nope. It's not a step by step process of addition or subraction or parts. Existing parts get modified. Old, obsolete parts are retained. Usage changes over time and according to teh advantages confered. It's not a sequence.

I probably listen to/watch the CBC more than most other networks, for one simple reason: no reality shows. "Absurdly biased"? Name me a broadcaster that isn't. And what your calling for is using public funds to finance private enterprise. Which is commonplace enough without such steps.

You're missing the point: despite these paper acheivments, the situation in Afghanistan, especially for women, is no better than under the Taliban. Women can run for office...but are threatened with death if they do. Girls can go to school...but those schools are targets for violence and vandalism. Kidnappings, rape and sexual violence is routine. Afghan women are under attack. These are the facts and reality-impaired proclimations of success do little to alleviate the situation. What they do is allow people who didn't give the plight of Afghanistan's women even a passing thought before 9-11 to feel good about themselves for having backed a policy that has made little difference to Afghan society today. Senior Iran cleric hails “Islamic state of Iraq” I'm positive that's the same constitution. Yeah: the constitution that declares Islam as the sole source of law, thus guaranteeing "rights and freedoms" are subordinate to the primary position given to Islamic law. What's more, the only minorities ensured specific rights are Kurds and speakers of the Syriac language. Me, I'm not sure what your deal is. Maybe you haven't read a newspaper in three or four years. Maybe you only seek out information guaranteed not to upset your pre-existing worldview (reality be damned!). Maybe you're just afraid that if you don't continue to hold the partisan line in the face of a deteriorating situation, Republican Jesus will smite you down. Whatever. But given the avalanche of bad news emanating from Iraq from people on the scene there, maintaining such blind optimism and conviction is truely a remarkable feat. Come to think of it, with your attitude, you'd make a great Infomation Minister.

Well, for one thing, it is a legitimate course of action. No one's saying it's a good option, but it's certainly no worse than "staying the course". For some one who goes on to talk about raising the level of discourse, perhaps you should consider dispensing with the bland, obvious platitudes. Going into Iraq in the first place without a plan to win the peace was far more irresponsible. The current situation is a direct result of that lack of responsible planning. "Clusterfuck" is a military term, like SNAFU, used to describe a disastrously unsuccessful collaborative effort. So what's your formula for success?

And for blind optimism in the face of reality, look right.

The problem with your analyisis is that you envision AQ as a cohesive unit, with leadership and structure that can be disrupted. That may have been the case at one time, but the ideology behind AQ (always the most dangerous thing about it) has proven to have a wide audience. AQ has proven to be durable inasmuch as it has survived teh capture or death of its key leaders and its loss of a central base of operations by going international. And while small, scattered cells are less dangerous, there need not be another attack on the scale of 9-11 to seriously disrupt the domestic economic and political situation. I don't think there's much the U.S. can do at this point to contain the radical ideeologies that endorse terrorism as a tactic. Certainly, the aggressive response to date (which, IMO is but a cover) has probably done more to fuel such militant beliefs.

Oh yeah, that guy: what an assh**e.

I'm surprised Pat Robertson hasn't blamed it on gays. Again.

So you can't counter my points. no surprise there. Iraq is already in chaos, and the continued prescence of U.S. troops there isn't going to prevent the situation from getting worse. From a domestic political standpoint, the only thing the U.S has to look forward to is more casualties in a war that cannot be won. As far as any connection with the "war on terror", Iraq today is an incubator for terrorism. the U.S. intervention there was doomed from the start and will not make the west safer. But to be perfectly honest, I don't really care if the U.S. withdraws or not. Perhaps another humbling defeat is necessary for America to reconsider its hegemonic aspirations and curb its rapacious appetite for resources. I'm questioning the intelligence of anyone who can still back this venture. Even if the invasion was conceived with the best of intentions on the part of the U.S. (a dim possibility), only the most reality-impaired idealogues can look at the situation and see the whole operation was a clusterf**k from Day One. Let me put it another way: every prediction made by the warmongers before the conflict has been proven wrong, from the prescence of WMD, to the welcoming of U.S. forces with open arms, to the ability to stave off sectarian violence and build a thriving, secular democracy. At this point, your crowd is batting .000.

Yes, you are patheticly naive. I've already told you and i won't tell you again. No you haven't, actually. But whatever: I'm not really interested. With drawing in this case would be surrender. What else would it be. Where do you want to fight the terrorists. Main street amaerica. I suppose the fact that there are more "terrorists" in Iraq now than there ever were under Saddam Hussein has escaped your notice? besides, I thought the goal was to build a democracy in Iraq and bring freedom and such to Iraqis: how is that compatable with the flypaper strategy, given that strategy pretty much guarantees Iraq will remain unstable? They're clearinghouses for GOP talking points, as reliable as unbiased as the World Socialist News or the Heritage Front. Funny that you'd claim that, given that the process I described is known as "freeping", which is derived from the right-wing discussion board Free Republic and the tendancy of its members to vote en masse in online polls with the intended goal of significantly affecting the final outcome. False dichotomy. It is possible to support the troops and not support the mission, just as it's possible to support the mission and not support the troops (for example, by not putting enough of them in so as to make their job easier, or by denying them adequate body armour or cutting their medical benefits...) Leaving Iarq would solve the problem of being in Iraq, would it not? I don't really see much point in continuing this discussion (such as it is), as it's clear you're not capable of producing anything original, interesting or even logical. Time to get a new schtick.

His evidence IIRC, was blacks have big dicks and small brains, Asians small dicks and big brains. Whitey, we presume, was "just right". As for Rushton being the victim of some over-sensetive PC backlash, I think the fact that he is now the hea dof the Pioneer Fund (an organization expressely devoted to supporting the "procreation of the white colonial stock" and to financing research into "problems of race betterment" and "problems of heredity and eugenics in the human race.") should settle that question.

Christie has been active in the western separation movement for decades, having help found the western Canada Concept in the early '80s. In many ways, he is the western separation movement. Which kinda explains the movement's lack of credibility. What about Doug. Other notable clients include Heritage Front founder Wolfgang Droege and David Ahenakew. Christie's a guy who probably has a lot of "pride in his ancestry".

Nice dodge. Oh wait: I meant "pathetic". Again: "how does calling for the U.S. wihdrawl from Iraq constitute treason?" (I also note you provided NO evidence to support your slur that the anti-war faction is "calling for is for the US to surrender to the killer islamics") And what's this? An artilce from NewsMax: seriously, do you have any sources other than this and WorldNet? Oh and by the way, the polls I cited are by reputable, scientific pollsters such as Gallup and PEW research. Your online poll is unscientific, its results easily falsifiable and, quite frankly, worthless. I could single handedly bump the results the other way by voting, clearing my cookies, voting agains, clearing cookies, and so on... (what's even funnier, though is that the margin of the "poll" is so small!) What other polls are saying: Nine of 10 people surveyed in an AP-Ipsos poll say it’s OK for war opponents to publicly share their concerns about the conflict. Bush approval rating continues to drop

Did you even read the articles? Ethnic/sectarian violence is widespread (Kurd versus Sunni, Sunni versus Shiite, Shiite versus Shiite), with even Iraqi police and army forces getting in on the act. Oh, and simply repeating something over and over and over again (to wit:) ...is not the same as providing evidence, or making an argument. Please find me a citation where any antiwar activist has made such a statement. Just as I thought: you're incapable of any kind of coherent thought or analysis. you can't even answer a simple question like "how does calling for the U.S. wihdrawl from Iraq constitute treason?" I'd hate to see the state of your monitor, what with all the spittle and bile that you spill out. Incidentally, almost 60 per cent of American disagree with the handling of the war. More than half consider the act of going into Iraq a mistake. That's a lot of "traitors".

Because we recognize certain realities. Like the fact that a centuries-old patriarchal culture won't suddenly change because a piece of paper says women have rights. Afghanistan is still controlled by men with guns, something western leaders and the media seem to have forgotten. What constiution? the one being hailed by Iran and its fundamentalist allies in Iraq and panned by everyone else? The constitution that looks like its going to be a catalyst for a escalation of the simmering civil war? That constitution?

Well, given most of Behe's examples have been shown to be not irreducably complex it's safe to say that dog don't hunt. A reducibly complex mousetrap

Tell that to the Mahdi Army, the Badr Brigade, the Wolf Brigade, the peshmerga, Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance Front, Al-Awdah, the Al-Haqq Army, and teh rest of the groups fighting amongst themselves for control of their destiny and that of post-Saddam Iraq. Tell it to Iyad Allawi and the experts who are proclaiming that civil war is a fact of life in Iraq. But I suppose considering that reality would require looking outside of Newsmax and WingNut Daily... Again, you fail to explain why their views are traitorous and how the expression of such dissenting opinions actually harms the U.S. cause in Iraq. No, they are not traitorous by any stretch of the imagination. They are not calling for the overthrow of the government of destruction of the state. they are calling for an end to a ill-conceived, poorly planned and shoddily executed foreign entanglement, a view shared by an ever-increasing number of Americans (or haven't you noticed the poll numbers lately?) I'll say this much though: I don't believe for a second that support for the war would be so low if the U.S. was winning.

Which doesn't itself mean her comments are untrue or indefensible. Why, because it would lead to a civil war and more bloodshed yadda yadda yadda? I got news for you: the civil war is already on. As for the rest, well, since when is someone not allowed to express their opinion? People like B. Max and Bill O'Reilly, who would threaten, persecute and pillory people for disagreeing with the government are the real enemies of freedom, the ideaolgical bedfellows of folks like Saddam Hussein.

So what does that have to do with Saddam Hussein? The Kurds, with the help of their U.S. and U.K patrons would have been able to get rid of such a base if they really wanted to. No its being run by Republican-backed PR firms, "think tanks", the right wing media and gullible chumps like you. Your hatred for everyone who disagrees with you puts you in the same moral camp as the terrorists you claim to despise. Wow. Solid logic. Um....sending them to die in a foreign war is pretty dangerous. Again: you repeat this crap over and over again, but fail to say how calling for the end of U.S. involvement is aiding terrorist or endangering lives. I expect that's simply because you're only capable of regurijitating whatever talking points you heard on Rush.

So? Compared to a president who talks to God, she seems perfectly sane. I assume you're refering to 9-11, an event that had no connection to Iraq. The Iraq war was started by the U.S.A, who have completely botched the job. How? Please explain. I'll tell you this: the Bush administration has done more to endanger the lives of its troops (through inadequate numbers, inadequate armour, cutting veteran's benefits etc.) than any band of anti-war advocates ever could. The well-oiled and well-funded right-wing smear apparatus creaks into gear.

Why is Sheehan a nutjob, exactly?

As a matter of fact, you didn't. Bah. Perhaps I should resort to the outrage and empty platitudes that seem to be so in vogue here these days? I'll take rabble's highbrow discourse over partisan mudslinging any day. Other than you and you rilk, who identifies the maple leaf with the Liberal party? Our internal political dickering registers not at all with the rest of the world, anymor ethan 99 per cent of the world's internal issues register here. See, August? Partisan mudslinging at its finest. I guaran-damn-tee that, had a Conservative PM brought in the Mapel Leaf, these folks would eb clamouring for a ban on flag-burning. Really, though: its a flag. A piece of fabric. One of the things I like about this country is that we're above the kind of idolatry that others have for their national symbols. Wot IMT said.

If that's the case why is the richest country in the western world (incidentally, also the only one stil using the death penalty) still routinely putting innocent people on death row? A question of innocence.

Do you have a clue what you're talking about? The point of AISH is to help people who are unable to work. As it stands someone collecting AISH gets about $850/month: a pittance. Anyway, I find it interesting that in any discussion of "western alienation", electoral reform is almost never mentioned, even though ditching FPTP would spell an end to the phony regionalization of Canada's representative system.