Black Dog

I'm aware of that. How, then, does your affection for the Red Ensign square with your statement that the maple leaf is "now completely corrupted and taken over by the Liberal party"?

I don't think anyone's saying it has. But evolutionary theory is, so far, the best explanation we have.

You can't get charged for treason for flying a state flag. You could be convicted of obnoxiousness, though...

The problem with irreducable complexity is that different components can evolve and become interdependant. As H. Allen Orr wrote: "An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become—because of later changes—essential. The logic is very simple. Some part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps). Another part ( later gets added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it merely improves things. But later on, A (or something else) may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get folded into the system. And at the end of the day, many parts may all be required." Behe's theory appears to be nothing more than a "God in the gaps" hypothesis (notably, one that has not been put to peer review).

Despite the repeated assertion that we'd be using the "European" rather than the disastarous "American" health care model, isn't the problem that, thanks to NAFTA, once we open up the syetme to private insurance, we'll be inundated with American firms selling pretty much the same model as they use down there. So I'm skeptical that we'd be able to escape the shadow of American-style health care.

I think in such extreme cases, death is the easy way out. Life without parole, in solitary away from society and any human interaction, would be appropriate. The problem I have with the death penalty is that once you give the state that power, there's no guarantee it will be used properly. Even if you could guarantee that 99 per cent of people executed were guilty, I think the innocent 1 per cent is reason enough to think twice about a punishment that you can't take back.

But it happens all the time. Some of the names above were simply a case of people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Besides the persumption that if someone is convicted of a crime, they must be guilty of something is a perversion of the principle of presumed innocence that is the foundation of our justice system.

If you don't have anything to add, why bother posting? Seriously: grow up.

I suppose I could tell you something about how people traditionally marginalized and repressed because of their identities use the assertion of that identity as a means of standing up to repression and marginalization. That's why all the breats beating by straight white males about the double-standard in identity politics rings so hollow: for all intents and purposes, straight white males still run the world. I've no doubt that some straight white males are oppressed: but I would challenge the notion that they are victims of "reverse discrimination" or some such. In such cases, the root of th eproblem is class and economics, not race, gender or sexual orientation. In other words, the people who claim that gays, women, immigrants and what have you are the source of all their ills are barking up the wrong tree.

That's the thing: ID advocates or unscientific creationists like to point out things like the eye or other complex mechanisms as evidence of design, yet ignore the baffling and often pointless features that no designer with a modicum of intelligence (let alone divine, infinite wisdom) would craft.

Bush doesn't have to: he's got whole battalions of pundits and an entire "news" network to do that for him. Or have you not read anything by Malkin, Coulter, Horowitz, et al?

Not reallly. Look at your own stats: I would argue the chances of an innocent person being sentenced to death are far greater than the chances of being murdered by a parolee. Besides, no one is arguing for lax parole.

The death penalty fails to work as a deterrent and, given the legal systems propensity to screw up and convict the wrong man (Stephen Truscott, Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard?), there exists a high probaility of error. I'd rather not run the risk myself. People like Paul Bernardo or Clifford Olsen should never see the light of day, but to give the state the power over life and death is going too far.

The eye is a great example of evolution in action. From simple single cell lifeforms to complex creatures like humans, you can see the various evolutionary stages from simple, light sensitive cell structures to more complex mechanisms. Even Darwin noted that. Link "The supposed lack of intermediary forms in the fossil record remains the fundamental canard of current antievolutionism. Such transitional forms are sparse, to be sure, and for two sets of good reasons — geological (the gappiness of the fossil record) and biological (the episodic nature of evolutionary change, including patterns of punctuated equilibrium, and transition within small populations of limited geographic extent). But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life’s physical genealogy. "-Stephen Jay Gould Here's a list of transitional forms. Except that you are wrong. We see evolution in the fossil record (such as the tranistion from dinosaurs to birds) and day to day on a microevolutionary level (such as cellular mutations). Where is the evidence of God? This has been covered in this thread already. Unlike evolution, creationist mumbo jumbo and other spiritual hokum has, even by your own admission, no evidence to support it. Therefore its patently ridiculous to elevate it to the same status in the classroom as the extensively and exhaustively documented phenomenon of evolution. Should we also present flat earth theories in science classrooms? Or how about theories that dispute the heliocentric nature of the solar system? Surely if creationism and its varients deserve equal time, then these "possibilities" should as well. Evolution has proven itself time and time again. Only the ignorant and willful (or the willfully ignorant) dispute it. That's an easy one: it was the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Good news for the war crowd: Iraq has a draft constitution! Iran loves it! Iraqi women, however, don't. Souhai must be one of those blameA merica first types I've heard so much about, right? Oh.

Now you're just splitting hairs. None of your points override what I said.

Inasmuch as their worldviews and belief systems are comprable, yes. It's difficult to say how the religious right as a whole fels about Chavez. But, given that segment's general support of an aggressive foreign policy devoted to maintaing America's primacy in the world, its not difficult to imagine them agreeing that any threat to the U.S. must be dealt with severely. That could, theoretically, include assisnation of foreign leaders. (Heck: the religious right is also strong in it support of Israel, a country that practices just such a policy).

Except nobody said Robertson's views are repreentative of Christianity, but of a small sect of Christianity known as the religious right. Which makes the Robertson/bin Laden analogy more apt and, incidentally, is kinda what I've been saying all along.

The United States public, probably not (I expect the majority of Americans don't know who Hugo Chavez is). But Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, is the granddaddy of the U.S. religious right. If anyone is representative of the religious right, it's him.

Sure, whatever. But I'm no clear what your beef with Chavez in, other than the fact taht he's on teh Republican enemies list.

But to call Chavez democratically elected is to be factually correct. No scare quotes necessary. If anything, they'd be better placed around "authoritarian". It's odd phrasing for a ruler who who was elected by a landslide majority (56 percent) of the voters. Unlike some Presidents I could name...

Oh I doubt they'd publicly cop to any such positions. But there's no question the differences between radical Islam and fundamentalist Chrsistianity are only a matter of degrees. Both are rigid, patriarchal belief systems emphasizing purity and absolute devotion to the religious dogma. Given teh chance, I'm dead certain America's Dominionists and their Canadian bretheren would gladly turn our free society's into the kind of place even the Taliban would approve of.

Why the scare quotes?

Sounds like some people's idea of utopia.

The U.S. has tried to topple the democratically-elected Chavez once before, so the fact that ravings of a nutjob like Pat Robertson are endorsed by some is no surprise. Trying to oust a democratically elected populist leader because they endanger the economic interests of the doemstic elite is par for the course.