jefferiah

Does this even matter?

I think you misunderstand what I meant. I did not say that JBG's story was an example of rewarding success, but rather I was indicating your own point about how a good pitcher or player could be moved up a bracket. That is an example of rewarding success. That doesn't seem to happen in his article. If JBG thinks that rewarding mediocrity and punishing success is stupid, I assume he also thinks rewarding success is a good idea.

This is an example of rewarding success, which is what JBG seems to advocate here. The kid in the article does not see his success rewarded.

Aside from the debate over the validity of JBG's illustration, politics and business aren't exactly a baseball game just for fun. I think he is making an excellent point overall, and while we can all nitpick about the suitability of his parable, the illustration serves its purpose. This philosophy of benching the stars would not work to create the best result for a professional baseball team.

Your kids have to go easy on you so you can have fun?

That would be a great parallel if the pundits actually encouraged people to kill. Since they do not, it is a ridiculous comparison. What they do is make arguments and poke fun at left wingers, the same way people like Jon Stewart do to right wingers. In effect, what you are saying here, is because someone did some shooting at liberals, liberals should now be insulated from all dissent and argument. Or you are also saying, that if someone shot a republican out of republican hatred, that Michael Moore and Janeane Garofalo, and the makers of that movie Smart People (where the hero refers to Young Republicans as "a Hitler Youth Rally") are responsible. And thus George Bush should from then be protected from insult and dissent.

While that may be true, at least Van Gogh's brother had a choice. I agree that the amount of money a work of art makes does not always means that it is of greater quality. Despite that reality I don't think this should be visited on the tax payer. And I think it is quite snobby of the artsy to think that regular joes must support them, without question. If their art is not recognized as genius until they are dead how do you expect a bureacracy to figure out which ones are geniuses while they are living. Pretty much what they do is pour funds into "art" which is supposed to reflect Canadian culture. But if Canadians are not buying it, and rarely even paying attention to that art when it is subsidized, how can it be said that this stuff reflects Canadian culture. If "Holy F..." represents your idea of Canadian culture go out and buy one of their recordings.

"a radio station", "60 percent said yes".... So in essence, when you say "Harper is never there for the people", you mean he is not there for those "people" who listened to this radio station, when the question was asked. I've listened to radio call in shows on days where 90 percent of the callers identified themselves as Layton voters.

But it is not as if Wal Mart is taking something away from them. Nor are they getting drunk and getting behind the wheel of a mobile Wal Mart store and driving it over pedestrians. They are simply recanting the offer of their business with the employees. We will no longer pay for the product of "labor" from you. We will pay someone else for this product. They are not robbing them of something which was their's to begin with. The same way Wal Mart does not own your business. If, as a regular Wal-mart shopper, I decide to spend my money elsewhere for whatever reason (I don't need permission from Wal-Mart to do this, I don't need a good reason. I can stop shopping there because I don't like the blue lettering), I have that right. They do not own exclusive rights to my business. I am not taking away something they own. I am refraining from dealing with them and giving them something I own: my money. I am not acting as if I own Wal-Mart by taking my business elsewhere. I am acting as if I own my money.

They certainly don't own the people. What they do own is the store. The people are free to do whatever they choose. They can even form a union of unemployed people if they want. They can do what they want with what they own. They have the right to freedom of association. That right does not include the exclusive right to Wal-Mart's business. If you hired a teenager to do your lawn. And for whatever reason, you decided you didn't want him to do it anymore, and you wanted someone else. By letting him go you are not acting as if you own him. You are acting as if you own your lawn. If you were to tell him what he could do after letting him go, or that he could not do other lawns, you would be acting as if you own him. By the same token, if he were to say, you can't let me go without a reason, that would be him acting as if he owns your business, your lawn, your money, and he is putting a restriction on where you can spend it...you must spend it on him.

No one said they own the people they hire. How does closing down a store constitute an attitude of ownership of people? If I didnt invite you to my birthday party would you show up at my door saying, "You don't own me Jefferiah."

I always thought communism in China had something to do with Mao defeating Kai-shek. I didn't know it was opium induced.

I guess we had all better behave the way the Chinese think we should. Harper should be sent for re-education.

Not going to a sporting event is quite an act of hostility, bordering on aggression.

Yeah but what I'm saying is, if his absence is really a serious provocation, then they cant be appeased or you cant avoid provocation, whatever. You might as well not worry about it. Who cares if someone doesnt show up at a sporting event? Whoopdee. They'll get over it. You won't. But that's your primary function here. To find little reasons to get pissed off at Harper.

Why do you think people should be penalized for doing as they please with something they own?

Assuming this is true, in that case we would never be able to appease them anyways. But I assume Argus is right.

Yes, they do. And Wal Mart has the right to close down a store which Wal Mart "owns" at any time it wishes. The union still has a right to congregate and whine collectively after they've screwed themselves out of a job.

I never said the employer was always right. But no one is forced to work for them. Wal Mart owns the store. They can open it, they can close it. The store doesn't belong to the Union. You don't have to take the money they offer. You don't have to work for them at all. If you were to put a "For Sale" sign on your car, and someone offered you 3000 bucks and that's his offer, you can either accept or not. But you don't own the customer. You can't tell him, "no you must pay me more and you must purchase my car". If he doesn't want to pay more, he can look for a car someplace else. He doesn't belong to you.

Oh no, did we offend them?

Depends on how you look at censorship. You rarely, if ever, hear on CBC that Omar Khadr killed a "medic".

If people don't like Wal Mart they do not have to shop there. And also, if people do not like the wages Wal Mart pays they do not have to work there. Someone here compared it to slave labor. Is this person on drugs?? None of these employees are owned and forced to work at Wal Mart. They can leave at any time. They accept employment at the store at a certain wage. There is something snooty and spoiled rotten about people who would even dare to compare Wal Mart jobs to slave labor. It's like a teenager calling his parents fascists for grounding him. I worked at Wal Mart. It's not slave labor. It's a regular job. It's not the highest paying job, but no one has to work there. If you agree to work at a place that offers a certain wage, how is that slavery??? Wal Mart has no obligation to continue running a store it wants to close for whatever reason. Causing mass unemployment??? Without them there would not be the mass employment in the first place? It is not their responsibility to create jobs and keep them going. It's their store!!! Not the unions. Nobody owns a job. The same way that Wal Mart does not own customers. If a regular Wal Mart customer decides to purchase a bottle of Pepsi at Zellers because they have a better sale on, Wal Mart cannot say "But you are our customer!! Your business belongs to us!!" But unions think that they own "customers"--that is, in their case, companies who pay workers for a product called "labor". Which is why they are quite violent to regular people who, in the invent of a strike, are quite happy to fill in their position and do the job ten times better at less pay.

Well, as I said, this happens with little convenience stores. They do get robbed repeatedly. OK, let's do some math here. ten robberies / 3 years That's ten robberies in 1095 days. I am not adding the two extra days for the two leap years. Assuming each robbery took no more than one day (which is only reasonable), that means he was robbed 10 days out of 1095 days. And its reasonable to assume that it lasted no longer than 10 or 15 minutes. Now the police are not psychic. It's pretty hard for the police, who are charged with the task of protecting the entire city of Toronto, to know which 10 days (out of a 1095 day period) robbers will choose to rob this one store. So since the police are not psychic, the only possible way for them to guarantee the type of protection you think this guy should have, is to watch the shop. The police would have to have officers dedicated to watching this store, 24/7, 365 days a year. And this is not to mention the other small stores which get robbed. Because it certainly would not be fair to provide such a service to one store owner, when others get robbed as well. How many stores do you suppose have been robbed in Toronto? Do you suppose the police should now provide 24/7 guard service to all of these?

I am not sure if the fact that this man is an immigrant has something to do with your overall "point", but this is nothing new. Lots of stores are robbed repeatedly, whether they are owned by immigrants or not. The reality is, that even though 10 times over the past 3 years is alot, 3 years is also a long time to expect the police to have a task force solely devoted to one store in all of Toronto.

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