Moonlight Graham

Moonbox is right, you're confusing empathy with sympathy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avhOZ8tww3Q

Then stick your head in the sand, that's your choice, but it will mean your analysis of the situation will be incomplete and inadequate. Did you not read what you just quoted from me? I said "empathy doesn't mean appeasement or not severely punishing the killers." Cybercoma at least gets what i'm saying:

Both Harper's and Justin's responses to the tragedy were inadequate. A combination of the 2 approaches should be made. Harper said the proper response to the bombing was "to condemn it categorically, and to the extent you can deal with the perpetrators you deal with them as harshly as possible". Yes, but you can't stop there. You have to investigate the bombing, look at motives, WHY and HOW the bombers did what they did and help the US in making sure it can't happen in again, or happen in Canada. This could mean filling holes in security policy, immigration policy, FBI surveillance etc. It could also mean more social/psychological/economic factors that could be dealt with depending on the motives of the attackers. ie: You can put as many aboriginals in jail as you like, but that doesn't mean there aren't social factors (like poverty & cultural fragmentation) that influence aboriginals in making bad decisions that can be addressed to reduce aboriginal crime-rates. At the end of the day, yes it's criminals who commit crimes (people have free will and are responsible for their actions, hence punishment), but punishment alone will not prevent similar attacks from occurring in the future.

The cop could charge me with whatever he wanted, doesn't mean it would hold up in court, If he did I'd counter-charge the cop for stealing my private property without probable cause or any indication of danger. People don't have to follow the "orders" of cops just because they tell you to do something. Their orders have to be based on law. The law protects us from arbitrary actions by the state. The guy with the phone was collecting evidence because he was being written a ticket, which was his right. He was not breaking the law in any way other than smoking on a sidewalk.

Knowing the root causes (or maybe more accurately, the factors that greatly influenced the bombers to do what they did) doesn't mean the act goes unpunished. The bombing was still a conscious act (unless both were mentally ill). Knowing the roots of why/how the bombers did what they did is key to preventing such events in the future, period. Jailing or killing them is fine, but by itself it doesn't prevent future terror attacks. I also don't see what's wrong with feeling empathy for the victims but also feeling empathy for the 2 guys that felt such hatred they decided to kill. Empathy doesn't mean appeasement or not severely punishing the killers.

It's a defensive weapon, but it can be used to enhance your offensive military capabilities. If the US and Canada have shield, while every other country doesn't, it renders MAD not effective for/against Canada/US, meaning of course the US could launch nukes without much fear of retaliation (assuming their shield works). This could, as many say, create a security spiral/arms race with other countries. It would be interesting to know what global security would be like (better or worse?) if all or even most powerful countries possessed ABM's.

The reasoning by the cop is ridiculous. Obviously he doesn't want to be filmed. But ANYTHING could be turned into a weapon. A shoe-gun, pencil-knife, pen-gun, laptop bomb, belt whip...would that mean a cop could confiscate ANY private property they wanted just because it "could" be a gun? The cop would need valid reasons on his part to think the cellphone was in fact modified into a weapon for him to confiscate it. That wouldn't hold up in court for a second and I wouldn't give the phone to the cop.

I don't understand why it's a red herring. Explain.

I saw nothing wrong with Justin's comments. I think he ideally should have spent a bit more time talking about the victims etc. but I generally don't know what the fuss is about in his comments. He wasn't trying to excuse the terrorists' violent actions, he was saying we should try to understand their actions (so ie: we can prevent future terror violence). He wants to know the roots of the problem. Medical analogy: A doctor might diagnose a patient's chest pains as a heart attack, and he might solve this problem by performing heart surgery and prescribing cholesterol medication to prevent future heart disease. The doctor is addressing the problem, but if the root cause of the heart disease and high cholesterol is poor diet by the patient then the surgery and meds are simply Band-Aid solutions that don't properly address the source of the problem. The doctor must understand the root cause of the heart disease in order to most effectively eliminate it. Same with terrorism. See my comments above. I see your concern, but one doesn't necessarily mean the other. Now I do think Justin, in wanting to understanding the root causes, also expressed sentiments to feeling empathetically concerned as to understanding what would drive a person(s) in society to commit such horrible acts against other humans. He never said we should hug the criminals & buy them a fancy gift then let them go free, but to understand their motives and context so that people stop blowing up other people. That people in society treat each other with kindness and not hatred/violence. Justin never said anything about "appeasement" though. How exactly can one effectively solve a very difficult and complex problem without understanding its root causes?

The media has been all over Justin for his comments.

I don't know if it's even possible, but I'd be interested to see some kind of statistically legitimate nation-wide poll of Iraqis on whether they think they are better off with or without Saddam, or if they think the US-led invasion was a net negative or positive for them...or some question like that. That's the only opinion that matters on whether the invasion was better for Iraqis or not. Unfortunately, everyday Iraqis never had much input on whether they wanted the invasion, or Saddam removed by Western militaries and replaced by a "democracy", What kind of "democracy" is forced upon a country without any regard of whether they want it or not, designed and implemented by a foreign invading power? The whole "freedom" and "democracy" jive in Iraq is complete bulls**t. Freedom from what, and for whom? "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" by arse. The regime change in Iraq was quite obviously US-led imperialism, with US/Western security interests in mind, not so much the political rights and well-being of the Iraqi people.

Good thing Jews are a minority group. This plan just might work then.

that's hilarious.

Very interesting. Are those wounded people/body parts being blurred out in the 2nd photo?

Ya I'd agree. Also, if I were remotely detonating a bomb, I really wouldn't want to be on the edge of a building top right next to the explosion, in broad daylight where I could get hit by shrapnel/ricochet and cameras like this could easily spot me.

I agree. Imagine you had plane tickets and hotel reservations for a weekend trip to Boston next month and ask yourself if you'd be at least a little weary about going now, given the events? I would.

I'm really, really astonished that no smaller terror attacks like this (by al-Qaeda or whomever) have happened since 9/11. Making a bomb that could kill a dozen people wouldn't be too hard to make I'd imagine and bringing it into ie. a shopping mall or busy coffee shop etc, would be extremely easy. Very doubtful the US gov could stop all such small attacks like this, even if they were tapping every phone and computer in the country. ie; how hard would it be to obtain a hand-grenade and lob it into a dense crowd somewhere?

I don't really see anything yet that points to whether it was more likely domestic or foreign attackers.

Well here's what I said yesterday: And here's what Thomas Mulcair said in today's Ottawa Citizen about the NDP's newly changed constitution: Pretty much exactly what I said above. Ok fine I shouldn't have used the term "communism" since the NDP have never really described themselves as such.

Ya, because being a socialist/communist party (democratic or not) is not very appealing to most voters in Canada these days lol. Federally they were historically a bit of a niche party. Now more than ever they realize they need to become more broadly appealing if they want to actually govern federally. The NDP sniff a chance to govern, this is their way of getting closer to that. "Democratic socialism" is rightfully a bit concerning and radical to many Canadians. They're a left-wing party pure and simple. What is "center" about them? They're clearly left of the Liberals, who are left or centre-left themselves.

From OP article: Well I've obviously heard of domestic jobs being shipped overseas to cheaper foreign workers, but it's pretty disturbing when companies like this are actually importing foreign workers to take over domestic jobs to increase profits. I'm glad there are already laws against this in place and RBC has been caught in the act. I'm sure this isn't the only company doing this. RBC, you suck.

I thought he was a pretty level-headed critic, I liked him. He found value in both the good mainstream stuff and the artsy stuff. Some critics have their pompous heads way to up their asses and only give great reviews to artsy independent flicks while trashing most Hollywood stuff. Jay Stone of Postmedia News is like that.

I don't think there's a thread on this yet, which is surprising since it's a very big story right now. So what does everyone think of the recent events? What do you make of the North Korean threats & the US B-52 and B-2 stealth bomber drills/flyovers in Korea? What do you think about N.Korean nuclear and missile capabilities & potential to strike the US or Japan/South Korea? What do you think the response from US should be, or Canada's role in all of this? Is N.Korea at all justified in some of it's rhetoric and nuclear build-up? Recent BBC article on the latest events: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21963369 Analysis of the events from the article by Andrea Berger of the British think tank "Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies" (RUSI):

But it's a bit odd when they recently cut 20,000 federal public sector jobs in a austerity push, then give themselves raises not too long afterwards.