Moonlight Graham

Ya i'm a huge fan of Neil Young's electric guitar playing. He may not shred like some but the rawness and passion is unbeatable.

People should be allowed to say more of whatever they want, and then we'll all grow thicker skins and won't be so offended. One of the things that will annoy me (I definitely wouldn't say offends me) is when people say or do the same things over and over ad nauseum to the point where you want to put your head through a wall, even if those things aren't even offensive, I'd much rather be around an offensive racist than an annoying racist haha. Saying offensive things can actually make for good comedy, ie: South Park.

Happy with poverty? Very low life expectancy? Very high incariration rates? Addiction/suicide problems? Getting ripped off in land claims etc. I can see why they're PO'd but they should obey the law. I'm sure the gov/police will give them a bit of leeway in their protests as long as it doesn't physically hurt anyone or their property, wouldn't want to make the problems worse because things could really flare up if police are too rough.

I'd suspect reasons include higher divorce rates, young people not getting married when they're 18-20 y/o anymore, and a higher elderly population who live without spouses (dead or divorced). More young people live at home with parents for much longer too nowadays so I would think it would counteract the numbers a bit. I wonder if a higher % of people these days put mom/dad/grandparents in a retirement home nowadays too rather than letting their elderly family members stay with them? More women working would mean caring for elderly mom/dad at home is much harder.

Have a waiting period, say 2 months after the initial request, give them access to free therapy in the meantime (or make it a requirement), then give them the button if they still want it.

Behold, God-Man!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was amazing and didn't get nominated for any major award. Should have got in over Les Mis since it got a much higher ranking on rotten tomatoes and IMDB than that one, plus was higher on IMDB than just about every nominated film. I think Lincoln will win best picture & director because of feelings of patriotic obligation to vote for it. Day-Lewis will win because he was great.

Canada also has a brain-drain effect working against us where many of our best doctors have emmigrated to the US because they can make more money in that system. "One in nine doctors trained in Canada are practising medicine in the United States, according to a study published recently in the Canadian Medical Association Journal." http://www.northernl...07-docsUSA.aspx

Except that US life expectancy is lower than pretty much every other highly economically developed country I believe, minus some ex-Communist states. Should such a rich country rank so low? Something is clearly wrong.

The title of this thread is inaccurate, the OP article ranks the health of countries, not the health care systems. There could be other reasons why Americans have such poor health other than their health care system (which is likely still a factor). There could be social/cultural reasons, like higher gun ownership & more violent society overall, or a higher consumerism/advertising culture leading to buying more junk food/fast food. The US has the 3rd largest population in the world, so environmental and urban population density reasons may factor as well.

I feel bad for the workers who lose their jobs but a lot of these manufacturing jobs can't persist in a global market at the salaleries the unions ensured. $30+ w/ beneifts for an assembly line job is unsustainable for these auto and other companies is unsustainable. The choices: let the North American auto companies go bankrupt, have worker wages/benefits massively cut, heavily subsidize the manufucturing industry & worker wages & cripple the Canadian/US economy with more debt, or let the manufacturing jobs be exported and at least keep the companies & non-manufacturing jobs afloat. I'd argue that maybe there's a way they could/should have cut manufacturing jobs less suddenly (cutting wages and using gov subsides) so that the impact on workers and the economy has time to adapt. The oil sands are the future for Canada's economy and we should be very grateful we have the massive oil reserves we do.

That's a bit ridiculous. Even 1/8th (your great-grandmother/father) is pushing it.

I think something we can all agree on is that this is awesome:

I browsed parts of the flick to get a sense of it. Didn't have time to watch it all. Now, I think the point that scientists who might look into the possibility of intelligent design for the origins of life and the universe can get fired or blacklisted or simply ignored is true in many cases I'm sure. On the other hand, evolution is a real observable fact. You can recreate it in a lab.and view it with your own eyes. The story of Adam and Eve and a lot in Genesis is simply myth and science has ridiculous amounts of evidence to show that's not how humans and other things on earth came to be. But that's not really what most of the film is talking about from what I gathered. Science doesn't know for a fact exactly how the very first microscopic lifeforms began on earth or what caused/created the big-bang, so scientists need to examine every possibility. I just don't know how you would scientifically test for evidence of intelligent design, unless you unrolled every strand of human DNA and the words "I AM GOD" was imprinted into it in 30 different languages or something similar. There's clearly a difference between creationism and intelligent design. The part I really didn't like about the film is that it brings up slippery slope arguments for believing in evolution. ie: if you acknowledge evolution it can lead to eugenics and the Nazi holocaust, that it can lead to Stalin's USSR because he was an atheist, or that it can lead to a complete lack of morals because it creates doubts in God & religious faith.

Well it certainly takes a certain kind of person to be a defense lawyer in criminal cases like this. How does one defend a person they might actually think is guilty, or prosecute a person they know is probably innocent?

11% meta-score from Rotten Tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/expelled_no_intelligence_allowed/ Hmm I guess that means he didn't like it? But hey, free speech is free speech.

Somebody has to defend these punks (they have that right), so I feel someone bad for the lawyers who have stepped up to defend the accused (I read that the accused were having major problems trying to find lawyers who would even touch the case for them). It's basically the lawyers' job to blame the victim as if it were her fault somehow and not the fault the rapists. The entire country is going to see these defense lawyers as scum no matter what they do.

It seems odd to me the level of national and international spotlight on this particular story. It's a horrible story, but in an economically developing society of over a billion people with well-known gender inequality problems I wouldn't think a gang-rape like this wouldn't be terribly rare unfortunately. Anyways, I hope something good does come out of it and changes happen.

What? Where did you get that? My point is that models are crap. This entire story proves my point, and we shouldn't even believe Met Office's new models. Also, they're not saying it isn't warming, they're predicting it isn't going to warm as much as thought before. You're also confusing a prediction with a fact. We only have models, not proof, of what global temps will do in the next 5 years. No, the news articles talking about it have been written and published now. The actual report by the Met Office was released Xmas Eve. The news is actually 2 weeks old and is only being reported on now.

No it doesn't. All it means is a UK science joint said their old models were wrong and that their new models predict less warming. It just basically proves their models are crap so we shouldn't even believe the updated models.

Take a National Post article on climate change with a grain of salt since that news source wears its bias on its sleeve. I can't read The Times article, it cuts off and wants me to pay to read it. http://www.dailymail...heating-up.html After reading the articles. what the Met Office is really saying is that they're previous models were wrong, and they're updating the models. They released the news on Xmas eve likely to bury the admitance that they were wrong. In other words, I still really don't put much faith in these climate models because they clearly don't have all the mind-boggling number of variables figured out yet.

Say what??

Sorry for that. I agree it's a complicated world, with many factors and actors involved with many seemingly simple products. Even if consumers wanted to purchase from companies based on their ethics of their product production, the problem is that the consumer often does not have the knowledge of the many small factors/details across product supply chains, and it's very hard for them to know what is happening in ie: factories in developing countries like Bangladesh. This is one of the reasons I haven't really commented on this story, it's hard to get full context from a few news articles. Maybe there should be more legislation that requires large corporations (who have the resources, unlike small businesses) to regulate and report on the human conditions of the workers who produce/supply their products at every stage (ie: from the planting of a cotton seed to the t-shirt being hung on the store rack). Then have gov and/or NGO watchdog groups keep tabs whether this is being done and if corporations are following an established minimum level of ethical business practice (all paid for by the corporation).

And so what if governments in developing countries do not have the laws or the means to enforce the laws to protect worker's safety and the environment? What if actions by the businesses/corporations could help worker's safety in certain countries they deal with? What if pressure by consumers could force businesses to ensure higher worker safety standards? So do you just wash your hands of all it and say "ah well, it's all the responsibility of the national governments"? Do you think this is an ethical mindset? Let me use a hypothetical. What if you wanted to buy a gold necklace for your mother, and had a choice to buy it from Company A for $80 or Company B for $70. Company A buys the gold used in the necklace from a Nigerian mining company that pays its local African miners $2 per hour to mine the gold, works the miners 10 hours a day, gives them extra money for overtime, and provides them with adequate safety standards within the mines (resulting in a low number of mine accidents, injuries, and deaths . Meanwhile, Company B buys the gold used in its necklaces from a Nigerian mining company that pays its local African miners $1 per hour to mine the gold, works the miners 16 hours a day, gives them no compensation for overtime, and provides them with very poor safety standards within the mines (resulting in a high number of mine accidents, injuries, and deaths). Obviously, the human social conditions for Nigerian miners contracted by Company A is better than Company B. However, because Company B buys from mining co.'s providing poorer worker pay/conditions it is able to sell its gold necklaces for $70 instead of $80. So would you buy your mother's gold necklace from Company A or Company B? Which company would other consumers likely buy from? Is buying from Company B over A ethical? It says: "The foundation of Walmart’s business has always centered on helping people live better. This mission applies not only to our customers and associates, but also to the workers who make our products." Sorry, but the foundation of Walmart's business and most other businesses on the planet is profit. Walmart is only one link along a global supply chain so they can't be blamed 100% if there is ever any unethical activity along the supply chain. Yes, local governments and the factories can also be held accountable, as well as consumers themselves who perpetuate demand for the products without raising a peep.

I've been fired from 5 different companies for being too hot.