Moonlight Graham

That's a darn good point!

I don't think they denied him because he may offend Muslims per se. border agents primarily are concerned with the security of Canada and not letting people in who are a threat to the country's security. Even though it really wouldn't be Jones' fault, him entering Canada and speaking in Muslim-heavy Toronto has a significant likelihood of leading to violence and hence his presence is in a way a threat to the security for Canadians. So I can see why the border refused his entry. I'm not sure it's right though.

In 1948 I believe there were only 56 countries as members of the UN. Remember many countries were still European colonies at that time.

Well give him credit, once in a blue moon he will. He usually bashes "lefties" rather than voice his own stance, but he does sometimes come out and have something to say about his dislike of radical Muslims and a few other tidbits. But ya I did notice he doesn't make many statements about his own beliefs. Much easier to defend yourself when you don't do that, hmm?

I bite my nails a lot, but in the article it says it has to take up over an hour of your day or cause you significant distress. My nail-biting certainly isn't that bad and doesn't affect my life negatively in any way I see so I'll just keep on keepin' on.

I've taken university courses recently so can also comment from 1st-hand experience. I think you said you were an engineer of some sort I believe, so with courses using math/equation & I think you're right on this. I took a stats class once, and the teacher (a young, hip guy) did as you describes, never ever used powerpoint and always wrote equations on the chalk board and went through math problems on the board for everyone to see. However, I take mostly social science/arts courses. I find power-point slides very useful, a good prof will put the slide up with basic points they're talking about (not too text-heavy so you aren't reading/listening/note-taking at the same time) so you can follow along, can put up interesting quotes, pictures, diagrams, maps etc. Then they'll usually post them online later for study reference. In math-based courses I'd agree with you, but in humanities and similar courses it's definitely faster and neater to type notes on a laptop, plus you can share them easily with classmates. A big bonus I found is that by the end of a 3-hour lecture your hand isn't cramping from scribbling notes on paper. I suppose it depends how fast you can write vs type. I think overall it depends on the subject and type of course/lecture in implementing technology properly.

I personally disagree. It's also far harder to moderate those insults.

From my experience i'd say at least 50% use laptops for note-taking during lectures these days, that's a conservative estimate. It's also way easier to take notes and read from later for studying.

I disagree with most of he editorial, but I agree that the internet and cellphones are distracting to students. The internet during a lecture can be useful if you want to quickly look up a concept on wikipedia that the prof is talking about, but other than that I agree that it's a good idea for wi-fi to be turned off during lecture at the discretion of the prof. However, I'm not sure how feasible this idea is, since most lecture rooms are small (ie: 50-75 students or so each) and I doubt wifi signals can be limited room to room without massively refitting things at a big cost. That doesn't solve the cellphone problem. On the other hand, university students are adults and can do whatever they want. They don't even have to come to class in most cases so if they aren't paying attention in class that's their own faulta and will reflect in their grades.

Khadr could also have Afghan or Pakistani or even Egyptian citizenship (his dad was Egyptian-Canadian, no idea what his mom was), I don't really know. Given the amount of time he spend lviing outside Canada this seems likely. I really shouldn't defend the guy until I read more about him. I just read that he likely had a bunch of contact and possibly training with al Qaeda (and his dad was extremely likely linked to al Qaeda), so that changes things, I thought he was linked more to the Taliban. BTW this is one of the reasons I despise the concept of dual/multi-citizenship, because in times of war your allegiances are split. You should be forced to choose one country only to swear your allegiance. I just read about his landmine/IED activity in 2002, so yes that would make him a traitor. If he was an adult at the time, I would argue for him to either be jailed for life or exiled and his citizenship revoked. But since he was 14-15 at the time of the charges, and his actions greatly influenced or even partly dictated by his parents, that makes things more difficult.

I agree with the general sentiment, but the Harper gov seems to follow suit.

What about limiting the time the chatroom is open? Say from 7-12pm EST? This would force people to still post messages on the forums primarily, it would make the chatroom easier to get people into at one time and to moderate/monitor, and these times are almost always when big political events worth live chatting about are held (debates, elections, not to mention sporting events, Oscars awards etc).

New thought: if another country invades your country, and you attack them, can you really be considered a "war criminal", especially by those who invaded your country? I think that's kind of ridiculous. Also, let's remember that Khadr was not fighting against Canadians when he was caught, for that would be clearly treason. Note: I'm not sure if Khadr had citizenship of Pakistan/Afghanistan/Egypt and wikipedia doesn't seem to say, though I'm not sure if it fundamentally matters since Khadr lived for much of his live in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

thanks, I incorrectly read the world average as the US's contribution, sorry.

As Cybercoma I think correctly states, Marx's theories were more explanatory than prescriptive. Marx analyzed history, economics, and class, and outlined what social relations were happening in capitalist society and what was going to occur in the future (socialism, and then its final stage, communism). But Marx wasn't very clear on the political system that would replace capitalist liberal democracies. So Marx wrote about what would occur, not as much about how it would occur. Lenin was the one who didn't want to wait for the long, historical collapse of capitalism and evolution to socialism and communism (the utopian state where all borders melt because classes cease to exist). Lenin wanted revolution and wanted socialism/communism to occur in Russia immediately, so Lenin reinvented Marxism to work politically, and hijacked Marx' concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in an inaccurate way (as most scholars would argue). From wikipedia: Lenin created the Vanguard Party to institute the revolution towards communist Russia, and took this "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the incorrect sense to mean that this Vanguard Party would rule as a dictatorship in the classical Roman sense most are familiar with. I don't see anything that Marx wrote that said he was against democracy in the ruling of a socialist/communist society. I think this misuse of the "dictatorship" term was in large part simply a ploy by socialist leaders like Castro, Lenin etc. to maintain their own power than institute honest Marxism. It would be interesting to see how communism in the 20th century would have worked out had it been a democratic rather than dictatorial political system. I'd also argue that Marx' analysis of history may indeed be proven correct one day. The Occupy and Arab Spring protest movements have shown what happens when the middle/lower classes become disillusioned with capitalist exploitation & inequality, and there could be more of these "anti-bourgeoisie" movements by the proletariat in the coming decades if economic inequality continues to grow significantly as it has over the past 30 years. Marx' flaw in his historical analysis is that underestimated the perseverance of capitalism and the ability of the "bourgeoisie" to placate the "proletariat", or the susceptibility of the "proletariat" to be placated. So maybe it will take communism another 100-200 years to overthrow capitalism, or maybe we'll just end up with more social democracies with large income redistribution and welfare state programs along the lines of the Scandinavian countries...or maybe that type of system is just one step towards the eventual evolution of a communist-like society?

I just finally finished watching all of the 1st debate. In the first part of the debate, about the economy, Romney definitely whooped Obama. Obama was always on the defensive, and looking lost while he was stuck looking down at his notes. But for the rest of the debate, on healthcare, education, social security etc., I saw it about dead even with Obama maybe even taking it by a hair. After the economy debate, which was very heated, the debate seemed to relax a lot an Obama looked like his old self and there really wasn't the heated exchanges and zingers like when they debated the economy. The first 30 minutes were not good for Obama at all but I don't see this as a major catastrophy as everyone else did...maybe most people tuned out after the first 30-45 minutes? I suspect this is always the case for the public when watching a 90 minute debate so the 1st 30 minutes are the most vital and impactful on voters who flip to watch something else when it gets boring at the 30-45min mark.

Ethics is a part of governance. Harper gets a passing grade overall for governance but is still an ass.

Prove it. Statistics and data please.

I agree totally, but I disagree that people would buy products made of ground up babies. Your first sentence was right, and consumers buy products today made from not far from the moral equivalent to ground up babies and yet they don't really know it. If western consumers truly did understand and confront the morality of the products they buy most would be compelled to radically alter their spending habits.

My morals? I said amoral, not immoral. Profit is amoral because it doesn't really care about consumers other than as a means of accumulating profit. Businesses treat customers the way they do because it will maximize profits. If one business treated consumers a unique way which gave it a profit advantage, other businesses in the same field would follow suit simply in order to survive. Profit and capitalism is not moral, nor immoral, but amoral. It doesn't care. Consumers may care, and owners may care, but if that care doesn't turn a profit at a competitive rate then it will cease to exist in a competitive market.

I thought we spend about 8% on our military. where did you get the 3% number? US also spends 2.5% of GDP on its military, less than the UK. Canada is at 1.4%. edit: US actually spends 4.7% of its gdp on its military (misread my own link! lol)

Maybe there's good reason for ITAR regulations to exist though? What is the security/safety risk of not regulating international defense contracts/trade as they do?

I agree the consumer regulates business more than government. But consumers often care about their own ends (cheap prices, the goods they want) over worker safety/right, environmental concerns etc. (if they even know about them with any company). Profit means the mutual benefit of business and consumer is occurring, so capitalism is concerned primarily with profit.

That's Keynesian economics, where governments are supposed to run deficits during the bad times and pay it back with surplus during the good times. The problem obviously is that governments don't often pay it back, or not enough if they do, during the good times. And sometimes governments like Reagan and Trudeau run big deficits even during the good times. We're still in a recession, so I wouldn't start making massive cuts now, but they should in a few years if when/if the economy gets a bit better. Make cuts and raise taxes, those are the only 2 options. And I agree with defense subsidies, and oil, big agri etc.