Moonlight Graham

People who don't have kids do so for many different reasons. Doesn't make them more selfish than those who do have kids (who do so also for selfish reasons).

I never said that. I'm saying that since we're utilizing their labour we should treat them a little better. Rubbish. In terms of GDP-per-capita (PPP adjusted), China is still a significantly poor country. Their standard of living is much lower in large part because most of them are quite poor. The average manufacturing worker in China makes about 50 cents an hour, any way you slice it that's peanuts. What "vibrant middle class" are you talking about? These jobs may be better than the alternative, but that's not saying much. And in no way did I say I wish to punish or stop doing business with these people. BTW, by definition is it exploitation:

Teachers wear many hats, but they should be paid less because there are so many teachers out there. If the job market is any indication, new teachers shouldn't be making anywhere near 50k a year.

Romney's statements are so obviously absurd that I'm not even sure this topic is necessary since there isn't much to discuss about it. The man has his head up his rump.

I'm not criticizing how you labelled your topic, because that's what politicians (and he media) have labelled it. I'm just commenting on the term in general.

Yes, plus lower labour rights, lower benefits, lower environmental standards, lower worker safety standards etc. It's true when you say that much of the time these jobs we're giving them are better than they may have had otherwise, but that doesn't mean it's still ethical to exploit as severely as possible for our selfish benefit. Consumers can demand that western businesses force factory owners in China & elsewhere to provide a minimum standard of treatment for their workers as a condition for using their labour. Overseas factories will respond under such demands no doubt. Maybe it will add a bit of extra cost to our products, but if paying $10-20 extra for a laptop will mean these workers are afforded some more reasonable working standards that are at least somewhat humane then I'm willing to pay for that.

Mitt has ran a pretty poor campaign with blunders abound. At least he's avoided a Palin-like disaster, but has had a lot of other gaffes to help almost make up for it. I think it's becoming more and more clear that it's hard for a Republican candidate to simultaneously pander to both the freaks on the far-right of GOP base and independent/swing voters who are actually sane.

I disagree. Just degrees of "savage" and "civilized", and great differences between savage and civilized people within different countries. Would you call pastor Terry Jones "civilized"? Or racist misogynist homophobes in western countries?

Western businesses exploit factory workers in developing countries for their cheap labour. They can have poor safety conditions, work long hours, have abusive management etc. It makes little sense to boycott countries, but as a consumer why support a business that is exploiting workers in horrible ways? We have a standard of worker rights we deem humane in our society so why not treat people in other countries as close to that as we can? Developing countries won't always be able to match these standards but consumers can demand western corporations to support the pursuit.

No they certainly shouldn't.

Canada's dollar still hovers around par, so if Canadian businesses didn't want to lose business to cross-border shoppers they should reduce their prices accordingly. When will Canadian consumers start reaping the real benefits of our strong dollar instead of just businesses? :angry:

You can't win the "war on terror". Terrorism is a technique, a method. Terrorism existed before 9/11 and will exist decades and centuries from now. Therefore, terrorism can't be defeated, only contained and prevented. The problem with the label "the war on terror" is that since terror can't be eliminated entirely it perpetuates warfare indefinitely. If Canada is committed to the "war on terror", we will then at a state of war indefinitely with no clear victory parameters. This gives the government something to legitimate continuous operations abroad and implementing different security measures domestically. Sounds like b.s. to me. Instead, we should be measuring our attempts to contain and prevent terrorism. Some successes against old enemies. But if recent events are any indications, there's likely still a ton of people in the middle east who'd like to take out a few more planes and buildings and embassies, and I'd wager post-911 western military operations across the middle east have fed this sentiment and created new enemies.

Wasn't responding to your article, was responding to the OP. On another note, anyone who participated in violence in response/protest to the film is a fool, and believes in a foolish ideology of whatever variant of Islam they think they adhere to.

More evidence that you take your life into your own hands when you become a foreign diplomat for the US stationed in a Muslim-dominated country.

Why are we still arguing with Betsy? I mean, in general?

It was just so honest and scathing and bang-on. It wasn't political fluff, you could tell she honestly meant every word of it. She ripped into the GOP hard, lots of good zingers in there. Obama campaign is very smart trying to get the woman vote, they should get Fluke on the campaign trail.

Sandra Fluke = one of the best speeches I've ever seen, period.

Obama has faults, no doubt. The economy didn't crumble under him, but it didn't thrive either. Debt continues to be a major problem. He let the Wall Street d-bags who helped cause this mess off the hook pretty easy. He could have tried harder to close Gitmo, though he did give a legit effort...at least at first. He's also a shill and a sellout to big money and all the lobbyists who REALLY control Washington (though that goes for every single President in modern history) and has done little to roll back the US plutocracy. That said, if you compare him to other US Presidents (ie: since WWII), Obama is a good president. Not great, and not horrible. He's done a decent job given the mess inherited: - Took virtually all troops out of Iraq, is on the path to winding down Afghanistan quietly without any kind of disaster, presided over killing of OBL, thus far has avoided war with Iran, continued Bush streak of no homeland terror attacks since 9/11, finally got at least some kind of "universal" healthcare law done, doesn't rape the 99% in favour of the 1%, supports gay marriage & not constitutional amendments to federally ban it, isn't an insane bible-thumper, repealed don't ask don't tell Foreign policy-wise, Obama has been a success IMO. In terms of domestic social policy, had done fairly well IMO (unless you disagree with gay marriage). Economically he's been mediocre, a slow recovery + continued debt problems. Mitt Romney could improve the economic recovery of the US because of his credentials, but his integrity is very weak as he's letting his radical party reshape his policies so he can gain their political support. Mitt also scares the hell out of me in terms of foreign policy & social conservatism. A shame, a moderate Romney who would govern like he did as governor while ignoring the nutjobs in his party & kept a sensible foreign policy could be a decent president.

What's so funny? As I said, if i'm wrong in my assumptions, prove it with science.

"Wash the stuff off"? You spray pesticides on a plant during its life, I'm thinking it's very likely its not just going to stay on the surface of the skin for most fruits/veggies. You spray/rub a chemical on your skin (ie: sunscreen), it will be absorbed into the skin and into your body. I'd assume similar with many plants, where the pesticide will absorb into the fruit/veggie and you will ingest it. I'm also assuming logically that pesticides will also get into the soil and be absorbed by the plant roots. If I'm wrong then correct me dear science. Some organic foods can be misleading and not as "organic" as one thinks. But wanting organic food isn't snobbery. Not wanting chemicals on/in your food is not snobbery, nor is not wanting entrails and fecal matter & antibiotics fed to the animals you eat. Also, I don't trust food safety regulations, these agri-business super corps. have their bank accounts stroking political offices all the way up the ladder so who knows what's given a blind eye. Faith in safety regs also assumes science is perfectly knowledgeably & knows exactly what won't harm us. If most people knew exactly what happened to get their supermarket food to their dinner tables they wouldn't eat any of it. Tens of thousands of years of human evolution didn't include all this crap in our food, so how can this be good for us?

I'm fairly certain I've commented in your Bible thread before, long ago.

The thing is, with Augustine as with any human being, it's all just guesswork. It's a theory, which, in the end, is a wild guess on what the will of God is. I find Augustine's opinions very interesting, and a bunch make sense (others not, like "just war"), but I think for ANYONE to claim they think they know the will of God is incredibly foolish and arrogant. People take different things in their life as "meanings" from God. "Oh wow, I almost got hit by a bus, but I had to tie my shoelace before crossing the street...this must be God's will that saved me because I'm meant to live!". And how would anyone know this? It could be, and likely is, just luck. Or heck maybe it is God's will...the point is it's impossible to know. Like Socrates, we should be so humble to know that we know so very little or nothing, and thinking this way is what makes us wise ("Socratic wisdom"). Christianity seems like a pretty simple thing: it's about love. It doesn't matters whether Jesus was even the true divine son of God or just some guy, the message is still the same: Spread love everywhere to everyone, be accepting, do not judge, fill your whole heart & being & actions with love & let it loose on the world. Does anything beyond that even matter?

I've read his "On Christian Doctrine". What does that the above book say about evidence?

Why don't you answer my challenge first. Between the name-calling, mine is a very legitimate argument, and one that if Christian literalists begin to face with honest critical thought will cause their whole belief-system to come crashing down before them. Sometimes name-calling is in poor taste. And sometimes it's just the darn truth. I don't have a problem with spirituality, and I don't have a problem with believing in a higher power (call it God or mother nature or whatever one wishes), but I have a huge problem with a group of people denying the rights of others based on what some human wrote in a book a couple thousand years ago. The Bible is as much the Word of God as is anything written by Socrates/Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Marx, or any other philosophical text.

Of course it is! The ones who come out with this argument are often politicians who are making the tax cuts to the rich, so they have to sell it to the majority public (who are middle/lower class) somehow. "Tickle-down" economics is bullcrap, but it's still advertised by some as if it's a valid theory. Since Reagan went into power in the US, and he tried selling the "trickle-down" concept to the public amid tax cuts for the wealthy and general economic liberalization, after-tax income (adjusted for inflation) has gone up exponentially for the wealthy, ie: the top 1%. In this same period the average after-tax income for the other 99% has barely seen any increase: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/05/lindsay-tracking-the-one-percent/ So where is this "trickle-down" effect? The world is still waiting 30 years later...because wealth doesn't trickle down, it trickles up. Rising profits don't go to workers, they go to the owners. If Walmart has a fantastic year in profits the workers in the stores aren't going to see raises, nope that money is going back to the shareholders. "A rising tide lifts all boats"...what another crock. Sorry, economics isn't analogous to oceanography lol.