Moonlight Graham

What Would Jesus Do?

LOL really? You do realize that Jesus was executed via capital punishment by the Romans, right? He did not resist, and died to show us how wrong it was.

Mayer does nail it perfectly. I've been saying the same thing about OBL and Obama, and Christian leaders and their foreign policies. Stephen Harper, Obama, Bush, whomever, they are shitty Christians Christ's main message was about loving thy neighbour, forgiveness, and non-violence. Quite hypocritical that Bush and Obama, the holy Christians they are, torture and execute people, when jesus himself was tortured and executed without resistance to "die for our sins". Looks like we're still sinning. I'm not making a judgment call on the OBL raid, i'm saying if you're a Christian and for torture/gitmo and murdering your enemy, you ain't a good Christian.

Do you realize that virtually all military bases and US military presence (minus war zones) in other countries are there because those host countries choose to have them there? If any country, Japan, Taiwan, Germany etc. didn't want US forces/bases there, the US would be forced to remove them, as they did when the Philippines said "take a hike" and the US removed their stationed forces. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. US gets to dominate more control of the world, the host country gets security. Japan thinks themselves a peaceful, non-nuclear nation, but if the US didn't have her nuclear subs in the area Japan would have to develop their own nukes because of the security threat from China, N.Korea etc. The whole "US imperialism via military bases" stuff is full of a lot of B.S. If you choose to have a those bases there, that's not really imperialism.

The war in Iraq was about many factors. Access to oil was certainly one of them, as were the 2 things you mentioned. I'd add long-held neocon US security concern over the Hussein regime, the military-industrial complex, pressure from the US "Jewish lobby" and Israeli govt, etc.

You are so full of it with your "amoral" nonsense. A person can analyze a situation objectively, but you aren't. When you take a supporting or nonsupporting position on a policy you're judging it as "right" or "wrong", and that's the very definition of "morality". Your sense of morality is based on self-interest.

Peace? I wouldn't call that peace. Sure they never directly went at each other, they just ripped up the third world instead. Both sides also came an eyelash away from nuking half the earth if you remember.

I know you're an tech guy, and this is true, but it's also ridiculous. You can fund other types of projects that will advance technology that don't involve starting an arms race. Let's go to live on Mars. Great for companies selling tech...including arms dealers. Again, there's better projects to make money on. There is value in this. But it may also be the cause of a great loss of life by creating a security spiral. I'm not saying there are no positives to such a project, i'm arguing the negatives outweigh them.

The problem is that it ups the ante. It actually creates insecurity because other countries feel threatened that they are at a military disadvantage because of the shield, so they they aim to produce their own. It can lead to an arms race and solve little in the process except waste money and cause international tension.

It seems the senate is clearly already elected, though indirectly. Canadian voters virtually always determine the party that will form the government (unless it's a coalition). This government chooses senators mostly from their party, or at least will vote in the views. At the polls, a vote for your Liberal or CPC MP etc. is a vote for a Liberal or Conservative senator when the spot comes up. The senate doesn't provide much of a check on the power of the PM/government if they are being stacked with members of the same party.

When you drop bombs, you have to replace them. This is the case here. On the plus side, this is fantastic for business for the US defense industry! Hurray for the war economy!

You're right, those things are definitely a component more of Naziism, not exclusive to fascism. Fascism concerns itself with nationalism, and in Nazi Germany's case German or "Aryian" nationalism took on a racist component.

Agreed, i made a thread about it.

"Stephen Harper is trying to control the media again, he's such a Fascist!" Above is a common type of thing you'd hear on on these forums and elsewhere. It's also a horrible comparison done simply for shock, because of course if you're a fascist you're basically as evil as Hitler, right? I'm quite tired of the many, many people who drop the "Fascist" label on any person/group/organization that shows any kind of controlling tendencies. These people obviously have no clue what Fascism actually means. Wrong. As MiddleClassCentrist aptly pointed out in another thread, the above describes totalitarianism, not Fascism. The above quote is equally applicable to Communist totalitarian dictators such as Stalin or Mao. "Stephen Harper is a fascist!". Really? Is he hyper-nationalist? Is he big into policies of eugenics/racism, and social-Darwinism? Does he want a corporatist economic system in Canada? Because that, along with one-party totalitarian control (just like Communism), is what fascism is about.

Even if i knew i wouldn't tell you. I'd write a best-selling book about it and you'd have to pay to find out. I'd make a fortune, just like God. (yes, God is getting royalty cheques from Bible sales, he's the master capitalist).

Ya Pearson really did a number on us. Others mostly certainly contributed, but Trudeau started the giant toilet flush.

Do you have a source? I tried looking on wikipedia but the two numbers they give for Canada (IMF vs CIA Factbook/Eurostat) are wildly different. I looked up public debt as % of GDP.

Canada's economy is strong compared to others right now, but we are still up to our eyeballs in debt ourselves. Thanks Trudeau!

Wow that's incredible.

From article: That number seems somewhat unbelievable to me.

If so, then how did he come to be? Did somebody create him? Did he just poof out of thin air? Did he create himself? How does such a powerful & complex being just "exist" without being created by something? Even if there is or isn't a God, doesn't it all have to a beginning point? One day we will build a spaceship that will be able to travel to the edge of the universe, puncture this edge, and go into the other side and maybe find out. Maybe we'd find another universe on the other side. Who knows.

Or the shroud of darkness from "The Neverending Story"?

Friggin loved Bioware's Star Wars KOTOR games. Was excited for Mass Effect 1 and bought when it came out, but it just didn't hook me and all the tons of backstory and dialogue seemed boring compared to Star Wars. Rented Mass Effect 2, the beginning is amazing & is so movie-like in the gameplay, seemed much-improved over #1. May buy #2 one day & finish it. For some reason in both games Shepard's voice bugs me. He delivers the dialogue a bit robotic & emotionless compared to the other amazing voice-actors.

Photos? Bring 'em on!

New rule proposal: one must only need to confess to the 'sin' of masturbation if your priest has not himself masturbated at any point in the last 2 weeks (as determined by a lie detector test).