Wild Bill

An international court would be an iffy situation at best. First of all, there is no world government. The UN does not trump a nation's sovereignty. They could not send in UN policemen to grab Harper and haul him off to the Hague for trial. Look what a long and complicated process it took to get true war criminals like Milosevic of Serbia to a UN court. The issue with Harper holding back some documents is nowhere in that kind of league. Besides that, why would the UN CARE that Harper is withholding those documents? It is a purely internal affair for Canada. The world has its own problems. It just would never happen! If by some wild chance something like it ever DID happen, there's a good chance that any political party that might become the government would be distrustful of the UN meddling in our sovereignty to the point where Canada's support for military roles like in Afghanistan or food aid might get re-thought. The UN has relatively few countries that actually give and contribute instead of just sandbag or take. They need Canada too much to threaten the relationship.

Well, I tried all sorts of sales and distribution jobs, just for products other than electronics, like electrical, mechanical and even general retail. Tried Home Depots and even WalMart. Went to a job fair for a local grocery chain. All were a no dice scenario. I did learn to thin out my resume. Some interviewers told me straight out that I was over-qualified, implying that they thought I would leave them if a job in my old industry came up. I even tried back at a firm where I was a construction inspector in my youth. Unfortunately, in Hamilton and the surrounding area there is little construction going on. At my age and with a few minor medical problems typical for my age there was no chance of any physical labour jobs. As I said, I did find a couple but with the general downsizing slowly continuing after a year or two there would be a layoff and I was the "new kid". I admit I never did try a call centre. The reason is that my children would have to be in danger of starvation before I would ever become involved in telephone soliciting! I have always found getting such calls to be an obnoxious invasion of my privacy and I welcomed the "no call" list. I have a firm policy that I refuse to buy any product or service or make any donations to charity as a result of an unwanted telephone call. Frankly, I find the very concept to be unethical. That's why I eventually gave up and built my own job! I am from the last generation of "techies" comfortable with vacuum tube electronics. I had built my first tube radio when I was about 11 years old and all through my career of selling modern parts to modern manufacturers my hobby was building ham radio equipment and repairing/building guitar amplifiers for myself and friends. Guitarists have never embraced transistors and solid state amplifiers. The reason is that solid state is fine if you have already created your sound. There is very little distortion. However, modern guitar is SUPPOSED to be distorted! Transistors distort in a very unpleasant manner, like someone shredded your speaker. It's very difficult to sound like Pat Travers or Eddie Van Halen with a solid state amp. So vacuum tubes still rule in that market! There's also a large group world wide of hifi audiophiles who also prefer vacuum tubes. There are nearly a BILLION dollars worth of vacuum tubes still made and sold every year world wide, just only those types used in audio circuits! It's a great niche 'cuz schools haven't taught about vacuum tubes since 1962! Modern graduates are lucky to have been taught any audio stuff at all, what with the mainstream demand all in digital control and computer circuitry. So most towns have few if any good techs. I get much more than just local jobs. I get amplifiers shipped to me from as far away as Regina and the Maritimes. I work from home, having expanded my hobby workshop. So my overhead is practically nothing. The market is very much based on "word of mouth" and personal reputation. So far that's worked well. My customers have been very good to me and I appreciate them. A government type was pushing me to take on an assistant, to provide someone else with a job. Unfortunately, I really can't 'cuz I can't find anyone who knows anything already! I would have to slow down to half speed to teach and train him or her for at least a year or two before they would make me any money. At that point they could also strike out on their own and I would have bred my own competitor! So I chug along on my own. The money isn't nearly what I was used to but it slowly keeps getting better and I do get a lot of free beer! Musicians can be a colourful and eclectic bunch. About half of them bring treats for my dog when they bring their equipment in to me! I was fortunate that my background allowed me to do this. If I had worked at one of the local factories all my life it would have been another story. There are a LOT of unemployed steelworkers in this town and the competition for any job is pretty fierce! There are lots of makework programs so that they can extend their unemployment benefits but they are really just window dressing for the older worker. I know factory guys that are my age taking retraining to work with computers. Everyone involved knows the chances of them landing a job after the course is about zero but at least it means a few more months of EI. Retraining courses are just political theatre unless there is actually a demand for jobs in those fields! If the demand was truly there not just younger folks but older guys would have no trouble finding a job. God bless rock and roll! It's been good to me!

Perhaps you should cut them some slack on this one, Mr. P. After all, the Liberals have a great deal of experience with food, given their long standing relationships with Montreal restaurants...

Well, adding a gay character in itself is no big deal. And not being a Christian the rest "don't confront me none!" as the old bluesmen used to say. However, if it means they start promoting show tunes or ABBA songs then I'll have to tell my kids that Archie Comics will be banned from the house!

I would agree with wyly, Michael. I'm 57 and my career was in distributing electronic parts. I got in in 1977 when microcomputer chips were first invented and rode the high tech wave until 9/1/1, when it all collapsed. You may recall how back then Northern Telecom's stock had dropped from $200 a share to less than a buck! Nortel had been buying over a third of all electronic parts like ICs, transistors, capacitors and the like. When that was suddenly removed from the market we had companies that had been around for years dropping like flies into bankruptcy. Thousands of us were out on the street. The jobs have never come back. They went to China and Ireland. Meanwhile, I sent out hundreds of resumes and knocked on all sorts of doors. Mind you, unemployment is always high in Hamilton, Ontario as the factories keep closing down and pulling out. I managed a few joe jobs but even then when layoffs came the last guy in was the first to be cut. It's different if you are applying within your own field. Your age can be an asset as it is an indicator of experience. However, when your field is gone and you are trying for a position with something else as soon as they realize your age its over! There seems to be an attitude that they would rather have a younger worker to get more years out of him or her. I found this amusing, since history shows that after a few years that youngster would likely either be laid off or have moved on to a better job anyway! Just how many of us older folks do you think call centres could hire, Michael? Besides, I thought all the call centre jobs were in India.

I guess your right! I had forgotten that Milliken is a Liberal. Well, I would never cry about busting the PMO's chops. I've been watching this unholy gathering of supreme power into the PMO since before Mulroney's term. It was at its worst of course under Chretien but Harper seems to have used ole Jean as his role model, at least for issues like this. Can you imagine a day when not only is Parliament supreme but MP's almost always have free votes? When they could and would vote as their riding constituents wished and not as the PMO told them? Excuse me. I started thinking of John Lennon but then that led to an image of Yoko and I need some eyewash...

Technically true, but the Speaker was an MP and a member of a party before he became Speaker and presumably will be one once again. He may win a battle with the PM but at the cost of never having another political job once he steps down as Speaker.

I disagree, TB. You're right if you read the present legal situation literally but in the real world I don't have any confidence that's the way things would work. When Harper's gay marriage Bill was being debated we heard talking head after talking head in the MSM telling us it would NOT mean that any priest or minister would be FORCED to marry a gay couple against his or her own personal values! Scarcely had gay marriage become legal when one gay couple DID take issue against being refused a wedding at their local church of choice! I haven't heard how it worked out but the minister involved was liable to be brought before a Human Rights Commission. This sort of social engineering works by "gradualism". Lobbyists will say or do anything to get their next step passed into law. Once that is achieved, all the former rhetoric seems to get forgotten. To be fair, in this case gays are all individuals and cannot be expected to act as some sort of group or organization. Once set of individuals may get gay marriage passed. Another gay couple with no connection to the first may want a church wedding and is perfectly willing to bring a priest who will not comply up on charges. When such a thing happens, the media doesn't remind everyone that the promise was made to never put a religious figure in such a position. That doesn't sell papers and besides, it makes the gays look like the bad guys. That's not politically correct. Instead, the issue becomes one of that church's stand on gay marriage being simply homophobic and should not be allowed! That's just human nature! It's also human nature to move too fast towards such goals. Look what just happened with McGuinty backtracking on his new sex-ed curricula for Ontario schools. If you read into it you immediately see that it was the product of some gay and lesbian activists. That in itself is not necessarily a problem but they tried to use their political power to achieve to much at once and provoked a backlash among mainstream parents and Ontarioans. If they had have taken smaller steps at a slower pace they may well have eventually achieved their goals. Now they have done it to themselves, putting themselves back at least 5-10 years. Laws are one thing. Human nature is quite another.

At last! A thread full of logic and reason! I think you've nailed the most important point of the entire thread, TB. We do have a social and biological contradiction. Somehow, over just a few generations, we have extended the concept of childhood or at least adolescence to a far higher age than ever before. There was a time when by 16 a child was considered full grown. Not necessarily experienced but capable of making their own way in the world and would learn from their mistakes and successes. 18 year olds flew Spitfires, becoming Squadron Leaders. Women of the same age drove ambulances through battlefields in war torn Europe, or ferried airplanes across the Atlantic into Britain. Now we expect them to stay in school. Usually this means they are in almost their mid 20's before they achieve their desired degrees, or older. The cost of this education is such that they likely have no choice but to live at home. If their schooling takes them away from the family home they live there during school breaks while trying to find a summer job. We no longer consider them adults! The lack of life experience is considered the same as immaturity. However, we are fooling ourselves. They ARE adults, both biologically and socially! If they are still socially immature that is a fault of how we regard them, not of their capability to learn. We have built an "assembly line" structure to achieving adulthood that does not correspond with reality. No wonder we seem to be at a loss as to how to handle the problems generated by having a flawed structure in the first place! It is probably hardest for young women. They are under strong hormonal drives to reproduce. They are often discouraged by "social zealots" from using birth control as it might lead to actually HAVING sex! Too often, they end up having sex anyway. Meanwhile, they can't marry at the traditional age of 16-18. They need higher education not just to support themselves if they make that life choice but to contribute to a family income if later on they do marry! Fooling with Mother Nature always has consequences...

Well, how about Peter Worthington? A journalist AND a genuine, decorated war hero!

If someone wants to be a scientist but he can't handle maths then he becomes a "social scientist". Opinions don't carry you that far with physics.

What's your definition of a homophobe? Judging by what I've read from you, it would seem to be anyone who disagrees with anything demanded by any gay lobby group, anywhere and for any reason. Anyone who supports 9 gay issues but who balks at a 10th would still be labeled a homophobe! Or have I misunderstood your position?

Just because a drug is illegal does not mean its harmful, or at least no more harmful than alcohol or some other intoxicant. The state can make anything illegal for good or bad reasons. It has the power but all too often it is either ignorant or corrupt. Government intelligence is an oxymoron. As I said before, government produced movies like "Reefer Madness" are sadly typical. Show me a citizen who blindly accepts the necessity for ALL laws and I'll show you a politician's delight! Nobody should grant their government carte blanche approval. They should examine everything for themselves. Government has proved too many times that it can be incompetent. So if it declares a drug illegal in the name of "protecting us" and has nothing but inane reasoning to back it up then a citizen has every right to ignore the law! Mind you, it's only prudent to respect the power of their government. Smoking pot in front of a cop is not a smart idea. The state has the power to punish. It's just that the state can often be a bully with its power. In those cases it has no right to a citizen's respect or voluntary compliance. A government has a right to absolute compliance only if it is absolutely right! An imperfect government deserves only imperfect compliance. In the final analysis, we are all responsible for our OWN decisions!

And if they can't get illegal drugs they will become alcoholics. An addict always needs SOMETHING!

We have to consider every premise on its own merits! Just because someone appears to have character flaws doesn't have anything to do with the fact that once in a while his premise might have some validity. Do you really believe that a prejudiced or bigoted person can never be right in ANY area with ANY premise? Even a broken clock is right twice a day! Although I will grant you that some folks are so far out there or are such simple trolls that they aren't worth the effort. Still, that's a reason to ignore them, not attack them. Attacking them for their character is simple ad hominem and is totally irrelevant to the truth of their premises.

And our present approach is working? I say again, to attack the problem at the supply end is an exercise in futility. Guns keep pouring in and criminals have no problem obtaining them. Only law-abiding citizens comply with gun registries. What is the source of what seems to be a total aversion to penalizing criminals for the illegal use of firearms? The Liberals were ready to give a gun owner more time for not complying with the gun registry than for using one in a commission of a crime! If capital punishment is considered too severe I can understand someone making the argument, even if I don't happen to agree. What I can't understand is how we seem to have little or no penalties for illegal firearm use at all! If harsher punishments have no effect on reducing crime then why have punishments at all? Why was the "broken window" approach so successful in New York at cleaning up the city that was so far down the road to lawlessness that it had become a cliche plot in movies? Again, there seemed to be no trouble with harsher punishments for not registering a firearm! The difference in approach between the real world and what we do in practice seems considerable. Our yardstick should be "whatever actually works!" From my perspective, if a system doesn't actually make myself and my family safer IN REALITY then it is just so much political BS! We are already at a point where it seems much petty crime like home burglaries is not reported. It only drives up your home insurance premiums (sometimes to the point where you can't get insurance!) and rarely results in actually catching the burglars. What is the inevitable end to such a trend? We're also at the point where if a woman is assaulted walking home late at night on a dark street we blame HER for using the street instead of trying to be better at making the streets safe! Trying to solve the problems by controlling the supply of guns is about as practical as trying to control the supply of drugs. How well has that worked out? Any bonehead can support or pass a law. It takes true intelligence to come up with a system that actually works! So far, brains seem to be lacking.

"...anecdotal evidence is pretty much useless" Not always, TB. I'll agree that most of the time it is, because it tends to come from people who don't seem to be the most scientific in their methods. Still, there's something to be said for experience. Someone has a direct experience with a teacher promoting his own views on politics to the children in his class. He then brings it up to the school principal. The principal often dismisses the report as "anecdotal", because it comes from one and only one person. Several parents can complain and ALL of them can be dismissed in the same manner! At what point does the number of anecdotal reports begin to command some credibility? The problem is that it's not really a numbers game at all if you want to truly prove something by the scientific method. One report from a parent can be biased by the parent's own views. The parent may have misinterpreted what the teacher had said. Several parental reports would tend to give some validity but they could ALL be products of misinterpretation. Perhaps all the parents came from the same evangelical church. However, what we witness for ourselves we believe to be true. That parent has his or her own opinion of their child's credibility in reporting what their teacher may have done or said. That opinion may be higher than that of a principal who has a vested interest in dismissing the complaint. Yes, the report may be anecdotal but to the parent the idea is infuriating! If the parent has any sense of responsibility at all, he cannot and should not accept his complaint as being merely anecdotal. It's his child and he is primarily responsible for their moral and ethical development. Teachers and principals come a distant second. How can you protect against parental over-reactions? I don't really know, TB. How can you protect against teachers that won't "man up" and admit they were out of line? Sometimes you have a "preponderance of evidence", as with all the zillions of reports of UFOs. Obviously, the vast majority are anecdotal but does the sheer number mean that a few must be valid? My head says no but my gut says differently. Likely you saw the movie "Contact" and appreciate how Jodie Foster's character was placed in the situation of having her direct experience questioned when she appeared to have no proof. Like you, I tend to be more skeptical and "scientific" in my thinking. I just feel a bit uncomfortable with the word "anecdotal" being used too easily and often as an alibi or an excuse.

We always seem to go at such problems from the wrong end. To stop the illegal use of guns, we try to control all the guns that are in the country! This is just ridiculous! It's like trying to bail with a sieve. Obviously, no one wants to really control the problem. They just want the political brownie points for APPEARING to handle the problem! If killing someone with a gun meant an automatic death sentence, or using a gun in the commission of a crime meant a mandatory life sentence with no possibility of ever getting out or paroled then the number of such crimes would drop off very quickly. Certainly, there would be no repeat offenders! However, when that's not the real goal we shouldn't hold our breath...

There is nothing so popular as telling your neighbour what to do. Except maybe forcing him to pay for one of YOUR pet ideas! It's just human nature, sadly.

Why? I should think it obvious, Topaz. They don't BELIEVE that it's harmful! Especially young folks. When you're young you think you're superman and can handle anything. To make it worse, marijuana ISN'T HARMFUL! At least, no more than alcohol and probably less. This is obvious to almost any young person who has ever tried it. Back in the 60's this seriously hurt the credibility of the "authorities". Movies like "Reefer Madness" were produced by adults to warn kids away from the evil weed. Unfortunately, those movies were so ridiculously over the top in their claims that college kids used to organize film showings as comedy nights! Most folks that indulge in the odd snort of cocaine don't become slobbering addicts either. The anti-drug movement has always tried to lump all illegal drugs into the same pot. The consequence has been that often young folks don't believe them about ANY drugs! Or at least, they think that even dangerous harder drugs like morphine or heroin are not as bad as the claims. Youth has always been about rebellion. The anti-drug groups made themselves easy targets, by telling young folks to "Do as I say and believe me even though I'm full of it!" with drugs like marijuana. The sad truth is that it doesn't really matter what drugs are legal or illegal. It's impossible to enforce Prohibition. You would need a police state that would make the old USSR look like a hippie commune. You would need a cop beside every single person in the country! What's more, the drug laws don't really change the number of addicts. There is always a certain small percentage of people that have a personality that leads them to be addicted to SOMETHING! If it's not heroin it will be cocaine. If they can't get cocaine they will become alcoholics. Whatever you take away from them, they will find SOMETHING! Meanwhile, everybody else is what's called a "recreational user". They can smoke pot or not, have a drink or not bother, snort a line of coke or just pass. They understand the dangers of harder drugs that cause physical addiction and feel no need to give them a try. The idea that "If you take that toke you'll be hooked for life!" has been laughed at since "Reefer Madness", and rightly so. It's human nature that if you want people to grant you credibility you have to mostly make sense. The anti-drug laws have never even come close. They just make logical people lose respect for them, to the point where they sometimes don't believe even the truth about some harder drugs! People won't believe you just because you say so, Topaz. Me, I hardly do anything anymore. Years ago, my drug of choice became expensive Scotch. When it costs a lot of money, it's not surprising you do a lot less!

Well, I might have to grant you that one. It was certainly outrageous! Still, it had more to do with forensic accountants than blond bombshells. After all, we EXPECT politicians to rob us! Other countries have characters like "Cicciolina" in Italy: http://www.indopedia.org/Chicholina.html "lona Staller, better known by her stage name Cicciolina, is a politician active in Italy's libertarian Partito Radicale and former porn star. She was born November 26, 1951 in Budapest. Her stepfather was an official in the Ministry of the Interior, her mother a midwife. She began working for a Hungarian modelling agency at the age of thirteen. She first achieved fame in Italy in the early 1970s with a radio show called "Radio Luna." For that program she adopted the name "Cicciolina". In 1978, on the television show "C'era due Volte" her breasts were the first to be seen bared on Italian TV. In 1979 she was elected the leading candidate of the "Lista del Sole", Italy's first Green Party. In 1985 she switched to the Partito Radicale, campaigning against nuclear energy and NATO membership, for human rights, and against starvation anywhere in the world. She was elected to the Italian parliament in 1987, representing the Lazio district of Rome. She starred in her last porno film in 1989." Where are Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale when you need them? Still chasing Moose and Squirrel?

A boring bunch of ad hominems dressed up with $10 words is still just as boring. All sizzle, no steak. I'm going back to sleep. Sorry if I woke you up. It was obvious you were still sleepy...

Left her for "Keef", did he?

Give it a rest! Could you possibly come up with any more biased sources? Police chiefs are political animals. At least, they are if they want to get and keep their jobs. However, they don't have to give a damn if the gun registry is cost-effective. From their POV, if it is even a fraction better than nothing it is to their advantage to keep it. A police chief would prefer to have ten times as many laws and registries available to him, so that he can always use SOMETHING against a criminal! Anyone who might complain about civil liberties is always told "Rest assured, we would only use such a law against BAD guys! Trust us!". Julian Fantino taught us that, at Caledonia. It's obvious you're just a troll but even you can surely do better than this! You respond only with cites about police chiefs supporting a useless registry. You haven't said one word about how it actually works! Or doesn't work, to be more accurate. Someone points out that the gun registry doesn't actually keep a criminal off the street for a longer time and you trumpet back "So what? 3 out of 5 police chiefs LIKE it!" Are you feeling rundown lately? You're not even being good theatre with this one.

Oh pulleeze! Small potatoes! If you want LARGE potatoes, we might consider Maxime Bernier's girl friend, Julie Couillard, I suppose. Still, one a scale of one to ten we seem to always be about a two! A British cabinet minister might be caught with 14 year old twins in a brothel, paying for their time with defense secrets. We just made the age of majority 14 years anyway, so who would care about such twins in Canada? What's more, we don't HAVE any defense secrets! Clinton got to play with a cigar. It could never happen here. All the offices on Parliament Hill have been declared non-smoking. Any Canadian PM would of course never dream of contravening that! Maybe that's why I always loved Maggie Trudeau, despite my differences with her husband. She was perhaps the last and only "breath of fresh air" in Canadian politics. At least, I hear Mick Jagger thought so...