Wild Bill

Maybe the burka existed thousands of years ago, I dunno. Still, can you provide a single cite of burkas being seen worn by Muslim women in the last 1000 years or so, until the late 70's? The point is that it is NOT a centuries long Islamic tradition! It is just something dreamed up by male chauvinist mullahs of SOME more primitive or strict Islamic cultures. The fact that it is a great and useful tool to try to evade anti-terrorist security systems was just a bonus.

Exactly! If you think about it, special treatment as to race, creed or sexual preferences is inherently patronizing. Prejudice is wrong whether it is positive OR negative! It is simply not logical. Affirmative action is really reverse discrimination. Such approaches only end up shifting discrimination towards nontraditional targets. They attempt to redress injustice against groups in the past by screwing specific and innocent individuals today!

I can only speak from my own experience living in Hamilton, Ontario. My work used to take me all over southern Ontario and I found it no different. Basically, I never met anyone who gave a damn about someone being gay! I ran across people who objected to some of the more extreme aspects of gayness, like lewdness in pride parades or using being gay as a defense when an individual was incompetent or hard to get along with. My only beef is with someone using his or her gayness as a reason for the rest of us to have to give them special treatment. We ALL have differences and we've ALL experienced problems! What makes gays so special? Actually, I'm starting to agree with an old quote from someone who's name I can't recall: "The love that dared not speak its name is now the love that just won't shut up!"

What has intelligence got to do with it? I thought we were arguing about culture! A particular culture can stop technological development dead in its tracks! Look how much mental energy was wasted in the Middle Ages by scholars debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Things moved very slowly between the Roman conquest of Britain and the life of James Watt and his steam engine. Culture prohibited a James Watt and his ideas from thriving any earlier. If there's not enough rain some folks develop better irrigation. Others sacrifice their first born to imaginary gods. Most cultures did both, at least in their early stages. As they developed they either leaned more to better technologies or like the South Americans, stopped after developing irrigation and stayed with human sacrificing for a few thousand years. I don't see any evidence that one culture or the other had members that were inherently smarter.

Given that the burka did not appear until the 1970's, don't you think that it is a bit of a stretch to put it on the same level as your other examples of religious devotion? Should we doff our hats when we see someone wearing platform shoes? Certainly I support showing respect to a woman not wearing a bra!

For Sheila Copps to write such an article is the height of hypocrisy! It is like Mulroney criticizing lobbyists! Topaz, do you not know ANYTHING about Sheila's career?

I find your opponents' arguments rather strange, Argus. They seem to be saying that Europeans deserve no credit for the accomplishments of their culture because they were "lucky" about their geography or whatever. Meanwhile, other cultures that had stayed essentially static in their development for centuries should get a gold star for inventing things like the wheel that they never bothered to use! Very strange, indeed!

I live in Stoney Creek, Ontario where the decisive War of 1812 battle was fought. Restaurants are full of place mats showing the history, trumpeting how we beat the Americans and sent them running back home. Some of the more rational ones point out how America was deeply divided about invading Canada, especially with border states like New York. Those were frontier times and families often were on both sides of the Niagara border. A good friend when I was a boy lived in an old farm house that was actually built in those times! We had great fun exploring the dirt crawl space under the house, which didn't sit well with our mothers. We found one small room with a sliding lookout grate at ground level, which was covered on the outside by shrubs and bushes. The legend was that the house was a stopover for the Underground Railroad, where escaped slaves were hidden in that room. The story might actually have been true, I dunno. We DID find a lovely short officer's sword! It had a long brass handle with a lion carved in the end. It actually cleaned up into a gorgeous piece! Anyhow, his family still had letters written by their ancestors dating back to just before the 1812 war. We kids weren't allowed to handle them ourselves for fear of damage but my friend's father was good enough to take a few out and let us read them. I was struck by a common tone in most of the letters. The people at that time didn't seem to care about the politics! As I had said, many had family on both sides of the border and people came and went for business or visiting on a routine basis. The border seemed to be an imaginary line only important to far away seats of government. When the American troops first came into Stoney Creek few seemed to care! It was only when the good farmers and townsfolk started hearing reports of Yankee soldiers stealing livestock for food and bothering their daughters that they got their dander up and sent messengers to York (Toronto) demanding the Redcoats come down and clean them out! The tone of these letters always made more sense to me than much of what I was taught in our history books.

It depends on your goal. If the NDP wishes to win enough votes to form a government to have the power to implement its values on the country then their approach DOES need fixing! It's been a failure! If the goal is simply to forever be a small Opposition Party that at least is true to its ideology then perhaps you're right. If that's what you mean then you have to expect others to be asking "What's the point?"

New to me! Kinda attractive, though! I was describing an election of over 15 years ago. Post Rhino and pre-Work Less, I guess. The Yogic Flyers were amazing! They actually were sincere! They seemed to believe that the glow from bags of granola could save the universe! There was talk that they were going to build a huge theme park in upper New York state near Niagara Falls but nothing ever came of it. I remember on suggestion from the Rhino Party back in the 80's to tip the CN Tower over and lay it on the ground, so that the elevators could be used for rapid transit!

This time it was a Tory. Lots of times it was a Liberal. Occasionally we hear something bad about an NDP politician. What's your point? What else is new? <yawn!>

I can't make any sense out of your question! The Reform Party became the Canadian Alliance Party. They never ever ran provincially, in Alberta or any other province. The only time Reform, the Alliance, Harper, Manning or any of them ever ran against the PC's was federally. Every time they totally obliterated the PC's for votes! ESPECIALLY in Alberta! The only votes the PC's got were for a few ridings in the Maritimes. They actually didn't have enough at one point to be a legal federal party. I was a scrutineer one election here in Hamilton, Ontario. I got to be one of the group counting ballots from one polling box. The riding had been strongly Liberal so we didn't actually expect to win but we were counting on a strong showing. Our counting group consisted of me for Reform, a Liberal worker and one from the PC's. As we counted out the ballots Reform started off strong but soon it became obvious that we would be only a strong second place. Disappointing, but no real surprise. What was a surprise was the number of votes for the PC's. They got almost nothing! The Yogic Flyer candidate of the goofy Natural Law Party actually got more votes than the PC's! The PC scrutineer looked shell-shocked, as if someone had kicked him in the belly. The Liberal guy and I actually felt sorry for him!

White burkas? Interesting idea. If you changed the eye slits to simple holes you could recycle all those old KKlan uniforms and save some money...

Isn't it obvious? The burka is being used in Canada as a tool to try to slowly make Canadian culture the way the fundamentalist Islamists want it to be. In Afghanistan it's already that way so they don't have to be so strict about it!

Even if there's no outright ban there's no good reason why OUR society should universally accept it! First off, I would refuse to allow a child of mine to ride a school bus where the driver is a women wearing a burka. I don't care about her right of self-expression. It restricts her vision to peer out of an eye slit! If it happened in my community it would become an issue. I would go to jail before I would allow my child to be at risk. Second, there is the issue of anonymity. Not withstanding the voting booth, drivers licenses and such issues, I simply don't like dealing with someone hiding in a sack so that I can't see their face! It invokes feelings of mistrust. Frankly, it creeps me out! I would not patronize any store where the salesclerk wore a burka, anymore than I would frequent a store where they wore pillow cases over their heads with eye holes. If it was the law of the land that a storekeeper HAD to hire someone wearing a burka to deal with the public I would never be so bold as to officially make a scene! Rather, I very quietly would refuse to bring my money there. There are lots of other stores! It would be unfortunate for that storekeeper but hey, it wouldn't be the first time that our politicians have made politically correct laws that hurt trade. What particularly bothers me about this issue is that the burka is NOT a traditional thing! There is no record of it being worn before the 70's. As Mark Steyn pointed out, it is about as sacred and traditional as disco and platform shoes! It is simply something dreamed up and imposed by women-hating old men in a fundamentalist Islamic culture. They can do what they want in their own pond but here in Canada my culture tells me to refuse to sanction it!

I fail to see the logic behind this story. First off, there isn't one unified Taliban! You could give money to one group and be attacked by a different one. Or leadership of a group could change and the new leaders would not honour old agreements. Second, these people have never shown that they keep their word anyway! Not just with we 'infidel dogs' but amongst themselves! It simply doesn't make sense, except as a piece of artful propaganda designed to fool the naive.

"Unprecedented Ontario court ruling Ontario Judge makes unprecedented ruling -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A seven-year-old Toronto, Ontario boy was at the center of a Toronto city courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents & the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law & regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible. The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents & he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy alleged they had also beat him. After considering the remainder of the immediate family & learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him. After two recesses to check legal references & confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Toronto Maple Leafs, whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone."

Novelty cheque? Good point. Obviously its a prop for the photo op. The actual cheque would certainly be something else. No one would want to try to put a giant novelty cheque through an ATM slot, after all! Still, whether it was one idiot or a bunch doesn't matter. Wrong is wrong and it should be stopped. That being said, I agree that it likely won't matter to anyone outside of MLW. We Canadians have gotten to the point where we believe they ALL are prone to do such things! So since all parties do this 'bad thing' it becomes a null factor. No one is going to switch his vote to a party that historically has done the same or worse. We don't make our choices based on similarities but on differences between parties, after all. I agree that the Liberals seem to be making a mistake stressing Tory corruption. I'm not sure what they're trying to achieve. They only can succeed in making the Tories look as bad as themselves! You're right that it makes the average voter remember things like AdScam. As I said, it only makes these things into null factors. Worse yet, a swing voter might find himself comparing a Tory logo on a novelty cheque WITH handing out envelopes stuffed with our tax money in a Montreal restaurant! With such a comparison the Liberal sin of course looks far greater. Perhaps they would be smarter to not invite such comparisons at all and attack the Tories on other fronts. Or is corruption the only card the Liberals have to play against the Tories?

Apples and oranges, jdobbin! What we have here seems to be one MP who did something dumb. Harper has no doubt read him the Riot Act in private. As the leader, he can't do it in public without having to fire the MP. The difference is that under Chretien it appeared to be Party policy!

Topaz, you really should turn off your TV and read a few basic science books!

First, we'll have to see the Tory polls fall and the Liberal vote rise! Sooner or later the drain from the Liberals will exceed the swing vote and start eating into their "hard core". Those votes will likely vote NDP or abstain before they vote for the CPC. We're talking 6 months from now. That's an eternity in politics. Perhaps by spring the Liberals will be at 50% in the polls and Ignatieff will be more popular than sliced bread!

Why don't Ignatieff and Layton call an election? Why should Harper always have to do it? Actually, if Harper did what you demand do you really think that he'd take a hit from voters large enough to overcome the Liberal lag in the polls? Surely you would not want such a thing to happen to your party.

Written in 3114 B.C. and ends in 2012? I have a vision of the original author looking up from his desk and saying "Geez, I'm tired! This thing has gotten LONG! This is enough, I'm stopping here! Who cares what happens after 2012?" I mean, they had to stop somewhere! Do we expect that they should have made a calendar that never ended?

Well, although beauty is a subjective term we do seem to be hardwired by our evolution to find certain physical characteristics to be attractive. These seem to be generated by evoking impressions of health and fertility, which only makes sense from an evolutionary point of view. By that logic, I would submit that the past few decades have been an aberration. We have been presented with body sizes that are often on the verge of emaciation! Marilyn Munroe would never have been accepted as a modern model. She was a few dress sizes too big! Mae West would also have been rejected. She had breasts! I for one am not convinced that the modern fashion industry has been interested in making women appealing to men. Rather, it has been driven by those who aren't interested in women sexually anyway! Smaller sizes save material, increasing profits. Remove the yardstick of sexual appeal and you then can use other more arbitrary yardsticks. A designer can win power and respect by political methods within his or her peer group, never having to face the test of genuine popular appeal. The market never gets the choices it actually wants so all kinds of games can be played! Sounds like Canadian politics, doesn't it? While I don't condone the industry I do feel that strip clubs have always recognized what fashion truly appeals to the male animal. They take it to an extreme but the costumes in which the dancer begins her act are artfully contrived to immediately attract the male interest. How many runway skinny waifs could be successful as strippers? I'm not suggesting that should be their goal but we have to recognize that the very purpose of fashion is to make ourselves attractive to the opposite sex. Just who have modern designers had as their target with these models? By the standards of health and symmetry, is a scrawny breastless waif who looks like she has been surviving on coke and whatever her bulemia has left in her stomach truly what attracts a man? Just who is the industry trying to attract?

Isn't that the point? Does a progressive culture generate knowledge or merely adapt and borrow from others higher up the ladder? Any culture does SOME borrowing but many seem to do little or nothing else! Take fundamentalist Islam, for instance. It seems that so much of the progressive generation of the knowledge of mankind stopped dead in its tracks when that culture became firmly established. One or two individual exceptions but nothing like beforehand, when arabic culture seemed generations ahead of the Europeans and British. We don't see the Taliban inventing new cures for cancer, after all! Although I would expect that aboriginals who left the reserve and integrated into our mainstream have contributed as much as any others who joined our common culture, what has come from the reserves? Surely the reserves is where we find their original culture. Are you saying that somehow if they had have treated differently they spontaneously would have put a man on the moon or invented the surgery of my own quadruple heart bypass? From my observations I don't believe that it would've happened that way! Not because of any imaginary difference in intelligence due to race. On average I don't believe there's any significant difference. CULTURE is everything and the native culture doesn't appear to be a positive one for generating new knowledge and technology! That all springs from educating the young in scientific thinking. Britain and Europe were among the first to do that in a big way. Other cultures still don't and are condemned to a parasitical role, being able to fire an AK-47 but unable to ever invent one. Certainly, they could never develop a fetal heart monitor to save more babies!