Wild Bill

The Americans did it without Pakistan's permission for a very simple reason - Pakistan has very serious internal security issues. The Taliban was constantly being tipped off about anything the Pakistani government learned! Unless America acted as it did, it would NEVER have gotten ANY such terrorists, let alone such high level ones! We live in a real world and if we don't take that into account then we will perpetually lose!

Doesn't matter to us, AW! Either America buys our oil or China will! Meanwhile, surely you will grant that every Republican next election will throw it in the Democrats face that they turned down all those jobs with the pipeline! I'll wager there will be more than a few American voters that will care about jobs more than a possible oil spill. Meanwhile, America shows no sign of cutting back on its oil consumption. That means that if the pipeline for Canadian oil is turned down that pretty well sews things up for the Arabs. Maybe if we put our women in bags, killed a few gays and started using stoning as a court sentence you'd like us more! 'Cuz like it or not, AW, those are America's only other choices. If we do wind up selling the oil to China, odds are that if America changes its mind it will be too late. China likes to lock things up with long term contracts. I just don't understand why you folks love those Saudis so!

You really believe that Iran gives a damn for the Palestinians? In all these years they have done diddley-squat for them! No food, no aid, no taking them in as Iranian citizens. Nothing but giving them money and smuggling in weapons for the Palestinians to commit terrorist attacks on Israel. To be fair, none of the other Arab countries have done bugger all either. They only acted to wage a few wars, which they lost. The Palestinians are still a displaced people, in the same spot they were over 60 years ago. No, IMO the issue is quite clear. Iran only cares about destroying Israel. The Palestinians are merely convenient cannon fodder. You know, it's likely that if Israel launches a strike the damage may reveal to the world just how advanced the Iranian nuclear program really is. They already have the missile capability. The only hope I see is a popular uprising from the people of Iran, particularly the younger ones. I don't believe that the Iranian people ever intended to trade a dictator like the Shah for a religious dictatorship. Once the mullahs took power the idea of free elections just disappeared. And they have all the guns! Still, the Iranians are a very educated people, well connected into the world's news media. They may not be that happy about their government dragging them into another war.

Wyly, Israel is a very small country. If IRAN used nukes in a first strike Israel would be GONE! Period and end of story! Why do you think the idea is so attractive to an Islamic fundamentalist? To such a personality, the negative repercussions of such an act would be worth it! One of those Iranian leaders said it himself recently, that if Israel were to be wiped out and Iran only damaged, even with a large loss of life, it would be a cheap price to pay! You are expecting a fundamentalist religious mindset to be rationa. You would not have allowed that with Harper or heaven forbid! Stockwell Day. Yet you credit the rulers of Iran? Of course, one could never call you partisan!

But governments have bigger guns than YOU do!

How do you know this, GH?

Another big difference between protesters today and back in the 60's! Peace, Love, Dove Rick!

How do you know this, GH?

London, Ontario dragged them out last night! We'll see who's next. I think what you don't understand is that the OCCUPY protesters have very low public support. It's not 1967, with a very popular cause like stopping the Viet Nam war. For a number of reasons, almost nobody cares about the protesters! You're living in a dream, not seeing reality. This movement desperately needs some leadership, with people who have some smarts! All they've succeeded in doing so far is hurting their cause, not helping it.

Topaz, those type of people don't listen to reasonable explanations. In fact, they don't listen at all. They like to hear themselves too much! This woman likely is not an athlete, a brain surgeon, a business manager, an artist, a scientist or really much of anything. So she's seized on being an "eco-warrior" to get some unearned self-respect! "Look at me! I'm important! I'm saving the planet from the likes of you bastards! If you were as smart as me you would be doing things differently!" It's really lame and really, really sad.

Do you get out much? It's obvious the police didn't really call anything! The Mayor and the city council must have decided that they had had enough of the squatters in the park. So they tell the police to clear them out. If the police actually asked "With what charge?" the politicians would have said "Whatever you want!" So the cops watch for a while and nothing is going on. Finally, they decide to use the barrels as an excuse. What are the protesters going to do? It's not likely they have the resources to hire some bigwig lawyer! Besides, mayors are too smart for that. They wouldn't make such a move unless they were confident that public opinion was on their side. Even if one of the protesters had an uncle that was a lawyer and would work for free, so what? The worst that would happen is that the protesters would get a little money in a settlement. The City can easily afford it and the voters would think it cheap at the price to get rid of the protesters. That's how such things work. That's how they've ALWAYS worked!

Doesn't matter what I think, GH! What matters is if Israel believes it!

Another self-appointed policeman of the planet, trying to make herself feel important!

You make sense! If Israel decided that Iran was such an immediate threat that pissing off Uncle Sam and some of the other countries in the area was worth it they wouldn't hesitate for a minute! It must look to them like a choice between some diplomatic problems and having a nuke dropped on their head is an easy choice indeed!

Jacee, there are maybe 4 guys hanging around a park in downtown Hamilton! You can't tell if they've put up any new tents - there's more around from the winos! Those 4 guys may have wifi happening and are trying to make it look like they have a large and active scene going on but in reality - nobody is noticing and nobody cares! We don't even have any merchants complaining and asking for them to be removed! There's not enough of them to bother anybody! I won't even waste parking money to go visit one of those few! Certainly, they have had little coverage in our local media. Some farmer having a 2-headed calf would draw far more than the OCCUPY protesters have managed here! You're trying to put lipstick on a pig!

And yet if a TV show has 2 economists on a discussion panel you will get 3 opinions...

Oh, don't get me wrong! I think there are indeed some very valid points happening. I just think that this bunch of protesters are just too simple to properly understand them or effect any change. They might be good at busting things up but seem to have no idea of how to build something new that would work! Sorta like "Give me some nice dreams! It's YOUR problem how to make them work! And if you don't, I'll burn your house down!" If I had faith in idiots I would have more confidence about voting...

BC, are you familiar with ham radio slang? Kids are 'harmonics', with bosses there are 'big knobs' and 'little knobs' depending on their rank and so on. Here we see a thread full of 'lids'!

Thanks Dre! But not one of those Uncle Ben high-alcohol beers you coastal folks enjoy. I'm too old to handle it! I'll remember your kind invitation! It might happen in a year or two. Meanwhile, if you come to my town I'll break out the GOOD scotch, not the kind I save for unwanted relatives!

Nope! I live in Hamilton and there don't appear to be any such protesters here! Sorry, but I just don't feel the cost of gas and time to drive to Toronto and pay parking just on the off chance I might find an intelligent protester is worth the effort! I have to earn a living and what little disposable income I have I save for a couple of beer in a blues joint once in a while. However, since it's apparently important to YOU perhaps you'd pay my expenses? Or at least spring for a few beer?

Gee, for such an expert the guy who wrote the article seems to have just cut-and-pasted stuff from our own posters on MLW! I didn't see a single new thing other than what we've already chewed over right here. What's more, he doesn't have a real conclusion either! Just his opinion, like the rest of us. Like most against the F-35 deal, he seems to have decided he didn't like it from the very first and then keeps looking for an argument to shoot it down. We don't know if we would be asked to accept huge price increases. We haven't been asked yet! We don't know if there's a lot of bugs to be fixed. The only version of the plane that seems to still be having trouble is the carrier landing version. Why should Canada care? We have no aircraft carriers! This article is like most of the other negative POV's. It assumes that all the negative predictions are not predictions at all but established facts, like a psychic claiming a 100% accuracy record when most of its predictions have not yet come to pass. They should be more honest and just admit that they don't want Canada to have any planes, ships or even rifles at all, or the soldiers that go with them!

Infancy? Infantile is more like it! WWWTT, you can start with baby "special" kids but when they grow up they'll still be "special"!

Myself as a benchmark? Not really! It was the kids 5-10 years older than me who were running the Anti-War protests. I was in the class that scored so poorly on a test for students of years earlier. Those older kids put a man on the Moon. My generation was more the ones who invented and developed computer technology. So the process had started long before my time. The bench mark was years before and my own score is lower than that, like everyone else. I don't think we're talking raw intelligence here. It's more how its applied. Political skills seem better. I observe my daughters and their friends. I notice that it's more important to get along in an office and be good at networking than it is about actually being the best at doing the job. Certainly the present protesters ARE different! One was quoted as saying that they were self-sufficient and would not allow even police, fire and ambulances into their compound, as they could look after themselves. This after they had been given generators and those Port-A-Potties. Within a day or so a young girl had OD'd and died. So much for being self-sufficient medically, I guess. Have YOU seen the intellectuals among the protesters I was talking about? Any megaphone speeches? With any content more sophisticated than "Rich people are rat bastards!"? Either the media is deliberately refusing to show these people or they simply don't exist. Where are the Timothy Learys? The Dick Gregorys? People like Allan Ginsberg, Tom Wolfe, Bertram Russell, Ken Kesey, R Crumb, or Michel Foucault? Intellectuals were front and centre in the 60's protest movement. In today's bunch, I haven't seen ANY! You could use a history lesson yourself, WWWTT! Those protesters grew up in a time when TV was freshly invented. Most folks were lucky to get one or two stations. Except for Saturday mornings, virtually all programming was adult. The phenomenon of kids growing up with "eyes glued to the tube" didn't really even begin until the late 60's and early 70's in Canada, with the invention and proliferation of cable TV. We actually led the Americans, who didn't become largely "cablized" till the end of the 70's or even later. Those of the present generation being less intelligent than previous generations is a different premise than only those participants in the OCCUPY protests being so. Maybe only the dumb ones are in the protest camps! The smart ones aren't participating! I don't claim to know. I'm just saying that I have observed a trend over the years, without much contrary evidence. What's more, whenever I throw this idea out for folks to chew on invariably they get their noses out of joint with their pride. They take it personal and won't or can't debate dispassionately. Frankly WWWTT, I would have thought that ANYBODY who compared the timbre of the 60's protest movements against that of the OCCUPY folks would have found the difference I'm claiming to be "hit you over the head with a brick" obvious! The previous protests were full of intellectuals. With today's bunch, I haven't seen ONE!

You know Derek, there's been a meme out there for a while that we've been experiencing a "dumbing down" of each of the last few generations. Not the ordinary attitude of folks when they get old of thinking the kids don't know anything but a real, actual loss of sophistication, of "smarts". I first began to think about this myself back when I was in high school. We had one old lady teacher who was retired but came in once in a while as a substitute. When I was in Grade 11, she was there to "babysit" us for a spare period and asked us if we were interested in taking an English reading and comprehension test that she used to give 30 years earlier. We were a cocky bunch, with most of us taking advanced level courses. We said "Sure!" expecting to ace a test from "caveman" days. The results were that our class average by this old test's standards was Grade 7. We had a few of us score like a Grade 3! I was in the last class to be offered Latin. There were only a handful of us left. This lady in her time used to teach Greek, to a full class! This was the 60's. Within a decade Ontario stopped teaching reading with phonics and turned out an entire generation of virtual functional illiterates before they backtracked with their error! So every time I see an article, clip or interview on these "Occupy" protesters I' can't help but compare them with the generation that protested for black rights and against the Viet Nam war. The differences are striking! There are no intellectuals in this new movement! They seem to have no articulate spokespeople! No idea of what they want and not even a concrete idea of just exactly what they are protesting against! In those old days every demonstration would have speakers well-versed in the issues, with megaphones or PA systems. Most of these protests were on university campuses. Many speakers would be prominent intellectuals from highly placed positions in society. What do we see today? A bunch of slackers camping out in parks with absolutely no idea of any specifics of their protest! Who, as you say, don't even know how to run a campsite let alone a protest movement! Hell, the cities have to provide them with Port-A-Potties because building a latrine is a cosmic mystery to them! I think it's a huge and significant difference. I'm not sure exactly what it means but it certainly bears some serious study! If this truly is a trend, where is it going to end up? No wonder we've never gone back to the Moon! We're no longer smart enough to do it!

I've been a ham radio operator since the early 70's. Being in the high tech computer chip industry since its birth, I was there for the first true personal computer (Osbourne I), the rise of IBM and Apple, then sending files down telephone lines with acoustic coupled modems, local bulletin boards and then of course, the invention of the Internet. When you grow up with this you tend to become accustomed to change. You even take it for granted! Changes in the computer world started off as revolutionary but quickly became evolutionary. A modem was revolutionary - a faster one merely evolutionary. At first you were all caught up in having the latest and greatest. You couldn't wait to upgrade Win95 to Win98. After a while though things had progressed to the point where unless you were a gamer addict new upgrades no longer seemed necessary. Who needs a faster motherboard just to do word processing, spreadsheets or surf the Net? Cable and DSL were worthwhile but a faster computer or Win7 wasn't. Computer power has become "good enough" and what entices you are new features, like a video card with an HDMI output that will feed your flatscreen LED TV. The industry seems almost mature now!