Wayward Son

Things do not happen in a vacuum. The austerity of the Chretien government happened when the global economy was rosy, and the US economy was moving into hyperdrive. Today there is still global economic turmoil. The same policy may work wonders at one point in time, and cause economic upheaval at a different point in time.

I do not think that the two are comparable. But, I do think that some 11 year old's may have the ability to make such a decision. As I have written there is a Canadian case of 12 year old refusing a blood transplant and dying, which was allowed because the court felt that child had the capacity, understood the consequences, and was not being influenced by others. Do I think that this 11 year old displays that capacity? Not from the little I have seen, but I feel that the courts should make that decision.

There is a reward for my grenade launcher. Help, help I am being repressed. As for the reward for a specific Russian agent, I am not worried about that. We know from all of the RT propaganda on here that Russia would never have agents in Ukraine trying to destabilize that part of the country. So a bounty on someone who could not possibly be in the Ukraine is a bounty that can not be fulfilled.

Whoops...I meant that edit that post to insert links, not quote it. But to answer smallc's question: You can start with the NP article about this specific case: Eleven-year-old's choice to treat her cancer with indigenous medicine instead of chemo may be legal, experts say. According to Ontario’s Health Care Consent Act, all the girl needs to refuse medical care is “capacity.” According to the act, this includes the ability “to understand the information that is relevant to making a decision about the treatment” as well as an understanding of the “reasonably foreseeable consequences of a decision.” In Ontario, the Health Care Consent Act, S.O. 1996, c.2 (“HCCA”) , there is no longer a minimum “age of consent”. People under 18 years of age should be assessed as to their capacity to make the decision in the same way as an adult. For example, a 13 year old may be capable to give consent to receive stitches to the hand, but may not be capable to give consent to undergo brain surgery. See section 4(2) of the HCCA. The complexity of the research or treatment, the severity of the risks, the maturity of the child, and other factors must be weighed and considered. http://mlst.mindzplay.ws/mlst/doc/AgeOfConsent.pdf

There is no age cutoff for being able to make crappy medical decisions, it is based on capacity. So consent kind of works on a sliding scale partially depending on how significant the decision is. What that means is that the courts may say that this girl is allowed to refused medical care despite her young age if they feel that she understands the decision she is making and understands the potential consequences of that decision. The same would go a JW youth. In 1985 a court found a 12 year old, capable of refusing a blood transplant. That child died. Courts have also found significantly older children to not be capable. It mainly depends on understanding the consequences. In this case I have concerns about the latter: Jesus told me that I am healed, so it doesnt matter what anybody says, said the girl, the daughter of a prominent local pastor, speaking in a video released Monday. That doesn't sound like she understands the reality based consequences she may face. Sounds like her view of her condition is more based on fantasy. The parents don't help either: "We know that our traditional medicines work. We know that our daughter is going to be OK. says Sonya Sault. Being certain about a decision for which skepticism is warranted is not a good sign that the parents understand the consequences either. Adults are generally free to make those kinds of stupid decisions, but the standard for non-adults is higher.

Tarpley is no more a typical leftist than Alex Jones is a typical right-winger. Both of them exist on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but are joined together by a complete disconnection from reality, and complete lack of critical thinking skills when it comes to conspiracy claims.

Good point. When a major issue hits the news, I feel that is best to avoid the people who hold expertise in the area (Timothy Snyder would one example when it comes to Ukraine), and instead turn to uber-conspiracy nuts like Tarpley: a 9/11 troofer and someone who despite zero scientific training "knows" that climate change is a fraud. Tarpley, like anyone else, is obviously not wrong about everything, but it is a complex world out there, and when someone has an opinion about everything then chances are their opinion is not worth anything. It wouldn't be a problem if Tarpley was giving his opinions on internet forums like those of us here, but there are actually people who listen to his opinions and take them seriously.

There is only 1 NDP, but I assume that you are including the CCF in there as well. With Tommy Douglas inheriting a large deficit and debt, and then producing 17 consecutive balanced budgets and the complete elimination of that inherited provincial debt. Edit: on second thought maybe you were not also including the CCF. This link claims that since 1980 the NDP has the best record of producing balanced budgets. I obviously do not guarantee that the claims are true, and of course it does not take into consideration that some governments inherit large surpluses and throw that away (Harper) and others inherit large deficits and balance the books (Harris), or that the fiscal situation in any province is affected by conditions outside the province (and country).

My position is that each abortion should be a decision between the woman and the doctor. Therefore I support policy for it to be safe and legal. As to rare, every person has a different definition of what rare means. If it means positive policies to reduce unwanted pregnancies such as access to birth control, then yes. If it means barriers to access to abortion, then no.

Here is my summary of the passage I quoted. C: I oppose "A" and think it is disgusting, but I don't see how it could be legislated. S: So you support "A". Got it. You made not even the most minimal attempt to look at his position or assess it.

When one is completely dependent on the second, and the second is not at all dependent on first, it is called parasitic twins. The granting of the right to use another's body is a right that no one else has. Pretty simple concept. Nor is this a case where the fetus is making contributions. The reality is that it is taxing and stressing the woman's organs, and that an evolutionary conflict ensues between the fetus who tries to take more and more, and mother who tries to prevent too much from being taken. The following article if good: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/health/14preg.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 especially the following; In a 1993 paper, Dr. Haig first predicted that many complications of pregnancy would turn out to be produced by this conflict. One of the most common complications is pre-eclampsia, in which women experience dangerously high blood pressure late in pregnancy. For decades scientists have puzzled over pre-eclampsia, which occurs in about 6 percent of pregnancies. Dr. Haig proposed that pre-eclampsia was just an extreme form of a strategy used by all fetuses. The fetuses somehow raised the blood pressure of their mothers so as to drive more blood into the relatively low-pressure placenta. Dr. Haig suggested that pre-eclampsia would be associated with some substance that fetuses injected into their mothers' bloodstreams. Pre-eclampsia happened when fetuses injected too much of the stuff, perhaps if they were having trouble getting enough nourishment. In the past few years, Ananth Karumanchi of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues have gathered evidence that suggests Dr. Haig was right. They have found that women with pre-eclampsia had unusually high levels of a protein called soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1, or sFlt1 for short. Other labs have replicated their results. Dr. Karumanchi's group has done additional work that indicates that this protein interferes with the mother's ability to repair minor damage to her blood vessels. As that damage builds up, so does her blood pressure. And as Dr. Haig predicted, the protein is produced by the fetus, not the mother.

Simple, allow the government to read the thoughts of every woman who is of reproductive age. It is really a small price to pay to end this practice that is clearly weighing heavily on the minds of a few men.

I take it you are no longer even trying to take this discussion seriously?

No, the opposite. What pro-lifers are trying to do is grant the fetus more rights than any non-fetus. The right to use someone else's body against that person's wishes. Let's say that a young child needs part of someone's liver to survive, and will die within hours without said transplant I am a perfect match, and the only match that is likely to found in time. I could save that child's life. I would have a moral obligation, but no legal obligation to agree to the transplant. That is for the simple reason that the legal system is based upon my right to bodily integrity superseding any benefits that anyone else might gain from the use of my body against my will. The pro-choice position grants equal rights to all. The pro-life position wishes to take away rights from the woman, and give extra rights to the fetus.

Only to the hopelessly delusional.

I doubt it had much to do with the wording. 308 has a post about the problems with the Forum poll. No poll is perfect, some far more then others, but I also happen to believe that the previous Ipsos poll was more accurate (however, I base that solely on their polling result for my region being in line with all the local polling and past election trends, and the Forum being completely out of whack for the same region ie the party that should comfortably be in first in my region is a distant third according to Forum). Not that polls this early in a campaign mean much anyways.

I have looked over Hudak's million jobs math, and it seems a little flawed to me. Hudak says that he is going to create 1030688 jobs over the next 8 years. More then half of those jobs are just estimated baseline growth based on numbers from the last decade. "According to a technical backgrounder released by the Conservatives, baseline growth, based on the previous decade’s average, would be 523,200 jobs over eight years." Ok. But at the same time Hudak complains that 300000 public sector jobs have been created over the same decade, which taking the average of 30000 per year would mean that 240000 of those 523200 jobs were public sector jobs (and 283200 were private sector - he factors in future increases in private sector jobs from tax cuts later, so they can't be added here as that would be duplication). Hudak doesn't want more public sectors, he wants 100000 fewer. That factoring out of public sector job growth from the baseline growth, and factoring in of future public job cuts reduces the number to 690688 jobs over the next 8 years. As jobs are not in isolation, but have a multiplier effect we could realistically multiply those lost public sector jobs (240000 in previous growth removed from the baseline growth equation and 100000 in future cuts) by 1.6 and get 544000. That would reduce Hudak's million jobs to 486688 which is less than the jobs created in the last eight years. I may be missing something, and job numbers based on predictions into the future are unreliable to say the least, but even some of the other parts of the plan seem pretty unrealistic.

This is completely correct. I could care less when life "begins." It is a simple case where I will never support the creation of one group of people (pregnant women) who lack the exact same rights to bodily autonomy that everyone else has.

I have no opinion on Piketty's work. But I find it odd that Piketty's whole book would be based on the flawed assumption that inequality is inherently bad...when he thinks that inequality is beneficial unless it is extreme...and that increasing inequality would also be fine if the overall growth rate of the country is strong enough. "You do need some level of inequality to get the right incentives and generate growth. But if people feel that a disproportionate share of growth only goes to the top-wealth minority, then a large fraction of public opinion in European countries or in North America might turn against globalization. So I think it’s important to ensure that inequality remains within limits that can be understood and accepted, and indeed are in the common interest. So inequality, up to a certain point, is in the common interest, but when it gets too extreme, it’s just in the interest of the people at the top but not in the common interest any more. When you look at the United States over the past 30 years, you have between two-thirds and three-quarters of the aggregate growth and primary income going to the top 10 per cent and mostly to the top 1 per cent. If the growth rate during that period had been very good – 4 or 5 per cent per year — then rising inequality would not have been a problem because there would be a lot left for everybody. But the problem is that the growth performance has not been particularly good. Per capita GDP has risen by only perhaps 1.5 per cent per year. So if you have two-thirds or three-quarters of that going to the top, there is really very little left for the middle class and the bottom group."

Perhaps the people (predominantly in the east) voted for him because it was before he showed just how completely corrupt and criminal he is. His own party completely disowned him, stating they: "strongly condemn the criminal orders that led to human victims, an empty state treasury, huge debts, shame before the eyes of the Ukrainian people and the entire world." He had completely lost the support of parliament. He fled the country to avoid dealing with the consequences of his crimes and theft which occurred on an unprecedented scale. This was not an unconstitutional coup. This was a leader of the state leaving on his own accord so he would not face the consequences of his actions - consequences that would have likely left him in prison for the rest of his life. Quit defending this criminal by pretending that people of Ukraine have to just put up with the crimes being perpetrated against them because he was elected. They were protesting, as was their right, and they were gaining power and influence to the point that Yanukovych understood that he was no longer above the law, and instead of facing the laws of his country, and the people of his country, he left with the billions of dollars he and his son stole. As to your next statement I am not going to bother answer why the legality of a referendum has nothing to do with who won or lost. If you fail to understand why this referendum was a farce, then you can't be helped and you are not worth my time.

I should say that although the known scandals are much worse this time (worse then any provincial or federal government I can think of in this country's history) my position as a party leader would be: Horwath - concentrate on the scandals big time. Position your party as similar to the Liberals on policy, but able to govern without scandals and corruption. Hudak - show how your policies are different. Talk about the scandals, but this can be secondary as long as the NDP as keeping those scandals in the news cycle. Of course, I base both of those assessments on my own complete lack of expertise in running election campaigns.

I think that over simplifies the problems Hudak had last election. Also the Ornge scandal was not known during the previous election (Klees was asking questions, and Gelinas had also been demanding some answers, but the only media report was one by CTV, about possible incompetence, not corruption. The CTV report was a day or two before the election campaign started, and the second part of the story was never aired). I personally think that concentrating on the scandals makes more sense this election.

I am not sure what silence you are talking about. Did RT tell you there was a Western media silence? Every major newspaper has highlighted the results of these complete farce referendums. Why Hold Ukraine Referendums The World Knows are Shams? Rebel's Referendum Claims deepen country's inner turmoil Ukraine Referendum has Zero Credibility Ukraine Denounces Pro-Russian Referendums Ukraine Separatists Ask to Join Russia Eastern Ukrainians Vote for Self-Rule in referendum opposed by West Pro-Russian Separatists Set for victory in Eastern region referendum Tens of thousands vote in regional referendum dubbed a criminal farce organised by Russia

You do realize that these two referendums were not in Crimea, right? And they did not happen two months ago...when your piece is dated...

1) If only Putin was a Western leader, then you would realize that it is possible for him to say one thing publicly with his words, while supporting the opposite with his actions and the actions of his supporters on the ground. 2) RT does not need to be lying about the results, because there is no reason to suspect the results are legitimate. The same pro-russian activists came up with the referendum question and counted the results. Ballot boxes were decorated with independence flags. There was no independent monitoring allowed. There were no quality controls. Reporters from the BBC and CNN witnessed open ballot stuffing. Complete farce, but good enough for you. 3) The Western media has no more requirement to refute RT propaganda than it has a requirement to refute nonsense from Alex Jones or David Icke.