Wayward Son

Any person with a modicum of sense would refuse to recognize the referendums in those areas for several legitimate reasons. However, it is a strong statement on the effectiveness of Putin's attempt to destabilize the area, and how easily his propaganda can dupe many people in the west.

Who exactly does not pay sales tax?

Good point. As long as someone is democratically elected that person should be able to steal every speck of wealth in the country, and do what ever they want. The people can then vote for a new leader to govern whatever is left of their country the next election. Shame on the population of Ukraine for thinking they matter in between casting votes at elections.

No walls, but some of the tall heavily barbed-wire fences with watchtowers (such as in Czechoslovakia) would have been just as difficult to escape through. Edit: See the third last picture here for an example.

He is a lawyer. He knew exactly what he was doing. I have been arrested while protesting. This person thinks he is a warrior in a conspiracy culture war by the school system to destroy the family unit (this is what he has said). I am not saying that he went to the meeting specifically to get arrested, but he knew full well that without getting arrested this culture war battle would get no coverage, whereas getting arrested would get tons. As to why he concentrated on the sex scene instead of the school shooting...well for starters he has not read more then one page of the book. As he has said, a friend (undoubtedly a fellow fundamentalist, tea-party, Rush Limbaugh loving, Obama's a Muslim type) came over to his house to visit. The friend asked if his daughter was reading the book in question, asked to be brought the book, "randomly" flipped it open to the exact page with the passage of the sex scene, and said read this passage. The same students see sexual content on the TV every couple minutes, but I am sure that reading through more than 300 pages of a novel in order to get to a sex scene will be corrupting. As to your worry about students reading about a school shooting affecting them...when they go to schools which run drills about preparing for shootings, see school shootings on the news, and live in a culture where violence is pervasive on the TV and in video games, well that worry is just as head in the sand. I grew up when the cold war thoughts of nuclear war was still on the minds of many. Was assigned a book about the after affects to a civilization after a nuclear war. Only thing I remember from whole year. Very beneficial.

This man was attempting to impose his domination over the meeting. He could have "stood up" for his teenager, asserted his position as a parent, and called out the school for a bad decision while still being respectful to the other people present, but he chose a different route. He wanted to get arrested, and he made sure he got his wish. Personally, I see limiting your teen-aged child's exposure to the real world and different ideas appalling, and I am sure his teen is embarrassed by him. You want to control and micromanage your child, then home school them. You have some issues with a part of the curriculum then you are free to voice them, but if it is as part of a public forum then it is within the rules of such a forum. Some parents don't want their children to learn about evolution, or climate change, or whatever else offends their ideology. Tough, if someone really want your child to be as stupid, narrow-minded, ideological, and uninformed as they are then keep them at home. I wonder how he is going to control his daughter when she reaches university age. Perhaps send her to Bob Jones University or Liberty.

It is exactly the type of book that should be assigned. I applaud the arrest of this person. In a discussion of a book about the themes of bullying and the consequences of bullying, this man did not just exceed his time, refusing to followed the rules that everyone else agreed to for an orderly and constructive meeting, but also interrupted others when they had the floor, refused to stop, and made clear that he would have to be arrested to stop his bullying behaviour. Favourite quote about the book from the bully's wife: "Why should those ideas be put in their mind?" If you question why an education should be about putting ideas into minds then perhaps homeschooling is the way to go.

Gates has never advocated anything like China's policy. Iran is a good example of population growth declining significantly through education for women, birth control availability, and improved basic health measures. All things that Gates advocates. If we can improve the lot of the poor, especially poor young women, so that the world population peaks at 8 or 9 billion then things will likely turn out quite well. Gates is working tirelessly towards that goal. Alex Jones and people like him are no help, and instead a hindrance. The rest of your post is just a string of doomsday predictions - predictions which have failed miserably time and time again. Ehrlich being the best example. Are some things bad? Yes, many things. Is it possible that humanity will not be able to deal with problems it needs to deal with? Sure. But, if that occurs then the doomsayers will share the blame. Why? Because when they preach coming doom they always ignore the many things that are getting better, and convince people that there is no hope when the reality is that there is hope - especially if more people accept science and reality. Pollution is not rampant, but has improved in many places. Many rivers are far cleaner today than they were 60 years ago. Pesticides are significantly safer today than they were a couple decades ago (leading to a situation where because organic farming pesticides don't change, they are often far worse than the current synthetic ones). Fukashima is not a global issue, at least not in the way people like you claim it is. The Pacific garbage patch is not great, but when people claim that it is twice the size of Texas that simply indicates they don't understand what it is. It is a gyre and its size would be the same if there were 100 times less garbage in it, or 100 times more. If you were scuba diving in the middle of it you would have no clue. Some things are getting worse and some things are getting better. The only way forward is to assess what has improved and what has worsened, and why for each. Those who refuse to acknowledge that many things have improved, and improved significantly are a huge part of the problem. Those who try to accurately assess the problems and bring forth pragmatic, progressive solutions (as Gates has been doing) are a huge part of the solution.

In 2009 the PCs should have picked Klees as leader instead of Hudak. Klees was a close second the first ballot. Hillier was eliminated and threw his support to Hudak. When Elliot was eliminated after the second round her supporters split between Hudak and Klees, so Hillier's support of Hudak is what won the nomination. I think that Klees' 2004 leadership platform (which was won by Tory) would not have appealed outside the PC base, but his 2009 leadership platform had unconventional ideas that may have won him wide support (things like university/college/trade school grads being exempt from paying income tax their first 4 years). Klees was also a long-time rebel within the party so he would not have been as associated with Harris/Eves as Hudak is. I think the loss of Klees this election is a blow to the PCs, but if they don't win, and they end up looking for a new leader, I hope that Klees can be convinced to run again.

Complaining about the Supreme Court decision during the Quebec provincial election would have been a big boost for the separatists. Had to wait for a bit.

So what? I don't think that you understand how the legal system works.

It is a real talent to misread and misrepresent a prominent news story as badly as you have done in your last couple posts.

Yes, I find the Western promise not to expand eastward to be pure nonsense. At best (in turns of being favorable to Russia) a couple of Western representatives offered that up as part of negotiations, which Gorbachev said he would have to think about, and then months later when the negotiations were finalized it appeared no where in print, despite Gorbachev's insistence that everything else be well documented. At worst, Gorbachev is simply lying to save face for an outcome that he (and most other people) did not anticipate. The part that I find most distasteful from leftists who keep bringing this point up (and I say that as a left-winger myself) is when they bring this so-called promise up to chastise the West for breaking it, is that even if were true - since when would be ok for the US and Russia to make decisions about what other countries are allowed to do with their own foreign policy?

I take western news sources with a pinch of salt. I take Russian sources like RT as flat out government propaganda which deserve far more skepticism than a pinch of salt.

I assume you are advocating our exit from NATO then?

Joe Clark.

I leave such questions up to the voters, the legal system and the constitution. I don't pretend to presume that my combination of limited knowledge, and belief system as to who should control what in my own country, let alone a foreign one, trumps those things. As to whether it would acceptable for Bundy to purchase the land...well a purchase requires a willing buyer, willing seller, a price that is agreed upon by both parties, and a legal framework that is followed. So I can't say what would be acceptable and what would not be acceptable. On a personal level, I would require all the fines and back payments to be paid first. Even still, I see no obligation to agree to sell what currently belongs to the American people, to a deadbeat who holds the laws of the country in contempt, and appears to me to be a complete a-hole.

That seems like an issue for state and federal voters to sort out. Not a justification to ignore the laws that everyone else follows. And this fracking boom that you feel will happen would not happen if the Federal government either sold the land off to the state or into private hands?

The media reaction, and the reaction of those on this board, is concentrated on the hypocrisy, not the drug abuse. Do you think that media and those of us who you are attacking on this board would have the same reaction if Willie Nelson became a politician and was caught doing illegal drugs? I definitely think not. Do you think that the media and those of us who you are attacking on this board would have the same reaction if a politician who campaigned on progressive drug reforms was caught doing illegal drugs? I definitely think not. The major steps backward for people who view substance abuse as a medical condition and not a criminal problem (which apparently does not include you as BM just pointed out) are the public offices of hypocritical assholes like Rob Ford (who has never publicly changed his views on how poor people with drug abuse problems should be treated), and many long-time political supporters of Rob Ford. There was a good deal hypocrisy shown when many, but not all, allies of Rob Ford were tripping over themselves to try to justify why Rob Ford should be treated with privacy, compassion and rehab for the same problem that they advocate long, harsh, future destroying prison sentences for everyone else.

"The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was created by Congress in 1946, by the merger of the General Land Office, the Grazing Service, and the O&C Revested Lands Administration." (scroll to page 7) http://www.publicland.org/35_archives/documents/doc_1400_hist_record.pdf#page=7

Source? The 1998 court case indicated that the land has been under Federal title since 1848.

Many years ago I was sucked into the lies spread by the anti-vaccination crowd. At one point a clip surfaced with an interview of Maurice Hilleman (a man who developed most of our current vaccines, and who had worked tirelessly to make vaccines much safer. He is widely considered to have saved more lives than any other medical researcher in the 20th century). Because of the countless lives he had saved, he was hated and hounded throughout his adult lives by nutcases who spread all manner of crazy lies about him. But anyways at the time due to poor critical thinking skills and a lack of skepticism, I had been suckered by their lies. Then I saw the clip: After a couple minutes of Maurice Hilleman talking, Hilleman said: "So we brought African Greens in and I didn’t know we were importing the AIDS virus at the time.: Miscellaneous background voices:…(laughter)… it was you who introduced the AIDS virus into the country. Now we know! (laughter) This is the real story! (laughter) What Merck won’t do to develop a vaccine! (laughter). Yes, Hilleman said that. Those were his words, and anti-vaxers, who believe every single other thing Hilleman has ever said was a lie, believe that one single line to be 100% true. They don't believe that it was possibly a joke, the kind of dark humor that might develop in someone who had for decades been harassed by lunatics making those types of claims about him. Possibly because the change in his tone of voice indicated it was a joke? Possibly because the people who were interviewing him seemed to understand that it was joke....as they had already asked him questions of those types of crazy claims that he was constantly harassed by? Nope. Those words were all that mattered....because the ideology of those hearing those words would only allow them to mean what they wanted them to mean. I realized at that time that these people were clearly insane. I watched the union head video, the intent and meaning of those statements are so clear that only those who refuse to check their ideology could come with a nefarious meaning.

I agree with most of what you say about Ford. My only disagreement is that if Rob Ford or any other politician is upfront with their constituents, before being elected, about being wasted much of the time (whether by booze, legal or illegal drugs) and those voters still choose to elect him, I would be ok with that democratic process. The voters of Toronto did not know that they were electing such a mayor, but if they choose to vote him back in - that is their choice (which I will find baffling) which they are free to make.

I think there is a massive difference between education required before you can apply for a specific job and training you received once you have a job. In the former you have to deal with not only the expenses of paying for that education, but also the lost wages during those years you are getting an education. In the latter you are not only being paid, but the training is also being paid for. A doctor needs to spend 8 years in university both racking up debt, and not earning for those 8 years. For a nurse it is 4 years, a teacher it is 5. In each case they finish that education with debts to repay whether or not the employment prospects remain the same as they were when each started their education. I think that should be taken into account when it comes to how much people are paid, and it is in no way comparable to the training a firefighter is paid to do after they are hired, or the additional ACP training many paramedics are paid to do after they are hired.

I guess I will have to tell a friend of mine who was just hired this year in an Ontario city as a firefighter that he was not actually hired. QUALIFICATIONS: Education/Experience:  Secondary school graduation; or  Equivalent combination of education, training and experience;  Must be at least 18 years of age;  Must possess or be able to obtain Standard First Aid, CPR certification and defibrillation certification The recruitment and selection process consists of six stages: Written Aptitude Test; Health and Medical Fitness Evaluation; Job Related Physical Fitness Test; Resume/Application Review; Reference Checks. As for ACPs, sure, I have that certification myself. I consider it on the job training, as I know few people who did it without 1) having the service pay for the training 2) getting paid to do the training and 3) receiving time off from work to do it as well.