Kitchener

The granting of asylum would certainly be a clearer choice if there were a draft operating in the USA. But there isn't, as a few people have pointed out. As things stand, each of these people volunteered to join the military, which seems relevant. But it's still not obvious that conscientious objectors should be returned to face punishment. For one thing, there's a case to be made that service in Iraq has substantial involuntary components for soldiers who have been stop-lossed, for example -- i.e., whose service has been involuntarily extended beyond its normal duration.

Shock, surprise, etc. Bush's admin deceived the public and the media were compliant. Golly! Where would we be without Scott McClellan to make a few more whore's dollars -- oops, I mean, to explain these controversial ideas to us. No sane person failed to realize these things 4, probably 5 years ago. But McClellan kept lying his ass off for the admin as long as he was paid to. His sudden change of heart means less than nothing. I think it's worth considering how McClellan bullshitted when Richard Clarke blew the whistle on the misrepresentations and incompetence of the Bush White House: As rational people knew then, and as McClellan admits now, Clarke was right and McClellan was deliberately, self-consciously lying about it. Now McClellan wants a pat on the back and $29.99 per copy as a reward for his sudden attack of honesty?

Where the hell are you getting your information? For pete's sake...

The prime minister's staff. What a superhumanly stupid question/suggestion. The PM's staff said that P; the media reported that the PM's staff had said P. But it's, um... the media's fault! For reporting the undeniable fact that the PM's people had said that! Or something. "An error." Whose error? Can't say -- because that would put the lie to the above-mentioned stupid-assed question. No doubt you do assume this absurd strawman. That's a manifestation of the sociopathology at play. ...Ah, too easy. Won't touch that one.

Shooting up on the taxpayer's dime is exactly what you do if you get an anesthetic. The safe site too is part of a medical program, one that treats addiction as an illness (as AA, Gamblers' Anonymous, etc have all done for decades).

The government. The judiciary's job is (inter alia) to ensure that policies are not enforced in unfairly discriminatory or arbitrary ways. The government can write legislation to clarify this if they want; in the meantime, the judiciary's just doing its job.

Is this feigned stupidity on your part? One almost hopes so. You ascribed to me the claim that Harris is "disqualified" by his lack of relevant experience. I said no such thing. Don't like getting called on your obvious misrepresentations? Tough shit. Again, sorry for buzzkilling your triumphal attacks on the weird-assed strawman you've confabulated. But your misrepresentations are your problem, not mine.

Since I said no such thing, you "merely pointed out" nothing at all -- save your shoddy reasoning and reading skills. Harris was clearly appointed to major corporate boards solely due to his political career, having no other obvious expertise or credentials to offer. That's what I noted -- in my defense, because it is obviously perfectly correct. And that much, at least, is consistent with the quid pro quo hypothesis; the situation is quite different from that of a lawyer politician who then goes on to a plum post with a top law firm. The "American buddies" claim, I observed, has no clear support; it's "fair enough" to find it implausible. The next step, one might have hoped, would be for margrace and his critics to pony up with some specific evidence, coherently marshaled, for and against claims of personal connections, corporate Cui bono? observations, and so forth. Yet he, and they, and you, have opted for pratfalls instead.

What exactly about some other poster's style excuses your strange decision to project your own fancies onto my post and respond to things I didn't say? As if I'd said there was something unique about Harris's golden parachutes in the political or corporate business worlds? Of course, even though I didn't say that, you might have got all dizzy from hyperventilating and decided that I meant it anyhow. In which case it's unfortunate that you managed skip over where I already noted, in English and everything: "This sort of post-career influence-peddling goes on all the time, and is hardly confined to the furthest right on the political spectrum. But that it paid off big-time for Harris (the "Research Fellowship" being the most entertaining) is beyond question. What this leaves unestablished is margrace's inference that there was (at least an indirect) quid pro quo involved in Harris's case. There could be a useful discussion of that; it could be true, or true to a degree, or false. But neither margrace's claim nor the string of rationally empty horse-laughs that greeted the claim certainly proved anything. It's worth sorting out at least what facts in that case are known to hold, which is what I was doing." Sorry for the buzzkill. Back your hyperventilating.

Yes, you should have read my post before responding. Thank you for acknowledging that I was indeed 100% correct to identify margrace's "American buddies" claim as the questionable component, and moreover to challenge the naysayers to explain their beef. I accept your apology for your previous ill-conceived post.

Please confirm that you have reported this exchange, so that I don't needlessly report it as well. I was wrong not to report it when a handful of posters got wet palms and tight pants at the idea of brutalizing a lesbian. But the board's management needs to recognize the presence of posters who lurch toward and into racist and sexist hate-speech. Hard knocks against other posters are one thing; nothing said about me here will hurt my feelings. But this is something else.

Which was entirely the point I was making. Whatever his alleged personal skills and abilities -- "salesmanship", for example -- they were utterly unsuccessful in landing him these positions before his stint as Premier. This sort of post-career influence-peddling goes on all the time, and is hardly confined to the furthest right on the political spectrum. But that it paid off big-time for Harris (the "Research Fellowship" being the most entertaining) is beyond question. What this leaves unestablished is margrace's inference that there was (at least an indirect) quid pro quo involved in Harris's case. There could be a useful discussion of that; it could be true, or true to a degree, or false. But neither margrace's claim nor the string of rationally empty horse-laughs that greeted the claim certainly proved anything. It's worth sorting out at least what facts in that case are known to hold, which is what I was doing.

What part of the quote you reproduced was false? The American bit? Fair enough, but still -- what's accurate is more notable than what isn't. Harris was indeed an unsuccessful school-teacher, who then worked at a golf course. After retiring from politics, he held or holds sinecures on the boards of at least several major corporations, including Magna (despite having no automotive parts expertise), Grey Island Systems International (despite having no telematics/transport experience), and Goodmans LLP (despite having no legal background). He is, incredibly, also a "Senior Research Fellow" at the Fraser Institute. (You know Harris -- renowned for his scholarship.) I suspect that only a select few readers are capable of the cognitive inability to detect the golden parachutes.

Stomach-turning, callous, ignorant, racist filth. And how remarkable that the dittoheads could read over this bit of filth, and only find margrace's post comment-worthy.

Good grief. The YCJA, then. No. Your story explicitly raised attitudes towards legislation underlying "He should be a tough judge"; on this account, judicial activism is still more likely to be what she was advocating. So your explanation for why this wasn't advocating activism was confused at best. If anything, you were attributing far more of an explicitly activist flavor to her remarks than I would have. I suspect she just doesn't care one way or the other about activism -- she just wants someone to teach them damn kids a lesson. That this practically amounts to favoring activism is unlikely to concern people having that attitude. Never mind that this empirical claim is wholly uncontaminated by evidence; we've seen again and again that bleading heart librul judgez!! is an article of faith for a whole political demographic, so I recognize there is no way to get you to actually support such argle-bargle. In any case, the Act precisely enjoins light or no sentences in a wide class of cases. Do you think she really did mean, "...unless those car-stealing kids were first-time offenders committing a non-violent crime with no clear evidence of likely recidivism, of course. Then they should avoid sentencing and have extrajudicial sanctions instead"? Or should judges legislate from the bench instead?

As you should, given the principles of democratic action that you were proclaiming exactly one post back. ...and that's how long it took those principles to disappear. Bottom line: if she wants judges who will ignore the YOA, you want activist judges. So she shouldn't want Toews, who has thundered against judicial activism for years now. He'd either hew strictly to the law, and leave it to elected legislators to decide what that law should be, or he'd "legislate from the bench" and be both a hypocrite and the activist judge that contemporary Conservatives profess to find unacceptable.

You misunderstand me, and it's hard to understand why. Clearly the YOA was democratically enacted by elected representatives. Indeed. Which is why I don't take very seriously a report of a single person venting spleen and wanting a judge to go git them no-good modern teenagers and their car-stealin' ways. That's a demand for "judicial activism". (Except it isn't, of course, because we all know that only lib'ruls can be judicial activists.) If she wants tougher sentences for teens, she should look to the democratic process to revise the YOA -- not moon over (who she hopes is) a hanging judge.

Probably more or less the same reasons why s/he won't start a movement to voluntarily donate to your CPP, your medical care, the education of your children, the sidewalks in your neighbourhood, the roads you drive on... etc. If your argument against funding the CBC is the "involuntary taxation bad!" line that you just trotted out, then you're so far out in the wingnutosphere that not even the right wing of the CPC can see you. Maybe you have better reasons, which you've chosen not to reveal yet?

It's hard to see what point you could be making. Quite obviously it is "about" many people -- many of them Iraqis, plausibly, and many of them now dead. Yet among the people it's "about" are a cadre of rich and powerful Americans who have gotten much richer and much more powerful because of 9/11 and its aftermath. If anything is clearly dismissible as Hollywood movie fantasizing, it's the thought that this is primarily about last-minute rescues and foiled plots.

It's his conventional internet name now. The brilliantly clever bit was the allusion to aphasia and the prospect that he'd gradually become totally mute. Ah, never mind. Undone by those sophomores and their continual references to aphasia.

No. Please pay attention to the specific point at issue. The YOA is the law of the land. Doesn't it sound like she's hoping for judges to deliver particular outcomes, irrespective of the law? Or put it this way, if it will help: tell me what sort of evidence you would accept as suggesting that "judicial activism" is essentially used as code for "insufficiently socially conservative rulings" rather than "rulings that construct rather than following the law of the land"? Then we can keep an eye out, you and me, for evidence of that sort...

No indeed, there is not. Once the old 9/11 is too old, what form will Rudy 9iu11ani's aphasia take? Without a new 9/11, will he lose the ability to speak altogether? And once the everything that was changed by 9/11 needs to be changed in turn, how will that be done? Without a new 9/11, what will change everything? What will kill irony again, now that it seems to have come back to life? What if the USA encounters some imminently potential possible eventual conceivable threat, the preemptive attack of which cannot be justified by endless appeal to the old 9/11? So, sure. Someday some folks will need a new 9/11. But for the time being, the old 9/11 is delivering perfectly satisfactory results.

Don't sound so longing. Plenty of folks are still getting good use out of the old 9/11. I doubt they'll need a new one for a while yet.

That's the feeling of many Steinbach residents who've been following media reports he's a candidate for a federal appointment to the Court of Queen's Bench. "It's perfect. It's excellent," Elaine Boyde said just outside Toews' Main Street constituency office. "The thing is, is he going to be a strict one, one who's tough on kids who steal cars?" Sigh. Do you suppose she means "...unless that's inconsistent with the Young Offenders Act, of course. We wouldn't want him to be a judicial activist, after all!"

Ah, well. As Dorothy Parker reputedly said, you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think. Mutatis mutandis.