WIP

If we separate the legal from the moral issues here, what is the difference between saying you don't like gays, and you don't like blacks? In both cases, you are condemning people for circumstances that they cannot change. No law says you must like blacks either! Damn right you need to make that clear! You "dislike" terrorists? So I guess that means you don't hate terrorists then. Could you explain how you do not tolerate gays on the job without violating laws against discrimination and harassment? You're expressing your belief on a public forum, so you should expect to be called out for it. You're acting like it's some God-given right to condemn a minority without having to answer for it. I hope you don't have any children who turn out gay, because a lot of them have to grow up feeling ashamed of their secret desires, and hide them from family, friends, neighbours, kids at school, until they're old enough to flee their surroundings and move to some gay-majority neighbourhood in one of the major cities. Just because that's the way it's been until now, doesn't mean it should stay that way! I would hope for a future where most kids who turn out gay can feel comfortable with the family and surroundings they grow up in, and don't have to seek exile in some gay zone to find acceptance.

Oh, that was the point! You must be an expert code-breaker, because the claim that the messages are generalizing that all men are abusive -- is not made in that post. And the ad says that boys should be raised to respect women, not that all men are abusive. My interpretation of his annoyance with this ad was that it was a desire to just make the subject go away and not be mentioned in public, rather than a claim that calling for raising boys to respect women implies that all men are abusive.

I didn't see anything wrong with the ad on the website; what was it about an ad for prevention of violence against women that you found offensive? Sounds like you're trying to shift the blame for abuse and physical assaults on to the victim. I don't know what goes on in your home, but if she is not aware that many women are victimized and threatened if they try to leave, then she is not smart and has a warped notion about the term "respect." So, if a man is beating his wife, that just means she hasn't earned enough respect!

As long as your religious right friends are using the issue of late term abortion as part of wedge strategy to ban abortion and birth control outright - supporters of a woman's right to choose are going to continue to be suspicious of how the determination will be made that the request for a third trimester abortion is for purposes of sex-selection or minor birth defects.

And conveniently forgetting that her main rival has a combined favourable rating of 76%, largely because Alaskans have determined that their governor has little or no interest in managing state affairs.

And if you're like 99% of conservatives, you're also bitching about welfare moms and demanding cutbacks on social spending, at the same time you are calling for a ramped up increase in birth rates by banning abortion and birth control. Conservative ideology desires a return to the Dickensian world where the lower classes are living squalor and dying in the streets, if we follow the arguments to their logical conclusions. BTW what about those 20,300 children that won't find homes! Are you going to put your shoulder to the wheel and adopt? For "pro life" to be in fact pro life, the movement is morally obligated to take responsibility for all of the extra children their policies are going to bring into this world. Interesting how little concern there is for the "sanctity of life" once it's out of the womb! And those babies in utero are contingent life, since they are dependent on the womb for survival -- which is part of the mother's body. Outside of the abortion issue, there are no situations you can cite of a right to life that depends on someone else's body. Before your movement's aims are taken seriously by outsiders, they need to at least acknowledge that over-ruling a request for an abortion, even a third trimester abortion, is a direct infringement on the woman's right to decide things that affect her body and freedom of movement. The fact that they ignore the incubator who makes life possible shows their total lack of respect for the pregnant woman's desires. There is no "right to be born." And for this "life begins at conception" mythology to be consistent, artificial means of birth control, including oral contraceptives, IUD's, also have to be banned because of their abortifacient properties. So we're back to Catholic World, where virtuous girls protect their virginity -- so the 90% who have sex and get pregnant, have to marry the father, or be labeled sluts......just like in the good old days! Yes it is too much to ask, since you haven't bothered to read any of the online material about why women seek late term abortions. Most of the reasons are related to discovery of serious birth defects or risks to the mother's health -- so right off the top, you are advocating banning a procedure that could save lives. Earlier, you posted an unlinked quote from a Catholic extremist psychiatrist who was brought in by the former state attorney general to examine some of Dr. Tiller's medical records; and he considered cases of underage girls impregnated through incest, to be unnecessary abortions -- which is why church leaders and politicians should not be able to impose rigid rules that could victimize women and girls who need to have a late term abortion.

First off, I got to say that I think Democratic strategists are behind the Palin 2012 campaign. As for Alaska, apparently Sarah Palin's star has burned out in her home state, thanks to falling oil revenues depleting their SOCIALIST Alaska Permanent Fund, and the fact that she spends more time in the Lower 48 running for president than she does at home, doing the job she was hired to do. In the most recent statewide poll, Palin's combined favourables are 54%, compared with State Senator Lisa Murkowski's 76%; which is why Sarah gave up on her plan of running for the Senate, so she would have an excuse for being in Washington constantly. Alaska is a long way to travel from to try to run a presidential campaign. Sarah will be too busy trying to hold on to her day job to make a serious run for the Whitehouse. http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/...ives/168203.asp http://www.haysresearch.com/oc050509.htm

The problem is that birth rates are on the rise in many of these African, Asian and Latin American countries where the religious, conservative tag team of the Catholic Church and Islamic leaders have dismantled birth control programs......providing an endless supply of potential immigrants.

If we go back in time to the days before there were any children's aid agencies, children were abused with impugnity, unless they went to far and killed them. In England 150 years ago, boys were sold to workhouses to pay off debts and girls were sold into prostitution. Are you advocating a return to the old "anything goes" standard where nobody stepped in to help children born into horrible situations? Read it again! "16% of indicated reports of abuse and neglect in foster care are retrospective reports that occurred prior to foster care placement." Those are false reports, since it states plainly that the actual abuse happened to the children before they were placed in foster care. Caused by CAS! You have no basis to make such an assertion, especially from the information you cited. Children left in abusive homes may be even more dysfunctional and prone to criminal behaviour. The fact is Children's Aid does not get calls from the police regarding normal family situations....they aren't likely to have police knocking on their doors in the first place. They are taking abused kids from bad situations, so the odds of growing up normal are already severely reduced. As your link says: "We're taking them out of very difficult family circumstances, bringing them into state care and then we're charging them for their behaviour. It's very concerning to me," Finlay said. The report, which was obtained by CBC News, lays much of the blame on group homes that rely too heavily on police to resolve problems that could be handled by staff. Kids have been charged for everything from refusing to read a book or hitting someone with a tea towel, Finlay said. One group home in Ontario called police 400 times in a single year So, they're taking kids from bad situations, putting them in group homes, and then over-reacting when the kids commit minor and petty infractions -- calling the police, and making them liable for criminal charges. The child advocate doesn't mention that low payed group home staffers have to often deal with violent, dangerous youths, and that may cause them to over-react. But once again, the group homes are there because these children were not adopted, and then got to old to be placed in foster homes. What is your alternative?

It seems that any fool knows when to stop lying and trying to spin his way out of hole....except for you and Dick Cheney! "medical risks associated with abortions".....there are medical risks with driving on the highway or popping viagra pills -- the question is what is the degree of risk, and the numbers show abortions, even in the third trimester, are actually much lower risk than trying to deliver a baby: death is 48 times more likely, and 100 times more likely to suffer injury or serious illness due to complications during childbirth than having an abortion. http://www.womensmedcenter.com/faqs/default.asp And my focus has been on the issue of abortion and reproductive rights, not which country has better access. If anything the religious nutcase conservatives are hard at work in both countries, so we're both regressing backwards. Every trend that starts in the U.S. finds its way to Canada, including the religious right and Republican-style conservatism, so we have good reasons to be watching what's going on in the U.S. But why are you so interested in Canada?

Who says renewable energy has to be all about windmills? Your report is negative on windmills but seems to be high on solar energy. And it mentions the topic of population reduction as essential to longterm success for any strategy. That's a topic we haven't been hearing about since conservative religious forces managed to kneecap birth control strategies, but it's only sensible - the more people, the more energy and resources they need - especially when they are striving to achieve Western living standards. And there are environmental impacts with nuclear as well as well, and big startup and security costs. When I read the story, I couldn't help thinking this sounds like the usual one where local politicians try to blame their own budgetary mistakes on the provincial or federal governments. If they got a share of the increased health spending in last year's budget, why did they have to pull money from health care instead of cutting spending in other departments?

No, but I can read and I'm not going to let you get away with your lies. Whether or not you are opposed to abortion, you don't get to make up stories about the medical risks. They can be shot down faster than claims that waterboarding isn't torture! And I've asked this before but again, if you are really "pro life," why would you be celebrating the fact that third trimester abortion is more readily available in some U.S. states than it is in some Canadian provinces? Your thinking confirms that fiscal conservatives and military hawks use these emotional issues to gain the support of low-income religious people who are in fact harmed by conservative economic policy. Ignorance and repressive religious movements are harmful wherever they are at work -- whether it's in Canada, the United States, the Middle East or Europe for that matter. But, your reference does not mention the fact that Canada has roughly one tenth the population density as the U.S., so access to many other medical assistance besides abortion can be affected. I don't take any cheap shots at the United States! I criticize the things I believe need to be challenged. You are the one who sees Canada/U.S. relations, abortion, economic policies etc. as some kind of stupid game of rhetoric.

Really! Never let the facts get in the way of a good argument: How safe is it to have an abortion? The Women’s Med Center has a very low complication rate that is below 1%. An abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy (first three months) is considered minor surgery. It does not involve any cutting or incision and the actual procedure takes about five minutes. There are some risks with having an abortion, but the risks are less in the first three months of pregnancy. Sometimes an infection may occur. The chances of having an infection are 1 in 10,000 women. We provide you with medication and instructions to help you avoid infection. Risk of internal damage to the uterus or other organs is 1 in 10,000 women. Our specially trained physicians are highly skilled and each has over 25 years experience in performing abortions. Carrying a pregnancy to full term carries much higher risks for women under the age of 20. One (1) in every 400,000 women dies from an abortion whereas 12 out of 100,000 (48 times greater) die from carrying a pregnancy full term. If the pregnancy is continued, risk of injury or serious illness is 100 times greater than with an abortion. http://www.womensmedcenter.com/faqs/default.asp It's not a dangerous medical procedure, even in the later stages of development. The dangers come from the anti-abortion protesters. We've already discussed Quebec previously, and it has no bearing on this issue....except that you see every issue, including abortion, as just another prop to make cheap shots at Canada, which I couldn't care less about, since I don't share your extreme feelings of national identity.

Just looking at wind turbines for example, how "diffuse" wind energy is depends on where you place the turbines! How much energy is lost in power grids that have to extend for miles to get electricity to remote, rural locations? Wind turbines placed in selected areas along the way would be a great help to lessen the demands placed on the system. And this Dutch report from about ten years ago mentions many of the technological improvements made to make windmills more efficient. Conclusion The potential of wind energy is large, with the technical potential of generating electricity onshore estimated at 20,000–50,000 terawatt-hours a year. When investigating the potential, special attention should go to possibilities offshore. Studies for Europe indicate that the offshore wind resources that can be tapped are bigger than the total electricity demand in Europe. The average growth rate of the cumulative capacity over the last six years has been about 30 percent a year, bringing the cumulative installed wind turbine capacity to about 10,000 megawatts at the end of 1998 and about 13,500 megawatts at the end of 1999— and wind energy production to 18 terawatt-hours in 1998 and 24 terawatt-hours in 1999. Wind turbines are becoming larger, with the average size installed in 1998 at 600 kilowatts, up from about 30 kilowatts in the mid-1970s. Turbines of megawatt size are being developed and should soon be commercially available. Costs have to come down further, requiring development of advanced flexible concepts and dedicated offshore wind energy systems. Cost reductions up to 45 percent are feasible within 15 years. Ultimately wind electricity costs might come down to about $0.03 a kilowatt-hour. Although wind-generated electricity is an intermittent resource, it can be transformed to baseload power supply if combined with energy storage. For compressed air energy storage the additional costs may be limited to about $0.01 a kilowatt-hour, opening the possibility of exploiting good wind resources remote from markets. The environmental impacts of wind turbines are limited, with noise and visibility causing the most problems, increasing public resistance against the installation of new turbines in densely populated countries. Interest in small turbines is being revived for standalone and autonomous systems in rural areas. http://www.undp.org/energy/activities/wea/pdfs/chapter7.pdf Do you understand that this is a life or death issue that may be in fact too big to fix without first undergoing an environmental catastrophe and a dramatic degradation of the quality of life for most people? Let em bitch about gas prices! It's running out anyway -- at least the cheap, easily accessible oil is running out. Could you explain how a carbon tax (which they claim will be revenue neutral) cuts funding for health care? The government there has added almost 3 billion to health care spending over the next three years......at least according to last year's budget:http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/...ial-budget.html

Good luck with that idea! The "Pro Life" movement is only concerned about the sanctity of life while it's in the womb; once the baby is born, they are not going to line up to adopt them, and they want cuts to all of the social programs put in place to help single mothers who have taken their advice and had the baby.......no sanctity for life after the baby is born, and that strange dichotomy shows what a fraud their expressed concern for life really is.

Some highlights from a study produced by the Children and Family Research Center of the University of Illinois: Child Maltreatment in Foster Care: A Study of Retrospective Reporting ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- She points out that foster homes are involved in only 1% of national reports of child maltreatment. Furthermore, she stresses that foster families are held to stricter standards for the treatment of children, are conspicuous and closely scrutinized in the community, are familiar with reporting procedures and are therefore more likely to report, and that community organizations, including the foster care agency, are concerned about legal liability regarding foster children. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In a retrospective study of medical reports of alleged physical and/or sexual abuse assessed and reported by pediatricians in Leeds, England over the six- year period 1990– 1995, Hobbs , Hobbs, and Wynne (1999) discovered foster children were 7 to 8 times more likely to be assessed for abuse than a child in the general population. Foster parents were the perpetrators of abuse in 41% of the cases, as were birth parents in 23% of cases, and other children in 20% of cases. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Perpetrator For those cases that were not retrospective, adult relatives, whether they were the relative caregiver or another relative of the foster child, were the most likely perpetrators (39% of cases) (Table 3). The next most frequent perpetrator was a foster parent (27% of cases). Birth parents were the perpetrators of abuse and/or neglect in 13% of cases. Other children were noted as the perpetrator in 8% of cases ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Therefore, foster care outcome reporting continues to include situations that one might deem outside the purview of the foster care system, such as in school, an assault of a foster child by a birth parent, threats by birth parents, or babysitters who victimized foster children. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONCLUSION The results from this study indicate that overall 16% of indicated reports of abuse and neglect in foster care are retrospective reports that occurred prior to foster care placement. Of the 301 cases in this study, 21% of indicated reports in family foster homes, 9% of indicated reports in relative foster homes, and 23% of indicated reports in specialized foster homes were retrospective cases, with another 2 reports (one in a relative home and one in a specialized home) actually causing the placement rather than occurring there. It seems clear from this preliminary study that, true to anecdotal information, there is over-reporting of abuse and neglect within foster care. With the evidence from this study, it would seem appropriate that child abuse and neglect incidents attributed to foster care in outcome reporting be adjusted to more accurately reflect and account for retrospective reporting. http://www.cfrc.illinois.edu/pubs/Pdf.file...ildmalretro.pdf The final verdict should be that some parents are abusive and a detriment to the safety and wellbeing of their children. To give them a chance to have a better life, it was necessary for these agencies to be created and try to fix a bad situation. I'm sure there are problems with Children's Aid and abuses by foster parents and case workers; but the alternative of doing nothing is unthinkable, especially during a time when half of all marriages end in divorce and children have to deal with stepfathers, stepmothers, and even get blended in with unrelated children as the parents try to create a new family.

RIGHT!!! So, along with being a conspiracy nut who makes up his bullshit on the fly, Alex Jones has an axe to grind with child protective services. I'll jump to conclusions and assume that he is also a child abuser who is always on the lookout for negative stories about children's aid agencies. He says: 80% of the abuse is either by children's aid workers or foster care; does he have any documentation to back up that claim? Or does he just pull it out of his ass like he does with his 9/11 conspiracy theories.

"Liberal bloodlust for third-tri fetuses!" If that isn't a lame attempt at blame-shifting, nothing is. Right wing authoritarians are using terrorist tactics of violence, fear of violence, and intimidation, to get what they have not been able to accomplish by either democratic or legal means; and no excuse that some medical students do not want to be involved in abortions, explains why there has been a steady drop in the number of trained medical professionals who can staff abortion clinics or perform these services in hospitals. Have medical students really changed that much since the 70's? Or is it more likely that most do not want to face the constant assaults and potential dangers that are now involved in providing these services thanks to your fascist-conservative friends!

I don't care what strategy is used as long as they can start getting results! If you like market-based solutions so much, you should be a supporter, at least in principle, of carbon taxes. Cap and trade systems are an open invitation to corruption and secret deal-making....and the costs can be hidden from public view. Also, if you want to practice real free market economics, you should also be opposed to hidden subsidies to oil companies, like the ones mentioned on that Treehugger site, quoting from a Cato Institute report: subsidies for corn-based ethanol production, which are in fact indirect oil subsidies, and Cato estimates that the U.S. military spends 30 to 60 billion per year safe-guarding oil shipments from the MiddleEast -- why not send that bill to Exxon/Mobil or to the European and Far East nations who buy most of that oil? Well, then other solutions have to be found. But necessity is the mother of all invention, so shift the tax burden on to the production of greenhouse gases, and make the oil companies pay the costs for getting their product to market. This will drive the discovery of new technologies

It could be! In Europe, after WWII there were many collaborations between socialist and and the Euro-communist parties in France, West Germany and Italy. And many nations undergoing a collapse into anarchy end up with a struggle between extreme left and extreme right factions. Right now, I'm not sure if there are leftwing equivalents to the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground being organized, but the right side of the political spectrum is losing, or has already lost all respect for democratic principles -- especially since 9/11. For example: conflating disagreement with the former Republican President with disloyalty to the nation; using fear of terrorist attacks to invade privacy and disregard rule of law with the excuse of combating terrorism; increasing emphasis on military spending at the expense of domestic needs; invoking religious authority for political goals, and buying church support with faith-based initiatives; religion also plays a pivotal role in the fascist goal of reinstituting patriarchy -- the religious right is pushing "covenant marriage," creepy father/daughter "purity balls," and removing feminine influence on government policy by making sure that most women are busy having babies....and that's why there is so much emphasis placed on the fight against abortion and birth control; creating scapegoats -- race, ethnic or religious minorities, or godless liberals, to blame when things go wrong. I could probably add more to the list, but these seemingly disparate conservative policies and ideals all have the effect of subordinating individual rights to an authoritarian state. Needless to say, the right sort of leader has to be in charge, so we can expect more violence and crazy talk like former SBC Vice President Wiley Drake, who claims to be making "imprecatory prayers" for the death of Barack Obama http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=co...6&Itemid=53

So your solution is just to keep on with business as usual! Those alternative technologies can be improved. I don't know about your claim that wind turbines "require" precious metals. Offhand, I'd like to know how the Dutch built windmills for centuries without needing precious metals. Aside from that, we do know that oil is running out; even oil industry analysts are starting to take the issue of peak oil seriously. But, maybe that's a good thing since burning fossil fuels means continued increase in atmospheric CO2 levels. And there are consequences to elevated CO2 levels, including enhancing the greenhouse effect and making the world's oceans more acidic. Doing nothing is worse than making failed attempts to bring the Age of Oil to a close.

Since there are very few issues that allow complete, unrestricted personal freedom, I suppose there are situations where access to late term abortions should be ruled out. The "pro life" advocates are remarkably silent about the likely no.1 motivation for third trimester abortions in China, India and many other Third World countries -- sex selection of male offspring -- which has led to unhealthy population demographic problems. If this issue is reduced to competing rights of a fetus vs. a woman who is serving as the host to her offspring, the pro choice side has not been making a strong enough case for the latter -- which should be self-evident, since protecting the life of a fetus cannot be done without disregarding the desires of the pregnant woman. The pro choice advocates really need to bring the issue of a woman's autonomy over her own body back to the forefront. Most Americans and Canadians are totally oblivious to way virtual gunboat diplomacy is applied in Latin America and Asia. Despotic dictators are installed and propped up by the CIA, as long as they do the bidding of multinational corporations operating in their countries, and allow the IMF and World Bank to control economic policy. Then Americans watching the nightly news are flummoxed and indignant when demonstrators vent their rage at America -- and just assume it's all about jealousy of the greatest nation on earth, rather than constant meddling in their internal affairs.

So the B.C. NDP is finally realizing it's not smart to crap where you eat? You can't wrap yourself in a green flag and call yourself an environmentalist if you're going to dump the issue over the side as an election campaign strategy.

I hate to be looking for a cloud inside this silver lining, but the recall is coming just ahead of an important Canadian deadline for U.S. Steel. According to the president of the Steelworkers Union, the company would have had to pay out 15 million in severance if they don't call back the 800 workers by mid-July. Many of those who are taking early retirement packages say they are feeling pressured into retiring; and when U.S. Steel does get around to restoring full production, it will likely be part of a new collective agreement that hires in new employees at reduced wages, benefits and working conditions.

If this is true, the editorial position of the Spectator has changed since I last was a regular subscriber. Aren't they still owned by Torstar? That was one of my reasons for cancelling my subscription (besides access to better information on the internet). I couldn't stand reading all of the same stories in the Spec that were in the Toronto Star. The protest groups have to learn to walk a line between getting attention for a cause and turning people who are inconvenienced into enemies. I know the Six Nations couldn't get a byline in any newspaper until they started the blockade in Caledonia, but the way they handled the situation (especially the anarchy created between band council leaders and Warrior Society terrorists) has turned most of the people living near or around the Grand River into enemies.