ReeferMadness

I don't know what took so long but congratulations to the Supreme Court justices for finally recognizing the obvious hypocrisy of the prostitution laws. Rather than directly criminalizing the act of paid sex, they criminalized communication about the act of paying for sex and making money helping someone who is getting paid for sex. Clearly the laws were remnants of Victorian attitudes towards sex. The question is now what? The political parties have a serious problem on their hands and it will be interesting to see how this plays out. On the right, Harper and the knuckle draggers need to do something to placate their right wing base, the ones who really do have Victorian attitudes towards. However, anything that placates the social conservatives will not sit well with the small-government, libertarian bunch. On the left, there will also be a split, between those who favour decriminalizing prostitutes as a way of protecting women and the staunch feminists who are firm in the belief that prostitution is simply part of male hegemony. The latter want Swedish style laws that criminalize purchasers of sex (mainly men) but not the sellers. I think there is an opportunity here for the Liberals (and possibly the Greens) to drive up the middle and come out the winners on this issue. If they advocate for legalization in a way that keeps prostitution low profile (ie not Vegas or Amsterdam), they can appeal to a broad cross section without alienating a big part of their constituency. Both the Conservatives and the NDP will be hard pressed to avoid antagonizing part of their bases.

I assume by "quite well", you mean that your country successfully destroyed the civilian economy and killed countless civilians.

It became a truther issue when certain poster issues used "truther" as an epithet in a pathetic attempt to link people who believe that the Saudis were involved with people who believe that charges were deliberately set in the buildings. BTW, 15 of 19 of the hijackers were Saudi citizens.

1. By that definition, I would say the majority of the world's population could be considered truthers, according to the polls cited in the Wikipedia article. 3. Of course it wasn't right - Saddam had nothing to do with 911 - this just shows how little Americans pay attention. Even when their commander-in-chief starts a war.

What exactly is a truther? You make it sound as this is an organized religious or political affiliation with a stated creed or manifesto. There are significant portions of the population (inside and outside of the US) that think the official story isn't completely correct but there is a big range of possibilities about the potential alternatives. Interestingly, there is a large segment of Americans who have come to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 911 attacks. I think that's crazier than most of what you might hear from so-called "truthers".

Australia didn't just exploit a position of power. The government broke laws both international and domestic. All to get something that by international convention, they had no entitlement to. It was a bit like robbing the blind homeless person begging on a street corner and then "negotiating" to split the money.

And.... if you made that bet, you'd lose. In case you're not getting it, I'll repeat it more plainly and slower. You're wrooooonnnnngggg. While I'm in favour of a world where people are free to live where they like I don't support policies that keeps poor countries poor. Even in the world of politics where hypocrisy, greed and a complete lack fairness are the norm, international relations are a particularly despicable cesspool of human depravity. What wealthy countries trumpet as foreign aid is often in actuality a combination of stability-destroying arms, surplus produce which simultaneously subsidizes the wealthy country's corporations while undermining the poor country's economy and loans that ultimately further impoverish the country. Powerful, wealthy countries routinely deal with weaker ones in such a transparently predatory fashion (such as this deal) that I'm only surprised that the level of antipathy towards wealthy countries in the third world isn't greater than it is. Perhaps the citizens are so jaded by corruption in their own countries that they don't have the energy to spare when they see that their already poor country is further victimized by one that already has more than it needs. I also think that you're looking at the matter completely ass-backwards. We normally import look for immigrants with wealth and marketable skills (which means education). In very poor countries, low social mobility is the norm and so these are normally people who are born into relatively wealthy families. Hardly a good way to select the brightest. Having some of the more educated people leave a poor country certainly would have a detrimental impact but I think there are much more worse ways that the wealthy countries are hurting the third world. The exploitation of resources by multinational corporations, the meddling in internal politics, the supporting of dictators, the coercion by the IMF and world bank of indebted nations to accept deals that guarantee those nations stay poor - these are the things that really hurt.

East Timor has been independent since 2002. Look it up.

I think a nation state should follow international law and deal fairly with its neighbors. I think a nation state should follow its own laws and not arrest its own citizens for having a conscience. But hey, clearly you don't have one so how could you understand?

Is that the best you can do? In a poor country, the extra income could easily make the difference between life and death, particularly for children under 5? Care to make a few cracks over that?

It seems that GlaxoSmithKline has decided to stop the blatantly unethical practise of paying doctors to prescribe its products. Why would they do that? It could be that, as they claim More likely it has more to do with this But it is quite possible that it has to do with a provision of Obamacare

This is an outrage. Is this what the world has come to? Is this the natural outgrowth of capitalist thought? Screw your much-poorer neighbor and take what isn't yours? Unbelievable. But it gets better. I guess Harper now has competition from a government that seems even more determined to ruin their country's reputation.

WTG, Wynne. Someone needs to show some leadership in this country and it sure won't be Chairman Harper. If the provinces get together and start the ball rolling, the feds (not necessarily this bunch, but perhaps the next government) will have no choice but to catch up. Just like medicare.

Well, well, well.... Looks like someone's got some 'splainin' to do. I'm sure the NSA will rush out and apologize to Snowden.

So, Rob can use this experience as "research" for all of the people he's threatened to sue....

So, you know them personally, then. Neighbors of yours?

Sounds like Harper's entire plan. Make an ideological assumption and proceed. When you screw it up, that's OK because NAFTA ensures that you can never bring the business public again.

The shale oil & gas were discovered decades ago and most of the technology to extract them has been around for a long time as well. What is new is that we're running out of conventional oil which is why we're now relying on hard-to-get, environmentally dirty (even for the fossil fuel industry!), expensive oil and gas. And before you start popping champagne corks, check out the production decline rates for fracked wells.

Only if you cherry pick your data. But if you look over a longer time scale, the story is different: But gini coefficient is only one part of the story. Here is a more telling graph. Up until about 1970, everyone was gaining from those productivity gains. Since then, they've gone almost entirely to the top 1%.

I see you'd rather bleat slogans than respond to the facts. Just keep your head in the sand and whatever you do, don't look at the harsh face of reality. Are these people "afraid of productivity and competition"? The modern versions of soup lines are food banks and food stamps. And the they are being frequented by the workers of you capitalist paradise. Bon appetit.

The article is bang on. The jury is in and, contrary to the claims that have been made, cutting taxes doesn't create jobs or stimulate the economy. It just makes rich people richer. Having said that, I think that we need to be careful about setting the expectation that the main reason for income leveling is to grow the GDP. The main reason should be to restore fairness and balance and grow a society that isn't deeply divided. Measuring a society on the basis of GDP is analogous to measuring the well-being of a hamster solely on the basis of how fast he runs in his wheel. Someone might be tempted to do something stupid like feed the hamster methamphetamines. Just like all of the stupid things that real world economists propose to speed up the world's economy, believing that it is helping humanity.

Well, that's what the people who pray before the altar of unrestricted capitalism believe. In fact, what has actually happened is that Corporations pay such pathetic wages that the state has to step in and subsidize them by topping up the incomes of their workers to keep them out of abject poverty. Is this the wondrous efficiency of which you speak? And it's not just McDonalds and Walmart, it's the very industry that created the economic nightmare in 2008. Please tell us more of this marvelous growth in service sector jobs.

You owe me a laptop. I had a mouthful of coffee when it got to the "make sure you have enough to eat at home" line. Hilarious!!

It seems like Ford is starting to become a problem for Chairman Harper and his merry band of knuckle-draggers. It seems like Ford isn't the only right-winger from the GTA who has violent tendencies and personal control issues.

What gets me about Ford and the good Lord of Crossharbour is their bloated senses of entitlement. Wealth, entitled, victims of fate.