ReeferMadness

Rob Ford didn't seem to be clear on the reasons he needed to apologize. Maybe we should all help him by itemizing his past bizarre behaviour. Here is a start: 20 things you should know about Rob Ford

My thoughts exactly. Worst. Apology. Ever.

I agree with most of what he says but I'm not sure he has much to say that is new or different. And he doesn't seem to have a lot to suggest.

For ironic, substitute "hypocritical" and you have it about right.

I was happy to see the back of Campbell as he left but your comparison of Campbell to Ford is fatuous. While Campbell did break the law and should have resigned, he took responsibility and appeared (truthfully or not) to be contrite. Ford is the opposite. Campbell would have been run out of the province if he had anything remotely resembling Ford's long streak of bizarre and despicable behaviour.

I see the usual suspects either haven't been paying attention or aren't debating honestly. Just because there are some people who have the intelligence to see that drug prohibition is a complete failure, it doesn't automatically follow that people want a crackhead for a mayor. Even if smoking crack were legal, it would still be questionable behaviour for any elected official, let alone a mayor of a major city. If the only thing that Ford had been stupid enough to do was smoke crack on a video with questionable associates, there would be calls for his resignation; but there wouldn't be this type of shitstorm. You appear to be ignoring Ford's long list of bizarre, embarrassing, repugnant and possibly illegal behaviour including: public intoxication racial stereotypes and epithets homophobic comments reading while driving allegedly assaulting his wife calling 911 when CBC comedians showed up at his house repeatedly lying about his behaviour counting among his closest friends some pretty sketchy characters engaging in conflict of interest (he was found guilty by a judge who removed him from office) abuse of his power as mayor (ordered a TTC bus to pick up his football team). Recently, he has been under police surveillance and he's been asked by the police to provide a statement. It's quite right for the citizens of Toronto to inquire and be told his part in the current criminal mess. But don't expect it to happen. As for claims made in this thread that Ford has broken no laws, I think it might be more accurate to say that Ford hasn't been convicted - yet. Probably, Ford has been careful enough and can afford good enough lawyers to avoid that. But it's to be seen. Individually, these behaviours might be written off as lapses in judgement. Viewed together, they show a pattern of poor judgement, questionable ethics and poor character. So, if you're saying that makes for a great mayor, well, that's on you.

Isn't it fun watching the same people who got apoplectic with rage over Liberal misdeeds now twist themselves into pretzels defending the guy who came in to clean up Ottawa.

At what point will the citizens of Toronto have had their fill of embarrassment and run this buffoon out of town?

I don't hear anyone defending Duffy but Duffy's lawyer. Duffy being in the wrong sure doesn't mean that Harper is in the right.

So the real question is..... could Duffy really fit under a bus?

To me, the identity of the author is less of an issue than the claims he makes. I've noticed that the people around here who seem to get off on war porn haven't argued with what he is saying. They keep going on about how many countries are in the queue, even though none of those sales will be real if these turkeys don't get fixed. Lockheed Martin has been working on these things for almost 20 years and they are nowhere near combat ready. Let's post that quote again: Do any of the war porn cheerleaders have any evidence that any of this is wrong?

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/09/joint-strike-fighter-lockheed-martin

In the spirit of thanksgiving, let's "talk turkey" and serve up the real grits on this flying butterball. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/09/joint-strike-fighter-lockheed-martin For all of the boosterism that shows up on this site, it is amazingly easy to find dirt on this gobbler. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/10/the-f-35-fighter-jet-program-has-precisely-719-problems/280193/ The test pilots don't seem too fond of it either. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/f-35-fighter-panned-by-u-s-test-pilots-1.1412602 The only reason the program hasn't been killed yet is that the geniuses at the pentagon keep dropping performance standards. http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-pentagons-new-trillion-dollar-jet-is-a-garbage-can But, unlike traditional thanksgiving turkeys, these birds are invincible. No, I don't mean that militarily, just politically. http://gizmodo.com/inside-the-pentagons-trillion-dollar-f-35-embarrassmen-1325863089 Oh, yeah. We Canadians are sooooo jealous.

Just one more case in the long, sad saga of Chairman Harper lowering Canada's international reputation. How low can it go?

Dammit!! Those Republicans KNEW I wanted to visit a civil war battleground this weekend.

D'oh - you shouldn't have mentioned that. Now your VISA bill is going to be at the top of their list when they get back. Got any purchases you'd rather not own up to?

Making your own wine is perfectly legal. As is making your own beer.

Well, that sums up the traditional right-wing view of things. It's not rich people's fault that they're so talented, hard working and virtuous that they deserve everything while the slime-sucking, useless poor people should count themselves lucky that they get to live in the same world. At its essence, the reason that so much money goes into health care is the same in the single payer model as in the morally bankrupt only-provide-healthcare-to-the-wealthy model. It's that there is enormous profit to be made in treating sick people but very little to be made in keeping people well. So, ridiculously expensive treatments (with often little therapeutic value) are offered to desperate ill people and their families. If your goal is to reduce the amount spent on healthcare, focus on keeping people healthy, not waiting until it's too late. Of course, if your goal is to build pretenses to justify your morally bankrupt ideology, I guess it really doesn't matter if people are healthy or not.

True. What should have happened is that the enormous health care insurance industry should have been put out of business and the savings put towards actually providing healthcare to people. But of course, it would have been too hard to take on established interests so the best Obama could do was to throw billions of dollars at this massive layer of useless overhead; hoping enough would get through to help people who needed it.

I used to think that democracy was dying of apathy. Now I see that there are lots of people who are afraid of it and who just prefer authoritarian control.

Did it ever occur to you that when you have peer-reviewed science on one side of an argument and a bunch of holier-than-thou knuckle-dragging conservatives on the other, it isn't really a debate anymore? You have to go out of your way and look really hard to find evidence that Insite is bad. I noticed that your link had nothing to do with Insite, only dealt with one facet of needle exchanges and was inconclusive in its findings. Hardly damning stuff. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Canada overwhelmingly found that the benefits of Insite were so great that it made the Federal Government keep the facility open. Insite links. http://www.aidsmeds.com/articles/hiv_injection_overdose_1667_20274.shtml http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/222713.php http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/05/30/thomas-kerr-vancouvers-insite-clinic-has-been-a-resounding-success/ http://supervisedinjection.vch.ca/media-centre/an-overview-of-insite---10-years-later https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insite

So you think that we should piss away billions because of your paranoid delusions? Wouldn't it be cheaper just to up your medications?

Do a little research on the subject. Drugs associated with racial minorities regularly are demonized to a greater extent and draw harsher penalties. The history of drug demonization is rife with racial bigotry. Here's an example: Link

Science is never settled - scientists keep on discovering new things about the world. Any other expectation is ludicrous. There are plenty of good reasons to become more efficient with natural resources - especially fossil fuels. They include less pollution, conservation of resources for future generations, sustainment of biodiversity and freeing up of people's time for non-economic pursuits (ie increased personal freedom). However, doing this without destroying the quality of life for poor people will involve creativity, empathy and cooperation - not exactly the strengths of the dinosaurs who seem to be dominating economic thought these days.

When it comes to opponents of In Site, their callousness is only exceeded by their ignorance. From the comments here, it's clear they don't know what In Site is about, they don't know how it's funded, they don't know how many lives are saved. And they don't care. After all, these are just junkies whose lives are being saved, right? :angry: :angry: :angry: When you review the history of drug enforcement, it becomes clear that it is a litany of ignorance, lies and thinly veiled racism. When Cory Monteith died of a heroin overdose, it wasn't simply the opioids that killed him. It was a combination of heroin and alcohol. In fact, most heroin overdose deaths are the result of heroin combined with another drug and often that other drug is alcohol. But all we hear is that it's a heroin overdose.