Sir Bandelot

"We cannot however recall that Pius 12 was a Nazi sympathizer, or that the church was an enabler in helping high ranking Nazis escape to Argentina. Or that I am a former Hitler-jugend..."

The article states the union is also in support of it. I am in favour of real gun control too. Don't know if this is the real deal or not. But since it's a tool that primarily the cops would use, not me, I'll listen to them first. How does that not make sense?

Was listening to the radio news today and they came on and said that the BC police chiefs and police union urge the government to support the long gun registry. "I want to be perfectly clear here. The B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police supports the continuation of the firearms registry as a crucial component of both the public and police officer safety," said Pecknold. "The registry gives police officers across this country timely reliable information going into potentially deadly situations. Eliminating the registry will inevitably and needlessly endanger the lives of police and the communities they serve across Canada." West Vancouver police Chief Peter Lepine said his officers use the long-gun registry an average of 18 times a day in preparing for domestic violence calls or when dealing with potentially dangerous offenders. BC police officers use the registry 2700 times a day. B.C. top cops voice support for long-gun registry 'nuff said

Or being grotesquely misunderstood... no doubt this forum is some type of therapy

No I think the real point is up the top of your head

Again, that conclusion is not rational. It's like saying, there is no room for abstract thinking. Do you have any idea what that would do if it were abolished from the minds of man? But more to the point, I do not accuse scientists of having an agenda to delete god. In fact there are many real scientists who do believe in god. Some of them I know personally. Hawking recently released a book of some sort, in which he postulates that the universe emerged spontaneously out of nothing, and does not need a creator to do this. I have no idea if he's "right", because he's so far out there in his advanced knowledge of physics that I and most people couldn't understand him. But I think he's being arrogant in making such a statement somehow. And not terribly surprising that he would, given his debilitating condition which he has had to suffer with for years, for no APPARENT reason. I suspect this book is what's got the original posters knickers in a bunch over Hawking. Yes that's the one. They're looking for it with the LHC.

Breaking news, the government's salaries are paid for by you and me.

Personally I have no problem with religion or those who believe in it. To me the will to abolish religion is like the will to abolish art. So one could even say the reverse is true, that it's the scientists who urgently want to prove there is no god. They don't realize, the mere ability to raise the question is like a "miracle" in itself. But my view isthat one day science, if left unfettered by partisan ideology will prove that there IS a god. particle

Alright Bill, I didn't want to argue about it. But to be dismissive of what we don't fully know, is also potentially naive. There are some real scientists who do think there is a "risk", but it's low. Perhaps you think of them as techno-rubes as well. Nevertheless, that's what experiments are about, exploring the unknown. If we knew exactly what would happen, we wouldn't need to perform experiments. It doesn't take a black hole the size of a grain of sand to be dangerous, since once they exist they could potentially begin to accrete matter. The question is, will they be created and will they exist for a length of time, or spontaneously disappear. Hawking says they might be created (1/1000 chance) but they should disappear. Let's hope he's right about that. -> Most people stopped taking even basic science after their beans in that jar of tissue paper for their grade 5 science project sprouted up a few inches and died... Oh, you got the beans to grow, Bill?

Let's hope he's not too wrong. The calculated safety margin in creation of stranglets and black hole particles by the Large Hadron Collider depends on Hawking's theories. Link

Or nazi Germany, or Israel or China, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. So? When Rome was the empire, people probably talked about Rome alot. Today US is like an empire, it has the monetary system, the high tech military, the ICBMs, space program. What's not to talk about Before you get a fat head let me point out, that doesn't mean we give any credit to YOU, ugly American. Oh, too late

As do yours. Since it is exactly what you said, verbatim, I can only assume you mean it. As for me I have never said such a thing, even in jest. That's why it's so hard to figure you out.

Maybe you hope that, but I think it shows that acts of foolishness by emotional people on both sides of this issue only leads to a win for the bad guys. Because they don't want peace between muslims and non-muslims, so anything that inflames the public against muslims actually works for them. The radicals are having a field day with this. That's why the media made matters even worse. By hyping up all this BS about the preacher, who's just another fringe looney like we've seen before, like flag burners or bible burners but they don't get much attention, they gave him a megaphone.

But Patreua and Obama said, if we do burn the Koran, the terrorists win. Did this whole craziness create a win-win situation for the terrorists?

Reality shows itself! Kiss your freedoms goodbye, infidel! You are no longer free to be a moron. From now on, your name is Ali

Sure it is, because we all know there's an international conspiracy of western governments who are totally afraid of muslims! Case in point, invasion of Iraq (x2), invasion of Afghanistan, drone strikes in Pakistan. Various parts of Africa. Internment without charges in Guantanamo. Abu Graib... they pissed on the koran there. But in actual fact, they are afraid of a muslim uprising thanks to the action of some disabused preacher in Jerkwater USA!

It just proves you people don't really know what you're talking about. The reason there was so much pressue to stop the koran burning on 9/11 is not because they wanted to capitulate to muslims, but that it would insense the general public and make them believe that all muslims are somehow responsible for the terrorist attacks. Any other argument for why it should be burnt, specifically on that day or why they shouldn't be permitted to build their mosque in New York is just silly word games, and expletive deleted

This entire debate is about whether muslims in general should hold responsibility for the attack on 9/11. The people who don't want the mosque in NYC tend to feel that way. And the people who want to burn the book tend to feel that way also. There is no disconnect.

But Bill, just because large numbers of people protest does not make them all radicals. Protest in a non-violent way is part of the system that lets people voice their discontent. Look for example at the NYC Mosque protests, large numbers of people coming out to protest against building the mosque. Some of them are bigots and muslim haters, but surely not all... there must be a few moderates among them

They have no choice now but to do so. And although it adds to the hype, it at least adds in a way to try and calm things down. The alternative would be far worse, if a prominent leader did endorse the book burning. That's right. But if you were to announce a bible burning and it was picked up by hundreds of media outlets, then you might get a response from someone in the leadership at some point. The media picks up on this one because it gets peoples attention at a time of controversy over islam. They inflame the situation, by their desire to sell more news articles. The whoredom of a system based purely on capitalism without moral restraint is insidious. Ultimately it will be our own undoing. "The only thing devout muslims need to do to defeat western liberals, is nothing." -Sir Bandelot

Just curious, are you wearing a turban right now??

Well I think it's not quite as clear cut as you make it out to be. In reading your replies its clear that there are many examples of things you wrote about, regarding Napoleon or Saddam, which are applicable to modern western leaders of "freedom loving" nations. It depends on how you want to measure "success", whether the acts of any such leader are beneficial to the whole, or just good for some, and bad for others. And that's the problem with an evil world, or where there are people with conflicting agendas. No one can be pure and good. We know that Bush also believed he was on a mission from God, that he believed God personally spoke to him. He also worked at undermining certain parts of the constitution and American freedoms. He may not have been entirely "successful" in doing so, but that's not the point. And Bush also showed his aggressive ambitious nature in statements like "Bring it on...", as one example. But despite all that, in retrospect now that he's gone there are things that I admire about Bush. And Napoleon, etc... Because whenever one looks at a leader who is put into a very difficult situation and somehow survives, devises a solution and achieves some measure of "success", it's human nature to admire that. At least to some extent.

I know it's too deep for you to understand. Better that you get back to the kitchen and bake some more cookies.

I think you are getting close to the real issue thats at hand here. It's not about some person burning the koran, because there have been other so-called insults made to the koran, even in the past few years and although some muslim groups got pissy about it, it was not made into a really big deal. At least, not on the scale we have now. Who is making it into a big deal then? Answer, western media. The ones who are hollering it loudest is us, and as a result some muslim people are responding to the media frenzy (read, hype) and also getting far too excited over it. Personally I think it's overblown and generally a stupid thing to do, and a waste of time but there are others who think completely the opposite. There's the zealots who want to burn it, and the zealots who want to attack those who would burn it. The difference between these two, is but fleeting... I think the good thing about it really is, it has been condemned righteously by the US administration, and by political and religious leaders worldwide. So while any jackass in America has the right to burn a book, or misbehave in so many ways, the point is, it's not being sanctioned by the administration. And that is the message that the media and people like Patreus has to get out there.

Yeah! That's why boxing is the sweet science...