Molly

Ditto.

That's a fatuous comment if I've ever heard one.

There're reasons not to want an election (just hate 'em) and then there are reasons (Never yell "Whoa" in a mudhole.) Last falls election was just opportunism, and the only real argument against it was cost. December and January, an election would have been a stupid idea, partly because the existing results had yet to be tried, and partly because languishing without active governance was a luxury we simply could not afford. Now, there's still plenty of reason to stay the course, even if the wrong people are in charge. I'm not at all in favor of an election right now. Under the circumstances, it would be a frivolous act. The nations business is still urgent.

That is misleading at best, pure bullshit at worst. Depending on what criteria you use to draw the 'late term' line, it is a fact that the number performed is very small indeed. 1%, .5%. .05%.... and those performed on women who simply don't want a pregnancy/baby are, as a rule, performed very, very shortly past whatever line you use. Beyond perhaps 22 weeks, when viabilty becomes at least a possibility, gender preference isn't even on the list- wouldn't get you in the door- and very serious 'genetic defects' aka dead, dying, or dependent for life babies, or seriously ill mothers account for virtually all of them. Of course YOU would be the go-to guy to determine medical necessity. You would OF COURSE know far better than either a row of doctors signing off, or a patient who, either way, pays the price of the decision. Anyone who can even envision that decision being made casually has tossed off all credibility.

Yes, there are many things deserving of some review, assessment, and likely revision.... but just leaping in to remove all on-the-spot decision making, and make punishments more severe is expensive and dumb. Punishment has an extremely high rate of 'diminishing returns'. There is very little that can be accomplished with a 10 year sentence that isn't done in 5 or even 2; almost nothing that a 2 year sentence does that a 6 month sentence doesn't do just as well. Cross a line to excess, and you are doing more harm than good.

Punishment that doesn't have a GOAL is just pointless brutality on a white horse-- expensive, morally doubtful and seriously counterproductive. Didn't your Mama ever tell you that two wrongs don't make a right?

Shady, walk a mile in those shoes. If you haven't (or can't), then you don't know a da**ed thing about it; don't have a whisper of a clue what you are asking. Some intrusions are so personal, so HUGE that it boggles the mind that anyone would have the temerity to interfere, and , Godlike, appoint themselves as the person who knows best what should be done, even without knowing what the circumstances actually are, and without any risk at all of being the one who pays the price of their arrogant decrees. FWIW, I had a long talk one day with a woman whose late-term infant died in utero. Doctors figured that it was physically safest for her to just let nature take its course, and nature was darned slow about it. She got to walk around hugely pregnant, physically and emotionally occupied by an already known-to-be-dead baby.... The emotional trauma of that is beyond measuring. It still takes my breath away to think of it. It's just one step greater a horror than carrying an infant that you know will not survive birth. You should take a deep breath, and try to imagine yourself living that situation. Seriously, try. You won't get close, I guarantee, but try anyway. Late-term abortions are rare... extraordinarily rare... and happen under extraordinary circumstances. Describing healthy mother/healthy baby scenarios as the presumptive situation under which they occur is nothing short of a gruesome lie.

Excuse me?!!! There are threads here discussing proposed hyper-authouritarian, revenge-based crime law... and you say that social conservatism has noting to do with it? We have a creationist handling research money, yet you don't think that social conservatism has been expressed at all? Wow!

Count me as being surprised that Link wasn't followed by an RCMP investigation when he left for Alberta for his political time-out. If his political career doesn't eventually end in utter disgrace, I'll be astonished.

Next question.... since he was killed during the commission of an offense, does that mean his escaped accomplice could be charged with murder? Just curious.

;o)

SLOW to adapt to change?!!!! The thing that makes it complex and difficult to learn is it's amazing flexibility and it's ever-changing, growing LIFE!

'Accepted'? How about 'acknowledged', or 'tolerated', or even 'managed'? If your kids 'values' are contingent on the threat of a jail term, then you have bigger problems that what is or is not written into law. ------------------- There are lots and lots of people of faith who 'get' that their only morally acceptable lever is persuasion, and that 'God said' is an extraordinarily weak argument when speaking to people who believe that 'God' is a delusion.

Ha! I'd settle for 20% of grocery store produce managers being women, but I don't expect that to happen any time soon, either.

That is a repugnant comment.

I agree that 'equal pay for work of equal value' is a bit of a joke. I do not agree that breaking with tradition is all roses; with the sense that 'girl jobs' have no value anyway; or with your sense of the purity of the meritocracy within the 'boy' milieu. I wouldn't even go so far as to be sure of the gender of who might undermine or ignore your merit! But even if the meritocracy IS that pure, entry must be achieved before you can show your stuff and have the meritocracy applied.

And some (lots) were married women, who had too many kids or not enough money, and too little control over their own circumstances to prevent a pregnancy.

There's much I could say to this, Kimmy, but I will severely restrict it : First, you aren't the only woman here to have had a non-traditional career role. I'm fully aware that some folks are gender-blind, or feminist, but equally aware that there are others who are not, and some of them have power over career advancement and moment-to-moment success. The choice of a non-traditional career does not come without risks and challenges that a traditional applicant would be exempt from. If you haven't run into it yet, good... but you will. (There are plenty of guys right here in this forum who see all women as walking wombs. If one of them is your potential boss or customer, you won't be the exception. ) Secondly, if your peers didn't largely respond in a traditional manner, then there would be no 'tradition' requiring the extension of that hand, and no such thing as a 'non-traditional' role. Social pressure is no small thing, and it's much larger to some than to others. Especially in collective terms, it is not easily or quickly cast off. Thirdly, before you disparage the receptionist too much, try a day or five at HER job. I don't know the specific receptionist you are talking about. You might be absolutely right about her, but for me, even with a fat paycheck, having to be a receptionist would be my worst nightmare. However, I see little merit in 'equal pay for work of equal value' beyond the mental exercize. The best application of it is to inform potential receptionists that if they break with tradition, for similar effort they could recieve far greater reward.

Breaking the 'tradition' barrier is a lot easier said than done. For a start, it means that your qualifications have to wildly exceed all other applicants in order for you to be considered at all. It means, also, that to move up the ladder, it will still have to be true, and that you will have to be the one to point out that fact. Even then, you are likely to spend most of your career watching less qualified, less able people being promoted ahead of you.

Good! (I knew that, too, now that I think about it.) It most certainly shouldn't be routine or common. It's only needed for cases of 'travesty of democracy', and thank heavens, those are truly rare... but they do happen.

You have to admit, though, that it goes far to define us as a nation... the fact that both/either apply. It's existence speaks volumes about us, and how we differ from other countries.

Appointing a political partisan to the senate is not a thing that bothers me. It is a partisan milieu, after all. Political partisanship while posing as an impartial journalist, however, is a major breach.

To change 'mice' to 'mouses' would cost us the music, and the delight of this sentence: "I think mice are rather nice." .. a sentence that has inspired countless children to want to know MORE. Knowing the mechanics of a language is not 'knowing' that language.

Oh, you really are the energizer bunny, aren't you? If you can find a delicate nuance of difference between ID and biblical creationism, then why do you have such a struggle percieving the chasm separating theology and science? It's like recognizing the difference between mac and empire apples, but finding alligators and linoleum indistinguishable from one another. THAT's amazing.

That's a switch from insistence that we elect representatives. (With which, btw, I heartily agree.) Why is it important to you that folks be stuck with a bad choice of representative until such time as the majority of everyone elses representatives agree that they should all face judgement? Would it not have been more fair, for instance, if David Emersons constituents had the immediate ability to challenge that fraud? I lived in a provincial constituency that would have appreciated the same privelege, having voted for one thing, and recieved its precise opposite. I don't for a moment suggest that the bar should be low-- it should be very high in fact, to circumvent/defeat those who would try to use it to create a permanent election campaign situation-- but the option needs to exist for those circumstances where the continuation of mis-representation renders the situation a travesty of democracy, and it can be clearly shown that a representative has lost the confidence of those he'represents'.