BigAl

That was the very question I was posing, Oleg -- and I'm not trying to be disrespectful in referring to it as a body count...but I don't happen to know the individual name of every man, woman and child who's been killed in the conflict. I'll do what I can to get that information for you in an effort to not be "disgraceful".

Good people are difficult to control? Liberals want henchmen? Maybe I'm totally off-base here, but the last time I checked, the greatest measure of social control ever instituted in this culture was religion. I will agree with you about the male guilt bit, but the rest of this post is pretty extreme dude.

Yeah, on one hand that kind of bugs me, because I'm really not that big a guy and I'd love to have an exclusive, non-threatening gym atmosphere to go try and get into some kind of shape...but on the same token, I can't say I blame women for wanting their own gym, because let's face it -- how many meatheaded tools go to gyms strictly to hit on women? Kind of makes sense, right?

You know, under normal circumstances, I would be the guy saying "hell yeah, get religion out of the schools"...but based on what I've read on this issue, it really does sound like this student has a pickle up his or her posterior about this issue. The professor might be treading on potentially touchy ground, but come on -- tolerance counseling? It's liberals like this student that give the rest of us kind of a bad name...you know, the "person-hole versus manhole" crowd. It's all a bit much.

That may be so, but it's good money. Everybody has a price, Mr. Canada.

Okay, I sort of figured it would be information like that. Thanks for the follow up. But as far as body counts go...they *do* release certain information to the public -- I mean, I guess they have to when somebody's kid comes home in a box -- do they change the information to reflect a lower body count? Or are you referring strictly to "enemy" casualties?

I understand your motivation, but on the same token there's kind of an ambiguous air about saying something like "see? Even us Jews aren't perfect!" I mean, I tend to agree with most of the other people who've posted on this thread, in that I try not to see sociopolitical issues or crime or whatever as being the distinct realm of one subset or another of humanity, you know? On some level it sounds similar to "see? Not all Black people are criminals!" I'm not trying to be offensive; this was just the vibe I got. Like I said, I understand your desire to provide a more balanced perspective, but in so doing it seems to exacerbate the problem. Thoughts?

Agreed, Kimmy. I can't speak for men everywhere, clearly, but I know my first time was...really not so good. If I had a choice between that memory and -- heck, even a hundred bucks -- I would definitely trade it in for cash. It strikes me that this woman's plan is delightfully underhanded in that she's underscoring the fact that, for some reason, people clearly DO still associate virginity with value. I don't know any of those people myself -- there was a comedian who made a comment to the effect of "seventy virgins aren't worth one talented hooker with some experience". Can't say I totally disagree. I love it when people provoke extreme feminists (or extremists of any stripe) so this girl is in my good books.

Yeah, like old Churchill said -- "Democracy is the worst form of government...except for all the others." I know it's the best we can do, and I try to swallow that pill with a little sugar. Here's a question for you though, ArmyGuy -- because I assume you have more knowledge on this subject than the average -- you say Canadians are essentially operating on a "need-to-know" basis, in that a lot of information can't really be released to the public due to matters of national security, etc. Now, I'm a bit of a war history buff, so I understand the need to keep a lid on sensitive information, but what does the Canadian military deem appropriate versus too sensitive to share? You might not know the answer to this question, but if you have any insights I'd be interested to hear them. Much as I understand the need for that kind of censorship, it always galls me just a bit, because I like to think of myself as part of that 1 or 2% of the population who could actually deal appropriately with sensitive information (rather than being an alarmist or something, you know?)

Is this the part where I get to jump in and get all offended over the implied misandrony of "human beings with a penis"? It seems to be the point of this thread to bait people into either a) getting offended or offending somebody else. Deliberately incendiary for no really good reason.

Good lord, and I thought I was cynical. I have to laugh at the feminist comment...I'm not sure you understand the tenets of feminism (but then, I'm not sure too many self-proclaimed feminists do either...) This sort of brightened up my day.

Good points all 'round. Back in the days of racial segregation, it was pretty easy to figure out who was who, obviously. But these days? People regularly assume I'm a homosexual (and I can't figure out WHY) even though I'm straight -- clearly some people seem to think they can determine somebody's sexual orientation just by looking at them, but I'm walking proof that is hardly a foolproof standard.

The only problem I have with this Melanie is the whole question of "age of consent". Clearly I'm no proponent of pedophilia, but it seems awfully arbitrary to me that we decide 16, or 14, or 18 is some kind of legal precedent for sex. Example: you have to be 18 to vote (i.e. to determine who runs this country) but 19 to buy a beer? That seems terribly unbalanced. Anybody have thoughts on what the "right age" is? I'd appreciate an explanation why, too.

Unfortunately, on the subject of Canadian apathy, you're quite right. I know way too many people who would rather live in the relative comfortability of ignorance than educate themselves -- personally, I'm of the mindset that it's the responsibility of a citizen living in a democratic nation to be up-to-date about what's going on both within our borders and internationally. How to go about implementing the tenet of self-education, though, I'm sort of at a loss. For better or worse, it's easier in the short term for people to ignore what's going on. Also, I don't know if we were (as a populace) in support of the Afghan initiative out of a desire to "save face"...the way I got sold on it was the same way I get sold on most Canadian military activity, in that national media tends to paint our military efforts abroad as "peacekeeping actions", i.e. showing up with medical aid and food and protecting the locals, etc. I know that's not an entirely accurate depiction, but I do know that I'm far more likely to get behind a sales pitch like that than, say, if Canada were to have joined the Coalition of the Willing or whatever they were calling that Justice-League doppleganger. I guess I'm just as guilty of allowing the wool to be pulled over my eyes as the people I'm castigating, no?

I would tend to agree with you, actually. Now I understand the Heinlein connection. Given the kind of anti-war sentiment we saw in Canada and abroad prior to the invasion of Iraq, the outcome might have been totally different had we been allowed to vote directly on that issue.

Game. Set. Match.

And that's exactly where I start having trouble with the "victim" card, acidburn. At the end of the day, somewhere along the line, people need to take responsibility for themselves and their own choices. It's really easy to call yourself a victim of circumstance or society or whatever, but somewhere there you made a decision to take a particular action. It's absolutely essential that you take responsibility for that action. At least, I think so.

I agree with you that the conflicts -- particularly those of the 20th century -- are part of one long chain of events. The point I was trying to make with the Second World War analogy is that at that time the lines were fairly clear because it was a fairly standard sort of war -- Our Side Good, Their Side Bad -- and the sides wore uniforms to denote their allegiance. Nowadays we're fighting insurgents and rebels and terrorists who don't look any different than the people we're allegedly trying to protect. The reasons for these conflicts are both incredibly complicated and -- on some level -- incredibly simple. What it boils down to at the end of the day is money, I think. Every war in history has, on some level, been about material wealth. And the philosophy of Robert Heinlein is very interesting, though I don't quite know how it applies here.

I agree with you scriblett, but I can't stand the term "reverse discrimination" -- it's the same as "reverse racism" or any of those other terms that cast a pall over the so-called "majority". It's not reverse discrimination if I get banned from a bar for being straight, or if I don't get hired because I'm white -- it's just discrimination. There's nothing "reverse" about it. If my girlfriend beats the everloving shit out of me, it's not "reverse domestic abuse" is it? Sorry for the rant, I just get really fed up with political correctness some days, especially when it doesn't make a lick of sense.

AMEN!

Okay Dancer, I can see your point -- and I'm very sorry to hear about your friends -- but we have to sort of roll this back. It's a chicken-or-the-egg thing, isn't it? Your friends were forced into prostitution due to drug debts. Why did they have drug debts? Because they were addicts. Why were they addicts? They took too many drugs. Why did they do that? --that's where it gets hazy. Who knows why they started shooting up or snorting or whatever they were doing? Bad childhood? Shitty relationship? Depression? Who gets the blame? In order for there to be a victim, there has to be a crime -- there has to be a criminal behind it. Same thing with those pimps and Johns -- what drives a man to pay for sex, or to abuse women? Maybe his dad abused him, or something like that -- and the list goes ever backwards. I think the idea of "victim" has to be played very carefully out. Is it a tragedy? Absolutely. Are these people "victims"? Probably, but they're victims of other victims. It's a never-ending cycle. I don't know if I'm being clear...not enough coffee yet today.

Kimmy, you are awesome. I'm all for the defense of the helpless, etc. etc. but you're quite right -- we're talking about fictional characters here. The precedent set up by this ruling is absurd in the truest sense of the word -- Bart Simpson is inherently un-fuckable because he does not exist. Same with Ariel the Mermaid or Spongebob Squarepants if you prefer. I've seen porn dedicated to all these subgenres, and I think they're hilarious. There's such a thing as being too intent on the wrong thing -- another poster mentioned earlier on this thread that children right outside your door are starving to death and freezing and being abducted and whatnot, and you're sitting inside railing against the evils of somebody drawing infantile pictures of cartoon characters getting it on? Priorities, folks. Priorities.

This is the most hilarious thing ever. This woman is perhaps more brilliant than every one of her classmates put together. I've always thought strippers are really smart, because they make a lot of money for something that (in my estimation) is no big deal -- taking off their clothes. This girl just took it to the next level. If some tool wants to spend three and a half million dollars to deflower a woman, why not let him? She walks away a millionaire. Shit, I'd do that in a second -- except the double standard is no woman will pay me three and a half mil to sleep with her. Unfortunately.

Nice to know there's at least the potential for debate...quite often the media does portray the Jewish people as being one-hundred percent united in their foreign policy (and they do include Jews not living in Israel in that estimation). I don't really want to get into a debate about whether or not Sid Ryan said the right or wrong things -- but the fact that people are at least thinking about different angles on the issue is, I think, very positive and probably a lot more useful to the cause of somehow finding a solution to the current conflict.

I really don't envy you guys your job...I used to moderate on a forum years ago, and it was an unbelievable pain in the ass to keep advertising proliferators off the boards. It got to the point where it was "come for the conversation, stay for the commercials" so the board got shut down. Good job keeping track of that sort of thing here.