SF/PF

Why have the meeting at all? Its pretty clear that these meetings could be held via video conferencing cheaply and easily. Assuming that the meetings have any actual value at all...

As opposed to the corporate leaders of the G8/G20 who are intent on making us all equally.. rich?

So we're now tolerating police violence against a collective group of peaceful citizens because there "might" be some thugs amongst them?

Exactly. I remember this same debate about bringing in video replay to the CFL. While it has helped reduce the number of errors, it quite clearly does slow the game down consistently. Its not as noticable when watching on TV since they just cut to commercials anyway, but when you're at the stadium watching the officials discuss the play amongst themselves and the challenging coach, then the referee run over to the video booth and stand with his head in the video booth for 5 minutes, then run back onto the field to deliver his decision, it regularly eats up 10 minutes. Almost every video review in the CFL quite literally destroys the flow of the game. And if it can do that to a game with a fairly disjointed flow in the first place, I can only imagine what it could do to soccer.

The thing about bringing in video replay for just goals is that it covers such a tiny percentage of the controversial decisions in the sport as a whole. Offside, I would think, would be the officiating decision that accouns for the lions share of controversy. I tend to agree with FIFA on the importance of that.

I don't have any more tolerance for Catholic repentance than I do for Sharia Law or any other ridiculous religious legal or ethical systems. The time for the Church to realize that they are subject to the same laws as everyone else is long overdue. My point was that the actual results of the raid are irrelevant to the raid itself. The legalality and appropriatness of a raid can be determined prior to the raid. If there was legitimate evidence or suspicion that items of interest could be found in the tombs, then the search would be warranted, regardless of whether anything was actually found in the tombs. Similarly, if there was no legitimate reason for drilling into the tombs, the discovery of incriminating evidence would warrant the action.

Vatican says Belgium raids 'worse than Communist era' I especially liked this part: Yeah.. those evil Belgians. Violating the "confidentiality" of those victims instead of doing the "right" thing and sweeping the whole sordid affair under the carpet. :angry: That commission had a moral obligation to make any evidence of child sexual abuse it possessed immediatly available to authorities. If it didn't, the whole works of them should be thrown into the clink with the general prison population. Then the Belgians could put together a special commission to investigate whether those priests were on the receiving end of any physical or sexual violence while in prison. The information attained in that investigation would, of course, be withheld from authorities....

They should have been permitted to eat or drink at some point over a period of 9 hours. Its not a big secret that the Vatican has conistently protected those accused of child sexual abuse, even to the point of moving priests to jurisdictions where they couldn't be tried for past transgressions. Frankly, the catholic church has enjoyed far too much protection from states in this matter. The discovery (or not) of serious evidence is irrelevent to the legality or appropriatness of the raid. Either the raid was legally justified, or it wasn't. The results of the raid have no bearing on that. My heart bleeds for the poor Church.. it really does. Maybe they'll see the tide turning against them and finally decide that they shouldn't be protecting the molesters of children.

As others in this thread have pointed out, comparing an international competition to league play is really rather foolish. The NHL is comparable to professional leagues in soccer. The World Cup is comparable to the World Cup of Hockey. You may have noticed "rank nationalism" present during that event, as well as during the Olympics. Its not a big mystery as to why thats the case. In fact, its quite obvious... Everyone has different tastes in sport, as in anything else.. but just because you don't understand whats going on at any given moment doesn't mean that nothing is happening. Well I'm a Canadian with almost complete disdain for hockey as a sport. I guess I just understand sports - and life - much better. Cheering on ones national team at a sporting event is clearly analogous to the violent nationalism of Europe's dark history....

I don't have any real ill will toward Argentina.. they definitely do a little too much diving and "embellishment".. and I guess theres always the hand of god goal from a ways back.. But really, their transgressions pale in comparison to teams like Italy and Brazil. While a lot of teams have been quite bad for that this time around, its traditionally been a defining charecteristic of Italy and most of the South American teams. Even at the amatuer level in my city For my part, I'm pulling for 1) Netherlands, 2) Germany, and 3) England.

Except that even in countries with easy access to large sheets of ice, including some hockey powerhouses, soccer/football is just simply more popular. Look, its ok to not like soccer/football. But just say "I don't like soccer/football." instead of casting aspersions on the game.

Fast crosses and switches can be used to relieve pressure on the ball carrier and open up the field a bit. Also, some of the teams are simply using the wrong configuration when trying to crack the defence of their opponents. For example, Italy chose to attack New Zealand's 3-4-3 with only 2 strikers, when its pretty widely known that a 3 defender system is susceptible to being spread by 3 attackers. I don't expect the underdogs to have much success beyond the round robin. The high skill sides that can adapt to a stifling defence will make short work of the underdogs in the round of 16 and beyond. The giants that can't adapt will be going home.

The PC's most definitely are the same as they've always been. Other than that, I agree with you 100%.

The key to beating those stifling defenses that stack the box with defenders is to return to meat and potatos football: crosses into the centre and long pitches into the box. The giants of the sport seem determined to strive for pretty goals, and its killing them.

I think the yellow and red cards are one of the best ways to control the flow and discipline in a sport. Referees have the option of calling for a simple free kick for minor infractions that have a small effect on the game, yellow cards for infractions that are more serious, and red cards for particularly egregious offences. Relatively minor offences typically have little impact on the outcome, and particularly bad offences really punish the perpetrator's team. On allowing players to feign injury... I can't think of a sport that doesn't permit players to get away with that. Perhaps you've noticed the growing trend in Hockey where players throw themselves to the ice and frantically clutch at their face anytime an opponents stick comes within 2 feets of their heads? Often times the stick doesn't even hit them, yet they claw at their face trying to draw that extra 2 minute penalty.. Or the long time trend in cfl/nfl of taking a knee and faking an injury to give your team more time to set up for the next play. Its a problem in all sports. The solution is to start issuing penalties/cards/whatever for unsporstmanlike conduct. I've long suspected that many sports fans don't especially like the sport, so much as they like the goals. The trap that several NHL teams played for a few years was one of the best examples of tactical play and discipline in the sport of hockey.. and it was almost universally hated because it reduced the number of goals.

They should be thrown under the trains if they even try.

I was working at the Scotford Upgrader site at the time the protesters gained entry to the site. I personally saw them enter the site, and watched one of the groups climb one of the stacks and unfurl a banner. Honestly, anyone calling this group of protesters "terrorists" is simply trying to score points with empty rhetoric. They're not alone, though.. our illustrious premier has taken a fondness to calling the event an "attack", as if entering a site, unfurling a few banners and chaining oneself to a structure is some sort of violent assault. Of course, one wonders what Shell is up to when they claim that no construction activities were underway when they entered the site... I and a few hundred other tradespeople who were actively engaged in construction at the time would likely disagree with this assessment. Was the Shell spokesman simply misinformed or was he misleading the media? And what of the much ballyhooed need for better security in Alberta's industrial plants after the events of September 11, 2001? Remember the awful threat terrorists posed to Alberta's heavy industries? Personally, I'm wondering if the publication ban on how the Greenpeace activists gained entrance to the site is an attempt to cover the fact that there is quite literally NO security in any of these plants. In fact, the method they used to gain entry is something the average child figures out before the age of 7 as a way to bypass barriers.

Even if the allegations against Khadr are true, I don't see how it matters. Since when is killing the military personnel of a nation that is invading the country you are resident in a crime? The US knows they can't convict him outside of a Kangaroo court, and Harper knows it too. Canada ought to demand his repatriation, just as we should demand repatriation of any Canadian citizen being detained without trial. The morally questionable character of Khadr is a red herring.