Reverend Blair

It seems I'm the only one in thread who doesn't fuck pigs. Sorry boys, I've seen enough of your little site. Have a nice life.

I never said that there wasn't waste, but inferring that is all our tax money goes to is just silly. Yes, and I made sure to vote for as many Manitoba/Canadian owned businesses as possible. Within that I voted for those companies that have a record of supporting the same things I do. Not one of those companies, nor my bank, nor Visa, nor Mastercard can track my purchases though. My income, postal code, etc cannot be used to say, "X percentage of people in this type of area and this income bracket purchase this type of product so we should target them with this new product that directs with the small businesses they are currently buying from." The small businesses I support cannot afford that type of profiling, so by paying cash I am supporting them. By supporting them, I am supporting my own province and country.

I paid cash for all of my purchases last week. I have no problem divulging what I bought...groceries, beer, a used distributor, tobacco, insulin and needles (diabetic dog), and pet food...but I do not like being profiled by large corporations so they can better target me with advertising. I don't like paying taxes, but do understand that they are used to pay for services that I want the government to provide. I do not think that they should determine the worth of a citizen though. I know a couple of people who do not work and therefore pay no taxes. They still contribute to the country as a whole though, through volunteer work or looking after elderly parents or both. That is valuable. There is more to a society than money and a government is there to do much more than manage tax dollars.

You have no right to force your beliefs on the rest of us. When you speak of laws that recognise only your version of the traditional family, that is what you are doing. Laws that protect the rights of gays, on the other hand, do not force those views on you. We do not require that you marry somebody of the same sex. We have taken great pains to not force your church into performing same-sex marriages. You can do as you want within your own lives. I'll bet you don't have a lot of contact with gays in those now.

Or it could be that evolution makes sense.

The problem is that US will not be successful in bringing democracy if they continue to do things the way they have been, Willy. They require the support of the Iraqi people for that and they have done little or nothing to win that support. They just turned Iraq over to its own government. The problem is that they picked who the government would be an insist on maitaining control of almost everything. When (if) elections happen will the US allow people who speak out against them to run? Will the US allow those people to take office if they win? We have not seen a history of that in modern US foreign policy and the Bush regime seems to want to keep a tight hold on the reins of Iraq. That is the sort of thing that got them booted out Iran in the first place and it is the kind of thing that built Saddam's power to the point it reached.

Ah, another mob lawyer trying to defend the indefensible. Sorry dude, international law runs wider an narrower than that. You'bve forgotten to give an example of the US installing a democracy in the modern world. WWII was a long time ago. Things have changed since then. Defend your president of choice. Remember context? So does the US government. Sometimes they have to beat people to death to make their point understood, but the Iraqi people understand it fully. That's why so many so vehemently oppose the US occupation. You seem to be purposely obtuse. It is illegal to beat people to death. It is illegal to torture people. It is, as an occupying nation, illegal to change the economic structure of a country. Those things aren't just against international law, they are against US military law. There is no question that they occurred in Iraq. Things that are contentious include little things like the CIA hiring private contractors who fall into a grey area when it comes to torturing people. You know what? A mercenary is a mercenary and about the lowest scum on the planet. The pricks that hire them are even lower than that. Want to defend mercenaries now? Go for it. They are just earning a living, after all. There are prostitutes and then there are whores...which camp do the mercenaries fit into? Their apologists? Then they should be held fully responsible. If they are not willing to be held accountable the end result will be abuse. So it must be okay to send a rocket into a hotel then? Or blow up the offices of a press agency that has taken the time to be sure you know their coordinates so you don't blow them up by accident? That's what AJ did...made sure the US knew exactly where they were so there wouldn't be any "accidents" like there were in Afghanistan. Incidentally, AJ shared offices with the BBC in Afghanistan. The US bombed the BEEB. Now there's a sign of a democratic nation, huh? The BBC is the closest thing the planet has to a universally recognised press agency and Bush sent a fucking rocket into their offices because he didn't like their friends. Defend that, hugo. Keep in mind the rather sage words of Gilles Duceppe though...having a friend does not mean you have to kneel in front of him.

Ah, so it does take a village to raise a child. Has it occured to you that a lot of the "family values" argument was previously taken care of by consensual silence and turning a blind eye. Example...bachelors and old maids. They've always been there. There were a lot of rumours. It wasn't a real problem though, because they kept quiet. They aren't quiet anymore, they want you to acknowledge them. Does that really change anything? The latest and most common (meant in the most derogatory way possible) version of family values is little more than an attempt by those stuck in the old testament to force the rest of us to live within their limited grasp of reality. Silence and hypocrisy isn't enough, only regressive laws and idiocy will suffice at this point. Hitler had a cure for gays too. He murdered them, just like he did to Jews and Gypsies. I've fallen down a couple of hills in my lifetime. It was wet and steep and...I learned to watch where the hell I stepped. Maybe you oughtta give that a shot, DAC and Digby.

Exactly, Idealist. We're supposed to buy into a system that no decent businessman would opt for himself. If we don't agree to it we are communists or anarchists or something. Pee on that, not being an idiot does not make anybody a communist or an anarchist. We are supposed to buy into the dogma of not asking questions and short-term profit being good enough, no matter what the long-term cost. I may have been born at night, but I wasn't born into a family of myopic greed-hogs.

Since I had a couple of politically opposite grandfathers who both grew wheat for a living and helped to start the Wheatboard (along with everybody else) and I still have many relatives who grow wheat and support the CWB, I'll just assume that you are misinformed, Krusty. You can believe whatever you want. Personally I believe that Greg Moore was Jesus and died because of Tony George's sins. It's at least as solid as your feelings about the CWB.

I did say that, and I stand by it. Such an admission by a criminal shows contempt for the law. Perle was clearly aware that he wouldn't be prosecuted. I'll sjow you mine if you'll show me yours. Who, prominent in international law outside of the Bush administration, has clearly backed your position up? Not by inference. Who has outright said that the invasion was legal? Ah, but their basic argument is based on international law. They wanted a specific resolution because the US was using old resolutions to circumvent the spirit and letter of existing law by insisting it didn't apply because this was a continuation of an old conflict. They were seeking to strengthen their case, not make a new one. Which US action? You can quibble about the invasion itself, but the US has broken many laws in Iraq since then. They did not prevent looting or even try (unless you count the oil ministry), they did change laws that affected the basic economic structure of the country. There is footage of US soldiers shooting a wounded Iraqi soldier who is clearly out of action. There is serious doubt as to whether the use of some weapons the US uses is legal. There is footage of US soldiers shooting into a crowd of unarmed civilians and of bombs being dropped on civilian neighbourhoods in an effort to kill one or two of Saddam's pals. I didn't compare the US to the Angels by accident. Frankly, I trust the Angels a lot more, which is not at all.

Just a wild shot at trying to find something out. What constitutes a traditional family?

"I think" implies nothing but conjecture on my part. That's why I put it in. Are you saying that my opinion implies fact?

I'd love it to be about something else, but Caesar is right. I was almost gleeful when I saw the headline this morning, and sadly disappointed when I saw the story that followed. Blaming Martin for the coke on his boat is as wrong as saying that Reagan won the Cold War or Dick Cheney shouldn't change his name to Spiro Agnew.

Because Hank Kissinger is a robot too, and they are deeply in love? Not your average love, but a manly kind of love based on physicality as well as a deep understanding of each other's dark and twisted souls.