kimmy

As much as I might disagree with what Trinity Western represents, I agree with this reasoning. -k

A rat fleeing a sinking ship. She figures the Liberals are going to win the next election, so she's going where she sees the best chance to extend her political career. I don't think this is any great loss to the Conservatives. Eve's highlight reel: Dirty, strong-arm tactics in fight with riding association: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/eve-adams-riding-fight-party-investigates-at-pm-s-request-1.2595485 Uses boyfriend's influence to fight her battle: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-dimitri-soudas-s-last-days-atop-the-conservative-party-1.2593195 Temper tantrum at gas station over $6 car wash: http://globalnews.ca/news/1248311/gas-station-owner-releases-footage-of-tory-mp-complaining-about-6-car-wash/ She sounds like the kind of person who would say "do you know who I am?" a lot. -k

I missed this earlier. I kind of like the "stoner rock" thing. I got into Kyuss by accident when one of their songs was used in a video game. This is my favorite Kyuss song. I really like the down-tempo portion starting at 3:00 and the lush guitar outro starting at 4:00. -k

I heard "Weight Of Love" by The Black Keys on my radio last week and was pretty blown away. The official video is Rated N (for nipples) so instead here's an awesome safe-for-work live performance. This guy really knows how to handle a whammy-bar! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3cfKDV5YYo Also on my radio lately is a song called "Figure It Out" by Royal Blood. The official video is Rated MB (for mayhem and blood) so instead here's an awesome safe-for-work live performance. These guys will be opening for the Foo Fighters on their upcoming tour. -k

There might not be much that would improve the work itself. However, it would be possible to ensure that the workers have access to decent housing, access to medical care, and are not being treated badly by employers who have them by the short hairs. None of this can be guaranteed to undocumented workers. The illegals are hired because they're there and they're cheap. Foreign laborers could be brought in using a legal process. Go to Mexico, put up a booth that says "We want to hire 100 workers for 3 months this summer. Earn big money legally!" and you'll get your workers. Canada brings in lots of foreign workers using this sort of program. BC orchards don't have Mexicans sneaking into BC from Washington State in the dead of night, but we have plenty of Mexican laborers who are here during harvest season. How'd they get here? Legally. The US probably has similar programs too. But farms probably don't have to use them because they have the assurance of knowing that a bunch of cheap laborers would just appear at their doorsteps for them to hire (if they don't ask too many questions). -k

In regard to these videos, I don't think anything beyond a shallow, knee-jerk reaction is warranted. You want me to delve into it to try to find some sort of excuse to rationalize indefensible behavior by law enforcement officers? What excuse could there be? It's not like these incidents are exactly rare. We could post links from sun-up to sun-down and never run out of examples of police going way overboard in their use of force. It's not a question of "a few bad apples" at this point. What we need is an acknowledgement by the cops and their apologists that this kind of behavior by law enforcement officers is doing immense harm to the relationship between the police and public. Instead, they remain focused on finding ways to avoid accountability, whether it be searching for legal justifications for preventing videotape of their misadventures, or finding ways of expanding their powers so that they can get away with more stuff, to fighting protracted court battles to protect their members from punishment for wrongdoing, to filing bogus charges against people who are suing for harm, to in the case of the NYPD using political muscle against a reform-minded mayor. -k

Well he had his shirt untucked! If you don't want to get beat up by the cops, you shouldn't be walking around school with your shirt untucked. It's just obvious. How dare di Blasio not stand behind the Heroes In Blue! -k

I respond to lots of people. -k

Mitt Romney spent a billion dollars and lost, but he was matched up against a guy who had a billion dollars of his own to spend. Karl Rove's superPAC spent $100 million dollars and became pretty much a punch-line. Probably one of the most memorable moments of the election was Karl Rove getting clowned on live TV by Megyn Kelly. Classic. But overall, I think you'd have to be pretty gullible to think that advertising doesn't impact results. In Canada the system might not be perfect but I think at least we have some balance between the idea of free speech and the idea that one shouldn't be able to just buy elections by spending your opponents into submission. -k

Wow! That had to be one of the best Super Bowls ever! What an amazing finish. I am pretty stunned that the Seahawks threw the ball in that situation, when they have the best running back in football standing there. Give Marshawn Lynch 3 chances to get you a yard and he will get it. 100% certain. Monster game by Tom Brady, despite throwing a couple of interceptions. When it was crunch time, they just could not stop him. 300+ yards, 4 touchdown passes, a new record for completions... he has equaled or surpassed the legends in every category for Superbowl achievements. I liked the commercial about the horse and the puppy. I also enjoyed the one with Liam Neeson being mad about losing a video game. And the Katy Perry show was pretty cool, aside from the Missy Elliot portion, which sucked. I really enjoyed the part with the dancing sharks and the Spongebob Squarepants setup. That was too cute! -k

If there is, there shouldn't be. I can't imagine why anybody should have an issue with revisiting prior discussions. Myself, JBG, and August1991 (to name 3 of the forum's longer-standing members...) all revisit older threads from time to time and it never seems to cause any controversy. To be honest it looks less that you have any issue with people bumping an old discussion and more that you're butt-hurt about somebody bagging on Sarah Palin. -k

Inflationgate explained. -k

Why should there be a rule about it? Sometimes it's worthwhile to revisit a topic later on. Whether your post was a good fit for bumping this particular thread is debatable, but I don't see a reason why bumping threads in general should be against the law. -k

Ok, so seasonal work might be an exception, a case where it might make sense to allow employers to bring in temporary foreign workers. Here in Kim Country, a lot of the fruit-picking is done by young people who come from Quebec or the Atlantic and want to see the country, and pick fruit as a way of making some money to pay for their trip out west. There are also kids who need summer work to pay for college. And we do have foreign workers who come from Central America for a couple of months and return home after harvest season. And if bringing in foreign seasonal workers is necessary, then it should be done in an above-the-board, organized manner. Not a wink-wink, ask the cops to look the other way, under the table manner. If you want foreign workers, do it right. Do it in a way that you can document that you're paying them a fair wage, housing them in reasonable conditions, not gouging them for room and food, and so-on. This guy is an example of what I was talking about. He's not running a farm, he's running a fish processing plant. Here's the start of the article: Gee, he is unhappy that people don't want to work in those conditions for such small pay? Maybe he should try improving the pay, or the work conditions, or the benefits. Maybe that would help! But he's come up with a different solution: go to the Alabama state government and cry for them to bring back his illegals. Here's what it comes down to: Employers could get away with treating employees like serfs because they had access to a pool of labor who would do anything for minimal pay. Take away that pool of undocumented workers that they can exploit, and sad bosses like Randy Rhodes are discovering that they have to start treating employees like human beings. If Mr Rhodes can only run his factory when there's illegal workers to be exploited, maybe Mr Rhodes is in the wrong business. Maybe he should get back to playing guitar in Ozzy's band. Plantation owners had to change their business model when slave labor was ended, too. Tough break for them, but the world marches on. -k

To me, the amazing part was where she assigned an arbitrary dollar cost to each sin and estimated that smoking weed for a year actually costs over $3.2 billion dollars. I was amazed. -k

Officer Weekley feels really badly about it, though. I think he's paid his due. Another case where police decide to stage a SWAT-style raid on a house in a situation that could have been easily resolved by other means. The suspect who police wanted to apprehend was known to be coming and going from the residence regularly. They could have taken him when he left the house rather than storming a house where a family with a child lived. This is a recurring theme. There's no end of examples of similar cases, where people end up maimed or killed in police commando raids in situations where there was absolutely no need for a such a raid in the first place. Dumb-ass cops storm in, wreck property, shoot pets, kick the crap out of people, hold them at gunpoint for hours, and belatedly discover: "oops, wrong house. sorry, lol!" A journalist named Radley Balko has researched this extensively. It's becoming a serious and widespread issue. -k

RB, did you go blonde? -k

Considering it was our esteemed Forum Facilitator who revived this thread, I don't think you have much of a case. I think Palin typifies a certain type of politician who are comfortable showing off their religiosity as a means of obtaining support from a segment of the electorate-- she's exactly the sort who the Bible warned against in Matthew 6:5. I'm not sure that there's anything particularly Christian about her at all, aside from the fact that she keeps telling people she is. -k

We're in agreement for a change. We hear the same "nobody wants these jobs" arguments from the Canadian Restaurant Association types as justification for bringing in TFWs. "We can't get employees!" should always come with an asterisk attached, that says: " * at the wages we want to pay." Employers, be they farms or restaurants or who knows what else, are supposed to raise wages and improve working conditions if they can't find employees. Appealing to a busted TFW program or relying on porous border security to provide their cheap labor is an attack on the value of work. There are enough forces driving the value of labor downwards in today's society already, without deliberately contributing to the problem. I bet a lot of people who were outraged when they heard Canadian workers were being fired to make room for TFWs are now wringing their hands in support of undocumented workers in the US. -k

Second Cup, Blenz, and Timothy's World Coffee are all Canadian-founded companies that are actually owned by Canadians (and staffed by Canadians instead of temporary foreign workers...) -k

Lots of businesses are founded in Canada by Canadians. Few of them are so enthusiastic about marketing themselves on that basis. -k

I think it makes a fair point about a certain brand of modern-day Christian. Trying to deflect it by changing the subject to Muslims is pretty lame, just as it's lame when certain other members on the forum immediately respond to criticism of Muslims by trying to shift the topic to something awful Jews have done. As for Palin, at this point she might as well just put on a big red nose and some floppy shoes. She's rapidly turning into a punch-line. -k

I can't get that concerned about layoffs at Tim's. The number of jobs is pretty small compared to the number of layoffs in other sectors. I'd suggest that any concern over layoffs at Tim's compared to other layoffs is due to the idea that Tim's is a Canadian institution. And I'd suggest that idea is fiction, fostered by marketing that shamelessly appeals to Canadian nationalism to a degree that's almost cringe-inducing. They're just a business. There's lots of other businesses in their sector, and some of them are Canadian in real life, not just on TV. Justin Bieber has a lot of fans too. -k

I imagine Michael referenced Burger King to poke fun at the Canadian nationalism that Tim Horton's often invokes in their marketing. -k