kimmy

I dunno, it could be seen as marking his their break. For him maybe it was something that caused him to realize he'd become sick, reached a low point which causes him to realize he needs to change. Last week it made it seem like he basically "hate-****ed" her, pardon the language... this week he shows up and calls her "your grace" and she calls him "lord commander" and there is palpable coldness between them. I actually find that her coldness toward him makes far more sense if last week's hookup wasn't consensual. I regard to Jaime, I don't think that it actually changes things much whether it was consensual. Almost everyone on this show has both their good qualities and bad, except for Joffrey (who had no redeeming qualities at all) and for a handful of characters (Ser Davos, Brienne, Sam Tarley...) whose warts we haven't seen (yet...) Jaime's great flaw is obviously his obsession with Cersei... everything he's done wrong on the show, from defenestrating Bran in the pilot episode,right up through forcing himself on her last week, branches from that. He hucked a young boy out a window to protect his sexual relationship with her, the idea that he could force himself on her sexually doesn't seem that far fetched. Handy, inconspicuous, easy to deliver, no chance of getting caught holding a vial... you certainly wouldn't want to be seen palming a vial a few minutes before somebody dies from poison. However, having Sansa wear deadly poison around her neck for a week or however long it was... that seems pretty risky. What if she's one of those people who sucks on her jewelry, or what if the poison dissolves in her sweat on a warm day, or ... The young characters on the TV show were all made older than they are in the book-- I think Robb was 15 when he became King of the North, Sansa is 11, and so on. In a historical medieval setting, it's not a stretch that teenagers have adult roles and responsibilities. But I think they (wisely) decided that TV audiences would be uncomfortable with seeing characters who are essentially children involved in these adult stories. It seems likely that Tommen was also likewise boosted in age from what he's said to be in the book. -k

While I was also certainly excited to meet the royal cat, my favorite part of the episode was the parts involving Jaime, especially the scene with Brienne. I found it genuinely touching. She looked like she was going to break down and cry. This seems like a major turning point for him. He's decided to defy Cersei and honor his two-seasons-old promise to Catelyn Stark even though she's no longer alive. I can only wonder how Brienne and Podrick will fare. Littlefinger's chat about "new friends" and Lady Tyrell's "did you think I would let you marry that little monster?" was a surprisingly quick resolution to what I had expected would be a long-running mystery. The scene with Maergery and Tommen was also ... uh, interesting. The poor kid's heart must have been going about 180 beats a minute. How old is Tommen on the show? seems to me it'll be a while before he's of marrying age. -k

The players? I'm sure he views them as his "field negroes." I heard that Magic Johnson now wants to buy the team. I also heard thet the players wore their shirts inside out at practice in a (pretty lame) protest. Pretty clearly what the guy said reflects jaw-dropping racism... but what can the players do? What can the league do? I imagine the league's agreement with its owners allows some sort of fines for conduct that is detrimental to the league's reputation, so I suspect they have that option at least. I recall that once upon a time there was a major league baseball team who was owned by some crazy old lady who hated Jews. How did they deal with her? -k

BS. The plan was to auction the cattle. It's the only asset Bundy has that's worth even a fraction of what Bundy owes. He's a rancher. What "wages" does a rancher earn? A rancher gets paid when he sells his cattle. Taking his cattle to auction them is as close to "garnishing his wages" as is possible. If Bundy can raise a militia of mooks with AR15s to defend his herd, do you imagine it's going to be any easier to take his house? What's next? Deduct from his social security cheques? That'll work, if he lives to be 3000 years old. If people are touting this guy as a "patriot" and a hero, then it seems fair to find out what kind of guy he is. Sorry that he turned out to be a pretty bad mascot for the "small government" crowd who rallied to his cause. If your objection is to the deployment of armed peace officers to enforce the rule of law, then Caledonia seems like a pretty reasonable comparison. -k

The TFW program was supposed to provide a temporary solution to worker shortages. Temporary. It's right there in the name. But now these restauranteurs are telling us that the temporary foreign workers are a part of their business without which they can not survive. Clearly the program is being used in a way which it was not intended to be used. This wasn't intended to create a structural change in the way an entire industry operates. There are lots of Canadians who have the skills to flip burgers and wipe tables and pour coffee. The fact that there are a shortage of them willing to do it at the wages that McDonalds or Tim are offering doesn't mean there is a need for foreign workers. It means there is a need for better employee incentives. If you can't get somebody to come run your cash register for $9/hr, try $10/hr. And if the profit margin on a $3 Happy Meal isn't enough to pay the wages of the employees who are necessary to get the Happy Meal into the customer's hands, then maybe the Happy Meal should cost $3.50. It also implies that we may have more McDonalds and Tims stores than the market will bear. If there aren't enough employees to staff a McDonalds or a Tims on every corner, then maybe there shouldn't be a McDonalds or a Tims on every corner. -k

I acknowledge the residential schools and other historic injustices, and that aboriginal Canadians are afflicted by a plague of social problems, and that for a variety of reasons they have less economic success than other Canadians. Having agreed to all that, I'm now curious as to how it relates to your claim that this woman isn't talking about race in a genetic sense, when she states in plain language that that's exactly what she's concerned about. And I remain curious about the contrast between this thread and the earlier thread, where in this thread this person arguing that natives have an obligation to preserve their bloodline is applauded, while in the other thread the general consensus was that the sooner everybody intermixes to a "golden mean", the better. -k

They didn't just "send in a SWAT team". The government went to court and obtained a court order allowing them to seize Bundy's cattle and auction them to recover what he owes. I gotta ask, Shady, what was your stance regarding the use of force at Caledonia? -k

That's really beside the point. If it takes $12/hr to persuade a senior to take a part time job in your town, then allowing the employer to import a worker at $10/hr is "cheap labor" because it's below market price in your town. -k

What a delightful turn of phrase. -k

If Canadian manufacturers are trying to compete in an international marketplace against Chinese manufacturers and Mexican manufacturers who have lower labor costs, that's a serious problem for them. If Canadian farmers are trying to compete in an international marketplace against American farmers who are heavily subsidized, that's a m But there's no international marketplace for fast food. The competition isn't in China or Mexico, or even Quebec and Nova Scotia. It's down the street. The Burger King and the McDonald's are hiring from the same pool of workers, they're subject to the same regulations and the same economic costs of doing business. If there aren't enough fast food workers in town for both, they are supposed to compete with each other to attract them. Higher wages, a benefits package, whatever it takes to get a "warm body" there to flip those burgers. And if there isn't enough business to support higher prices to cover those wages, then maybe that town doesn't need both restaurants. -k

So, this rancher named Cliven Bundy decided some 20 years back that he didn't want to pay grazing fees anymore for grazing his herd on federal land. He now owes the federal government somewhere over $1.2 million dollars in unpaid fees. He claims he won't pay because he doesn't recognize that the federal government even exists. He claims to be a citizen of Nevada, not a citizen of America. But he has been turned into a media hero by people who don't like government. Sean Hannity of Fox News in particular devoted plenty of coverage to Bundy. In the estimation of some, Bundy is a blue-collar hero standing up to Big Government, apparently. In another thread, Michael posted this excellent message about the Nevada ranch nonsense: -k

First the government told us that the TFW program was only an emergency stop-gap of last resort for businesses, but now we're hearing from the restauranteurs that it's a pillar that's supporting their whole industry. Well, those can't both be true. I agree with what Argus is saying: this is a gift by government to business to allow them to game the labor market to keep wages low. The program was allegedly supposed to assist businesses in obtaining workers whose skill-sets are rare, but clearly in the fast-food restaurant business, the only skill being sought is the ability to work cheap. -k

Gosthacked, are you doing InfoWars again? I thought you were quitting that stuff. -k

I bumped it because I had assumed it had been overlooked among all the excitement about Jewish dating practices. -k

You may not believe it to be so, but it do. From the original article, I reiterate: It must take some tricky mental gymnastics to convince yourself that when she says bloodlines, she's referring to something other than bloodlines. Not is she just speaking for herself; she asserts that preserving native bloodlines is an issue that all aboriginal people have an obligation to consider. And once again, I don't care who she dates or mates with. I simply point out that a statement that would cause discomfort and probably revulsion if it came from a white person has instead somehow inspired approval because it came from a non-white person. I think we all know that if you present the following statement to somebody who wasn't aware of this discussion... "It’s absolutely vital for us to actively be thinking of keeping our bloodline strong, within all aspects of our life. That means only dating (blank) and it means making the decision to only have children with another (blank) person. I think these are things we have an obligation to consider." ...they would fill the blanks with "white" and assume that the speaker is a Stormfront white nationalist type. -k

Actually Fox News dropped that guy after he said that "the Negroes" are unemployed because they never learned to pick cotton, and they were better off during slavery. Why did they go there? Is it because they're stupid? Start that thread, I'm looking forward to it. -k

Is she the one who got roasted on live TV during Hurricane Katrina? Hate to say it, but I'm kind of with Shady here: the idea that the person should be chosen based on identity-politics credentials is pretty sick. It makes me think of a focus-group sketch I saw on The Daily Show a few years ago. "What did you think of his comments about the middle east, Jew?" "What do older voters think of what he just said, Senior?" "Did that speech appeal to women, Woman?" "Christian-- oh, you're Christian AND Black! You're TWO things!" Although, one might argue that a decision-making process like "We'll pick Biden because Obama needs an old-white dude to reassure old white voters" or "Mitt needs a young dynamic running mate, so we'll pick Ryan" is also identity politics. One could also make the case that "we need a VP candidate who will excite the evangelicals" or "we need a candidate that will get the Tea Party faction behind the ticket" or similar considerations are also, in a sense, identity politics. -k

You may not believe it to be so, but it do. From the original article, I reiterate: It must take some tricky mental gymnastics to convince yourself that when she says bloodlines, she's referring to something other than bloodlines. Not is she just speaking for herself; she asserts that preserving native bloodlines is an issue that all aboriginal people have an obligation to consider. And once again, I don't care who she dates or mates with. I simply point out that a statement that would cause discomfort and probably revulsion if it came from a white person has instead somehow inspired approval because it came from a non-white person. I think we all know that if you present the following statement to somebody who wasn't aware of this discussion... "It’s absolutely vital for us to actively be thinking of keeping our bloodline strong, within all aspects of our life. That means only dating (blank) and it means making the decision to only have children with another (blank) person. I think these are things we have an obligation to consider." ...they would fill the blanks with "white" and assume that the speaker is a Stormfront white nationalist type. -k

I'd disappointed in the Prime Minister's son, he should have known better. Every Ottawa kid knows that you can just go to Hull if you want to get tanked. -k

I'm skeptical that cigarette smoke is more harmful than tailpipe emissions from a typical Victoria automobile, but I doubt they're going to ban people from driving their cars within 7m of a window, door, or air intake. -k

The discussion of race in the thread I linked was most certainly literal. Da Shwa was talking about future generations attaining a uniform golden-brown skin tone. WWWTT was talking about how genetic diversity would make interracial offspring somehow superior to those who breed within their racial group. And you yourself were pointing out how in times gone by, tribes would swap women with each other to spruce up their gene pool. So no, people were not talking about race in a social sense, they were talking about actual genetics. Da Shwa and WWWTT both argued that the end of race would be a good thing, and you yourself argued that intermixing is a positive. I won't address the stuff about social hierarchy and culture and so on, because it isn't relevant. I asked earlier if you feel that maintaining distinct races has an intrinsic value, and you didn't answer. The only person who did address the question is Bob Macadoo, who simply says it's a subjective matter. Perhaps he's right. However, the arguments being put forth in favor of this aboriginal person's position are pretty much the polar opposite of the arguments that were brought forth earlier when Lictor talked about wanting to preserve his racial group. -k

A while back when somebody posted a thread about whites becoming a minority in North America, the end of race was touted as a good thing by "the left" here. We won't need equity programs! Genetic diversity will make people healthier! People who marry within their own race are living in the past! Get on the diversity train, whitey! I don't object to this woman choosing her spouse by whatever criteria she wishes. I just want to point out that some of you guys are defending her for advocating the same kind of ideas about maintaining racial purity that Lictor616 used to promote here. -k

I believe they killed off Failhorn in season 2. -k

Like the New Jersey Auto Dealers' Association, the cable companies are extracting a bunch of money by providing access to content that they didn't create. I recently figured out how much it cost me to subscribe to HBO Canada. It would boost my me cable bill by over $50 a month. First I would have to upgrade my basic cable to a deluxe package. Then I would have to rent a hi-def cable box instead of the base model I currently have. Then I would have to subscribe to a premium add-on package of which HBO Canada is just one channel. Game Of Thrones would wind up costing $15 per episode, most of which doesn't go to the creator of the content I want to watch. But online streaming services provide an alternative. You still have to pay Shaw for the bandwidth, but they no longer have the power to extract a toll from customers who want access to premium content (well, except for HBO anyway). You pay Shaw for bandwith, and you pay services like Netflix for content. -k