kimmy

Harper and friends are, sadly, starting to remind me of the Liberals of a decade ago. The shenanigans with Mike Duffy and the PMO seem just so ... Chretienesque. Painting the plane in Conservative colors might have been planned before the scandal became news, and it might not have been intentional to make it look like a Conservative campaign jet... but it does, and the timing is terrible. It once again seems ... Chretienesque. One almost expects monogrammed golf-balls to be next. There's an old adage about governments being like diapers-- needing to be changed regularly and for the same reason. -k

So what's up in the final episode? What's up for season 4? Where does the story go when they've killed many of the significant characters and the storylines that have been a big part of the show up to now? I assume there'll be "clean-up" of last-weeks events, figuratively and literally speaking. We should find out the aftermath of the Red Wedding. I assume that will mean Roose Bolton will inherit Ned's old job as the lord of the North, and that Walder Frey will be rewarded with a windfall of cash as well as highly eligible husbands for his daughters. I guess Bran's journey to find his crow will be a major storyline. Perhaps we'll find out the next stop on Arya's tour of tragedy. Sandor will get her out of Frey country alive, because for a bad guy, he's actually a pretty good guy. What can she do now? Take up the Faceless Man's invitation? Join the Brotherhood? After last weeks' events, the war with the North is clearly finished. The Starks are completely wiped out as a player in "the game of thrones". Stannis, Dany, and the Iron Isles remain as military threats to the King. Presumably we will continue to follow Dany, and continue to follow Stannis and his crazy witch, and continue to not follow anything relating to the Iron Isles. Sansa is actually kind of lucky to have married Tyrion when she did, because if she'd waited another week, being a Stark wouldn't be worth a dime. We should also find out how Jaime's doing now that he's free. What will he do with his life now that his sword hand is gone. And what happens to Brienne? I guess we will also continue to follow Sam, and Jon, and the wildling invasion. And the zombies are still out there somewhere. Considering how season 2 ended, I thought there'd be more White Walker stuff in season 3. We might get more weddings tomorrow night, with lucky Loras and Cersei, and lucky Margaery and King Joff. Hopefully they end better than the last wedding. -k

Sansa doesn't seem to have any evil in her, but I'm not sure I can think of anything noble she has done either. She's almost completely passive; she doesn't act, she's acted upon by others. Rickon is basically just a prop at this point in the show; he makes no decisions and has only had a few lines in the whole series. Bran is not evil, but as with Sansa, I can't think of anything noble he has done either. He's preserving his neck and chasing his raven. Jon Snow is certainly a good guy, but he was also full of wrath and resentment, and rather arrogant and self-absorbed earlier in the series. He seems to have grown up a lot, though. Sam Tarley is a character I could have included on the list of truly noble people in the show, I agree. Perhaps Brienne as well, though she's not really a major character. I should have also included Littlefinger on the list of characters without redeeming qualities. He's just a scumbag. Along with the nuanced bad-guys, we also have nuanced good-guys. I think that Tyrion and Varys are good-guys in the sense of caring about things beyond power; they both seem to have some desire to serve the common good. But Tyrion will always be conflicted by his need to win his father's approval, and Varys is just too complicated to know where he truly stands. On the one hand he has more than once said "I serve the realm, because somebody has to" when asked whose side he's on. On the other hand, he might be the guy who gave Dany the dragon eggs, and giving dragons to somebody who plans to wage war on Westeros doesn't seem like the greatest idea if you really care about peace and protecting the innocent. Ser Jorah's devotion to protecting and serving Dany is rather noble, but he seems to be rather jealous in that role and one might be a little suspicious of how pure his motives really are. Dany herself is quite noble in some respects, hating slavery and the killing of innocents... but she's also ruthless and war-like and vengeful and arrogant and one suspects that everything else comes second to her desire to avenge her family and retake Westeros. And poor Theon... even when he was in the midst of betraying the Starks, one could at least understand why he was doing it and see how conflicted he was. After they torched Winterfell, I really wanted to see Theon pay for it... he's paying now, yet it's just not much fun to watch. I assume that before the end of the season we'll find out who Mysterious Torture Guy is and why he's terrorizing Theon. The possibilities that seem likely to me are: -a Stark partisan getting revenge. -a Stark partisan hoping to use Theon to blackmail the Greyjoys into taking their forces back to the Iron Isles. -someone with the Bolton/Frey alliance hoping to use Theon to blackmail the Greyjoys into taking their forces back to the Iron Isles. Those seem like the logical assumptions, and of course I'm probably completely wrong. -k

The hell? -k

And how is that response relevant to the facts regarding how money is created? Governments can have debts under fractional reserve banking or the gold standard. Unless you're proposing the elimination of all borrowing, debts will happen. Banks follow the law (theoretically) and the profit motive. The central bank doesn't issue "dictates" to commercial banks, and doesn't need to. You're changing the topic by ranting about bailouts, subsidies, and the practices of commercial banks. And none of that has anything to do with fractional reserve banking anyways. Bailouts, subsidies, and discriminatory practices could, would, and did happen under gold standard banking as well. I'm trying to follow you, but you don't make it easy. You're all over the map. -k

The amount of money they create is a known, controlled quantity, determined by the amount of reserves they hold. You seem to be under the false impression that banks can create money at will. They can't. When they hit the limit set by the reserve ratio, they can't lend anymore money. Banks always operate very close to the reserve ratio, so they can't just go out and create more money. So yes, banks create money, but no, they can't create as much as they want to or whenever they feel like it. It's not "the view of many economists", it's the facts about how a fractional reserve banking system works. -k

I realized at some point during season 1 that we weren't going to see justice done, and that the best we might hope for would be to see the "bad guys" suffer too. Since then I've come to the realization that we aren't even going to see that. The closest you're going to get to seeing Cersei Lannister get what's coming to her is if you watch the recent "Dredd" movie and watch Lena Headey meet a grisly end at the hands of the title character (fun movie, btw.) In one of the recent episodes Lord Davos, "the Onion Knight", told Stanos about wanting to give comforting words to his young son, yet not wanting to lie to him. "I think mothers and fathers made up the Gods because they wanted their children to sleep through the night." I think somewhat the same view might explain the idea of heaven and hell. It's bleak to think that Ned's reward for being a good man was to spend the last days of his life suffering in a dungeon and have his head cut off by a psycho teenager. It's bleak to think that the same psycho teenager will go on causing such suffering without facing any consequences. Where is the justice? It's not going to happen in this life... but if you're religious, you can believe that your gods are going to see justice done in the next life. In the next life Ned finds peace and King Joff will pay for all the terrible things he's done. In the next life, the starving African children will have full tummies, and Bernie Madoff will be starving. If you believe in an afterlife, you can believe in the justice you're not going to see in this life. I think the only characters in the show who I would consider wholly good are Davos and Osha the wildling. They're both former criminals, oddly enough. I think Osha's selfless devotion to Brann and Rickon makes her the most noble character in the show; the Onion Knight's strong moral compass and loyalty to Stanos make him a close second. Conversely I'd say the only characters on the show who are utterly without redeeming features are Joffrey and The Red Woman. (plus Gregor "the Mountain" Clegane, although I don't think we have seen him since halfway through season 1). Everybody else on the show, even Cersei, has at least some sympathetic qualities thrown in with the bad, or some blemishes among their virtues. It's kind of like real life in that sense. -k

He used to be Reform, but he's willing to join the Liberals if the Conservatives don't want him? Does that mean that Peter Goldring's principles are that malleable? Or does it mean that he doesn't see any significant differences between the two parties? -k

If we are going to shift focus from crime to accidental deaths, then I think that there are a lot of things we should discussing ahead of guns... if people are of the opinion that preventing accidental death is a legitimate policy goal. -k

I was thinking the same thing yesterday. Pretty amazing that the Leafs had the Bruins moments from defeat, and nobody else has been able to touch them. Is it a style matchup thing? (ie, the Leafs having a lot more speed than the Rangers or Penguins?) or did the Leafs just give the Bruins a wake-up call? -k

Apparently Arya Stark was among them: https://vine.co/v/b3XZMHmxzxh -k

I assume that was in reference to Dany marching out of the city with her new army behind her and her dragons circling overhead? For me, that was chills-up-your-spine awesome. Somehow you just knew the moment that he cut off Lord Karstark's head that Robb had made a large mistake. Like his dad, putting principle ahead of practicality cost him everything. I have enjoyed Lady Tyrell and Margaerie this season. When we first met Margaerie last season, it was easy to assume she'd be another hapless "babe in the woods" like Sansa. But she knows what's up; clearly she takes after grandma. I found the relationship between Jaime and Brienne of Tarth to be oddly endearing. In episode 8, when Jaime found out that she was not going to be ransomed, I expected him to shrug his shoulders because, hey, he's Jaime Lannister and he's going back home anyway. Instead he goes all-out hero to rescue her. Perhaps he felt compelled to prove to her (or himself) that his "Oathbreaker" reputation is undeserved. I wonder if he'll invite her to stick around. After all, he could use a (cough, cough) hand. -k

I've been avoiding this thread until I caught up. Now that I'm caught up, AAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!! -k

AAAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!! AAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!!! -k

HPV is associated with cervical cancer, so it's not unreasonable to suggest it could cause oral cancer as well. I wonder how Mrs Zeta-Jones-Douglas feels about this revelation. -k

Hey, there's no need to get vulgar! :angry: I will agree that my message is an oversimplification (unlike Shady's claims about banking, which were outright lies). However, as Canuckistani's message shows, my oversimplification is based on the truth. The legal system is indeed under pressure to use alternative sentencing for aboriginals. The legal system is indeed encouraged to consider sentencing aboriginals as being different from sentencing other people. And it is apparent that Mr Addelman was not out of line in requesting that the court consider his client's race in requesting a lesser sentence. -k

Yes, that's how it works. Banks create money by lending, but the amount of money they can create is limited by the reserve ratio. If the reserve ratio is 2%, bank loans inflate the money supply by 50x. But the central bank retains control of the money supply by controlling how much actual cash is in the system. If the reserve ratio is 2% and the central bank has $60 billion of currency in circulation, the money supply will be around $3 trillion. If the central bank reduces the currency supply to $58 billion, then the money supply shrinks to $2.9 trillion, because the consumer banks have to reduce the amount of money they have on loan so that they get under the reserve ratio. You're so wrapped up in this idea that governments can just create money and give it to their friends... did it ever occur to you to stop and wonder why there's such a thing as government debt and government deficits if it worked the way you think it does? Switching to a gold-backed currency doesn't eliminate the reason why bubbles occur, which is that people over-estimate the future value of some investment. Why are bubbles becoming more frequent? Perhaps because the number of people with money to invest has vastly increased over the past couple of centuries, and even over the past few decades. -k

There's a special process by which the Pope's communications become infallible. His comments on salvation redemption for atheists don't count as infallible because he didn't go through the proper paperwork to make them infallible. -k

While it would be wrong for the IRS to specifically target Tea Party groups, there is something else to consider: it's ridiculous for political groups to be granted tax exempt status as "social welfare organizations" in the first place. This article says that there are over 1.6 MILLION tax exempt organizations in the United States. Some of them sound legit. Charitable organizations, cancer foundations, and so on. But some of the tax exempt organizations also include... Harvard University? HealthPartners Inc? The American Federation of Labor? The Miss America Pageant!? The National Football League?!? The writer goes one step farther, by asking why even charitable organizations and cancer foundations should need tax exempt status. Taxes are paid on profits... why should a cancer foundation or the Boy Scouts or a Tea Party organization have profits to be taxed at all? As the author points out, it's not tax exempt status that the Tea Party groups care about. It's the other perks that come from being classified as a charity rather than a political action group: their donors can be anonymous, and they become immune from rules covering lobbying and campaign spending. -k

And I would say that this is the reason that so many people are under the false impression that gun crime is on the rise in the first place. Gun crime is lower than it has been in decades, and yet people are more worried about it than ever before. What has created this disconnect between reality and perception? Sensationalism. -k

You're not blaming the victims specifically. But you're arguing that society is making teenage girls seem too sexy, and that this is a mitigating factor that should earn this person a "slap on the wrist" sentence. And that's really just a generalized version of the "she was asking for it" defense. I'm wondering if you could be more specific about how teenage girls have become a "sexualized archetype". Mainstream movies and TV are pretty cautious about portraying underage girls in sexual ways. Mainstream erotica, whether on the internet or traditional media, doesn't use underage models... if you're looking for porn involving underage people, you have to go underground to get it. "Sexting" may be a thing, but I don't see any reason to think that girls are sending provocative pictures to 74 year old Sunday school teachers, so I don't see how that would be a factor in this guy's motives. What, specifically, are you referring to when you talk about teen girls being "hypersexualized" in our society? If we define that, then we can discuss this idea further. Society makes money into this toweringly important thing, and glamorizes wealth and possessions, and yet we take robbery so seriously. -k

That is peculiar indeed. I am speculating here, but I believe it may stem from currently-popular theories regarding alternative sentencing for aboriginals in Canada. In the not-too-distant past there was great concern about why Canada's prisons are overflowing with aboriginal inmates, and an intensive study concluded that the way to reduce the number of aboriginals in Canadian prisons would be to send less aboriginals to prison. (This was the result of millions of dollars of research and years of study, as you can imagine.) Since crime can't go unpunished, alternatives to incarceration were required for aboriginals convicted of crimes. One of the things they came up with was "sentencing circles". Basically, these are gatherings where the criminal, the victims, and the community get together and hug it out. When it was reported in the press that aboriginal offenders could be punished with group therapy, rather than prison, the idea was ridiculed by many Canadians. "No no," the experts replied, "you don't understand native culture! For a native person, being reproached by their community is more punishing than a prison sentence could ever be! Rest assured, this is serious business." And while I doubt most Canadians are convinced, Canada's legal community has to pretend they take this idea seriously so that they can defend alternative sentencing practices for aboriginal offenders. So, that might be why this person's "aboriginal status" is an issue. I am just speculating, as I said, but the idea that sentencing native people is different from sentencing other people seems to have currency within the legal community. -k

Obviously burqas are the answer. -k

Picture the Catholic Church as the Republican Party. Think of the Pope as Mitt Romney. He's the pitch-man. He's out there spreading his message and trying to win people over. But you can't take everything Mitt says as literal. You have to wait for Eric Fehrnstrom to go on TV the next day and give you the fine print. In this case, Rev. Rosica is giving you the fine print. Atheists can go to heaven, provided that they accept that Jesus Christ is the son of God and he died for their sins. In other words, nothing new here. I can't imagine why atheists would remotely care whether the Pope thinks they're going to heaven anyway. I'm personally wondering if Peter Pan thinks I'll be allowed in to Never Never Land. -k

Banks can't create money out of thin air in a fractional reserve system. The money supply is controlled by the government by adding or removing cash from circulation, which (using the reserve ratio as a multiplier) determines how much banks can have out on loan. "cronyism, bank cartels and monopolies, a privileged class that can pick winners and losers" are all things that go back to the dark ages and beyond. Your ideas here are just wishful thinking. All you need to have a bubble is for enough people to greatly overestimate the future value of a commodity. People are still free to dump their every day money in favor of gold, diamonds, Deutschemarks, real estate, Bitcoins, or any other commodity they think is secure. What inflation? What inflation? What shortages? Who has decided to stop selling goods in the US? People have always done this. It's discussed in the Bible. It's nothing new. Unless you're a leprechaun (you aren't, are you? I have wondered about this) keeping gold in a vault or a mattress or a pot does you no good. None of this is dependent on paper money to make it work. As long as the right to buy and sell property exists, speculation will exist. If there's a chance that something will be worth more in the future than today, somebody will speculate on it, whether they have fiat currency or real gold. If there's a chance to create profit by spending money building houses or widgets or anything else and selling them for more than they cost to make, somebody is going to build houses or widgets. Real gold doesn't change that. And all this is just paranoid anti-government ranting. -k