kimmy

Again, what makes you think that people aren't interested in the causes of cases like Rehtaeh Parsons or Steubenville? What makes you think that the Boston terrorists aren't being condemned by those who wish to find "root causes"? And when did you stop being able to go more than a couple of posts without referring to the capital-L "Left"? -k

Why would you contrast "understand the root causes" of one vs "condemn" the other as if they were mutually exclusive? People condemn both, and want to understand the root causes of both. This is just a false dichotomy, August. -k

Mississippi high-school students forced to attend Christian sermon. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/25/mississippi-high-school-forced-students-to-attend-christian-lecture/ -k

I think calling the missing women inquiry a waste of money is pretty controversial. Especially considering the question being asked wasn't why prostitutes vanish, but rather why the police paid so little attention to it. -k

I guess I was wrong about the viability of posting cell phone video to the internet in real time. I can imagine some situations where that could endanger police. Perhaps an armed standoff where real time video would allow the suspect to assess where his best chances of escape were, or perhaps alerting the suspect of a sneak-attack and allowing the suspect to counter-attack. I think such circumstances would be extraordinarily rare, and that the suspect in such situations would have a lot of time to search the internet to see if he could find video of his particular altercation anyway. I can agree that in some very specific situations, there would be good reasons why recording police actions would be negative. However, I'm concerned with the attempts by police to punish people for recording them in very ordinary circumstances, like in the opening post. As someone mentioned earlier, there have been legislative attempts to outlaw recording of police. And there have been prosecutors who have attempted to assist police in suppressing video recordings by misusing wiretapping laws to try to punish those who would record police. And as the article indicated, this was not the first attempt to confiscate a cell phone using the ruse that it's potentially a deadly weapon, so one starts to suspect that this BS premise is another stratagem that they have devised. Perhaps the police have come up with this themselves and shared it on CopNetForums or something. Or maybe some prosecuting attorney came up with it. I dunno. But it's hard to see it as anything other than a part of an ongoing pattern. I can understand why cops don't want people to see the stuff they do in real life. But I don't see why lawmakers and prosecutors should be so eager to help them. -k

Mr Popoff is a columnist and rather outspoken individual whose controversial comments could have been discovered with a couple of minutes of Google searching. It is hard to believe that they just didn't have the resources to properly vet him. Further, Mr Popoff was the Vice President of the BC Conservative Party until 2010, so it's not like they didn't know what they were getting. -k

I don't actually see how the science of climate change makes a good argument against the Keystone pipeline anyway. The science of climate change might make a great argument for reducing our consumption of fossil fuels. However, until such time as consumption of fossil fuels is eliminated, moving fossil fuels from place to place will be a necessity. As for Canada's Conservative Party being neanderthals, I think that's hyperbole. However, I believe there have been a number of incidents during their time in office where government-employed scientists have complained that their work was being suppressed when it produced results that the government didn't like. It's one of the things that has reduced my enthusiasm for the Harper government. -k

The root cause of terrorism? Personally, I think we should give more consideration to the words of Uncle Ruslan: "What to I think was behind it? Being LOSERS. Not being able to settle themselves, and hating everyone who did." Let's consider the strange case of the 4 mooks from London, Ontario who somehow ended up involved in terrorism. Two of them recently showed up dead in Algeria after taking part in a terror attack; a third is in prison in Mauritania for terrorism offenses, and the fourth is being sought by police in connection with the Algeria attack. Two of these four were Albert Yoon (a Catholic-raised son of Korean immigrants) and Kristos Katsiroubas (raised Greek Orthodox, and of Greek heritage.) These guys didn't even join Islam until they were in high school, just a few years ago. I can't help feeling skeptical that "blowback" is to blame when a couple of non-Muslim, non-Arab kids decide to pick up Qurans and join terror groups. It seems almost as if they joined Islam so they would have some excuse to go fight somebody. -k

So anyway, the graphs that Canuckistani and Cybercoma found show the real-dollar income of the lowest 20% barely climbs at all, and the middle 60% only slightly better. Putting those flat little lines against our GDP that grows 3% every year, or against the steeply growing line of the top 20%, and it's clear that this premise that "baking a bigger pie" (as Belinda Stronach put it) doesn't mean more pie for everybody. It could, but in Canada (and the United States) it doesn't. Indeed. Obama, for all the accusations that he's anti-business, is just as bad as the Republicans when it comes to being soft on business and Wall Street. If he was really what he says he is, he'd put an end to the "Double Dutch Irish Sandwich" and other accounting trickery that lets mega-profitable corporations like Google pay next to nothing in US tax. In order: -they are already moving jobs elsewhere to cut labor costs, so this is not actually anything new. And they don't actually even have to move employees, they just need to move their location. Google is an American company, right? Most of their employees are in America. Most of their revenue comes in through their Ireland office, for reasons having nothing to do with where their revenue actually comes from, and everything to do with accounting shenanigans. -I suspect higher taxes would more likely mean lower dividends to shareholders. -Corporations aren't taxed on income paid to employees. (they're taxed on net profit, not gross revenue; wages paid are an expense and reduce net profit.) Ditto dividends, etc. Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than other kinds of income, so there ought to be an asterisk there. -agreed, but I think that's more an argument for reforming the tax code than for not taxing businesses. As for raising the capital gains tax... it won't happen. It's heresy to even suggest it. An unspeakable assault upon the Job Creators™. Buttholes like Paul Ryan think the capital gains tax ought to be reduced all the way to zero, because corporations are already taxed. -k

I expect that if you look into it you'll find that those increase in 2005-2006 are the result of tax cuts, not an increased share of "a bigger pie", so the point remains. Further, I expect that this extra cash was not nearly enough to keep pace with the massive increase in housing prices that was going on concurrently. Furtherly, those tax cuts just boosted the deficit, so that extra cash is going to be repaid through the nose when the Austerity crowd gets its way. It's Fool's Gold. -k

I'm not aware of any way of putting cell-phone video on the internet in real-time. And if it's not being streamed real-time, then it's not a tactical liability. During the Dzokhar Tsarnaev manhunt, I was able to follow along in real time at my computer, but the updates weren't coming from cell phone video, they were coming from guys with police radio scanners. -k

If somebody can use Skype to pour my coffee, put shingles on a roof, fit sheetmetal, and so on, then... well, Microsoft must have added some new features since last time I used it. If it is cheap to live in India, and expensive to live in Canada, why do so many people leave India to come to Canada? -k

I suppose I should have been more clear. I say the word "benefits" and like Pavlov's dog you immediately think of that obnoxious woman with her "Obama Phone" or some welfare recipient with 7 kids and no job. But I was not referring to handouts. I was referring to benefits of living, working, and doing business in a modern well-managed society. For starters, we have: -law enforcement and a respectable justice system -low levels of crime -reliable and comprehensive infrastructure -a well-educated workforce -a legal framework to manage contracts and transactions -a stable currency and one of the more stable financial systems in the world Yes, all of those things cost money. No, private industry is not able to provide any of those things in a competent manner. Consider the stable, secure environment Canada provides for businesses and workers to operate in. Then consider what it would be like trying to do business in an environment that doesn't provide any of those things. Somalia, lets say. In fact, why are you still here, Pliny? Why haven't you bought your plane ticket to go off to the Small Government Libertarian Paradise of Somalia? To me, it sounds like Mogadishu is the place that most suits your philosophical temperment. -k

Yes, yes. Bigger pie. More pie. Everybody loves pie. You are correct, it doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. Everybody could be doing better if the pie just got bigger. But as things stand, even though the pie keeps growing, most people don't have more pie. Income, in real dollar terms, hasn't grown except for those in the highest income groups. Costs of housing and education have grown far faster than income. The numbers say that the pie is definitely much bigger than in decades past, yet this big pie has not "trickled down" as your heroes would tell us it should. Presidential candidate Willard and Vice Presidential candidate Jughead Jones, who staked their political fortunes on the promise of bigger pies, were rebuffed by an electorate that has realized that bigger pie means more pie for Willard and his donors, not more pie for the rest. When Prime Minister Harper next takes to the campaign trail with tales of how successful Canadian businesses have been during his tenure, I expect that he too will be hard pressed to explain why the successes of Canadian businesses during the past several years have not translated into increased prosperity for the average Canadian. -k

Won't just be Denmark, either. -k

I doubt the government considers him a criminal, because his income probably falls well below the $10,000 personal exemption. The point wasn't that becoming a hobo is a viable "opt out" option. The point was that people like this hobo are examples of what people who have "opted out" really look like. You, me, CPCFTW, Paul Ryan, and whatever other Free Market Superheroes you guys are listening to these days, we are all benefiting from a long list of things that are mutually beneficial and mutually paid for. I'm assuming it's because you haven't got a real response, but if you want to explain it, go right ahead. Boo hoo, some people pay less green fees than you do. You're on the course, so pay up and quit whining. -k

Not in the sense that a bridge, or our fictitious warp tunnel does. With the bridge or our warp tunnel, a worker can wake up in his own bed, travel to a different country to do a day's work, and be back in his own home in time for supper. If there's a gross disparity between the cost of living in the country where he lives and the country where he works, then his ability to live on a much lower wage has dire consequences for the people on the other side of that bridge. Ask the Royal Bank of Canada. Ask just about anybody who's ever placed a technical support call how they feel about how the magic of VOIP lets companies outsource customer service to India. I'm sure I've probably at some point made mention of the time I spent doing telephone tech support for Microsoft. If I haven't, I can make a long story short by simply saying that while they may save dollars, they pay for it in terms of customer satisfaction. Certainly they're a cost. They're a cost that we as a society have decided is worthwhile, and some other societies have decided aren't. Let's just say that I would feel a lot favorable about proceeding with this bridge if it went to Mumbai rather than Michigan. And I'm sure that Michiganders would say the same. -k

He is a rugged individualist making his own way without a helping hand from society. Of course I bumped into him. Urban campers like this fellow are often found in the area I live in. Why is this maudlin crap about "grow the state" your response to everything? Closing loopholes and ending corporate welfare needn't be mutually exclusive with cutting unnecessary spending. Simplistic drivel. Guys like you want to golf but they don't want to pay the guy who looks after the greens. -k

I included that for humor, of course, but the picture does show people right out there on the course with all sorts of gear. I see a megaphone, a bottle, big white bag that could contain dangerous things, who knows. If I knew for sure, I wouldn't need to be skeptical. That's kind of how things work. Until more is known, skepticism is highly justified. What are your feelings? -k

Wasn't sure what forum to file this under. It seems equally applicable to Canada and the US, as both countries have had a multitude of incidents where police have been recorded acting like, well, pigs. I watched this one this morning: http://boingboing.net/2013/04/19/san-diego-cop-smashes-phone.html ...in which a police officer, angry at being recorded, alleges that cell phones can be used as dangerous weapon and confiscates it. A lawyer for the National Press Photographers Association says: In short, it's BS, and the cops know it's BS, but it's BS that they can use to keep you from recording them. Courts have maintained over and over again that people have the right to videotape the police when they are on duty, and police have continually fought against that. Why? Because they don't like being held accountable for their actions. Why should people record the police in the first place? Because stuff like this happens: ...and if there is no video of it, the police have total impunity. The obvious and extreme example, of course, is the Robert Dziekanski slaying, where the RCMP "internal investigation" had completely whitewashed the entire incident and cleared the officers involved of all misconduct. Only when the cell phone recording became public did people learn that the RCMP explanation was an enormous stack of lies. I guess I decided to put this in "Moral and ethical issues" because the issue is "who watches the watchmen?" In an age where we all have video recording devices in our pockets and the ability to publish to the whole world instantly and for free, the police are looking for ways to maintain their "blue cone of silence". -k

Oh. They had guys on mopeds? Alright, then. I remain skeptical of any compelling security reason to classify Dhokhar Tsarnaev as an "enemy combatant". -k

The PC industry has been in trouble for a long time, so the idea that Windows 8 is to blame seems like bandwagon-jumping. And I am pretty sure that the commercial failure of Windows 8 has far more to do with preconceptions than with the actual product itself. This thread is an example. -k

You aren't aware of heightened security after other terror incidents? You probably haven't paid sufficient attention. Dude puts explosives in his shoe, we're all getting our shoes scanned at airports. Dude brings flammable liquid onto a plane, then we can only bring mini-toothpaste and mini-shampoo in our carry-on bags. Dude sets his underwear on fire on a plane, and they spend billions of dollars developing machines that see through clothes. Well, because there are lots of cameras and now there extra security. Somebody who just wanted to kill a bunch of people could have gone to a 4/20 rally yesterday and encountered far less security. Dramatic action shot of the heightened security at the London Marathon: So are they basing this demand on information that the authorities have not yet released to the general public? If so, wouldn't what they're doing constitute a security leak? Whether he's actually part of some organization or not, I don't see a good reason not to handle this through the criminal justice system. I suspect that the senators don't actually have a good reason either, and that this is just political grandstanding. (ie, capitalizing on public outrage and paving the way for "Obama is soft on Muslim Terror!" and similar rhetoric.) Lots of horrible crimes are committed, and they should all be treated seriously. But giving the government the power to arbitrarily circumvent the legal process based on how much public outrage they can muster seems like a bad precedent. If there is a compelling security reason, then for sure they should classify him as an enemy combatant. But if they classify him as an enemy combatant so that their political adversaries stop saying "Obama is soft on terror!" then I think that would be shameful. -k

Well, that's refreshingly different. Usually when people talk about "opting out" they don't want to pay taxes to society anymore but they still want to maintain their life of comforts. I want to live in the country myself someday, and can relate to that. I am with you there. Paying into Canada Pension Plan really sucks. The benefits age is just going to keep going up and the actual benefits are going to keep going down; I'm not paying to assure my own future well-being, I'm paying to maintain the present-day well-being of the people who screwed up the system in the first place. Boomers suck. -k

So what you're really hoping for is a way to participate in "the system" without paying the membership fees? Doesn't sound like you actually want an "opt out" option at all. -k