kimmy

I completely agree regarding Canadians' attitude towards marijuana. I think Canadians' anger regarding law and order issues is primarily fueled by the perception of lax punishment of serious crimes, not a desire to see people punished for trivial matters. I think a popular law and order policy would go along the lines of "we're not going to waste resources on pot smokers and jaywalkers and stuff like that, but if you kill or rape or brutalize someone, or you con them out of their life savings, or if you steal their car and smash it into a tree, we're going to make you pay bad." By the way, I doubt there's a place in the country with more pot smokers or more pot producers per capita than Stockwell country. -k

I just think Islam kind of sucks. I don't think it should be banned. There's lots of things I think suck but would not ban. I also don't think any of us are actually arguing that the mosque near the WTC should not be allowed to be built, I think those of us who don't support it just think the guys who are building it are a bunch of dicks and that nothing good will come of this. -k

I have heard that the factory-rated horsepower (335) is actually much lower than the Roadrunner is capable of producing. The "335 horsepower" figure is derived from the car's curb weight (about 3350 pounds) and the belief that a ratio of less than 10 pounds per horsepower would put the car in a higher-priced insurance category. The "335 horsepower" figure was regarded with a wink and a nudge-- it was more than equal to rivals that had higher "on paper" ratings. I have heard people say that 2 things killed the muscle car era. One was OPEC. The other was the insurance industry. The Roadrunner might have put drag-strip performance into the range that young people could afford... but the insurance industry put it back out of their price range within a few years. Could somebody create an equivalent today? $3000 1968 dollars is the equivalent of about $19000 2010 dollars. I believe that the supercharged version of the Chevy Cobalt costs about $25000 and is capable of a 100mph quarter mile in just over 14 seconds. The Dodge Caliber SRT4 is also about $25000 and is allegedly capable of a 100mph quarter mile in just over 14 seconds. The Roadrunner was obviously a whole lot of car for the money, but if one is just looking at the ability to go fast in a straight line, there are some pretty cheap cars today that aren't far off. But I think that anybody who can afford the insurance premiums for performance car is probably going to want to drive something with a little more style anyway. -k

Wow! Islam must be really great! I wonder what I've been missing out on for all these years! Holeee! -k

That might just mean that you're weird too. -k

Now all we need is a string bass, a snare drum, and William Shatner to recite it. -k

The "Harper = Bush" stuff is a prime example of the sort of hype that the original poster refers to. Or now "Harper = Tea Party", as we discussed earlier this week. What a dumb premise. The idea that Harper is "dismantling" Canada is as dumb as the idea that Obama is "perfecting" the USA. Both are neither "perfecting" nor "dismantling" their countries, merely making political and ideological decisions that some will approve of and some will disapprove of, and in regard to a country there are none who can say what "perfect" is or how it might be achieved. Still, it illustrates your point, yet again, that many Canadians seem incapable of discussing politics without comparison to politics in the United States, and "where is OUR Obama?" is just the flip side of "Harper = Bush". -k

Another example of your highbrow wit, clearly. -k

Oh, the irony. From the guy who still wonders why his computer has that pop-out cup-holder on the front.Hey, Oleg, how many fingers am I holding up? I'm sure many people feel the same way about you, Oleg. -k

Canada's right-wing populist movement predates the Tea Party movement by about 20 years. Labelling it "Tea Party North" is a lame attempt by a left-wing crybaby to come up with a new bogeyman. I guess referring to the Conservatives as "Refoooorm" (in Preston Manning drawl) just doesn't scare people anymore. Sad statement about the Canadian left's level of desperation, really. -k {Tea parties. In Canada's cities. We're not making this up.}

Speaking of anachronism... am I the only one who finds it weird that the "Latest News" headline on the front page still says "Happy New Year", even though "Happy New Year" is not the latest post in the News and Announcements forum? -k

Just yesterday I was watching a video of an Imam in a mosque in England explaining that marrying a six year old is fine because that's how Muhammad did it, and the Prophet is their model. -k

When people choose a name that has clear historical significance, it invites speculation as to the intent. The average New Yorker might not recognize the significance of the name, but many Islamists apparently hold it to be very significant. Your argument that there's nothing wrong with the name because most people don't know the significance of it is comparable to arguing that there's nothing wrong with somebody calling their new center for race relations the "William Luther Pierce Institute", since hardly anybody knows who William Luther Pierce is. If it was a non-issue, why'd they change the name? -k

Why's it ignorant and stupid? If some of the biggest mosques in England ended up with kooks leading their congregations, why is it ignorant to wonder if the same kind of kook might be brought in to educate the flock at my local mosque? The Dar al Madinah mosque in Vancouver got a real genuine Saudi-educated Imam to run their mosque. Am I supposed to assume that the guy giving the sermons at my local mosque is fun-loving and lovable like the Imam on that TV show, as opposed to a hate-filled kook like Sheikh Kathrada? If you learned that the guy running the mosque in your town was a hate-filled kook like Sheikh Kathrada or those scumbags exposed on the Undercover Mosque documentary... would you still have warm fuzzy feelings about your local mosque? Or would the hate-filled kookery dampen your affection for it somewhat? Even assuming that my local Imam isn't telling his flock to kill gays and Jews, take up arms for global jihad, beat their wives and daughters, and so on, ... why should I feel all warm and fuzzy about a mosque anyway? What does a mosque accomplish, aside from ensure a fresh generation of homophobia and misogyny? What's so freaking awesome about that? -k

I never did get a reasonable answer as to how failing to defend civil rights in 1870 justifies failing to defend civil rights in 2010. It sure seemed like you were offering the past as a justification for dropping the charges. And as I look through the thread, I notice that you again and again try to turn the spotlight back to the scumbags in Halloween costumes (or to Lictor, or to Shady) and away from the actual DOJ issue. So you came across like a guy trying to get the DOJ "off the hook". -k

Were you not the one who insisted that the DOJ decision to dismiss charges must be viewed in light of the historical fact of Jim Crow laws and the original Black Panther Party the 1960s? -k

Fox news put those goons in the spotlight for ratings. But you and other DOJ apologists have put those goons in the spotlight as a means of deflecting attention from the real issue. -k

The claim was not that the name was insensitive, the claim was that the name carries symbolism. Look: if a bunch of angry Anglos burn down some building in Old Quebec, and me and some of my dirty Alberta oil money friends buy the site to build a headquarters for our English language-rights advocacy group, we'd have to be pretty stupid to name it Place James Wolfe. -k

A reporter went undercover in some of England's biggest mosques and obtained videotape showing sermons that include things like -advocating violent jihad -calls for the overthrow of democracy and institution of a Muslim theocracy -slaying homosexuals -violence against women After some Vancouver boys got their dumb asses shot up in a gunfight with Russian troops in Chechnya, people did some digging into the mosque they attended and found the mosque's website had hate-speech sermons available for download, in MP3 format. Now, I'm sure that not all mosques are like that. Still, considering the above, why SHOULDN'T people be unhappy when a mosque opens near them? -k

I don't know why you keep mentioning Breitbart. I'm certainly not going to advocate for the guy. I really don't give a crap about Breitbart. He's in the same pile as DailyKos or any other hyperpartisan mouthpiece as far as I'm concerned. The Black Panthers thing was not about two lone nutjobs. It wasn't about the Black Panthers at all. It was about the DOJ decision to drop the civil case against them. As you'll recall, the DOJ apologists scored what they figured were big rhetorical victories when news broke that (1) the charges were dropped while the Bush administration was still running the DOJ, and (2) in 2006 the DOJ ignored allegations that Arizona Minutemen were involved in voter intimidation that was at least as flagrant as the Black Panthers. These were both circulated by MediaMatters and at least one mainstream publication (a columnist with the Atlanta Constitution, for sure) but as far as I can tell the original source was Journ-O-List member Adam Serwell. Except both of these claims were patently false. It was actually pretty lucky for the DOJ that the Shirley Sherrod thing broke when it did, because it made the whole DOJ thing vanish. -k

But they were off-the-mark in repeating the misinformation circulated by Adam Serwell regarding the DOJ/Black Panthers case. -k

You could stand a little bias against MediaMatters yourself... it seems to me you're one of the ones who was trumpeting MediaMatters posts in recent threads. -k

You just used a whole lot of words to say, repeatedly, that conservatives hate gays. But how American conservatives or Fox viewers or even Red Eye viewers feel about gay bars is irrelevant. It would be comparable to me dismissing the "building bridges" premise of Park 51 on the premise that I don't think most Muslims really want to "dialog" with the west. I don't know enough about Mr Gutfeld's views on homosexuality to have an opinion on his sincerity. I just read that he is a libertarian, and a former editor of Maxim's UK edition and Stuff magazine (hardly conservative magazines) and Men's Health magazine (which probably has a higher gay readership than most.) None of this really sounds like reason to doubt his sincerity. If we question Mr Gutfeld's intention to "build bridges" based on the provocative nature of his proposal, shouldn't the same logic be applied to the Park 51 project as well? Do Mr Rauf et al really think that something that has generated this much animosity will be the basis for "building bridges"? Whoever wrote the Twitter response for Park 51 had it right: you can build whatever you like... but no dialog is going to happen. Gutfeld's gay-bar isn't going to make Muslims respect homosexuals. And Park 51 isn't going to make New Yorkers love Islam. -k

Well, I don't think anybody here is under the impression that Breitbart is anything other than a conservative commentator. On the other hand, there are clearly a few here who think MediaMatters is an objective fact-checking service. -k

I think that the 1968-69 Dodge Charger is one of the great pieces of industrial artwork. -k