kimmy

I'm not a conservative at all. I'm a liberal by any reasonable definition of the word liberal. You probably don't understand the definitions of either conservative or liberal. In all the years I've been on the internet, you're among the biggest morons I've ever encountered. You're such a loser that I would feel pity for you, if I didn't hold you in such contempt. -k

The CBC itself acknowledged as much 18 months ago, and promised to bring in a wider range of opinions. I'm hard-pressed to see any evidence that anything has changed at all. -k

Perhaps he should prorogue parliament so that all of the MPs can attend! -k

What's not mature about understanding your limitations? Many people make the mistake of thinking their minds are idealized mechanisms of objective rationality. They aren't. They're flawed organs that are subject to fatigue, stress, hormones of many sorts, hard-wired responses that we are often not even aware of, and most of all erroneous perceptions. Your brain is full of things that were probably of great value to our species when our chief concern was finding food, defending your territory and your offspring, and not being killed by predators, but are of considerably less use when dealing with the complexities of modern life. Our brains aren't perfect rational devices, they're really flawed, especially mine. Nature and nurture have provided me with a temper that has gotten me into every kind of trouble imaginable. Understanding that shortcoming, and finding ways of coping with it, has been the central challenge of my life. I read Bruce Lee's book as a teenager. The "Zen" and "Tao" parts went completely over my head; I was primarily interested in learning how to hit things. But one thing that did stay with me was the instruction to become a doll made of wood. I will probably never figure out exactly what that means. But expressing myself physically, and focusing my attention on that activity instead of on the source of my stress helps me get past all of that hard-wired, defending your territory and offspring type of instinctive response, and back to thinking like a rational human being. Understanding that I'm not thinking clearly for me is always the first step when I get upset, angry, frightened, or anything else. I think the best advice I can give to someone is to understand that you're probably not thinking clearly either, and find a way of dealing with that before you do anything else. -k

The study claims self-identified "liberals" are smarter, not "the Liberals". -k

yeah, too bad all anybody can recall of the protests is that some thugs smashed shop windows and threatened tourists. The games were among the most successful and popular events in Canadian history, and even the Four Host Nations whose "stolen lands" the games were held on were ecstatic about the outcome. I congratulate the protestors on their success in "resisting" the games, in the same way that I applaud Rahim Jaffer's success in bringing awareness to the issue of impaired driving. -k

He enumerated a tasering as among the options the RCMP could have used to deal with the situation, which clearly implies acceptance. Ditto the forum members who've said she was lucky to not get tasered. Sir Bandelot didn't just imply acceptance, he outright stated that he thinks they should have slammed her on the ground. And I'm just fascinated that Canadians are apparently so accepting of excessive force by our peace officers. As Morris points out, these are subjective descriptions, and further to that, these are subjective descriptions being provided by the terminal staff who were on the receiving end of the tirade. I think there is more than a fair chance that these descriptions are less than objective and may contain some amount of hyperbole. For example, one of the eyewitnesses claimed that she "slammed her boots into the bin" while the other claims that "She took her boots off and she threw them". So clearly, there's some element of hyperbole here. So, until I see the video I am not prepared to accept descriptors like "shouting" or "hammering" as objective fact. My suspicion is that when the video becomes available, we are going to see a rude, angry, stressed out woman behaving badly, not a violent drug freak-out-type episode that would have people fearing for their physical safety. We shall see, hopefully. -k

I think a couple of the comments from opposition members bear mention as well: Liberals call for inquiry While the intent is obviously to further embarrass Guergis, I think it's worth pointing out that the stated intent is actually an investigation into whether the airport security staff are competent. Neville is alleging that allowing Guergis to fly may have violated regulations and placed passengers at risk, so the real claim here is that the airport security staff failed to do their job. Perhaps she should apologize to the ground staff as well, or change the language of her claim. Pat Martin speaks out I did not care for MLW forum members suggesting that a tasering would be an appropriate response to someone who raised her voice and swore. But I'm quite appalled to hear an MP echoing that view. -k

The closing ceremonies were quite odd. Listening to that dude attempting to speak French was pretty painful. I liked the Russian presentation. I thought having Neil Young sing the torch out was nice, but the choice of song seemed odd... I've always thought "Long May You Run" was someone reminiscing about his first car. The Shat was cool. Catherine O'Hara being "swept to the button" like a curling rock was pretty funny... too bad none of her material was remotely amusing. Giant inflatable table-hockey figures, beavers, Dudley Dooright mounties... strippers dressed as mounties fawning over Michel Buble? All of this left me wondering if my favorite chinese restaurant had slipped some *special* mushrooms into my take-out. And the musical presentation... oh god... when the music starts with Nickelback and get *worse* from there, I can't think of anything to say except "sorry, world, lol!" Like, they put Simple Plan on stage... was that their way of getting people to decide to leave? -k

People will form their own opinion if they see this. Their opinion will be based on what they already think of Layton as much as anything. Personally, yeah, I'm of the view that Layton wanted to make sure he got on TV. -k

His boycott of the Olympics was such a success that he's had a hard time figuring out where to go next -k

And not just hockey either. I think most Canadians will remember seeing Jennifer Heil early in the games and how disappointed she was to settle for a silver medal. For fans, if your country wins a silver medal in some sport, you say "hey, that's pretty good" and move on. But it's much more difficult for the athletes to swallow, especially when you have high expectations. For most of us, being second best in the whole world would be a really great accomplishment, but for the US hockey men, the US hockey women, Jennifer Heil, and lots of others, it means they fell short of their goal. They all came to the games believing they could win and determined to prove they were the best in the world. They all came up just a little bit short. It's easy to say finishing second is pretty good if you were expecting to finish 8th. It's tough to say finishing second is pretty good if you had your heart set on finishing first. -k

2. Yes it is violence. Oh, of course. I forgot that I was talking to Mr Electron Soup. You believe that there's no difference between yourself and inanimate objects. I'm punching your spirit when I'm punching my punching bag, right? You should go chomp down a few Tylenols, little buddy, because I'm about to give my speedbag your spirit a serious beating. -k

Yeah? You make it sound like you're under the impression that these people might end up in gunfights with terrorists on any given day. I deal with drunk young adults constantly, belligerent drunk young adults frequently, often threatened with physical violence, occasionally involved in physical altercations, and have even had customers wait around for me to leave work because they wanted to confront me. These guys? These guys work with the safety of a heavy police presence nearby, and they deal with a public who is so scared of them that most people won't even say boo. A woman swearing at them and angrily slamming her boots into the x-ray tray is, apparently, the worst thing that has ever happened to them, and it has apparently scarred them so badly that they were still crying about it a week later. What a bunch of crybabies. Having the power to say "you're not flying today, and if your not careful the RCMP are going to stomp your ass" guarantees that almost nobody who passes through their terminal is going to object to anything they say. In what other situation could workers treat people the way I was treated and not have people object? -k

1] I don't have kids. 2] I don't consider hitting inanimate objects to be "violence". and, 3] you're an idiot. -k

I have heard that Wayne Gretzky did the same thing in 1998 and has said that being at the closing ceremonies with all of the other athletes was one of the most memorable moments of his career. With an endorsement like that, I am surprised that other hockey players did not do the same. Well, he does play in Buffalo. -k

I punch things. I have a heavy bag, a speed bag, and some targets hung around my pad. Letting loose the anger, stress, and physical tension is a good first step in moving on to dealing productively with whatever the problem may be. -k

I thought it was cool seeing Ryan Miller at the closing ceremonies out among all of the amateur athletes and filming the whole thing on his iPhone. If people hadn't already noticed that he's one of the best in the world based on his play for the Sabres this season, his performance in this tournament ought to make people notice. -k

Well, you might think my experience in the service biz would make me sympathetic to workers who got crapped on by an irate customer. But instead I find myself sitting here snickering at the crybaby security staff who are apparently still "reeling" because the mean woman yelled at them and finding it somewhat satisfying that at least somebody is yelling at the security people. And most of all wishing that I were a "very important person" or even a "slightly important person" so that I could have stood up to the security scumbags who humiliated me when I went through LBP airport last year. I mean, I know I'm supposed to feel appalled at Ms Guergis' behavior, and I'm supposed to feel sorry for the poor abused airport security staff... but you know, I guess it's kind of like hearing that some notorious criminal got beat up in prison. You know what happened is wrong, but it's hard to find a whole lot of sympathy for him. Well, in my experience, when I have problem customers they're almost always female. To touch on something Oleg mentioned a little while ago, I think men tend to realize that if they get aggressive, they're going to be treated like a threat. (ie, a bouncer is probably coming over.) By contrast a lot of women seem to think they can do whatever they feel like because they're just not used to being confronted for their behavior. -k

I always feel kind of sad when these things come to an end. I was quite blah at the start, but became wrapped up in it as it went along. There are always those moments that leave an impression on you in some way or another. Brilliant performances, disappointments, great competition, courage, kindness... and just plain indescribable things like John Montgomery walking through the street celebrating his gold medal with a pitcher of beer. The Joannie Rochette story was such an emotional thing that it's still hard for me to think about it without getting misty-eyed. Her short program put a lump in my throat when I watched it, and it had the same effect again when I saw the recap and even the NBC announcer was so choked up that he couldn't even talk afterward. Another story I liked was Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse in bobsled. Kaillie Humphries didn't get to compete at the Turin Olympics because Moyse took her spot. Moyse missed a bronze medal by 5/100 of a second in Turin, and Humphries was so bitter about being bumped off the team that she considered competing for Britain afterward. Four years later, Humphries was driving Canada's fastest sled, and Moyse was her second. Moyse said that she didn't realize until much later that she felt guilty about taking Humphries' spot in Turin, and that helping Humphries win gold this year was much more meaningful as a result. Although Humphries seemed quiet and reserved during the medal ceremony, unlike the other women on the podium, I bet that the history made it especially sweet for her. -k

Great rivals make for great games, and one couldn't ask for better rivals than Hockey USA. Our officials were anticipating 30 medals, and our athletes won 26, so the prediction was actually pretty realistic (especially when you consider that some of our top skiers injured themselves before the games.) If we'd won 30 instead of 26, we'd ... have still finished behind the US. -k

About this time last week people were ridiculing the "Own the podium" slogan and how our athletes were failing to meet expectations and all of this. Well, as it turns out, Canada's officials had anticipated 30 medals and the team finished with 26. That's actually pretty close to what they anticipated. Failing to win the overall medal count wasn't a result of failure of Canada's athletes to live up to expectations. It was a result of American athletes exceeding expectations. And no other country has ever won this many gold medals at the Winter Olympics. I doubt anybody was predicting Canada to do that. Personally, I think the Olympics have exceeded expectations in every sense. Athletes included. -k

This is by far Canada's best-ever Olympics... but it wouldn't have seemed complete without the men's hockey gold. What an incredible game. -k

See, Dick? That's the connotation I was talking about. You identified yourself as a teabagger, and now Oleg thinks you're turning gay. -k

No no, it's America's fault too. America is the enabler of Israeli apartheid. Israel wouldn't have built the walls if it wasn't for America's support (because Israel probably wouldn't exist...) It's all Israel's fault, but it's all America's fault too. It's always America's fault. -k