kimmy

But tell me... how do the Knights Templar fit into this? -k

The sunnovabitch I work for bought a house when the market was down, hung onto it for less than a year, and was able to flip it a few months ago for a 6 figure profit because once again chumps are apparently able to get mortgages easily again. When I see that stain rolling around in his Porsche it makes me skeptical that people aren't making real wealth out of this bubble. It seems to me that our government bought billions of dollars of bad mortgages off the banks to proactively protect our banks from the kind of hit that banks in other countries suffered. Seems to me that Canadian taxpayers still picked up the tab for a lot of people having mortgages they should have never been given. It seems to me like banks would be more cautious about handing out risky mortgages if the government wasn't willing to rush to the rescue last time out. -k

Krieber refers to herself as "The President"? Out of curiosity, what is she president of? Was she writing this in some official capacity, or is this simply a self appointed position... "President and Only Member of the Stephane Dion Fan Club", or the like? As to this... For having refused the historic coalition that could have placed it at the head of the left, it will be punished by history. ...if she thinks the Liberals are being punished for not doing that coalition that would have made her husband Prime Minister, I think she's out of her mind. I think the Liberals are, to a point, being punished for even considering that coalition. I think Canadians would have punished the Liberals to a merciless degree if they had actually gone through with that and made her husband our Prime Minister after we spat on his grave just 2 months earlier at the polls. Being part of "the historic coalition that could have placed it at the head of the left" would have been a disaster... because Canadians do not want the Liberals to be part of "the left" at all. -k

wait wait, you're saying that businesses sometimes stretch the truth to get more money from people? Let me write this down, it could be valuable to know this later. My favorite remains all of the excuses the gasoline companies dream up to explain their prices. The real explanation? They do it because they can. If you don't want to buy grocery bags, don't by grocery bags. I now have this handy "earth bag" (or something) that I got for free when I bought a bunch of stuff at that Finnish Ikea-wannabe store. I've got a second one that I got when I donated a dollar to summer camps for teenage felons, and a third that I got when I accidentally went to a Canadian Tire on "free earth bag" day. I got 3 "earth bags" for a buck. That pays for itself in 20 trips to the grocery store (or 10, if you double bag, or 5 if you double bag and buy 2 bags of stuff each trip.) -k

There should be a fatwa on Emmerich's head... but not for destroying religious icons. Anybody who's ever seen one of his idiotic movies knows that Emmerich is a first-rate moron who has nothing worthwhile to say about anything. Expecting Emmerich to put forward some sort of argument about western culture is like expecting the Sham-Wow guy to talk about fixing the economy. The Sham-Wow guy knows how to sell stuff on TV, and Emmerich knows how to bilk hapless suckers out of $11.50 per head. The best way for Roland Emmerich to take a stand for western culture would be if he took up a different line of work. -k

YES YES BEWARE THE SOCIALIST DEATH SQUADS ARE COMING!!! Ultimately, Pliny has it right. Who ultimately decides if it's time for a breast (or prostate) exam? You do. Read as much as you can, make an informed decision, take responsibility for looking after yourself. -k

I'm sure that Greg doesn't "get" "it", and I'm sure the rest of us will be no wiser either until you explain what "it" is. What is "it", August? That the "quote" boxes have green borders now? Is that what's pushed you off the deep end? August is a "big picture" thinker... he doesn't like to focus on trivialities and specifics. In this instance, the "big picture" is so immense that it's invisible. Ultimately, August is irked not by the changes in functionality or look-and-feel-- which are so minor as to be negligible-- but by the notion that Greg installed a new version of the software at all. -k

How evenly is that standard applied? I think it's been pointed out that the phrase gets thrown around pretty liberally in certain situations. And, by the way: is there actually such a thing as a "hate crime"? It seems like the phrase "police are investigating this as a hate crime" has been used a number of times lately, and I'm skeptical that it's accurate. I don't think that the police can investigate an incident as a "hate crime" in the same sense that they would investigate a fire as a possible arson or investigate a traffic accident as a possible criminal act. I think the police investigate an incident to see if a crime was committed and to provide evidence to prosecute a case. I don't think the police investigate an incident to see if it's a "hate crime", because I don't believe there is actually such a thing as "hate crime" in any criminal code in Canada. As we all know, there is a law which can be used to classify certain speech as dissemination of hate, but that's certainly not what people are referring to when they say "the police are investigating this as a possible hate crime." No, the police really aren't. -k

What a naive kimlet I was, holding out hope that the legal process was not being abused for political reasons. But the traveling time machine salesman was right. Here's the 60 Minutes piece on the case that was referred to in the earlier thread, a feature by the late Ed Bradley. (Bradley was black... one might wonder if a white journalist offering a similar piece would have received a different reaction. Having a black journalist report on this case defuses the "just a white guy sticking up for white kids!" counterattack, doesn't it. I wonder if there was some white journalist who thought about doing a similar story and second guessed the idea because he was worried about how people react.) Anyway, this is a good report that illustrates the misconduct by the prosecutor. -k

"Right wing element"? Niedermayer is a defenseman, not a winger. Furthermore, the adults in the incident were socialists who were attempting to "collectivize" the stick. Just another example of socialist greed and jealousy run amok. -k

Is that question addressed to racists who are non crazy? Or is it addressed to people who are non-crazy and non-racist? I'd respond, but I don't want to get branded here. ok, I'll respond anyway. No, I'm not *surprised*. However, I think the way the media handles this does a disservice to everyone, and that they deserve the criticism. -k

uh-oh... do you think I should have used some emoticons in my previous post? this little guy maybe? According to the dictionary, rape performed by a group is by definition a gang rape... -k

I wasn't aware of that. I don't recall that you agreed to disagree with my position, or even stating what portions of it you disagree with or why. I'm not sure where I've fixed his arguments up for him, and I'm not trying to prop him up. I'm arguing this because I think the premise has merit, and I have presented a good case as to why. I haven't fixed his argument, I've presented my own. If you feel that by articulating my views on the subject I've saved whatsisname from a beat-down, well, sorry. Is it that I provided a more credible cite for Patricia Stansfield's murder? I had to find out if that was real, because in terms of helping illustrate my point, it seemed almost too good to be true. Before I could use it in my own argument I had to convince myself that it wasn't fiction invented by white nationalists. I feel fairly satisfied that it wasn't, and provided a cite to support that conclusion. Is it that I've taken a controversial opinion and presented a defensible case to support it? That's what we do here in Canada. At least, we used to. -k

"Group rape" isn't bad. Sort of emphasizes the cooperative aspect. Personally, I think "shared rape" would be nice. Non-judgmental, sort of has a community-oriented sound to it. -k

As such, it confuses me that you wish to discuss Lictor's shoddy work rather then the argument I've presented. I'm not arguing this because I'm on his "team". I'm not on his team, and I don't care for the suggestion that I am. I'm arguing this because it's a topic I think merits discussion, not to stick up for Lictor. I provided a non-Nazi cite for the Patricia Stansfield murder because I thought it was very relevant to the topic at hand, not because I am trying to help Lictor. I'm here to discuss a topic, and you're apparently here to beat the bad-guys. If you really want Lictor to go away, perhaps you should stop giving him opportunities to talk about white supremacy. If you want everybody else to go away, then by all means keep turning worthwhile topics into idiotic discussions of Lictor's beliefs. -k

The media and the prosecutor were both happy to bandy about the claim that it was a hate crime. There *was* a hate crime committed. The victims were 3 priveleged white frat-boys. The perpetrators were media-types looking for a big story, and a prosecutor looking for a high-profile case to boost his chances of re-election. The prosecutor was disbarred and did jail-time for his part. I don't know if anybody in the media has ever said so much as "oops." If the implication is that the event never occured, well, I was wondering about that myself. If the only citations for this event are from white supremacists, that does seem awfully suspicious. However, I did find this citation, from Jim Kuypers, a professor of communications studies at Virginia Tech University. He sounds like a pretty credible guy. Considering that both Channon and her boyfriend were raped and murdered, it doesn't sound like gender was a factor. Sounds quite equal-opportunity. Likewise, I'm not sure how money explains the event either. They didn't need to rape, torture, and murder the young couple if all they were after was their money or their bank cards. In the other thread I provided examples of remarkably different media coverage of remarkably similar events. I pointed out that the media excuse that it's not the color of the victims that determined the amount of coverage but rather the racial motive falls completely flat when their definition of a blatant racial motive is entirely dependent on the color of the victims. I provided an example of an attack on a white teenager for blatantly racial reasons that received zero national media coverage, disproving the idea that a blatant racial motive is in itself newsworthy. I provided Canadian examples of the news media declining to mention race in coverage of crimes committed by non-white people even when race was a relevant aspect of the news story. I provided caught-in-the-act proof of Canadian reporters trying to attach a hate-crime element to a story to make it more newsy. And the only response I received to any of that has been "uh... hey, look! It's Lictor! Let's talk about that Kenyan marathoners thing instead!" -k

Well, certainly the most stunning examples I've provided have been from the United States. The sensationalist national coverage given the James Byrd dragging murder in 1998, in contrast with the coverage of the dragging murder of Patricia Stansfield just 2 months later. Coverage of Stansfield's murder is so scant that it's difficult to find cites that prove it even happened. And the contrast between the coverage given the Duke lacrosse "rape" incident compared to the double rape/murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom is equally astounding. The Duke case stands as a monumental example of media bandwagoning a story for reasons that have little to do with the merit of the story itself and much to do with preconceptions. The Christian/Newsom case is pretty much the mirror image. Called on the carpet by bloggers for the complete lack of coverage of the Christian/Newsom case, we get the rationalization that it wasn't that the victims were white, it's just thatthere wasn't a blatant racial motive for the crime. Which just a circular argument. "it's not that the victims were white, it's just that there wasn't a blatant racial motive." And yet, "a blatant racial motive" apparently requires black victims. You don't need a racial motive to explain young men sexually assaulting a stripper, yet the media was trumpeting the Duke case as a hate crime, for as far as I can tell no reason other than the skin color of the victim. Conversely, the sadism visited upon Channon Christian seems difficult to explain without some element of hatred, but the media apparently didn't see it that way. And fast forward ahead 2 years and we have white teenager Brian Milligan Jr beaten by a gang of black men who had told him "you don't belong in this neighborhood" and "stay away from our women", which is about as blatant a racial motive as could be. And this story is also virtually ignored. So it seems pretty clear that the racial motive or "hate crime" aspect isn't newsworthy unless the attackers are white. But, as you say, these are American stories. Surely Canadian media are better and wiser and smarter, right? I provided a Canadian case where a media report refused to identify suspects in a gang beating as native, even though some of the suspects were still at large. I pointed out the Toronto high-school rape case, where black parents alleging that the prosecution of their children was racist got the story into the national news, yet later reports on the convictions and guilty pleas did not mention the racial aspect of the case at all even though the earlier allegations of racism had been the most noteworthy aspect of the case. As far as counter-examples, the value of the Courtenay "hate crime" incident is debatable... it could be argued that the main reason it received significant coverage is that there was a videotape. But last month I watched a Vancouver news cast where the TV reporter, armed with nothing more than the information that the attacker was white and the victim was Asian, speculated that the attack was a hate crime. The coverage of this incident catches reporters red-handed, right here in Canada, attempting to pump up the news value of an incident by attaching a hate crime aspect to it, with nothing to support the allegation other than a white attacker and an Asian victim. So is Canadian media so much nobler and wiser than its American counterpart? I'm highly skeptical. -k {but providing any of this has been a monumental waste of my time, because it's been ignored as the thread deteriorates into yet another idiotic discussion of Lictor's theories about genetics.}

Just picked it up yesterday I'm sick as a dog right now so I'll have lots of time to spend with it. I was extremely disappointed when I heard that there's not going to be any more KOTOR single player games. Turning it into an MMORG can only ruin the storytelling aspect that has made the first two installments special. They're throwing an excellent series in the garbage for an attempt to grab at some of the subscriber dollars World of Warcraft rakes in. From a creative standpoint, it makes me very sad. I'm skeptical of the business sense of it too. The MMPRG market is getting awfully crowded, and I'm not sure whether many of WOW's competitors are exactly striking it rich. -k

Video games might be a cultural phenomenon, but it's hard to say whether they're art or culture in and of themselves. I'd compare it to... say, boxing. Boxing has been part of our culture for a long time. The fact that many people in our society watch boxing might say something about our culture. The rise and fall of certain historical figures in the sport might merit study as a statement about our culture (Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson, for example). But I think it would be hard to argue that a single boxing match in and of itself merits discussion as a piece of culture. I think one aspect of this is that a film or a book has a unified experience. Everybody who sees that film or reads that book are seeing the exact same thing, although their interpretations of it may be very different. You can discuss whether an episode of Law & Order is a fair satire of a current event. You can discuss Christian themes or ecological themes in the works of JRR Tolkien. You can discuss the motivations of fictional characters almost as if they're real people. You can discuss what a work of fiction has to say about the real world. You can discuss what our reaction to a work of fiction says about us as people. Most video games don't lend themselves to that level of analysis. The fact that approximately a million video games have re-fought World War 2 in various forms might be a statement that says something about our culture. But a series of more or less random combat scenarios probably doesn't contain any message worth talking about. It might say something about our society that millions of people sit in front of their computers and interact with each other through imaginary avatars in games like World of Warcraft... but the Quest for the Enchanted Shield Of Dragon Slaying +5 is not in itself anything worthy of discussion (unless your dwarf warrior really needs better armor to get through the next quest.) However, I do think that there's an argument to be made for some video games as works of creative art. Obviously some of them have fantastic graphics, but I am thinking more of the experience the games provide the player. Two of (I think) the greatest video games ever are Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect, both created by Edmonton's Bioware studio. They're billed as "role playing games", but they're really more like interactive story telling. And they're terrific interactive stories. Face to face with impressive animated characters with high-quality voice actors behind them, who talk directly to you and react to what you do, it becomes highly immersive. I found Mass Effect, in particular, so compelling that at one juncture of the story where a moral dilemna and confrontation resulted in the death of one of my squad members, I actually found myself upset by it. I think that in creating something that provides such a compelling experience for the player, they have certainly created "art". -k

I wasn't sure whether to post this in the Sports section or here, but I picked this thread, because this is clearly Crazy. Fedor Emelianenko is a shortish, tubby-looking Judo ace and master of the Russian martial art called Sambo. He is considered by many to be the best competitive martial artist on earth, and is famous for dispatching much larger, much stronger opponents with startling efficiency. Last Saturday, Fedor made his American TV debut in a fight against American powerhouse Bret "Grim" Rogers, and lived up to the hype with this devastating knockout. But as brutal as that was, it doesn't tell the whole story. It was obviously sanitized for network broadcast. But now, an anonymous source has leaked the real video! Warning, this is not for the squeamish... but for those with strong stomachs, the shocking footage CBS didn't want you to see. -k

Up is a 2009 animated film by the brilliant people at Pixar. Carl and Ellie are two children who become instant best friends, bonded by their love of adventurous stories. They vow to someday journey to Paradise Falls in the wilds of South America, following the footsteps of their hero, airship explorer Charles Muntz. A lovely montage shows us their story... they fell in love, married, and lived together in their happy home until Ellie's death of old age. They never did get to Paradise Falls, real life somehow kept getting in the way. As the story begins, Carl is 78 years old and on the brink of being taken away from the home he and Ellie shared for many years, to live out his last days in a retirement home. Clutching the Adventure scrapbook that Ellie never did get to fill out, Carl decides that to make up for never taking Ellie on that long promised journey, he will be to go to Paradise Falls after all. And he's taking their house with him! His journey is complicated by an accidentally kidnapped boy-scout, wacky talking dogs, a goofy giant bird, a long-lost explorer, and gravity. Along the way, Carl discovers that he still has a lot of life left and that he didn't really need to go to Paradise Falls to honour Ellie after all. This is truly a wonderful film, touching as well as hilarious and entertaining. Ed Asner stars as the voice of Carl Fredricksen. Christopher Plummer voices Charles Muntz. And as with every Pixar feature, you get to play "find John Ratzenberger". -k

In a previous discussion on the issue of "hate crimes", someone (DogOnPorch, I believe) mentioned one of the most shocking crimes you've never heard of. This occured in Wichita Kansas in 2000, and at the time there was no national coverage of it either, or of the resulting trials a couple of years later. It had a lot of elements that seem to make for big news items-- shocking details, a lurid sexual aspect, grisly deaths-- but was not carried by national media. The mainstream media took criticism from bloggers as a result. In 2007, in Knoxville Tennessee, another horrific crime took place, and also went completely unnoticed outside of local media. Like the Wichita case. The media was much more concerned with the Duke Lacrosse Rape case (the one with the fake victim) than the Knoxville double rape/murder (which had real victims). Like the Wichita case, this one had shocking details, a lurid sexual aspect, grisly deaths, but like the Wichita case, it went completely unnoticed in the national media. The mainstream media only picked it up later, when their own honor had been challenged by bloggers. The MSNBC navel-gazing is difficult to take seriously. It's like an "electronic Internet megaphone" that people are using to "throw brickbats at the media". Look at what those bloggers did to poor Dan Rather. Look what happened when they caught Reuters posting doctored photos of Gaza. Woe is us, to endure such criticism! But the article does eventually get to the question of whether the criticism is warranted: Another observer disagrees: Well, of course he's going to say that. He's the president of the Criminal Justice Journalists. What's he going to say? "Of course we're biased, we suck"? Of course he's going to say that. But the key phrase he uses is "...absent a blatant racial motive". Because as the coverage of the Vancouver torched hobo case illustrates, story-hungry journalists see a blatant racial motive wherever a white guy attacks a brown guy. -k

Thanks I thought it was a worthwhile thing to point out anyway. -k

He should have invited MP Jim Karygiannis. -k

It was actually the Global TV report that I watched which contained the speculation that it was a hate crime. I don't have a video to prove it, but I provided the CBC article because it contained this information: Which is valuable for 2 reasons. First off it supports my claim that other media reports had speculated on the hate crime aspect of it. Secondly, it points out that the police have nothing to suggest there was a hate motive. So the very next day.... Vancouver Police Probe Possible Racial Motive After Man Set On Fire Clearly Constable Houghton is responding to a question from the media in offering "it's possible" that it was a hate crime. That's a far cry from what the headline reports, or from the claim that "police say they’re investigating whether racism prompted" the attack. I think it's pretty clear what's going on here. -k