kimmy

In the context of what was being said-- discussing Canada's place in the international community-- I think most people realize Harper was saying that Canada as an independent nation has not gone about subjugating other nations to our own interests. And Canada's relationship with aboriginals isn't really relevant to that point. The original poster argues that this is the kind of gaffe that cost Gerald Ford the presidency... but it isn't. It's not going to cost Harper anything, because most Canadians will understand what he meant, and will recognize efforts to hype this as cheap political opportunism. -k

Yeah, because Rio de Janeiro is such a lily-white community. -k

Did they find a lot of Canadians who didn't know what year they were married or where their children were born? -k

The argument being presented here is ridiculous. The opening post posits that the reason people aren't talking about it is that CanWest/the Aspers are protecting Harper, and that he controls the CBC. Well, what about Ignatieff and Layton? They can talk about this if they want. Know why they aren't talking about it? Because they know it's a losing position that will win them no support and will hurt their credibility in the eyes of most Canadians. -k

-k

Well, he agreed to pay her $500,000 to settle a civil suit, and I guess it shouldn't be very surprising that he won't pay up... http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009...al-assault.html Even if she does want the whole thing dropped, that's not really up to her. The law is supposed to provide not just restitution, but also retribution and deterrence. Many people object to the notion that you can commit a crime, then jump on a plane if you don't like the sentence. Many people object to the fact that he drugged and raped a child and fled the country to avoid being punished for it. So why now? Apparently because he went to a country that didn't feel like shielding him from extradition to the US. From what I have read, it appears that the US has made numerous attempts to have him extradited over the years, so I don't think the suggestion that there is some ulterior motive or that this is from out of the blue is credible. They've been trying to get him back for some time, and yeah, sounds like he should have stayed in France. -k

So, if people are willing to dismiss the atrocities of Stalin (or Mao or Pol Pot) as poor planning or an awkward implementation of economic change, or if people are simply not aware of those atrocities at all, doesn't that kind of support the original poster's claim of a "double standard"? -k

Oh? What did they have to say? -k

He committed a horrible crime. Then he fled rather than serve his sentence. I see no reason as to why he deserves our sympathy. Having now read the full comments, thanks to Roland Martin's editorial, I believe that Whoopi Goldberg is a reprehensible human being. Clearly she is trying to minimize his crime and to rationalize his flight from his sentence, and she can go do a backflip into an empty pool. If these *are* their values, then these are truly disgusting people. If they really do think Polanski should be treated differently because he directed acclaimed movies, they can join Whoopi in the bottom of the pool, as far as I'm concerned. However, I don't believe these are really their values. I don't believe they would really stand up for a child rapist and protest the unfairness of his treatment, not unless he were their buddy and their professional peer and likely a guy who still has powerful friends in their industry. I endorse both of these remarks. Perhaps it is an indicator of the narcissism August mentioned that these people act as though Polanski is the victim. And, he has had 32 years to face up to his crime. I would think that someone who felt any remorse would have at some point chosen to face his sentence. -k

I'm sure Chicago will be fine. I doubt that we'll hear the sort of wailing and gnashing of teeth that we heard when certain cities lost their bid for the 2008 Olympics. I think it is neat that Rio de Janeiro will be hosting the Olympics. I'm sure Madrid would have been fine as well, but Spain hosted the summer Olympics not long ago, which I'm sure worked against them. I think I heard that South America has never hosted the Olympics before. -k

"The Current" on CBC this morning was going to have interviews with experts who were going to explain why it's actually really unfair to expect Canadian citizens to know the answers to the questions that were posed to Suaad Mohamud. I was beginning work just as the interview started, so I didn't get to hear why. I'm sure it was scintillating, however. -k

The argument being presented is retarded, and of no value to anyone not emotionally invested in the idea that Stephen Harper made a gaffe. Claiming that as a former British colony, Canada is a party to Britain's imperialist adventures is (as Danny Williams would say) codswallop. It's like talking about the imperialism of Barbados. You're wondering why nobody's talking about it? Because it's a stupid premise. There are some smart people on this board who don't care for Harper at all, and they wouldn't touch this steaming load with a 10 foot pole. -k

Whoopi Goldberg has clarified her comment "that it wasn't rape-rape". She says she was only referring to the legal charge Polanski was convicted of, which was not "rape", but "unlawful sex with a minor". http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/10/01/2084644.aspx I did not see the original context of her remarks and am not sure if this flies. If she was providing a factual correction, then ok. If she was trying to minimize the crimes with which Polanski was convicted, then no, dickering over the specifics of what he was charged with is not going to buy him any sympathy and her comments are not excused. In 1977, Polanski was charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14 and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor. These charges were dropped as part of a plea bargain that saw the director admit to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with a minor, while he later fled the US on the eve of sentencing. http://www.digitalspy.com/showbiz/a179696/...-rape-rape.html -k

Achieving fairer representation for BC and Alberta and Ontario and maintaining Quebec's over-representation are competing objectives. If Quebec is going to be given a de-facto veto over decisions like this, Quebec separation isn't going to be the only threat to national unity before long. -k

As August points out, it's an accurate statement, and trying to spin it as a gaffe will work only with shrieking crybabies who'd never vote for Harper anyway. -k

Some people certainly seem to act as if they're above the law. (the conduct of some professional athletes being particularly astounding.) In practice, if you've got enough money, you're apparently pretty hard to prosecute successfully. They're out of touch. The question is, are they out of touch in ways that will make people stop buying their product? Nobody knows exactly what makes the paying public love some actress while being completely indifferent to another who seems, at first glance, to have all the qualities that make the other one popular. If anybody understood exactly what it is, they could make a fortune. I don't know if people will be thinking of these comments from Whoopi Goldberg or Debra Winger when they are in the lineup at the box-office. (when was the last time anybody paid money to see Whoopi Goldberg or Debra Winger anyway?) Tom Cruise's popularity dipped after he went on Oprah and jumped on her couch and acted as a pitch-man for his weird cult. I think that the audience for his movies were reduced at least for a while. He jumped on a couch on TV. That's a lot less serious than what Goldberg and Winger are doing... yet it's also a lot more high profile. Everybody saw the clip and remembered it. Nobody is going to remember actors signing a petition in support of Polanski... because it just doesn't make for as entertaining a clip. You can't sound-bite it or you-tube it. If restitution/compensation was the only goal of our justice system, then that would be a reasonable proposal, but restitution/compensation is not the only goal of our justice system, or even the most significant one. So no, absolutely not. -k

A lot of the new seats would of necessity be in the Greater Vancouver area and Southern Ontario, hardly locks for Conservative candidates. Alberta and BC have been getting dicked on representation for a long time (theoretically, so has Ontario, but it's hard to feel sorry for them when they already have so much clout.) This growing inequity is simply not consistent with the fundamentals of our democracy. -k

It has been argued that the Holodomor was not just incompetence and not just forceful imposition of an "economic program", but also a calculated effort to erase the Ukrainian identity from the USSR. -k

Since when isn't killing Nazis popcorn entertainment? I believe that once upon a time there were actors who built whole careers on the premise that killing Nazis was popcorn entertainment. I have heard Inglourious Basterds called "a Jewish version of Dirty Dozen"... and while I haven't seen the whole movie, it seems to me that Dirty Dozen was more or less popcorn entertainment too. Didn't people used to make war movies because people wanted to watch war movies? Have we entered some sort of new age where there has to be some sort of profound statement if you want to make a war movie? People are fascinated by World War II. It was a war that everybody believes in, probably the only one in modern history. I believe most of Tarantino's movies have had commercial success-- Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill movies were highly successful from a commercial perspective (and widely admired by critics as well.) Only "Grindhouse" stands out on his resume as a real flop... even Jackie Brown was a modest success, I believe. $115 million gross in the US, another $115 in the rest of the world... with more to be made from DVD sales and broadcast rights. It seems to me that $230+ million is a pretty slick return on a $70 million investment. There are enough investors willing to gamble on this sort of a return to make it happen, and presumably enough tax write-offs to ease the pain on the ones that don't work out. -k

And yet, Hitler is widely recognized as embodiment of evil; the crimes of the others are poorly known by comparison. If you went around the streets of your town and asked people to tell you about the Holocaust, you would probably get fair number of fairly accurate responses. If you asked the same people about how and who and how many were killed by Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot, I bet you'd get very few accurate responses and a lot of blank looks. It is likely that to some degree this is simply because our nations went to war against Hitler directly and had no direct involvement with the other three. If it is purely a question of numbers, then obviously Mao and Stalin are the worst. However, despite the smaller scale, I find Pol Pot to be as chilling as Hitler. Simply, utterly horrific. -k

We don't see you often enough, BD. -k

I dunno, Pliny, it seems awfully philosophical. I think we're talking about phenomena that are at the opposite end of the spectrum, our social instincts. The only reason we survived as a species is our instinct to form groups for common purpose. At one time that might have been hunting food or building shelter or protecting the tribe's children. Today it might just be gathering with people who share the same religious views or favorite sports team, but the instinct is still there... people crave groups, they will form them for almost anything. I recall once hearing someone claim that experiencing social rejection evokes a response in the human brain that is similar to physical pain. Avoiding social rejection is a powerful motivator for people, more powerful than they actually understand. Standing out from the herd is scary. You may find yourself stranded from the herd and left to die alone... or that might be what the caveman firmware in the back part of your brain is telling you. Resisting the herd is not natural for people. I'm not sure what is the way to teach kids to do it... thankfully I'm not a parent. But lessons like "it's better to be right than be popular" can ring a little hollow when the advantages of being popular are obvious and the advantages of being right are pretty hard to quantify. -k

I have been wondering about the fairness of the economic stimulus and the bailouts and all of that. I am wondering how much of the stimulus money is going to create jobs and preserve the income and assets of people who already have considerable assets built up. Ok, it's very sad if the economic downturn has caused people to lose jobs and put people in danger of losing their homes. But when I look around me, in the community I live in, and reflect on all these half-million dollar homes with half-million-dollar mortgages, it makes me hope and pray that these aren't the people who the stimulus is supposed to be helping. Seems to me that a lot of people live far beyond their means, and if the stimulus money is being spent from my taxes and yours to help people continue to live beyond their means, I'm not wild about it, to be honest. -k

I caught about 2 minutes of this, and my thoughts are: "Kristin Chenoweth is in high school? WTF?" Is that some kind of a "blonde" thing? Like, she's still in high school because she's failed 23 times and counting, or something like that? Because I have completely had it. This is just not even funny anymore. This means war, assholes. -k { }

I'm sure nobody would dare kick "Little Morris". But I bet he gets slapped around a lot. -k