kimmy

Again, re-read the transcript. He reads him his rights in the transcript, *after* using intimidation and misleading information to persuade the guy to fess up. Here it is again: Note how he is advised of his rights at the END of the conversation, while the intimidation and misleading information is provided EARLIER. If you are really having a hard time with this, I will get Oscar and Grover to explain "Before" and "After" to you. What upsets me is not the fact that a sting operation was conducted in the washroom. What upsets me is the way in which the police officer obtained the senator's compliance. While the information available certainly makes it sound like the senator was indeed "cruising", the manner in which the officer proceeded could have just as easily obtained a confession from a completely innocent man. Suppose some random guy is in the crapper, tapping his foot because he had a song in his head, or because he has restless leg syndrome, or because he was impatient, or for no particular reason, (or perhaps he's not even tapping his foot at all!) The officer hauls him out of the crapper and tells him that he's going to wind up in an open courtroom on charges of soliciting gay sex in a public washroom... unless he confesses and pays a small fine, in which case he can avoid the public humiliation. *Any* man, innocent or guilty, would give serious consideration to pleading guilty if they were concerned that the damage to their reputation or the questions about their character or the humiliation of answering such charges were worth more than a few bucks. If these tactics are acceptable, then there is a decent probability that the officer can convince *anybody* to plead guilty to this charge. Which leaves it entirely up to the officer's discretion. Which is entirely unacceptable to me. While in this case the officer appears to have stung somebody who was, in fact, "cruising", the potential for abuse is obvious, and the only reason there's any scrutiny at all was the profile of the accused in this instance. After reading the transcript, do you really not recognize the potential for a police officer to intimidate a completely innocent person into confessing? I'm appalled that anybody who considers themselves "progressive" would approve of this sort of tactic. -k

I find it difficult to believe that this elaborate courtship ritual-- the foot-tapping, toilet-paper picking up, all the stuff that Senator Craig did while "cruising"-- happened with the officer providing no inducement to continue it. It could be argued that the officer being camped in the stall for such a long time was in itself an inducement (because he was obviously there for some purpose other than "breaking one off.") And I don't care when the "interview" occurred, the transcript shows that the officer used intimidation and dispensed faulty legal advice to get the senator to comply *prior* to being placed under arrest or read his rights. It's beyond dispute. And it's utterly unethical. And while some are puzzled to see "right wingers" suddenly become gay rights advocates, I find it equally puzzling to see supposedly "progressive" people defending this sort of conduct by the police. -k

Of course! After all, shouldn't Alberta be responsible for all the pollution produced when far-off places burn Alberta oil? - k

That poll is not from "right at the height of the election." It's dated December 6th, which was the first week of the campaign. (surely the headline "Liberals Widen Lead!" and the 12-point Liberal bulge should have tipped you off...) ...zzz... It is not the rebranding that matters, it is that they are no longer a "right wing" party, but a center party. The perception of where the party stands lags behind the reality, but that will not remain the case forever. -k

Need it be government regulation? I mean, we have government regulation right now. Theoretically, the food coming into Canada is subject to scrutiny from regulatory agencies. Theoretically, the "Product of Canada" designation has some basis in fact. If this was yielding satisfactory results, we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we? I keep mentioning Underwriters' Laboratories because I find it an interesting idea. They're a private company whose only marketable asset is credibility. The only thing they can actually sell is the right to put a tiny trademarked logo on a product. Apparently this tiny trademarked logo commands a lot of respect. UL has strong incentive to maintain the integrity of their certification: the credibility of that logo is the only marketable asset they have. And credibility is what is so lacking in food inspection right now. Does government regulation have credibility? Each new item about tainted ingredients in food products undermines the credibility of government regulations. And the "Product of Canada" logo lacks credibility. And it is becoming hard to trust food producers, even reputable brands, when we know that they cut costs by using cheap ingredients from who knows where. It would be easier to trust them if there were an independent inspector who was willing to vouch for the ingredients they are using. I believe that public concern over the safety of food is approaching the point where having a mark of independent inspection will be a commercially viable thing to do. At some point, consumers will want the option of buying products that have been studied by a credible independent inspector. At some point, someone will provide such an inspection service. At some point, competing restaurants and producers will fear that they're at a competitive disadvantage by not having safety-inspected products and begin to offer the same. At some point, a critical mass will be achieved and it will become the expected norm and people will expect it of their food products in the same way that they expect it of their toaster. And at that point, if the Fung Wing Heavy Machinery And Soy Protein Manufacturing Corporation of Zhong-Bing province, China, wishes to continue selling ingredients to North American producers, then they too will need to submit to credible independent inspection. -k

I don't think that's the case. I believe that in the lead-up to the election, and particularly during the campaign, there was a very large shift from Martin to Harper. At some point between the Stronach defection and the election, the perception of Harper as his opponents portrayed him (scary, etc) began to lose traction with the public. Somewhere along the way, and I can't guess at an exact time or event that might have changed things, Harper started winning the battle to define himself rather than be defined by his opponents. Meanwhile, Martin had long been perceived as indecisive (remember, the label "Mr Dithers" came from England's The Economist magazine, not Martin's Canadian adversaries) and this perception only became enhanced during the campaign. During the campaign, the impression Martin created was not just of indecisiveness, but also desperation (what a disastrous combination in a Prime Minister!) That's how I recall the leadup to the election, at least. Of course, things always look different in hindsight than they do when they were actually happening. If anybody feels that I've unintentionally revised history, please feel free to explain why. Anyway, I'm not trying to fight the '05-'06 election all over again. I'm just trying to dispute the claim that Martin always lead Harper in personal popularity. In my recollection, Harper's emergence was what propelled the Conservative surge in popularity. Remember that when the election was called, the Liberals had a comfy lead in the polls, and were expected to win at least a strong minority if not a majority. I think that Harper's rise in personal popularity during the campaign was the single most important factor in the startling reversal. I don't think anybody claims the Conservatives are in majority territory right now. I think KeepItSimple makes a good point about the "rebranding" issue. The merger of the two parties has alienated some of the supporters of both, and has left many other voters unconvinced of where the party's core beliefs really lay. Some people continue to see them as right-wing traditionalists who are beholden to Big Oil or Uncle Sam or so on. While others, as can be seen on this message board, are mad at Harper for appeasing Quebec and sucking up to minorities and so-on. It is a work in progress. Stephen Harper has, almost by personal force of will, turned the remnants of the old PC party and the old Reform party into a moderate, centrist, mainstream alternative to the Liberals. I think this was something Canadian politics desperately needed, and I think that like him or hate him, Canadians should at least appreciate that he has done something very important for our democracy. -k

Indeed. I suspect that the entire notion of these "reorientation camps" is to give gays a way to get back into the closet if their "coming out" goes poorly. "Marjorie, how is your gay son doing?" "Oh, he's no longer gay, Martha. He attended a reorientation camp and is now heterosexual again." -k

As I said before, I agree with the idea that people should not be having sex in public washrooms. My objection is to the way in which this enforcement was carried out in this instance. The transcript posted earlier in the thread: Seems pretty clear cut to me. "Hey, we can do this without going to court. Just plead guilty, and there'd just be a fine and nobody has to know about this." The officer played on the senator's fear of being "outed" to obtain a confession using the false promise of anonymity, and *then* he read him his rights. *clearly* he should have gotten a lawyer. But clearly he was dissuaded from doing so by the officer's offer to resolve the issue quickly and anonymously. And the means by which the officer encouraged the senator's conduct approach the grey area of entrapment. The way in which this was carried out simply does not sit well with me. -k

Food labeling practices are so lax that short of going 100% local organic, there's no way of knowing whether you're eating 3rd world garbage. (are you really 100% organic, Geoffrey? Ever eat in a restaurant or fast-food? A candy-bar or a bag of chips? A canned soft drink? Orange juice that came from concentrate? Coffee? How sure are you?) If you buy any sort of processed or reconstituted food, there's a strong likelihood that you're buying something that was made with concentrates or proteins or starches or sugars or chemical additives that came from China. And there's no requirement at all that this be noted on the label. As long as the food is processed or reconstituted in Canada, it can be labeled "Product of Canada". The "Product of Canada" designation is a joke. And Canadian companies want to make sure it stays that way. August1991 objects. He notes that the "Product of Canada" is administered by a bureaucrat somewhere. "Surely, the answer is not more bureaucracy, but less! We can trust corporations, because they know that killing their customers will hurt their reputation and therefore hurt future sales!" My response is that their concern for their reputation can be calculated using a simple "expected payout" calculation: Term A: (financial savings resulting from using cheap 3rd world ingredients) x (probability that cheap 3rd world ingredients won't hurt customers) Term B: (financial cost of using harmful ingredients)x(probability that 3rd world ingredients may be harmful)x(probability of harm to customers being traced back to you.) If Term A > Term B, then use 3rd world ingredients. August cites the poisoned pet-food as an example of why corporations can be trusted to do the right thing. They used poisoned ingredients, their customers' pets died, their sales when skyrocketing into the toilet as a result. He's right, but only partly. This incident was an example of the absolute worst case for the corporations: the hazardous effects were immediate, dramatic, and the smoking gun was still on the store shelves. Would Menu Foods have suffered any harm from this if the poison in their ingredients caused the pets to become sick over a span of months instead of hours? Unlikely. Rather than hundreds or thousands of pets who became sick shortly after eating a Menu Foods product, you'd have hundreds of thousands of pets who get sick over a wide span of time with no apparent reason to link any of them together. And the poisoned food passes through the supply chain and the inventory and is gone and there's no evidence left at all to tie Menu Foods to any of it. I'm not suggesting that companies recklessly disregard potential risks to their customers. I'm sure that they operate from a good faith belief that the ingredients they are using are safe. I am simply arguing the contention that their incentive to protect their customers' welfare is as powerful as August things. For example: If a woman gives birth to a baby with some sort of terrible birth defect... is there an explanation? Maybe it's part of God's greater design, or maybe it was some sort of bad luck on the genetics wheel of fortune. Or, maybe one of the thousands upon thousands of products she's ingested over the prior 9 months contained some ingredient that causes birth defects. Does the company that produced the offending product actually face any consequences? Of course not. First, because birth defects can happen, even without some sort of poisoned product, so there's no real reason to assume she ingested a harmful substance during her pregnancy. Second, because even if they had some way of knowing that the defect was caused by some sort of poison, there's no way of linking the poison to any particular product. There's simply no way the company who produced the tainted product could actually be identified or face any consequence for using potentially unsafe ingredients. So why not do it? Suddenly we're not relying on a corporation's economic self-interest, we're relying on their conscience. I proposed something in the other thread, which got no responses at all: why not have a food equivalent of the "UL" designation? Underwriters Laboratories is a private company that certifies electrical products and other products where safety is crucial. As I understand it, it's strictly voluntary. There's no law anywhere that says a product has to be "UL" certified to be sold. However, everything I own that can be plugged in has a UL symbol on it, or else the CSA symbol. Why do manufacturers of electrical products voluntarily go to UL and pay UL to test and evaluate their product to make sure it's safe? Piece of mind. It allows a manufacturer to show that they've done their due diligence in making sure they're selling a safe product. It allows a distributor or retailer to feel comfortable that they're selling a safe product. And while it's something that consumers usually take for granted, the UL logo also shows that they are buying a safe product. It makes me wonder: if the manufacturer of my toaster is that concerned about the safety of their product, and the store that sold me the toaster is that concerned about the safety of their product... why aren't the companies that make my breakfast cereal and my canned soup and my vitamin pills just as concerned? Why doesn't the food industry have an independent company to inspect suppliers and manufacturers? I can't afford to live on fresh local organic food, but I'd be willing to pay a little extra for food that carries a designation from a credible inspection company that proves to me that the food I buy is made from reputable ingredients produced by reputable suppliers. -k

I agree. I have no objection to the idea of keeping people from having sex in public washrooms. I do not think, for instance, that a parent should be placed in the position of having to explain to a young child what on earth is going on inside that stall with two pairs of shoes under the door. Is that prudish of me to not think that children should be exposed to that sort of thing? I do have to wonder whether people such as BC2004 and Betsy would be as concerned about this man's civil rights if he were not a Republican. Personally, I somewhat suspect that they'd be firmly on the side of law and order if it were some random sodomite, and would probably be cackling with glee if it were a Democrat senator... However, I also suspect that some others, such as Dobbins, would not be as cavalier about the way in which this incident unfolded if he were anything other than a "family values" Republican. The way in which this particular incident was handled leaves me somewhat non-plussed. If this is a glimpse at a how the police handle such cases in general, then maybe gay activists have a legitimate complaint. From the transcript, it appears that the senator was not read his rights until after the officer had obtained a confession using the deceitful promise that there'd just be a fine and no explanation required. While I am no lawyer, I strongly suspect that this is an important distinction which would easily result in the guilty plea being thrown out. That's of little consolation to the senator, for whom the damage has been catastrophic regardless of whether the guilty plea was obtained legitimately. I'm sorry, I can't spare a square. -k

I think Mike may have been referring to himself. Was this terrorism? Generally terrorism is considered to involve high-profile acts of violence that are intended to frighten the public at large (hence the name). This seems to have been a campaign of stealth against specific targets. -k

Watching Higgly try to turn "He Edited My Thread Title" into the internet's longest-running serial melodrama has been interesting. Stupid, but interesting. -k

If elected, Ron Paul would be the first gynecologist to become US President. Numerous proctologists have been president, however. -k

I'd suggest that somebody who goes on a 2-day temper-tantrum because somebody edited their thread title should probably take a moment to step back and reflect on their life. -k

I wonder if some country would be stupid enough to actually attempt such a thing. Hey, maybe Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Aminajinabinajad can try that. It'll get their clueless idiot citizens all excited, and do the same for clueless idiots right here at home. What I wouldn't give to see clueless idiots wandering around in Mahmoud Aminajinabinajad t-shirts. Yes, it sounds like Alfredo's injuries were self-inflicted. -k

This indisputably the most intelligent and thought-provoking thing B.Max has ever posted. -k

I could see that analogy fitting... if the USA had gone and occupied Brazil in response to Pearl Harbour... -k

I bet it was B.Max -k

Well, I certainly had to look up the Carter doctrine, but what it appears to have been, to me at least, was a pledge to use military force to prevent any foreign power from establishing a military presence in the middle east. Which was actually only another formulation of an FDR statement that "the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States." I don't (and I'm sure nobody else is either) claim Carter to have been any sort of mastermind or architect of US geopolitics. I think the reason it was cited by Kuzadd in the earlier discussion is that it is a concrete embodiment of a long-standing US policy that access to Middle East oil is something they're willing to fight to preserve. ...and yet you seem to be arguing that this was a response to 9/11? How is a response, if Iraq was not involved? I'm not sure what sort of "contact" one would assume Saddam to have had with Bin Laden. In one tape, after Saddam's overthrow and capture, Bin Laden blasts Saddam as, essentially, a US puppet who got what he deserved. That certainly doesn't sound very positive. As well, I have read that when Saddam invaded Kuwait, Bin Laden offered to bring 10,000 of his own men to come defend Saudi Arabia so that the Kingdom would not have to call the infidels for help. And last but not least, while Bin Laden was/is a devoted Islamist, Saddam seems to have been a rather secular style of thug. Other than that they're both "bad guys", what have they really got in common? -k

The cop was on the crapper for 13 minutes while he was on-duty? -k {fibre is your friend, officer.}

I have been forthright about my level of education, and I have never asserted myself to be any sort of authority on construction or engineering matters. Which is why I support my statements with research or calculations. For example, I don't need to take your husband's or Angus's word about how heat affects steel, because I found the National Building Code supplement pertaining to that topic. -k

Who said anything about him being *worried* about a piece critical of Jews? I was just guessing that he's astonished that an American network would actually broadcast a piece critical of Jews and Christians. -k

At one time I was gullible enough to believe that the reasons for the second invasion of Iraq were as stated. Since everybody (except those relying on NewsMax for their information, apparently) now knows that the "WMD intelligence" was fake and force-fed to the CIA from upstairs, and that "Al Qaeda's in Iraq! We gots ta git in there and git 'em!" was a bold-face lie, I'm finding the "they're fighting for freedom!" line awfully hard to swallow. The real motive? The stuff Kuzadd talks about-- a permanent military presence in the region and the Carter Doctrine-- seems like a more believable motive than "WMDs!" or "Al Qaeda." -k

I gather that the series examines violence motivated by religious belief. I suspect the reason for Higgly's astonishment is that in addition to an episode about Muslims, there is an episode about Christians and an episode about Jews as well. -k

I never disputed that it was a construction trade. I just dispute the idea that it makes his opinion of this matter particularly noteworthy. Sure. So is drywalling or framing, but I don't see those guys claiming that 20 years in the construction biz gives them inside knowledge of how skyscrapers could have collapsed. I'm "afraid"? Because your husband can read blueprints? Please, tell us what you think your perusal of blueprints is going to uncover. Do you think your husband is the first person who can read blueprints to look into this? If your husband is honest, the first thing he'll say when he's done looking over these blueprints is "this is very complex and far beyond my level of expertise." I'm "afraid" because your husband is going to tell us about how heat affects metal? Why? Is he going to dispute what the National Research Council and the National Building Code of Canada says about the effects of heat on structural steel? I would never ridicule the trades. I know how much money tradesmen bring home, and there's no way I can ridicule somebody who can bring home that kind of money. I simply don't think that being in a trade, even a construction trade, even a construction trade involving metal, gives someone the qualifications to make a credible assessment of something as complicated as the Twin Towers. Big deal. Invite the whole family. Unless you've got a relative who's a structural engineer, I'm not particularly impressed by any of that. -k