kimmy

I don't think I've defended the CPC's about-face on income trusts anywhere, Norman. It's certainly a broken promise. But at least now I think you're starting to see the distinction. Good job! Gold star for Norman. -k

The government, Karzai included, sold out long ago. In case you hadn't noticed, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a theocracy where women are second class citizens. The Koran trumps the constitution in Karzai's Afghanistan. While some people would wish to equate the state of affairs under the Taliban to the state of affairs in other Islamic countries, the fact is that they are very different. People who claim that Karzai's government and the Taliban are all the same because it's all Islam are either very dishonest or very misinformed. I think that most Canadian Muslims would be extremely offended at the suggestion that the stupidity and savagery of the Taliban are part and parcel of the Quran. I think that an effort to equate the Karzai regime with the Taliban on the grounds that they're both Muslim is an example of the "Islamophobia" that the progressives often whinge about. If and when that's their decision, we'll respect it. But pulling out before that time and leaving the country at the mercy of thugs and savages would be a profound betrayal of fundamental Canadian values. -k

My point is that there's nothing wrong with changing one's mind. The problem with Chretien was not that he changed his mind, but rather that he broke his promises. -k

In that case, NATO beneficiary and Afghan President Hamid Karzai deserves the "Taliban Karzai" tag. See: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wi...world-headlines Karzai might be willing to sell out the women of his country to buy a little security, but that doesn't mean we should. I'll be disappointed if Karzai does it. I'll be ashamed if we do it. If you don't see a difference between the two, then my response to that is somewhere between pity and revulsion. While the warlords are no doubt rather dubious individuals, and not likely in it for altruistic reasons, the bottom line is that they are supporting a regime that upholds some semblence of human dignity and equality in that country. The Taliban? They're setting off bombs outside schools where little girls are learning to read because they'd rather see them executed than educated. I ask again: what concessions would you people make to these shitbags to buy a little security? Why are some people so fond of that Benjamin Franklin quote about liberty and security when it comes to reasonable measures at North American border crossings, but completely oblivious to the concept when it comes to trading peoples' most fundamental rights for a temporary reprieve from home-made bombs wielded by the worst troglodytes on the planet today? -k

...and John Creten promised to get rid of the GST. Guess what? He lied. Your point being that it's OK for Harper to lie because Chretien did? Is changing positions the same as lying? Was fighting official bilingualism part of Harper's platform? Do you feel that voters who voted for Harper may have thought he was going to disband official bilingualism because he said the policy was a failure 5 years earlier? Was Paul Martin lying when he opposed gay marriage in 1997? Was he lying when he supported gay marriage in 2004? Was he lying either time? Is it a lie any time a politician changes his position? Or is does that depend on what the politician's political affiliation is? -k

What doesn't seem to register is that by noting Ron Paul has a following of 1% of republicans, it is a fair shake. Geez, you really hate the guy! Why's that? Does Stiq's remark seem hateful to you? To me it seems like a fairly objective statement. Whatever Ron Paul's merits, his level of support *does* make him a very minor figure in the Republican race. As such, a few lines in a recap of the event doesn't seem out of the ordinary. Asking why mainstream coverage of the Republican debate didn't make much mention of Ron Paul is like asking why the last Canadian election coverage didn't make much mention of the "Progressive Canadian" party. Why? Because frankly most people don't give a crap. Why are people here skeptical about Ron Paul? Well, if the pathological liars and psychopaths at PrisonPlanet.com/Infowars.net/FagsAndWetbacksAreGonnaKillYou.org are backing him to the hilt, there's gotta be something wrong with the guy. If Alex Jones and his goons wrote that breathing was healthy, I'd be want to see documented proof and studies from real sources before I took their word for it. Alex Jones, Jeff Rense, and PolyNewbie all think Ron Paul is the best choice to be president? Wow. Who do David Icke and Frank Chu support? -k

I believe that Rick Mercer beat them to it, actually. Jack certainly suggested we negotiate with the Taliban. To me, the fact that he's willing to concede anything to those pricks is in itself enough to deserve him the "Taliban Jack" tag. -k

I was going to ask the same about the Khadrs. -k

Translation: you can't actually argue with anything I wrote so you dodge the issue by attacking my lack of credentials. That would appear to be the case, some people think a micro nuke may have been used on the order of 0.01 kiloton. I'm not privy to the science of the US military which in some ways is quite far beyond what Ray Bardbury could imagine IMO. You may think they could not afford a secret science budget but I think they could. I'm sure they do have a budget for science. The Blackbird you keep mentioning wasn't developed by the US military. It was developed by Lockheed Aviation. Anything else the US military has that's really advance wasn't developed by them, it was developed by the top engineering companies in the field. In the batteries field, the top engineering companies are in Europe and Japan and they all have huge commercial interests riding on developing batteries with higher energy densities. And the best they've come up with to date are a few hundred Watt-hours per kilogram. Do you really believe that the US military knows so much more about batteries than the top companies in the industry? Do you believe that they've managed to beat the best batteries produced in Europe and Japan by a factor of a million? Substance? If you disagree with the *substance* of anything I've written, feel free to call me on it. Do you disagree with my calcultion of how much an electrical power-source capable of storing enough energy to solve Hoffman's "energy deficit" would have to weigh? Feel free to prove me wrong. Do you don't agree that well-known laws regarding diffraction, refraction, and scattering of waves are sufficient scientific reason to discredit the idea of space-based beam weapons? Feel free to argue otherwise. I notice you've not attempted to do either. You've simply attempted to appeal to your qualifications (ooh! he's a DSP programmer!) and discount what I've said because I only have a highschool education. Ignoring the facts I've mentioned to scoff at my qualifications is just a big fat dodge. No, she does not and was not. She is theorizing on how the buildings came down, so are others. Most of them will be wrong. I'm sure all of them know more about it than you do. I have seen writings from the SKOLLERZ for 9/11 Trooth advocating space-based weaponry as a possible cause. I suspect your angry denial of this is because you realize that it undermines their credibility. -k

Why indeed is bilingualism an issue? This MP feels that bilingualism is such a big deal that it trumps any and all other qualifications for the job. Does that seem like the best way to run a big operation? -k

Well, I still don't think Ron Paul is any more likely to become President than Ron Jeremy. However, I do think Ron Paul is more likely to become President than Tom Tancredo. -k

The question is, how much speed would be needed to create an assymetrical effect? If there's an assymetrical effect, it's got to provide enough net force to move the center of mass of a 100,000 ton section of building a significant distance in a short span of time in order for it to fall to the side rather than downwards. Where's this colossal amount of force going to come from? Two problems with that: 1-Indications are that the preponderance of support was in the perimeter, not the core, by a 20:6 ratio. If you're referring to PolyNewbie's frequent references to overbuild factors of 20 for the perimeter and 6 for the core, then you've misinterpreted what he's saying. He's saying the perimeter was designed 20 times stronger than it needed to be, and the core was built 6 times stronger than it needs to be. He made no claims at all regarding the relative sharing of the load between the two different zones. I think there are a number of places on the web where you can read about the design philosophy of the twin towers which had the massive central core doing the heavy lifting while the perimeter was designed to resist the immense lateral forces (ie, wind) applied against the building. While they carried some of the vertical load as well, I've read nothing to suggest that the "preponderance" of support was in the perimeter columns. Are we talking about the same thing? I've read nothing to suggest that WTC7 had the kind of tube-frame construction that WTC1 and WTC2 had, so I'm not sure that discussions about perimeters and cores are at all applicable to the collapse of WTC7. It seems to me that for these two points to apply they also require the assumption of impossibly rigid roof and floors. Otherwise the trussing and intact columns would also experience differential forces. Not "impossibly" rigid. Just significantly more rigid than the perimeter columns. Since trusses and spaceframes are designed with the explicit goal of creating structures that are significantly more rigid than single beams or girders. The point is, that it's *not* obvious that the towers should have fallen over to one side rather than straight down. -even if the tower had a preference to lean one way as a result of damage to perimeter columns on one side, perimeter pillars on the remaining sides act to resist this by applying tension. Remember how strong the perimeter columns are in resisting lateral force? "20 times overbuild! 20 times overbuild!" This strong structure, largely undamaged by the impact and far less damaged by fire than the central core, wouldn't have let the tower fall sideways anyway. -it's a moot point anyway, because damage to the perimeter on one side isn't what caused the collapse. Heat and damage to the central core resulted in the floors sagging in the impact area. The loss of strength in the central column and the stress resulting from the sagging floor are quite *symmetrical* sources of stress on the remaining structure. The trusses and load-sharing design make sure that the stress from the sagging floor is distributed pretty much symmetrically and minimize the net force in any direction except for DOWN. Trying to create hypothetical "what if" scenarios involving tables to guestimate how things "should" have happened is a ridiculous exercise. * are the legs of your table welded to the ground? * does your table depend on a powerful central core to carry a large portion of the weight? * is your table under such load that all of the components are to some degree flexible? * has your table been subject to fire so that the central support and the tabletop are sagging in the middle? Maybe you guys should step back for a moment and think about whether your tables, Jungo-Stix, Lego blocks, Keebler Elf infested trees, and so-on, are a good frame of reference from which to make assertions about what "should" have happened to the twin towers. -k

Technotronic Technetronic "An attempt to revive the Persian Model of a global empire"? It sounds like Lyndon ventured out of his compound to spend some imperialist fiat currency on "The 300". -k

Not as of 40 or so years ago. Of course we don't know what they have today. Battery technology is a huge industry where continuous research and advances have raised the state of the art to over 300 Watt-hours per kilogram. To store enough energy to account for Jim Hoffman's energy deficit would require ... a one billion kilogram battery. Oops. So much for that. Of course, kooks believe the US military has access to magic technologies. Anybody who cares to look through historical evidence of what happens when the US military tries to develop magic technology should be able to see how likely that is. What about lasers ? Do you believe lasers are immune to diffraction, Mr Applied Scientist? ORLY? I thought Judy Woods was touting "death star satellites" or some such flatulence. Where do the Truthies believe this mega-weapon was stationed? Hidden in Lady Liberty's torch? Concealed in the Washington Monument? Have they come up with a plausible location with a line-of-side view of the Twin Towers? -k

I think that our friend Figleaf is actually getting at something larger than the relative quality of lightbulbs. While people talk a big game when it comes to the environment, they're notoriously less committed to actually following through. Whether it comes to enduring the inconvenience and smelly slobs that frequent public transit, or tolerating fluorescent lights that make your chiffon blouse look the color of pea soup, people's enthusiasm for environmental conservation tends to be somewhat diminished when it comes at a cost to their own comforts. Perhaps Figleaf is trying to provoke people to reflect on that. Sometimes, legislation like this can have an impact. California's tough laws against automobile emissions had an impact in 2 ways: they made automakers find ways to reduce their emissions, because California is too large a market to just ignore. And it encouraged other jurisdictions to follow along. At this point, many vehicles no longer come in special "California" low-emissions flavors because the automaker decided it's cheaper just to make all the vehicles of that model ULEV-compliant. The ban on incandescents will work the same. Lighting technology is already evolving so rapidly that improvements to CFL bulbs are an inevitability. The ban on incandescents will have the effect of guaranteeing a large market for CFL and competing technologies. And there will be competition to be the one to fill the gap created by incandescent's departure. -k

There is nothing new or magic about an energy beams. Microwave ovens, flashlights & loudspeakers all emit energy beams. One must assume that there are other types of energy beams that are weaponized that you have not seen mentioned in Popular Mechanics or on the Discovery Channel. No electrical storage technology known is capable of storing enough energy to bring down the Twin Towers in a size small enough to put in a satellite. And, physical principles regarding diffraction and dispersion known since Newton's time make it impossible for a beam weapon to have been fired from space to have delivered enough power to the twin towers without also incinerating surrounding buildings, cars, people, etc. For these (and other) reasons, it is clear that the Truthies advancing "death star" satellites as the explanation are out to lunch. -k

The remaining supports needn't be strong enough to support the weight of the building to cause rotation. There needs to be a sufficient differential in the normal forces from one side to the others to result in a rotation. There certainly should be a differential in the forces from the damaged side to the non-damaged sides. However: it's not at all clear, despite Truthie claims to the contrary, that this difference would be sufficient to cause the top 25 or so floors to rotate with any appreciable speed. Consider the following: -the main load-bearing columns are in the center of the tower, not the perimeter. The perimeter columns weren't designed to provide primary load-bearing capacity, therefore the differential in load-bearing capacity resulting from the damage to perimeter columns on one side would not be as significant as Truthies wish to claim. -the twin towers were designed with load-distributing trusses that share the load from the damaged columns to undamaged columns. This would act to reduce any differential between the sides of the twin towers, and therefore reduce the force available to cause tipping or rotation. -the perimeter columns were designed to resist torsion and flexion, particularly that resulting from wind. The remaining perimeter columns, particularly on the sides that were not struck by the jetliners, would act to *resist* the tipping that the Truthies think should occur. These 3 factors are significant reasons why Truthie appeals to peoples' everyday experiences with Jungo Stix, Lego blocks, or busted tables are inapplicable to a structure as complex as the Twin Towers. -k

Oh yeah. Once again the "fake" Osama tape... based on screen-captures taken from a video that's been badly distorted and artifacted during conversion to digital. I've asked this before, and never had a satisfactory answer, so here it is again: there are higher-quality screen captures of the "fake" video around, so why is it that the "Truthies" insist on using the digitally distorted and smeared snapshots to advance their argument? But if you don't trust that tape, then what about Osama's 2004 video, authenticated and transcribed by our friends at Al Jazeera? http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archi...?ArchiveId=7403 Where he once again boasts that 9/11 was an Al Qaeda operation. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's confession doesn't actually contradict anything Osama has claimed. However, since he confessed to basically every notable terror act since the first WTC bombing, it's not very credible either. "Pull it" refers to pulling the firefighting crew out of the building. Only people with the a-priori assumption that he ordered WTC7 to be demolished would interpret this to be a reference to a planned demolition. (is "pull it" supposed to be New Yawk Jew slang for blowing shit up?) -k

True enough. But they didn't just hide the truth, they trumpeted big fake lies from the mountaintops. It has been known for a long time that Tillman was killed in a friendly fire incident, and that the US Army's official story was a lie. We've had prior threads on the subject. The news here is not that the stories told about Tillman and Lynch were lies, but rather the inquiry into how far up the chain of command the lies went. -k

McDonalds' was just as careless. This woman required skin-grafts and 2 years of physical therapy because of McDonalds' carelessness. McDonald's served coffee at 185 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to normal coffee (from any other establishment or commercial coffee machine) which is served at 150 to 160 degrees. McDonald's had many complaints regarding their product, but continued to serve it at the near-boiling temperature anyway. As a matter of corporate standard. Why? Because they believed that the higher temperature brewing would draw more caffeine out of their coffee grinds. They believed that their higher-temperature process would create a superior "caffeine fix" that would make their coffee the favorite choice of morning consumers in need of a hit. ey put profit ahead of safety. They deviated from industry standard practice with full knowledge that what they were doing was capable of causing injuries, and in fact already had done so prior to the woman receiving severe burns. Liquid at 185 to 190 degrees can cause 3rd degree burns in just a few seconds, while liquid at 150 to 160 degrees takes much longer continuous exposure. If she had spilled some other establishment's coffee on herself, it is likely that she could have removed herself from the coffee-soaked seat and got the coffee-soaked clothing away from her skin before she was burned this badly. To put it bluntly, she was not injured because she spilled coffee on herself. She was injured because she spilled McDonald's super-hot coffee on herself. I have been told that the McDonalds coffee lawsuit is a classic product liability case that's studied by every engineering student in Canada. -if you deviate from standard industry practices, you'd better be sure what you're doing is safe -if you learn that your could (or has) caused harm, be proactive. Don't wait until somebody sues your ass to address the problem. -k

Sexay! Is that right out of a Michael Moore "stock response" leaflet? It's all because Dubya put the US in an unjust war! Seriously, though. Segnosaur addressed all of your comments very nicely, so rather than duplicate the effort, so "what he said." -k

So what is the *root* of the problem? *Why* was this child handcuffed? *Why* does the school policy prohibit teachers from physically restraining students? Why don't you think on that for a few hours, Arlo? Then when you think you've come up with an answer, go back and think about it for a few more hours until you come up with a good answer. Then get back to me and let me know what you've come up with. -k

No, I'm not going to Alex Jones' shitty site to look for links to support your claim. *You* go look through his shitty site for links to support your claim, and when you've found something you think supports your ridiculous claims, come present it to me. -k

ok, when school goes from a nurturing learning environment to seeking legal advice and calling in the brute squad, it means our education system has become patheticI look at it differently. To me, what it says is that when the legal system has people so afraid of a lawsuit that they're unable to do their jobs, it's the legal system that's become pathetic.Stegnosaur posted a whole bunch of school board code-of-conduct regulations explaining at length why teacher's won't, and can't, get physical with children. All this conjecture about whether teachers could have just put on some armor and physically restrained the kid completely miss the point, because their rules tell them they *can't*. Why do they have those rules? To protect the schoolboard from lawsuits. It might be easy for you to sit there like an idiot and say "blah blah blah I don't care if they're getting sued or not, the Right Thing was for the teachers to handle it and the Wrong Thing was to call the cops." I doubt you'd be so cavalier about it if it was *you* who was in the position of putting your job on the line and exposing yourself to a massive lawsuit to do "the Right Thing". Likewise, I doubt that you'd be as cavalier about the school board rules if your kid's school couldn't buy new books and had to close band class and art class and cancel field trips and merge classes, all because the school board spent half of its budget settling a lawsuit with some parent who sued the school because a teacher used physical force to restrain a student. -k

They were picked up by CPS (Child Protection Services) then CPS lost them. Sure. Sure they were. No. Boys Will Be Boys - UN Sex Slaves / BBC While that article does indicate the customers are UN soldiers and workers, it says not a word to support your claim that the UN or the NWO or the Queen are the pimps. This is just more of your faulty logic. -k