kimmy

No objection to Stephane Dion participating, but after members of the NDP have accused our armed forces of terrorism, I don't think Jack Layton has any need to be at military ceremonies. -k

While the Truthies are all every excited about Jim Hoffman's work that "proves" there was an "energy deficit," they don't seem to recognize that Hoffman's calculations also pretty much dismiss the possibility of conventional explosives. The size of Hoffman's "energy deficity" is such that it would require over 4,000,000 kilograms of conventional explosives to provide the "missing energy". Obviously, that sheer mass makes any plot involving conventional explosives or controlled demolitions utterly absurd. Which, I assume, is why some of the Truthies are proposing the existence of fantasy technology such as satellite-mounted doomsday weapons, or nuclear bombs that instead of exploding, cause metal and concrete to "dustify". If one accepts Hoffman's calculations, then one has to believe that such fantasy technologies exist, because there's no other explanation for how the "energy deficit" could have been satisfied. But forget that. What excitement that Rosie O'Donnell has taken this mainstream. The Truthies have fake physicists, fake colonels, fake engineers, fake doctors of thermodynamics, fake military experts ...and now, a fake celebrity. woo-hoo! Everybody is getting onboard the Truthwagon!! -k

Well you did throw in the "...yet , at least" thing. They just might in our lifetime My point was Kansas wants to teach creationism stemming from religious belief , and the UK teachers dont want to teach something stemming from religious belief. While I'm hardly a scholar of Islam, I'm pretty sure that neither the Quran nor the Islamic faith proper have any stance at all in regard to the veracity of events occuring 1300 years after Mohammed's death. There is a difference between a religious belief and a belief held by religious people. As for these teachers, they can ram this notion the same place they stuffed their festive halal chickens. -k

Hate? I don't hate them. I don't hate Bell Canada, but I think it's a crappy company with crappy management. Similarly, I think a cursory examination of the record in Canada indicates that there's a whole lot of crappy work and crappy management in prosecution departments all across Canada. I don't know of any. My point is that Mackay would be forced to go back to being a prosecutor, and as such he would be returning to a system that produces wrongful convictions like Microsoft produces system crashes. This is just one organization ... http://www.aidwyc.org/past-cases.cfm http://www.aidwyc.org/cases.cfm Compared to the number of trials, I'd liken this to a needle in a haystack, not "producing wrongful convictions like Microsoft produces crashes." -k

proof? false a WWII-era propeller-driven medium bomber is a tiny, lightweight, slow-moving plane compared to a 757. Attempting to equate the two is an act of astounding stupidity. ...amateur speculation about the amount and type of damage inside the impact area and the ultimate effect on a structure that's huge and incredibly complex. The buildings were designed in the 1960s when the technology to accurately model and simulate such events simply didn't exist. The engineers and architects of the WTC towers would have been working primarily with pencils, paper, and slide-rules, and did an astounding job of it, but the ability to know for certain what would have happened if fully-fueled jetliners slammed into the towers was beyond their ability to judge with any degree of certainty. The WTC towers withstood the impact of the airliners, as they were designed to. To extend the designers' claims to cover later fatigue due to damage, fire, and the failure of fire-prevention systems is a huge stretch. One might as well claim "the Hindenburg was designed not to explode, so its explosion was obviously sabotage!" or "the Titanic's designers claimed it was unsinkable, so it couldn't have been sunk by an ice-berg." "The Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge was designed to withstand winds well over 40mph, so the claim that its collapse was caused by 40mph winds is obviously false." The facts about WTC7 are certainly not clear. Given that Al Qaeda had already committed unconventional acts of terrorism, it doesn't seem terribly surprising that his face would be on the brochure. It is widely agreed, even among non-Truthies, that the success of the 9/11 attacks represents a huge failure of the US government, so that's not a particularly controversial comment. blahblahblah conjecture Why is there still discussion about this? Because your whole case is based on conjecture about motives and conjecture about how large buildings behave under complicated circumstances. -k

Of course not. Nobody's declaring Dion finished yet. Just taking a moment to gloat about how dramatically wrong Gerry's predictions have been... particularly the scorn directed at those who suggested the Liberal boost in popularity was just a temporary result of the leadership convention. The other prediction that Liberal boosters made repeatedly was "the Liberals are polling even with the Conservatives without a leader, so they're going to surge ahead once they've picked one." I argued that the "no leader" angle was something that might actually be helping the Liberals, based on the "door #3 principle" (which is that imagining there's something exciting and great behind Door #3 is a lot better than opening Door #3 and discovering that it's Stephane Dion.) And I think that has proven to be the case. Can Dion still win the next election? Sure. But the notion that Canadians were excited about Dion has obviously proven false. -k

Many Canadian Muslims are open-minded about living in a secular, multicultural society where they live and work peacefully amongst people who don't share their beliefs and where the law of the land is different from what their faith tells them is the order of things. The group that received the threats is an example of this. But, this incident is also another in a growing number of cases showing that there are also Muslims in Canada who can't or won't accept it. As Scott points out, the Wahhabi brand of Islam is growing worldwide, thanks to avid financial support from Saudi Arabia. -k

Would he reform the PC party? No. Would a reformed PC party ever achieve anything? I doubt it. Tough call, but I will go with zero. Leader of one of Canada's 2 major national political parties. When he's no longer leader of one of Canada's 2 major national parties, I'm sure that Mr Harper will have a plethora of appealing career options open to him. I doubt he'll commit career suicide by working for any of those dead-end organizations you mention.Was this the sort of discussion you were hoping for? -k

Then you agree that HipHop correctly reflects Western culture's materialism, violence, and misogyny. Not reflects. Celebrates. -k

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/03/23/...ims-threat.html CBC's version of the message is editted. The actual message: http://www.muslimcanadiancongress.org/ "Apostate" is a particularly serious charge; it means to abandon Islam, which is punishable by death in the views of fundamentalists. Good for the Muslim group for speaking out against this, and to the other groups for joining in condemning it. The knuckleheads, and there can't be a lot of them, need to be told they're in the wrong... and they need to hear it from their own community. -k

Those french fries are deep-fried in the fat rendered from tortured children. -k {you don't even want to know what's in the "secret sauce".}

I'd rather listen to cats being tortured than Celine Dion. I don't see how that improves Hip-Hop, however. While some portion of hip-hop might contain real social commentary, a lot of it just promotes shameless materialism, violence, and encourages a demeaning view of women. -k

Remember how gerryhatrick and friends were proclaiming the choice of Stephane Dion as a masterstroke, based on a couple of polls the week of the Liberal convention? Remember how if you thought the Liberal jump in the polls was just a temporary bump resulting from the convention, you were a terrified Conservative in denial? Remember how if you thought Stephane Dion's inability to speak english wasn't a liability you were a french-hating anti-french Anglosnobophone? Or how if you thought Stephane Dion had the charisma of a piece of Melba-toast, you were in denial? or ... ...well, let's just say it's been a rough couple of months for gerry. -k

Sounds like an episode of Scooby Doo Mysteries. Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if they did negotiate something before hand. I wouldn't be surprised if basically the same thing happens every time representative in a safe riding resigns to make way for a big-name player who needs a seat in a legislative assembly. The only thing I find surprising is that they were dumb enough to leave a paper trail. I see it as a violation of the letter of the law, but also something we know happens behind the scenes, so in that sense, hardly the bombshell it's being made out to be. -k

I wouldn't say *all* hip-hop is poison... but an awful lot of it sure is. A lot of this alleged "social commentary" and "voice of the underside" stuff is actually just a bunch of shit-heads bragging about their dicks, their money, their cars, and their criminal exploits. Hip-hop is like any other art form in that you have to sift through a lot of crap to find a few nuggets. Unlike most other art forms, I just can't be bothered to make the effort with hip-hop. However, a lot of hip-hop seems to glamorize thug culture. Personally, I find it to be a sad and pathetic commentary on "urban culture" that having been shot or arrested increases the artists' "cred", in the same way I find it a sad and pathetic commentary on "urban culture" that getting arrested for weapons or drugs or spousal battery or rape causes a professional athlete's merchandise sales to increase. "Urban culture" can go drive off a cliff. -k

I can't find any evidence that Pierre Grasse is a famous anything, or that his views are respected by anybody other than creationists. In any case, the selection you've quoted make it clear that either he doesn't understand the process, or is willfully misrepresenting it to suit his own purposes. "The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe." There's no requirement that mutations occur to meet specific needs. The only requirement is that mutations occur (do either yourself, or Mr Gasse, dispute that mutations occur?) Some mutations will provide a survival advantage. Some mutations will provide a survival disadvantage. Most mutations will provide neither. Those mutations that provide a survival advantage (like, say, a moth with darker pigmentation than its parents) improve ones' chance of surviving and passing that trait on to its offspring, who will likewise have better chances of survival than their peers. Mutations that are a disadvantage (say, deformed limbs, poor eyesight, mental defect, poor fashion sense, extreme halitosis, etc) will decrease one's chance of participating in the gene pool and passing that trait on to future generations. "Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur… There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it." And here he's not even talking about Darwinism, he's attempting to articulate the concept of "irreducible complexity", which is relevant in discussing macroevolution, not Darwinian selection. At any rate, Adel, I get the impression that you're not actually very familiar with the field you're discussing and are probably just cutting and pasting quotes from Creationist/Intelligent Design websites. Carrying out that kind of a dialogue is a waste of everybody's time, so I'm off to bed. Let us know what sites you're quoting from, and maybe somebody will check them out and get back to you. Goodnight, folks. -k

I think he was referring to maggots growing spontaneously from meat, not speculating on issues of molecular biology that were far beyond the scope of information he had available during his lifetime. -k 1- It is Lamarck and Darwin who developed their theories based on the believes that maggots growing spontaneously from meat and mice sprang naturally from wheat. Louis Pasteur – who died in 1895, 39 years after Darwin published his book - is regarded as one of the three main founders of bacteriology, among Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch. His findings were completely against Darwin’s theory.. 2- In Darwin's time, nothing was known about the extraordinary structure of the cell. Under the primitive microscopes of the day, the cell seemed to be a murky lump. For this reason, both Darwin and other evolutionists of his time believed that a cell was a simple driblet of water that could easily originate by chance. Since discoveries central to our understanding of biochemistry, such as DNA, the Krebs cycle, and protein synthesis, were not made until a half century after Pasteur's death, it is somewhat foolish to attempt to portray Pasteur as a final authority on the subject, however groundbreaking his work might have been at the time. There is a lot of debate on the subject of whether self-replicating molecules could have been created by chance, and you can rest assured that the phrase "Pasteur says they can't" is of absolutely zero significance in that debate. And while the broader sense of evolution remains controversial, the narrower sense-- natural selection (which is what people generally mean when they use the term "Darwinism") has been observed first-hand and is regarded as a fact even by most creationists. One example is that prior to industrial revolution, a species of moth that lived in London was light grey in colour. The arrival of the industrial revolution turned the trees and stonework in London to a dark grey. Within a decade, there were no light grey moths left... but a lot of dark grey moths. Why? Lighter coloured moths of that species were easy prey, and darker coloured moths had a much better chance of surviving long enough to have offspring. Another example of more current interest is bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. As antibiotics become widely used, bacteria that are vulnerable to them have shorter lifespans and therefore have fewer descendants, while bacteria that are more resistant to antibiotics have longer lifespans and therefore produce more descendants. Withing some number of generations, statistically it becomes most likely that bacteria you encounter are descended from stock that has hereditary resistance to antibiotics. That's Darwinism, and it's an observable fact. If you wish to discuss macroevolution, go ahead, but leave Darwin out of it. Darwin's principles have been proven to be solid. -k

Where's it at? -k

I think he was referring to maggots growing spontaneously from meat, not speculating on issues of molecular biology that were far beyond the scope of information he had available during his lifetime. -k

It's not the tragedy in New Orleans that's being ridiculed in this thread. -k {Crying won't help you, Praying won't do you no good. Crying won't help you, Praying won't do you no good. When the levee breaks, Mama you got to move.}

Identifying and prosecuting criminals is a bad thing? And the idea that an increased probability of prosecution and punishment won't deter crime is dubious. Crimes of opportunity, where there's no surveillance, no witnesses, and little chance of being caught or punished, for instance, would likely be deterred to some degree. A man was severely beaten at a public transit station last night; I find it likely that the perpetrators would have been as bold if they'd known they were being recorded and their faces would be matched to their drivers licenses. Arguments around capital punishment as a deterrent to murder usually center around the notion that increasing the punishment is not a deterrent because the offender believes he won't be caught. Measures that improve (or even believed to improve) the likelihood of catching the perpetrators are more likely to deter crime than stronger sentences. There is no way in hell I am submitting to a fingerprint scan before I enter a nightclub. I go to nightclubs to have a good time, let loose. Already with a thumbscan I am being 'booked' by the nightclub bouncers, taking inventory of what is inside. Polynewbie is not far off on this here. Why? You already submit to identification. You already present photo ID when you go to a club. Some places even have patrons sign in. An establishment certainly has the right to refuse service to someone who won't provide adequate identification. If somebody is stabbed at the nightclub while you're there, the police have a legitimate interest in speaking to you. I don't see why having a record of your presence at the club that night is a bad thing. Nor do I buy into the fear that the authorities will use that information to attempt to punish you for "partying too hard". There is a lot more credit card crime than there was 20 years ago. Astronomically more. So, we should go back to using those roller-and-imprint devices instead of magnetic strips? Take the holograms off the front? Stop putting the 3-digit security code on the back? Stop using electronic verification? Are those the technologies that created more credit card crime? Well, no. The technologies that created more credit card crime are the ones that give people opportunity to use their credit cards. Internet commerce being the most obvious example. Ok, so Fred from H is a wanted criminal, and Kimmy from A is unlucky enough to trigger facial recognition software and is detained at airport security. Oh dear. Does Kimmy spend the rest of her life in jail? Or do people quickly recognize that Kimmy is not Fred and send her on her way? -k

Simple: I do not trust civil servants with private data. Do you? We already do. I'm more concerned with what they might do with my medical or financial information than with my fingerprints. Is the fear that corrupt police will frame people for crimes? Create fake fingerprints using some sort of high-tech process, then plant the prints at crime scenes to "prove" that an innocent person was actually there? It seems hokey and far fetched to me, but very well. What, then, about iris scanning? Your iris isn't left behind at crime scenes, your iris would be very difficult to scan without your knowledge, and I can't think of any plausible way that the information could be misused. Yes, it is a problem. Data can be fudged. Call me PN008E and I will call you Mark Furman. Without elaborate technology to create "fake fingerprints" that could be used to produce fake evidence, I'm not sure what harmful effects could come from having this information on file, and I can't even guess as to how it might be "fudged". The case becomes even more remote for iris scanning, since irises aren't left at crime scenes, and are far too complicated a structure to be duplicated or "fudged". Yes, anarchists do not have a great reputation. If the authorities had a vendetta against you, for whatever reason, they wouldn't need facial recognition or thumbprints to track you. Sure. But I'm interested in the ethical and philosophical aspects of this. -k

Seriously, lay it out for me: from the perspective of peoples' privacy, what's wrong with the idea of peoples' fingerprints being on record at a database? Hypothetically: suppose facial recognition software becomes sufficiently advanced that security camera footage could be linked to driver's license photos with a high degree of accuracy. So that a computer somewhere could examine the security camera footage, examine the drivers license database, and determine "The person who entered the airport is ...Charles Anthony." "The person who entered the bank is... Kimmy." "The person who arrived at the mental hospital is... Pnoob." Is that ok? Or is that a problem? Would you personally choose to start wearing a Groucho Marx nose/glasses/moustache when you go out in public? If so, why? If not, why not? -k

OMG, thermite destroyed the Hindenberg as well! Since the Hindenberg was designed to not explode, and since there have been no hydrogen blimp disasters of that scale before or after the Hindenberg, it's obvious that it wasn't an accident. It was clearly a cover-up designed to kill witnesses and destroy documents about the American banking oligarchy's involvement with Nazi Germany. -k

Hmm.... let me pick your brains on this one. Is the invasiveness the only problem to you? I can take your fingerprints, scan your eyeballs and leave you without any knowledge of my invasion of your privacy. Would that be fine with you? If we are going to be using fingerprints or iris scanning as a means of personal identification, then I think that people should be informed when their prints are scanned, and when they are checked. IE: if you're using a thumbprint as ID when you enter a nightclub, you stick your thumb on a scanning pad that is clearly identified as an identity verification device. Aside from that quibble, no, I don't really see a problem. What concerns you: the idea that if your fingerprints are in a database, the police might have access to that information? I ... don't actually see a problem. Is it really a bad thing if this interferes with robbers and murderers' ability to carry out their chosen professions? My attitude toward this is much like my attitude toward security cameras in public places. I don't believe that people have a right to privacy when they're in a public place. I believe that if you're worried that you might be identified while doing something you don't want to be identified while doing, perhaps you shouldn't be doing that anyway. -k