kimmy

From what I've seen, it's a pretty crappy show, no question. I just don't think that the writing or acting is any worse than most other sit-coms. Sit-coms are generally speaking pretty crappy. I think a lot of the people who tuned in to Mosque to see what all the fuss was about are probably people who wouldn't normally watch sit-coms. They watch an episode and say "man, this sucks!" and they're right... but sit them down in front of an episode of "Two and a Half Men" or "The War At Home" and they'd say "man, this sucks!" too. -k

As people keep trying to explain to you, the accused is not an MP, it is a guy who worked for the riding association. Holding up a riding association worker as being representative of the MP or the entire party is so patently stupid that it's exactly what I'd expect from you. -k

Episode 1 = 2.1 million viewers. Episode 3 = 1 million viewers. How low can they go.... If they lose half their viewers every two episodes that means... Episode 2 was 1.2 million, episode 3 is 1.0 million. They lost half of the first episode audience, but the drop from episode 2 to episode 3 is not that big. The fact of the matter is that even without a million-plus rubberneckers who tuned out after episode 1, episodes 2 and 3 have been hugely successful. To put a million viewers in perspective, "24" got 937,000 viewers in Canada in the last ratings I've looked at. ( http://www.bbm.ca/en/nat01222007.pdf if you're interested.) You also keep forgetting how few viewers it takes to keep a show on CBC. Same webpage shows that "Intelligence" got only 207,000 viewers for its season finale. Other CBC fare, like Jozi-H for instance, has viewership so small that it can only be accurately measured by the Hubble Telescope. Mosque could probably stay on the air with 1/10 of its current viewership, because the CBC is the CBC. And, ironically, as long as people like yourself keep kicking up a fuss about Mosque on the Prairie, it'll probably continue to do pretty well. In fact, at this point the ratings for Mosque are so strong that networks are probably contemplating similar shows. (I am writing a treatment for "Everybody Loves Allah" as we speak.) -k

It's not even the MP who "filed charges". The two riding association workers filed a complaint; the police are the ones who decide whether to file charges. There seems to be a bit of a reading comprehension problem among those who are accusing Watson of wrongdoing here. -k

That's all, folks. -k

"Rule by decree? Me? Don't worry, it's not a big deal, I'm just going to clean up some paperwork. But look at that Chavez! Chavez! He's a dictator! He's worse than Mao! Holy crap, that Chavez, he's a bad guy!" -k

The more interesting Hugo Chavez news is this: Chavez defense rule by decree It seems like Chavez wishes to distract attention from his internal controversy by averting the peoples' attention to an external boogeyman. "Rule by decree? Me? Don't worry, it's not a big deal, I'm just going to clean up some paperwork. But look at that Bush! Bush! He's a fascist! He's worse than Hitler! Holy crap, that Bush, he's a bad guy!" Just standard politicking. -k

If it was a good thing they would be bragging about it. Its not a good thing and thats why its being kept secret. The police state isn't being set up to catch terrorists, if they were interested in doing that (ie if there were terrorists) the Mexico/USA border would not be open. By no means do I claim that a North American Union is a good thing. I just dispute the claim that it means what you and your ilk think it does. While there's evidence that discussions of speeding traffic across borders, common security initiatives, increasing trade and transport throughout North America and so on, the claim that all of this means that our governments will be wiped out and put under a common state is sheer paranoid conjecture. More on that later. And the pet boogeyman of your favorite source is revealed in your oft-repeated line about the Mexican border, as well as in the following: They are already doing that. The Mexican flag flies in Texas and some parts of Texas are the most dangerous places in the world. They even have a leper colony. uh huh, I read that. I also read where he talks about the "Latino KKK" and how Latinos are already undertaking the racial cleansing of Los Angeles as the first step on the way to creating an ethnic homeland. When you read stuff like that, shouldn't it send up little red flags? It actually disturbs me that there are people like you that think willful stupidity is both funny and wise. If you want to have a discussion about willful stupidity, then why don't we take a look at http://amerocurrency.com/ He looks at the stated goals of the SPP, and concludes that it's a plot to "usurp the authority of the U.S." Canada is a socialist nation? The United States... population 300,000,000... is going to be assimilated by Canada (pop 34,000,000) and Mexico (pop 107,000,000)? Willful stupidity? Try and read this without laughing: Sounds like a guy who's done his homework... He goes on to quote from Jerome Corsi... best known as the mouthpiece of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth (does that sound like somebody interested in *fighting* the New World Order?) Hilarious site. -k

Hey, who are you to be comparing PolyNewb's banking guru to some quack who invented a secret cure for cancer? -k

Gibbler? And you're the one accusing everybody else of watching too much TV? You don't understand the real world usage of the phrase "new world order" or what a North American Union will actually entail. You get all your information from American whack-jobs who fear in every waking moment of the day that there is a secret government plan to open up the Mexican border and let brown-people colonize their neighborhoods. Why don't you post that "Amerocurrency" website again? I liked that one. It was truly funny. It's deeply disturbing that people like you take this stuff for fact, but it's still funny. -k

Ok, I went there. What was I supposed to get from reading that? That CitiBank has received billions of dollars of fines over the last few years? ok, it certainly says so. What's your point? Doesn't that more or less disprove the theory that the banks can do whatever they want and get away with anything and are above the law and so on? Because you're an idiot? -k

Which columnist wrote this? Your source has the facts wrong. Alt.Muslim interview with the show's creator, Zarqa Nawaz: -k

I think BD means that you're painting with an overly broad brush when you say "the left" doesn't see any distinction between when our military uses force and when the terrorists use force, or that "the left" doesn't recognize that military force can be used legitimately. -k

It is irrelevant to this discussion. Interest that banks earn on loans is a small part of the profit they earn. Most profit comes from creating money in the first place. .... -k

Thanks for posting, that was an excellent letter. While I don't often agree with Rick Mercer, this is a superb piece of writing. Paul Franklin was a guest on my favorite radio station back in November. He is indeed, as Mercer says, an inspiring individual. I'm also in agreement with Mercer's defense of the Afghanistan mission: -k

There's probably a few who think that. A small few. Are you sure? It seems to me that I've seen more than just a few who bandy about figures of the civilian death toll in Iraq since the start of the invasion and make the charge that these deaths are America's fault. Without mention of whether they were killed by a stray US bomb or by the insurgency. Why should they care? Really? Ninety per cent of Americans didn't give a tinker's cuss about Iraq and its people before this war. Most still don't. To them, the issue is (whether they'd cop to it or not) they don't want U.S. boys and girls getting killed in the futile attempt to preempt a civil war between the various Iraqi sects (which 90 per cent of Americans never heard of before the war). Americans love war when they are winning and hate it when they aren't. They aren't winning this one. The only question is how bad the conflict will be and how many Americans will die Frankly, the American view (and this informs the Michael Moore left's view as well as the suddenly anti-war right) is that Americans shouldn't be dying for the sake of a losing cause. While I do agree that there's a growing number who believe that may want to just let them kill each other and settle their own shit, I believe that a great many-- the same sorts of people who believe there's a moral duty to intervene in Darfur, for instance-- would feel that pulling out suddenly and allowing a slaughter to ensue would be utterly irresponsible. Perhaps it is naive of me, but I believe that most of the people who want the US troops out of Iraq would not hold that view if they believed that carnage will break out in the absense of the US troops. During the 2004 election, Kerry quoted Bush Sr more than once as saying this was the reason he did not unseat Saddam from power: there's no exit strategy. Once you create the power vacuum, you're morally obligated to maintain security. I suppose that the extent to which the US has met that moral obligation is quite debateable at this point, but I do think the obligation is there. And I think that if they pull out unexpectedly, they'll be widely blamed for the horror that results afterward-- and justifiably so. People might be angry at them for being there, but they'll be angrier at them for what happens if they pull out. I believe that remaining until some sort of adequate local authority is capable of maintaining security is really the best of a lousy set of options. -k

I think the original point of the thread was to point out that NFL football is immensely popular in Canadal, and to question whether the Globe and Mail's decision to omit coverage of it from their sports section may have had more to do with a nationalistic editorial bias than with the interest of NFL to the typical reader of a newspaper sports section. The NFL's popularity among Canadians is affirmed by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement: http://www.bbm.ca/en/nat01152007.pdf More people watched the Colts beat the Patriots than watched the Hockey Night In Canada prime-time game featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs taking on Wonder-boy Sidney Crosby. Of course, I can understand why Maple Leafs fans may not have watched that game, as their team was getting beaten to a bloody pulp, but the fact of the NFL's popularity in Canada is undeniable, and the decision to omit NFL coverage from the G'n'M is therefore quite puzzling. -kimmy {pulling hard for the Colts this weekend! }

These are stupid conversations, because people are not reading what each other is saying. Just to check on things, guys, we're all in agreement about how fractional reserve banking works? No. Private banks create money. Ask your economics professor. You missed the key phrase in what Blue said: hard currency. Why don't you ask one ? You never provided a link that explains that only BOC creates money because there is no link like that because its wrong. Again, you've missed a key phrase. Riverwind states that private banks can not create money from nothing. A reserve ration means they can't create it *from nothing*. It means that there's a limitation on their ability to lend and that they have to have some amount of hard currency to back up their liabilities. You earlier mentioned a 300:1 figure... ...and said it's practically irrelevant. (I am not sure where the 300:1 figure comes from, but let's leave that aside for now.) Plot some graphs of graph of money supply expansion with few different reserve ratios-- 10:1, 100:1, 300:1... then plot one where the reserve ratio is 300:0. And you can see from this sort of graph, the central bank can contract or expand the money supply by taking currency out of circulation. So, with a fixed reserve ratio, the government does have direct control over the money supply, even though the banks are the ones who create the large majority of the actual money supply. Back to the 300:1 figure, or whatever our reserve ratio actually is: as Geoffrey states, and as I've read this morning, Canada no longer has a fixed reserve ratio for most types of lending. In Canada a bank's reserve ratio seems to be completely at the bank's discretion. The limit on the banks' ability to continue lending, and continue increasing the money supply, isn't clear to me. Nor is the means by which our Central bank has the power to control the money supply. So in this respect, the banks are closer than it would seem to being able to create money from nothing. -k

I love how you always bring a "Sesame Street" grasp of the issues to the discussion, Drea.

I can tell that Robert is going to contribute a lot of insight to our forum.

Surely you jest. MSNBC is owned by General Electric, a massive media conglomerate, military industrial contractor, and financial house. General Electric is 3 different conspiracies all rolled into one! Shouldn't their little puppets, like NBC and MSNBC, be the last people you trust? -k

DeCicco was stating this opinion in response to questions about why he voted no in a vote on having a "pride day" type event in Kamloops. DeCicco wasn't speaking against people doing what they wish in their bedrooms, he was discussing a vote about a parade on Main Street. (or, more likely, "Business Frontage Road", from what I've seen of Kamloops ) -k

Read the article, and found no reference to anyone blaming Bush et al. So why are you making shit up? I think he is referring to the mentality amongst some on the left (not all, and certainly not yourself) that peace will break out in Iraq just as soon as the Western Imperialist Invaders get out of Iraq. I too think that peace will break out in Iraq after the Western Running Dog Imperialists leave. But only after a horrifically violent conflict between the various religious and ethnic factions. Who is? I think he is referring to the element that holds all the deaths in Iraq to be America's fault, based on the belief that it's all essentially a result of justified resistance to an unjust occupation. I do think there is an element on the left that is in denial of the intense hate between the factions in Iraq and the kind of savagery will surely occur without the US presence. When I see protest signs reading expressing the sentiment that the US must "Pull out of Iraq NOW!" I find myself wondering: Does this person not realize how much carnage will break out if the US withdraws immediately? Or does this person simply not care? -k

PolyNewbie, I think all of us are in full agreement with you on the general principle that banks "create" money by lending out many times what they have in their cash reserves. I don't think we need to keep going over that, because I don't think there's any disagreement on that issue. I think the source of the disagreement between yourself and everybody else is some of the conclusions you've drawn. I will try and list some of these points of contention so that we can talk about them, instead of rehashing the same stuff over and over. My recollection of the major disagreements: I think people disagree that there's some sort of conspiracy to keep the mechanics of banking secret. The principle that banks lend far more than they have in hard reserve is not a secret at all, and is covered in textbooks and explained on government and bank websites. People disagree with the premise that these facts are hidden and that the only way to learn about them is to read books by goofballs like Fred Griffin. People disagree with the premise that the ability to "create money" through lending gives the banks free rein to do so indiscriminately. People contend that continuing to decrease their loans to reserves ratio carries costs and risks and that there's a balance-point after which issuing more loans becomes a poor business decision. People disagree with your theories about how public debt is financed. People are skeptical about the quotations from historical figures. Depending on the context, statements to the effect that "the banks rule the world" are more likely an acknowledgement of the realities of financing government programs than an admission of the existance of a secret conspiracy that controls governments. People are skeptical about the whole "wake up or die" premise stated in the thread title. -k

There is a troubling inconsistency between the words in bold, there. We will never know whether DiCicco violated the human rights code, because he CHOSE to settle. I believe one of the legitimate concerns about situations like this is that because of legal expenses, challenging a ruling would cost more than just accepting the fine. How much "choice" one has in accepting a settlement under such conditions is somewhat debateable. -k