kimmy

I suppose Breitpravda must have omitted the part where Trump also said: There's no misconstruing that. Although, Trump is right about this much: given Jackson's personal views on the topic of slavery, it's highly probable that he would have felt there was no reason for the Civil War. It seems highly unlikely that a slave owner would have gone to war over the issue of slavery. -k

I have a hunch that this trainwreck isn't going to last 4 years, but we'll see. Overall, are you pleased with the direction he's going? Anything actually positive here, or is the only think you like about him that he makes progressives angry? On the bright side, I imagine that real-estate in Porchdog Country is going to get pretty cheap once the softwood tariffs kick in. You could pick up some sweet deals, maybe land a pad with a bigger porch! I'm curious as to whether the sawmill rednecks will be peeling the "Trump 2016!" stickers off their 4x4s when they're out of work. -k

I don't think any of those other presidents ever said that they needed to change the First Amendment to make the press stop writing negative stories about them. Nothing presidential about that. The guy promoted the Obama "birther" conspiracy theory for 6 years, but he can't even handle 3 months of people calling out his BS now that he's in the big chair himself. SAD! -k

Many of our immigrants come from places where hatred, imprisonment, and even public execution for gay people are considered the cultural norm. I have a hard time buying that people who have grown up in such cultures will magically transform into open-minded, tolerant, kind-hearted people when they hit our shores. Hypothetically, if you found yourself relocated to a country where women are expected to stay in the home and not speak in public, would you embrace that new philosophy? I doubt your values are so malleable, and I doubt that people who arrive from places where puritan morality is paramount over individual freedoms are so malleable either. At this point we're reaching an age where a large portion of Canada's puritan bigots are dying of old age... I'm not sure why people are in a rush to replace them with younger puritan bigots. Regardless, I feel that a comparison of Islam vs Catholicism (or whatever else) is beside the point. The important point is the right to criticize. If somebody wants to write about the Catholic church's role in the sex abuse scandals that we saw over many years, they may do so without being accused of peddling hatred. If someone wants to write about the role of Catholic ideology in limiting reproductive options for women in Catholic 3rd world countries, they can discuss that issue without being accused of peddling hatred. This is, as @carepov put it, valid criticism. We must make sure that valid criticism is never oppressed, either by law or by intimidation. Right now, and long before the house motion condemning Islamophobia, people in the media treated the subject with kid-gloves. They walked on egg-shells, afraid to make any criticism of any issue involving Islam. -k

I have nothing against that... but the point of my post (6 years ago...) was that this pattern we're seeing of ethnic enclaves where people don't even have to mix with anybody outside their own group isn't helpful. There won't be any hippies inviting their Muslim neighbors to come visit if the Muslims don't have any hippy neighbors. There are parts of Vancouver now where a Chinese person could come and live their whole life without speaking a word of English or meeting someone from outside their own group. Perhaps there will soon be Muslim neighborhoods were the same is true, if there aren't already. I don't think having a patchwork of insular ethnic enclaves in our large cities was what anybody wanted when they talk about multiculturalism and diversity. -k

From here on, England shall abandon curry and return to lumpy gravy and bangers and mash. On a related note, white people shall abandon rock music and return to Big Band. -k

Trump now wants to "fix" the First Amendment because he's mad that the New York Times is writing negative articles about him. Clearly, when Republicans talk about how much they love the Constitution, they really only mean the Second Amendment (some probably appreciate the Fifth as well... looking at you, Lt. Gen. Flynn). Obviously Trump is a snowflake. Perhaps instead of messing with the Constitution he should retreat to his safe space and play with his plush toys for a while. What a big baby. -k

I don't see a problem with Trump trying to make Kim Jung Un feel like a Big Boy. That's ultimately what Kim Jung Un wants... he wants everybody to think he's a Big Boy. (Trump understands this, because that's all Trump wants too.) Tell everyone KJU is "a smart cookie". Invite him to the White House for a formal meeting. Treat him like a Big Boy. If that gets the crazy fat-kid to calm down and act like a grown-up, that's brilliant. I support Trump 100% on that. Trump trying to start a bro-mance with Rodrigo Dutarte is more bizarre, though. I mean, the dude claims he rode around town on his motorcycle shooting drug-addicts to death. Either he's a psychopath, or he's a delusional psychopath. There's no other interpretation. My suspicion is that he dreamed he was riding around town on his motorcycle shooting drug-addicts to death while he was watching The Terminator and high on a bong-full of super-strong Philippines chiba-chiba. -k

Completely agreed. There is a significant disconnect between the understanding of local issues from the understanding of issues as seen from Central Canada. If decisions affecting interior BC were moved to Ottawa, they might as well be moved to London England or to the Moon. Decisions should be made by the most immediate stakeholders. -k

Isn't there a glut of oil right now? Why do we have to pretend we're friends with the Saudi scumbags when oil is so plentiful? -k

He's doing an amazing job, I hear. -k

From the people who brought you "alternate facts", we're proud to present... "alternate history"!! President Trump had an interesting interview with the Washington Examiner, in which he asked why the American Civil War happened. He suggested that if Andrew Jackson, rather than Honest Abe, had been President, the Civil War wouldn't have happened. It's highly improbably that Andrew Jackson was really angry with what he saw regarding the Civil War, given that he had been dead for 16 years before the Civil War started. It's especially unlikely that he said "There's no reason for this", unless he said it through a Ouija Board. Could Jackson have avoided the Civil War? Sure. Given that Jackson was a slave owner himself, one doubts whether he'd have gone to war to abolish slavery. Jackson was pro-slavery and one suspects that his solution to the Civil War would have been a deal in which slavery didn't get abolished. Regarding Jackson's "big heart", the fact that Jackson is irreparably associated with the Trail of Tears speaks volumes about that. By modern standards he was a pretty horrible person. About the only thing Trump got right about Andrew Jackson is that he was tough. He was a legendary soldier, as well as a guy who tended to settle his personal disputes with fistfights or gunfights. In one duel Jackson faced a famed gunfighter and got shot right in the chest... he shrugged off the bullet-wound and shot his opponent in the face. They couldn't remove the bullet because it was too close to his heart, and so he spent the rest of his life randomly coughing up blood as a result. Between his soldiering and gunfighting, Jackson got shot so many times that it was said "his chest rattled like a bag of marbles" when he coughed. If Andrew Jackson were alive today he'd smack the crap out of Trump for being a draft-dodging wuss. -k

I think that Inside Job is the most important documentary I have ever seen. It's about the 2007 mortgage bubble and resulting financial crisis. I don't know if it's available for free viewing, but if you can find it on Netflix or something, it's definitely worth watching. -k

Nature abhors a vacuum. Deport a drug dealer, you're just creating a job-opening for the next drug dealer. Prisons are full of drug dealers who got replaced by new recruits the next day. As long as there's money to be made, there will be somebody desperate enough to step in. -k

The distinction between killing and murder isn't "absolute" either. The news is full of cases that some people say are justified self-defense and others say are cold-blooded murder. There's no "absolute" or "objective" here. It's all subjective. If there's a way to rationalize a "universal evil" as good or necessary, it's not really "universal", is it? The Old Testament also says that disobedient children are to be dragged to town square and stoned to death, so clearly the ancient Israelites didn't consider killing children to be a "universal evil", either. You and Dr Craig argue that God could be the only source of this absolute morality you believe exists. I believe that our innate morality actually stems from instincts that were bred into ourselves (and other social creatures) over the course of eons. These instincts helped our species survive. Those who had these instincts formed strong tribes (or herds or flocks) and improved their chances of raising a next generation of offspring to carry on their line. Those without these instincts were less likely to produce offspring and were removed from the gene pool. If you want to believe that God put those instincts into us and to other creatures, that's fine, but God isn't the only explanation for how they exist. The point isn't that Christians sometimes do bad things. The point is that the Christian understanding of "good" and "bad" has evolved continuously over time. Dr Craig suggests that equality is a universally recognized good, and discrimination is a universally recognized evil, but that's obviously not true. If we traveled back in time 300 years, we would find millions of people who don't recognize equality as a universal good, or view discrimination as evil. Our understanding of "good" and "evil" has evolved continuously. There's no "absolute" or "objective" there. -k

The Ottawa Senators continue to be impressive! They have faced all kinds of adversity this season, and have somehow found a way to fight through everything. If Cam Talbot isn't the MVP of the playoffs so far, Erik Karlsson might be. He seems to be carrying them with a combination of willpower and sheer talent. They continue to somehow find ways to win. Last night it was all Cam Talbot... the game before, the Ducks were so focused on McDavid that Leon Draisaitl was free to do whatever he felt like. The series isn't over yet, but the Oilers have shown that they aren't impressed by the Ducks' playoff experience or by their supposed physical intimidation. I think we have to wait to see what happens in the expansion draft before we know for sure. The way the playoffs are going so far, the Las Vegas management team is probably looking at some of the guys the Oilers won't be able to protect in the expansion draft and thinking "hey, that guy might be a good pick-up." I don't know if they'll be able to protect Mark Letestu, for example... -k

Oh, you were serious? I apologize. No, Topaz, the check in the video is not real. It's just an image that somebody created in Microsoft Paint or a similar program. I'm not sure if you understand much about computers, perhaps you don't understand how easy it is to create something like this. First you download an image of a blank check. Here's the exact one they used! It's just a stock image. It's easy to find this template with the Shutterstock watermark removed. Then you download Mr Obama's signature, it's easy to find it online. Then you open up your image editing software, like Microsoft Paint or similar, and you resize the signature and paste it onto the blank check. Then you add some text that says whatever you like, and you're done. It's that easy. Here's another example! Wow! Incredible coincidence that Hillary used the exact same check to pay her shills that Obama used to pay the Muslim Brotherhood! Amazing coincidence! Holy gee whiz! Topaz, perhaps you are just very naive or not very knowledgeable about technology and don't understand how easy it is for somebody to create an image like this. Or perhaps you are very trusting and gullible. But whichever the case, the people who made this image are laughing at you. Perhaps they made this image to trick people into clicking on their website or watching their video, to make money. Or perhaps they made this image to trick people into believing that Barack Obama is a terrorist. But whatever the reason, it is a trick. You have been tricked, the people who you shared this with you have been tricked as well. And unfortunately, this has become an epidemic. -k

Thanks for sharing, Topaz. We could all use a laugh now and then. This video was certainly hilarious, and I laughed out loud at first, but then it made me sad when I remembered that there are some people who are just too stupid and gullible to realize that this is fake. Something like this starts off as a funny joke, but then it gets shared around and sooner or later it falls into the hands of dumb-people who think it's real, and they share it to all their friends, who are often dumb-people as well, and soon it spreads like wildfire among dumb-people on Twitter and Facebook. It might sound silly, but that's how "Pizzagate" happened. It started off as a harmless joke, but once mentally impaired crazy-people heard about it, they thought it was real, and started sharing it around, and then Alex Jones heard about it and told all the mentally impaired crazy-people in his audience that they should go investigate it, and inevitably a crazy-person with an assault-rifle showed up at the pizza shop to "free the children". Luckily nobody got killed, but it's not a joke once mentally-impaired crazy-people get involved. -k

Your video provided a snippet of Dawkins' comment. Here is the context: Whether there is an all-knowing, all-loving creator or there isn't... the world we see works as if there isn't. The world is full of pain, suffering, injustice, fear, misery... delivered without compassion or discrimination. As you say, the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous. The video attributes qualities like "equality" and "generosity" to God, but we don't see these qualities embodied in his creation. One baby can be born with a million-dollar trust-fund and loving parents... the next can be born with leukemia. That bears more resemblance to the "pitiless indifference" Dr Dawkin describes than to Dr Craig's "equality and generosity". Everyone already has their own idea of right and wrong. Even among Christians alone, the definition of right and wrong has been hotly debated constantly, for almost as long as Christianity has existed. Your video suggests that "equality", "generosity", and "sacrifice" are objectively as "good", and "greed", "abuse", and "discrimination" are objectively "evil". And yet Christians have continuously debated and changed their ideas of all of these things over the centuries. Dr Craig confidently proclaims that Abuse is objectively evil, and yet in centuries gone by, Christians have committed horrific acts of abuse in the belief that they were doing God's work. Torture and slaughter of witches and pagans and heretics, for example. Equality? Christians proudly note that Christians were leaders of the movement to abolish slavery in America. They're not quite as proud that Christians were also leaders of the US movement to retain slavery, or that Christians were the ones who captured and kept the slaves in the first place. Discrimination? Christians continue to debate which kinds of discrimination are and aren't acceptable, to this very day. Some Christians believed that the Bible supported segregation. Dr Craig says that discrimination is objectively evil, yet many different kinds of discrimination have been embraced by Christians over the ages, so clearly this is a subjective issue, not an objective one. Discrimination remains a hot-button issue in the United States right now as some Christians go to court to claim that their religion requires them to discriminate against others. If Christians are tapped into an objective morality, how have Christian views on so many issues changed so dramatically over the ages? One might suggest that there could still be an objective morality and we're just not able to agree on what it actually is... but is there any real difference between a subjective morality and an objective moral absolute that's continually being re-evaluated through ongoing subjective interpretation? I'd suggest that there isn't. Is a moral absolute even possible? Even the most clear-cut commandment-- thou shalt not kill-- isn't an absolute. We can all agree that there are situations where killing is necessary. Trying to figure out if you're in such a situation is a matter of subjective judgment. What about greed? The video says that greed is evil, but people actually spend a lot of time and energy trying to rationalize or justify greed. The video says that God is Love, and all of this objective morality flows from that principle, and that the objective morality it talks about stems from the commandment to "love thy neighbor as thyself". And yet, people spend a lot of time and energy trying to find reasons to not love their neighbors. You yourself, betsy, recently posted a message explaining that you feel that this most central principle of the New Testament actually only applies to other Christians. The video includes an image of a newspaper with the headline "Man Kills Child" as something we universally recognize as wrong. Yes, we do. And it's not just humans, either. Most types of animals feel the same way. Every creature has some strategy for making sure its offspring survive. For some types of animals, it's simply a matter of having so many offspring that the law of averages says enough survive to continue the species. For other types of animals-- mammals, birds-- care and nurturing are part of making sure their offspring survive. Most of us have seen some of the enchanting animal videos on the internet. One of my favorites is one where a big dog shows up in a yard and tries to grab a toddler... in a flash, a little house-cat attacks the dog like a fluffy little cyclone, chasing it away from the toddler. In another, a child falls down and hurts himself... mom arrives on the scene, but the family cat arrives too, thinks the woman has hurt the child, and makes her back away. A dog sees a girl swimming, and jumps into the lake, chomps a mouthful of her hair, and swims frantically to pull her to shore. A momma dog nursing an orphaned kitten along with her own puppies. We see these videos and think it's cute or funny, but they also illustrate something much more important. They demonstrate how other animals, not just humans, are able to form bonds, even bonds that transcend species. And they illustrate the powerful instinct of protecting and nurturing their young. This is something that, as you say, is written in our hearts. And not just human hearts. It is transcendent. If there were mammals that didn't have this instinct, they've gone extinct. If there are people born without the instinct to protect their young, they're not going to pass that gene on to future generations, because they aren't going to have descendants. There might have been societies where there were no limits on killing, but those societies probably didn't last long. Every human society has some minimum amount of principles to preserve order and unity and make sure the group survived. Every society that didn't have the minimum amount of principles to ensure its own survival died out. Further on the issue of "Man Kills Child", we can look at two examples from the Bible in which God explicitly tells men to kill children. One of them is when the Israelites massacred the Amalekites. God instructed the Israelites to kill every last man, woman, and child, even infants, even their farm animals. Everything. Nothing was to be left. If one supposes the killing of children to be an objective evil, this has to be pretty tough to reconcile with the notion of God as the definition of good. But Dr Craig tries anyway... he wrote an essay on the subject. "Obviously this sounds pretty bad, but..." Ultimately, the fact that Dr Craig can attempt to rationalize such a horrific event as "not actually evil" demonstrates that no matter how black and white a case of "objective morality" appears, there's subjective wiggle-room. A second example of God killing a man to kill a child is when God told Abraham to kill his own son. Luckily for Isaac, God stopped him at the last minute, once he had seen that Abraham really did intend to go through with it. What was the point of this? To make Abraham prove that his obedience to God was absolute... that he'd do what God told him, no matter how wrong it seemed. What's the message here? The message is don't trust your instincts, that morality that is "written in our hearts". The message is, don't listen to that innate sense of right and wrong that we possess... obey your religion instead. But if God is the source of this "objective morality" we all supposedly possess, why would religion come into conflict with it? And yet we see this in our world today. We see parents who believe in faith-healing ignoring their childrens' suffering because they think God wants them to. Like modern versions of Abraham, they're sacrificing their children because they believe God requires it. Surely this would fall under Dr Craig's notion of "objectively evil", and yet here we are in 2017 with children dying from easily treatable diseases because parents are convinced that God wants it that way. -k

This season has been a big surprise, obviously... I don't think anybody predicted they'd be a 100 point team or have home ice advantage. I think most of us were just hoping they might have a chance to make the playoffs. But based on the way things stood at the start of the playoffs, I don't think it should be considered an upset if they defeat the Sharks. Yes, I think a lot of people assume everything is because of McDavid, but Peter Chiarelli has rebuilt the team from top to bottom in the past 2 years. I think that Nugent-Hopkins and Eberle are the only two regulars left from before Chiarelli took over. And almost everybody Chiarelli has brought in has been extremely big and very physical. It is amazing how quickly he has transformed the team. McDavid is the biggest factor, and prospects like Draisaitl and Klefbom and Nurse were drafted by the previous management group. But Chiarelli did bring in Cam Talbot, who is almost as big a factor as McDavid for the Oilers, and he traded Hall to get Adam Larsson which was widely criticized but has turned out to be a brilliant trade. Plus loading up with guys like Lucic and Maroon and Kassian who are huge and tough and can play, and adding useful veterans like Sekera and Russell and Letestu. I think a lot of people probably don't realize how much work Chiarelli has done to change the team in a short amount of time. Here is hoping that game 6 doesn't turn out the way game 4 did! -k

The Leafs are doing great! Calgary is in a lot of trouble, but the other 4 Canadian teams are all leading their series. The Habs and Oilers are probably not a surprise, and I think the Sens-Bruins series was kind of a pick-em. But the Leafs leading the Capitals is a huge surprise, and with the Capitals history of playoff disappointment... they must have deja vu right now. Another huge surprise has to be the Blackhawks being in deep trouble against the Predators. They finally scored a goal last night, which is about the only good news for them. -k

The Magna Carta and the secular conflict between the rights of man and the authority of government predates the rise of Protestantism by centuries. And really, trying to blame the failure of Christianity to launch great things in countries not linked to England seems kind of like making excuses. "Oh, it's those darned Papists and their darned rituals that messed everything up." I mean, the Bible is still the same, right? The important parts are still there, aren't they? -k

I always get my souls mixed up. -k

... What does the Bible actually say about globalism? Would Jesus be concerned about a more global world? He seems like the kind of guy who'd reach across borders, not build walls. Well, they've been saying that for around 1980 years... they're bound to be right one of these times. I promise that when those multitudes with trumpets and pipers and kettle drums do arrive, I'll accept that as proof that you guys were right all along. Nonsense. Why do you view disagreement as oppression? Nonsense. What are you saying? People who don't believe in god shouldn't be in politics or media or academics? What kind of jobs are ok for atheists, in your view? Less caring? To me the right-- especially the American religious right-- are the walking definition of "less caring". What could be less caring than the "screw the poor!" attitude that typifies Republicans right now? -k

When coin in coffer rings, soul, from Purgatory, springs. -k