kimmy

Except that nobody is talking about "banning" anything. You've been challenged on that point many times, and have yet to back it up. -k

I'd also be interested in knowing what this new ministry is supposed to be doing. The bit about lobbying in parliament on behalf of a scientifically unproven medical treatment certainly doesn't sound very promising. -k

What you've just said is complete unadulterated drivel. All of this is pure unadulterated drivel. I can tell that you don't know a god damned thing about engineering school or engineering professional associations. And I can tell that everything you know about university, you learned from reading in the conservative blogosphere. -k

Many of history's greatest scientists-- including the aforementioned Isaac Newton-- were devoutly religious. -k

To me, the disturbing part isn't that Dr Carson has an alternative theory about the pyramids. I'm sure we've all had silly theories at some time or another, right? To me the disturbing part is that Dr Carson believes that his theory-- which is based on nothing more than his own speculation and his own interpretation of some lines from the Bible-- is *better* than the theories of people who have actually studied the history, studied the structures themselves, been inside the structures, and say point blank that there's no way these are granaries. The usual Republican line is "hey, I'm not a scientist, so I'm not going to comment on that." Dr Carson's line is apparently "hey, I'm not a scientist, but I'm smarter than those guys, so I'm going to comment on that anyway." -k

A couple of points. First off, as Bonam points out, these topics aren't directly related to Dr Carson's job. Understanding the origins of life on earth, or even understanding the evolution of the human brain, isn't a prerequisite to understanding the human brain. Understanding the Great Pyramids certainly isn't a prerequisite to understanding the human brain. I'm sure there are many electronics technicians who have no clue what's going on inside a transistor at the atomic level, yet are perfectly capable of repairing electronic devices. An auto mechanic doesn't need to have any particular knowledge of fluid dynamics to repair your automatic transmission. And it's worth mentioning that Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest minds in history, was also an avid enthusiast of alchemy, the occult, and more. And William Shockley, the leader of the team that invented the transistor (which probably ranks close behind fire and the wheel on the list of Most Important Inventions Ever) quit the semiconductor business so that he could pursue his real passion: crazy-ass theories regarding race, genetics, and eugenics. The point being that just as Isaac Newton's brilliance in the fields of math and physics didn't translate into him transmuting lead into gold, Dr Carson's accomplishments in the field of medicine don't particularly make him a qualified Egyptologist, or a qualified President either. -k

Well, statistics only tell part of the story. In regard to the Pickton murders, for example, those disappearances can now be classified as "solved", even though the police negligence and incompetence on that file was extraordinary. But yes, as I said, it strikes me as a race issue and not a class issue.Nonetheless, there's little doubt in my mind that police handling of these cases will be one of the prime issues that gets scrutinized, and I expect that like the Pickton inquiry it'll reveal that these cases were handled with utter disinterest by the police, and they're going to take a beating. And, my personal hunch is that this is the real reason the Harper regime was resistant to support an inquiry. -k

And I gather you're pretty excited about driving around in a new Toyota drinking milkshakes. Yes yes, we're all familiar with basic economic principles like "tariffs bad, trade good!" and "competition means lower prices!" But the TPP is not just about decreasing barriers to trade and creating more competition. The new IP rules will have the opposite effect... it'll create more barriers and reduce the amount of competition. But every time somebody has made specific criticisms of the TPP, you've ducked out and gone back to discussing these junior high economics principles with somebody else. -k

Actually the complaints about that particular article were that it attempts to conflate two separate ideas-- "trigger warnings", which is a ridiculous notion, and "microaggression", which is a completely reasonable idea that we can probably all relate to at some degree. I will get back in that thread and elaborate on the point further; I've been taking a holiday from it. -k

Isn't this whole discussion an exercise in wild exaggeration? How many university students are there in Canada and the US? Somewhere over a million at the very least? And what are we actually talking about in this thread? A few radicals at a handful of colleges? The University of Missouri has over 35,000 students, but a couple of dozen radical protesters apparently represent all of them. I haven't actually bothered to research the situation... but is it possible that they actually had a point in saying that the chancellor had an obligation to do more? I'd suggest that the prevalence of nonsense like "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" is being sensationalized because it makes for headlines and appeals to the kind of people who are looking for confirmation of their existing biases that young people aren't capable of dealing with reality. And, I would once again that when whats-his-face started the thread, he wasn't even talking about that stuff, he was alleging that universities are centers of socialist indoctrination, which sounds like an idea that was cribbed straight from Republican talking points. -k

Haven't you heard? There aren't engineering students anymore. Universities are just teaching political correct propaganda now. -k

Seems like a lot for a shell, even if it's an Arcteryx. I'm toughing it out with less prestigious brands. And also, I won't be jabbing pins into my leather jacket either. I gave the grumpy old Legion man some change last time I was at the drug store, hopefully it'll keep the guilt away for another year. -k

Maybe you should reread the opening post, where whats-his-name-this-week alleges that university is a waste of time now because instead of learning anything people just get politically correct indoctrination. That doesn't sound like the university I attended, and it doesn't sound like the university you attended either. I'm sure there are nutty professors teaching nutty students somewhere at the University of Alberta, but I took math, science, and medical courses when I attended, and didn't encounter any of that BS. I doubt you did either, and neither do most students, because most students are in normal programs, not fringe topics. And yet it's that inconsequential fringe that seems to be the entire focus of the current right-wing obsession with universities. -k

What was the name and number of the course she was in? -k

Why should we expect our results to be better than Europe is seeing? Are we just smarter than Europe? More fair-minded than Europe? More experienced than Europe? Better prepared than Europe? "We want 25000 refugees, but trust us, we're only bringing in cute cuddly ones like that poor little boy that washed up on the beach!" -k

Well then I guess he can file a complaint with his campus advisor and retreat to his safe space. -k

No, it's not a micro-aggression, it's just aggression. And if you don't want people to say your crazy, you should probably stop saying crazy things. I'm sure a man of Dr Carson's academic credentials should be able to piece that together. -k

Yeah? Where's he going to find them? How come our results with "Syrian" refugees are going to be so different from what Europe is currently experiencing? -k

Be aware that we're not discussing actual universities here, we're discussing a Fox News/Sun News straw-man caricature of what they perceive universities to be like. -k

For the most part? So... universities no longer have programs in science or engineering or medicine or business? It's all social science all the time now? Even if that student sits there for 6 hours a day reading nothing but crap from pseudoscientists? Unfortunately this kind of thinking is growing... it's a major reason why dumb-ass new-age thinkers think miso soup works as a vaccine or that giving their kid bleach enemas will cure autism. They spent 6 hours a day researching this stuff on the internet, and they figure that what they've learned from the internet is just as good as what doctors learn in university. -k

Well, we could have had lower auto prices any time we wanted as well. We, collectively, chose not to. So great news if you're a car-driving cheese-loving banker, but bad news if you're a lactose-intolerant bicycle commuter who needs prescription drugs and works at an autoparts factory? Does giving the RBC an enhanced opportunity to open a branch office in Malaysia something that the government can come sell to me, the average Canadian on the street, as reason to be excited about the TPP? Does it help anybody who isn't a shareholder at RBC? Sure. We could have lowered tariffs on dairy and autoparts and any number of other things and we didn't, because rightly or wrongly it was believed that protecting those industries was worth the higher cost to consumers. So now we've given up those tariffs and put those industries at risk in exchange for... higher prices for prescription drugs, financial protections for corporations that invest in foreign countries, expanded ability of technology corporations to sue their competitors... Is this really that great of a bargain? I already spend a darn sight more on prescription drugs than I do on dairy products each month. So perhaps instead of talking about the the orthodoxy of free trade and simplistic arguments like "tariffs bad, cheap milk good!" we should consider that very little of this "partnership" is actually about trade and a great deal of it is about protecting the financial interests of corporations. -k

Most of our Members of Parliament are far too old to blame this on the internet. -k

I can already get on the internet and order just about any consumer goods I want straight from China and get them shipped free to my mailbox. I don't need a TPP to buy the cheapest consumer goods on the planet. So what's in it for me? One of the things that some people have been touting about the TPP is lower prices for dairy products. Well, we didn't need an international free trade agreement to get lower dairy prices. If we wanted lower dairy prices, we could have lowered or eliminated tariffs and trade barriers on dairy products entering Canada. We could have done that any time. If lower dairy prices is the answer to "what's in it for me?" then why hasn't it been done a long time ago? Well, because for political reasons our government has protected our dairy sector from international competition. Since we're going to be giving our dairy producers billions of dollars of subsidies in coming years to mitigate their financial losses from the effects of greater imports, the cheaper dairy products aren't as big a bargain as they might appear at first. If you're all about price, you can't be that excited that the TPP will be giving drug companies enhanced tools to "evergreen" their patents-- renew their patents in perpetuity by making minor changes. Giving pharmaceutical companies the ability to thwart generics from arriving will cost Canadian consumers billions, either directly (if you buy drugs yourself) or indirectly (because you pay into insurance policies that will be paying more for drugs.) Is this really sounding all that great to you? -k

We can already buy goods from abroad more cheaply than we can produce them at home. That argument just doesn't fly anymore. This agreement doesn't provide me, as a Canadian consumer, access to anything that I don't already have. This agreement isn't for consumers, it's for corporations. -k

Bengals! Patriots! Panthers! Still undefeated! Aqib Talib! Eye gouge! Gutless! Dirty hit on Vikings QB Teddy Bridgewater! Gutless!! Lions didn't lose this week! Lions had a bye this week! Boges! Your thoughts!!! -kimmy!