Gumby

Trying to keep it on topic, these two clowns set back the cause of Muslim acceptance in America a hundred years, but did us all a great service by highlighting how retarded and poisonous all religion is. Regardless of and unrelated to America's imperialistic endeavors worldwide, this attack comes off as the typically sad and antiquated attempt at religious extortion. It's not about revenge or jihad it's about a sick dark ages blind adherence to populist religion cult fantasy. I would encourage all people of the world to drop the tired mindless Hero-figure from space thing, but just today will devote extra derision aimed towards our Mosque attending friends, the only ones so far to out-stupid the WBC and our friends from Jonestown. Again, we get to see what religion actually does to destroy genuine freedom. Makes Islam look even more retarded and reactionary than the other mainstream fallacies, which is reasonably accurate in my books. Although Judaism still rules in the areas of comical garb and outlandish dancing, with the Catholics still strong in the areas of scary rituals and daily fear-mongering.

I became alarmed at the recent outbreaks of a few diseases, and started researching from the position that vaccination was a totally healthy way of preventing horrible diseases. My position was also that currently prevailing science had thoroughly debunked any notion to the contrary, and that the concept of herd immunity was valid in the context of a vaccine regimen applied society-wide. My position now is that in some cases, the alleged risks of the prevented disease versus the alleged risks of the vaccine are not as justified as I had hoped. There has not been, in my opinion, an effective debunking of all the alleged toxicity relationships, and in fact there have been more recent independent studies that indicate absolute causation between adjuvants and critical brain chemistry . After all, Aluminum Hydroxide most definitely is a potent toxin and immune system excitor, that's the reason for its' use in vaccines. It makes the production of vaccines more profitable, which is key to the arguments for and against it. The things I know now would prevent me from following the schedule of vaccines, because I now believe that there are certain elements of vaccine-related immunological response events that have not been proven safe in any rigorous scientific manner. There also exists huge conflict of interest on both sides of the argument re: efficacy and adverse events of our current vaccines. I am finding the reading of studies and abstracts on both sides enlightening , and I am finding that my distrust of the relationship between vaccine manufacturers and safety authorities is growing by leaps and bounds. You do not have to be an inorganic chemist or molecular biologist to start finding out some disturbing things. My views changed greatly after examining the relationship between Merck and the CDC, for example. That level of conflict of interest greatly overshadows the anything on the Wakefield level, for example, and Wakefield is commonly used as the extreme example on the debunking side.... I can only personally conclude at this point that the science re: efficacy and safety of the current vaccine schedule is definitely not settled, and the currently held public views of herd immunity are as potentially dangerous as any anti-vaccine movement so far. The non-scientific approach would be to stop studying, but it seems that the public opinion is to do so....

Quick hijack here, as the issue largely pertains to reasonable expectation of harm - i.e. self defense or defense of others perceived to be under mortal threat...... Say I was one of the people in Ferguson who'd had the weapon pointed at us by a man stating that he would kill us. Do we give up the right of self-defense in that case simply because the shooter is a cop?? If the reasonable expectation of threat does not also apply to threat from a civil servant, specifically a police officer, then by definition we have become a police state. How about if you point a shotgun in my face and state that "you're going to fucking kill me" and I shoot you dead, white or black, cop or thug? It would seem that we have elevated the police over the rights of other citizens, no? I hear no outrage and also silent are those who would argue for absolute right of self-defense from mortal threat. While it may be argued that this is necessary to maintain control in a civil society, I could argue that historical increases in crime coupled with rising police presence would prove this to be patently and provably false. Following this logic, why is there no discussion about the perceived threat on Mr. Brown's life? Does he forfeit rights of self-preservation simply because his assailant is a government gunman as opposed to a private gunman? I would ask if Mr. Brown had a real reason to act in self-defense, and given the principle of perceived threat I would feel him justified for opening fire on the officer in self defense. It appears that the officer fired first, so any logical person would perceive this as a mortal threat on Mr. Brown's life. I for one do not abandon my right of self-preservation simply because my assailant is a civil servant, especially in a climate where murder by gov't employee is a known occasional occurrence.

No clue. There is no evidence to indicate. You guys feel free to fight amongst yourselves as to who has the bigger more omnipotent deity, while us mere mortals attempt to use accumulated knowledge rather than fear and dogma to at least try to figure it out.

You call my beliefs cockamamie, and insist that the theory of evolution is full of holes and hand waving. No Problem. I call your beliefs absolute fantasy, with no basis in reality whatsoever given my personal experience and tangible evidence gathered to date. No problem. I would restate that in each of our cases the onus is on us to provide credible evidence to bolster our belief. In my case, the evidence is gathered by all of our best scientific efforts. In your case, tangible evidence is as yet non-existent. While neither is proven, I remain unconvinced that the deity in question is of your definition. I respect your right to believe what you have read, but I do not respect what you have read in that it goes against reason in my view. The preponderance of evidence leads me to believe in something different at this time. The theory of Intelligent Design, in my view, is the more likely one to be proven correct in that there may well have been genetic manipulation of Earth species by unknown parties, much as we are capable of genetic manipulation now. The idea of "little green men" adding engineered lifeforms to our planet is absolutely credible and probable in my view. We verge on that capability ourselves, and to claim that we as Earth-based humans are the only iteration of life capable of such science is also quite arrogant and ignorant of the known realities of the cosmos. I would submit that I personally find Intelligent Design to be the most credible of all current theories, but I reserve judgement on who or what did the designing. I apologize for my heated response earlier, at the time i felt that the word "cockamamie" was a direct insult to my personal beliefs, and I responded in kind. I will leave it at that.

That's rich..... a creationist calling science a cockamamie story. How about we call a spade a spade, and by that I mean you are spewing poisonous and revisionist fantasy fit for the dark ages and nothing else. I resent the implication that my belief is cockamamie, and I reply in kind by stating my sincere sadness at your profound and dogmatic zealotry.. Hopefully the age of religious fantasy is nearly over, and your disease with it.

Here is my honest perspective. I intend no insult, but I see the world as I see it and I hold all religions in utter and profound contempt. This says nothing about the existence of God which no living person can prove or disprove. If you believe that a being with the power to create our universe actually had their wishes interpreted correctly without prejudice or deceit then I believe you are delusional. Designing your ideology around myth has no place in any sane world IN MY OPINION. If you are free to speak your spiritual thoughts as a religious person you will hopefully respect my freedom to speak my thoughts as an absolute unbeliever. There may be a God, but I am not buying your perverted versions of Him/Her/It. Given the multitude of opposing religious beliefs on the planet, one inescapable fact becomes clear.. if one belief is correct, then the others must be incorrect. I further propose that they are all incorrect. The onus of proof is on the claimants of these religious myths . None has been forthcoming in all of history, in my recollection. From ANY religion. The books are fables. Prove otherwise or you have no credibility in any sane argument. Religion, as opposed to spirituality, deserves to die in my opinion, the sooner the better. It has been largely subverted as a mind control device, and none more so than Islam. While equally guilty of acts of obscene cruelty based on religious pretext, Christianity , Judaism, and the other myth-based cults appear to have been moderated in recent history by other more worldly influences like science, education and commerce. The same cannot currently be said for Islam. It has not progressed and is retarded in this context. This is not a result of the Qur'an being anymore bloodthirsty than the other competing stories, but is a result of a more dogmatic zealotry among its' followers. Adherence to religious dogma in defiance of logic and easily available evidence is the domain of all religion, but thankfully as the level of education rises , dogmatic adherence drops. This is why all religions have opposed a genuine scientific education to a degree . Any glimpse of a real natural state of the world is anathema to religion. Islam will eventually crumble under its' own ignorance in my opinion. If you ignore the minds of half your population, nature will take care of your demise . Educating women is not something you want to stop doing if you have any hope of survival in a changing world. Islam, in this dynamic worldview context, is incapable of proliferation without violent assistance. It can't proliferate naturally. It needs violent coercion to survive, and is still intrinsically tied with terrorism and bloodshed as the other religions once were. In my view it poses a far greater threat than the other dogmas, in that each follower is more zealous. This is not presumption, but based on my own immediate personal experience with followers. As for those who would dismiss me as an agnostic outright, I would submit that if you actually believe the world is under ten thousand years old, then I rejoice in your dismissal. It strengthens my belief.

Can't wait for the Saudis to consider the petro-yen, petro-ruble, or petro-ingot. Then we'll see how fast they miraculously become dictators and terrorists, and how fast they are "liberated" from their homes and limbs. This argument will be repeated ad nauseum . Way to prop up dictators when convenient. When exactly did Saddam change from all round good-guy ally to all round bad-guy dictator? Oh right, when he considered trading oil in something other than greenbacks. Like it or not, Saddam was the only thing holding Iraq together, and Iraqi deaths of innocents have gone up by a factor of thousands since 2003. Every time there's a change in the civil war situation in Iraq, I get slammed at the gas pumps hard. Mission accomplished indeed. Oil companies win, Haliburton wins, and the cherry on top is that now all of the obscene profiteering in corrupt "rebuilding" will be covered up by destruction of said "rebuilding" . The more Iraq is in turmoil, the higher oil prices will be. I suspect that this has been the objective from the start, and so far there is 0 credible evidence to dispel the suspicion. I will never forget what infrastructure in Iraq was protected and secured first when Coalition boots hit the ground. That is the indicator of the mission objective. i will also not lose sight of the fact that the biggest proponents of the mission were oil and war contracting interests.

In reference to the Guardian article linked by scribblet, I would point out that the sex worker's opinion in that article is that the law has increased danger while removing prostitutes from the police radar. How is this a positive development? The Swedes are NOT saying the law is a success, at least not the ones who matter the most. My biggest question remains.... Knowing that prohibition of guns, alcohol, and drugs have NEVER worked in North America to reduce users, what magical change do proponents of this law expect will happen with regards to prostitution? The track record of prohibition speaks for itself, and any S.O.B. that would beat, drug, pimp, or kill a young woman is not worried about whether it's prohibited or not. Get real.

The last remaining proponents of the erroneously named "Nordic Model" seem to be the original proponents of it. The sex trade workers in Sweden seem to be strongly against it. Some Swedish MP's are now calling for legalization, claiming that the "Swedish Model" has failed. Interestingly enough, there was initially significant opposition to the law, a lot of it coming from NGO's and academics. There are enough diametrically opposed "results" of the law's passage claimed by researchers that only one scenario is probable, out of a few possibles, and that is that someone is lying or has a hidden agenda causing them to distort the facts, knowingly or otherwise. My instinct is to listen to the sex workers, and the Swedish women are saying they are in far greater danger than ever because of the riskier playing field of illegality. Why is it that we insist on adopting models that are at the very least questionable, and in this case useless as per the ones it is directed to serve?

One of the main reasons things cost more here is distance between consumers. We have far higher transport costs per average good simply because of average distance between consumers, and incredibly high road cost per capita that gets a large share of our gdp. Health care is also expensive, but hey , we take care of our own. Anybody bitching about higher prices compared to the States is missing the fact that that lowest price at the register doesn't necessarily save money in the long run, that low price may have hidden and huge long term cost. Is it worth it to decimate your local retail industry to achieve a few percentage points short term savings at Walmart or similar? Is it worth it to crush small farms by moving the whole system into superfarms to create economy of scale savings?? Never, but people get sucked in by the sticker price. i would welcome more debate about credit based expansion as per dre's post. This is one of the root driving forces of the current U.S. economy as far as i know, and much hinges on the value of U.S. bonds. The consequences can be excellent or catastrophic when that much credit is held by China for example.

On the CBC radio yesterday, the basis of the discussion was that prostitution is primarily a predatory and exploitative act by men on women. I agree for the most part on this, in terms of child and forced prostitution, which make up a large part of the industry. The aim of the bill seems to be to eliminate the human trafficking and pimping side of prostitution. In practice, I believe it will accomplish very little, however admirable the aims. Missing from the conversation was any specific mention of the Nevada or Holland models of legality, which have been successful as far as I remember. I would welcome any clarification on the historical success of a taxable/regulated model such as the Chicken Ranch or the Amsterdam Red Zone, and why or why not we adapt said models to our legislation.

Guilty of assumption. I assumed a high profile case like this with international implications would cost at least a million. If others are estimating a lower cost we will see how off the mark my assumption is. I'm thinking a million is way low. Time will tell. I could, however, argue that a citation is needed for a high profile extradition case that cost LESS than a million. This case is destined for astronomical legal fees. I shall endeavour to provide cites in future, and not make wild baseless assumptions about legal costs. My rubbery bad.

It will cost a million to solve the extradition paperwork now. Supple wire-core moss-colored buttocks intact for the moment.

In my opinion, it doesn't matter what the differing ideas of age of consent are on either side of the border. Stop wasting my electrons on that argument please. The only thing that matters is the law as written in Florida where the crime occurred. I PRESUME the woman had adequate knowledge of the law before entering into sexual relations with the minor. She knowingly broke the law, aware of the consequences. I agree with the idea that this may open the floodgates for every convicted U.S. citizen to see Canada as a convenient place to claim refugee status, if only to delay their incarceration. I disagree with the age of consent definition as it exists in Florida, and I strongly believe that the sentence in this case is ludicrous, but i'm not in charge of Florida, the Floridians are. They can make any damn law they choose and enforce sentencing as they see fit, transgressors beware. The woman was living in Florida of her own volition, with opportunity to leave for other places if she wanted? Doesn't sound like a refugee to me, sounds like an opportunist. Does a mechanism exist in Florida for her to appeal the sentence, if not the conviction? If so, then I would rather see the Floridians, or the woman /her family foot the coming large legal bill, rather than Joe Canadian Taxpayer. You can bet my flexible green plastic ass on that.