Scotty

The viewing is illegal in Canada. BTW, you can't actually view something without downloading it. It might be an automatic process, but it's in your computer's cache. The law says nothing about having to pay for it, either here or in the US.

Those involved in the fight against child pornography are generally well-meaning people. Among them are a number of hysterics, though. I've read similar such statements before, written by a similar type of activist. One thing they have in common is a singular lack of evidence to support their beliefs. You'll note the cite says "statistics show" and then fails to either name those statistics or give any numbers. At other times where the origin of a given statistic is given I've looked into it and found that the number was simply made up, or wildly exaggerated based on some other figure.

Well, this one seems to have more than most, especially given the gas companies don't have to tell anyone what's in the chemicals they're pumping into the ground. And as there is such an oversupply of gas I don't think there is so much urgency we should be doing it without further environmental assessments.

I saw no such example. I would be surprised if they were Canadians. Technically. The Soviet Union had a constitution which protected civil rights, too. It was meaningless. I'm not talking about a system of government. I'm talking about a culture. If a government doesn't bother to enforce murder it's not rarely because of a 'system of government'. How about talking to them? How about doing a little background check on their attitudes? A friend of mine applied for a job at CSIS. They interviewed her family, her friends, and did their best to form a full and complete picture of what kind of person she was. Are you telling me you can't tell the difference between the type of person you might want as a friend and the type of person whose values you would find repugnant? You have trouble with the idea some cultures are more socially advanced than others? Why do we need to assume some kind of godly neutrality anyway? Have you forgotten the point of immigration is to serve Canada's needs? We can assess others based on whether they meet up to OUR cultural beliefs with impunity, and select only those who do. ,Riiiight. Sounds to me like the three monkey approach. Harper is a political whore who will do what's popular most of the time. The reason he supports immigration is because so many people, mostly almost entirely knowledge-free of the subject, support immigration.

Cop-out. You're saying you're not intelligent enough to make a distinction between cultural practices which are merely different than ours, which we don't choose or want to practice, and cultural practices which ought to be abhorrent to any civilized people? Let's get back to honour killings. This is a practice we find abhorrant, and which we find so abhorrant our society never gave rise to them. Sure, individuals have killed their loved ones, invariably out of intense psychological despair and rage. But we've never seen families agree to murder people because their actions were considered 'dishonorable', nor anything remotely similar. Now you can say, well, not for us to judge. But let's let them judge. If they truly thought this was an acceptable thing, then honor killing would be legal. But it's not. They know damned well, those societies in which it flourishes, that it's an evil thing which is indefensible. Oh yes, they know it. That's why it's not legal. And yet at the same time it flourishes, and their societies largely ignore it. People are rarely, if ever prosecuted for it, and if they are, they're generally given a slap on the wrist. So can we not judge a society which shrugs off the doing of despicable things it KNOWS are despicable? Which makes little or no effort to stop such things from going on in their midst? We can use female genital mutilation as another one. We can use the general brutalization of women as a third. How many men do you think get prosecuted for beating their wives half to death in Lebanon or Jordan or Saudi Arabia or Syria or Iran? Maybe if the wife has a powerful family who care. Otherwise, those societies don't seem to care. The mistreatment of women is illegal, and yet the same time, largely acceptable to those societies, those cultures? And what happens when we bring tens of thousands of those people here and yet don't put much effort into absorbing them into our culture? We don't actually know since we're far, far too polite to keep statistics based on race or culture. We don't KNOW what crimes they commit here, what level of spousal abuse goes on. We can infer it's higher than that of Canadians simply by what goes on in their own culture, but we have no proof because we willfully look the other way. But we've seen accounts of behavior in Sweden which leads us to wonder, and in Australia as well. What do you say to people who have been brutalized, whose lives have been destroyed by the immigrants you bring here? Tough luck?

You've never actually been to the US, have you? I mean, for more than a weekend as a tourist or shopper. The people of Texas might speak the same language, but they are soooo different on any number of levels. Why not compare us to Singapore. They seem to have achieved a far lower crime rate than Texas, or for that matter, Canada ever have or hope to. And they don't do it by being kind and gentle. . It did? Care to explain why crime fell in the US at the same time as it fell in Canada? And that it fell more. Oh, but their punitive justice system doesn't work! Only our kind and forgiving system works!

How is not wanting my water to be flammable politically correct? Did you ever see Gasland?

Obviously, and yet this thread is actually discussing rapist-murderers in that his daughter was raped and murdered, and he was not suggesting pickpockets or muggers be given a rope. By the way, the senator is an opponent of the death penalty.

There is no sane way to compare the criminal problems of Texas with those in Canada. Texas, like most American states, more than most, in fact, has immense urban slums filled with minorities who have no hope and little education. They are breeding grounds for crime. Anything which fails to address that will, of course, be unsuccessful at lowering crime. Fortunately, we do not have the same situation here. The continuing insistence by the Left that America and Canada are identical, and that what works or doesn't work there will or will not work here defies logic.

I don't accept either your apology or your premise.

Perhaps we too will learn the error of our ways and someday enjoy the great living of the people of Mississippi, and Arkansas, and other great 'right to work' states. Heck, medical care? Pensions? Livable wages? Who needs em! They just get in the way of profit!

Ah, the joy in Republican circles, the rubbing of hands in glee at the prospect of the America they're building. All the rich will live in massive, walled fortresses. All the rest will live a gray existence, working from dusk to dawn and going back to their tiny shacks while the corporations pump untaxed money into the pockets of the rich. "Push those wages down more, boys! They're still half again as high as the Chinese!"

I am a dedicated supporter of Stephen Harper. I have an alter in my house with Stephen's picture and every night I light incense and pray to Stephen to protect me and my economy from Godless leftists and liberals. May they rot in hellfire and damnation to the end of time!!

The reason we sell oil at discounted prices is because our oil is piped into the midwest, where the refineries are saturated. It's the law of supply and demand. Too much supply there begats lower prices. This is the same reason why natural gas is so cheap here in north America but sells for six times higher in Asia.

Waldo seems to believe that 'neutrality' means 'people who agree with Waldo'. I'm not buying it. You can be angry about injustice and still have a sense of justice. And btw, can I express the irony that so many people who support terminally ill people being allowed to kill themselves, even being assisted in killing themselves, are bug-eyed outraged at the thought of allowing some guy who's in prison for the rest of his life having the same option? It seems to me the same arguments can be made in both cases.

Yeah, this is the old cliche'd belief of the Left that within every rapist-murderer is a good boy who is just misunderstood. All he needs is a little hug, a little finger wagging, and he'll understand that raping and murdering is a 'bad' thing, and will thus avoid doing them. Because, after all, he's really a good boy, and doesn't really want to hurt people. He's just hurting inside! I'll accept your 'restorative justice' for murderers when they figure out how to restore their victims to life.

And, of course, the former descrtion is of politicians who agree with your views, and the latter would be people with whom you disagree. The guy made an off the cuff remark. It wasn't an attempt to formulate policy. Get over it.

Is there a formula for defining what is porn? Porn is different things to different peoples. If I were to define porn, I would, given my experience, suggest that porn can invariably be defined in large part by its lack of quality. Poor lighting, poor music, poor acting, poor dialogue, poor to non-existent writing. It's not hard to tell what is porn. I have a feeling that if you found yourself in the presence of some sister-loving backwoods redneck hick from the Appalachians you'd realize it fairly quickly. There's a certain lack of 'quality' there in their culture. Now why should we care? Let me put it into a term a liberal might find more understandable. Suppose back in the 80s there was a proposal to solve the problems of South Africa and Rhodesia by allowing all the Whites to immigrate to Canada. How would you feel at the thought of importing that many people with their particular cultural views here? More importantly, how would you feel if you were a Black man? Now shift it to modern days. Instead of a Black man you're a woman. And instead of Apartheid loving Whites from southern Africa we're bringing in tens of thousands of people every year from parts of the world where women are considered decidedly inferior, and where that belief is reinforced by religion as well as culture.

You've previously established that you won't make judgements between cultures. That's a deliberate effort not to think. Because in thinking, judgement comes naturally. You're avoiding judging another culture as better or worse due to political correctness.

Given how our manufacturing has collapsed, the taxes and jobs and other economic benefits from the oil industry are the only thing keeping this country on its feet. We're now selling oil at a deep discount in the US because of oversupply and that's costing our economy tens of billions. Thus finding a way to benefit from oil at the world price is indeed a slam dunk for anyone with even a glancing familiarity with economics.

It's interesting how powerful the ideologues of the Left believe Harper is. No matter what the government does at whatever level, they always assume it was Harper himself doing it. Any decision taken was apparently done on his personal instructions, any report that's written by any of the tens of thousands of public servants or by any member of the Conservative Party is automatically Harper's own creation. Apparently he is omniscient and in total control of every single public servant and member of the Tory party right across the country. That being the case, why would they not want such a massively capable man running the country?

I've seen no evidence, nor even an attempt to discover whether or not the viewing of "real" child porn (as opposed to teens with cameras) feeds their creation. From all I've read child porn is simply an aspect of child sexual abuse. That is, it's secondary to the sexual abuse, a byproduct, like a souvenir. The lack of an ability to distribute that video would not mean it wouldn't be taken. The lack of an ability to take a video would not mean the offender wouldn't molest. In any event, this is what I'd do with the laws. 1st. I would change the law to make it only apply to those who were 13 and under. The obscenity provisions of the criminal code would continue to apply to pornography which featured those under 18. Those of you who doubtless don't know anything about that might be interested to learn such material has always been banned and it's distribution punishable by large fines and/or prison terms. Possession, however, was not criminally punishable though subject to seizure. 2nd. I would remove artificially created images/videos (ie, drawings and paintings done from the imagination, computer animations) and written material from the child porn laws entirely. Their inclusion is a criminalizing of people's fantasies. People are entitled to their fantasies, however dark they might be. Again, those who claim that this would incite real life attacks should be aware that no study of pornography has ever shown a causal link between viewing it and real life abuse. I would keep the laws on distribution as is. I would, however, change the law on consumption. I would substitute heavy fines and mandatory treatment for jail time unless there was evidence that the offender had, in fact, molested children in some way. I would also not release their name to the media, though their name would still go on a sexual offender list.

Either your ignorance or dishonesty is at work here. I said nothing of the sort. I said that I would reserve judgement as to the validity of the claims of how horrible this was until I saw what form of child porn was being discussed. As it turns out this was a gay porn site which featured teenage boys. I have no further information on whether this was an imitation site or a deliberate child porn site or not. Many porn sites make claims about 'young' people, or teenagers, but what they really means is 'young looking but over 18'. You can find them all over the internet. So it's possible that the great majority of the boys featured were actually over 18. I note that in the discussions about Bishop Lemay's computer porn it was stated that less than 1% were actually of males under 18. In any event, this was apparently not a site devoted to per-adolescents, and as such was not aimed at pedophiles.

It takes very little to be sent to one of North Korea's infamous prisons. We recently heard that a number of people who apparently failed to show enough sorrow at the death of Kim Jong Ill were arrested and sent there. In addition, the Korean dictatorship has a policy that says the safest way to ensure no one is upset when a person is sent to one of their prisons is to also send their entire extended family with them, including children. Thus, there's no one left to care too much when their loved one dies. North Korea's Prison Camps Shin Dong-hyuk was born in Kwanliso 14, a “rehabilitation” camp 72 kilometres north of Pyongyang, North Korea. For 23 years he knew only pain, hunger and despair, and like all prisoners was forced to witness the daily executions. Even so, life was not without its hard-won, if shocking pleasures. “One lucky day, I discovered some kernels of corn in a small pile of cow dung,” he said in a report released by Amnesty International in May. “I picked them up and cleaned them with my sleeve before eating.” Torture and exeution daily occurances

I have to say that Obama has not done a good job as President. Yes, there's been an obstructionist congress, but that's not exactly a novelty in Washington. Yes, the Republican accusation that he's to blame for the recession are blatant hypocrisy and nonsense. Nevertheless, I've seen no vision and nothing inspirational from the White House, no new, fresh ideas. I don't think any of the current Republicans are likely to beat him, though. Romney is extremely vulnerable in this day when more and more focus is being put on income inequality, and how the wealthy class have changed the rules to favour themselves, buying off congress so they don't have to pay much in taxes, and the burden is shifted to the middle classes. Romney's tax plan, which would further shift the tax burden downward - and not incidentally, cut his own current low taxes in half - is not going to help him any. Nor are pictures of him and his rich buddies with money in their mouths. His statement that he doesn't care about the poor isn't going to help either. And the fact he actually said because of the social safety net is pretty unconvincing given he and his party see it as their second most important task (after lowering taxes for the rich) to cut the social safety net as deeply as possible.