Scotty

Well, there's this, from Wikipedia In the spring of 2002, the Christian Science Monitor reported on the results of national surveys by Christian Ministry Resources and concluded: “Despite headlines focusing on the priest pedophile problem in the Roman Catholic Church, most American churches being hit with child sexual-abuse allegations are Protestant, and most of the alleged abusers are not clergy or staff, but church volunteers.”[155] Some commentators, such as journalist Jon Dougherty, have argued that media coverage of the issue has been excessive, given that the same problems plague other institutions, such as the US public school system, with much greater frequency.[156][157][158] Tom Hoopes, then National Catholic Register executive editor, observed: "during the first half of 2002, the 61 largest newspapers in California ran nearly 2,000 stories about sexual abuse in Catholic institutions, mostly concerning past allegations. During the same period, those newspapers ran four stories about the federal government’s discovery of the much larger — and ongoing — abuse scandal in public schools."[159] George Weigel, the Chair of Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, District of Columbia, noted: "In the United States alone, there are reportedly some 39 million victims of childhood sexual abuse... According to other recent studies, 2 percent of sex abuse offenders were Catholic priests—a phenomenon that spiked between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s but seems to have virtually disappeared... [Yet] the sexual abuse story in the global media is almost entirely a Catholic story, in which the Catholic Church is portrayed as the epicenter of the sexual abuse of the young."[

China has basically destroyed our manufacturing sector. And they haven't even started on cars yet! They'll be producing them and shipping them over here within the next ten years, and they'll be a lot cheaper than what we can build since their workers get very little in the way of wages or benefits. What are we competing in? China breaks every trade law, from exporting good produced by prisoners to mislabeling products as if they come from third party nations, to predatory pricing, stealing blueprints of other products and copying them, stealing trade secrets through government espionage and giving them to government controlled corporations, you name it, they do it.

Maybe I just don't think a dismissive one liner is all that funny... We've been in a trade war with China for many years now. You haven't noticed? Neither has the government. Nevertheless, they consistently violate almost every rule of international trade.

Maybe it's just that you haven't heard of it. In fact, as far as I know, the Catholic church is no more likely to be subjected to such complaints than any other religious institution. My research of cases over the past 20 years indicates no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination -- or indeed, than nonclergy. However determined news media may be to see this affair as a crisis of celibacy, the charge is just unsupported. Literally every denomination and faith tradition has its share of abuse cases, and some of the worst involve non-Catholics. Every mainline Protestant denomination has had scandals aplenty, as have Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah´s Witnesses, Jews, Buddhists, Hare Krishnas -- and the list goes on. One Canadian Anglican (Episcopal) diocese is currently on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of massive lawsuits caused by decades of systematic abuse, yet the Anglican church does not demand celibacy of its clergy. Zenit

No, there actually isn't. It'd be more profitable and less dangerous to run cocaine from South America to Miami. You'd probably last a lot longer, too. I recall reading something a while back about the number of 'child porn' web sites. There seemed an awful lot, but then the article went on to point out the actual lifespan of any of them was a matter of days, and that most were simply repeats of the ones shut down. Ie, a web site keeps getting shut down and pops up again later, only to be shut down again, and again and again. How do you make money at that? How do you get credit card processors? The idea is counter intuitive and illogical. BTW, a friend of mine runs some porn sites. These are only literary porn, ie, written porn, but he's constantly having issues with his credit card processor, so has to be very careful about what he puts up there, and even what the covers show lest they drop him. One complaint, and one review can lose you your credit card processor and suddenly you can't make sales. It's happened to him on several occasions.

A well-thought out rebuttal, Michael. Certainly will lead to interesting debate... not!

It strikes me as akin to the Black man fired for incompetence crying racism. She knew she couldn't win in court, so she went to the media "they're being homophobes!". And the Globe was eager to buy it and start this whole phony controversy.

Prime minster with an absolute majority in both houses? Ok. I'd throw out the Canada Health Act, and adopt the Swedish health care system, with elements of France and Germany. Cut immigration by 50% and refocus it on Europe. Work with the provinces to bring in a new level of trade/apprenticeship colleges/programs like the Germans have. Create a civilian 'army' by drafting all able bodied men and women without kids to look after who receive government assistance. This 'army' for want of another name, would receive physical training, be taught discipline, and be used in a variety of jobs from clearing snow to weeding and cutting grass in parks, cleaning up garbage, paving roads, harvesting crops or whatever else the government has use for. And I don't care if the unions and civil libertarians howl. If you don't want to be drafted, you simply pay your own way in life. All prisoners, except those who are too dangerous would likewise be doing work or learning a trade. No more warehousing. Fraud laws would be made stricter, and fines replaced with jail time. That means those guys who pave your driveway, which cracks and falls apart three months later, the roofer who does a miserable, crappy job with sub-standard material, or never even finishes it, the auto mechanic who lies about what was wrong with your car so he can triple the bill, the plumber who pretends you need to get your lawn dug up at enormous cost to replace your sewer pipe, the sports shop owner who sells cut rate 'official' jerseys which he knew were forgeries, those guys would all go to prison. Over-billing would likewise be cause for prison time. Companies which sell you products or services which are not as claimed, or which fall apart quickly, would be put out of business, even if their name is Ford or Chrysler. All products originating in China would be subjected to full inspections at the borders, and the cost passed on to China through a special tariff. No foreign state, including any state-owned enterprises would be permitted to invest in Canada, or purchase any Canadian company or corporation. Any politician who fails to try to the best of his or her ability to fulfill the promises in his election platform would be forbidden from running a second time. Any politician caught lying would be fired, fined, and banned from ever running in an election again. All new buildings would be required to adopt much stricter energy and water efficiency systems, including gray water recycling and top end insulation, and, wherever practical, be required to be equipped with geothermal heating. Not a well thought out platform but just off the top of my head.

You took the 'issue' of a government lawyer stating settled law with long precedence behind it as some sort of political message to conservatives?

Andrew Coyne has, I think, the final word in today's Post, where he points out the ridiculousness of this whole phony controversy, and the incompetent, tabloid journalism and political grandstanding behind it. The “formal validity” of the marriage — that is, whether the vows were exchanged in the appropriate manner— is determined by the laws of the place where the marriage was performed. But the “essential validity” — that is, whether the couple were eligible to get married at all — is determined by the laws of each partner’s “ante-nuptial domicile,” the place they lived before they were married. There’s no actual controversy on this point. It’s supported by reams of precedent. It’s not some invention of this government, or of Canada for that matter, but is part of the fabric of international law. Shoddy Reporting and Cheap Politics

So if you support Israel are you sanguine about it marching down the demographic road to its own destruction?

I have been getting out of mutual funds because of their high fees - not to mention poor results. The ones I'm still in - for now - are all bond funds. And to be honest, I'm only in them because I have to fill out a form and take it in to the bank to arrange to get my funds moved from my bank's rrsp account to my discount broker's rrsp account, where I can exchange them for something else. As an example. TD Canadian Bond Fund +8.4% yr MER 1.11% BMO Long Fed Bond ETF +19.7% yr MER 0.20% TD RR Bond Fund +15.3% yr MER 1.50% Ishares RR Bond ETF +16.7% yr MER 0.35% Of course, it's even worse for equities example TD Canadian Equity -11.16% yr MER 2.18% TD Dividend Growth Fund -1.50% yr MER 2.03% BMO Global Infrastructure ETF +19.65% yr MER 0.61% BTW, half my money is in bond ETFs and funds. Given how they did last year and the rocky road ahead I don't see that changing soon.

But he can't help what arouses him, no more than anyone else can. You are judging his morality based on factors beyond his control. That's simply nonsense. People aren't molesting children because they can put the pictures on the internet. They're molesting children because they're sexually attracted to them and don't have either the necessary self-control or the care about the harm they cause to not do anything about it. As I said earlier, eliminating pictures entirely, eliminating the internet entirely, is not going to do anything to stop sexual assaults on children. I grant you the possibility, but the fact he looked at a picture of someone naked does not make him a participant in the abuse, no matter how far you want to stretch it. That's especially so given the majority of the children in child porn pictures are probably middle aged by now.

The pipeline is going to go through. It might not go through in precisely that location, but A pipeline is going to take that oil to the west coast for shipment to Asia. The opponents of this particular route would be better advised to recommend a better, safer one, ie, one further south, as opposed to simply opposing ALL pipelines headed for the coast. There is simply too much at stake for this to be allowed to be blocked by a bunch of people who quite literally do not care about the economics involved, or that oil is the only thing driving our economy right now.

That include when Jean Chretien and Paul Martin characterized the Reformers as unpatriotic because they wanted to clarify what the governments response would be in the event 50.1% voted to separate?

Absolutely agree. How much is there to be said anyway? A few dozen presentations ought to do it.

Uh, how would they do that when the TFSA is limited to $5k per year and is only in its fourth year?

The general reason why white collar criminals get lower sentences is because up until they're caught they generally led exemplary lives, held down jobs, etc. Most street crimes by contrast, are committed by people with no gainful employment and previous criminal records.

Because he downloaded some pictures? Really?

This begs the question, if a criminal hold himself to a very low standard should we hold them to lower standards and give them weaker sentences?

It's pretty easy to say something is dumb. It takes actual effort to try and demonstrate how it's dumb. Yes, and more to the point, a man who downloads those pictures is considered to be guilty of accessing and posessing child porn, can be put in prison, and can be labelled a sex offender for life EVEN if he thought the girl in the picture was actually 18 or more. It's not always very easy to tell in that age range and the law does not allow for him not knowing the age. Or how about we re-write the laws so that while it's against obscenity provisions to post such pictures when you know the age, it's not illegal to possess or download them? I really dislike laws which can actually make criminals of people who have no criminal intent and have caused no harm to anyone. .That's another argument I've seen a lot. Unfortunately for those who make it, every credible, scientific study undertaken to determine a causal relationship between pornography and violence against women/children has failed to show any such link. All pornography is, by nature, exploitative. That is not what I said. I said that the porn does not cause molestation, that the molesting would happen with or without the presence of cameras or the existence of the internet. Didn't Muhammed take a 9 year old girl as one of his "wives' centuries ago? Didn't the Greeks molest young boys (by our standards)? The sexual targeting of young people is nothing new.

Really? And how do you know that's BS? Did I ask you to provide a link when you said they never return home? The fact is that the government doesn't even keep records of when people leave Canada. That's one of the things their new legislation will hopefully deal with, so we can find out how many so-called immigrants and so-called refugees actually stay in Canada as opposed to those who simply 'go home' to collect their cheques. 71% of Tamil refugees went home for vacation

Don't recall reading about a mass of former refugees joining the military either.

You have a cite for that? I read often enough about how many refugees get off the plane or cross the border from the states and declare refugee status.

Yes, but that was done to satisfy the sexual desires of the molester, not so he could put them on the internet. Again, if the internet did not exist and such pictures could not be shared or sold, do you honestly believe they would not be taken? And, to point out, many of the pictures involved were willingly taken by teenagers of themselves. The term 'child porn' applies to any sexual pictures of anyone up to the age of 18 minus 1 day. It also applies to pictures drawn from the imagination, including cartoons and computer art, and to written works of fiction.