Scotty

Up until this year I basically left my money in a number of TD mutual funds in my RSP account and didn't do a lot else. But this year I started making a LOT more money, and from about mid-March have been investing fairly heavily. It's been a trying experience given what kind of year it was, but I've learned a lot - though I still think I'm nothing but an amateur. As my investments have grown, though (through monthly purchases, not so much profits), the amount I can make and lose in a day has grown, and I've found myself becoming more risk adverse. I've been reading The Intelligent Investor, by Benjamin Graham, and that's settled quite a few things in my mind, particularly with regard to value investing. But I'm not taking it as a bible, and don't have the time or inclination to put the level of attention into researching stocks he advocates. I do, however, look into them far more carefully than I used to. I find myself watching investment shows on TV, particularly on BNN, and reading the investment pages in the Globe and Financial Post. I'm checking my watch list, and the statistics and performance of all sorts of stocks, funds and ETFs, incorporating new ones to keep an eye on, discarding others. Every month I make more purchases, and that's always a fun time. It's quite interesting and I can spend hours looking over things, researching them, reading what the so-called experts at stockchase have to say, then looking at the contrarian views. One thing I've learned is that the 'experts' can be wrong as often as they're right, if not more. That's something Graham mentions in his book, which was originally written decades ago. So things haven't changed much. In fact, the worst investments I made were made very early, as I was just starting out, and because I read 'experts' telling me how Manulife had its act together and was going to be doing so much better (-35%), and how Research in Motion was also going to be doing much better in 2011 (LOL). Thankfully, I didn't take large positions in either, as I was just starting out and being tentative. Graham was so right about not letting day to day, month to month changes over-excite you, for I've seen myself drop out of stocks because of short-term falls, only to see them rise up again and make back what I'd lost. At the same time, I don't have the tolerance for loss to watch a stock plunge month after month and ignore it. I did with Manulife and RIM but they were small positions, and even then, well, I should have gotten out a long time ago. Anyway, it's interesting (to me anyway) how much of a hobby it's become, and also that while many of these 'experts' and their funds lost quite a bit of money last year I was up reasonably well, despite my initial set-backs. It's also interesting how completely inept these experts are, as a group, in predicting what the market is going to do, and how they give in to their own emotions to do the very things Graham warns of. You'd think a group of professionals would have more, well, professionalism, and less emotional, longer term view of things.

I don't believe that child porn creates victims. I believe that child molesters would molest children even if the camera had never been invented. They don't do it so they can take pictures. Men don't have sex with women so they can take pictures either, but that doesn't mean they're not interested in taking pictures. Do you think if that were banned men would no longer want to have sex with women? I'm using logic here not emotion. Because laws should be based on logic.

I think it's you who has no understanding of the issue. And no understanding of the law either. What I said was that child molesting would happen whether cameras were present or not. Do you have a problem with basic English?

Canada accepts closer to 30,000 refugees per year, and for the most part, they have few or no documents identifying them. We generally accept their word about who they are and what happened to them. In fact, in Ottawa, it emerged that a number of the so-called Somalian refugees were actually Kenyan. We couldn't tell them apart, you see. And many do travel home repeatedly for visits.

Ask John Baird to check em out!

You forget the videos of the hazings ordinary guys underwent in the Canadian Airborn Regiment? Young guys are dunmbasses. You need discipline and intelligence at the top then you don't have to worry about hazing.

Why? Do you think they'll be executed as soon as anyone knows they're gay? Didn't Irshad Manji do an in-person interview with the spiritual head of Hamas in the territories?

Perhaps I missed the news stories of all the refugees lining up to join the military....

Only because very few of them reach here. If tens of millions of them did show up, then what? Allow all gays who are discriminated against in their home countries? Tens of millions? And how can you even prove they're gay? What else? Allow all women who are persecuted in their own barbaric countries? All two billion of them? Already, huge numbers of our so-called refugees are nothing of the sort, unless you count economic refugees. The mere fact that so many of them travel home on repeated visits indicates they never had any real fear of persecution.

I differentiate between pedophiles who molest children, and those who restrain themselves. I try not to judge with contempt and rage someone whose sexual fantasies/wishes/wants/needs are beyond their control and foisted upon them by whatever circumstances led to their disorder.

You are making a moral judgement. I'm speaking of instinct. Men are hard wired to be attracted to healthy, breeding age females. Unlike females, who are generally keyed to find a man to protect and provide for them, men are keyed to finding a mate to produce children. And there are an awful lot of sixteen year old girls who can easily pass for years older. Do you suppose your body knows the difference, or cares? No, there isn't. Your link was about prostitution during super bowl weekend. And yes, some prostitutes are young. I look at crimes every day when I watch the news, and those video shows of closed circuit and police dashboard cameras. So? I don't think anyone has ever demonstrated that profit has any real influence in child molesting. And I'm not suggesting it be legal to sell this stuff. It never has been. It's always been illegal under the obscenity provisions of the criminal code. You're welcome to your opinion. Mine is that, barring any case where someone is paying someone to provide this material, it should not be a crime to view or possess it (although I'd be in favour of confiscating any such material found). As I said in an earlier post, my understanding is that almost all child porn consists of teenagers making it themselves, old stuff from the seventies, and the byproduct, the souvenirs, if you will, of child molesters whose primary motivation was the molestation. Ie, they would have molested the child regardless of whether a camera was available. I do think any trade in that material should be actively discouraged, although even there I'm less adamant when it comes to 'youths' if you will, as opposed to children. Well, God knows we have enough of them around (dysfunctional adults). However, I do not see any evidence there is any sort of 'child porn' industry. Underage teenagers involved in prostitution is, for me, a different kettle of fish. I am, as with child molesters, more than favorable to heavy sentencing for primps and the like, or to anyone who knowingly has sex with someone underage. I just don't like the idea of putting people in prison because their fantasies are perverse. Or even because they look at a picture on the internet.

If by 'catastrophe' you mean before they molest a child I'd agree. I don't think looking at a picture in your basement is a catastrophe. I just don't see the damage to society - with the caveat that if there actually were people molesting children to satisfy a porn audience that would change my opinion.

I realize that's the idea. I just don't see the result, or, logically, how it could have that result. Whomping child molesters hard, putting them away in some sort of prison town for life would produce a better result.

Well, given virtually every young man and teenage male views porn - and quite a number of the women too, I'd discount the first. And having seen some - I'd discount the second. Video porn? Picture porn? Written porn?

You see something done again and again and again, day after day, multiple times, and it never seems to be punished, it's very easy to fall into the same behaviour pattern yourself.

I dunno. It seems to be boys far more than girls.

Well, no, but it doesn't automatically mean they ARE either. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not speaking of those who molest children. In my opinion, we don't come down hard enough on such people. What I'm talking about is some guy downloading a picture in his basement. I just don't see that as being such a horrific thing that we need to destroy them and put them in prison. Maybe it's simply because I have a lot of empathy and imagination. I can imagine what would happen if some bluenose decided that anyone who had naked pictures of women must go to prison. I mean, huh? Why? Because you're lusting after what you're hard-wired to lust after? I think that society was so disgusted with these people, that it basically criminalized their fantasies. But these people can't control their fantasies, they can't control what they find sexually attractive. It's not like they wanted to find themselves sexually attracted to children, after all.

I realize that's the party line, but I've seen nothing whatsoever to indicate any truth in that. All child porn I'm aware of, having looked into this matter and read quite a few studies, is made up of the 'souvenirs' taken of their victims by child molesters, or of teen pictures taken willingly by themselves and their friends, or of old pictures from the seventies or earlier. There is no "industry". And reduce demand for what? For kiddy porn? Well, I suppose you can reduce demand for anything by making it criminal. But what's it all in aid of? It's not going to reduce the interest of pedophiles in children. We're talking about a mental illness here, right? A mental illness which causes certain people to have their sexual wires crossed so that they lust after per-pubesent children. I mean, if we have no gay porn, does that mean it will reduce the number of gay people? But what is the purpose? Are we trying to reduce the interest in adult men of lusting after sixteen year old girls? If so, why is it legal to sleep with them? And besides, you can't eliminate a normal human sexual response, which is what an attractive sixteen year old girl produces in adult men.

Clearly I meant naked pictures, sexually explicit pictures. And sixteen is the age of consent, so it's entirely legal for adults to have sex with them.

Fact is that the moderation here is pretty much like the speed rules on highways. That is, everyone knows the posted limits, but nobody actually goes by them except a few old people. The unwritten rule is as long as you keep to within 20 kilometers of the posted limit you're okay - usually - unless the cop is in a bad mood or needs to meet their quota or something. I mean, hell, if you actually drive the speed limit on the highway you're causing a traffic backup! Everyone is having to pull out to get around you and giving you dirty looks! They think you're weird or stupid or something! But of course, that means you can get busted for speeding at any time. If you tell the cop "But everyone's going that speed!" He doesn't need to care. "You know the limit. What others do doesn't excuse you," he'll say. And if you say you've been driving that speed for years without any hassle that still won't buy you any sympathy. You just got *kcked by the fickle finger of fate. That's life. The moderation here is kind of like that. If they actually enforced the rules two thirds of the membership would be banned.

You don't think that constitutes a mental illness? If you had a desperate urge to have sex with toads wouldn't you call that a mental illness of some sort? I mean, c'mon! These people are incapable of normal relationships with adults. Clearly that's a mental disease and is described so by psychiatrists.

As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia (or paedophilia) is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents (persons age 16 or older) typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children (generally age 13 years or younger, though onset of puberty may vary)

I think that was one of the justifications for the law, but I've never seen any evidence of any truth to it. Downloading and possessing child porn is criminal because, basically, people are disgusted by those who are sexually attracted to children. People make excuses about cause and effect reasons but none have ever been demonstrated to be true. Why don't you wonder why we send people to prison for downloading pictures of sixteen year old girls but let them legally have sex with sixteen year old girls?

Best is a pretty low bar to pass given the weakness we see all around us. And you might consider losing the attitude. It won't endear you to anyone.

But we're not talking about a radical 'group'. We're talking about a radical preacher who preaches his hate to the masses, and thus has some impact on cretins who think he or she actually telling the truth (witness FOX news advocates). Suppose he's out there pounding the pulpit castigating blondes as the demons of hell come to destroy us all, and that only with the absence of blondes do we have a hope of paradise? He's not a group. He's not plotting or planning anything. But some of those who watch and hear him go out and murder blondes on a regular basis because of what he says. Should we just let him go on talking?