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That is an article, not a scientific paper. But it does mention Aslak Grinsted of the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University, so maybe if I do a google scholar search I'll be able to find it, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt. 1. The article only explains that there is a correlation between temperatures and frequency/severity of hurricanes. It doesn't provide a theoretical model (which is what I asked for). 2. Even if I accept that increased global temperatures can increase the frequency of hurricanes, that doesn't prove/justify the claim that ALL extreme weather events will become more frequent/severe. Climate alarmists constantly claim that all extreme weather events will become more frequent/severe everywhere (so droughts, floods, hurricanes, blizzards, thunderstorms, tornadoes, sand storms, etc.).

Sigh. Immigrants have a number of effects on GDP per capita, including: Increased long term GDP per capita due to economies of scale (very significant for a relatively empty country like Canada), short term decrease in GDP per capita due to depletion of the physical capital stock per capita, affects on GDP per capita by changing the demographic distribution of the population (you want younger immigrants over older immigrants), affect on the human capital stock (different immigrants have different levels of education), etc..Whether a group of immigrants has a net positive or negative effect on Canada's GDP per capita depends on the quality of the immigrants. Immigrants from Hong Kong in the 90's for example had a very positive effect on Canada's GDP per capita and generally had incomes much higher than the rest of the Canadian population. Somalian immigrants on the other hand have had a negative effect on the GDP per capita of Canada. Their incomes are lower and they generally come to Canada with low levels of human capital. Your second paragraph is basically a strawman argument. I'm not arguing that immigration is good cause more people = more GDP. North Korea wasn't on the list I was responding to but I will agree North Korea is worse than Saudi Arabia, even if you are a woman (sure you wouldn't be able to drive, but at least most of the population has cars XD).

Well, initially I wanted a theological debate about what is/isn't required for a women's dress code in Islam. But it is clear that no one else here has sufficient knowledge of islam to have a discussion about this. So if I want to get a good theological discussion I'll probably have to go to an Islamic website. That said, the discussion has now shifted more to the Quebec Charter of Laicite & reasonable accommodation, since we cannot discuss the original topic (do to lack of knowledge about Islam from most posters and the fact that most counter arguments here involve generalizations about religion). Does that answer your question?

So if I make up a religion that says that nobody is allowed to wear burkas, we should now ban burkas?

It's part of your religion that pastafarians shouldn't be able to wear colanders on their heads?

Just because countries are not very religious today doesn't mean that they were not religious in the past. Shinto Buddhism was far stronger pre-ww2 than it is today and strongly influenced the Bushido code. Cambodia is 95% Buddhist. How much more religious do you want? 100%? And you still haven't explained why you think more religion would make these places commit less atrocious crimes. Do you want me to list massacres in history that were motivated by religion? Little mosque is a fiction tv show. But yes tolerant muslims exist. However, muslims != islam. Islam is inherently intolerant of numerous groups including kaffir (non-muslims), apostates and homosexuals. All Islamic texts excluding the medinian Quran have a greater percentage of passages dedicated to anti-jewish statements than mein kampf. Do you want me to provide you with passages from the islamic texts which demonstrate this? People aren't always rational. It's a common problem in economics. So you are saying that there is nothing wrong/intolerant with an ideology that promotes killing of apostates, death penalty for homosexuality, states that muslims are better than non-muslims, does not condem slavery, insists on imposing sharia law even on non-muslims, demands that non-muslims pay 'protection money' to muslims, says that the testimony of women in court is worth half that of a man's, has amputation of hands as the punishment for thievery, stones rape victims to death for adultery, etc.?

Is socialist a troll? I can't tell. Socialist, please provide me with a model or scientific paper that explains how increases in atmospheric CO2 result in more extreme weather events everywhere. And no, A link to a climate alarmist website that merely repeats the same claims without justification does not count.

Clearly you do not understand what a scientific theoretical model is... They say that if you repeat a lie enough times, people will believe it. You link is to an 'environmental action group' not a scientific group/journal and nowhere do I see a theoretical model that explains how increasing atmospheric CO2 increases extreme weather events everywhere. All I see is a single sentence on the web page you provided that is just an unjustified claim without support: "Carbon pollution is the main reason our planet is getting hotter, increasing the chances of weather disasters, drought and flood and hurting our health."

Could you please provide me with a scientific theoretical model that explains how an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels will result in more droughts AND floods everywhere?

Yes. Why did you think otherwise? Do you think that everyone who doesn't agree with your climate religion is a 'climate denier'? I still wait for a response to my post about the benefits of climate change.

No I do not. Where have I said that? Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels will increase global average temperatures via the greenhouse gas effect because the absorption spectra of CO2 is more opaque towards blackbody radiation from the earth than from the sun. Unlike you, I actually have a physics degree and can understand papers on climate change. Edit: Actually I do watch Sun News occasionally as I find it entertaining.

Over what time period? In a year? In a decade? In a century?

I'm a denier now? What exactly is it that I deny? Yes, all hail the Shiny Pony!

Lol? Only 1 paragraph out of 11 talks about Jupiter. So your entire response to my post that gives 6 different benefits of climate change is a single sentence that contains a lie about rising sea levels? Sea levels are projected to increase by 0.4 m over this century. Hardly 'astronomical proportions'. Or would you prefer that we start a new ice age, cover Canada in a thick blanket of ice so that sea levels can drop?

All religions are silly beliefs in fairy tales and who are you to determine what is and isn't a religion?

Lol, good job at exposing the irrationality of the climate alarmist religion TimG. It's gotten to the point where socialist doesn't even want to discuss facts or look at evidence, because it contradict's socialist's religion.

1. Increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere has a fertilizer effect on plants and makes it easier for plants to perform photosynthesis. This will help increase crop yields globally. For the vast majority of the past 500 million years in which multi-cellular life has existed on our planet in significant amounts, C02 levels have been much higher. For example, in the Cambrian Period, atmospheric C02 levels were approximately 4500 ppm, which is about 16 times pre-industrial levels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian In fact, low levels of atmospheric C02 levels around 300 ppm is geologically a relatively recent phenomenon. It pretty much started at the beginning of the Neogene period (23 million years ago) when Panama was formed between North America and South America, greatly affecting global ocean currents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neogene Low C02 levels is one of the reasons why plants have recently evolved the C4 carbon fixation cycle (such as corn). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation 2. Warmer global temperatures will result in longer growing seasons (especially in Canada) and more habitable land (which will exceed lost habitable land from small increases in ocean levels). These longer growing seasons will result in increased crop yields and will also make it easier to extract natural resources from polar regions. For example, during the medieval warm period, grapes were grown in Northern England and agriculture was even possible in Southern Greenland by Vikings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period 3. Furthermore, for the vast majority of the past 500 millions years where multi-cellular life has existed in significant amounts on Earth, the Earth's global temperature was much higher than it is now. The greatest amount of biodiversity is found in equatorial regions, not polar regions so a modest increase in global temperatures will increase biodiversity. In fact, the geological time periods were there were large increases in biodiversity generally had high global temperatures (such as the Cambrian explosion or the Cretaceous period where dinosaurs flourished). 4. Humans evolved in western equatorial Africa (kenya / tanzania) and only started migrating to other places around 100,000 years ago. Therefore, humans are suited to warm climates (it is why humans are so hairless, have lots of sweat glands and are well suited for long distance running). The temperatures at which humans are most comfortable in (room temperature, so 21-24 degrees celcius) is much higher than the global average temperature (around 14 degrees celcius). Increasing the earth's average temperature will therefore make the planet better suited for humans. As for other species, I'm a human supremacist so do not care for them as much; other species will have to adapt or be naturally selected to extinction as species have been doing for millions of years. 5. Human civilization really only started to flourish at the end of the last ice age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period It was only after this period that agriculture started to take off and humans started to become civilized. I therefore think that there is a strong link between a warmer climate and the rate of progress of human civilization. 6. In the case of Canada, warmer global temperatures will open up the North West Passage. This will greatly reduce shipping costs between Europe and East Asia and will be a great benefit to the global economy. It will also make it easier to access natural resources in Northern Canada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage Finally, there have been many studies that try to evaluate the net effect of climate change, and all studies that I know of have concluded that climate change is of net benefit to Canada. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-may-benefit-canada-s-farmers-1.1031816 http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9057151/carry-on-warming/ Are you satisfied now? This is just a lie propagated by climate alarmists and has no basis in science. Even the IPCC admits that there is no link between increased C02 levels / global temperatures and a greater frequency/severity of extreme weather events. The truth is that climate change will result in some weather events becoming more severe/frequent and other weather events becoming less severe/frequent. For example, the frequency & severity of tornadoes in South-Central USA (aka tornado alley) will become less while the frequency & severity of tornadoes in Southern Ontario will become greater. Actually, extreme weather events usually occur as a result of larger temperature or pressure gradients in the atmosphere between different parts of the globe. The temperature differences between the equatorial regions and the polar regions is the primary driver of winds. The truth is, if C02 levels increase and global temperatures increase, the global temperature gradient between equatorial regions and polar regions will decrease (polar regions will warm significantly more than equatorial regions) so if anything, more C02 should decrease the frequency & severity of extreme weather events not increase it. The idea of blaming climate change for specific storms or weather events, such as the typhoon that hit Manila is ridiculous. In fact, if you look at the recent climate change on Jupiter (which is a result of a 70 year climate cycle that is caused by atmospheric mixing), you will find that the recent decrease in the severity of extreme weather events (shrinking of the great red spot, decrease in the number of storms, smaller wind speeds) has occurred at the same time that the global average temperature on Jupiter has risen and the temperature gradient between polar and equatorial regions have decreased.

Isn't that discrimination based on religion?

Well I did enjoy the fact that the actions of all/most the characters in elysium were justified from there perspectives, which is unusual in a movie. Often movies have characters that perform actions that are irrational and make no sense. Such as in horror movies where the protagonists will always split up rather than stick together.

What is this thread discussing exactly? Are we discussing the morals of the movie? I enjoyed the movie. I also enjoyed district 9.

With respect to the CBC and bias, in some cases they might have a so-called 'right wing' bias (example: how they and most media outlets have portrayed the Syrian civil war). But in other cases such as in issues of islamism & native issues they have a so-called 'left wing' bias. And other times they aren't biased, so the bias varies. Again, with respect to idle no more and native issues, it doesn't necessarily show a bias towards cultural relativism but it does to an extent show a sort of 'progressive racist' bias. Just some quick comments: - CBC refused to acknowledge that Teresa Spence was on a diet of fish broth for over a month despite other media outlets such as Sun News reporting on it. They constantly referred to it as a 'hunger strike' which was inaccurate. - CBC didn't ask difficult questions of Teresa Spence, especially about the poor financial management on Attawapiskat. - Actually, some media outlets such as Sun News did stories 6 months before the hunter strike on financial mismanagement on Attawapiskat. And later on how the 'hunger strike' protests were a cover up for corrupt management of Attawapiskat. - The CBC has constantly portrayed individuals such as Pam Palmeter as the voice of first nations and/or representative of first nations, despite the fact that she is an extremist who lost the last election to Shawn Atleo. - The CBC constantly portrays the idle no more as representative of first nations, even though it only represents a minority. - CBC rarely has people on political panels that express opinions that advocate abolishing the Indian act / reserve system and making everyone equal under the law regardless of race. Preferring instead people that advocate the status quo. With respect to trying to understand the positions of people that claim systematic left wing bias at the CBC, I suggest that you watch Ezra Levant's videos at Sun News. He has done numerous videos that have examples of bias. Though obviously Sun News has a bias of its own. But unlike the cbc, Sun News isn't funded by public funds and is open about their bias (much like how The Young Turks is open about their left wing bias, where as CBC and Fox News do not claim bias).

I do not understand why so many people are against climate change. It seems to be of net benefit overall, especially to countries like Canada and Russia (2 largest countries in the world).

@ bcsapper, sorry I was a bit confused by your sentence: "I don't think I would, but it's never come up." Could you please explain what you meant by this? Also, while I wasn't arguing against the hijab in this thread, there are some situations where the hijab can affect someone's performance at work. Here is an example where an employee was fired (or rather no hired) for refusing to take off her hijab because the employer was a hair salon that wanted employees to show their hair to advertise different hair styles: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/02/10/salon_worker_fired_over_headscarf_she_says.html And I would like to know your position on someone working for say a professional white collar job that usually involves a business suit (say working for the Bank of Canada or working for as an accountant for a large private firm). If the hijab is allowed in cases like this, should the pastafarian colander also be allowed? Do you think businesses or universities should have laws against people wearing hats indoors?

@ Bleeding Heart - I'll admit that the links I provided are poor and I was extremely tired when I posted them, so please forgive me. With respect to bias and the cbc, it is really difficult to prove a systematic bias in the CBC, especially when the bias is more subtle and only exists some of the time (as opposed to news stations like fox news or sun news which are more blatantly biased). What would be the best way to demonstrate this? I could show the voting preferences of cbc viewers to be more left-wing and culturally relativist than the rest of the population (but this doesn't indicate bias). I could to demonstrate how individual stories or panels are biased, but again it doesn't demonstrate an overall bias. Ezra Levant does a much better job and demonstrating cases of CBC bias than I ever could, so perhaps watch some of his videos? With respect to idle no more, it would be much easier/very easy for me to demonstrate bias in this case and in how the cbc reports native issues. Whether this would count as 'cultural relativism' is of course quite debatable. Some would argue that it counts as cultural relativism because natives have a unique culture that has existed for thousands of years while others would argue that it doesn't count as cultural relativism because natives are well integrated with the rest of the population and have Canadian culture. Anyway, I admit it is difficult to demonstrate a bias and the links that I have provided in my last post suck.

So you would be fine with people wearing hockey masks or V for Vendetta masks to work? And you do not think that for jobs were communication is important (such as teaching) that showing of the face is important because it helps people to communicate non-verbally? What if you are working with deaf people that need to read lips? Anyway, to the people that are still against putting on ANY restriction on the Burka in the work place, I would like to introduce a new question for you guys to ponder upon and/or answer. So let me try to summarize some of the arguments that have been made in this thread: - I introduced the idea that the Burka is against Islam, I provided passages from the Quran supporting my theological position, explained my position, and provided links to moderate muslims that share similar positions. - The idea that the Burka is against Islam, both makes Islam appear less extreme than some would claim and also weakens the arguments of people that do not think there should be limitations on the Burka in the workplace or in public. - Some people have argued that there should be no limitations on the Burka because they abhor the practice of telling people what they wear, even for work. I have countered this argument by giving examples of were we already have limitations on what we can and cannot wear (hard hats & laws against nudity); noone in this thread has so far claimed that they are against hard hats or anti-nudity laws. - Some people have argued that we should not impose limitations upon the Burka because it is a religious requirement. I have of course countered the idea that it is a religious requirement in the original post. But some people have responded that I am non-muslim so my opinion doesn't matter (this is an ad hominem fallacy) and they have argued that it is not possible to determine what is and isn't a requirement of a religion (which I would disagree with and most islamic scholars would also disagree with). - Let's suppose for a minute that I accept the idea that there should be no limitations upon the Burka because some people claim it is a religious requirement and it is impossible to determine the requirements of a religion. In that case, should people who identify as Pastafarians be able to wear colanders on their heads in the work place without fear of losing their jobs? If you guys argue no because the colander isn't a requirement of Pastafarianism, or you argue no because Pastafarianism 'isn't a real religion' then have you not violated your earlier argument that we cannot determine what is or isn't a religion and what is or isn't a requirement of a religion? - Ultimately it is unfeasible to make exemptions/accommodations for all clothing items based on what people claim is their religious beliefs. You run into the problem of being unable to define what is or isn't a religion which means you have to allow for people to wear ridiculous clothing items such as the colander on the head. Furthermore, a secular state with separation between religion and state should not be making laws based upon religious beliefs, the law should apply equally to people regardless of their religious beliefs. So the burka shouldn't be treated differently from any other face covering and the hijab should not be treated differently than a bandanna.