SurlyPIG

How could I forget! That debate was epic. It has to be one of the most complex, involved, informative topics ever posted in PRP. A couple of months ago I watched two documentaries related to the subject (Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and Martin Durkin's The Great Global Warming Swindle) which reminded me of that thread of ours. Funnily enough, watching those two movies was a major deja vu experience. I could swear that you and I debated at least half of the arguments in both of them. If you havn't seen them, they're worth the time (I think both are available on YouTube). I guess that means mainstream scientific knowledge is no less than three years behind you and I, two random then-high school students from opposite sides of the globe. Kind of scary, isn't it? Flattering, but scary. Man, I feel so old right now...

You have no idea. I know nothing of UK employment leigslation, but it is most certainly better by default because the American equivalent is almost literally nonexistent (though it varies by state). Current US law features employment at will, meaning you can be fired at any time for virtually any reason without notice (summary dismissal) and have no legal recourse to sue your employer for false dismissal or payment in lieu of notice. Keep in mind, the higher the level of skill, experience and education a job requires, the less companies can do this kind of thing, but a case like this highlights the need for easily replaceable American workers to unionize so they have the power and means to negotiate contracts with more favourable term clauses or guarantees for termination compensation packages. At least until the laws change, that is.

My last post was in January of 2005. How's that for a hiatus? I think the only ones who will remember me are Edric0 and maybe a handful of the EBFD old-balls. And perhaps my fellow countrymen (speaking of which, Mahdi has defected countries at the worst possible time: when his hometown Sens are poised to win the Stanley Cup)

Nema, you're a cartoon. ;D

Why repeat if you've already made your point? So in other words, throughout most of Lenin's time in power the communists were only on the way to gaining absolute power and didn't actually have it yet. I see little difference. This is what I'm talking about...how could the "honest communists" you referred to be so idiotic as not to see this centralization of power to be an big fat totalitarian dictatorship waiting to happen? Oh, well in that case it must be ok then. Well how nice of them. Words without consequence is just hot air. That is like free speech without elections or worker dissent without unions. It is useless, and the freedom is in name only. So in other words, Lenin didn't have all the power, his Bolshevik buddies had some too (and of course none of the lot had any legitimate claim to leadership). Finally we're getting somewhere. Yay! You've got it. This fantastically shortsighted expectation is a textbook example of why Marx's model of a red revolution would simply never work. I shall elaborate. If you were to draw a picture of the proletariat Marx always spoke of, he would be a factory worker, or perhaps a farmer, struggling to make ends meet. He is not an educated fellow. Uneducated people are afraid of change. Uneducated people do not start revolutions (or they are just very bad at it). Marx should have learned this from the French Revolution. It was the bourgeoisie middle class, comparably well-off when contrasted with the plighted peasant, that was the the force behind the revolution. Who of the proletariat class would start this revolution then? Would it be the commoner, the worker, the farmer, or one of the few educated men that had the knowledge and skills to organize such a thing? Is it not conceivable that this group would be able to manipulate the uneducated majority? How does one vote if one cannot read? Even if they can vote, how do they know to vote well, and how do they know any better? How can people with no education effectively hold the leaders accountable? When the despotic inroads are organized by a group separated from that of the uneducated majority, is it not a natural prediction that what they gain by pillaging capitalists will be used to preserve their own power? Don't mock me. Of course I know that, I was merely pointing out that Marx advocated centralizing power in a STATE which is a contradiction to your notion that a marxist revolution is immune to corruption because corruption is such a natural extension of power. And yet, you are still arguing for it. Why?

Interesting statement. According to this statement Lenin and co. were not communists, as he himself was in a position of absolute power for the better part of seven years.Anyway, Whether or not Marx coined the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" doesn't really make a difference but if you want to nit-pick, then my mistake. At any rate, he was an advocate of a coup d'

Edric were you able to find any other (and by other I mean more reputable or just less cooky) sources for those stories?

Indeed. :( Tsunamis are perhaps the most destructive force on the planet.

It was quite clearly a brain fart. He's talking about terrorists when he said that and probably just meant to say brought down instead of shot down. A plane may have been flying alongside it but that is no surprise for this type of situation. There are recorded phone calls from passengers in which it is obvious that the passengers were going to attemt to re-take the plane and among them was a Judo champion and I think some collegiate wrestlers vs, what, three thug terrorists and the two pilot terrorists. I dont buy that the plane was shot down. If it had been, the hull would have been spread over a much greater distance in a very different fashion. From the way the plane hit the ground you can tell that it entered almost straight down and was intact when it hit because of the lack of debris anywhere else. The wreckage was subject to a phenomenon in which virtually the whole craft, wings and all, was compressed into a single hole scarcely bigger than the size of the body of the plane. I can't think of any way that could happen other than the pilot flying straight into the ground. Unless the engines were shot out or something and that caused the pilot to fly it into the ground, but I think if the military wanted to shoot it down they would have shot to kill and that means missle. There is absolutely no evidence to support a shoot-down so until I see otherwise it's just another silly conspiracy theory.

Nothing went "wrong" in Animal Farm in the sense that there was no way it could go right. The inevitable was simply fulfilled. Marx himself stated that it would be necessary to establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat" to nationalize and redistribute wealth and that this dictatorship would fade itself out as it became needless. This is so laughably niave it's surprising that people actually believe it. The notion that a party with absolute power would voluntarily relinquish it is a joke. Calling it a "combination of unpredictable historical circumstances," when it is such a blatantly predictable occurance, makes my head spin. Communism (which is, IMO, an obsolete relic of the mid-nineteenth century that is incompatable with modern society) if ever achieved, must be done through democratic means. A forceful revolution in which a period of martial law is incorporated into the plan is a recipe for a totalitarian autocracy.

It's called diplomatic immunity and it sucks. It exists to protect a nation's representatives from unreasonable foreign laws when they are compelled, by order, to work away from home. In some situations it's necessary to protect soldiers (eg if western soldiers were sent to Darfur as peacekeepers it would be outrageous to imprison female soldiers under Sharia law for showing face/ankle/whatever) however this situation is clearly not related to the marine's job so that immunity should not apply. But really the worst part of it all isn't the fact that immunity does apply but how much of a joke US court martials are.

Bleh! And this is education? I can't think of a more pathetic piece of riff-raff to pass for good cinema. The only reason I can possibly conceive of for someone wanting to watch a movie like that is because they're too young or too proud to rent porn.

I don't doubt that some are missed but media in Iraq fixated on finding as many sob stories as possible so it can't be that much. Those numbers may be a minima but I have seen little reason to believe the maxima is significantly more. At any rate its certainly more accurate than polling for a death count because those polled give second-hand information potentially from several different people. The only statistically sound way to poll for a death count would be to poll both the living and the dead which isn't impossible.EDIT - Oh, and as to your analogy; ordinary deaths are one thing, but violent civillian deaths are another. They tend not to go unnoticed.

That link no longer works but as of today, more than a month after you posted that, www.iraqbodycount.com reports numbers ofMin: 14591 Max: 16771 which would certainly be more accurate than a poll. BTW Nema with these numbers the death rate is still about 3-4 times less than under Saddam.

Is there any promising peaceful recourse for dissatisfied Ukranians? A very typical Communist statement. Acrimony towards all other political views with no actual regard for democracy.Don't you find it the least bit disturbing that Ukranian democracy may have been externally compromised? Heck, you've made posts to that effect regarding the same thing occurring in South America at the hands of the CIA. I wonder why this would be any different...oh thats right its not socialists being targeted so it doesn't matter. ::) BTW Anathema is merely matching your sarcasm.

Bah, Vancouver prices don't count. They practically charge you to breathe over there! Calgary prices for a regular-size snickers = .89-.99 with only 7% tax. No PST whatsoever. Of course, the whole scheme is relative to itself. For example, minimum wages: AB=$5.90 BC=$8.00.

Oh please, the outnumbered national defender sob story? I didn't think you would give up that easily. How were you "defending America against hate" by calling Canadians a bunch of "scrooge-like armchair quarterbacks" empy? Where's the D in comments like that?You're not getting of that easy either. Yeah you had your statistics but like I proved they were out of context, fallacious, and misleading. Now that was defense.

The Iraqis are the warlords. Or, at least, they fight under the direction and propaganda of these warlords. There are no freedom fighters in Iraq. Only sheep lead by militant, power-hungry shepherds.

I believe he meant drug price cap not drug proce cap.

There was that so hard? :) However those statistics do not pack as much punch as you think... Firstly, ODA levels are not irrelevent (though I am not claiming they are of exclusive relevance) because private aid is not inherantly superior to public aid (BTW I'm not claiming the reverse is true). Voting to have your higher taxes go to other countries in greater proportion than your neighbours absolutely counts as donations towards the national total (though it is obviously not the sole component). Agreed? The percentage of both Canadians and Americans who declared a charitable donation for tax info was very similar (~25% vs ~30%) but there are several reasons for the apparent disparity in average donation size. - Average income (obvious) - Conversion from CDN to USD (Canadians would appear to donate 30% more this year than five years ago due to the dollar's strength) - Differences in progression of tax brackets (less $ = less $ to give) - Differences in tax-deductability with respect to charitable donations (limitations on maximum deductable amounts) - Differences in the definition of a charity (though I expect they are similar) Now, I'm not an accountant so bear with me. The average Canadian donation was something close to $1000 CDN if I remember right, which as explained above is partly a product of what Revenue Canada allows for a tax-deductable donation. I assume the IRS has a similar program. Anyway, the maximum amount of net income that can be deducted towards your return was 20% this last fiscal year. This, however, is being increased 375% to 75% of net income for the next tax season so expect to see the size of the average Canadian donation shooting up. I have no idea what the US-equivalent for this is, so being a former-US taxpayer perhaps you could help me out with that. Anyway, this tax-deduction thing, along with all the stuff I listed above, accounts for a large amount of the difference between the size of the average Canadian and American donations. I'm not about to bother crunching numbers with conversion rate actions and account for cost of living and all the rest but I don't need to because I am not claiming we privately donate more, in fact I doubt we do, but my point is that the amount of money Canadians and Americans donate to charities is similar (which is no surprise as we are culturally similar). Okay, I concede that Americans privately donate more than Canadians. Obviously, however, Canada as a nation gives more than twice as much as the US in terms of official foreign aid. Now, it must be acknowledged that there are pros and cons with both. Both official aid and non-governmental organizations (private aid - NGOs) may become corrupt in that it gets embezzled at the other end by warlords or dictators before reaching the people who need it. Official aid can become marred behind beaurocratic red tape, but the NGOs aren't immune to this either as they can face issues at both ends. The most important difference from where I sit is that official aid choices and the actual bookkeeping is subject to the scrutiny of the electorate. When it comes to private charities, though, most charity is domestic and a lot of it is corrupt in principle and not all that charitable. For example, a tax-deductable "charitable" donation on the part of a corporation could be something like the CFO's kid's school's softball team. Now I'm not saying that's a bad thing by nature, but if its tax-deductable, then however much money was donated means a proportionate amount of money will be kept out of the public system which might have gone to education to support, say, the softball team of a school in a poor neighbourhood that doesn't have students with parents that are CFOs. Another example is donations that ultimately bring about more profit for your company as per Bill Gates donating hundreds of millions in computers and software (all PCs with Windows, of course) to American schools that couldn't afford them. Its absolutely a good thing that underprivelidged students got access to a helpful educational tool, but Windows-using kids become Windows-buying adults so the action is questionable from that respect. Finally, a more flat-out form of corruption exists in donations to churches. If I'm wrong correct me and disregard the rest of this paragraph but I believe that churches count as charities in both our countries and are entitled to the corresponding tax-deduction programs. Let me first acknowledge that most churches do a lot of excellent social work most of the time. That said, excusing people from taxation because they pay to have their religion preached and propagated is a questionable practice. That, however, is a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of millions (billions, now?) in sexual harrassment settlements between churches and victims of clergy abuse (and no it's not just the Catholic Church that is guilty of this though it is certainly the molestation juggernaut when it comes to churches). Anyway, the above proves that charities can be just as corrupt as ODA funds so between that and the above narrowing of the gap between Canadian and US donation size so I'd say that the two countries are close in terms of how much help they get to developing nations. Certainly both are close enough so as neither deserves the titles of "scrooge-like" or "armchair quarterback" and that is the point I'm trying to make. I would be very much impressed by acknowledgement of the truth in what I've said but if you do the brick wall thing I could care less. I am secure enough in what I know so as not to need to say things like: "LIKE I SAID, I'll compare American giving and donations to Canadians ANY DAY....BRING IT ON." BTW, Carolyn Parrish was not actually kicked from parliament, just from the Liberal Party, and the given reason was mostly for criticizing the PM, not for what she said about Bush or for the satirical joke she took part in on Air Farce. The implications of this actually make her more free to say what she wants, though as an independant she has less opportunity to address parliament but when she does it is no longer subject to approval by the party. She can vote independantly now too, though the only downside for her is that she wont be able to wear the Liberal banner when come next election.

Freedom? No, most certainly not. They are thugs and warlords trying to be the ones to establish an Islamic state (and by Islamic state I mean a single-party dictatorship where Islam is Imposed on the side to help control the people). Everyone wants to be that party. Sadly, though, that is probably more wanted by Iraq that democracy is. Love him or hate him, compared to the rest of the middle-east, Saddam was fairly secular that is as much of a reason for him being hated as his brutality.

WTF? Do you just make things up or did you actually think the US is more giving than Canada? Per capita we donate more than the US, and as a % of the GDP. On top of that, we export massive amounts of crops to third-world countries in which hundreds of millions of people would starve if we didn't. Unless you're talking about private donations (which would be idiotic considering how often multinational American-based companies contribute to their suffering in the first place) then you're dead wrong.Why don't you check your claims and back them up next time instead of inventing some stupid analogy that does nothing more than piss people off. FFS doesn't it occur to you to check the validity of what you say before you go off mocking an entire country with garbage like "ooh lets stomp on this doll" and insulting us by implying that we are hypocrits when it comes to one of our core values as a nation? Don't you think that you should at least check facts before saying something so tasteless, tactless and inflammatory? God. Even Parrish did that before she pulled her little stunt on Air Farce. Next time make sure you're not full of it before you go calling us "armchair quarterbacks." Yeesh. Some people. >:(

Exactly, because it's socialism. There's government intervention in the economic system; ergo, socialism, albiet not much.No one talks about ideal capitalism bacause it is not just an illusion, it's a fiction. Mixed economy, people, it's called a mixed economy. Pure anything is pure idiocy.

Actually I remember a speech he gave a year or two back in which he repititiously said "God is on our side." It made me think of that Lincoln quote when I heard it. The notable difference is that G Dub seemed to know that God was already in his pocket whereas Lincoln seemed to want to try hard to make sure that he was on God's side. So either Bush is arrogant in his presumptions or schizophrenic.Personally, I think it's absolutely ridiculous to believe that it is at all possible to be on the side of a pure, perfect being, or that God would even take a side in matters such as these.