When a lousy event like a child being murdered happens, well the villagers get out their torches and pitch forks. I was asked to join a facebook group called: Mandatory Life Sentences for Pedophiles & Child Molesters, Death for Child Killers. I declined. First, "Mandatory", "Zero Tolerance" these are dangerous concepts. Lest face it, if someone is so far off that he kills children, is he going to stop and say "you know, if i would get 10 years that would be ok...but Life, well then I am going to stop killing children". Nope. The second half, well I am opposed to the death penalty. And the angered, well are they going to stop and make sure the right person is even accused/tried/convicted, etc....we live in a "trial by media" world - I have even heard people say "well, the police would not have arrested him if he wasn't guilty". Ask Guy Paul Morin or Susan Nelles. A friend of mine once put it best: "I hope I never resemble the local rapist".
One friend made a great point during the Bernado trials. His co-worker suggested Bernado be publicy ripped to death in Maple Leaf Gardens. So my friend asked: "So you would enjoy his suffering". "yes". "Well, isn't that what Bernado did? enjoy the suffering of others?".
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
"There's no Logic, Captain"
I got this from The Doonesbury website:
"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."
-- Rep. Michelle Bachmann. In fact, Gerald Ford was president during the last outbreak of the virus.
First, what she says isn't true. Second, even if it was WHAT THE HELL WOULD THAT MEAN????
"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."
-- Rep. Michelle Bachmann. In fact, Gerald Ford was president during the last outbreak of the virus.
First, what she says isn't true. Second, even if it was WHAT THE HELL WOULD THAT MEAN????
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Again....
The Harper regime will not bailout the CBC in fact theyd kill it outright if they could, what with all nonsense that "real" canadians don't want or need (you know "arts" "science"...)
But they will contemplate bailing out private networks such as CBC or Canwest.....
From Today's Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/620477
But they will contemplate bailing out private networks such as CBC or Canwest.....
From Today's Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/620477
RIght Thing for the Wrong Reason
Seems killing people just isn't cheap. Not in Iraq or in America.
Many states, including Bush's beloved "Dead or Alive" state of Texas are contemplating cutbacks or the outright suspension of death sentences after July 1st.
The old argument from the opposite view (from people who I would say have their poles reveresed), was that executions were good things because otherwise you have to house and feed inmates for the rest of their life. But, for decades, with the cost of a capital trial and the right to extensive appeals, has meant that a capital case was far more expensive than life imprisonment.
Even if the "it costs less" assertation were true, it would still not justify capital punishment...so the opposite argument is just as flimsy.....
..however...as my title suggests, right for the wrong reason...but let's take it.
TF
Many states, including Bush's beloved "Dead or Alive" state of Texas are contemplating cutbacks or the outright suspension of death sentences after July 1st.
The old argument from the opposite view (from people who I would say have their poles reveresed), was that executions were good things because otherwise you have to house and feed inmates for the rest of their life. But, for decades, with the cost of a capital trial and the right to extensive appeals, has meant that a capital case was far more expensive than life imprisonment.
Even if the "it costs less" assertation were true, it would still not justify capital punishment...so the opposite argument is just as flimsy.....
..however...as my title suggests, right for the wrong reason...but let's take it.
TF
Friday, April 17, 2009
Odd
Headline today for CNN;
-- Ashton Kutcher is first to reach 1 million followers in Twitter contest with CNN.
Why is any part of that worth doing let alone "reporting"????????????
-- Ashton Kutcher is first to reach 1 million followers in Twitter contest with CNN.
Why is any part of that worth doing let alone "reporting"????????????
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Let us eat cake
Wonderful attitude from our glorious leaders, from Today's Toronto Star.
The Prime Minister has obstinately refused to relax the requirements for EI. Indeed, his human resources minister, Diane Finley, has declared of the unemployed: "We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid for it."
The Prime Minister has obstinately refused to relax the requirements for EI. Indeed, his human resources minister, Diane Finley, has declared of the unemployed: "We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid for it."
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Why this is not making sense
If you were putting together a tribe, would it not make sense that the leaders are the ones that are the wisest and have passed on the greatest skills to the strongest new generation of hunters and gatherers? Would you not want the leaders to be capable of learning new things?
Well, if you have lived in North America for the past decade, what has happened is exactly the opposite. In The US, they have begun to straighten things out. They hit a rock bottom I hope we never get near. We are going to move up soon, as well, I hope.
Neo-Cons, Right wingnuts (Bush-Harper) have been running the place in exactly the worst way. They are close minded people who ignore the great learning of the tribe. Religion is fine as long as it does not cut off your Brain from learning new things. Where it thinks the enlightenment and the scientific revolution are things that need to be ignored...well you get the mess we have today and you get the kind of Relgion that blows other people up.
I still cannot fathom the neo-con version of Christianity which ignores the vast bulk of what Jesus is saying in scripture - um, it's been a few years but I think Jesus is an important part of Christianity? There is no kindness and humilty to these bible thumpers.
In other words, they don't even follow their own teachers.
Bush was dumb - smart people tell me Harper is smart, but it is so tough to believe that when everything he says and does is so mean and narrow-minded. I guess he is a pigeon - his brain can fly thousands of miles, but try and catch him and he flies exactly 4 feet - just the minimum effort to solve the most immediate problem.
Harper sees his party as the one of practicality, and the "right wing" liberals as one of rigid ideas. First - they are further to the right than ever. I guess Harper does not believe in the existence of the NDP. This reminded me of The Russian Revloution. Lenin named his side and named his opponents. He called his folks "Bolsheviks" which means moderate, and Kerensky's people "Mensheviks" which means "radical". (my apologies to the Russian Language). Lenin, was of course, the real radical. Just as Harper pins definitions on two parties, in exactly the reverse of what they are making himelf seem like "one of us" while liberals live in ivory towers. ( I think Paul Martin sold off the Ivory Towers LOL).
TF
P.S. I missed this during the campaign, but Alec Baldwin called Sarah Palin "Bible Spice" Love it!
Well, if you have lived in North America for the past decade, what has happened is exactly the opposite. In The US, they have begun to straighten things out. They hit a rock bottom I hope we never get near. We are going to move up soon, as well, I hope.
Neo-Cons, Right wingnuts (Bush-Harper) have been running the place in exactly the worst way. They are close minded people who ignore the great learning of the tribe. Religion is fine as long as it does not cut off your Brain from learning new things. Where it thinks the enlightenment and the scientific revolution are things that need to be ignored...well you get the mess we have today and you get the kind of Relgion that blows other people up.
I still cannot fathom the neo-con version of Christianity which ignores the vast bulk of what Jesus is saying in scripture - um, it's been a few years but I think Jesus is an important part of Christianity? There is no kindness and humilty to these bible thumpers.
In other words, they don't even follow their own teachers.
Bush was dumb - smart people tell me Harper is smart, but it is so tough to believe that when everything he says and does is so mean and narrow-minded. I guess he is a pigeon - his brain can fly thousands of miles, but try and catch him and he flies exactly 4 feet - just the minimum effort to solve the most immediate problem.
Harper sees his party as the one of practicality, and the "right wing" liberals as one of rigid ideas. First - they are further to the right than ever. I guess Harper does not believe in the existence of the NDP. This reminded me of The Russian Revloution. Lenin named his side and named his opponents. He called his folks "Bolsheviks" which means moderate, and Kerensky's people "Mensheviks" which means "radical". (my apologies to the Russian Language). Lenin, was of course, the real radical. Just as Harper pins definitions on two parties, in exactly the reverse of what they are making himelf seem like "one of us" while liberals live in ivory towers. ( I think Paul Martin sold off the Ivory Towers LOL).
TF
P.S. I missed this during the campaign, but Alec Baldwin called Sarah Palin "Bible Spice" Love it!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Faux News and The American Coverage
As far as I can tell, MSNBC (the best one down there) had it's own article about Fox News' call to invade Canada while we were all at yoga class. CNN had a link to youtube. Fox, of course, NOTHING on this. ABC had nothing but did cover the fallen Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. CBS had nothing. I did not have a chance to check The Daily Planet....
Monday, March 23, 2009
I have yet to catch the twitter big. I am a Luddite, and so, email, facebook, my blog, MSN Live, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, my Cell Phone and smoke signals are my only ways of contacting the outside world.
I certainly have nothing against it, but I would never do this:
A recent tweet by one would-be Cisco employee proves that when it comes to placing a permanent black mark on your resume via the Internet, Twitter is now the tool of choice. To illustrate, here’s the tweet the now Web-infamous "theconnor" shared with the world:
"Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”
TF
I certainly have nothing against it, but I would never do this:
A recent tweet by one would-be Cisco employee proves that when it comes to placing a permanent black mark on your resume via the Internet, Twitter is now the tool of choice. To illustrate, here’s the tweet the now Web-infamous "theconnor" shared with the world:
"Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”
TF
My letter sent to The Red Eye show on Fox News
The American right wing elite media has no sense of humour about itself. So, do not expect Canadians to be amused that you spat on the graves on 116 Canadian soldiers who gave their lives in this war of terror, as your ally. I assume that your show is not in any way meant to be "news" as the rest of planet understands the word. It is not punditry. It was not satire, as satire is meant to be funny, not to denigrate to an ally.
Where did the re-directed airlines land on Sept 11, 2001? We were your ally since before the war began. It is a shame that as little as you know your enemy, you know your friends even less.
Thomas Forten
Mississauga, Ontario
Where did the re-directed airlines land on Sept 11, 2001? We were your ally since before the war began. It is a shame that as little as you know your enemy, you know your friends even less.
Thomas Forten
Mississauga, Ontario
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Then again...
...if, as Fox News suggests, they invade Canada, that would get rid of Harper and have Obama in charge of us.....hmmmm
Fox News
I simply do not understand the right wing American media. I have commented before how a nutcase can get on CNN and his view that Katrina was sent by God because they had a gay pride parade. If you have not seen this, you will be surprised...or it will be surprising to you that you are not surprised:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcJn5XlbSFk
An affront to soldiers who risk their lives is deplorable.
As I said somewhere else, Fox News is to the world as fart jokes are to literature.
BUT it you use the word "cunt", THAT can get you in trouble in The United States. I know maybe I should take a "who cares" approach to this, and treat it with all time and effort that is given to "The National Enquirer".
As a nation, we can take a joke - Jon Stewart referred to us as "gay us" and makes fun of us all the time. But it is meant in jest. I saw no humour in the Fox segment.
Besides, as we all know, God sent Katrina because he hates French people....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcJn5XlbSFk
An affront to soldiers who risk their lives is deplorable.
As I said somewhere else, Fox News is to the world as fart jokes are to literature.
BUT it you use the word "cunt", THAT can get you in trouble in The United States. I know maybe I should take a "who cares" approach to this, and treat it with all time and effort that is given to "The National Enquirer".
As a nation, we can take a joke - Jon Stewart referred to us as "gay us" and makes fun of us all the time. But it is meant in jest. I saw no humour in the Fox segment.
Besides, as we all know, God sent Katrina because he hates French people....
Friday, March 20, 2009
Obama
Watching Obama run the U.S., while Harper runs our country, is much like having the Dad from "My Three Sons" raising your neighbor's kids, while you and you siblings are being raised by the schoolteacher from "The Wall".
Obama, unlike Bush, thinks science is a good to, you know, "have". Canada's science minister does not even answer a blunt, direct question whether he believes in evolution. Oh boy, what a great guy to have as minister of science!
TF
Obama, unlike Bush, thinks science is a good to, you know, "have". Canada's science minister does not even answer a blunt, direct question whether he believes in evolution. Oh boy, what a great guy to have as minister of science!
TF
Greed
Greed has been in the news a lot lately, and for good reason. Profiting by the extremely wealthy, at others' expense, even to the point of ruining the weakest of us, has been a favoured blood sport on acid lately.
Let's go back to the Irish famine of the 1840s. Abandoned by their own colonial overlords, the British, millions of Irish set sail in the “coffin ships”, so named because many of the passengers died en route to North America.
But luckily some got to Canada, and Canada has never done nasty things to profit on the misery of others. Well, guess what – many of the Irish refugees lived long enough to make it all the way to the infant city of Toronto. But in 1847 it was only a town, with a population just over 20,000. Over 40,000 Irish ended up here – twice the native population. After some time there was put in place a process of funds to save those who could be saved, and treating the sick in the way thought best at the time, quarantine. So many who have survived the coffin ships, and the screening process in Quebec, died in Toronto. Some of the funds were used to purchase coffins – even back then disposal of the dead was known to be a good idea.
Some of the fine people involved in organizing the burials, pocketed half the money and buried two people to a coffin .
People have always sucked: AIG and folks are not doing anything new, they just had the means to do it on a massive scale.
Tom
Let's go back to the Irish famine of the 1840s. Abandoned by their own colonial overlords, the British, millions of Irish set sail in the “coffin ships”, so named because many of the passengers died en route to North America.
But luckily some got to Canada, and Canada has never done nasty things to profit on the misery of others. Well, guess what – many of the Irish refugees lived long enough to make it all the way to the infant city of Toronto. But in 1847 it was only a town, with a population just over 20,000. Over 40,000 Irish ended up here – twice the native population. After some time there was put in place a process of funds to save those who could be saved, and treating the sick in the way thought best at the time, quarantine. So many who have survived the coffin ships, and the screening process in Quebec, died in Toronto. Some of the funds were used to purchase coffins – even back then disposal of the dead was known to be a good idea.
Some of the fine people involved in organizing the burials, pocketed half the money and buried two people to a coffin .
People have always sucked: AIG and folks are not doing anything new, they just had the means to do it on a massive scale.
Tom
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