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Fatty Liver

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Everything posted by Fatty Liver

  1. So what's next then? What happens when some judge (unelected) decides that not allowing Muslim men to discipline their wives according to sharia law is "unconstitutional"? Where is the end of the slippery slope? Are you going to defend that man's right to beat the snot out of his wife because his religion allows it and some judge no one voted for ruled that he can? I am just trying to find out where the breaking point for people truly lies. Because if you use the excuse that judges dictate what is right and wrong, then you can't turn around and disagree later when you've fallen all the way down the slope. I also don't get how a nativity scene on government property can be constitutionally removed while deeply offending Christians, but it's unconstitutional to say that you have to abide by laws regarding revealing your face because it offends your Islamic faith. I honestly don't think I will ever understand that. To distinguish between not unveiling at a citizenship ceremony and stoning individuals to death, there is a constitutional provision and an accompanying test. Section 1 of the Charter "guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject to only such reasonable limits prescribed law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." For a charter violation to be saved by Section 1, the law must be promote a sufficiently important objective. I think preventing the murder of individuals is a sufficiently important objective to justify depriving an individual, who argues he has such a right, of their religious right to stone their wives. OK - but allowing someone to murder someone else is the most radical case. What if it's just a casual daily/weekly beating? No stoning. Just a little beating. Are you good with that? Nope, that's against the law. Wearing a niqab is not.
  2. America has a problem that contributes to several other problems and that's the nature of their politics make their politicians gutless.The gun lobby are a bunch of morons hiding like cowards behind the constitution but they have enough puppets on congress to ensure no real gun control ever gets passed. The sad thing is, these mass shootings happen to the innocent. Just let one mass shooting happen at an NRA meeting. Oh but it would never happen because the tough NRA crowd would shoot back. Sure they would. Uh huh. Seeing people fawning over Obama's outrage is hilarious. Dont tell us you're angry. Again. Do something. What can Obama do though? Like you said, the gun lobby has enough people to ensure nothing happens. Until those people are out, nothing (regardless of who's in the White House) much can be done. One thing the US Govt. could do is to make it illegal to publicize the identify of the shooter by name or any other descriptors, much like what is already done for young offenders or children who have been sexually abused. This guy had the right idea. Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said at a news conference he was not going to say the shooter's name because that's what he would have wanted. "I will not name the shooter," he said. "I will not give him the credit he probably sought prior to this horrific and cowardly act." Without the publicity and notoriety of these events how many wannabees are going to seek this level of revenge? In almost every case they find the shooter was a fan of previous mass-murder events and the psychopaths that committed them. If the killers go nameless and are purged from mass media, their immortality goes with them. It may be a small step, but it's a start and I believe it would reduce the motive for a lot of these nutbars.
  3. It's time for Neil Young to come home, even if he's using a walker. Whatever happened to all of the great bands that used to come out of Wpg? Nothing much since the Crash Test Dummies and the fabulous Remy Shand.
  4. Since they don't actually have a coach per se I agree. I think Joe Popp may finally have to pay the price with his job. Pressure from up top probably forced him to fire Higgins but now the camera is pointed right at Joe and he doesn't have anyone left to blame. Jim* Popp Him too!
  5. Hope the Bombers stay well away from the "Old QB Sweepstakes".
  6. Lyle Bauer and Nasty Nate face off at center field in a cage match. I'd pay just to see that.
  7. The Als O-line looked similar to the Bombers O-line on a really bad day as well, so that isn't helping Cato either.
  8. Since they don't actually have a coach per se I agree. I think Joe Popp may finally have to pay the price with his job. Pressure from up top probably forced him to fire Higgins but now the camera is pointed right at Joe and he doesn't have anyone left to blame.
  9. I believe Ray is a free agent after this season. You're right. http://www.cfl.ca/article/argos-announce-extension-for-ricky-ray-through-2015 Will be interesting to see how much a 35 year old Ray will get on the open market. Henry was older and do you remember what he fetched.
  10. Ways to go yet. Likely needs to at least get to the GC as an OC. Let's see if he can develop a young qb. By the time he proves that he will be another teams HC. Opportunities will be plentiful in the off-season, BC, Sask., Mtl. and potentially Wpg. all looking for HC candidates. Pickings are going to be slim, I would bet within 2 years Maas, Steinhauer and Thorpe are HC's somewhere.
  11. How does it feel saying that? I'm going to use this line with my wife tonight. As in, "sorry honey, I misremembered that you told me no, 47 nights in a row".
  12. No worries, the Cup is being played in balmy Winterpeg.
  13. Jason Maas moving up in the coaching ranks quickly, not long before some team gives him a crack at HC. It won't happen in Ottawa.
  14. Unfortunately the Bombers are done with the Als. More unfortunately they have to play the RB's two more times.
  15. Awful Henry being touted for the MOP. Heads are exploding in Sask.
  16. This wood cookie business is pretty lame, they need a major upgrade for TD celebrations. My first conception involves a massive wood chipper and the cooperation of an opposition fan.
  17. Ottawa is looking like serious contenders, look forward to their matches with the Argos and Ticats.
  18. Does that make Derrell Johnson the logical replacement? Looks like Selvish Capers might be playing Guard as well, could be the end of Longo's trial.
  19. Interesting thought, might actually come down to insurance coverage or the CBA. if he did injure himself playing basketball or building a birdhouse would he be eligible to go on the 6-game?
  20. O'Shea did say in his presser that they "hope" to keep Cole in the fold. Good possibility that he turns up elsewhere as other CFL teams will not ignore what he accomplished in his limited playing time and may make him a better offer than the Bombers in the off-season. Not protecting him on the 6 game doesn't make sense.
  21. Is this "the many" you're referring to? In a September 2011 plebiscite (referendum) conducted by Meyers Norris Penny, 62% of CWB farmers voted that they wanted to keep the wheat board and its Single Desk power. This is how Harper went about dismantling a truly democratic institution. Since 2006 when the Conservative Party came to power, Chuck Strahl, then Minister of Agriculture, worked towards the end of the Wheat Board's Single Desk, including the replacement of government appointees to the Board of Directors in favor of individuals who oppose the board's Single Desk, a gag order on Wheat Board staff, the firing of the pro-board President, and intervention in the election of farmer elected members of the Board of Directors.[16][17] December 2006 CWB Board of Directors election. Only one of five farmer-elected seats went to opponents of the Canadian Wheat Board's Single Desk power on the selling of Canadian wheat and barley internationally. Since there was only one incumbent farmer-elected board member opposed to the Single Desk, only two out of ten farmer-elected directors were opposed to the Single Desk. Nonetheless, the government appointed five members to the board; supporters of the board's Single Desk would have only an eight to seven majority. Doubts have also been cast by some on the results because Strahl, the Minister of Agriculture, removed upwards of 20,000 farmers from the voters list in the midst of the election. These farmers were disqualified for such reasons as not having delivered any grain to the Wheat Board in the past two years or not having produced enough wheat or malt barley to have generated significant enough income from which to live off.[18] December 19, 2006: Chuck Strah dismisses CWB president Adrian Measner, an outspoken supporter of the Single Desk. This was done by Strahl with the statement "It's a position that [he] serves at [the] pleasure [of the Minister/Government]. And that position was no longer his."[16] It was suggested that Measner had gone too far for refusing to remove pro-CWB documents from the Board website and also appearing at press conferences with opposition leader Stéphane Dion.[19] The majority of the CWB's board of directors opposed the firing of Measner.[20] March 28, 2007: Barley Plebiscite. 62% of farmers vote to end the wheat board's barley Single Desk power.[21] Legislation to amend the act dies on order paper when the September 2008 election is called. February 26, 2008: Conservative government loses court battle over unilaterally dismantling the CWB because it was contrary to the Canadian Wheat Board Act.[22] December 7, 2008: Board of Directors elections. Four of five candidates elected support the Single Desk marketing agency.[23] January 21, 2010: Supreme Court of Canada sided with the federal government in its 2006 order barring the board from spending its money on lobbying.[24] December 7, 2011: Federal Court judge Douglas Campbell rules the Conservative government broke the law in introducing legislation to end the Wheat Board.[25] December 15, 2011: Bill C-18, the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, which ends the CWB Single Desk, receives royal assent.[26] June 18, 2012: Federal Court of Appeal upholds Bill C-18.[27] August 1, 2012: end of monopsony takes effect I'm sure you'll crow about Harper keeping his election promise to dismantle the CWB, but ask yourself who it was that really benefited from this move. Multi-national corporations such as Cargill, perhaps? Cargill: Food Profiteers Thirty years ago, most developing countries produced enough food to feed themselves. Now, 70 percent are net food importers. Thirty years ago, most developing countries had in place mechanisms aimed at maintaining a relatively constant price for food commodities. Tariffs on imports protected local farmers from fluctuations in global food prices. Government-run grain purchasing boards paid above-market prices for farm goods when prices were low, and required farmers to sell below-market when prices were high. The idea was to give farmers some certainty over price, and to keep food affordable for consumers. Governments also provided a wide set of support services for farmers, giving them advice on new crop and growing technologies and, in some countries, helping set up cooperative structures. This was not a perfect system by any means, but it looks pretty good in retrospect. Over the last three decades, the system was completely abandoned, in country after country. It was replaced by a multinational-dominated, globally integrated food system, in which the World Bank and other institutions coerced countries into opening their markets to cheap food imports from rich countries and re-orienting their agricultural systems to grow food for rich consumers abroad. Proponents said the new system was a “free market” approach, but in reality it traded one set of government interventions for another — a new set of rules that gave enhanced power to a handful of global grain trading companies like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, as well as to seed and fertilizer corporations. “For this food regime to work,” Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved, told the U.S. House Financial Services Committee at a May hearing, “existing marketing boards and support structures needed to be dismantled. In a range of countries, this meant that the state bodies that had been supported and built by the World Bank were dismantled by the World Bank. The rationale behind the dismantling of these institutions was to clear the path for private sector involvement in these sectors, on the understanding that the private sector would be more efficient and less wasteful than the public sector.” “The result of these interventions and conditions,” explained Patel, “was to accelerate the decline of developing country agriculture. One of the most striking consequences of liberalization has been the phenomenon of ‘import surges.’ These happen when tariffs on cheaper, and often subsidized, agricultural products are lowered, and a host country is then flooded with those goods. There is often a corresponding decline in domestic production. In Senegal, for example, tariff reduction led to an import surge in tomato paste, with a 15-fold increase in imports, and a halving of domestic production. Similar stories might be told of Chile, which saw a three-fold surge in imports of vegetable oil, and a halving of domestic production. In Ghana in 1998, local rice production accounted for over 80 percent of domestic consumption. By 2003, that figure was less than 20 percent.” The decline of developing country agriculture means that developing countries are dependent on the vagaries of the global market. When prices spike — as they did in late 2007 and through the beginning of 2008 — countries and poor consumers are at the mercy of the global market and the giant trading companies that dominate it. In the first quarter of 2008, the price of rice in Asia doubled, and commodity prices overall rose 40 percent. People in rich countries felt this pinch, but the problem was much more severe in the developing world. Not only do consumers in poor countries have less money, they spend a much higher proportion of their household budget on food — often half or more — and they buy much less processed food, so commodity increases affect them much more directly. In poor countries, higher prices don’t just pinch, they mean people go hungry. Food riots broke out around the world in early 2008. But not everyone was feeling pain. For Cargill, spiking prices was an opportunity to get rich. In the second quarter of 2008, the company reported profits of more than $1 billion, with profits from continuing operations soaring 18 percent from the previous year. Cargill’s 2007 profits totaled more than $2.3 billion, up more than a third from 2006. In a competitive market, would a grain-trading middleman make super-profits? Or would rising prices crimp the middleman’s profit margin? Well, the global grain trade is not competitive. In an August speech, Cargill CEO Greg Page posed the question, “So, isn’t Cargill exploiting the food situation to make money?” Here is how he responded: “I would give you four pieces of information about why our earnings have gone up dramatically. The demand for food has gone up. The demand for our facilities has gone up, and we are running virtually all of our facilities worldwide at total capacity. As we utilize our capacity more effectively, clearly we do better. Fertilizer prices rose, and we are owners of a large fertilizer company. That has been the single largest factor in Cargill’s earnings. The volatility in the grain industry — much of it created by governments — was an opportunity for a trading company like Cargill to make money. Finally, in this era of high prices, Cargill over the last two years has invested $15.5 billion additional dollars into the world food system. Some was to carry all these high-priced inventories. We also wanted to be sure that we were there for farmers who needed the working capital to operate in this much more expensive environment. Clearly, our owners expected some return on that $15.5 billion. Cargill had an opportunity to make more money in this environment, and I think that is something that we need to be very forthright about.” OK, Mr. Page, that’s all very interesting. The question was, “So, isn’t Cargill exploiting the food situation to make money?” It sounds like your answer is, “yes.”
  22. That must be a mistake??? According to some experts on this site Henry is just awful and throws lots of passes that are completions but really should count as interceptions because the defender got real close. When choosing him for this award didn't they realize that he can't play well in cold weather??? Revoke! Revoke!
  23. I was really hoping they were fattening Hurl up for trade bait.
  24. For all of the optimists out there recall if you will how poorly the Bombers played against the Esks. in their first contest in July. They lost 32-3 and that was with Willy at the helm for most of the game and Nichols starting and Franklin finishing for the Esks. The Esks, D is probably better then it was and now they have Reilly back. Not hopeful.
  25. Geez guys, make up your minds. So basically, you want us to win but still play crappy? That sounds like a plan. And lose two or three starting NI's while you're at it, if you please. We have only won 2 games, haven't we suffered enough without having to lose players also. Not just yet. I'm hoping those flashy new jerseys become the permanent uniform, so they can also look really bad while losing.
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