Fear not about the harshness. Spitballs at a battleship.

I see your passion and your good intentions. I can tell you invest a lot of yourself into it. Make it count. Be an example of your hard work and concern.

Teach without teaching. Share your treasures with those who are looking for you. Don't hunt them down. Offer what you got and let them take it. Don't scare the people that could love you for who you are.

Now, I gotta go make some work those budding paramedics.

All good points.

And.

What happens in a court of law is subject to the law. Which is not the same as justice.

I stand by my original question -- what did the university know that we don't know?

There are a lot of suppositions in your well reasoned response to my comment.

I have no suppositions. I have questions.

What did the university know that we don't?

Maybe it is nothing, as you suppose here. And maybe those roommates saw or heard something that scared the bejeebers out of them.

Here is a supposition that you did not put forth -- did the roommates only report the encounter as rape because this guy has dark skin? There could be a racist component to this.

Supposition. What are the facts? What information did the university use to justify expelling this dude?

I don't know.

Exactly. The bears were scared and trying to escape.

Awesome, but transparent tubing? I'd be scared of touching it, 'cause what if the tubing has chafed off and the bare wire is exposed? You wouldn't know.

@ChaosEngine:
"The first 3 levels of sexual violence ALL involve no physical contact and are entirely verbal. "
100% fine with this. You can be a creepy sleazebag without touching someone and it's still not ok.

Perhaps you misunderstand. I also oppose verbal harassment and discrimination. I disagree with calling sexist and racist comments acts of violence. I agree with condemning them and acting to stop them.

Real world example, a Canadian student TA at Wilfred Laurier University played a short clip of a publicly broadcast debate over trans pronoun usage between 2 U of T professors in a class. She was brought into a meeting with 3 WLU staff who told her she was horribly wrong for doing so because playing that clip was "an act of violence" against any trans students in the room.

This abuse of language is manipulative and wrong.

I'm a man, and I'm not scared of being accused of sexual assault. None of my male friends are scared either.

With burden of proof I'm thinking beyond merely sexual assault. This already practice in forms in Canada. Ontario has an entire system of Social Justice Tribunals that run parallel to the criminal court system. It's been a gradual transformation of the civil court system, so civil and family courts are lumped in as tribunals now there. The specific one relevant in this case is the human rights tribunal. If the WLU faculty, or a student from the classroom, wanted to file a human rights complaint for the 'violence' they faced, the burden of proof would be a preponderance of the evidence rather than innocent until proven guilty. Which I can even understand in some cases, but lets not say that doesn't make people nervous about being falsely accused. That is not what scares people the most though in Ontario. The social justice tribunals have paid for legal representation for the accusers, and so the government foots the financial costs for the accuser. The accused however is on their own. The erosion of burden of proof and fear of financial damages from malicious or vengeful complaints is a very, very real thing in Canada. Accusations of sexual harassment being just one of many kinds of accusations that you can be damaged by while entirely innocent.

Lots of good comments here... this might take a while so bear with me.

@Mordhaus, I haven't read that book but I'd be interested to see his sources. Everything I've googled suggests the rate is really low.

As for Ford, obviously, I can't say for certain whether she is telling the truth. She may even believe she is telling the truth and still be wrong. I think she was entitled to the benefit of the doubt in terms of an investigation. Of course, it's possible she was doing this for political reasons, but that feels like a stretch to me.

@bcglorf
In some ways, I can understand the desire to remove the vexatious complaints cause. Coming forward with a report of sexual assault is traumatic enough already.
A) you may not be believed
B) even if you are, you're in for an experience many assault survivors have described as "being raped a second time"
If you add the possibility that your complaint could potentially get you sanctioned if no one believes you, that's a pretty awful situation to be in.

Now, I don't necessarily agree with this stance, but I can understand it. I think you would need to clear a very high bar to prove a complaint is malicious. Presumption of innocence applies to the complainant also.

"The first 3 levels of sexual violence ALL involve no physical contact and are entirely verbal. "
100% fine with this. You can be a creepy sleazebag without touching someone and it's still not ok.

"lots of people are very much arguing that lives should be destroyed then and there"
Sorry, I just don't see it. That said, if there are people arguing for that... I'm against them.

"We'll even right songs to laugh at them when they complain."
This song was mocking the bullshit "it's a scary time to be a man" line, and deservedly so. I'm a man, and I'm not scared of being accused of sexual assault. None of my male friends are scared either. But it fucking crushes my soul to think of how many of the women in my life have ACTUALLY experienced some form of sexual assault (and that's just the ones I know of).

@scheherazade
Completely agree that eyewitness testimony is borderline useless in terms of evidence. Go back through my comment history... you'll see I even said I doubt you could prove Kavanaugh's guilt. All I've ever said is that it warrants an investigation. (sidenote: I totally agree with @vil and @Mordhaus on this... polygraphs are junk science, but Kavanaugh's boorish behaviour should have been grounds not to confirm him).

Regarding your friend that was raped by a girl: that's awful, and yes, we really have to stop this childish attitude of somehow thinking female on male rape is either funny or that the guy was lucky. But it is unrelated to this discussion.

@MilkmanDan, I pretty much agree with everything you've said.

Being falsely accused of rape would be terrible, even if you weren't convicted. No disagreement there at all.

Can I be against both rape AND false accusations of rape? Can I be both scared of abandoning proof and evidence AND for the safety of women?

The scary part of our times is the race to pick a camp and turn on everyone who isn't your camp of thought already. It isn't actually scary, it's horrifying.

Opportunity of a lifetime, and they bring the Buzzkill.
I'm sorry that she was scared, but Adult up a bit I guess. I just feel bad because those whales were just visiting.

On the flip side, I don't feel the need to go whale watching - I mean why tempt death.

Yes, but in some cases this kind of sensationalism is warranted. Many people don't take hurricanes seriously. "Scaring" them like this could save lives.

What I find remarkable is that the mice are not scared off by the problems their oil soaked buddies are facing and keep jumping in.

I don't mean that they would be able to assess the situation completely, but the mice in the bowl must be panicking to an extent, apparently that does not give off any warning signals to the other mice.

True, I did not consider international applications.

Milled steel would sort of defeat the scare tactic of a "totally invisible, undetectable" gun.

Anything fully automatic would immediately fall under NFA and be extremely illegal if not held to the strict standards in the Act.

Printable guns are another scare tactic. We are talking about guns that can only fire small caliber rounds and that still require at least a few metal components. There is no such thing as a totally untraceable, all plastic gun. Technically, if there were such a thing, it would be illegal under existing law.

Ghost guns are another freak out buzz word. It's a grey area that is quasi legal as long as you only make it for yourself. If you plan on making them and selling them, you are fucked.

Hell, I can go down to Lowes and buy materials to make a higher caliber zip gun that is actually going to be deadlier than a plastic printed one. With a cork, some glue,plastic vanes, a nail, and a shotgun shell I can make a grenade. With some matches, pipe from Lowes, a firecracker fuse, and threadlocker I can make a pipe bomb.

The point being, you can make damn near anything deadly with some work and access to everyday components. If you want to frighten a gullible populace with a scary plastic 'gun' to further your agenda against guns in general, it's child play to do so.

Hi Sagemind,

I'm not offended by your questions or statements. I am guessing you didn't watch much of the video or else you wouldn't be saying all of these prophecies are based on an eclipse. It doesn't a do whole lot for your argument when you skim the video and then mischaracterize the content. This is the atheist MO; come to a premature conclusion based on incomplete information in a rush to falsify the data. Having only a superficial understanding of the subject matter, how would you expect to convince anyone of your position?

The sun being darkened is one of literally dozens (maybe hundreds) of signs that indicate the Day of the Lord, which this video covers. The Jews, and Christians aren't just looking for an eclipse, they are looking at world events, cultural conditions, and a myriad of other things which confirm these prophecies. Without the dozens of other accompanying signs, a simple eclipse wouldn't have any weight in fulfilling these prophecies. The Jewish culture knew about eclipses, that isn't what this is talking about.

This is a very indepth subject. For example, Sir Issac Newton wrote on bible prophecy extensively and said that he considered his work on prophecy more important than his work on mathematics. Based on his studies he corrected predicted when the Jews would return to their homeland. Do you think he just guessed? Read his writings. There is something there a little deeper than atheist talking points.

You've also mischaracterized my faith. I don't believe in God because I was scared and I needed something to lean on. I believe in God because of personal revelation; God revealed Himself to me and showed me that Jesus is the Messiah and the bible is His book. I was content to be a secular agnostic and I wasn't afraid of my death. God wasn't content with that and I responded to His call.

Your oversimplication of faith proves that you don't know a lot about it, or why Christians believe what they believe. I don't think that is very intelligent to dismiss something that you really don't understand. I think your rejection of my faith is mostly based on cherry picking information which has been spoonfed to you by atheist sources instead of a sincere investigation which weighed both sides instead of just one. I would love for you to prove me wrong here.

Have you ever considered giving the claims of Christianity a chance by asking Jesus Christ to reveal Himself to you? Either He is alive and can hear you, or He isn't. If He did give you a sign, would you be willing to follow it?

Mostly the trouble depends on where you work and how publicly you make your statement. I'd mostly get called a racist, but working for a partially publicly funded place if I was vocal enough losing your job or being told to apologise and be quiet are real possibilities.

The not allowed to talk about it applies much more heavily to anyone in the media. A recent example would be an aboriginal man that was recently shot by a white farmer. The narrative on the national CBC media made a big deal about rampant racism in the region against aboriginals. In their coverage of local opinion it was even more one sided, as they described two sides, the grieving family of the deceased and their supporters, and then the racists who sided with the farmer because they hated aboriginal people. They very slowly, reluctantly and buried deep under a lot of disclaimers released more information on the case.

The young man that was killed was in a truck with 4 of his friends, and their story was that they got a flat tire and pulled into the yard to seek help with repairs. The CBC ran that much right away. They were much more reluctant to include that the RCMP had been called BEFORE the truck got onto that farm because they had been trying to steal a truck from a neighbouring farm already beforehand. It wasn't until during the trial that even more came out, and CBC again reluctantly included details from the friends that where with the victim. All the occupants of the vehicle had been drinking very heavily all afternoon. They admitted to 'checking cars' at the earlier neighbouring farm. They admitted to using the butt end of a rifle to try and break the windows of the truck at the neighbouring farm, but the stock broke off the gun. It was found at the neighbouring farm by police. Upon arriving at the final farm, they admitted trying to start up an ATV and going through and unlocked vehicle there as well, but disagreed on who was doing which. The trial even included text messages from the night before wondering if one of the friends would be able to "go on missions" tomorrow because they were hiding from police after a liquor store robbery. The farmer also mentioned being scared about what could happen the day of the shooting because he thought back to a story he'd been told about 2 farmers being killed on their yards a few years before he'd moved into the area. Only 1 media outlet in the country, and in 1 article checked out that the identity of one of those killers back then turned out to be the victims uncle. I had to go back looking for the original article from when those murders took place to be sure that the current news article wasn't just sensationalising things.

Now of course none of that means you want to see somebody getting killed over property theft. None of that means racism in any way shape or form is justified. However, when there was a rampant run of rural crime across the area and farmers were getting more and more fed up and nervous about their safety something bad was eventually going to happen. It's a tragedy, but our media was absolutely terrified of covering the full story because listing the facts I just laid out is considered racist. Your blaming the victim. My listing of the above facts is not supposed to be done without including many times more explanations and reasons that this was the white man's fault.

Ultimately, the absolute failure to talk openly about things in Canada is getting people killed. We absolutely need to be clear that stealing doesn't deserve a death penalty. We ALSO need to tell a group of young adults that were going farm to farm, with a loaded rifle, raging drunk, stealing and breaking into vehicles that doing that was a BAD idea and one of the reasons is that doing so might get you shot by someone that doesn't know if your going to hurt them or not. I really believe if the kids had been white that would have been the narrative, but because of race it wasn't. It just makes things worse and inspires more risky and dangerous decisions from people in the future and more people will continue to get hurt.

Upvote for 12:50 and on.
Sure sounded to me like like "If you talk about how we treat you, we're going to kick you out of the country and stop helping you find your parents. I'm not trying to scare you, just telling you the truth."