Canadian here. Our national news coverage on CBC has a comments section that is... terrifying. The top 3 liked comments are all decrying the Canadian Prime Minister for causing this and making Canada a target through his participation in the fight against ISIL. Are people truly that stupid or are there troll bots upvoting stuff like that?

Turns out the officer who took the shooter out was a retired RCMP officer employed in the largely ceremonial role of Sergeant-At-Arms. A role I was surprised to find out was armed.

I don't have any real objections to him being armed, but S-A-A is more-or-less a glorified security guard. The only weapon you see him with is a bad-ass looking mace. In the US, the S-A-A is the guy you see announcing the arrival of the President in the House of Representatives before the State of the Union addresses. You can imagine how much security the shooter would have had to passed to get the same place in D.C.

Some of the questions right now are about how the fuck the guy got to the doors where Parliament sits largely unopposed. I mean, it's Canada, the last attack on a Prime Minister consisted of a pie to the face, but you'd think there'd be a metal detector checkpoint and/or a couple Mounties milling about.

Then again, unauthorized crossings at our shared border -up until 9/11- were protected mostly by traffic cones.

To a certain extent, but unfortunately a charismatic (or dictatorial) leadership, or even parents passing on their belief systems to their children, can create or enforce ideals that can shape society. Many people still adhere to religion because "that's the way it's always been", not because the religion actually fits their personal ethics...

In general, I do actually agree with you in regards to the concept that secularity tends to lead to enlightenment, but there are plenty of secular countries that are authoritarian/despotic (North Korea being a shining example), violent and considerably backwards compared to countries which have a high proportion of religious people and freedom. Unfortunately, enlightenment leads to arrogance as well.

The continual push by the media/politicians etc to classify Muslims as a homogenous whole smacks more of an attempt to play on xenophobia and racism than any factual evidence.

Particularly when the enlightened country making the most noise about it has "In God We Trust" printed on their currency. Compound that with provoking and polarising moderate Muslims by marginalising and insulting them? Enlightenment does not preclude gross stupidity.

A simple look at the US (secular mind you) shows stark differences between the north and the south, red states and blue states etc. You're proposing that 1.5 bn people (that would be ~5 times more people than the entire population of the US) spread across most countries in the world are somehow tightly aligned purely because they share a religion that is as varied as any other in the world?

And the mean truth? The arrogance and presumption of "enlightened neighbours" are part of the reasons why certain countries are as they are...

Iran is a classic example. The US (all enlightened and shit) engineers the coup that deposes a democratically elected Prime Minister hailed as a leading champion of secular democracy. And when the Shah was overthrown, it was by fundamentalists lead by Ayatollah Khomeini, ushering in an era of strict theocracy and an abiding hatred of the US.

Your last paragraph highlights the problem perfectly. We have two media reporters, deliberately or ignorantly, disseminating false information which would probably lead to discrimination against Muslims. How ethical is it to incite an entire country to hate over the actions of a tiny percentage of the whole? How ethical is it to ignore humanitarian disasters in countries which have no strategic or natural resource value (and places where no white people have been beheaded)?

And when presented with empirical truth, how ethical is it to refuse to accept it?

The politicians are allowed to "boo and hiss" here in Canada. It is impossible to be held LEGALLY accountable for ANYTHING said in there. You can get in trouble in the Court of Popular Opinion, or demoted by the Prime Minister, but you can literally say "Prime Minister Harper blows goats." as long as you say "Mr. Speaker" first.

It's a lot like Simon Says or Jeopardy...

Yeah, saw it last night. Unfortunately, it's not going to have any effect.

First, the Prime Minister is extremely well liked, even by people who don't agree with him. Second, the opposition are borderline incompetent. They've been handed any number of easy political victories in the last few months and managed to do bugger all with them.

But the most depressing thing is that most people just don't seem to care .The prevailing attitude is "if the government really want to read my texts or emails, who cares? There's nothing interesting in them anyway".

At which point I usually slap them.

She still owns half the land. The military, police and intelligence services all swear their oaths to her above us. The higher courts belong to her along with the Judges & QC's. The Prime Minister has to meet her once a week, she can veto any law parliament passes (and to pass it must gain "royal ascent"), or even dissolve parliament itself. etc. etc.

But more than any of that it is a genuine fucking embarrassment to me that in the 21st century we still accept any member of our society declaring themselves our natural betters in law, or indeed the rest of us as being "subjects".

You are not a free citizen of the UK, you are a "Subject" of the crown in law. Even if this was pure symbolism (which I don't agree with anyway), what it symbolises is disgusting and backwards. (that could be the UK's tagline "disgusting and backwards" )

If you have a nation built upon a principle of Nepotism the end result should come as no surprise to anyone. The only good argument I've ever heard for keeping the monarchy is that due to the amount of land they own, paying their "wages" works out considerably cheaper than the rent they could charge the government......

...But if that's not a reason to strip them of their power AND rights to the land WE live on I don't know what is. They want to hold us to ransom? The mature response would be to give any such people a stark lesson about the collective consensual prerequisite of personal property. Not put a fucking crown on their heads and bow to them like the feckless goons we are .

Fuck the Queen, fuck her castles and fuck her family. The Corgi's I can turn a blind eye to, they seem quite friendly.....


"Struck a nerve Mr. Woo?"
Yes I fear you have! Please try not to take that as an attack on yourself however Mr. Flowers, you're not the one I'm being angsty at if you see what I mean.

Ah, OK then. That makes sense. In fact, as I heard it, some of the strangest rules are at the local level (prohibiting outdoor clothes lines??? Really!?!?!?! Mandating instead of prohibiting watering lawns in a drought?!?). Obviously the way in to your Federal senate is by taking over a state... which is a bit of an ask.

The reason the greens are so strong in the Senate here is that the way the votes are counted means that in some cases you can get a Senate seat with almost 0% of the vote (and some sneaky preference alliances). One of our former prime ministers (Paul Keating) described them as "unrepresentative swill" as a result of this.

It was 10.08pm, probably on the last sitting before the byelection, so I'm not sure if they're always like that.

The only other senator present was a member of the (federal) liberal party, like the prime minister Mr. Abbott.

See if you like this one, Greens senator savages our right wing prime minister while welcoming him to the West for a Senate byelection called after some votes disappeared during a recount - http://videosift.com/video/Senator-Ludlam-welcomes-Tony-Abbott-to-WA

In 1951 Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq received the vote required from the parliament to nationalize the British-owned oil industry, in a situation known as the Abadan Crisis. Despite British pressure, including an economic blockade, the nationalization continued.

August 19, 1953, a successful coup was headed by retired army general Fazlollah Zahedi, organized by the United States (CIA) with the active support of the British (MI6) (known as Operation Ajax). The coup—with a black propaganda campaign designed to turn the population against Mossadegh—forced Mossadegh from office. Mossadegh was arrested and tried for treason. /wikipedia

Iran got trampled on and interfered with by foreign nations exploiting her natural resources--oil. I'd be pissed too.

By contrast, Iran knows what happened to her next door neighbour after Iraq changed the preferred currency for oil sales from USD to Euros late in 2000 (They switched back to dollars in 2003.)

Slow zoom-out reveals the logo on the front of each truck-"Sinaloa Cartel"

Splits
Pan-out wide

Transition, Fade outro:
Cocaine. It's a Helluva Drug
A message from the Campaign For Prime Minister Elect Rob Ford

"I'm Rob Ford and I approve of the following message":
Snort Blow Off Strippers Thighs-Rock The Vote

It's a thing now, and I am fully within its grip. I live in Toronto and I have vowed to vote for Rob Ford in every election I'm eligible to vote for him, just for the entertainment value he gives me, which far outweighs any harm he may cause me as my mayor/MPP/MP/Prime Minister.

If this man isn't the next Canadian Prime Minister I will be truly upset.

My statement isn't inaccurate. They are a democracy. They have a democratically elected leader. You not liking it does not make it not a democracy. By your logic I might as well say the USA is not a democracy since they are a representative democracy. Of course the USA like Iran is just a variant of democracy. There are 20 something variants:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_democracy#Forms

Your use of the word dictator did not have the context to it you now ascribe.

If the Supreme Leader holds a higher position of power, why isn't he visibly controlling the nation? (genuine question)

The president doesn't always have the highest position though. Many republics have both a president and prime minister. The prime minister will run the nation. Or like in Australia where Queen Elizabeth the 2nd holds the highest position, but she is a figurehead only, the parliament runs the nation.

I'd still like to understand how you believe diplomacy to be a more workable solution. If diplomacy is to be the solution to extremism in Pakistan, I presume you look to the moderate leaders in Pakistan for the answers? When I go through the list of such leaders, a disturbing trend is observable.

Shahbaz Bhatti was an elected member of the National Assembly lobbying for repealing Pakistan's death penalty for blasphemy. He was assassinated on March 2, 2011.

Salman Taseer was a governor in Pakistan, lobbying for repealing Pakistan's death penalty for blasphemy. He was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards on January 4, 2011.

Benazir Bhutto, the nations first female Prime Minister had returned after being chased off by the nations military to run in the 2008 elections. She was assassinated on December 27, 2007.

This list is just highlights, countless more moderate leaders keep ending up dead in Pakistan. Meanwhile, elected figures like those from parties like the JUI-F survive, and give speeches in Pakistan's National Assembly declaring Osama Bin Laden an Islamic hero, and the assassins that killed those in the prior list as heroes as well.

I don't mean to be rude about it, but I just don't understand why you believe that diplomacy alone can be expected to succeed in such circumstances?