As one of the more "conservative" occassional posters, I agree with the first poster on its' difficult to tell who's telling the truth; but I find it hard to justify shooting someone coming through your front door with at least some attempt at identifying them. But I digress...

The follow-up posters regarding support for the war-on-drugs. No, I don't agree with it. All drugs should be dealt with as controlled substances, regulated and taxed by the government. It would cut the crime out of the system; we'd still have junkies, but as other posters have pointed out we still have drunks, so what difference does that make really? People have to have personal accountability, the biggest issue with drugs is the violence, which legalization signicantly reduces.

As for the suggestion that the "war on drugs" is about money; I think that's a little paranoid. The government would likely make more money if they were to legalize it and tax it. I agree with other posters that its more about racism, as most of the prohibited substance originate from non-caucasian ethnic groups and the prohibition of it was mostly used as an excuse to incarcerate them.

Canada has recently started to lighten up on pot, and may eventually go as far as legalization, but concern about the perception from our southern neighbour is preventing that. However, I predict that within 10 years, pot will be legal here, and within 20 years legal in the US. This debate is about demographics and shifting the focus onto the unfounded bias against the legalization of these substances (much like was done with gay marriage).

You know, I was sympathetic with him until this part:

I didn't bargain on the contents leaking out before my book was released, which is what happened last November. Now the FBI and local law enforcement are watching over my family in the States, while the Tokyo police and the NPA look out for me in Japan. I would like to go home, but Goto has a reputation for taking out his target and anyone else in the vicinity.

Wow, so you have a book coming out about this? Soon? Where can I buy it? Particularly the cheezy "Goto has a reputation for taking out his target and anyone else in the vicinity." Come on, it's like a line out of a Mario Puzo book.

Awesome, Skynet and BigBrother roled into one! I for one welcome our new computerized masters.

So that's what happened to Sonic in retirement....

I, for one, would like to welcome our new alligator overlords...

It's both graffiti and art, the two labels are not mutually exclusive. I've always viewed art as something that provokes an emotional reaction; whether that be anger, joy, sadness, etc., i'd say most gang-banger 'tags' provoke anger in me and thus under my own definition are art, although I consider it "shock art" and not worthy of serious consideration, and further it's still graffiti and mostly the reason it provokes anger in me is that it is graffiti, and so yes, it's still illegal and shouldn't be tolerated.

However if, as an above poster noted, they used chalk I think it ceases to be grafitti as it is not permanent and causes no damage and we are only left with art.

This makes me think of Phillipe from Achewood, what would Phillipe say?

http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=03042008

Only chumps check luggage; carry-on is the way to travel. You can switch flights more easily, you don't have to wait for your bags to come out, and they can't get lost.

Be that as it may, the reason only chumps check luggage is due to all of TSA crazy rules.

Is this Duck Dodgers reporting? How does he know what the concept of beauty is in the 29th century?

I saw Waldo.

For Rajio, no, I think you've read that incorrectly into my comment, I don't condone torture and neither does the Canadian gov't as can be seen by adding Gitmo to the watchlist.

The Khadr attorney is trying to get the Canadian gov't to intervene in Khadr case, as the Khadr family has used the Canadian gov't in the past to get their family out of tough situations (Chretian got the dad out of jail in Pakistan). There has been no proven allegation of torture in the Khadr case, and so this is a poor attempt to raise the Khadr profile again, after their last attempt was shot down in leaked video to 60 minutes which showed Khadr making land-mines.

As for him being 15, I'm not sure how that's a defence if a child over the age of 12 does something particulary agregious they are often tried as adults (even in Canada). He was making landmines, and blew up a soldier with a grenade, he's not a citizen of Afghanistan so he is by definition an unlawful combatant. I'm sure there are mis-carriages of justice going on in Gitmo, but this isn't one of them.

Isn't Omar Khadr the guy who they put footage of, on 60 minutes, making landmines and gleefully talking about killing Americans. Isn't his father "proud" of the Khadr's family connections to Bin Laden? I'm not sure why people are still championing this guy's cause ...

I think what I found most distressing about this article, is that it was on the front page of both the Globe and Mail, and CNN; I mean its a UFO story with no supportable evidence other than a bunch of hicks claiming they saw it. How in this day and age does a UFO go by with dozens of people claiming to see it, but NO ONE has a camcorder or a camera? This isn't 1960 anymore, 1 in every 3 persons has some kind of visual recording mechanism on their person at all times, i.e. your cell phone. I call SLOW NEWS DAY.