Hey! The Toonie gun was intended to speed up the flow of cash to the strippers, it was not intended to kill people. On the contrary! Its very purpose is to increase the joy that I can possibly appreciate out of life. Could you imagine twin platinum toonie guns, iced out and glittering under the lights...wait..damnyoubeck. In short, the toonie gun should only have one target and that's ass...or asses.

Twin platinum guns son, reach for the sky.

I dreamt of this amazing, new invention, but then these girls I didn't recognize got in the way and forced me to forget. If only I had my toonie gun in the dream...but then I realized, what should the toonie gun look like? Should it be like a hand held item? A rifle? Or a cannon? Maybe twin hand helds for smaller numbers while a cannon/hose type for herds? Or maybe it doesn't matter how many strippers are present.

The toonie cannon must be tested! Maybe the cannon should promise an ass slap per second? Half a second? Maybe it should be designed for two man teams so it mounts on one guy's shoulders while the other aims and fires? Of course you may ask how an opportunity to use the toonie gun will ever arise, but if only we can arrange for some sort of hazing ceremony.... Or maybe we can change the stripper audience culture and have everyone walk in with shrouds.

But wait! The toonie gun has other applications! It can pay for bridge tolls! If...you ever have to pay for bridge tolls any time in the future. We'll have to design different clips so you can change ammo from toonies to quarters and loonies but it can work.

ok, I guess I'm not going to trivia after all... sorry

I think that if you're terminal and in uncontrollable pain, you should have the choice to end it. Some people do anyway. At least if it was doctor assisted it would be less painful and messy, and not a shock to whomever finds the body. Who has the right to make you live out the pain?

Depending on the situation, but I'm inclined to say doctor assisted suicide is not a good idea..

I disagree. If a doctor wants to kill himself, assistance should not be a requirement.

Very interesting thoughts from everyone... it's great that I can start such a discussion without actually contributing anything of substance. Well not really, I just like trying to get Mary angry sometimes and she knows it :)

Anyone going to Trivia tonight? I probably am.

Oh and by the way... I think doctor assisted suicide is a great idea. And anyone who thinks otherwise should be shot execution style twice in the back of the head with a souped up toonie gun.

Discuss.

Gah... who posts a rar archive of a video file on bit torrent? It's already compressed; you're not saving any fucking bandwidth. You're just pissing me off.

Alberta's Health Policy Framework (a.k.a. The "Third Way")

(I considered posting the 10-point plan, but it's probably better if you just read it on their site. Less clutter here.)

Some thoughts:

Albertans will be encouraged to think more about their health and to make good decisions about wellness and treatment.

Today, one-third of Alberta’s budget goes toward health care. If current spending trends continue, health care will consume Alberta's entire budget in 25 years.

To make sure there is room in the health care system when patients need to get in, options will be available in both the public and private health care systems where wait times are the greatest. The number of skilled health professionals in Alberta will be increased by working with professional teaching institutions that provide on-site training.

To make this happen, patients may be given the option of purchasing services they're waiting for now - like hip, knee or cataract surgery.

Alberta has a wonderful reputation for world class health and research facilities. This reputation will grow by marketing innovations around the world that are developed right here in Alberta.
...

These innovations will benefit our health, while supporting Alberta's strong economy and world-class reputation. More health care providers will come to Alberta to work, and those who are already here will stay because of our international reputation.

(I keep editting this - I'll be done soon, I promise)

What I think Ed is getting at (correct me if I am wrong) is the idea that religion, religious stories, ect, carry a culture's explainations of where they are and where they're going - they make sense of the world. It seems to me that not everything that people thought made sense a thousand or two thousand, or however long ago, are still useful today (like the Bible's explainations of how the world came to be), but I think that if those same stories are read as myths, they can still explain some things about people - for example, the human tendancy to sabatoge our own happiness, or the human tendancy to idealize the past (interpretations of the Fall). I believe rather strongly that this is still a very useful aspect of religion, and one that is beneficial to humankind. I think it would be a tragedy to throw that out in the same way that Creationists throw out evolution, or evidence of how old the world is.

I think science and religion should be thought of as different things, because to me, they deal with truths of different sorts - empirically proven truths (theories, I suppose) about the physical world, and the much more varied truths of the human pysche/soul/self. I also think that the problems people have with the science/religion difference comes from adherents of one trying to impose their truths on the other, or ignoring the contribution the other makes to human understanding. But that comes from someone who is neither a scientist, nor religious.

But that doesn't encompass all of what religion is. I agree with Mary when she pointed out that people use already existing institutions of various kinds to further their own agenda. I agree with Paras too, when he points out that religion has a jump on other institutions, but would add that people of similar religious backgrounds often have other cultural commonalities (like ethnicity, language, food) in common, which then allows members of religious institutions to have more in common with each other, and therefore identify more strongly with each other, than those of other institutions. In fact, I think it could be argued that religion is one of the most central aspects of one's identity (side: I think sexual orientation is another). Religious resurgents are common in colonized areas when the native citizens feel that their culture is being threatened (though this is not universally true).

About this movie in particular. Yes, it is based on a true story. But I would remind you of the relativity of the word 'true' when it comes to literature (and history, and philosophy, and psychology...). There are always many ways to tell a story and many ways to slant the perception of a story. We are reliant on the storyteller to impart as truthful a version of the story as is possible, and I think it is valuable for the viewer or reader of any autobiographical work to remember that there are always conflicting, truthful versions of the same story, and always a limitation on the ability of a person to be objective about their own life story. I would like to emphasize that I do believe that there is some truth in this woman's story, but that there is also some truth in whatever version her husband tells.

I would also point out that while it is Iranians (one specific Iranian family, and perhaps their friends) who try to keep this woman's daughter there, it is also Iranians who help her to get out (according to one user comment on IMBd). Also, it is the experience of one person (who was trying to win the custody of her child) and I am sure, if you tried to find them, there are other stories of Iranians, and Muslims, which would present different prespectives and realities.

These are also just my thoughts right now, and I could be very wrong. I also didn't intend to offend anyone, and apologize if I have.

I wouldn't say I'm playing devil's advocate per se. I do stand by my belief that ideas should be evaluated on their own merits rather than on their source (and that the latter can be an annoying, if not dangerous, thing.)

I would like to say that, despite Percy's musings, science and religion (as in, to clarify my use of the word here, religious institutions) are guided by different philosophical grounds; the former based on updating ideas based on new evidence and better fitting theories, the latter based on the authority of the institution and tradition.

I suppose you could call science a religion of its own, but you would have to, I think, change what you consider to be religion. Few religions that I know of challenge people to disprove them, and depend on constant questioning in order to move forward (though, admittedly, they operate on grounds that are not easy to disprove.) That said, I don't think conflating science and religion, or declaring the former as simply a newer form of the latter, does justice to the situation or helps the discussion.