Jump to content
TSM Forums

cbacon

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    2048

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by cbacon

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Something that always gets overlooked with regards to Iran:

     

    The efforts to intensify the harshness of the regime show up in many ways. For example, the West absolutely adores Ahmadinejad. Any wild statement that he comes out with immediately gets circulated in headlines and mistranslated. They love him. But anybody who knows anything about Iran, presumably the editorial offices, knows that he doesn’t have anything to do with foreign policy. Foreign policy is in the hands of his superior, the Supreme Leader Khamenei. But they don’t report his statements, particularly when his statements are pretty conciliatory. For example, they love when Ahmadinejad says that Israel shouldn’t exist, but they don’t like it when Khamenei right afterwards says that Iran supports the Arab League position on Israel-Palestine. As far as I’m aware, it never got reported. Actually you could find Khamenei’s more conciliatory positions in the Financial Times, but not here. And it’s repeated by Iranian diplomats but that’s no good. The Arab League proposal calls for normalization of relations with Israel if it accepts the international consensus of the two-state settlement which has been blocked by the United States and Israel for thirty years. And that’s not a good story, so it’s either not mentioned or it’s hidden somewhere.

  7. Posted · Report reply

    Evangelist takes credit for film crackdown

    Christian crusader says he pressured cabinet ministers and PMO officials to deny tax credits to productions deemed too offensive

     

    BILL CURRY AND GAYLE MACDONALD

     

    From Friday's Globe and Mail

     

    February 29, 2008 at 4:00 AM EST

     

    OTTAWA, TORONTO — A well-known evangelical crusader is claiming credit for the federal government's move to deny tax credits to TV and film productions that contain graphic sex and violence or other offensive content.

     

    Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, said his lobbying efforts included discussions with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and "numerous" meetings with officials in the Prime Minister's Office.

     

    "We're thankful that someone's finally listening," he said yesterday. "It's fitting with conservative values, and I think that's why Canadians voted for a Conservative government."

     

    Mr. McVety said films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence should not receive tax dollars, and backbench Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers support his campaign.

    Related Articles

     

    "There are a number of Conservative backbench members that do a lot of this work behind the scenes," he said.

     

    Mr. Day and Mr. Nicholson said through officials yesterday they did not recall discussing the issue with Mr. McVety.

     

    Canadian Heritage officials confirmed yesterday they will be "expanding slightly" the criteria used for denying tax credits to include grounds such as gratuitous violence, significant sexual content that lacks an educational purpose, or denigration of an identifiable group. More details are promised next week.

     

    Arts groups say they will fight the change. Director David Cronenberg and other big industry names warned that the edgy, low-budget films that have garnered Canadians international acclaim will be at risk.

     

    Conservatives deny that the changes are driven by politics or Mr. McVety, noting the previous Liberal government pledged to review the guidelines as far back as 2003.

     

    Conservative MP Dave Batters recently urged the new president of Telefilm Canada, Michel Roy, to block federal funding for objectionable films, listing Young People Fucking as a recent example.

     

    "In my mind, sir, and in the minds of many of my colleagues and many, many Canadians," said Mr. Batters during a Jan. 31 meeting of the Canadian Heritage committee, "the purpose of Telefilm is to help facilitate the making of films for mainstream Canadian society - films that Canadians can sit down and watch with their families in living rooms across this great country."

     

    In addition to the tax credits for labour costs, Telefilm is a second source of revenue for Canadian film producers. Mr. Roy pledged to raise the issue with the Telefilm board, but a spokesman said yesterday that no policy changes have been made.

     

    Mr. Batters said yesterday he does not support censorship, but offensive films should be made with private money.

     

    "If there's a market for that, let people pay the $11," he said.

     

    Draft guidelines would give the Heritage Minister the clout to deny tax credits to projects deemed "offensive" by an independent committee that includes members of the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office and the Department of Justice.

     

    Several powerful arts groups say the changes violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

     

    Yesterday, novelist Susan Swan, chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, pledged to lead her 1,600-strong membership in a protest.

     

    "We're not going to sit back and accept this," vowed Ms. Swan, author of books such as The Wives of Bath and The Biggest Modern Woman in the World. "We don't like being told what kind of art we can make by the federal government."

     

    Mr. Cronenberg, whose most recent film was the Oscar-nominated Russian mob thriller Eastern Promises, called the move an assault on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

     

    "The irony is that it is the Canadian films that have given us an international reputation [that] would be most at risk because they are the edgy, relatively low-budget films made by people like me and others that will be targeted by this panel," he said.

     

    "The platform they're suggesting is akin to a Communist Chinese panel of unknown people, who, behind closed doors, will make a second ruling after bodies like Telefilm Canada have already invested."

     

    CONTROVERSIAL FILMS COULD BE THE LOSERS

     

    Films with controversial subject matter, such as Lynne Stopkewich's acclaimed necrophilia film Kissed and Atom Egoyan's Where The Truth Lies (which got an NC-17 rating in the United States for a scene involving a threesome) could lose the right to tax credits under new public policy guidelines.

     

    Works by Martin Gero, the director of Young People Fucking (which opens in theatres in Canada in April), could also get a once-over from the panel.

     

    "It seems ill-conceived from beginning to end, and is less about censorship than destroying the economic foundation of our entire industry," said Mr. Gero, who shot his debut feature film for $1.5-million with support from Telefilm and other government agencies. "It's old people fucking with the Canadian film industry."

     

    Man, they make they make themselves too easy to hate.

  14. Posted · Report reply

    Yes. And the period between 1980 and now has pushed the entire conversation so far to the right that what passes for liberalism in a general election is really just a less harsh version of what the Republicans are selling.

     

    Comparing public opinion to policies and actions taken by modern Democrats illustrates this quite well. Labeling any Democratic in the presidential campaign as "too liberal" is a bit silly. Yeah, there's some important differences between the two parties but at the end of the day the Democrats are still slightly to the right of the political spectrum.

  15. Posted · Report reply

    Not that it would ever happen, but I'd be elated if Kucinich got to be Obama's running mate.

     

    Absoultely. Even better would be Gravel, but he pretty much alienated himself with his scathing attacks on most of the candidates during the early debates (and rightly so)

     

    Although that would probably make it way too liberal of a ticket for most people.

     

    I don't think there's such thing as being "too liberal" when dealing with the narrow spectrum between the Democrats and Republicans.

  19. Posted · Report reply

    Yep, definitely agree with the last part of what you wrote. And yes, the Cuban government feeds their line about the US "starving the people" constantly.

     

    Gallup polls suggest half of the population believe the problems facing Cuba relate to the embargo.

     

    And the embargo continues today because of Cuba's successful defiance, and this has always been the case despite the misleading pretexts of Soviet intervention or concerns over democracy.

     

    Of course, my opinion of the situation is really that there's absolutely no reason for the embargo to continue, seeing as how both Cuba and the U.S. can benefit from it. If the U.S. wants some form of democracy to succeed in Cuba without initiating some sort of violence (whether on their end or some "counter"-revolutionaries' end), then there's no reason why they can't let capitalism take its course there much like it is in China. It is far more likely that communism would dissolve in a country like Cuba with capitalism running amuck there, than in a largely rural and developing nation like China.

     

    It amazes me how a country that has installed and supported some of the worst dictatorships in this hemisphere could be so obsessed with overthrowing Castro. America must really, really care about the Cuban people. I wish it had shown the same concern for Haitians, Guatemalans, Chileans, Brazilians, Argentinians, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Dominicans..

     

    If "democracy in Cuba" means allowing the people of Cuba to control their own destiny then I completely support it. If "democracy in Cuba" means giving everything of value in Cuba away to foreigners then I don't see it being any better than what they've got now.

  22. Posted · Report reply

    Bush or Cheney ever being charged for the war crimes they've committed

    Jesus, can you order a Big Mac without lecturing the fat chick with frightening fingernails who's working the drive-thru about foreign policy and how much America sucks? Furthermore, what exactly are these war crimes? I mean I want specific details of when, where, and how they violated which exact rulings from the revised Geneva Conventions of 1949.

     

     

    Well, the war itself was in violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter (relation to wars of aggression). Furthermore:

     

    - The 1945 Nuremberg Charter defines war crimes and the "shock and awe" campaign in Baghdad violated this provision.

     

    - The Geneva Convention states: "fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service may in no circumstances be attacked, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict." The US targetered hospitals during the attack on Fallujah including forcing patients and hosptial employees on the floor and tying their hands behind their backs.

     

    - The treatment of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo violate the Third Geneva Convention and the War Crimes Act. The government still regards waterboarding as fair game because, as history has shown on numerous occasions, international law is irrelevant when convenient.

     

    There's more, but I really don't feel like I should have to be explaining all of this. Especially since it's veering off topic :/

     

    Maybe give the Nuremberg Trial a read?

  23. Posted · Report reply

    It's written into law that the embargo can't end unless all nationalized properties taken from Americans are returned to them. This has been extended to include native Cubans who have since immigrated to the United States. Congress could, of course, repeal Helms-Burton, but the odds of that happening are about as good as the odds of Bush or Cheney ever being charged for the war crimes they've committed

  24. Posted · Report reply

    Let's not get carried away. We're dealing with mentally ill people whose conditions are exacerbated by pharmaceuticals. It's more than just having a pathetic life. I have a pathetic life. I don't shoot people

     

    Cho mailed an entire manifesto to NBC, in a bid to pursue fame. The guy in Omaha left a note indicationg he wanted to 'go out with a bang'. These men knew what they were doing.and what the consqeunces would be (outcry, grief, worldwide attention). The obvious pre meditation in cases like this leads me to beleive these guys ere at least partially aware of what they were doing. That why the perpetrator almost always kills himself: he knows what the consequnces are.

    You're missing the point. People with a clean bill of mental health don't think to seek fame in this manner in the first place. Planning to open fire in a lecture hall doesn't mean you're thinking rationally, and thus fit to be judged against other wrongdoing rational thinkers. I'm certainly not excusing anyone's actions, but there's more to it than "they just want attention." They're not healthy.

     

    ^quotin' dis

     

    Part of me thinks that concealed carry rights should be expanded, including on college campuses. I know there are a lot of negatives to more people having guns, but you have to think that it would at least somewhat deter things like this from happening so frequently.

     

    How would this act as a deterrent? This guy would have still gone his rampage regardless.

  25. Posted · Report reply

    *sigh*

     

    F4W Newsletter did in fact post that because they were quoting a guy that said it. Rob Lefebvre (I believe was the name) wrote that in article about hauntings last week. Jericho2000mark thought the same thing. You can see that the second paragraph is a continuation of the quote in the previous paragraph. I also doubt that F4W Newsletter was quoting it for the accuracy, but more for the lunacy of the statement.

     

    Oh cool. So I can submit Ghost Owen fan fiction and F4W will post it XD

×