I say hooray for the tri-loon and goodbye and good riddence to paper money of all sorts! A return to leather coin purses one ties to ones belt and the return of non-anachronistic use of the term "cut-purse"!

Actually, the arguments against the tri-loon are silly at times. People claiming that it will increase in the wearing out of pant pockets: who owns pants so long that the pockets wear out??? Or that one will be tired from carrying around soooo much heavy money: who actually carries change anymore exceptf for gum machines for the kiddees and the extravigant parking fees charges by the city, heck, even that can be paid for with ones visa!!!

Down with dirty paper currency!!!

And down with spell check apparently..

great to see don and rob macd in the pool.

Yes, a bit hat tip to Rob MacDonald, too - who I never met but, really, I think I only physically met you, Hans, only a few times other than the PEI bar course. Blogging after I left PEI introduced me to many Islanders and even residents of PEI.

What a lot of sentimental trollop over the penny! Everyone knows it is a pointless denomination of currency and that the leap from rounding to the nearest 1 to the nearest 5 is within the grasp of even our most inept shopkeepers and accountants.

What interests me most about the prospect though is the present waste of resources that goes into producing the metals of coinage. I can comment with some authority that the environmental and social (at least when one looks globally) consequences of mining, milling, smelting and refining such things are profound and dismaying when doen for no real benefit to the people.

But it makes that satisfying clinky jangly sound in your pocket and lasts much longer than dead tree and cloth based moolah does.. All in all, my vote is for coinage simply because we carry less and less actual money every year so why not make it out of something that lasts 20-30 years rather than what, 2-5 for paper?

Also, without coinage, cartoon criminals won't look as successful either, what with the bags of loot surrounding them. And Smaug? What would he sit on? A few debit cards and visa statements?

Penny can go though. No use for them.

May I propose a return to the copper piece (CP), silver piece (SP) and gold piece (SP) standard; with optional electrum piece (EP) thrown in for variety. This will be in the traditional 1SP = 20CP; 1GP = 20SP; 1GP = 2EP of course.

I concur with David. I shall keep my plentiful coinage in a Bag of Holding which with my Deck of Many Things.

"gunpoint cfi"*

* I don't know what civilians call a CFI but in aviation parlance it means "flight instructor".

I think there is a pretty good argument to be made that if HRCs are to act as quasi-judicial bodies, ones that receive and handle evidence from police and other law enforcement or security agencies, it's not unreasonable to expect that their investigations be conducted with police-like rigor (especially WRT privacy, chain of evidence, undercover work, etc).

Rats, I wish I had called Dallas as my underdog team. I knew they were going to take it to the Ducks.

<i>What interests me most about the prospect though is the present waste of resources that goes into producing the metals of coinage. I can comment with some authority that the environmental and social (at least when one looks globally) consequences of mining, milling, smelting and refining such things are profound and dismaying when doen for no real benefit to the people.</i>

So do you suggest paper currency is any better for the environment or any better socially??
Do you suppose we ought to simply forego physical money in favor of some kind of electronic or credit system (which is pretty well what a lot of people do anyways)?

Doing away with the whole Canadian Mint and returning to a barter system might be best to reduce "environmental and social consequences".

And in case you missed it, the Jays swept the Rangers over the weekend :-)

Hey - you're jumping the morning on tomorrow's edition of "The Monday Morning Quarterback."

While bartering may be most environmentally friendly, it will never fly in the real world. I'm just saying, as most transactions are by debit or Credit card means nowadays, removing the short life paper and replacing it with long life coinage will be a nice close of the loop and kill a lot less trees. What the heck, make all future coinage out of recycled recovered metal.

War child. I dunno, Al. That's kinda the whole point of an investigation and a trial(granted the sloooooooowness of his trial occuring, if not due to defense motions, seems really wrong), don't you think? Investigation and trial instead of the words of a defense attorney(who, in the world of law use 'moral voids' and think bending the rules can in fact provide their client a proper defense.)? I dunno. It could be. It could be righteous. We do know that some insurgency groups were using minors, even giving them tracksuits as a type of uniform, at times. It is possible this kid is dirty. But, based on your one article I don't know, and I doubt you do either(based on that one).

And you thought you were rid of me? Ha. Close, been a tough couple of months, homie, but not yet.

I'd never want rid of you...but I still don't understand the concept that this kid is "dirty". You have to add in the fact that it appears there was plenty of friendly fire in the room, the report was changed, that no one saw Khadr do the killing and that the scene was not exactly one laden with respect for human rights in addition to the guy being a teen. Why is it so important that this child soldier be guilty when all the others in all the other battle in all the other war zones are seen as victims of those who, like Khadr, were forced or indoctrinated by adults.

The only question for me is whether he's a legal or illegal combatant -- which I can't seem to find a reasonable answer for anywhere. I couldn't care less about how he came by his beliefs, 15 is old enough, and I don't think the battlefield should be a place for formal legalisms or pedantic concerns for human rights or even who shot whom.

If "child" soldiers get off -- and we're talking teenagers here -- then what your essentially proposing is the targeting of teenagers for indoctrination and use as front line soldiers since the rules don't apply to them. And then to flip your point on its head, why do we not have the right then to vigorously reindoctrinate this kid into civilized behavior, as opposed to giving him the bullet in the back of the head he'd deserve [*] if he was what ... 16? 18? 21?

[*] assuming he's an illegal combatant

Why don't we have the right to indoctrinate them? Is that not what happens with all other child soldiers in west Africa, etc.?

ME thinks you've made a mnetal leap you haven't the grounds for, Al, and that kinda limits your argument: was the kid forced? Iraq seems to be far different than say much of the warfare in Africa(where child soldiering by means of being Shanghaid is the norm) in that there are people under the age of consent for such activity in GC choosing to fight. Hence, this kid could be dirty(as in 'dirty cop'). Plus, that's a lot of infering you're doing from that one news article. Where did you see that in this news article you offered up as proof of a wrongful prosecution? Maybe you've got good reason to make the claims, but you're not showing your work here and I'm wondering how you're making those infered facts show up here(infered not being deragatory, just meaning not apparent at first glance).

I think this is rather an easy one to decide if it was or wasn't blue on blue. Look at the grenade fragment. Metallurgy would tell you whether it was of US or foreign manufacture. If foreign, it isn't BoB. There goes reasonable doubt and leaves the defense with trying to prove he didn't throw it.

Second, man, you're really giving MOUT training short shrift. Or the German tactics of Sturmtroopen in WW1 using handgrenades used in close proximity of the attacking mobile element to force a breach in the trench. IT seems rather simplistic and demeaning to military professionals to say "well, there own people were throwing grenades, so one inadvertantly had to get them." It is possible. I won't deny that. Mistakes do happen. BUt without proof of it being from friendly grenade it's a tissue of conjecture, not a fact.

I don't agree with Brother Janes that 15 is old enough. I'd have to go look back and see what the GCs actually say the age is(I think it's 16, but that's not a hard certainty). The option also exists that this kid was Shanghaid. Persecuting him that instance has absolutely no deterrent effect on 'indoctrinating' conscripted under-age troops, they already do that(Al's right at pointing to Africa where the problem is the worst. They move into a village and anyone older than 7 is inducted into the army of whatever two bit warlord took the village). No, I'm saying the kid could be dirty because we do know that some underage soldiers have chosen to fight in Iraq(I think it was an 'o5 Time magazine I read that in. I know it does exist in print someowhere though.). I would assume the prosecution has some proof of this otherwise we wouldn't be talking about a prosecution. In that case there would be a deterrent effect, theoretically, to kids choosing to join up to fight the Infidels because if caught, they're illegal soldiers, don't get GC protections, and can be sentenced to jail for the rest of their lives(possibly hanged, but I doubt anyone has the heart for that). But just because he's a Moslem in Iraq I don't think it's fair to say "15's old enough, get a rope." The existing rules framework say he had to make the conscious choice to be an illegal soldier before the 'bullet to the back of the head' is warrented---and yes, that does leave open the legal gaming defense of 'I was forced' even for those who weren't. No system is perfect, and our system is predicated on caution toward unwarrented killing(rightly or wrongly is a personal opinion).

Eddie over at Hidden Unities did a series on this. HTere's books out there on the rehab of children soldiers from Africa. It can be done far short of indoctrination. Realy, the kids seem to be major sufferers of PTSD. Fix that for them, send them to school, and they seem to turn out mostly well adjusted. No indoctrination needed according the authors Eddie's read.

I was just being silly, Al. And admit it, there are times you wish I'd just shut the hell up. ;)

Personally, I think taking kids to church before the age of 16 or bringing them along to picket with mommy and daddy while on strike at the local plant is akin to brainwashing/shang-hai-ing, but honestly, even a kid at 15 should know better than pick up a rifle and shoot people just because dad says to. Or toss a grenade.

And as far as that goes, grenades come in varying time delays RY. Just like in the movies, you can toss one back over a wall or out a door unless the thrower does the ever risky "pull, let the lever fly and count to X then throw and duck" to prevent such from happening.

Note the principle upheld in today's Khadr ruling:<blockquote class="smalltext">U.S. Army Col. Peter Brownback’s ruling today, which upholds the Pentagon’s position that there is no minimum age for prosecution for war crimes, comes on the heels of an appearance by Khadr’s U.S. military lawyer before Canadian legislators. </blockquote>So he could have been 12 and not 15 for all they care.