prairiechickin

Two beers? Really? I don't know how much time you've spent in bars, but I've spent a few evenings tippling with friends. They used to have breathalyzers right on the wall, and I spent quite a few looneys figuring out exactly how much I could drink before I hit .08. Five beers over two hours and I'm still legal. And those machines are pretty accurate, since I've been forced to blow at roadside checks shortly after and I always come in under the wire.

Have you read all those articles cited by cybercoma? If so, give us a breakdown of what each said and provide us with some relevant statistics. I don't know what's in them because I haven't read them, the library doesn't open until 9, and I've got other things to do today. So give me the short version.

I've never heard of the Haudenossaunee, but I highly doubt their passport is recognized without its Canadian counterpart. As for the Lakota Republic, anybody can issue tokens, I buy them at football games to exchange for beer. Doesn't make them legal tender. As for the rest of your clap-trap regarding sovereignty and the Proclamation of 1763, when I hear it on the National, I'll believe it. Go read a real treaty. Oh wait, those are all null and void, aren't they?

So true. My favorite gimmick is 'premium vodka'. Most vodka comes from rum distilleries. They run the mash through the still twice, then put the result into oak barrels for two to seven years, and that's rum. The cost and flavor difference is in the aging process. To make vodka they simply run the stuff through a third time, add water, and that's vodka. Stick a fancy label on it and that's premium vodka. Its not aged, so there's no real difference between vodkas beyond the labels.

Thank you, these are real citations and once I can get down to the library and read them, we'll have a point to carry on a real discussion. But here's a thought off the top of my head while I still know little about the topic. Here in Saskatchewan the Native population is roughly 15% of the total, but Natives make up 80% of the inmates in our jails and prisons. I keep hearing these numbers cited by those who use them to show how unfair our criminal justice system is. I keep asking myself, are these people suggesting that 65% of the incarcerated Natives are actually innocent? Could not a more reasonable explanation be that Indians don't seem to follow the rules? I'm not talking whitey-centered rules like singing God Save the Queen, I mean rules like going to a party and sticking a knife in some guy because he looked at your girlfriend. Regina and Saskatoon are in the top five for most dangerous cities in Canada, and my neighborhood, North Central, was featured in a Maclean's article as the most dangerous neighborhood in Canada. That's not because the Mafia operates here, its almost exclusively because Native gangs are spreading through the core areas of most western cities, and with them comes drug trafficking, prostitution and the inevitable turf wars that come with that crap. So while others may wring their hands over the inequalities in our justice system that picks on the poor oppressed Natives, I'm wondering what they think is an alternative for a guy who stabs another guy for the hell of it? Maybe 80% of our prison population is Native because Natives commit 80% of the crime.

Here's where we disagree fundamentally and where Native people are setting themselves up for a world of disappointment. They started by using the term 'First Nations' back in the nineties -- one could legitimize its use in the sociological sense, but I knew it was just a matter of time until they ignored common sense and started to use it in its modern political sense. Let me be clear, Germany is a nation, Norway is a nation, New Zealand is a nation -- Garden River First Nation is not a nation. Its an Indian band, and all the convoluted logic in the world doesn't make it a real nation. Nations print their own currency, raise their own armies, deal with other nations via diplomatic missions, and tax their citizens to varying degrees, among a host of other things. Here's a really good test to see if you are a nation. Next time you leave Canada, look at your passport, what nation's name is on it? Does it say Kawakatoos First Nation? Does it say Six Nations? Does it say Mic'mah First Nation? No, it says Canada because Canada is a nation recognized by all the other nations in the world. Whatever form Native self-government assumes in the next few decades, it will not equal the federal government or even a provincial one. Municipal maybe, but these grandiose ideas about being equals with the feds or the provinces is just more pie-in-the-sky dreaming. You wonder why negotiations over these matters take so long? Its because Indians have filled their heads with this nonsense and its tough to start negotiating with delusional people. I can see the federal government allowing Natives to control some aspects of their education and social services, but get that resource sharing / development royalties stuff right out of your head. First of all, those revenue streams belong to the provinces, so the feds couldn't negotiate them away if it wanted to. So if you want to negotiate in good faith, try reading some history and political science so you at least have a clue what your talking about. Natives want all the rights of nationhood, but as yet have assumed none of the responsibility.

I depends on what kind of rifle it was. The only guns that had to be seperately registered before the long-gun registry (1995) were hand guns and some semi-restricted military weapons. I recall seeing a picture of the gun once, if my memory is correct it looked like an assault rifle rather than a hunting rifle, but it might have just been one of those knock-off imitations. For the record I don't think anyone needs to own assault rifles or those big clips that carry 30 or 50 rounds. There's just no legitimate use for these outside of the military.

Do you have anything intelligent to add to this thread, or are you just here to proofread my posts?

I think I have a conscience, and I think I could make an argument for area bombing in Germany during World War Two, and for dropping the atomic bombs on Japanese cities. Area bombing was likely unnecessary for the last year of the war, but prior to that it was one of the few means the Allies had to strike back at the heart of Germany. Many of those non-combatants were also factory workers fueling the German war machine, and the Allies success at wiping cities off the map meant the Germans had to employ a lot of resources to defend the Fatherland -- resources that could have been used to tip the scales on the Eastern Front. As for Japan, they were prepared to fight to the death on their own turf and it would have cost hundreds of thousands of Allied lives to actually invade. Better to wipe out a couple of cities and force capitulation than spend the next two years in hand to hand combat.

My apologies, I think I did mix you up with someone else. As for the journal articles, I'd be happy with a simple citation since the links can be tricky, especially on newer articles.

A good price? Where are you buying your booze? It was Bacardi Gold, nothing exotic. I bought one this Christmas here in Saskatchewan and its around $36.

I've got to agree with you here. I can't see why anyone would vote for Harper at the moment, I'd like to see him govern with a majority for at least a term before I form an opinion.

Mulroney got a vote? Must have been Mila. As for Meighen and Bennett, both governed poorly through difficult times, I'm not surprised there's no love for them. As for Mackenzie, same name different guy, the river was named for the explorer. I don't think Tupper, Campbell, Turner or Clark lasted six months in office, hence its a little tough to make an argument for 'greatest'. I'm a little surprised Diefenbaker hasn't garnered a few votes. He won with the largest majority to date and was immensely popular for a time especially with the pro-monarchist bunch. But he'd pretty much worn out his welcome by the time he left office and most of the Blue Haired Ladies have died off by now.

I doubt this. The worst period for labour in Canada during the twentieth century was the Great Depression, and those ten terrible years were notable for the lack of violence and unrest. The only protest of note was the Regina Riot, and that only got violent because Ottawa thought Regina was a good place to halt the On to Ottawa trek before it got anywhere near Ottawa. Compared to their European counterparts, Canadian workers are a pretty meek bunch and I doubt they are about to rise up over anything.

I always laugh when I read sanctimonious stuff like this. You don't drink, good for you. But you think that because you don't drink and therefor have zero tolerance for alcohol, that that standard should apply to everyone else. Two beers barely registers on my radar, and it sure as hell wouldn't keep me from driving.

No thanks, I was in Alberta last year and had to pay nearly $50 for a bottle (40 oz) of rum.

You found a couple of spelling mistakes, aren't you a clever little monkey?

You're right, scholarly journals are not free and I subscribe to a handful that are relevent in my field. Any others can be located in any university library. No I don't know what you've published, but if you've gone that far I assume you're familiar with the rules of evidence for peer revieved books and articles. I don't care what you've written, but I do care when people make outrageous claims then persistently refuse to cite any evidence. Every time you are challenged the evidence is secret, or too expensive, or you toss us a list of 500 Supreme Court rulings and expect us to sort it out.

Well its a bit tricky knowing when someone will lose their minds (when did you first notice?), but to get a PAL you have to have two signatures from people that know you, as well as the signature of any significant other you live with, and any significant other you've lived with in the previous two years. If you're unhinged I think it would be tough to get those three or four signatures.

The long gun registry goes, everything else stays. Its not as if the day after repeal there are no more rules regarding possession, use and storage. As for keeping abreast of the rules, I try, but I'm not kidding when I say you need a team of lawyers to figure it out. When the new rules regarding safe storage came out in the early '90s, my brother had a copy of the new rules because he's a firearms instructor. The two of us sat down for a couple of hours trying to figure out what was required to legally store our guns. Its all written in legaleze and I'm still not sure what they're trying to say.

I've written more real history that you ever will, and I've never paid a nickle to cite authentic sources. I've paid for photocoying at the archives, but that's about it. You are a great big bag of wind.

I know all about the Family Compact and its on the Top Five of Most Boring Topics in Canadian History which is why I skip by it in less than an hour. Your analysis is weak, but I give you five marks for the sentance, "Sir John A. Macdonald (this is the correct spelling, Sir J mever sold McChickins) was a founding member, a Victorian, and a lawless punk." That's Gold Jerry, Pure Gold! I write this stuff on index cards and use it in my lectures. I have another paragraph from a desperate young man late in an exam who thought the solution to the Oka standoff was to give a membership to the golf course and a set of clubs to all the Indians so they would feel welcome on the graves of their ancestors. I can't make this stuff up so I rely on people like you.

In the twists and turns or your remarkably flexible logic, this is where the rubber hits the road. You really do believe that I should pay the costs of your neurosis regarding guns. I already have trigger locks on my guns, I had them long before there was a law about it because they are just a good idea. Sure, the GPS is $5, but as you say yourself, the cost is on the monitoring side. And you do realize the difference beween a commercial fishing boat and filling the freezer, right? You neglected to mention how much profit each trip made. You kill for money, I kill to eat, big difference. I've really enjoyed reading your posts on this topic because, as you can probably tell, I'm as passionate as you about gun control. I had My Hunter's Safety Certificate by the time I was 12, four years before I owned my first gun. This was a coarse designed and administered by the Saskatchews Wildlife Federation, and I lucked out because my science teacher was a member and talked the school I attended into running two classes in Hunter Safety. This was no quickey one day everybody passes seminar, it ran daily classes for two weeks and there was a pretty serious exam at the end. You had to score 80% to pass -- a reasonable standard considering we were talking about deadly weapons -- only four out of 70 made it, me, my sister (who's never owned a gun, she's just smart), my best friend Fogarty, and somebody else I don't remember. I had no idea I would be a hunter, it was just one of those things I did because it was interesting. I started fishing shortly after that, and that led to hunting which led to guns, and in the '70s that was pretty easy. There were no rules about guns other than handguns, I bought my first .22 off my neighbor. I was babysitting her kids when I came across this rusty piece of junk in the basement. I was trustworthy enough to watch her kids, so she sold me the gun for $10. Point is, because of that course I'd taken three years earlier I knew what I had and how to deal with it, I cleaned it up, sighted it in, and started shooting. Not long after that my friends started hunting deer with their dad's, and I borrowed my Dad's 30-30 and away I went. Not long after that federal legislation was passed requiring all gun owners register and I thought that was a good idea too. So did all my friends. We all filled in the forms, did the criminal background checks, and took the Hunters Safety Course and got our Firearms Acquisition Certificates (FACs). We paid for all of it and never complained. It was the grown-up version of the Hunter's Safety Certificate, and I was proud to have one. I was trained to handle my weapons, and I had the paperwork to prove it. Then came the long-gun registry, and all the ensuing madness. You and your kind have turned me from a responsible well-trained advocate of gun control to a semi-paranoid semi-criminal kind of guy. In a couple of months the Conservatives are going to end that ongoing stupidity, but the backlash will go on for long after that. More important than the billions wasted on the long gun registry was the goodwill of Canadian gun owners. I've been tracking the arguments of people like you since this started, and you are a combination of paranoia, social control, and too much American television. You can pass all the laws you want and build all the gun storage lockers you want, but you will never again have my cooperation. Shove your GPS chip up your ass.

What bothers me about the Pauchay case is the judge is essentially saying that because of Residential Schools, Indians are too stupid to know better than to get pissed out of your head, then drag your kids out into a blizzard at -30C dressed only in a diaper and a t-shirt. I've got lots of Native friends, most of their parents went to residential schools, and they aren't that stupid. In fact they are as outraged as me at this clown's behavior and find it insulting that his race is used as mitigating factor. Real justice would be staking this asshole out on the prairie in nothing but a wet diaper and a t-shirt overnight when the next nasty blizzard hits.

This is the kind of gibberish I get from students near the end of an exam when they don't know any more but still have blank pages staring them in the face. They write the craziest stuff hoping something will stick. I like to sip rum and laugh my ass off while I mark papers. The Family Compact Movement? Where'd you dream this up? And they managed to rewrite a century's worth of history to cover their crimes? Wow, they are good, better than those evil Freemasons.