Concerned

A number of months ago, before the arrival of my third baby (ya, since he has been born you can bet there hasn't been much time for posting !) .... I commented in certain strings that I felt under the Bush Administration it seemed to me that democracy had been on a down-hill slide in America and that the events leading up to 911 and Iraq were sorely affected by a power hungry government. I have recently come across a book by Miller, "Cruel and Unusual" who is an expert in this debate and who outlines many interesting facts and opinion in his book. In particular his criticism of the press, its biases, and lack of responsibility to the American public is excellent. Has anybody read it ?

Your statement illustrates the entire problem: no one absolutely needs to buy a detached home in Vancouver for $600,000. A two or three bedroom condo in the $200-300K range provides adequate housing for most people. All they need to do is adjust their expectations or move to a different city. I beleive that most people who insist they need two incomes to live are not being honest with themselves. What they really want are two incomes to support the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed and are not willing to sacrifice that lifestyle to support their children. That is why the gov't should never provide a universal daycare service because it simply encourages people to make bad choices that end up costing the tax payer a lot of money. If anything, the gov't t should provide more incentives to encourage people to stay at home to take care of their own kids. Subsidized daycare, when it is available should be restricted to the truely working poor (i.e. single parent households with low income). A three bedroom condo in Vancouver would cost between 500 and 600K...sorry you're out of touch here.

Just be careful walking down stairs. System: Liberalism Variation: Moral Liberalism Ideologies: Progressivism US Parties: Democratic Party, Green Party Presidents: John F Kennedy (95.58%)

This is ridiculous. These people and VLT's are starting to get on my nerves. I can't believe that people will let themselves go that much, to where they have to put a gun to someones head and then sit down at the machines and play for awhile. I think everyone here is to blame, dumb in-bread people, VLT's, and the Government. What do you guys think??? I'm fuming right now.... I agree, get rid of them. And online poker ! And restrict casino gambling hours....why are they open till 5:00 am ?? This cannot be good for Canadian families.

I agree with you. The reason for the technology is to eliminate positions and improve productivty. Your reason for resisting the change is borne out of self-interest. The vast majority of the population will also look to their self-interest and use the devices to realize lower wait-times, and eventually lower product costs. People seem anxious to protect part-time service jobs like they are some essential part of the economy. They are not. The sooner we get rid of them the better. Let's use people for the things only people can be used for and not the things which can be done better by machines. When I was a kid, I earned money delivering newspapers, mowing lawns and shovelling snow. In the last 15 years, no kid has come to my house and offered to do those things. These are all now taken over by contracting companies. Personally, I'd much rather support the kid down the street, and at lower cost to me, but it doesn't seem like they want the work. I guess our society has become too wealthy and kids today don't care about doing that kind of work. However, it does seem that if people are looking at ways to earn extra income, there are plenty of ways out there. Our society needs more skilled workers. Unskilled jobs will all go by the wayside eventually. A good argument for further education. Canada should be investing in both technology and education, to improve society's productivity and to improve the average workers' standard of living, including the job experience.

NAME ONE !!! I had my knee done at Dr. Day's clinic in Vancouver, it was an excellent experience. Contrast that with having my third baby at bc women's hospital, supposedly the best hospital to have a baby.....they were extremely disorgnized, losing blood tests, losing paperwork, no communication between nurses (I had not less than 8 nurses assigned to me over a 16 hour period, it was a bloody waste of time and money) and this for a straight forward delivery and no complications........very poorly run, no wonder our health care is in such a mess.

Apparently kids have been carrying them to school since that is why the school went to the trouble of forbidding it.And Geoff, you (and others on this forum) have avoided the key question: Does anyone have any evidence of any incident from any school anywhere in which a kirpan was used to injure someone or threaten someone? Without such evidence, and as a purely practical question, the Supreme Court's decision seems perfectly justified. Ya, but do you have to prove that you are a Sikh to carry one of these things ? Any kid could carry one if a Sikh could carry one....I don't think you can discriminate. Dangerous equipment does not belong in school, nor do any religious symbols in my mind. Its ok to dress the way you wish but carrying knives, crosses, any type of symbolism is unnecessary in the schools. We have to be just as respectful of those people that believe that weapons are a symbol of violence as those who believe it is a symbol of a religion. Just keep the symbolism out of schools altogether.

Oh, and here's another example of how messed up things are with our med system.... Three years ago I tore my ACL ligament skiing. My doctor advised me about 1-2 year waiting period to have it fixed...or try Dr. Day, for $4,000 he'll fix it for you in his private clinic. Ok, so obviously I don't want to hobble around for 1-2 years, I take the 4K hit. Ironically, the clinic is not considered to be legal.....however I was able to write off the bill on my tax returns. Can anybody make sense out of that ??? Our system pretends to be public, and lets private enterprise run free as they can't do a thing about it, and won't because if they challenge it in court, the courts just may favour the private clinics and then they have an ugly precedent to deal with....well those cases are becoming more and more frequent and finally we have a situation that is going to be impossible to continue to ignore. Thank god for that.

There has got to be alot of money wasted on administration as we have one of the most expensive per capita systems in the world. I agree nurses are grossly underpaid. The system is really messed up for doctors too. Recently my girlfriend (doctor) moved to another city 400 kms away and had to take half her patient files with her as she couldn't find a home for them at another doctors office here. So how about living in North Vancouver and reporting that your family doctor is in Kamloops ?? Too often canadians look at the US for their fear based answer. Can we not think a little more globally then across the street? There are many systems out there rated better than ours, we are rated about 30th in the world. Why can't we look to another country and educate our population about the benefits of change to a system that is rated higher than ours and in fact costs less? Our government should be picking a model that is already in place, that is proven to work, and then driving our system towards it. Instead we are "muddling through" and getting all caught up in the Tommy Douglas anti - US crap..... We have no have had no national leaders on this issue, they all prefer to ignore it for political reasons. It was the one thing I had hoped Harper could help with as he is not afraid of partial privatization, a system which has been proven to work in other countries. We do not have universal health care if patients are not looked after and left to die on wait lists. My dad died of cancer because he was not treated promptly enough. Many others have and will continue to if we do not do something soon....

Probably wouldn't have kids if that was the situation, if someone can't stay home with them, then theres no point in just shipping them off to other people for them to be their parents. Up until school, a parent needs to be there, otherwise babysitter or daycare provider is definiltely going to have a closer bond than you with you child. That also depends on the employment situation at the time, if I could work out of the house with them, then most likely yes. I honestly don't see the point of having kids if your going to get someone else to raise them. Apparently the Canadian contempt for the family is growing with the support of these institutionalised daycares (not that I accuse you of holding these values Concerned, because obviously you don't support them). You mean if the woman can't stay home with them. But if you could work at home and focus on your career and ignore them while you are there, then you might consider it ? Ha ha. I support the choice of the parents, it is a personal decision, and nobody raises your kids but you. You can employ help but it is up to you to manage it. Better resources and more choices are really what parents need.

So Geoffrey, when you meet the career woman of your dreams, you are prepared to stay home and look after the kids ?? I voted none of the above in favour of a full tax write off. That way we all have the choice to do what we please and favouritism doesn't go to the small town stay at home mom that has no mortgage to pay.

Food is everything - without a reliable food supply no society can evolve beyond a primitive tribal existance. All human beings have the capacity for initiative and innovation that you talk about but only those humans with access to critical resources will be able to do much with those abilities. Most importantly, the drive to innovate is purely a cultural phenomena. Look at the case of China: the oldest civilization on earth that was the leader in technology until the 1500s. It fell behind the Europeans because of a cultural bias against a market economy (Confucian values placed merchants at the bottom of the social pyramid). China is now a rising power in the world because it has finally got over that cultural bias against free markets, however, it still has not figured out that democratic values and freedom of the press are also key cultural values of the successful western societies. You cannot argue that the failure of China over the last 400 years was genetic because Chinese have demonstrated the ability to lead in the past and Chinese that adopt European values are very successful (look at Taiwan and Hong Kong). This is a really good example because if you look at Chinese people living in the same society as us, you can see that they are very successful, innovative and demonstrate iniative just as well as white people do here... Black people in the US have been oppressed since they arrived in North America, racism held them down, and racism keeps them down. They are a generally uneducated population and they are victoms of the cycle of poverty that got them there in the first place. Given equal chances in equal environments to white people, they can be and are just as successful. And Betsy, crime is high anywhere that the population is uneducated and poor. It has nothing to do with being black or white. So I agree with Sparhawk, it all started somewhere, and some of us were better off to begin with than others, largely because of environment, which doesn't mean we are supreme in any way. If we give others the chance, they will be equal to us in our successes in life. It is attitudes like Leafless that promote ongoing societal problems. He is not promoting culture, there is no true white culture. Culture has to do with heritage, not colour of skin.

well I guess you just need a new circle of friends ! Keep looking , you will find. There are many women of good character. And probably the ones you meet are just fine, but they are growing up too, and are playing the games that we all played in our twenties....part of this is just learning to be comfortable with who they are. Be patient, and spend the time getting comfortable with who you are, you will eventually find somebody who will appreciate you.

I don't know about you Betsy, so many of your posts are in line with Margraces comments above. What are you exactly and what do you really stand for? Men are good at certain tasks at home and not at others. This is a fact most women have learned...men are not that adaptable around the homes, they have their limitations. However they have their strengths and are very good at certain stuff...mr. fix it stuff , the garbage, the remote control, you know what I mean. For the rest of it you hire a housekeeper at 10 bucks an hour. Get an education and go out into the workplace and make $30 plus. Take a few risks, that is the downfall of women, they just don't want to do stick their necks out a bit and manage instead of letting their lives drive them. When I said "I think we've been had!", I neglected to put a smiley to indicate it was a joke. But yes, I believe in some points that womens' movements are fighting for (and I find that based on their objectives, REAL WOMEN is the group that actually represents me...for I share the same values). So that's where I stand. But going back to working women, I sense that: Women who prefer and had chosen to stay at home to become TRADITIONAL wives and moms are somewhat made to feel that they are either being taken advantaged of or dominated by their spouses, that they are simpering morons who go along with the dictates of their husbands...and therefore do not have a voice in the matter of womens' rights agendas. The movement had evolved into something that had unintentionally somehow put a great deal of pressure on all women, in a negative way. I guess this was not really the intention when the movement first started...but it had taken on a different route. Concerned, please elaborate on this statement. I might've misunderstood what you mean so I'll keep my comment for now until I hear from you. "For the rest of it you hire a housekeeper at 10 bucks an hour. Get an education and go out into the workplace and make $30 plus. Take a few risks, that is the downfall of women, they just don't want to do stick their necks out a bit and manage instead of letting their lives drive them." Betsy, my point was in response to your statement: ...""The reason why a lot of women end up doing the chores is basically identical. Men are so clueless when it comes to cleaning...that either you put up with a sloppy job or end up doing the chore yourself. A lot of women cannot abide by the former, thereby they end up opting for the latter."" If women are at home because they want to be at home choring away on household tasks and spending more time with the children, good for them, I'm all for it. But if they are resentful of the fact that men can't or won't do the work they have to do, then get a housekeeper and get out and take some risks and make some serious money. Women do not have to be slaves to their homes or their families, some of them choose to be and that is their choice. Its not that I think that men should not contribute, its just that we all know when it comes to domestic detail, many of them just don't have those talents. Nor do I have the talent to fix things and I hate taking out the garbage...so I have a nanny, on top of my Mr. Fix it.... It sounds almost like reverse feminism that I have to hire a women and keep her in a 10 buck an hour job, but for her she has no choice but to do what she does....she is a foreigner with language issues and does not wish to do much else. So my point is, women, do your choring if you love it and if you don't, get some hired help, get an education, and get out and make a career for yourself. You can have both a successful and rewarding career and a happy family too, it is VERY possible.

Well Jamie, you are young and obviously just as confused as the girls you meet...and that's ok because its all part of growing up. And yes, women are very much pressured into the "looks" thing, despite if it is what they want or not. Scroll through a post on Belinda Stronach in this website and you will see that some men never grow out of this attitude!! When I was in university I went through a stage, for about a year or two, where I decided I was just going to be my pure and simple athletic self. Most of my best friends were biology buffs, and I joined them in their earthy looks..gave up all the make up and the rest of it. It was the deadest years of dating I've ever had ! I got more dates after my divorce at 40 then I did at 21 not wearing any makeup. So I guess women have to present themselves regardless, and if you are truly looking for that good hearted girl, why don't you look at some of the ones that do not wear the makeup and the short skirts and ignore the rest.....