bleeding heart

Yeah. I like the idea (to clarify: I find it interesting in, as you say, a macro kind of way). But the centre cannot hold, as wise Irishman once pointed out. I don't think it would do any damage to the Confederation, at all. And if the Truth does do damage, then the damage is necessary anyway.

I get what you mean. But you talked about the Can/con of SNL, which is an American production. Sure, it's nominally Canadian Lorne Michaels' baby...but from what I understand, the primary creative impulse was of American writer Michael O'Donoghue. (A radical lefty, just incidentally.) Hell, I'm not disparaging the Canadian creative elements of SNL (though I do disparage SNL generally, as inhabiting a world of diminishing comedic returns); I'm only not disparaging the American elements of it.

It's not too much for them to handle; they only need to get theri heads around it and look at the way our nation behaves with a little more clarity. The initial denial will eventually go away (for most people...at least I hope so) once they've gotten used to the critiques. So yes, Canada was involved; there was naval involvement, there was airspace involvement (you don't allow a country to use your airspace for peripheral purposes of a war you oppose, logically...therefore, Canada did not oppose the war). The same was true of an earlier catastrophic US war which "Canada opposed": Vietnam. We were munitions suppliers....so how could it be that we "opposed" the war? Well, we didn't. Once folks get their heads around Canada's actual global positions, then they can criticize it properly (or support it, if that's their stance) with out the denials. It takes time. And it won't happen for everybody, even given decades opf explicit knowledge and demonstrable proofs. To this day, the number of Canadains, British, and Americans who can admit that their countries have been explicitly and absolutely complicit in massive terrorism--worse than al-Queda's in terms of human effects--remains a plurality, at best, if not a very distinct minority.

Yes, Canadians have done very well in the American entertainment sector. That's yet another point in favour of it.

Sure. But American culture remains the bigger influence. In a way it's a chicken and egg argument, maybe, since what we problematically term "American culture" is a hodge-podge of influences, as befits the very nature of the Republic. Culturally, it ingests influences from everywhere, then makes it their own. (And its got its own, unique-from-the-genesis cultural aspects as well, which are also tossed into the mix.) It's a vibrant culture...and I'm not sure why this should reflect negatively on Canada. Hell, who doesn't like American culture? I bet the hijackers were having a wonderful time, soaking in the pop vibrancy even as they readied for the murder-suicides. (Saturday Night live once did a skit about this, I remember.)

Canada has never been especialy famous for "giving everyone a voice."

What if, like me, you love Game of Thrones but despised 300?

Oh, Breaking Bad. Might be my favourite show of all time.

Yeah, way, way better. Night and day better. The show lost its step, and then found it again.

Sure, I get what you mean. I don't think you're wrong. And we'vew had these discussions before (I am the dreaded bloodyminded, back under an even worse name). Yeah, there are pretty obviously some extremes which belong, give or take, among Left or Right. But since so few of us are beholen to Black Bloc anarchists on one side, or conservative theocrats on the other, things get pretty complicated.

I don't think you're being serious--though whatever point you're making seems, well, obscure at best--but you could have found out that Canada has an embassy in Israel more quickly than it took you to post your remark. No?

...... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html ...... http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/mossad-cia-agree-iran-has-yet-to-decide-to-build-nuclear-weapon-1.419300

Well, that don't sound so good, I agree. But most American and Israeli officials are saying it's not an immediate threat (though contradicted by a few political figures) so the political blowharding of the "bomb Iran" types seems a bit premature.

The only people who deny the Holocaust are those with sinister motives, and those who are plain ignorant and wildly misled. But there is little point in debating them.

I thought the first half of season two was awful. I mean, really, really bad. there was no momentum, and very little of note. It picked up a lot in the second half. But I like "Boardwalk Empire" better. Awesome stuff, and season two ends on a real Holy Crap! incident.

Probably because he realizes he's the only human on Earth to understand that there's no such thing as a Palestinian. The ability to overcome lived reality itself is an ego-stroking achievement, and no small feat.

While I agree that the "left" and "right" terms are sometimes useful as shorthand, they are deeply problematic as descriptors, as many here have pointed out. But even as phrased, and as discussed, the elephant stomping all over everyone is, as usual, ignored: What about "centrists"? Because first of all, since everyone is agreeing that "left" and "right" are troublesome labels, then by definition so is "centrist," since it absolutely depends on the existence of the two poles. Further still, "centrist" is in each case a self-imposed label, in which the subject declares his or her own rationality, his or her elevated status in ideological discussions. "I don't go for the exremism of the Left or the Right," they sniff unctuously. And falsely. They do subscribe to it...very much so. A bit from one side, a bit from the other. The self-described "centre" is just as ideological, and often just as extreme, as are the left/right poles it sniffs about in superior fashion. And good lord, everybody thinks that he or she is "rational"!

That's awesome.

I'm not sure that's true. I always enjoyed reading Hitchens (in that masochistic way one keeps probing a sore tooth with the tongue), and his big brain was seriously impressive, but he was nothing if not vicious.

No kidding. Even any serious points the detractors might (I stress might) have to offer are lost beneath their own generated barrage of tantrums and mockery.

Just to point out that six of the seven Presidents you mention here did own slaves..."officially." But I still agree with you about ol' Lenin and Stalin. Not the better of the world's slavedrivers.

Mark Steyn could host his very own "Foreign Policy Predictions" program; Saudi Arabia will be a thriving democracy by 2010; Iraq will be a "tourist trap" by--oh my--2004! Those were his 2003 predictions, after all, accompanied by the usual barrage of insults towards the "shrieking pansies of the Left" who deigned to disagree with his utopian visions. (The lefty flowers proven correct, the Steynians embarassingly wrong.) So I guess we need not fear the menacing crescent shadow of the coming "Eurabia" after all. Since Mr. Steyn predicted it.

A report card presumes a comparison with previous Presidents, so I can't really decide a grade. I think he's more or less aligned with Bush, at least on foreign policy. Take that as good or bad, as you wish.