jdobbin

I think any European country that sends soldiers will be moving into suicide alley. Canada should stay way out. We are already taking it on the chin in Afghanistan.

NATO doesn't have agencies for refugees and world health. Should those U.N. agencies be disbanded or continue to operate? Should Harper pull Canada out of the U.N. unilaterally?

Federal government jobs are not just reserved for Ottawa residents. I can't speak for Ontario or Ottawa's governments but that's still a lot of jobs for Ottawa residents. And I see listed in the tech jobs: List of major technology companies * 3M * Adobe Systems * Agere * Agilent * Alcatel * Bell Canada * Cisco Systems * Corel * Cognos * CGI Group * CSC * Dell * Entrust * Fidus * General Dynamics * Hewlett-Packard * Hot Lava Software * IBM * JDS Uniphase * LogicVision * MBNA Canada Bank * Nortel * Northern Micro * PMC-Sierra * Sybase * TELUS * Tundra Semiconductor * Xandros * Zarlink Semiconductor You don't have computer skills?

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...id=970599119419 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...tional/Ontario/ http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.h...93-e0dbf967b1c4 http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national...e0a&k=76366 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Pag...orce_login=true

What alternatives are there to this world body?

The link makes a claim but it doesn't show what the Israeli papers or IDF investigation itself concluded. Also, I haven't seen anything in the mainstream media that mentions fragments that were not Israeli made.

I think even the Israeli press discounted that possibilty. However, if you have found that this was the final conclusion, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

It always scares me when stuff like this happens. Soft targets have very little protection. I live close to synagogues and a large Jewish community campus. Everyone is in danger from a determined attacker.

I think the Supreme Court has already decided that if services can't be provided expeditiously, Canadians can pay for them on their own. I think in the future we will see more health plans to pay for things like tests, ortho surgeries and the like. I don't the system will go fully private simply because the costs are too much for even private companies to bear.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/28072006/2/nati...-donations.html Do you think this will make Canadians a little cynical?

I can't see why any European nation let alone Canada would send troops to a place that will bring every suicide bomber out of the woodwork. I don't think the Israelis themselves have the stomach for another 18 year occupation either.

Don't know that we have troops to spare but if Canada is asked in New New York to supply troops to go to Lebanon, should the answer be yes or no? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14070624/from/RS.2/

I don't know that I think of Bush Sr. as a big government type. I'm no Republican but he did address spending and the deficit that was still huge after the Reagan years. The bad luck for Bush was the betrayal of conservative Republicans to Perot who made the deficit an issue (although Bush was dealing with it). It led to Clinton winning and he inherited large surpluses courtesy of that 1990 deal on taxes and spending.

I dunno. His cuts set the stage for big surpluses in the Clinton years. If he had six more months, he might have had both the war and the economy on his side. Timing is everything in politics. Bush Sr. had some bad timing when it came to his second term bid.

Sorry, I meant that the payroll tax on Social Security kicked in the year he left office. It is considered part 2 of the Reagan tax increases. http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh060804.shtml The reforms that you mentioned, introduced by two Democrats if my memory holds true, was indeed revenue neutral. It did lead to the Savings and Loan collapse though which hurt Bush Sr. badly. There was some huge economic growth under Regan but it came at a price of a huge deficit. In many ways, Bush Sr. was saddled with trying to bring things under control.

I'll agree that it leaves a sour taste in the mouth when a country like Iran joins a human rights group. Canada has blasted Iran every chance it can get on this.

Reagan was a populist who scored well with Democrats. He didn't believe in the social aspects of neo-cons and but let them take the lead on the economy. By the end of his term, he had to introduce a tax increase to bail out of the huge debt.

There have been two Canadian Israeli soldiers killed so far in the conflict. It made the the front page of the national papers each time. And one Israeli Canadian has been arrested for spying.

Sadly, that has been the reputation of the United States as well. Too many despots have gotten their support over the years. Saddam Hussein was one of them.

I'd be interested to see more of the Forces response to this than just one opinion. However, the Forces themselves can't comment on policy. I think that if and when Bush asks for Canadian assistance for a multilateral force to the area, we politely say no.

I don't blame the U.N. soldiers. I think if Israel intended on taking out Hezbollah positions in and around U.N. bases, they should have advised the Forces to leave. Instead, they offered assurances that the Forces would not be targeted. It is Israel that will have to answer for the bomb and it will be the Security Council that will have to discuss rules of engagement and when to stay or withdraw.

That's just Canadians listed as immigrants in Israel by Israeli stats. As I mentioned, there are numerous other Canadians who are dual citizens in the country for research, education, business or extended pleasure. There are ordinary Canadian citizens there as well for the same purposes. Lebanon listed only 17,000 registered Canadians in the country when trouble started. As soon as fighting broke out, the number rose to 50,000. Most tourists or people travelling don't register with the embassy. How many Canadians do you think live in Israel? Show me your figures. In tourism alone in 2004, 43,000 Canadians are listed as visiting the country, mostly in the summer. That is more or less the same number of Canadians that were in Lebanon. You can check those figues too if you like. They are on that site as well.

And getting rid of foreign ownership restrictions on television/radio, cable and satelliite as well as phone companies and dropping Canadian content regulations would get him the business vote. Canadians just want U.S. channels anyways.

This is what people thought about Ben Jonhson as well. I hope for his sake that the first result was incorrect. But apparently experts in doping just roll their eyes when asked if an 11 to 1 ratio could be natural.

The parameters of U.N. responsibility versus each countries responsibility is outlined here: https://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Paramet.../1994/baker.htm The problems of getting a political decision to add or remove troops as well as change rules of engagement are outlined in Romeo Dallaire's book. There is already a committee in the U.N. It is called the Security Council. The Secrerary General and the military commanders advise the council about what is happening and they make the decision. Israeli assurances, according to the Chinese, prevented them from removing their people.