Moonlight Graham

In one sense I agree. On the other hand, he's a Mormon. Anyways, we don't know how much Romney would have needed to pander to that nutjob base of his as President, and to work with the nutjobs in Congress.

Why is exactly raising rates considered a job killer? Do higher interest rates mean small businesses etc. are less likely to borrow, therefore fewer and smaller new businesses are created thus less new jobs created?

I can't stand government regulating individual's lives either. I get exactly where you're coming from. But what if many people, like in this case of debt, are irresponsible morons? What if them being morons is jeopardizing our entire economy and YOUR bank account, employment etc,.?

Contaminants found near oil extraction site? I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!! LOL My guess of what the contaminants are: oil

I might make an appearance in the chat room if I can. What a fun night it will be!

I think this election is going to be darn close. I'll predict Obama, since he ran the better campaign, has a bit of momentum and he just has more ways to win in the electoral college. I think Mitt could have done so much better if he played it a bit more moderate and hammered Obama better on the economy (Paul Ryan's budget plan has been a burden to the campaign). But if Mitt nabs a win I certainly wouldn't be surprised. edit: Just looking at polls and the electoral college makeup, it's more likely that Obama will win. Given the states widely held to be a toss up, Obama has a lot more ways to win than Romney.

Good luck to anyone amending the US constitution and limiting free speech in this way. If by an absolute miracle they did then people would storm the gates of the White House and throw Obama into the Potomac.

News has circled lately about the huge amount of personal debt held by Canadians: http://www.thestar.c...ecord-high-debt I really don't care how people run their personal finances, but when it begins to affect macroeconomics and therefore affects myself and the Canadian economy in general, it means that maybe something needs to be done. Beyond mortages, car payments, student debt etc., credit card debt is a huge issue. Credit cards are useful in an emergency, but should we let certain people use them as freely as they do and rack up ridiculous debt on non-essentials like vacations, concert tickets, restaurant bills etc. when one has no near-term prospects to pay off these items? Should there be more regulations on how much credit card debt one can accumulate, and should some items be off-limits after a certain amount of debt is achieved? Should there be a limit on the # of credit cards a person may have, say 1 or 2? Should credit cards exist at all? Should people be forced to buy daily goods based on real money already in their bank accounts (not on credit), unless there is an emergency where a small amount of debt could be financed by banks via debit cards at a reasonable and stable interest rate. In larger emergencies (illness, funerals etc.) maybe debt deals could be approved by banks on a case-by-case basis? What about personal debt in general? Canadians are obviously about as good at keeping a budget as the government is, so do we need to put in tighter restrictions on loans/mortgages etc.?

This is the greatest court case of all-time. It's freaking hilarious. And ya, i'd be really PO'd too if I knew I married into ugly genes without knowing. Also, that is an AMAZING plastic surgery job.

Very cool, given the seemingly unlimited amount of silicon available in the earth.

I thought this fact was fairly well-known by now. To be fair though, many of the big spenders of US debt had to deal with the history of their times: ie: FDR and WWII, Bush Sr. and Gulf War + recession, Bush Jr and 9/11 (Afghanistan war) and recession from tech-bubble, Obama and recession. Reagan's spending also had a part (though certainly not wholly responsible) in ending the Cold War. moral: both parties spend lots of money the US doesn't have, and both parties are too selfish to want to pay it back during the good times (hello Clinton and others!).

You have voices in your head? I've never heard any voices speaking to me in my head, and I grew up a good Christian lad.

I don't know what 100-years evidence you're referring to that we "discussed". Saying conservative govs don't start/support wars as much as more left-leaning govs is ridiculous, especially if you're basing this entire assumption on US gov behaviour. Some of it is simply a product of history and timing - FDR didn't choose for Pearl Habour to be bombed, and ANY US admin would have responded with war in that situation. Modern conservative govs are more hawkish, this isn't even controversial. Take the last 3 US govs of each party - Carter/Clinton/Obama vs Reagan/Bush Sr./Bush Jr. - which would you assume would be likely to start or escalate war given the exact same circumstances? What about Harper vs Chretien vs a hypothetical Layton NDP gov? (Harper stated his support for joining the Iraq coalition in 2003).

You get respect for both. Canada didn't get into the UNSC last vote largely because the Harper gov didn't even campaign for the position. They showed zero interest in wanting it, which is a joke. edit: i'm ignoring this thread from now on due to it being completely ridiculous.

LOL really? Do you have a link? This might be best case scenario for Justin. As soon as he does start opening his mouth more and making the inevitable gaffes and what I would imagine would be cringe-worthy debate performances, this fink may likely see his poll numbers shrink.

Canadian voters are really quite a bunch of fools ranking low on the intelligence scale, so it wouldn't surprise me. Canada really needs to create more incentives to bring in better political candidates into the public sphere. Politically, this country is going to poop.

Seems very concerning regarding the DFO conflict of interest. Fish are renewable resources and governments still can't get it right. It's ridiculous. Hard to blame the private companies, we all know they're going to act like greedy self-interested a-holes whenever they're allowed.

Ya it's talking about powering "microelectronics" for 20 years, not things like iPhones and laptops that use a lot of juice. Sure would be nice thought if I could get a 1-year charge out of a battery for those things. Heck I'll very happily take a month even. a. what are the safety concerns for this? ie: radioactivity exposure (esp. if using something like a cellphone), damage exposure, & environmental in disposing of a depleted battery? Does it give off that much radioactivity? b. how much would something like this cost to a consumer?

I won't argue that trained killers marching with death machines looks cool. The humanitarian in me wishes it didn't, but the testosterone in me begs to differ. However, to promote and garner any sort of nationalistic pride from said trained killers and death machines is sick beyond imagination. A major problem in the west, and i'd imagine most other countries, is that a good deal of national pride comes from what a country has achieved during times of war, when national pride should rather be taken from what a country has done between wars in times of peace. Mr. C, the ape-instincts of the 5-year old child inside you (that we all have) are winning a struggle against your sense of reason and compassion. For the last 2500+ years humans have progressively fought against many of our anti-social base animal instincts using reason and compassion, leading to achievements such as the Magna Carta, various Bill of Rights documents etc. This is called becoming more "civilized". If you wish to forgo this process and go with the 5-year-old inside you seen in the OP, I hear Beijing is nice this time of year.

Well, Canadians live an average of 80 years. International relations will change drastically throughout that time. Stats to back this claim? Yes some of it can be, mostly social program benefits. But I'm not talking about just social benefits, but legal rights as well. If you get caught in a legal mess abroad Canada may have a duty to bail you out (ie: Omar Khadr). Canada spends large sums of money bailing people out in times of foreign crises (ie: 2006 Lebanon War, Canada sends spends large sums of money deploying the military to bring back Lebanese-Canadians - many of whom have no intention of living in Canada, then many of these people return to Lebanon after the war). Maybe most of these issues can be dealt with through residency rules? (ie: the law stating that if you've been out of the country for 5 years+ you can't vote in federal elections)

Yeah but then they have kids and teach them to believe it. Plus good religious folk have more children than atheists or moderate and/or lazy religious folk. Moral: humans are really stupid.

1. If 2 countries are at war or otherwise in some kind of conflict with each other, and a person has citizenship of these 2 countries, it creates a major conflict of interest. Should a person be able to vote in elections for two different countries? How far can one trust ie: an Afghan-Canadian dual-citizen working within the Canadian government, especially if they still travel back and forth from each country? If Canada went to war and had to invade ie: Iran, and the military draft needed to put into effect in Canada, would an Iranian-Canadian dual-citizen fight against Iran for us? Would they run to Iran and fight against us for them? 2. There are situations where dual-citizens can live in one country almost exclusively, but also reap some of the rights and benefits of having citizenship from the other country when they actually have little/no desire or intent of actually residing in that country.

Mr C that sounds a lot more like fascism than nationalism. You scare me. I do wish Canada had more nationalistic pride, but that has nothing to do with military fetishes or religion. I wish citizens had more knowledge of this country's history, I wish dual-citizenship was not allowed for adults, I wish citizenship was a more exclusive club and only for those who pledge loyalty to Canada and no other country.

Ya the first Knights of the Old Republic game from around 2005 was really great, superb storyline and good characters (though a few cookie cutters like the wookie, the yoda-esque jedi master, and the r2d2-like droid). They should get those writers on board. I'd hope nobody would be so stupid as to recast the aoriginal trilogy characters. The old fogies would be fun to have together again but I'll bet they'll do a series post-Luke with a new generation of characters. Maybe Luke's son/grandson or something. Then again, I believe all of the cast from the original series is still alive minus characters that already died on-screen (Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, dude who wore the Vader suit on-screen).