Moonlight Graham

I've read up on Ryan. This VP choice must be designed to give Romney's ho-hum campaign an energy boost. Romney is uncharismatic, boring, moderate, pragmatic. Ryan is a contrast, as he's charismatic, energetic, more right-wing than Romney, and ideological. Ryan's budget proposals have major holes in them, no matter how you feel about them ideologically. From wiki: Which tax loopholes Ryan? That's kind of a really important detail missing. No point in even having a budget if you can't even add up the numbers since they're missing. And good luck with the 2.8% unemployment projection! Anyways, Ryan isn't very impressive to me. He's 800% smarter than Sarah Palin though, I'll give him that in a jiffy. He's also a big Ayn Rand fan. That's odd, because you can't really believe in any of her main philosophical points while being a practicing Catholic as Ryan is, unless he just goes to church because he likes singing the songs. Rand preached acting in self-interest, while Jesus preached charity & caring for others. 100% opposite and incompatible philosophies.

Of course he is. He's a center-right guy who is forced to appeal to the more traditional right-wing cons in the country and the party if he wants to get to the Oval Office. In short, he's a sellout who threw away his integrity long ago like most politicians who will say/do anything to gain & maintain power. Voters aren't stupid (completely lol), they smell a phoney a mile away. That's why politicians are so disliked and why it's only once in a blue moon when there's a politician who stands by what they believe in and therefore a person who voters can really rally behind. In US politics, to an extent Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Jesse Ventura are like this that I know of IMO.

The difference is that segregated cultural organizations exist all over Canada, ie: similar things to this Indo-Canadian soccer league, therefore greatly multiplying the effect of allowing things like this. Therefore, allowing things like this in Canada has a major affect on Canadian society, whether you think it good or bad. So I agree that "most things that are not a big deal become one when multiplied by 1000X". But a thousand flies are likely not going to land on your arm any time soon. Thousands of private segregated cultural/racial organizations will exist depending on whether you allow them to exist, and this is a big deal.

I'm sure the Costco and gas station owners love us. I think the solution to make everyone happy might be to make a bigger Costco or open a new one in the area, and open more gas pumps at the stations or just more gas stations near the border. Capitalism should solve this problem by itself, supply and demand. American-only hours is a ridiculous idea because how do you enforce this? Many shoppers would go ape, both American and Canadian, if the cashier started asking for birth certificates and passports.

How are teams from certain towns racist? Wouldn't that be townism? lol Is this situation that big of a deal? Not really. But multiply the occurrence x1000 in many different contexts and it becomes a big deal with a major social impact on Canadian society.

Is it as much of a problem that politicians do things like this, or is it more of a problem that having speeches on aircraft carriers etc. actually appeals to certain significant portions of the population? These certain people who think themselves tough guys and get patriotic over war machines which cause death & suffering is pretty ridiculous. Interesting that these tough guys go ballistic whenever anyone mentions the possibility of reducing US defense spending, even when the country is on its way to bankruptcy. Also interesting that many of these people are in the church pews on Sundays. I'm confident Jesus would not approve. Paul Ryan's budget plan cuts a lot of things, but it's clear to stipulate that it won't cut defense so that these grumpy tough guys won't get mad and direct their votes or donation money elsewhere. The fact that he has to do this shows just how many of these types exist and what a powerful voting population they are. They've drank the Kool-Aid, they legitimate the use of force our governments use in really stupid ways sometimes. These war machines should be respected as necessary tools needed to secure the defense of our nations, but they shouldn't be worshiped and gawked over like cool man-toys to be played with like G.I. Joe's. Not many greater sources preventing international peace than these idiots. Over the past year Harper has tried to deify Canadian war machines with his military flyovers during celebrations and whatnot. No thanks bro, not a US export I'm interested in buying.

By definition, it's obviously racist. They are discriminating against certain players based on their race, or ethnicity, or whatever you want to call it. Whites couldn't disallow Indo-Canadians from their teams because it would cause an uproar, so the opposite shouldn't be allowed. Racial/ethnic segregation is not appealing to me, and this kind of multiculturalism is divisive. If you want to celebrate East Indian culture while limiting other groups, then go do so in East India, or do it privately in your own home. This is Canada. It would be nice if all Canadians embrace Canadian culture. But what is Canadian culture? Well, multiculturalism has eroded whatever is left of it to the point that Canadian culture is a culture of all cultures (aka multiculturalism), having little unique culture of its own. This destroys Canadian nationalism, and weakens this country. How about these Indo-Canadian parents put their kids in soccer leagues where their children can play & mingle with Canadians of all races & ethnic backgrounds? What's wrong with this?

Perhaps giving everyone, or most people, or even a lot of people, guns is a horrible idea. Perhaps having 88 guns per 100 Americans is a recipe for disaster, where accidents, fatal criminal vs crime victim target (when one or both have guns) confrontations, fatal road rage encounters, fatal domestic disputes etc. are virtually assured to occur in high numbers. Many people aren't responsible with guns. A significant portion of the human population, regardless of nationality, are stupid. Humans are also fallible beings, and accidents happen. People + guns = people getting shot by guns.

Do they? Countries now rich never had any access to any other rich countries when they were growing over the last few hundred years. They had their own technology and resources and traded these with each other. One massive advantage most currently rich countries have had over the last several hundred years, from the dawn of European colonialism to modern wars, is the ability to plunder resources from poorer/weaker countries on an epic scale. It's done directly through conquest, or indirectly through trade policy or political pressure etc. I would think rich countries could potentially agree to that because their citizens don't want to be in the business of dreadfully exploiting other humans for their own economic gain. Similar to why slavery was abolished in the west. A guy can dream I guess lol. Fairness doesn't have to mean charity (the traditional sense). We wouldn't be giving them a dime, we would simply not be taking from them as much as we had in an unequal manner. When western empires left their ie: south american and African colonies, was that an act of charity, or an act of not behaving like douchebags anymore? (or more accurately, behaving less like douchebags). We could even greatly reduce the amount of foreign aid we give. It's hard for someone to swim without a life-jacket when somebody much bigger than them is continuously pushing their head under water.

The easiest way to lower crime, reduce the number of criminals in our prisons, and avoid repeat offenders is to get rid of all of our laws.

I agree, this can't be for real. Must be a troll. A darn good one though lol.

It totally depends where you go. There's some really nice parts of the city, and I find downtown fairly clean for the most part. But there's also some really stretchy parts to the city. Low-income neighborhoods that take more than 5 mins to drive through and aren't exactly Disneyland. Personal story: was walking out of the Eaton's Centre a few years ago while visiting and just outside the main doors was a homeless guy high to the ceiling and going absolutely bonkers trying to light his crack-pipe. I know those people exist in every major city but I just never saw it before. Also visited the city a few months ago and I had left the Eaton's Centre only about 30 minutes before the recent shooting inside the mall foodcourt. Maybe I should shop somewhere else LOL.

Hey btw sorry to anyone I didn't respond to. I just got a bit tired of this debate. Cyber and AW it was fun debating with though. I think I'll just go with the "agree to disagree" stance.

Sure. I agree with the last 2 sentences, NGO's should be trying to ban ALL trade liberalization policies. As we agreed before, this kind of black-and-white thinking can be very dangerous and every trade agreement should be looked at individually on its on merits and context. Economic pragmatism is better than strict ideology, which is my main point as well. However, I disagree with your first sentence. Trade liberalization, and how every country goes about trade policy in general, is a major factor in poverty reduction. An example is China. Prior to 1979, China was much more "communist", and had a closed economy with so-so results, then beginning in 1979 they started liberalizing parts of their economy, though maintained government control in many respects in order to guide the economy. This balance helped them achieve the growth they've had in the last 2 decades. I'm not arguing GDP is better than HDI in determining the best country to live in (because it's not), I'm arguing that GDP is better in determining economic growth & the successes/failures of trade/economic policy. HDI even uses GDP in its formula as the primary tool to measure the economic prosperity of a given country. If you killed 50% of your population your GDP would plummet because that would mean 50% less people consuming domestic goods, 50% less workers able to produce goods, 50% less people able to export/import goods in trade etc. so GDP growth certainly wouldn't go up 100%. By what other statistic other than GDP-per-capita would you think would be better in measuring economic growth/prosperity? You can't argue for HDI and against GDP per capita at the same time, because as I said HDI uses GDP per capita in its forumla order to calculate economic standard of living: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/calculator/. The UNDP agrees with me. I don't think most NGO's claim that poverty is increasing, because as you point out this is simply false statistically. What many do argue is that the WTO slows economic growth for many developing countries, or in other words without the WTO and with more equal trade policies between developing and developed countries, most poor countries would grow in economy and human development as an even higher rate, which I agree with. I just don't see how developing countries having trade policies rammed down their throats by richer countries with little or no input is to their overall benefit. IMO, the WTO is not an organization dedicated to the economic development of poor countries. It's an org designed by rich countries for the benefit of rich countries, under the guise of "economic growth for all". Many poor countries have been politically strong-armed into joining the WTO, and also join it because it's better to have a small voice at the table than having no voice at all. I agree that some NGO's are being ideological, and it's wrong yes. And they've made some mistakes obviously, and they should admit them too. I don't really know much about Mexico & the results of NAFTA there so I can't comment either way. Their GDP has grown since NAFTA so maybe that's evidence it's worked there, I don't really know. My view on global trade is that developing countries should have equal say and equal terms of trade as rich countries do. Right now, they don't. The WTO entrenches this inequality in trading power because rich countries are able to call the shots, despite the WTO claiming to be fair and equal. I want trade justice. I don't want rich countries calling the shots and increasing their wealth at the expense of the poorest countries (whether through WTO or otherwise) because that is, in my opinion, morally reprehensible. Whether you agree with me that the WTO does this or not, I hope you agree with me on this basic point of wanting this trade justice? I also agree that the agricultural subsidies are grossly unfair and need to be curled back. Also, I'm sorry if I sounded like a know-it-all in my last post & offended you.

It's not even among the safest cities in Canada, so that doesn't compute. For a major metropolitan city maybe you're right.

That's very interesting. Never thought of a difference between different regions of Africa. However, aren't most black Westerners West-Africans, since that's where most of the slaves came from during the slave trade? Would this create a bias for well-funded athletes of African decent living in the west? I really don't know, just kinda talking out of my arse here..

Good point. Self-sustaining life on Mars just seems more complex than what you're saying.

I feel quite safe in my city from gun violence, and in fact it usually never occurs to me that someone would be carrying a gun. A knife more likely if I'm downtown. But it feels a bit different if I'm in Toronto. When I'm driving down the highway in rush hour here and some driver pisses me off I feel quite free & safe to flip the bird to the person and not have a gun pulled at me in a road rage situation, something like that just doesn't occur here very often. I've never heard that happening here to someone I know, and I personally don't know anyone who owns a gun other than hunting rifles & BB guns. However, when I was visiting friends in California we were driving down the highway and I was being silly in the passenger window and making faces at the driver in the next lane. The other driver never saw me, but my American buddy immediately told me in a serious tone to stop doing it. It's just a different vibe down there in many places it seems. Maybe you usually have to assume the other stranger has a gun? I dunno.

Ask not what your country can do for you province, but what your province can do for your country, lol. Now what would being 5, 6, or 7 different provinces do for these provinces? In Quebec it comes down to language/culture, and the problems that come with ie: federal bilingualism for both francophones and anglos. Other than that, I don't see what can't be accomplished through greater federalism and reduced/eliminated equalization payments. Breaking up Canada would be depressing. Maybe a province like BC or Alberta would go to the US. It would make travel/working/changing residence across the provinces much more difficult. The cost of running a province within a united Canada compared to running 6 separate sovereign countries is higher, as each province would need its own military & security, embassies, foreign diplomats, trade agreements, currency (though they'd probably still share the same currency, except for Quebec possibly) etc.

I love most of the track and field events. Most of the others are just so-so.

Black people run fast. Why don't they just shut down all the track & field events having to do with running/jumping and give all the medals to Africa.

"legitimate religious belief" is a bit of an oxymoron don't you think?

The bannings sounds very unconstitutional.

Why do you need separate countries? Why not greatly increase federalism and the sovereignty/power of the provinces? And get rid of equalization payments? We could have Canada as a country made up as a loose confederation of strong, fairly sovereign provinces, with them sharing foreign relations through the central government. It's in the best interests of all provinces to stay together as a single country, no matter how loose the central domestic power, for the sake of power in foreign relations. A country with Canada's economic, social, and military power would far exceed that of any individual provinces. Smaller populated states means weaker states, which means we wouldn't have much clout in deciding international issues like security/war, the environment, economics etc. Canada could secure far better terms of trade as a trading partner internationally than as 4 or 5 smaller provinces because your alternative makes each mini-state weaker. The main reason why China & India are strong rising powers that will likely surpass the US in economic/military might one day is because they have massive populations dwarfing every other state by about a billion or more. The average Chinese annual wage is peanuts compared to Canadians, but add 1.3 billion of them together and you have a future superpower in the making. If China had the population of Canada they'd be about as powerful as Peru or Malaysia. Also, it would suck to go from 12th in medal standings at the Olympics to like 40th haha.

I sort of agree. I would wait a bit, send robots to Mars for now until its cheaper to put and keep humans there longterm. But I would be in favour of sending at least a 1-way ticket (maybe 2-way if possible) crew to walk the planet like we did on the moon, if the cost wasn't absolutely ridiculous. That's the first step I think. I think the biggest thing to gain from Mars colonization, until we have the tech to travel to other solar systems, is that we can learn how to survive harsh climates on earth that could result from 1) a nuclear winter, or 2) a large asteroid hit, and similar catastrophes that could threaten our existence. As you said, some of that could be learned here if we simulate it properly. As Bonam said, eventual terraforming would be very neat as well, but maybe less useful until we get to other solar systems. Why not just send robots to Mars for science & resource extraction...though I guess terraforming would provide more resources.