Moonlight Graham

The poll is for fun, but i'm more interested in the discussion.

This is an amazing lecture on addictions and why they occur and how the brain functions with addictive behaviour. This talk is by physician & best-selling author Gabor Mate, who "for over ten years has been the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and harm reduction facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside". The video is long, but give it 5-6 minutes and see if it interests you. Intellectually fascinating in my opinion. This man is brilliant.

Your conclusions are nothing but guesses, and they are grossly incorrect. I have worked with a social agency that dealt with young people in their late-teens & 20's who are homeless or have been homeless. The vast majority of them have been abused as children sexually/physically. Many of them have run away or otherwise left home at a young age & live on the streets, or have been through "the system" being taken away from their parents as youth by Children's Aid Society or whatnot, been in and out of group homes, and ran away from those too. Even if they stay in those homes, they are completely f'ed up because their parents f'ed them up. Many of them have serious drug or other addiction problems. Not because they are losers or idiots, but because their lives are complete shit with tremendous emotional/mental problems that most of us can't begin to imagine and thus they turn to drugs/alcohol as means to get through the days without killing themselves. Many homeless people are actually very strong individuals, because so many others have or would have committed suicide if they were in the same situation. They are true survivors who keep going even in the worst possible human conditions (in Canada at least). Also, it is very difficult and possibly inappropriate to compare homeless people in Canada/U.S, and those in poor countries like India. They are often homeless/poor for very different reasons. edit: i invite you and everyone else to check out this video on addiction: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=17384&pid=594207&st=0entry594207

Why? Because whitey completely destroyed their way of life & they're totally f'ed up because of it? "Oh lets give them land for reserves, it'll be just like their old way of life for them in there". ya that worked.

haha yes. Also, plastic bags take tremendously less energy to recycle than paper bags. Read that somewhere in the media last week. Idea: why don't they start getting after big businesses who are wasteful and throw out tons of crap (often good things too, like "old" computers). Of course, just throwing things in the dumpster is cheaper & easier than sorting things for recycling.

That is called Foreign Direct Investing (or FDI). ie: More medium or long-term investment with people in the country (ie: foreign businesses/contractors) building things like infrastructure, schools etc. Canada i'm sure does this as it isn't some weird/new concept, although it is very expensive and quite rare for private companies to do similar things. It is hard & expensive for private companies, or, well, anyone to do this in very poor countries because they lack basic infrastructure such as electricity, running water, telecommunication, roads etc. These leads to something they call BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) where it can cost up to 25% more to do such projects because companies must drill for their own water and set-up their own power generators etc. Countries and private companies are also reluctant to do such direct investments in the poorest of countries because there are usually political and economic instability in these countries, so medium-longterm projects are risky. There also factors such as wars or social unrest and scare donors and private investors away. However, yes it would be nice to see more of these FDI projects done as to keep the money out of the hands of corrupt elites.

lol, that was funny. Very stereotypical, and didn't watch it all, but very funny. Is there one like this with conservatives too?

most of them wouldn't end the human race. And oil crash would be catastrophic, many would die, but it couldn't kill everyone. Cyberterrorism also likely wouldn't be humanity-destroying. A super disease/virus, or anything that would block out the sun (meteor, massive nuclear war etc.) are the best bets i think.

i recommend people here read the actual story. To be fair, Iggy didn't say he wanted to scrap the purchasing of new planes altogether: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/10/27/ignatieff-f35-fighter-jets.html from the article:

Oleg, you have a right to defend your "manhood", you don't have a right to swear on these forums. It's your fault, be a man and own it.

Your article link mentions nothing about aid. Yes corruption is a major problem in both poverty and how aid is spent. But it isn't as if all aid is transferred from Canadian or international orgs (World Bank, IMF etc) bank accounts directly into the recipient leader's bank account. Most aid comes with many conditions as well. Corruption and impoverished states go hank in hand. We simply must be vigilant in making sure our aid is delivered how it is intended.

word

my thoughts on multiculturalism (and some on immigration): Retaining culture is fine, but assimilation should be much encouraged also, and loyalty to Canada should be of the utmost importance. I have no problem with people practicing their own culture in their home or in the community (as long as it doesn't harm anyone else). However, immigrants should be encouraged to become a part of Canada and our culture also. Just look at Quebec and we can see the problems that deep-seeded "multiculturalism" can cause for a country. I don't want to wake up in 20 years and have 8 different nationalist groups in Canada vying for independence. The biggest thing i resent about multiculturalism is that its coming to define Canada's own culture, and it undermines Canadian nationalism & the loyalty citizens have to this country. If Canada's culture is largely defined as being all cultures, then Canada will have little real culture of its own. When immigrants arrive in Canada and become Canadian citizens, they should swear unilateral allegiance to Canada. It is perfectly natural for an immigrant to feel/have ties to their former country, but if they choose to leave that country and come here and become a Canadian citizen they should be forced to denounce any former citizenship they had with any other country(s). I do not believe in dual-citizenship. If there's a serious international occurrence such as a war, the question is then which country are you loyal too? Canada or your former country? This decision should already be chosen when you decide to become a Canadian citizen. An immigrant is usually coming to Canada and becoming a citizen because this country offers something better than their former country. If you wish to keep the citizenship of your original country, or you believe your original country to be better than Canada, then by all means return to your former country. This is Canada, it is easily one of the greatest countries/societies in the history of human civilization, so if one wishes to become a Canadian one should embrace this fact with enthusiasm. I resent Canada becoming some hotel where people of different cultures/countries come here to reap the benefits that my grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought and in some cases died to protect, while their true loyalties remain abroad but they stay in Canada mostly because it offers them a higher standard of living, a safer society, better healthcare etc. Canada offers a damn fine life, but it's not a charity for any and all. I think these "Toronto 18" and other terrorists who show contempt and treason towards Canada should be given much tougher prison sentences and then see how much better that life is for them. I'm not the greatest fan of nationalism, but this is the international system we live in. Canadian nationalism is fading very quickly. If Canada were to sink into the ocean, how many Canadians would feel a strong sense of nationalism to want to live together in the same country again? Or would we mostly all just go our separate ways? We need to teach MUCH more Canadian history in schools, what this country is all about. Have more pride where we came from and what we are now, and demand more of those people who wish to call this country their own.

"failed cultures"? That would be one the nuttiest thing i've read on here in awhile. You think Canadian aboriginals have "failed cultures" too? probably should have use the phrase "less developed states".

double post

ridiculous. More perversion of the term.

good governing i think should go above water-cooler talk in priorities. This guy does look like quiet the character though. But every little thing this guy does is going to blown wide open. And since Global TV seems to think Toronto is the centre of the universe i'll be hearing about this crap on the national news too.

You wanna call someone a "fascist" please actually call them what you really mean: totalitarian. A big difference between fascism and totalitarianism. As for "Islamofascism", i dont even know what the heck that's even supposed to mean.

Assuming he serves any time in Canada. The Harper gov has shown zero interest in that so far.

Tough??? Planning acts of treason and mass terror gets 16 years. Sounds light to me, especially with the 2-for-1 garbage.

Everyone was saying before the Cain fight that Brock could take a punch. He did take a ton of punches from Carwin, but when the fight began he got rocked by a punch then fell to the ground to get wailed on some more. The same freakin thing happened in the Cain fight to Lesnar. I find it very weird. How can Lesnar take so many punches from Carwin while on the ground, yet get rocked by both Cain and Carwin standing up? Seems like Lesnar's first reaction to getting hit with a decent punch standing up is to fall down into the fetal position. But man, what a fight. I thought Cain was going to get destroyed honestly. Lesnar looked in the greatest shape i had ever seen him. That huge open gash under his eye was epic. Can't wait for a rematch. It's too bad Lesnar got such a late start in MMA. If he had started at age 25 who knows how good he would be.

Bickering if liberals or conservatives use Nazi comparisons is ridiculous. People from both sides do it. Somebody dropping Nazi/Hitler/Fascist comparisons must occur within several posts a day on this forum. It is just for shock and shows little historical knowledge. ie: People referring to Harper (and his controlling behaviours) as a "fascist" shows me they know little of what fascism entails. Instead of dropping the "fascist" bomb for super-scary effect, they should use the term "authoritarian", which would be much more accurate in what they are trying to describe.

cranky + bored is a lovely combination isn't it?

very interesting link.

Costs of war > benefits. USA loses.