Moonlight Graham

I can hear some indie music one one alt channel where I live, but not a lot. I don't have satellite radio in my car. Nickelback may be no less valid, but it sucks when they first got popular then all you heard on the radio for a couple years were Nickelback clones. The goal of profit and risk of supporting unknown artists means Nickelback clones got signed to big labels and played on the radio and music video channels because it was "safe", while quality indie bands got shoved to satellite & internet radio and took years more to get noticed if at all. What sells well in music isn't always what most people will like the most, but often what is pumped/supported and advertised by the music industry, especially in pop music.

Saw this on TV on an episode of Campus PD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIgaTJTzLhs Love how the cop is protecting the Christian man from the rowdy crowd of college kids on campus. Several kids get close to him and I think one kid touched the man, and the cop backs everyone off and gives him space to protect this man's safety and right to freedom of speech. In Canada, the cop would probably be trying to get the darn Christian dude to go home...or at least the university student unions or administration would. Note, the Christian man is actually quoting the New Testament correctly when he says women shouldn't get divorced: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=20228

Exactly. Who is the more aggressive country? Israel or Iran? Who was the first to reject the NPT treaty? Who is talking about real, serious military strikes against another country in the middl-east, not just wishing a regime "vanished from the pages of time" (whatever that means!). If somebody launches a strike first, it will be Israel, not Iran. So who is the real threat to peace and security in the region? Who is more likely to start a regional war that will drive oil prices out the roof and kill tens of thousands? This just in: Israel threatens preemptive strike. Anyone been reading the news lately?

Capitalism is horrible for art. I think it's a major weakness of capitalism actually. Profits mean companies will usually only fund what they think will be most profitable and popular. This means crap like Nickelback on the radio instead of a lot of amazing Indie bands that just aren't as marketable for record companies and radio stations. Same with movies, where mediocre blah stuff like Transformers and Avatar will get a 100 million dollar budget but a high-brow film with the same need for special effects would never get funded/released. Video game industry is similar, where rehashed sequels (Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Mario Kart) are released annually ad nauseum because many modern games need massive budgets so it's too risky for developers to make new IP's because it's much more risky to fail financially. You get the point. For books it's much less of a problem because risk is much lower if you publish a bad book since most of what need is just a smart writer with a computer and a printing press, compared to massive budgets and staff needed to make a film or Broadway show etc.

The Hutu and Tutsi aren't tribes. Also, their rivalry, and the violence between them, has been very largely due to Belgian colonialists who pitted them against each other & treated the Tutsis as superior, and taught them both that the Tutsis were racially superior which causes much resentment between them. Prior to colonialism, Tutsi and Hutus got along for the most part, intermarried etc. Also, the Belgians transformed the classification of Hutus/Tutsis, as before colonization it was based on wealth class and who owned farming animals vs not etc., while the Belgians classified Hutu and Tutsi based on physical features upon the invention of "race" which was popular in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. wikipedia;

Again, that graph he posted had nothing to do with fresh water, but % of people who had access to safe-drinking water. You could leave near Lake Michigan but if it's polluted then you don't have access to fresh drinking water.

Except that anyone and his mom can poop text on a video and make it mean anything and slap it on youtube. I don't speak Farsi, can you find a legit news source reporting said speech with the same "death to israel" translation? I can't.

Or everyone can just lie and/or be horribly inaccurate and say Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the map.

Agree with everything up to the last couple of parts. Israel will bomb Iranian facilities. This will ignite a conflict between them in the M.E. I imagine. US/NATO will come to the rescue, and proceed to help Israel in the bombing of sites. After that, who knows. Iran is zero threat to launch a conventional nuclear strike vs Israel. The only danger I see is them giving/selling nukes to terrorists who would do that job for them (which is still a big risk for Iran if the nukes were traced back to them), or Iran otherwise selling nukes to people the West wouldn't approve of (ie: Syria, Palestinians).

Word. And who the heck are these people taking the pictures. How could one live with themselves after that, or during??? Even if you're attracted to that, you'd think the guilt would rip you inside enough to make you vomit and pass out before you could even take a shot. It's like rape. How would having someone screaming in terror & agony beneath you be any kind of enjoyable. Would kind of ruin the mood don't you think?!?

Colonialism and race being small factors? You've got to be kidding me! Climate and geography are obvious factors, especially in extreme cases where deserts exist, but c'mon. It's no coincidence whatsoever that every white-majority country on the planet, from Canada to Europe to Australia, is also highly developed. The most economically developed countries (GDP per capita), minus very small population states, are almost all white-majority countries. Is that because they're situated in the best climates/geography? Heck no. Is New Zealand doing so much better than Indonesia or the Philippines because of geography? Or North vs South Korea? Haiti vs Dominican Republic? That's a not a map showing fresh water, it's showing % of pop with access to safe drinking water. (The data is also 25 years old). If you live in an economically developed country, you're going to have better access to safe drinking water, even if you live in a desert ie: Las Vegas. South America and Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the most lush vegetation on the face of the planet. If the US/Canada was located in South America they would be doing just fine. Canada would likely be doing even better because much of our land is virtually uninhabitable desert/permafrost. Africa has many natural resources like gold, oil, diamonds, rare earth's etc. Because of a myriad of reasons, from technology to culture (which are themselves interrelated), Europe won the race to colonize much of the world and assert its dominance, which is absolutely still in effect to this day. Think about in Canada with native reserves being so poor, and white suburbs being rich, and if that has much to do with geography/climate, and then you'll see there are many factors that go into development & economic dominance.

I'll ignore the ridiculous OP title. One upon a time about half a millennium ago, Europe became the most powerful region in the world. They were violent wretched beasts, and they decided to use this power and technological might to colonize most of the world...until they decimated themselves with this technological might via WWII. So then they couldn't afford to subjugate their colonies, including "black countries", anymore. Along the way they also realized that yes they were violent wretched beasts, so freeing them was probably the right thing to do anyways. How convenient! These newly "independent" black countries were happy to be free, but unfortunately their bums were still a little chapped. Many of their strongest workers and warriors were enslaved and sent across the seas. Their ancient kingdoms were plundered and destroyed, their resources stolen. Their borders were permanently carved up and formed into new "countries" without their input. Their political systems replaced with foreign ones which were not compatible with their cultures, as were their economic systems. They were taught by their violent, thieving, and brutal dictorial colonial masters that violence, thievery, and brutal dictatorship was how one ruled politically. Their religions, languages, and other cultural aspects were taught to be inferior and replaced by others. Different "ethnicities", which some whities also called "races", were pited against each via divide-and-rule tactics by their colonial masters, which has caused much bloodshed and death. Seems to me a bit understandable that these "black governments" are a bit dysfunctional, and these "black countries" may take a century or 2 to catch up with the rest of civilization. note: edited for graphic homosexual imagery.

There was this girl in my university class once and she was from Texas and she never shut up, always making comments to the teacher (though put her hand up and was otherwise polite). She was kinda hot too. This is kinda related to the thread right?

I wouldn't affiliate myself with any of our parties if you put a gun in my crotch and pulled the trigger. Actually that's a lie, I like the Rhino party.

Why, exactly? If Romney did pick McCain, does that mean conservative voters would vote for Obama/Biden? Absolutely not. They may not be as thrilled as they would a more conservative Romney/Gingrich ticket or whatever, but they'll still vote for Romney/McCain. In a general election you still have to fire up and base and get them to vote, but at the end of the day it's the swing states that matter, and what swings the swing states are independent/swing voters. I would argue that the most appealing kind of ticket would be one featuring one conservative and one liberal. Or 2 centrists. Having 2 liberals and you alienate the right, and 2 conservatives and you alienate the left.

The West has been stupid not to see the difference in fighting the Taliban and fighting al-Qaeda. We went there to get rid of West-killing terrorists, and we've been mostly stuck fighting the people who harboured them but haven't attacked us beyond their borders (to my knowledge).

I would say ban asbestos exports and shut the mines down unless there are safe uses for it.

This is just more SunTV vs the CBC. People at SunTV don't like the CBC because it's not a right-wing station, and they think its left-slanted. It's not a left-wing station IMO, just not a right-wing one either. If the CBC had a huge right-wing slant like SunTV then people at SunTV wouldn't be calling for its privatization etc. Of course, the rare time SunTV bangs on a CPC MP is when they criticize SunTV and seemingly supports the CBC. Yawn. At least the issue of porn on the CBC is relevant.

People don't immigrate to those continents because most of the countries there are not very well economically developed. Why move to a poor country when you can go to a rich country? It has little to do with culture. If I could move to a country with a standard of living twice as high as Canada I would walk around in a bra and diapers if that was part of their culture.

Why is McCain not a conservative? Because he's not an insane religious kook? Who was a "real" conservative running for the GOP in 2008? Mike Huckabee? Rudy Guliani? Would Huckabee/Palin or Gulliani/Palin have been a ticket to do any better vs Obama in 2008? Would Gingrich do any better with independent and swing voters/swing states in 2012 vs Obama compared to Romney? I think almost certainly not.

Right now, no. But we've had low interest rates for awhile now and when they inevitably increase, as the article eluded to, there could be problems in mortgage payments if they are indeed lending to too many not-so-prime homeowners. That would be similar to what helped cause the US mortgage crisis following the low borrowing rates after the tech bubble bust and the subsequent increase years later.

I'm not parroting Harper, it's just basic math, and has been talked about for many years prior to Harper being PM. Whatever political games the CPC may play, it still comes down to taxes and spending. Taxes account for the overwhelming majority of our gov revenue, and this isn't going to change. Your post keeps to my main point: someone is going to get screwed. Maybe it's seniors, maybe it's me, or my grandkids, or the rich or the poor.

I agree. He was like "balls to this, i'm outta here!". He should have said something like "If you only had a small amount on personal possession then no, I wouldn't spent state time and money arresting people like that. I don't agree with legalizing medical marihuana, but we should be going after the big operations that are dealing and not the little guys like you". Then before the dude can open his mouth, bail!

With the babyboomers, this country is screwed. To pay for their healthcare and other benefits, we'll need to raise taxes or go into more debt. The alternative is to cut healthcare services and senior benefits, or cut all government spending across the board. Either way, somebody is getting screwed. The gravy train is ending, the gov has to either cut services or take more money from pay cheques. I'm just glad I'm not an aging babyboomer right now!