Moonlight Graham

Holy freaking crap i think you actually made a good point.

He/she didn't refer to "every attack" in the world, but was referring to 9/11. 9/11 occurred partly because of blowback, but also because of wacko radical Qutbist beliefs.

Al-Qaeda have not repelled this invasion, the Taliban has. And as i stated before, no my knowledge the Taliban have not attacked the West other than on Muslim territory in defense of their own country. Yes they did harbour al-Qaeda, but the Taliban did not hijack any planes on 9/11 or attempt attacks any other Western cities. The Taliban has shown little to no sign of being a major threat to launch transnational terrorist attacks against the West.

We aren't teaching terrorists anything. You do realize that there are are hardly any al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan, right? I'd rather have them return to Afghanistan and blow them to hell in one of the supremely poorest nations on earth than ramping up strikes at them in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

huh?? please clarify.

I agree it would be a show of weakness. However, remaining there would continue to weaken us as well as we waste money, resources, and lives. As i also said, the longer we occupy middle-eastern countries, the more reason we give them to attack us. I think leaving Afghanistan shows we can't just go into any country and hold/control and occupy it. However, if terrorists return to Afghanistan we should surely show them that we will blow them to hell if they try to set-up camp.

Is this true? Gmail looks more professional than Hotmail? Seems silly, but many of my friends switched to gmail from hotmail over the years and use their full names so maybe they use the address for work. I will be using this email for work also so this is a definite concern.

ahh thanks, i didn't know what that feature was called. I checked and hotmail has bcc also.

There are people who work in the "green" industry that do have an agenda which is money and/or profit driven, but just as there are people in the skeptic circles who have an agenda with energy corporations. 2 sides of the same coin looking for coin. Not to say all or even most people on either side are in it for the $$$, but it interests do play a part in environmental debates. The tricky part is distinguishing the honest scientists from the dishonest ones, and/or the impartial data from the "agenda" data. This the thing that pulls my hair out because it's so hard to know whom/what to trust on either side.

He's a scumbag but i'll welcome him and his money back into the Canadian economy.

So many people i know have done so. But why? I need a new email address and am wondering what perks gmail offers me over Hotmail? I've been using Hotmail since the late 90's and have a few other accounts i use that i can link a new account to for easier use. I'm also of course more used to hotmail than gmail. So why should i still switch? Things i'm concerned about: - With Gmail, does your account get frozen and old emails deleted if you dont sign in to your account for a prolonged period? (Hotmail i believe freezes your account after 270 days and deletes it after 1 year of inactivity). - if i send out an email to multiple people, i can hide the names so the others wont see who else i'm sending it too. I like this and have never seen hotmail have this. - attachment size. I beleive Hotmail is 10mb max, while gmail is 25mb max. correct? Any other gmail perks?

If so, what are some of your fav games and/or what are you playing right now?

In all my experiences on different message boards, the most popular forum section by far is usually a general "talk about anything" off-topic subforum, and on these boards such a subforum would be where users post about anything not pertaining to politics of course. I realize there are some off-topic sub-forums already, but they have barely any topics/replies in them compared to other sections. I suggest possibly keep the health and business forums, but scrapping the art and sports/leisure forums and just creating on big "off-topic" subforum for people to post whatever they wish.

Are you kidding? Brilliant premise. A total mind f**k. Isn't Tron about getting sucked into a computer? The Matrix would be the opposite, where Neo gets "sucked" into reality & earth being a mere program.

Oh, and here's the best that could happen if we leave: - Save mountains of money! - save our soldier's lives etc. - save afghan civilian lives! - stop pissing off muslims by occupying their lands and killing civilians, thus giving them less reason to attack us!

Here's my argument. What if all Western forces left Afghanistan entirely by the end of the year or whatnot? What exactly is the worst that could happen from this from a security standpoint? Let's say the Taliban did overtake the Afghan government again. So what? We are fighting the Taliban of course, but they did not attack the U.S. on 9/11 or bomb London and Madrid. None of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Afghans or from the Taliban. We are fighting the Taliban of course because they harboured al-Qeada. If NATO made a deal with the Afghan government and the Taliban to leave the country with the condition that they not harbour or support al-Qaeda or terrorists, what's the worst that could happen? The worst that could happen is that the Taliban takes over the gov't again and begins to harbour al-Qaeda and other terrorists once more. If that were to happen, why not just send in some jets to bomb them and maybe put some troops back on the ground in the early stages of these terrorists setting up camps again so it wouldn't be too difficult to route them out again or eliminate them. This effort to stay in Afghanistan to set up a democratic govt and an army/police force to defend it is ridiculous and a waste of time, money, and lives. If NATO can't defeat the Taliban, a much weaker Afghan force with little heavy equipment (tanks, air support etc.) stands little chance of defending much. We could train them for 100 years and give them a slew of tech but they'd still get whooped. Even if they did manage to fend off the Taliban, odds are quite good that the current "democratic" gov't would sooner or later turn into an authoritarian regime (via military coup or otherwise), or at the very least be entirely corrupt (as we've seen evidence already). My point is, let's just leave, and if terrorists return to the country we can always launch more minor operations to destroy/disrupt them.

What do you mean by "caught up"?

Here's the proposal: Much of the problem for Canada's long wait times and lack of GP's is that many Canadian doctors (and nurses) have left to work in other countries for more money, most notably the U.S (aka the "brain-drain"). This is quite ridiculous & not fair to taxpayers since taxpayers subsidize all these doctor's lengthy/expensive educations, then they skip south for more money while Canadians are left with a weaker healthcare system. So to discourage this, and to even encourage more people to become doctors, how about taxpayers/government offer to pay for the entire education of any medical doctor provided they finish school and stay in the country to work. If they leave to work in another country permanently (or for a prolonged period) they have to pay back their education tuition. There can be variations/tweaks to this (ie: maybe after working for 15-20 years in Canada a doctor could be free to leave with no payback etc.), but this is the general idea. Thoughts?

I blame a lot of it on the brain-drain. Chretien's Liberals let so many good doctors (and nurses) leave for the USA & didn't seem to give a rip or do much about it. We subsidize all these doctor's education, then they skip south for more money & we're up the creek with crazy wait times and lack of access to a GP. How about we offer to pay for the entire education of any medical doctor provided they finish school and stay in the country. If they leave to work in another country they have to pay it back.

I agree. At least charge 5 bucks or something, unless you have a prolongued condition.

Avatar sucks crap. I agree with people here. Pulp Fiction - is a good movie, but overrated and didn't blow me away Dr. Strangelove - is incredibly boring and slow-paced, i had to turn it off. A lot of Kubrick films have major pacing problems (ie: 2001, which i love but damn is it slllooooooooow). Seven Samurai - boring and horrible production value, had to shut it off. Saving Private Ryan - agree with peeps that the action scenes are incredible but the film itself is average. WALL-E - very charming but damn it just got boring i'm sorry. Gran Torino - meh a bit lame. everyone i know loves it Blade Runner - not horrible, but much overrated. Fight Club - good film, but overrated. The Hangover - average comedy at best.

Completely false. First of all, the only reason George Lucas is a rich merchandising king is because he wanted the rights to the merchandise and FOX let him have it because the studio did not think the movie would be a big hit nor was movie merchandise that big of a thing back then. 2nd, Star Wars came out in May 1977, and there were no production for action figures prior to release and therefore when Star Wars became a surprise hit there were ZERO action figures ready for Xmas 1977, disappointing many kids on xmas morning of course (minus a few items like board games and puzzles that they whipped onto shelves). Star Wars was not made to sell toys. But toys were made because people demanded them because they are awesome movies (well, at least the original 3).

ditto

Capitalism in its very nature creates classes that are rich at the top and classes that are poor at the bottom. And the more unregulated the market(s) is, it seems the wider the gap between the rich and the poor. It also seems that much of the wealth is concentrated within the hands of the few. This is true within countries between individual people, and among nations within the global capitalism economy. I don't see it as coincidence that most of the people and countries in the world live poor or meagerly compared to the small # of rich Western states. And i consider myself very fortunate to be a resident in one of the rich states!

I agree. However, they are still authoritarian. Some scholars and such argue that it isn't the kind of government that is most important for countries to develop (ie: authoritarian vs democratic etc.), but the stability of said governments and its ability to govern with strong institutions, rule of law etc. Would a democratic country with high corruption and a weak hold on the rule of law, bureaucratic control/effectiveness etc. be better than a more authoritarian government that is more effective at providing good governance and embedded autonomy for the country? Not only corporations, but rich countries in general through unbalanced trade agreements, terms of aid/loans, etc. etc. etc. I agree they are sovereign states and have the ability in most cases to do whatever they wish. What seems to occur is that developing countries agree to crappy/unfair/exploitative terms of relations thinking that the benefits still outweigh they costs of not agreeing to them at all and being cut off from trade/markets or aid etc.