Moonlight Graham

I agree crime is complex. Poverty and income inequality or major factors, and I agree culture plays a role as well, I just don't know if it is more important than economic factors. And I should make the point that homicides are only one (while important) criminal aspect, they can't be used to measure overall crime-rates. There can be societies that may have less of a gun culture but have significant fraud, theft, counterfeiting, smuggling etc.

I agree, but is that the way it even works?

I have to admit Shady, that was a pretty good one!

Your assumption, like many, is that those on social assistance are all able-bodied adults who are just "lazy". True for some cases unfortunately, and I wouldn't give those people a dime if there were jobs available for them, let alone cable tv. But what about the elderly? Disabled/sick? Single-mothers, especially those whose husbands suddenly up & leave? People who work full-time minimum wage but still can't stay above the poverty line? People who are in a period where they legit can't find a job despite best efforts? The last 3 would be controversial to get cable tv (or have enough to afford it), the first 2 probably not.

Your can reverse your argument. If the non-wealthy have more money to spend, it makes the rich more money because the non-wealthy are buying the products & services produced by the wealthy. This follows the concept of Fordism. Henry Ford obviously produced automobiles, but his worker's did not make enough in wages to be able to afford to buy the very products they produced, thus limiting Ford's consumer base & sales & stagnating Henry's profits. To combat this, Henry then increased his worker's wages so that they could actually afford to buy the cars they were pumping out. This obviously increased Ford's profits & number of cars sold, allowing Henry to have more capital to pump into R&D and invest in more factories etc. to employ more people, and thus produce more cars and make further profits, and the cycle continues and growth continues. Everyone benefited in this scenario, and it worked because it was cyclical. It led to more goods and wealth for everyone, rich & non-rich. You can call it 'trickle up economics' if you will. What the wealthy don't realize these days is that in order to create profits & wealth, capitalism demands mass-consumption, but those that mass-consume (ie: the majority non-wealthy) need money in order to buy the products the wealthy create.

You have proof of this claim via a research study, or is this your hypothesis? Japan has the lowest income inequality in the world.

The point is that addicts would being doing the drugs anyways without Insite, only with shared dirty needles and no medical supervision & professionals willing to help them quit. It also makes YOU and Canadians more healthy because no shared needles etc. mean less diseases like HIV and hepatitis floating around. These people also have decreased chance of passing these diseases to their kids. Science & research is your friend.

Exactly. I think it's much more environmental than genetics. Parents, friends, school, life experience etc. People who live in Alberta and Alabama are more conservative than those who live in Quebec and New York. City dwellers more liberal than rural/smalltown dwellers etc. Heck if I lived & grew up in Alabama in 1800 maybe I would have favoured slavery!

Everything i said after "Saw this story. Good stuff." Wasn't directed at you, just a comment.

Saw this story. Good stuff. Damn lefties and their progressive agendas! Saudi social conservatives are now yelling "Nooo!! A woman driving??? And without her husband?? What about traditional family values?"

Agreed. I'm neutral on the subject. Doesn't really affect us much, minus disrupting/destroying wildlife (and their habitat) that travel back and forth our border, but it's still your land to do as you please.

Why disdain? Mom or dad abuse you, you are taken away by CAS as a kid/teen, grow up in group homes, but you run away from that hell-hole where neglect and abuse is also prevalent, live on the streets for awhile or live off welfare, and drop out of high school. Or maybe you have a disability and can't work, or only part-time? Maybe you're a single elderly woman and worked your life as a cashier and never had enough to save for retirement, now you're back is screwed up or you're deemed too old to be employed. Ya man, the heck with the welfare state. Liberty for everyone, charities will take care of these problems even though they failed to do so in Canada prior to WWI/WWII.

If you were abused as a child, maybe were taken away from your parents by CAS and grew up in group homes or shuffled around foster homes and nobody ever really loved you, never had any family to be with on Xmas morning, you might run away and live on the street like many do. And if your dad sucked on your penis as a boy and nobody loved you, odds are pretty good you'd turn to alcohol or drugs to cope with the pain too. If you were a young woman and a family member stuck their fingers in your vagina as a kid/teen, or you were abused in other ways and lived in foster/group homes & nobody loved you, odds are decent too that you'd act out sexually as many of these young women do and screw boys like crazy. Lots of teenage girls/young women get pregnant, but many of the ones that go on welfare are the ones that need to because they don't have loving parents/family to help them out. They have to rely on social assistance, social housing, foodbanks etc. to get by. If they're lucky they wont have to ever stay at a women's shelter because the asshole boyfriend they are attracted to because he's like her asshole daddy beat the shit out of her, and maybe the kid too. And the cycle continues... I worked at a community drop-in center for young disadvantaged mothers for awhile, volunteered there for a couple years too. Above was quite typical.

How would I know? You can't know such a thing without statistics. If you can find a research study that has properly operationalized and measured the concept of "laziness" in an empirical study on poverty/welfare then maybe we'd know. Seems a hard thing to operationalize, but if you can find such a study i'd be interested. Sarcasm. Not sure. But 16.6% of women live under the poverty line in Canada (income of just under 20 grand a year i believe) compared to 14.4% of men. Statistically, you're in the minority then. You can't make near as much money on welfare as you can even with a minimum wage job. Monthly income for a single person on Ontario Works = $585, while monthly before-tax income for a person earning minimum wage in Ontario (35 hrs/week)= $1,555. If you have a disability you get about double the $$ on Ontario Works than if you are able-bodied. I would think it would be extremely hard to afford cable tv if you are able-bodied and capable of working and living off Ontario Works, let alone even afford adequate basic needs like food/shelter/clothes. People who don't look like Caucasians. There is a clear relationship between child abuse/neglect, and thus child protection services/group homes/foster care, and homelessness. Dr. Gabor Mate, a physician who works at the onsite/insite facility in Vancouver's downtown eastside said in a that of the hundreds of addicts he has treated there not single one that was not abused (either sexual, physical, neglect) as a child. It was a textbook from a university course in social work i took this summer, ie: peer-reviewed, not some book by a crackpot do-gooder. There's more in common than you think. All countries are incorporated into the world capitalist system, even the "communist" ones, virtually all are countries where a small minority control a disproportionate amount of the wealth compared to the masses. The OP is talking about rich and poor in terms of economics, so when I (or the stats) refer to poverty in this thread i'm talking about income & wealth. I fully agree 100%. I never once mentioned 'happiness' and i'm not talking about what makes people happy. But you say "money and material wealth are irrelevant to happiness", and i would say that money is certainly isn't #1 but it certainly is important to quality of life since it can greatly factor into your health, education, amount of time to spend with family etc

Premiers usually act and talk like lying scumbags, so i'd most definitely agree.

There's also a concept of called "the working poor" you may not have heard about. Fact about your "welfare bums": "Families in Canada that receive more than half of family income from employment: 48% of poor families; 62% of poor singles" (National Council of Welfare) Stereotypes are awesome.

I don't have the time or energy these days to respond to a bunch of individual posts i've read, but a bunch of you people on here have your head seriously rammed so far up your ass when it comes to people labeled 'poor'. I would imagine most with these attitudes have never even come close to foodbank or a homeless shelter or trailer park or native reserve. The stereotypes on here are hilarious. Ahh yes, the ol' "poor people are lazy" nonsense. Let's see... - The family-type with the highest poverty rate in Canada is single mothers (47%). Clearly they are lazy. - Age group most likely to be poor: children (18% of all Canadian children are poor. That's 2 million kids). Also, 37% of all people who visit foodbanks in Canada are children. Damn lazy kids, get a job! - Women make less money than men and are more likely to be under the poverty line. Damn lazy women, work harder like us men! - 17% of single female seniors in Canada live under the poverty line. That's also almost double the rate of single male seniors. Come on granny, work harder! - More than half of First Nations people are unemployed. Damn lazy aboriginals, what do you have to complain about?!? - Recent immigrants are more likely to be poor and unemployed. Stop watching tv Mohammad and get a job ya bum! - Visible minorities have higher poverty rates than Caucasians. Thems lazy negros i tells ya! - "Several studies have found that youth experiencing homelessness have disproportionately been involved in child protection services or foster care in their lives. This number ranges from close to 30% to 49%." link - "Contrary to popular misconception, schizophrenia is only present in approximately 6% of Toronto’s homeless population" (above link). Must just be laziness then. (Apologies, if a stat above doesn't have a link it was taken from a 2010 book i have on social welfare in Canada) Yes, some poor people are indeed lazy and can suck the system, but most aren't. You can also work your butt off to become wealthy, yet you can also do jack-all but have wealthy parents and invest wisely. Some people just don't understand the social and structural determinants of income. A good example of structural determinants would be that 99% of those living in Africa, Asia, and central/south america are dirt poor even relative to the Canadian poor. Is that because they are less hard-working or less intelligent? Or might it be something else?

Oh yes it is!

That was pretty good, but for some reason I think he could have presented it a little better.

Ron is bang-on here. Lesson #1 of Robert McNamara's 11 lessons of war: "Empathize with your enemy". It's so damned true and important.

My view at the time and still remains is that Chretien stayed out of the war mainly as a domestic political calculation. In the run-up to the war I remember he never publicly stated any support or condemnation of the war, and when asked about it he simply stated that he would support whatever the UN decided and that would determine Canada's involvement. The war was very controversial in Canada, with many detractors as well as supporters. By not supporting it either way and leaving it up to the UN, Chretien made a very smart political move and avoided any major controversy among voters.

They say in the article that they would look more like hairs to human eyes, but are indeed feather structures under microscope. So i don't know about the "bright colours" theory, they could just be brown or grey etc....but who knows. The picture of the "theropod fossil from China" is amazing, the dino just looks like it would be hairy like a mammal or something...but imagine they would look different than either mammal hair or bird feathers. Anyways, this is all fascinating. edit: just said on the CBC that the feathers they found were black and brown.

Maybe Obama and some of his buds in the White House are making a band and they wanted some vintage 1950's Les Paul's but their wives said "those toys are too expensive dear" so they had to to "confiscate" them for free.

Maybe Obama is so desperate to boost the US economy and save his 2012 election hopes that he thinks some protectionist policies may politically outweigh some bad blood with Canada? Me thinks US voters would care more about their jobs & money than a bit of negative US-Canada relations.

If a Muslim really hates Westerners, why would he blow up Muslims? Because they are, to him, apostates aka not true Muslims and an enemy for their ends.