Moonlight Graham

Waldo, you are obviously a believer in AGW. Currently i'm undecided on the whole debate as i'm currently educating myself on the issue. The biggest thing for me about whether AGW is real or not is whether there is a clear correlation between CO2 gases in the atmosphere and global temperature. Do you (or anyone on these boards) know of any web links (with graphs etc.) showing clear correlation between the amount of CO2 gases in the atmosphere and global temperature over the last few thousand years, or at least the last thousand years? I would sincerely appreciate it.

The U.S. has a geographical advantage to Canada as well. It's damn cold here, and only 10% of Canadians live beyond 100 miles north of the Canada/U.S. border. And i'm still freezing my ass off. I'm sure this was a major factor in Canada's rather lacking population and economic growth over the past several hundred years compared to the U.S.

Seen it already. It's pretty good.

Ok, i see where you're coming from now. Yes regime change was law. But the military aspect of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is strange to me. Wiki says "The Act specifically refused to grant the President authority to use U.S. Military force to achieve its stated goals and purposes, except as authorized under the Act in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act." That section says: "(A) The President is authorized to direct the drawdown of defense articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense, defense services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training for such organizations." What the heck does that mean? Obviously the act allowed Clinton to execute Desert Fox, but why? That section isn't written in very clear language (at least to me). Inevitable? Hardly. Would Gore have invaded Iraq? Doubtful. His cabinet/staff wouldn't have been filled with neocons like Cheney and Wolfowitz who were already bent on the strategy of preemption. The invasion was only able to be waged because of 9/11. The info Congress had at its access to understand the issue was not much different than you or I had at the time. The only major difference i see is the NIE presented to Congress, which most of them never read anyways. Most of Congress' understanding came from the Bush admin, and sure i'll include Clinton as well (not saying that admin is any clan of saints either). The National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq's WMD's that was presented to Congress in Oct. 2002 was a piece of crap. Several former CIA members have spoken candidly about how flawed a document it was, and how they were pressured by Cheney and the Bush admin to include certain info etc. in the NIE in order to increase the perceived threat of WMD's in Iraq: PBS Frontline The above is actually a pretty amazing piece of journalism in a great series on the war by PBS, and should be required viewing by all. Different debate, but much of what led to America's current position as lone superpower also has to do with geography. If the U.S. were located in Europe during WWII, it may have lost much of its power as Britain and France etc. did after getting pummeled. But whatever.

I don't think you get what i'm saying. This isn't about "anti-war". Wars are sometimes necessary. Here's some trivia that might surprise you: Back in 2003, i was for the invasion of Iraq. In fact, since i live in Ottawa, i almost went down to Parliament Hill in early 2009 to join protests for Canada to join the "coalition" too (however, I very likely wouldn't have supported the war if the situation had occurred today just given that my views/knowledge have grown since then). But i supported the war back then based on what the Bush admin were saying, the key factor for me being that Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" (which we now know was based on a very unreliable intelligence source), and Rice etc. were saying that Iraq had the capability to have a nuke within 18 months. The nukes were a significant factor for me. Now, had i known that all of this was a pile of B.S., i wouldn't have supported the war. So this isn't about pro vs anti-war. as i said, sometimes wars are unfortunately unavoidable. It's about the people in government being accountable if they are feeding the public bogus intel in order to sell a war. Congress was given an NIE full of crap (which most of them never actually read) to base their decision to give Bush the authority to go to war with Iraq. What that admin did completely undermines democracy, since it is the people (through their Congress reps) who decide when to go to war. How are they supposed to make an informed decision when the information they are receiving is knowingly wrong? And what if they want war based on information that is fed to them by their gov't that is known by the gov't to be false, wishful, concocted bullpoop? I'm well aware that the push for that war went beyond Dubbya. Rummy, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Tenet etc., all responsible.

Check the UNDP's 2009 Human Development Index rankings: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/ Canada is 4th, Scandinavian countries are all over the top of the list, along with east europe, Japan, and Australia also, among others.

The question should be, why shouldn't i care? I'm not a fan when the executives and people at the top of the world's only military superpower make false, deceitful, and concocted statements in the media, to its legislature, and to the world in an effort to start a war. Especially when it results in 100,000+ civilian lives dead. This isn't an ideological issue, or a partisan issue, it's an issue of right and wrong. The actions of the Bush admin , and Congress's unwillingness to call anyone on it after the fact, is one of the greatest disgraces in American history. Americans should be busting the doors down in Washington over this B.S. The fact that they aren't just shows how effective Bush's propaganda campaign was, and how ignorant people in all of western society are, since i'm quite sure a large portion of the U.S. public is still believes Saddam had links with al-Qaeda/Bin Laden. So let me ask you, why do you not care?

I just stumbled across this. Rep. Walter B. Jones, Republican of North Carolina, introduced a bill in Jan. 2009 called the "Executive Accountability Act of 2009". Here's the bill: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h743ih.txt.pdf The official summary of the bill is as follows: Sounds great to me! Maybe the B.S. that was the run-up to Iraq would never have happened if this bill was law, or at least some lowlifes would be in jail. From all i can find, this bill is currently still under judicial committee review, where it will likely die unless my American friends call your Congressmen!

To their defense, we are an officially bilingual country, so however amount of english was in the opening ceremonies should have been roughly matched in french. Don't hate the playa', hate the game. BIATCH!!!!!!

Canada is in a great situation. The U.S. and Russia can have its giant bombs and go flying around the moon all it wants, China can have its fancy Olympic opening ceremonies etc. But i'll take Canada's high life expectancy, quality of living, low crime/ violent crime rates, resilient economy, and international respect etc. Other countries may have been/may be much more powerful than Canada, but it looks like we, along with states like Australia, Japan, and the Scandinavian countries, are the smart ones. CANADA #1 BABY WOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

But he wore a cowboy hat. That must mean he's hardcore rightwinger huh?!?

The Dalai Lama is a nice guy, and one cool dude. China should just shove it. He's welcome in Canada any time.

Read some articles on this. It's definitely premeditated. I would call it a terrorist attack. If he was a Muslim, they definitely would call it one. Crime, terror...does the definition really matter? Guy rammed a plane into a government building.

Very interesting. From cbc.ca: Full article: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/02/17/scanners-muslim.html#ixzz0forp4ZVD

CFRA is ok. My conservatives parents have always listened to it a ton, especially Lowell Green. At least it airs different view point from people like Lowell, yet also lets more moderate voices like Michael Harris have a show. So in that sense, its a good station. Good for liberty and free speech (as Green has been harassed by the CRTC a gazillion times yet CFRA still backs him up)

That's the big problem i have with the olympics. Money has as much to do with the quality of athletes a country has. But other than that, the Olympics as a whole are fine to me. Heck, i think it brings international cooperation and unity. Is there a better example where so many countries throughout the world come together and cooperate in such a peaceful (well, 99% of the time anyways) way? It's (mostly) friendly competition, and IMO has a positive affect on the world. It's a great example of how the international community can come without trying to figure out ways to kill or not kill each other.

Most of the protesters aren't violent. It's a minority of idiots, and there is a myriad of people in the protests who are there for a myriad of reasons, many having nothing to do with Vancouver or poverty. Heck, many of the homeless have been shipped out of the city to the suburbs before the games as to not make Vancouver look "icky". You are such a tough guy. I wonder how you'd feel if it were your son or daughter, mother or father out on those streets. Hell you'd probably change the locks on your doors.

I don't think Iran should have a nuke because their gov't is a bunch of a-hole thugs. However, they do have very valid reasons for wanting nukes. The U.S. and allies have invaded both countries neighbouring Iran to the East and West, Iraq and Afghanistan respectively. For the people and leaders of Iran, only a fool wouldn't want a deterrent to prevent a possible invasion somewhere down the line. Also, the U.S. and the West are COMPLETE HYPOCRITES when it comes to the NPT. We have let Israel build a nuke program and acquire an arsenal of nuclear weapons (that only a moron would deny), we let them deny inspectors, and heck it's likely we have even helped him them in their nuke acquisitions at some level. So why do we, the West, not even raise a stink about Israel, yet we condemn Iran? Obviously it has to do with who we are allied with. The NPT apparently doesn't apply if it fits our security agenda.

I'm pretty positive Canada has killed thousands of people through the years.

How so? He pushed the bailout of some huge companies and a big stimulus package. I think most of the stimulus should have kicked in sooner and more punishment/responsibility reigned down upon the greedy wallstreeters. But the bailouts saved tons of jobs, and the interest rate cuts and stimulus spending is classic Keynesian economics.

Ok, in the name of a friendly debate i'd honestly like to know the reasons why you think it was/is the right decision?

I did a research paper last year on what motivates Muslim terrorists, and there seems to be a pretty clear consensus on the main factors. Western foreign policy in the Middle East is only half the issue. The foreign policy is the primary reason that makes them hate us the most in particular. However, it does not explain why they are trying to kill people in general. Why are radical Muslims the only people who have wage a global terror war against the West? Why not the Vietnamese? Koreans? So many in Latin America who have been f'ed by Western policy? The reason is religion, more specifically radical Islamic fundamentalism. The teachings of Qutbism in particular have been a massive inspiration to bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and so many other jihadists and comprise most of the ideological basis for them. Here is a brief overview of Qutbism's influence on al-Qaeda from wikipedia's main entry on "al-Qaeda": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-qaeda#Ideology I recommend everyone research Qutbism on wikipedia or in other more scholarly sources. It is fascinating. That article doesn't mention that Qutb lived the U.S. for a few years and wrote how he despised their culture (obviously it was much different than traditional Islamic culture).

wow.

Argus, you have no idea what you're talking about. There's poor people. Then there is the type of horrendously poor and homeless and drug users like those that reside in Vancouver's downtown lower east side. You, along with most of us here, have absolutely no clue the horror and pain these people have gone through in their lives. Many of them were abused as children or came from despicable homes altogether. I wonder how "whiny" you'd be if you're dad was giving you blowjobs when you were 5 years old. Get a clue.