Moonlight Graham

lol i meant Afghanistan

Ya, JFK shot himself in the foot. The entire point of my reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis was to use the Crisis itself as an example of the biggest poop-pile a President has ever been in. One should ask themselves how they think a potential candidate for POTUS would perform in such a situation. Things like healthcare and taxes are important, but they are Pringle chip crumbs compared to that hot potato.

Probably over a billion dollars it will cost for these Olympics. Thats well over budget and the area will be paying off that bill for decades. Vancouver needs to get its damn priorities in check. They have huge drug and homeless problems. The downtown lower-east side is the poorest neighbourhood in Canada. Would have been much better to put that money into helping solve these social problems than a massive sporting event, as nice as it is.

Obama says less than 100 al-Qaeda operating in Iraq. Hmm, since the insurgents won't be beaten, time to leave then.

Never said the Bay of Pigs wasn't stupid. The number of proxy wars and covert actions that JFK was involved with never had close to the potential of destruction that nuclear war with the USSR. Hell, JFK ordered a draw down of 1000 U.S. troops in Vietnam a month before his death, which Johnson reversed, and McNamara said he wanted to pull out the troops by 1965. Point is, JFK got the U.S. out of the situation. If he had listened to his military, like Bush likely would have done, poop would have hit the fan, well beyond what the blockade did:

I don't know if it makes her stupid. If she doesn;t realize it, then yes she's stupid. But if she does realize it (how can she not??) and still wants to run makes her selfish, and in a way, unpatriotic. To know you are not competent to be POTUS, let alone, VP, and yet still run for the job, you are doing your country a huge disservice. But then, the voters have the final say. Thankfully they they didn't vote her into office with McCain.

The problem with Palin isn't that she is stupid per say. The problem is that she is very uninformed and uneducated in matters of politics and history and how the world works. She proved that over and over during the 2008 campaign. That's what would make her an incompetent President...or VP. She needs to stop writing books and start reading some. But even being educated doesn't guarantee anything. Condoleezza Rice was very educated yet still was a bonehead.

He got out of the situation without nuclear bombs going off didn't he? Someone else may have listened to the Joint Chiefs, and boom.

If Palin were President during the Cuban Missile Crisis many millions may have got nuked. I'll go with sneaky over stupid any day.

If Palin gets the nomination it only shows how stupid some people are for voting her as the nominee. McCain was very informed. She is completely clueless about how the world works, and anyone who would want her as President of the U.S. is equally clueless.

Why are you talking about global cooling? Who the hell thinks its cooling? Its been warming over the past century generally, with a cool dip after WWII, then warming again. Who would deny it? Based on our best evidence of temp records thems the facts.

Of course climate change exists. Climate has gone from cold to warm and back again constantly for many millions of years. The IPCC can shove it, they are politically motivated. I'd rather listen to the many thousands of other scientist not involved in that select group. Not talking about skeptics, but all scientists who deal in rationality, not ideology. Again, the question is whether global warming is caused by humans or if its currently mostly a natural warming. If its human, we need to fix it, if its natural then we can't fix it no more than we can change the weather, but must adapt (which is a huge costly problem we must deal with as well).

agreed. It's freaking science! Any good scientist worth their weight in marbles should always be "skeptical" and constantly keep an open mind to new information or evidence.

Patriots aren't fanatics. Patriots who will follow their country and government no matter what are fanatics, but thats not what partiotism means. People who love their country aren't fanatics. As to the opening post. I disagree. nationalism doesn't necessarily mean a moral superiority over all other nations, it just mean you feel a strong connection to a group of people with similar interests. Definitions of nationalism: 1. Devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation. 2. The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals. 3. Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination. 1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a sentiment based on common cultural characteristics that binds a population and often produces a policy of national independence or separatism 2. loyalty or devotion to one's country; patriotism 3. exaggerated, passionate, or fanatical devotion to a national community See also chauvinism Definitions of nation: na·tion (nshn) n. 1. a. A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country. b. The territory occupied by such a group of people: All across the nation, people are voting their representatives out. 2. The government of a sovereign state. 3. A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality: 1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) an aggregation of people or peoples of one or more cultures, races, etc., organized into a single state the Australian nation 2. (Sociology) a community of persons not constituting a state but bound by common descent, language, history, etc. the French-Canadian nation There's nothing really about moral superiority in any of this.

Guess what? President's don't memorize the vast majority of their speeches. Guess what also? they don't even write them either. When was the last time a President wrote and memorized their own speech that was more than 5 minutes long?

The earth has warmed in the last 200 years. But it hasn't warmed at a temp or rate that hasn't happened many, many, many times in the past. It's not even the warmest that its been in the last 1000 years. Generally, the earth seems to be warming the last 2 centuries. But the question is if this warming caused primarily by humans? CO2 levels have been steadily rising the past 8 years yet global temp has remained the steady in these past 8 years.

Because they are metal. What about explosives with no metal?

teleprompters and cheat notes? who cares, there are way more relevant things to talk about than this inconsequential crap.

Tree rings are a very inadequate proxy for measuring past temperatures of any kind, whether it be local, global, etc. This is because there are many reasons that determine how much a tree will grow during any given year. Warm temperatures will make a tree grow more, but if the temp is too hot it will actually stunt the growth of some types of trees. One large determination of tree growth and the size of tree rings is the amount of precipitation in a given year, as obviously if its too dry a tree won't grow well, and lots of precipitation will make a tree grow more, but if there's too much precipitation it may stunt its growth. Also, a tree will grow more if the tree next to it (that previously provided shade) falls down or is chopped down and the remaining tree is therefore exposed to more sunlight. All of this is fairly logical. If you have a fat tree ring compared to other rings in the tree, the only thing you can conclude is that tree-growing conditions for that year in that local area were very good. Its impossible to know if it was warm temperature or lots of precipitation etc. that caused the good conditions, unless you use other proxies as well to confirm it, but even then its not certain.

A gazillion laws regarding Aboriginals. ie: land claims, many influenced/decided by plebiscites. Ie: the Nunavut Act and Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

You are right. For eg: That's one of the reasons Canada or the U.S. doesn't have direct democracy in all decisions - our populations are much too big for it to be practically possible to have a referendum on every single issue of the day. Beyond that, the average working person doesn't have the time to stay accurately informed on every single issue, reading all bills etc. Therefore, we elect representatives. But, i think most people living in democratic countries would agree that we should have as much democracy in the system as is practically possible. At least that's my opinion. Vast sums of money donated to parties with "catches" attached IMO compromise the entire goal of the 1 person 1 vote system. I suppose. However, many Americans agree with me as seen during the State of the Union speech where both parties of congress stood when Obama condemned the Supreme Court decision.

I've said the U.S. electoral system & the democracy of the U.S. itself is corrupted by vast amounts of money, which won't be helped by more corporate cash flow. To think otherwise is foolish.

No, these are the consequences of a-hole (and homophobe) men breaking the law, and at some point they need to be held responsible for their actions. Though i don't believe in women on the battlefield, unless they can show they are physically capable of keeping up with the men.

Free speech laws in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms say i can lecture whomever i want. Both systems have flaws, i criticize both of them.