xul

In Yunnan Province of southwest China there is a small minority ethnic tribe called Mosuo. They still live in matriarchal socoety nowadays. In the society, women are in charge in the families and do the most of jobs, children follow their mothers' family names and are raised by their mother's families. Men's main function in the society is, wishing all conservative "family value" believing friends here will not go mad, just to produce kids for women IMO. You can Google the keyword Mosuo and find a lot of stories. Mosuo

I totally agree with what you said....but the essential of my example is the most of women in both society accept the prejudiced place just because they used to it. That makes them no difference, at least doesn't makes them too much difference. Since Islamic world has become a major issue to America, to understand what they think and by which way they think is vital important to Americans. You can't understand why the women in some Islamic countries willingly accept their place in their society because you judged it by the criterion you used to, not they used to. If you read this Women's suffrage in the United States and try to understand why the most of great..great grandmothers of Americans willingly accepted their place in the society then, it would help you to understand those Muslim women nowadays.

In somewhere of the world, there still are some people lives in matriarchal society. If a female member of these primitive tribes come to this forum, she will also wonder how on earth these civilized women could put up with not having a female president over 200 years.......

So one day Canadian turns off the oil pipe, all American military hawks will fall.....it seems like you have unintentionally defined the term of "economy superpower"......

So American has found more "universal value" to share with Canadian.....isn't it good for harmonious neighbourhood....? There is a joke.(Acually it is a Chinese political joke with a bit of modification.) After his inauguration ceremony, tired and exhausted, Obama slumped in the backseat of his presidential limousine. "Where would you like to go, Mr.President?", the driver asked. "Just turn left." Obama answered. "Are you sure?", the driver was surprised, "there is a traffic sign named 'public opinion' with right turn symbol on it over there. Every president who was in my car before had to obey this signal regardless what he said to his voters in the election because the signpost has a sensor called media on it. If I turn on the left turn signal light the sensor will know and the president will be in trouble." "Oh, I see....", the president blinked, "but it's no problem. You just need to turn on the right-turn signal light and then make a left turn....."

Really? If what you said is true, "Obamacare" will be the most welcoming policy among those insurance companies and pharmaceutical business. 30 million new clients added, how exciting policy it is! Maybe I'm preconceived. But my conclusion are based on these: 1. Obama isn't the first one talking medicare reform during his presidency. Clinton and Bush also talked about it, though they were just talking. I can't believe all of them have been just taking some problems which even don't exist. 2. You said "Obamacare" is a good-for-nothing and good-for-nobody plan. But why dose he insist on the plan which is even not good for himself? So he and all the expertise behind the plan (I suppose the plan wasn't drawn by himself) are idiots and madmen. Do you think it is credible? 3. You said "Obamacare" offers nothing but increase the burden of American people. Please allow me make a story to explain my point: I had a house and I had a commercial insurance policy covering the loss of the house and all my belongings in this house. One day Emperor Obama thought TVs were the most important property in his people's houses so he decreed enlisting TV sets into his imperial compulsory insurance list. Then someone said, "poor xul, he has to pay his original insurance with new imperial-TV-insurance added." Why this comment is incorrect? Because when my TV was covered by imperial-TV-insurance, theoretically I can renegotiated the policy of the commercial insurance to take out the fares covering the TV set. 4.If "Obamacare" only collects money from Americans but nobody could benefit, where will all these money go? Just as I have said above, insurance comanies seem like unhappy at "Obamacare" and Obama's pocket seems to small to contain all these money. 5.Asking 30 million Americans pay parts of the fare of "Obamacare" doesn't mean they will not benefit from it. For example, If you were the CEO of Microsoft, you made a policy selling Windows by $150 in America and $50 in China, according the difference of living standard between the two countries. Though Chinese customers had to pay $50 for their software, could they say they didn't benefit from your policy at all?

Borrowing Pliny's words with a bit modification: 300 million Americans will have to buy health care for 30 million their contrymen under Obamacare. This is why it is unpopular. I remeber Obama is not the first American president who promised a medicare reform, so I suppose the system does have some problem. Obama's problem is he is the first one trying to practice his promise not merely talk. Obama was elected by American voters for his promise of "Change". But which kind changes you suppose he could make without asking Americans to pay for it? Could he sell Israel to Arabian Kings to trade them cancelling all American debts? Or get some Pakistan soldier wearing American uniform to battle Taliban for American interests and honour? Or depend on Dalai Lama's Buddhistic lecture to make all bankers, CEOs and unions giving up their easy-good salary to make American companies more competitive?

Obama is just as smart as Bush was. Bush also went to Bejing for "Olympics", smirking on the stand when Russian launched a aggression on Georgia, and gave two NATO high command posts to French to trade France returning NATO and sent some troops to Afghanistan, and I'm sure he was doing the right thing. Of course, Bush looked "smarter" in 2000 than in 2008, but I wage if Obama was elected in 2000, that means he had what Clinton left Bush -- financial surplus, strong economy, low oil price, seemingly invincible military force and weakened rivals...., he would also be "smarter" than today...

Maybe I should change my statement as this: If some Arabian king willingly pay the bill for "Obamacare" -- maybe just for he is the first American president bowed to him, then Americans need not to pay for it at all, will they still disapprove it? If the answer is No, I may conclude that they just disapprove the bill not "Obamacare" itself. I agree with you on this. So you have finally acknowledged that BC2004 is a typecal American and you are not....sorry for my joke if it is offensive. But I did have the feeling of this when I read the post you told Canadian that you were a typecal American and he wasn't two years ago. Anyway, do you think it is good for America?

On this matter, I think Obama has few choice. I remember the issue of health care reform weighted a lot of his promise when he ran for the election. He can not just shrug to his voters and says, "Well, let's forget it. It's just a mistake..." If American didn't like the reform, why did they elect him? So I suppose they liked his policy but just didn't realize what kind of the price they would pay for the policy.

I agree American did want change --- they just didn't want to pay the bill for the change whatever changes they want, rather like my brethren bjre -- he likes "Chinese traditional medicine" but doesn't like pay tax for it I suppose. Of course Americans don't care what other nations think about their president. But as the president of the only superpower in the world, American president does need other nations cooperating to deal with international and even domestic affairs, doesn't he? Unfortunately Obama needs to get success over these international and domestic issue to show his ability to his voters to win a poll, but so far it seems like he will not make it, because his voters don't want to pay the bill he needs to achieve his goal....

It is correct because they knew what American wanted -- American just wanted to put a black-faced and broad-smiled Bush in the White House, without any reform, any compromise, and essentially any pain, wishing other nations in the world would be infatuated by such kind of charisma like American themselves and then everything would be fixed and run smoothly.....

Maybe he once belonged to those fabled most-advanced super-beings who always override laws in his hometown even if these laws were made by them, so he is just unused to have laws above him.

If you understand the history of US and your own country, though lawbook-correctly and rhetorically "no colonial history" they might be, but you will find that not every nation invested in salvery will fall......

The conservative boss's ability on election is far better than Wilber thinks....even better than his ability on economy IMO.

Dalai Lama: China denies problem in Tibet Dalai Lama told CNN during the interview, "Last year we also had a chance meeting, but then just before his vist Peking. I also support we'd better not meet." So Obama has got his reward from Dalai Lama---now no one can blame him for postponement if Dalai Lama himself also supports his decision.

Sorry, I should express it as "American may laugh at the idea of....." But it seems like you thought a superpower is somewhat volunteer peacekeeper of the world or some noble things. I think you were wrong. Actually a superpower is some sort of dictator ruling the world. It projects power just because it uses the projection as a resort to promote its own interests. I don't mean superpowers always do bad things. Just like dictators, they also do good things if their interests are consistent with others, but if anyone dare to get in their way, he can not expect any mercy from them.

Before discussing the issue of which kind of weaponry that the Canadian Armed Forces shold have, I think people should define what kind of missions or tasks that Canadian demand the CF to fulfill. In my understanding, the missions or tasks includes two separate parts, though sometimes and in some aspects, they overlap each other. The first and foremost task is, just as Smallc said, sovereignty protection. Since Canada has not enemies but some small neighbours(except Russia but its military strength is counteracted by US and its economy is still under recovery so its threat also can be considered as equivalent small by Canadian) which have some boundary disputes with Canada nowadays, these kind of tasks demand the CF to build some peculiar or "abnormal" weapons such as the so-called icebreaker cruisers the CPCanada boss promised when he was running for the election. Though some Canadian military fan-boys or fan-girls may be little disappointed and think it is a fantasy that the CF equips those one thousand tonnage ships with 25mm machine guns, but actually the CF has made a correct choise if these ships are for such kind of mission. You can not use 100mm cannons on your neighbour's fishing boats and sink them by only one shot. In these cases, the 25mm guns are the proper weanpons when you have no choice but open fire.(The function of these guns is like the function of stun guns in police.Its purpose is to stop the target not kill it.) Of course, normal weanpons are also needed in the mission, just for in case any of these sovereignty disputes escalating to a war or a skirmish, the Falklands War for one. And Canadian should understand, if Canadian went into such kind of wars or skirmishes, Canada had to stand alone, like UK in the Falklands War or Portugal in the 1961 India Annexation of Goa. The membership of NATO will not help Canada for such kind of skirmish. The second task is the NATO duty. NATO is not a charge-free club and Canadian has to pay some membership-fee to it. Fortunately, some equipments NATO demands also can be used for the first task, just for in case there would be a war or skirmish caused by the sovereignty debates. I think there also are a bit needs eyeing on the future. Maybe Americans laugh at the claimation which Smallc made before that Canada is also a superpower in the world, but the fact is Canada do have the potential becoming a superpower, just for its territory and natural resources fit being a superpower. Don't forget a superpower mostly used to be made by fortune rather than its own planning or endeavour. Who knows that one day the global warming things might heat the earth up and north Canada would become as warm as California meanwhile California become as hot as Somalia, so all American most brilliant professors, doctors, scientists, engineers.....and of course the CEOs of all sorts of war factories had to migrate to Canada, just for avoid sunstroke?

Simulators are useful tools and sometimes they can be more useful for they can simulate some extreme circumstances such as sinking and crash that the crew can not be trained on real subs and planes. On the other hand, simulators can not instead real subs and planes because there are too many uncertainties in a battle and there also are some realms which our scientists, researchers and engineers have never set foot in before so they can not be simulated.

There is a Chinese saying, "when the heaven falls, the tallest one will bear it." Nowadays US is the tallest, so it has to bear the heaviest burden when it takes advantages from being the only superpower. I admit it unless you told me that American had told them that they could take the advantage from the membership of NATO without need of paying for it. On the other hand, they, I mean their political leaders, just want to do as few as possible. Each of main members of NATO have the GDP over 1/5~1/10 the GDP of US. If they want to share the burden of America proportionally with the GDP, each of them should have 1~2 aircraft carriers, 6~12 nuclear subs....etc. But which of them spends so many on their military? But a wise captain of a sub can chose his target, and that's why a sub needs a human captain and human mariners to handle it not some robotic simulators instead.

American should not suppose every head in the world has an American brain like each computer having a Microsoft OS. I think Smallc is right. Most navies in the world maily do the jobs like the Coast Guard of US because their countries don't have the ambition to rule the world.(Even if some of them have, their economy just can not afford to support such kind of ambition.) American thinks Canada(and other NATO members) should have some armament which could match American Armed Forces because American treats NATO as its tool to support American strategic intentions---which are ambitious, worldwide, war-concomitant and riskful. On the other hand, other numbers of NATO joined the organization just because of the Soviet sthreat at the time. After Brezhnev kind had gone to their graves, these numbers now more focus on their own backyard than on America's goal. They still remained in NATO just because they anticipated America, the only superpower remained after the Cold War, would be more successful and they thus could take some advantage from the success, by a burden-free, risk-free way. That's what their national interests lies on. By the way, American also doesn't put NATO's business as its first priority. Iraq for one, if NATO gets in the way of American national interests, America will also kick it off the road, so no one should take the blame of selfishness. As for those Canadan subs, though they have got somewhat old, but they are still useful for Canadian Navy destroyers doing some ASW drills. Even if there was a war, though I can't help to think out which kind of war or skirmish Canada might be possiblely involved in nowadays would need subs, those old conventional subs would still be useful because in history, subs were mainly used to attack enemy cargo ships, not warships and subs like in computer games.

I guess he was just somewhat disappointed that there are not a lot of party-run meida reporting such kind of news on the front pages everyday like my hometown. Nonetheless, Harper is a politician and a politician is supposed to do an good example for his people, so he has been doing right on this matter, regardless what his motive is.

Maybe a insurance company have to pay IRS for the loss of his house and plane, then IRS has to tax more innocent taxpayers to bailout the insurance company....

You should expect to see a lot of "Yes!" signatures on the board before long if it was set up at the end of the mass production line of Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter.

I think this guy may have some mental problem. How on earth the Catholic Church could be related with IRS or any taxing stuff?