xul

I just wonder why there were a lot of student against the nose-breaken boy. It is probably because: 1. the dad of the Korean boy was a billionaire, he bought all these supporters for his son, and all these students are unprincipled little liars. 2. the nose-broken boy is really a bully, but his bully was not based on racial. Maybe a lot of these students were once bullied by him sometime. Though a single student may be only bullied one time a year, but all students still could see he bullys others all the time. There also are two speculations: 1. the media reporters and editors was payed by the Korean kid's billionaire dad so they were only vocal for the Korean kid. 2. the lawyer of the nose-broken boy's told him to shut up so he could make all stories up in court for his good. But in any case, I agree with you that teachers and parents should instruct children how to deal with bullies with the correct way.

Once again, you have given out a good instance but conclude to wrong conclusion. There is a joke: To worry about that Obama would cut the f-22 steal fighter-jet project off, the generals of the Pentagon went for their new president to lobby him. They made a strong argument, with the help of all sorts of charts, simulating data, test reports and video tapes which proved f-22 is 100% effective to keep any enemy planes away from American troops, so Obama seemed to be persuaded by the overwhelming evidences of the effectiveness of f-22. "I agree with you. The f-22 project should be preserved," the president said. All generals smiled and began to flatter the president that what the wisest presidential decision in American histroy he had just made. "then, instead of cutting off f-22 project," the president continued, "I decided to cut off all your anti-aircraft missile projects." "No, have you gone mad?" all generals chorused, "without these anti-aircraft missiles, how would we protect our soldiers from enemy's air raids?" "I suppose you have just told me that our f-22s would protect them....." the preisdent was bemused Just as f-22s, if the "education" is perfect which could make every kid to be saint or at least could fully prevent every of them from going bad , why would we need laws? Unfortunately, there is not a perfect education system in the any country of the world, so laws are still needed. You may think that law and education are two entirely opposite matters, but sometimes they are essentially the same things. A dad who spanks his kids are just enforcing his "family laws" on his kids, just as the politicians who enforce the national laws on him. Or if the dad thinks that spanking is just a way of educating his kids to behave themselves, the politicians may also think that the laws are just ways of educating their people to "civilize" them.

It's really an innovative question. If one day politicians build a pure-droid army, which kind of decals they will send to us? support droids.....sounds stupid support wars.......speaks too frankly or..............??

There is a joke: The PM of a country visited the command post of his troops in Afghanistan. After being briefed by the commander, in the succedent news conference the PM told the media that the brief had given him an impression that the war is unwinable. After the news conference, astonishing for knowing the PM and his party is always the biggest supporter of the war, the commander angrily argued the PM why he had got such an impression. "Sir, I wonder if you have caught what I have briefed you... Yes, the situation may not be perfect, but just as I have told you, when you compare the amount of the villages controled by us to the the amount controled by Taliban, that's 400 to 200, you'll find out just how good the military situation we have...", the general said proudly. "Yes, I have heard every word you told me," the PM replied spiritlessly, "but last time you told me you controled 580 and Taliban only had 20...." Generally, I agree with you. But, standing for Canadia's future, sincerely, I think Canadian (and other western people) should better not spend too much time indulging in the glories their forefathers left them.

Thank you for the correction of the year, I was mistaken. I have said that I can understand soldiers could make mistake in battlefield, just as we could also make mistake in our office or workplace but I don't think the essence of the two events you cited above is the same. At least, we didn't see the Iraqi pilot triumphed at Bagdad street receiving Iraqis's hurrah. (maybe they celebrated somewhere we don't know... but even if they did that, it would not make we think that the deed of those Americans in the pier is better unless Americans like to equal their country to Sadaam's )

Personally, I dislike such "army-support" stuffs unless in some certain circumstance, such as an army's day ceremony or somewhere. My reason is: 1. The sticker is so cheap...maybe I would have one if the politicians sold it $100 per piece for raising some money to buy a helicopters to save the lives of those soldiers who were wounded in Afghanistan. 2. If my memory is not wrong, I remember in history each time when the "army-support" things overwhelmed the streets in a country, it's always the time that the least support was needed by their soldiers. If we had a time-turner which could bring us back to old time, we would find that when Nazi took over Paris and Japanese raided Pearl Harbor, such "army-support" things were overwhelming the streets of Berlin and Tokyo. But at the end of ww2, when the soldiers came home, defeated and starved--that meant they really needed some support now, we could not expect to see a lot of soldier-support in their home country. Such things give me a impression that some so-called soldier supporters and politicians just the guys who like to steal glory of victory and hitchhike triumph from their soldiers. If the soldiers fail to give them what they want, the support will vanish immediately. 3. The slogan of "support soldiers" usually insinuates or instigates that people should give their army or soldiers unconditional support, that can make people doing terrible things without knowing what they are committed. In july 3rd, 1983 an American cruiser shot down an Iranian jumbo jet in international water, 290 passengers were killed. As an open-minded man, I think I can understand that soldiers (or sailors) might make such horrible mistake unintentionally even if I was on the plane. I just can not undertand, several days later, when the cruiser came back America, I saw it on TV, the captain walked off the ship with a brisk and cheering way waving to people, meanwhile all "soldier supportors" gathering on the pier hurrahed to him as though he was a hero. Both of them didn't show any sign of sorrow or remorse to those innocent passengers killed by their sailor's mistake. I think I can bet all those American soldier-supportors I saw on TV, regardless they are liberal or conservative Americans, were fully educated with all of those civilized stuff such as what is human-rights. But what had blinded them and made them such terrible men or women at the moment? May be the soldier-support flags they held in hands?

I think you have missed something: RCMP arrest your "brothers" according to the law... Let's assume the law is wrong, so you can blame the lawmakers, but you can not blame the police officers whose job is to enforce the law. If we could blame soldiers to be responsible for the wrong-doing of their government, we should throw all German and Japanese soldiers into prison for the crimes their government committed in WW2.

Usually the virulence of a new human virus coming from animals decreases when it descends down from generations to generations in human bodies, and eventually it will vanish just like SARS and Ebola virus. The symptom of the cases in America and Canada is "mild" is a good sign. That probably means these patients are second-hands or third-hand....victim, and the virulence has decreased.

Not exactly. Considering geography, Israel has less choice but Americans do have a choice. About walls, I think there is not a wall bigger than the Great Wall, that's in China. I remember when I was a pupil, that was Mao's time, the history book told me that China began to fall when British fleet came to blackmail gold. When I was a middle school student, that's Deng's time, a science teacher said in the class he thought that China began to fall when the emperors of Ming Dynesty decided to demolish all his ocean fleet for some reason that historians are still arguing today, that was 300 years before British came. But nowaday, as a adult, I belive that China has begun to fall since the first emperor, 2000 years ago, decided to build the Great Wall to enclose Chinese border just for keeping some "uncivilized" foreigners out....

I think the mental fortress has "mission-accomplished" since the end of the Cold War. Now Americans are just facing the choice of whether or not materializing it.

Under a democratic system, the army must obey its political leader's decision unless the decision is illegal or impossible to perform. I agree with you that the army generals usually are more keen to war than other government officials. Partly it is due to that wars are what they are trained for. Another cause is, probably, that wars consume weapons, weapon consumption booms military industries, and booming military industries can afford to hire several million dollars payed retired generals to lobby his successors to make new wars ---this is my understanding of how the American "system" works. About the decision of political leaders, I can say Canada do have not direct interests in Afghanistan. But Canada had to go to Afghanistan to help America just because it is a number of NATO, at least it gives the political leaders a cause to go there. Let's review the course that leads Canada going into Afghanistan. Of course, it seems like that all these started on September 11th the day of terrorists attack, but I believe the war plan had laid in a safe in the Pentagon for many years, or maybe many decades. The terrorists attack just worked as giving America government a perfect legal cause, or using our American friend BC_2004's word, an opportunity, to carry out the plan. At first, just as other American NATO allies, Canadian government showed less interest in participance of the war. Canada only sent 4 warships to help American, I think these were the least things American wanted (and other allies did the same like Canada). Afghanistan was the place that another superpower Soviet fell and suffered terrible loss. Who would want to risk their soldiers life(and of course, their money) to go there? The call of help from America only got some halfhearted reaction. But after November 13th, that day American took over Kabul, all Taliban militants seemed had vanished and western politicians and medias interpreted the phenomenon as an American decisive victory, so all these Americian "friends" suddenly had become more enthusiastic on sending their troops into Afghanistan. British offered 6,000 troops, Germany 3,900, Japan 1,500, Australia 1400, Turkey 3,000 and Canada 1,000, all wanted hitchhiking the Americian triumphant train, a bit of cheeky are these governments, aren't they? But Bush was smarty than all his pals. He had a big scheme far beyond taking over afghanistan. He let these "Allies" hitchhiking American victory in Afghanistan to dig rock, just for then he could transfer American troops to go into another war in Iraq to dig oil. But unfortunately he failed to estimate the difficulty of his new war correctly and American troops were traped in Iraq, meanwhile Taliban regained some power because NATO lacked enough troops to control rural area of the country. Then Canadian troops are also traped there. If I can say it frankly, it's all due to greed, due to the desire of gaining easy benefits without hardworking and sacrifice, just as the same cause of the mess that some bankers did in financial system recently. American law requests its government asking for a parliamentary warrant before going into a war unless under some emergency situation such as its troops was attacked first. So American governments made several hundreds wars, but only two or three were warranted---the invasion of Iraq is among the two or three. It is too easy to get ride of the restriction of the laws. The Pentagon just sailed a small spy boat into Vietnam territory water and got shot from Vietnam communist soldiers, then the Vietnam War began. Unless Canada quits from NATO, that means Canadian has to pay more tax to support its own national defence to match the threat from some its powerful neighbors such as Russia, and Canadian military industry has to give up tens of billion dollars military equipment orders from American annually, Canada can not stop to be drag in some wars made by American. Frankly, the soldiers are just fighting for keeping some Canadians's jobs and saving their tax. Everything has its pro and con effect. We can not only take the good side without the bad side.

If I was a soldier, I'd like to keep away from all such kind of political propaganda. Just imagine, if Bush got a "support Harper" sticker on his car, how his opposite politicians would react on this? In any case, Harper would become the victim though he didn't do anything on American Politics.

I think being a volunteer soldier means someone who gives his/her country a promise that he will carry out any military mission or operation which the legal government of this country instructs him/her regardless he/she agrees or disagrees with the governmental decision. If Canadian army or government allows its soldiers to choose which mission or operation they can involve in and which one they can not, I'm mistaken and I think it's really great.....though I doubt the army could still work by this way.

They do don't care, but I'm afraid Toyota won't use GM's or Chrysler's parts suppliers. Cars are mass-productive products, so most parts of cars between defferent carmakers are uninterexchangeable. And some carmakers are the holding companies of some their parts suppliers. They won't change unless the price you offered are really alluring--that's almost impossible to Canada. But even if the unions accepted the wage cutting, I can not see there will be any significant different. How many people who didn't buy a GM or Chrysler car just for the price of the car is $100 or $200 more than a Toyota? There are lots of things beyond the costs of car-making(For example, fuel efficiency,reliability, the cost for maintaince,etc. The users care these more than the price of a car.) and we can not see they have any plans to fix them. I don't know what is the correct or even the better answer of this question. If someone has a plan and can really fix all these mess, I think he really deserve to get several millions dollars bonus or more, wheter or not he is a CEO, politician or even a union leader.

There is a joke: Before last election, all polls indicated that Harper will win the election, though still kept as a minority government. So should all his opposite parties boycott the election for this election could authenticate his electoral advantage once more? What is a Policy? If Canada sells China a car that certainly can increase CO2 emission in China. Should Canada forbid all cars's export to China? A policy of a nation should be viable and practical, not only meets a certain theory or doctrine and totally ignores others. I don't like to argue whether CPC have ever been changed because I don't care about that too much. I believe that if the majority of a country's people wants to kick their kings ass, they can always manage to do it without outside help. But there just are some cultural difference. If you works in a university, you will find that if a Chinese student wants buy something, he may probably save money first, then buy it---not like his western lectuers, buy it first, then struggle to pay the debts . If someone asked me, I'd say yes, CPC have been changed a lot, thought some parts of them haven't. It seems that Bushs have backed up me. (his temporary office was just on the half way between my home and my elementary school when he was in China in Mao's time as American ambassador, so I saw the American flag hanged out of his window twice everyday. I think any honest man who was in China then and came back in recent years will agree with me.) But even if you were correct, anyone who truly understands what is humanrights(not merely a certain small group of people's rights ) will agree that, merely considering "engaging with China has resulted in a more open society"(that means 1.3billion people, 4 times of Americans or 40 times of Canadians) is enought to conclude that humanrights there has been greatly improved. CEOs go where the market is. For example, China car sales will exceed American at the first place in the world this year. Cuting wage costs is not the only purpose of these CEOs. If you ever went into a car assembly plant, you would find there were only few workers. Roberts do most jobs. If GMC has moved some of it factory to China, the true cause is it cannot compete with TOYOTA by shipping hundreds thousand of cars across Pacific Ocean to China from Canada. I bet the GM China facotry is the only plact of the corporation running on full time in the world these days. I'm not a CEO beater. Most CEOs merely do what they are designed to do. Just like the "fair charge" in a soccer game, if you has signed the rule to enroll the game, you could not complain someday someone big ramming you down. Though the game players have the rights to ask for changing the rules---with a bit difficulty even if they know what they are looking for. Honestly, if everyone in the world is the perfect humanrights-being, that means everyone could have reached such high moral level of caring others just like caring himself, I'd say communism is the best system in the world like the "future-world" in some hollywood fantasy movies. But I'm afraid humans are just poor unperfect selfish creatures, and everyone is not just same. Some of men are smart, some of men are stupid; some are hard working, some are indolent; some can foresee things before they happen, some are blind even something have happened right under their noses... so achieving such a protocol is a bit difficult than Obama's "nuclear-free" world. If I was a Canadian, I'd like to have BC2004 here. He just works like the magic mirror in the kids's story of Snow White---when the queen asked,"am I the fairest woman in the world?", the mirrow always anwers:"no, you are not...." I'm not a woman, thinking such an answer is little annoying but it tells the truth.

Anther matter about this issue that I want to say is--- this issue is less relative with the matter of those, such as "China and Canada who fears who", "China and Canada who needs who", "China and Canada who bigger than who"...ect. Has there anyone ever cousidered, even if China was a trifling small country, why would Canada need to conflict with China if the conflict was not good for Canadian interests? Just as if there is a guy driving a big car who meets another smaller car on a road, does everyone think it is wise if he crashes the small car by his big car just for fan or showing his car is "up" than something? Never forgeting, this world is not only made of China and Canada two countries. In a multiplayer game, if you unnecessarily ensnarl into conflict with only single side and cannot settle the battle soon, you will lose more in the war than the loss in this single battle, any kid who play internet computer came can tell you this (and American has showed us about this in reality). If you are a CEO of a Canadian oil company and your main object is to sell you oil to America, the best way to achieve you goal is to invite some Chinese delegation to negotiate an oil pipe to China not to tell American you have messed up with all your other clients only counting on them.

I don't think Chinas should be considered as a so-called super-power like America, being a super-power there are a lot of thing it must have beyond having several trillion dollars notes issued by some almost bankrupt banks. Firstly it must have the intention of meddling other nations's business, about this I bet some Canadians here have more advantages of being elements of a super-power than most of Chineses have ; Secondly it must be in the lead of the world on most aspects which indicate a nation's strength and character, such as science and technology, liberal arts, economical and political system, education and eradication of poverty, ect. Considering all of these, China mainly is still a developing country, though exactly it is a big developing country, that means it can do something or has the influence that some medium ranked developed countries like Canada cannot do or have----understanding all of these is very important for Canadian politians to maximize their country's interests when they deal with the bilateral relationship with China. As for human rights, I think if anyone who really wanted to stand for it not playing it to improve his votes, he'd better not be a national political leader such as a president or a PM something but merely be a unbenefited activist. I hate to involve in Canadian political parties's political smear, but doesn't anyone here think it is a bit cheeky if there is some king of some country says:"our policy is fine, we boycotted a Olympic games for standing on the high-ground of Tibetan human rights, meanwhile we successfully deliveried military helicopter engines to China for the perfect commercial marriage between improving our Royalist Party's donor's interests and improving Chinese riot police's mobility in Tibetan plateau. " About troublemakers, if we define the term of troublemaker as "somebody who has no business here but he deliberately obstructs/wrecks/makes touble on others who legally have business here", we can easily judge who is a troublemaker in our daily life. For example, you and some your friends leased a school's ground playing a football game, some mobs who were expeled by the school messed your game up for they thought such activtiy could defame the school, they could be consider as troublemakers.

Thanks heavens there were not a lot of Americans think by this way, otherwise they would elect THIS GUY as American President with several million HP Laserjet printers to issue THIS NOTEs for bailout of the banks while never worry about who would buy these notes.

Yes, a HALO training needs aircraft, but not those expensive ones Robert Gates wants to cut off... But the only positive function of Arleigh Bruke class DDG in this action is its 10,000 tons ship hull did contribute sufficient stability for snipers aiming their targets. If earth is not a ball, Aegis system will be more usefull in this operation for locating hundreds of pirates mosquito boats around hundreds sea miles at one time. If the CPC boss(, Japanese PM, and Arabian Kings, etc.) didn't require some president after Obama to pay back the check someday, I'd like to suggest him to borrow some PLA to substitute the expensive pentagon...

Honestly, I bet it would be more good to some "right wings"(not include "right wing" economists ) if the pirates were killed by "missile shields", "stealth destroyers" or "F-22s" not by a few cheap navy seal snipers......

If he let the banks fail, he would have probably got a change with the Russian style.... But, after two years of observation, I think the system really needs some change or amendment. I dislike using the term of "fair" as politicians do, because there is really no fair things in the world. A CEO can get a salary one hundred times over his workers's under the system, not because he has the formidable ability a hundred times over his workers's, as "his kind" boasts, but because of his post is so important that any mistake and disloyalty of him will cost the business huge loss, so the investors and the owners have to pay him a good salary. I have no problem with such arrangement just as I have no problem with American pays Iraqi tribal insurgents to buy cooperation from them. But what is the point that the system is designed that if some guys who have crippled the business they are responsible for, they can still keep their post and even still get bonus? But anyway, if Obama really wants some change, he has no choice but has to stabilize economical situation first or he will be kicked off by his voters before he could have made any change. Ironically, the only way he could stabilize the economy is to cooperate with these bankers and the banking system which caused the instability of economy and which Obama means to change. The policy of stimulation just like using chemotherapy to treat cancers, it may has some positive effect in the short term but will harm the health in the long term run. But since there is not alternative, most doctors and patients have to choose chemotherapy. And they do that not only for lengthen their life, but also for hoping one day some brilliant doctors and researchers might find a way to amend the therapy to cure their disease. Everything in our planet is always in change, so redefining ourselves sometimes to fit the changing world is not a bad thing, and in history American is a nation who has the courage to do something redefining themselves boldly to achieve success, such as, using our American amigo Bush_Cheney_2004's term, kicking their own king's ass . I think whether I or other people around the world or Americans themselves like the redefining depends on how Americans will redefine themselves this time.

If he is serious on this part: maybe he just more interests in changing the code rather than playing under the code. About this part, I think it's just a political tactic. I remember I once read a book with a chapter about the agrarian reform in Taiwan in 1950s when Kuo Min Tang government was defeated by Chinese communist in mainland. KMT knew that their failure in mainland was due to the landless poor peasants who were lured by the communists's promise of giving every peasant a piece of land, so they wanted to do some moderate agrarian reform in Taiwan to stabilize both economy and political situation, but the landlords there strongly argued against the governmental proposal. So General Chen Cheng, the vice president of KMT government then, said exactly the same words which Obama said to CEOs to those Taiwan landlords, sounds like "my government is the only thing between you and the communists's takeover..."

Firstly, being a political leader means he has to do some boring social intercourse, like this photo Canadian PM visited an Indian temple showed. Most Canadians don't want their PM spending several days time to recite such living-buddha stuff and put more important business away, do they? So useing a teleprompter is better and I have no doubt that the politicians have no idea of what the faith is in these temples when they praise these temples give people faith , they just read what some his aids write for them. secondly, if a political leader leads a big modern country, it is impossible that he is an expert on all things going on under his leadership. Just as a president of an university can not be a know-it-all of all his professors's professions and specialties. So they have to depend on the help of their aids and specialists. This is not a shame of them.

I have no problem with those politicians who use teleprompters. A teleprompter is just a computerized speech note. Its function is just like the old paper speech notes we widely used before teleprompts were invented. What I said in the last post was a response to your question "Why does anyone care how Barak delivers his messages? Isn't the message more important than it's delivery? Isn't his action more telling that his inability to pronounce a word here and there?" I genuinely agreed with what you said. What I wanted to say was that common people and media were more and more interest in politicians's gaffes and scandals than their policies would kill the real meaning of democracy itself. If voters vote politician merely depending on their feeling of the politicians not reasonable consideration of the policies of the politicians, it is just equivalent putting their ballots into trash cans. And they care the way of the delivery of the message more than the message itself because they are "witless", I meat they failed to get a fully understanding of the policy so they can hardly criticize the policy by a reasonable way.

Because the greatest enemy of democracy is not Stalin, Mao, Khomeini or Bin Ladin but the witless people who has no idea to distinguish what is a ballot box and what is a trash can.