Wild Bill

I don't know about crack but I do know that the vast majority of cocaine snorters can take it or leave it! I believe there are actually very few drugs that are seriously physically addicting, like heroin or morphine. It's just that there is a certain small percentage of people that have something wrong inside them. These people will ALWAYS find something to get screwed up with! If its not legal drugs then it will be illegal ones but they'll do it! It's the same personality problem that leads to compulsive gambling and other such disorders. I smoked a pipe almost every waking hour from when I was 16 until I was nearly 50. I stopped cold turkey, with almost no problems at all. I had a precipitous drop in the income I was bringing into the family so I just decided that I could no longer afford it. No withdrawal cravings - none of the claims that "it's harder to quit smoking than heroin!" That's all crap! You either really want to quit or you don't. Anything else is just playing mental games or excuses.

Nonsense and failed logic? How about attributing the decline in white birth rate to laziness? This has got to be the most simplistic and outright smarmy explanation I have heard in years! The real reason white folks in Canada have fewer children is MONEY! Or rather, lack of it! Over the past few decades living standards have declined drastically, to the point where it takes two incomes for a family to enjoy what one used to provide. Since the working and middle class tends to have more white folks that's why it seems to be a "white" thing. I'm sure some are already starting to type the same old shibboleths of how families today just want too big a house and too fancy a car. CRAP! This all started back in the 80's, when jobs started drying up and gas/energy prices went through the roof. People had put a cushion in their monthly budgets but costs went up so fast they ate the cushion and more besides! People didn't buy a house more expensive than they could afford. Rather, they found themselves frantically trying to keep the house they were living in! Meanwhile, governments were forcing people to live beyond their means, by making developers build subdivisions of larger homes all at once, complete with all services. This meant that if you wanted to buy a house you no longer could start with a cheaper one, in an area without sidewalks or whatever. The house had to be 3 bedrooms from the start. You could not buy a bungalo cheap and then put an addition onto it some years later when the kids were bigger but you could afford it. No, you had to buy a 2500 sq ft 3 bedroom home complete with paved driveway, sidewalks and sewers on the day you moved in! This meant maximum tax revenue for the municipality, without waiting any time at all. When living standards started to decline the human thing to do was to assume that the decline was only temporary. No one expected that it would go on for decades! No one decided to bite the bullet and sell their house to "downsize" into something that would be more affordable. Taking steps backwards is very hard to do! So they stayed in their homes longer than they should have, hoping for things to improve. Meanwhile, having another child became out of the question. So "white folks" became reluctant to have more kids than they thought they could afford to properly raise. Lazy? Man, obviously you did NOT live through those times! You are too young to have any perspective on the reasons why things changed. When I was 19 with only a high school education I never had to spend more than a day or so to find a job! My father by himself could afford a home, car and the expense of raising 4 kids while Mom stayed home. He was a factory worker. There are few such jobs today. To do the same someone would have to be a lawyer or an engineer. Folks thought nothing of heading out to a bar after work EVERY NIGHT OF THE WEEK to see a band and drink a few beers with friends! How common is that today? Most folks just can't afford it. I'm sure that if they were given the choice many white folks today would love to have more kids. The key point is "if given the choice"!

Such a shame! I've never shared his politics but I always thought that since he was a guitar player he couldn't be all bad! Cancer is the only 4 letter word spelled with 6 letters.

Which reminds me of an old Hamilton joke that might be appropriate to Oleg's position, Kimmy! A few years ago, the head of the Hamilton Stelco steelworker's Union was a man named Cec Taylor. The local was number 1005. One evening he happened to be in Toronto for some union management negotiations and afterwards found himself walking down Yonge St to his hotel. About halfway along his journey he passed a "House of Ill Repute". What's more, it had a sign by the door that said "Prostitutes Union - Local 1005". Of course, Cec Taylor thought this a marvelous coincidence and promptly went inside! He met the Madam and explained about the commonality of the number for the two union locals and the Madam agreed that it was an amazing coincidence. So Cec looks around at the ladies and promptly points to one lovely professional, exclaiming "She's for me!" "Oh, not so fast, Mr. Taylor!" said the Madam. "We have a much more appropriate worker for you!" After a minute or two this very old dame of at least 80 long and hard years comes doddering into the room. "This lady will be glad to look after you!" "No Way!" yells Mr. Taylor. "I don't want her! I want that other one!" "But Mr. Taylor!" said the Madam. "You have to take this one. She has the most seniority!" I wonder what a good union man like our poster Jack here on MLW would have done!

I thought so! Me, I read Robert Heinlein at a very young age and was captivated as much by his philosophy of life as expressed through his stories as the stories themselves. Much of my attitudes were formed from reading "Starship Troopers". I was appalled at what they did to his story with that terrible movie...

I agree. History has proven that immigration has been good for Canada. That being said,it is not hard to see why some today disagree. If you base your definition of history as ONLY the past 5-10 years you get a quite different picture than if you look at the past 100. Most of our immigrant happened during periods of strong growth! Immigrants literally carved out and built most of this country! Without their contributions it could never have happened. We have been experiencing quite different times. Our economy has NOT been strong for a while! Housing and building starts are down. Unemployment has been higher than the historical average. To some, this means that to maintain the same level of immigration when there are few jobs for them doesn't make sense. Since new immigrants tend to accept poorer wages there's a further argument that they are taking jobs away from those already here who have been experiencing downsizing and the like. These are valid arguments ONLY in the context of these few specific years! Surely these times are only a blip in Canada's history. If they are to become the new status quo, then we have much bigger problems in store for us. However, that's not likely. An examination of how much our population growth has dipped below the replacement value clearly shows that our population will be shrinking, at a rate that we couldn't possibly significantly reduce by increasing immigration. We may not need as many labourers to build houses. Hell, we may see the day when real estate agents are faced with a surplus of empty houses, driving down prices! Still, we will need people to do maintenance, to fix our wiring, hookup our phones, be our doctors and lawyers, and so on. If it is true that we have qualified doctors driving cabs then there at least is some hope that most if not all of us will not lack for a doctor. Thousands do right now in Southern Ontario! Whatever. The odds are far more likely that this is just a temporary pause or lull in Canada's growth. Looking at the data 10 or 20 years from now will likely show that the trend of the past 100 years will have continued, despite a few aberrant years right now. History is a lot more than the past few weekends!

Well, I point out that non-profit organizations are often corrupt and pay big salaries to their executive officers and you take that to mean I'm slagging anyone who does charitable work in any way! I'm starting to see a pattern here, smallc. You seem to have a hair trigger about anything I say, never missing a chance to misconstrue it into something racist or "evilly right wing". I don't recall ever pissing into your cornflakes so I'm at a loss as to why you've taken this stance. Could it be that I have disagreed with YOU upon occasion? Is it your premise that those who disagree with you must be "evil right wingers"? Hell, I'm not even a conservative! Anyhow, I wait with baited breath for the next straw man you will make me into...

Any size at all! As long as the OTHER body is smaller! Everything has some gravity. Weaker things can orbit stronger ones. An orbit is just a special case where the speed of the smaller object is just slow enough that it can't fly away from the larger one but it won't fall "down" and hit it either. It's actually perpetually falling into the larger object! It's a delicate balance and if something were to disturb its speed the orbit would be broken and it would either fly away or fall into the larger body. Mother Nature doesn't wait until an object grows to a minimum size before issuing it some gravity!

I find it much easier to look at people in terms of whether they are contributors or users. You can usually tell quite quickly. A contributing type personality tends to be self-reliant. If he comes across a pop can on the curb he's likely to pick it up himself and put it in a trash can. If he loses his job his first impulse is to try to find another, not start calculating how long he can stretch a pogey run for "summer holidays". Contributing personalities start businesses and often try to grow them larger. This means they hire more people, providing more jobs. They pay more taxes to the government, paying for maintenance of the roads and (hopefully!) a few positive things. Users don't pick up pop cans themselves. They demand the government do it! There is a sub-species of user who appears to be a contributor but really isn't. He's the guy who will start a "non-profit" organization to do some public charity. Most people don't realize that "non-profit" doesn't mean the people in the organization work for free! Most get paid VERY well, thank you! A good way to dump money that might have shown as a profit is into salaries for the executive officers of the organization. Or as P T Barnum said it years ago: "Makers, takers and fakers. There are NO other kinds!"

I'm chuckling that someone would consider a man who sat in that position with those other players to be an unbiased source! Is it not perhaps possible that he might want to deliberately make Ford look bad?

Did you actually read what I posted? That was exactly my point! I just added that in many cases it can take a generation to pay larger benefits! If you're not going to read what I post then why bother to reply? Here I am taking a stand against a racist POV and you are using me as a straw man!

Toronto is a foreign city to a kid from the Hammer and I avoid the place like the plague but that being said, when they talk about "one time monies" are they talking about bailouts from other governments? Perhaps you know better than I. That's why I'm asking. Has Toronto been self-sustaining with its budgets or has it been surviving on bailouts paid by taxpayers that don't even live there and/or never go there, except maybe once a season to watch the Leafs lose, yet again. Outside of the GTA media this is a popular viewpoint and I truly am not sure if it is true or not. One thing I do know, if it is true it is one more reason to resent Toronto.

Well, I have read many stats to the contrary, starting with Bill Gairdner's book "The Trouble With Canada" and all his quotes from StatsCan. It really doesn't change my point, that this money is a one-time investment rather than a perpetual loss. However, if you disagree that's your right. It's your premise. Go ahead and prove it!

Isn't there a game this weekend with the TiCats against the Lions, Kimmy?

I'm surprised that no one has raised the issue of what would have happened to us if Martin and the Harris had NOT made those cuts! People forget that the "money gnomes in Zurich" really don't give a rats ass as to how Canadians and Ontarioans feel about running deficits. They simply want their loans repaid! To run a deficit governments have to borrow from folks like those gnomes and they are truly heartless lenders!

Wow! With that kind of money, they would never have to go to school! They would never have to invent or build anything for themselves. They could just lie back and pay someone to drop grapes in their mouths! I'm not sure if that money would be a blessing or a curse...

"ripped from the Minutemen manifesto"? I've never read their manifesto so I can't comment on what they believe. I'm not that well up on a lot of foreigner groups. However, as we often see, there's a grain of truth here, under a lot of muck. A good portion of today's immigrants to Canada DO take a lot of government welfare and assistance monies! It's not surprising when so many are here under refugee claims. Our screwy laws actually prevent many of them from taking jobs if they can find them! Refugees tend to come from countries with poor education levels. Immigrants brought here under "family reunification" programs tend to be grandparents more often than 22 year old construction workers. Old folks also tend to gobble up medicare money. They are not likely to hold down high paying jobs and pay taxes. However, the mistake those "Minutemen" you mentioned and many here in Canada is to believe that ALL immigrants are on welfare and more importantly, that the situation is multi-generational! I've never seen or heard any evidence to support this premise. Quite the contrary, the children of this immigrant class tend to work hard at school and eventually win good jobs! Simple observation would tend to show that a good portion of them end up in professional occupations. So taking care of grandparents would seem to be an investment, not a "money pit"! Taking in refugees does pay off, if we are willing to look beyond the immediate first 10-15 years. There are arguments about just how many refugees we can afford to invest in at one time, or even if many of them are bona fide refugees in the first place! Still, that doesn't change the initial point. There is NOT a perpetual "money pit" of welfare spongers! There is a category of poorly educated refugees and we can only expect so much of an immigrant with such an unskilled background. However, their children tend to more than pay their own way. Certainly, we see no signs that the children look at welfare as a career.

Speaking for myself, I agreed with Martin at the time. He did what he had to do. There were really no other options. What I did NOT respect was how things were manipulated to make the federal government take all the credit while leaving the provincial governments to take all the blame. I've always believed you should be man enough to shoot your own dog, if necessary. I know politics is the very art of putting your own blame on your opponent but that still doesn't mean I have to respect it!

I agree. Dalton has sided with OPSEU in making Mike Harris his target, not Hudak. This is REALLY stupid! It's been a lot of years since Harris was in power. Most non-union militant voters have either forgotten, were too young to remember or liked Harris anyway! After all, Harris did win TWO massive majorities! Why should the ordinary voter instantly equate Hudak with Harris? Because they are both Tories? You could use the same excuse forever! It does wear a bit thin as the years pass. They are not really competing with Hudak. They are competing with a straw man cartoon they themselves have created. Maybe they haven't got a choice, considering how far down in the polls we find McGuinty these days. I dunno.

Actually, it does! At least, if we want our culture to survive. You see, there are others that have learned they can win by perverting the Golden Rule. If they know that their "opponent" will always turn the other cheek they can take advantage of him! It's simple games theory, the kind you really can't argue over. It is what it is. So If we find ourselves in competition with any particular culture or more specifically, certain aspects of a culture that conflicts with our own values we must stand up and defend our own values! For instance, some of the more extreme values against women, such as genital mutilation, a barring from education, honour killings, arranged marriages and such WHICH HAPPEN EVERY DAY IN AREAS IN AND AROUND THE GTA offend our own culture. We must vigorously oppose such values, both socially and legally. Otherwise they will slowly become accepted, under the guise of "multi-culturalism". Perhaps such things are unheard of in Winnipeg. I sincerely hope so!

OFFICIAL Multi-cult was a Liberal invention to appeal to immigrants by making them believe they didn't have to spend any effort in assimilating, thus likely getting a good portion of them to vote Liberal. In practice, they still had to assimilate a fair bit anyway, simply because Canada was not going to change for them. Now, the first generation is finding it very hard to keep their kids from abandoning their first country culture. To their kids, that culture is from a land far away. Their home is where they live every day, namely Canada.

Kept thinking about Kimmy today and wasn't sure why. Then I figured it out! I was listening to the TiCat game! They blew those Saskatchewan pussies right off the field! I wonder what Kimmy was thinking about...

I went back to your opening post. I see that you're absolutely right about your position! It was the way you set up your quote. You didn't change the font or make anything bold since it was all the same my eye took it to mean that the quote was actually just more of your own words. Sorry. I should have peered at it more closely. Still, a mere highlight and click on the 'italics' button would have prevented any misunderstanding.

AW, I don't think you are looking at things mathematically. The amount of drugs and dealers taken of the street is truly "mice nuts" and always has been. It always will be, as well! This is because it it literally impossible to have a cop at every corner and looking over everyone's shoulder. What's more, since so many people have a problem with the State making "lifestyle" laws to tell individuals what to do with their own lives the State can't even count on every cop being motivated sufficiently to enforce such laws! There are moral questions about the State having the right to tell an individual what drugs he may take. One of the obvious problems is that the State rarely seems qualified to make such decisions. The parameters are usually political - how many voters want to tell their neighbours what to do so how many votes will we get with more oppressive laws? That's what it's really all about! Telling your neighbour what to do has always been extremely popular. Saving him from himself not only brings its own rewards, if he still hates you for it you can ignore his feelings, since after all the drugs kept him from thinking clearly! We should never forget that a very large number of people LOVED Prohibition!

Thank you! Isn't that why we're here?