Kitchener

Correct, when fixed. Of course the CF will use Chinooks as "war machines"; an APC is a war machine, too, even though its primary purpose is the transportation of troops. But we were talking about whether Chinooks will play direct combat roles, not whether they can be considered war machines. Like I said, yes. They can be armed, but we will use them for combat support, infrastructure, and humanitarian missions.

Gosh, really?

What I wrote was entirely correct. The Chinook can be used in a direct combat role; it can mount an M134 minigun. Ours will almost certainly be used for combat support and humanitarian work -- as I went on to explain in the remainder of the sentence that you didn't quote, and, I assume, didn't read. The same can be said for our C-130s: they can play a direct combat role; a model with mounted minigun was used to awesome effect in Vietnam, for example. But we don't use them that way, only to supply military and humanitarian operations in various ways.

The Chinooks can play a direct combat role, I suppose, and would certainly play a supporting infrastructure role. But they're at least as useful for the many humanitarian missions the CF undertakes. If you have a beef against the war, make it against the war. Focusing on the Chinooks, which did great non-combat service for Canada when last we flew them, is somewhere between misguided and absurd.

It's hard to see what else it might have been; but when you serve up phrasal one-liner red herrings, frequently free of the tyrannical constraints of spelling and grammar, a modicum of guesswork is inevitable. The point, rather obviously, is that "It was not democratic" does not follow from "Dancer pontificates that it was thuggish". Hence your assertion was, yet again, uncontaminated by anything like evidence. Notice that I do not contest that it was a thuggish government -- at least, not if that means that it was heavy-handed in its use of populism to further its aim of nationalization. It was not a one-party state, like Cuba, however. So that seems a daft comparison. Moreover, it is far from unusual for nascent democracies to see national sovereignty and control of natural resources as an immediate priority; to be highly jingoistic; and to be less than paradigmatically democratic. I suggest you read up on the first several decades of American democracy to see particularly stark examples. Yet a democracy it was. This would be because it is part of Europe. And also part of Asia, which is why is has always been considered part of Asia. And widely regarded as Middle Eastern -- though not really "always", in that case, since this a relatively recent popular coinage. This point seems curiously difficult for you to digest. Again, neither you nor I has the faintest clue what that little whinge could mean. Turkey has always been considered part of Europe despite efforts to include (e.g.) the Western Sahara in the Middle East? Shouldn't you make at least some effort to make sense? Golly, like a system where Albertans vote for Albertans, and Ontarians for Ontarians? Regionalism is but one way of constitutionally stratifying the distribution of seats, in seeking a representative government. South Africa, for example, employs both regional and ethno-cultural distributions of seats. Well, it's not democratic, naturally! Nope, democracy means whatever inane, Procrustean, completely idiosyncratic thing you're forced to say it means, in order for your ill-considered blather about Israel to turn out true. But that's stupid.

So now Egypt is not in the Middle East either? Ah, "thuggish". Therefore, Mossadegh was not popularly elected. It gets better and better! Seriously, all this absurdity to avoid admitting your errors?

At this point, neither you nor I has any idea what you are talking about. Try taking it slow: Turkey is Eurasian. It is widely regarded as falling in the imprecisely defined area "the Middle East". These are simple facts that most high school graduates have been taught, and which you can confirm in a few seconds in any case. This does not mean that other European countries are Middle Eastern. It does not mean that every other country in the Asian continent -- nor Oceania, nor Antarctica -- is Middle Eastern. Similarly, Egypt is in Africa; yet Burkina Faso is not in the Middle East. It's very hard to fathom how one could accidentally get confused about any of this, nor why one would want to be deliberately confused about it. Do even you seriously believe that you've just made some cogent point? I keep saying easily confirmable true things, and you keep responding with obviously foolish false ones. Maybe you have some personal calculus of face-saving according to which that's easier than just admitting you overstated your claim about democracies, then yapped about Turkey without thinking. Apology and retraction strikes me as a more sensible course for you than this fractal pattern of howlers, misrepresentations, and digressions. But you gotta be you, I suppose.

Thanks, but I think I'll just defend things I've actually said. Stuff you make up, not so much. In my defense, I said that Turkey is Middle Eastern because it's true according to the usage of the bulk of expert sources. No doubt the definition can be debated. But your wish to have your silly claim be made true by fiat is not a particularly weighty factor in any such debate, I think you'd find. As is Egypt. I guess it's not in the Middle East either.

Try to follow your own trail of silly falsehoods, would you? You're the one who brought up the whole business about "which continent" Turkey's in -- apparently finding it easier to embarrass yourself than to read a basic source or two and discover it's in two continents. Primarily Asia, moreover. And continents, the issue you raised, are geological, you see. Again, then: your whining about being wrong does not change the geological structure of the continents, nor the political fact that Turkey is in both Europe and Asia. Not a difficult point, really.

Both are actually called democracies, on account of actually being democracies. Both are also flawed, fragile, religiously confounded political unions beset by internal and external distortions and enemies. So were many now-stable democracies when they first began. Again, though -- there is no question that you can make your assertion true by personally redefining the word "democracy". And an Asiatic one. For pete's sake, weren't you just attempting to snark about a looking a map? The internet presents you with many, and I've linked you to them. Pouting won't change the geological structure of the planet nor the borders of nations.

This is your definition of the Middle East? I recommend you consult the maps and count the number of countries that fail the first part. Then count the number that fail the second part. Then ask yourself why on earth anyone would use such a definition anyhow. Lebanon has had a confessional parliament system for over 60 years, though it was in abeyance for 15 years during the Civil War, and was damaged again by the Israeli invasion in 2006. It's a fragile democracy, no question, but hardly a newborn one. That the PLA is a democracy in its infancy was, plausibly, just the sort of thing to which eyeball was alluding as "democracy in its infancy". To defend the claim that no such democracy exists in the PLA by saying that the PLA is a democracy in its infancy, would be a rather subtle routine of mental gymnastics, I think you'd agree.

That's a marginally interesting fact about you. I doubt it will send geopolitical experts scrambling to revise their working definitions. Meanwhile, there are multiple democracies in the Middle East.

It's rather famously in two continents. Primarily Asia, though. Have you ever read anything about Turkey? Middle East Middle East Middle East Well, it's certainly true that if you decide to exclude all Middle East democracies but one, there will only be one left. In English, however, it remains that "There is only one and has been only one democracy in the middle east ever" is simply false.

Yeah, that was an incredibly stupid thing for him to say -- and think. Shades of Dan Rather in 2001, saying “George Bush is the president. He makes the decisions, and, you know, it's just one American, wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where.”

Turkey is a democracy. The Palestinian National Authority is a democracy. Israel is a democracy. Lebanon is a confessional parliamentary democracy. That's four right there.

Um, or (for instance) I just posted that, and b/c doesn't watch this thread 24/7...

Oh, no doubt there'll be plenty of scandal to be hysterical about. It's even possible that some of it won't be completely made up and recirculated mindlessly by rightwing radio and dittohead bloggers. Say, did you know the Clintons are MURDERERS!?11!??!?

Well, they're trying tribalism in various other parts of the world. Keep an eye on how that's working out, hm? I prefer the rule of law, myself.

So... not a poor urban black person in a contested state, then.

Hamas is democratically elected, too. That a government is democratic doesn't mean it eschews, or fails to tolerate, immoral violence against civilians.

Yes, it'll be great to get back to the last eight years of hysterical shrieks of "Islamofascism!" "Terrurrrrism!" and "Don't Cut and Run!". Obama's sure wrecked that policy-driven public discourse that America's enjoyed under its current administration.

My brother piloted the "old" Chinook-C for years, including the Voyageur version in SAR. He swore by 'em, but they were pretty expensive to maintain. In fact, he once brought his Chinook (not a Voyageur, this one) over, landed it in the field next to my school, and let the kids climb aboard for a tour. Probably a lot harder to do it without 37 levels of permission these days; that was over 20 years ago now. Pretty huge coolness factor for a kid in high school, though...

Since by "through a technicality" you seem to mean "by clearly satisfying the core definition", it would seem that every citizen is a citizen merely on a technicality -- yours rather more technical than his, in one quite obvious sense.

Because that is part of how the word is defined. Natality is sufficient for citizenship. Being born with Cystic Fibrosis is not in tension with being opposed to Cystic Fibrosis. There are many properties that one can possess in spite of not supporting, or even actively opposing, those properties. You might think that someone is a lousy Canadian, but that doen't make them non-Canadian.

I did. Even-handed and somewhat useful, I thought, if a little on the hagiographical side. It did make me wonder how the spastic Little Green Footballs/Small Dead Animals crowd would square their "OMG OBAMAZA BLACK MUSLEM DICTATUR!" obsession with knowing that, e.g., as Editor of the Harvard Law Review, he gave 1 board position to a liberal-minded minority students -- and 3 to Federalist Society members... Hysterical demonization thrives best on ignorance and falsehood; even the relatively bland recitation of detail from Obama's life (as in the bio) would undermine those. Anyhow, I thought the shows gave a sense of the strengths and limitations of both candidates. I'm sure that some folks will manage to see the basically reverential treatment of McCain as just one more manifestation of evil "MSM" bias against him, but sane people will have seen two positive depictions of both candidates.