August1991

You still don't get it, Hugo.It makes as much sense to say the "government" insists on making you leaving as to say the "marriage" insists on making you leave. (Or "the condo building" insisted you leave.) It is your spouse who insists on you leaving and it is the other members of the club called Canada that insist you leave. You have made valid points that it is costly for you to leave and you must have an alternative club. But those points do not touch the more fundamental issue above. You have government as soon as several people split a single bill in a restaurant. (Why a single bill? Because it was easier than having separate bills.)

Caesar, don't make yourself look more like a fool. Maple Syrup has at least some sense. I met Arafat once. He looked like a man who hadn't had a decent night's sleep for several years. The RCMP told me his bodyguards were incompetent. I suspect he wanted the best for his people, but he was basically disorganized. At least Yeltsin knew when to say goodbye.

What's your point, MS? Is this new to you? Do you understand what freedom means? Do you understand why Winston Churchill defended it?

MapleSyrup and Caesar, I am sorry. Playfullfellow, I am sorry too. Your foolishness is one thing but this issue is too serious to me. MapleSyrup and Caesar, I have been to France (and Italy) to see what Brian Mulroney claimed as our Canadian right to be at the G-7 table. MapleSyrup, Caesar and Playfull, have you done what I did? Have you seen? ---- I lived in Russia for several years and I wondered what one Canadian guy could do. In the grand scheme of things, nothing. Russia defeated the Nazis. My mother's first husband died in the war. A navigator. Over France. From small town Ontario. A wasted life, so I thought. Curious, I figured this out, years later, and I went to see. In the the French village. Imagine. There is a plaque. In France. For a Canadian. From Sundridge, Ontario. The French women who drove me to the plaque wanted to know the story of my mother and the navigator. He never walked in France. But I did. Years later, I realized that his life was not wasted. I have smoked and stubbed out too many cigarettes in Commonwealth War Cemeteries from Sri Lanka to Italy. The defence of liberty is not obvious or simple. Russians may claim that they defeated Fascism, and they may be right, but freedom is won by individual effort. We live our lives as individuals. We wish the best for our children. I see a fundamental difference between the death of my mother's first husband and a suicide bomber in the Middle East. He died for my Freedom.

MapleSyrup and Caesar, I am sorry. Playfullfellow, I am sorry too. Your foolishness is one thing but this issue is too serious to me. MapleSyrup and Caesar, I have been to France (and Italy) to see what Brian Mulroney claimed as our Canadian right to be at the G-7 table. MapleSyrup, Caesar and Playfull, have you done what I did? Have you seen?

For most people, you go to a notary and prepare a will. Simple, obvious. Unless you're Abou Ammar, or Caesar.

And small businessmen thrive selling organic food products to metrosexuals when they run as NDP candidates. It's no lose - their right-wing customers laugh and their left-wing customers admire. Progressive, committed. Ka-shing! Unless the candidate wins. No problem there, either. The candidate turns into... Rodrigue Biron! (For anglos: Peter Pocklington, Richard Branson, Morton Shulman, Sinclair Stevens, Paul Martin, Ben & Jerry... )

These attacks in Holland were not caused by voodoo, Maple Syrup. Holland is a member of the "Coalition of the Willing". That's the reason.

Maple Syrup, the Dutch caused this problem themselves. Holland is part of the "Coalition of the Willing" and have 1100 troops in Iraq. That is why they have been targetted by these radicals. I think the Dutch should withdraw their troops and then the radical Islamists will leave them alone. Canadians have nothing to fear. We have made it very plain that we disagree with Bush and we did not send any troops to the Middle East. The radical Islamists will leave us alone. ---- Canadians are now wearing poppies but in the future, we won't have to do this. Canadians are now safe from being killed. For example, have you noticed that no Canadian has been beheaded in Iraq? These problems only happen to other countries who are allied with Bush.

Eureka, this whole "crusader/imperialist" comparison is wrong. The US is not building an empire, and Americans are not crusaders. White Anglo Saxon Protestants administered India from Calcutta. The Raj was British. They intended to stay permanently. The Crusaders built fortifications with an intent to administer the Holy Land permanently. Europeans managed Jerusalem for almost 200 years. The US has no such ambitions in Iraq for the simple reason that the US is not an imperial power. Elsewhere on this forum, posters are drawing dramatic differences between Canadians and Americans. Linda McQuaig is vociferous in stating that we must defend Canadian sovereignty. (IOW, Canadian sovereignty exists.) If Americans show no success (nor even effort) in colonizing Canadians or forcing Canada into an American empire, then I see less reason for them to start building an empire half way around the world. If you want to play around with the words "empire" and "imperialism", go ahead. But don't confuse your new definitions with the British Raj or the Crusaders.

Huh?BD, one doesn't have to be an expert on the finer points of the Oslo accord to realize that Arafat's "death" is amateurish, pathetic, disorganized and thoroughly incompetent. For heaven's sakes, his wife (who lives in Paris) is now claiming that she has some kind of authority. These clowns have been representing the interests of ordinary Palestinians. Israel has had absolutely nothing to do with this. The Palestinian leadership has created this mess entirely on their own. I frankly cannot imagine better evidence of the true nature of this dispute than what we are witnessing between a military hospital near Paris and Ramallah. No writer could imagine a more symbolic scenario. Even Caesar had to put the word "democratic" in quotation marks when referring to Arafat.

Don't worry, Stamps. TalkNumb has a chip the size of the Saddledome on his shoulder.

You gotta love Americans. Whadda country. Note that they say profits will be donated.On a completely unrelated point, this is the road sign you see when you leave Brooklyn to cross over to Manhattan: Road Sign Whatta country.

From the CBC article linked above: Is this perhaps the problem? The union in effect runs the Saskatoon police department. We have an organization with access to the public purse that is a law unto itself. It doesn't even have to answer to voters in an election. Without knowing all the details of the case, I'd say fire the two police officers and then if other police officers take "action", fire them too for breach of contract. That's what Ronald Reagan did with air traffic controllers in the US in the early 1980s. As he said famously, "I didn't fire them. They quit!"

Maple Syrup, this recent poll is vitually identical to the election result, given the margin of error. As to Atlantic Canada, the sample size there is so small that I'm not surprised the result might seem "strange". But I have a question. How do the BC poll results translate for the coming provincial election? How do Federal Liberals in BC vote provincially?

G & M The Bank of Canada, care about people? When was the last time the Bank of Canada had an NDP governor?---- Market prices (and exchange rates) are all about helping some people and hurting other people. On balance, more people are better off than worse off. That is true whether the Canadian dollar rises or falls - as long as the market decides the rate.

G & M Dosanjh Quote The crazy thing is that these are not Canadian drugs. They are American drugs shipped to Canada for sale in Canada. The US pharmaceutical companies are practicing (or were practicing) price-discrimination by selling certain branded drugs at a lower price in Canada. If this keeps up, the pharmaceuticals will simply stop the practice and treat the Canadian market the same as the US market. Our drug prices will rise. Dosanjh is wrapping himself in the Canadian flag in front of a US audience, he's doing the bidding of the pharmaceuticals and he's helping to keep drug prices in Canada lower. It's a smart move that can't lose. (Note that he even waited until after the US election to make his speech.) Of course, the rise in the Canadian dollar may help solve the problem.

In some kind of weird anti-American, pro-English Canadian nationalism, McQuaig and others are trying to paint the US as a country of radical, born again, dolts. It's not. Fascinating maps of the US electorate ---- I am also absolutely astonished to read people describing Paul Martin, (yes Paul Martin the CSL guy who cut government spending), as Left. More pertinently, Canadians tend to vote regionally (ie. BQ) and the Alliance/Conservatives are perceived as being from the West. On a separate thread, there is a discussion of "who speaks for Canada". Can someone please tell me the difference between Canada and Ontario?

What a foolishly idealistic view of Canada! It ain't so simple.But TalkNumb, are you suggesting that parents should not have the right to give a helping hand to their children? [Look at RB's post and see the references to "rich family with contacts". That's life and it's not going to change.]

That is the apparent case now because a large series of signals skew the incentives to do anything else.At present, our planet is a commons where in effect anyone can dump anything they want. This means it will get over-used. Kyoto is on the right track but the proposal was so deeply flawed by the UN and Third World politics that it won't work in its present form. I strongly suspect that a new, more sensible Kyoto will be negotiated. Does this matter? One cottage dumping its raw sewage into a common lake is upsetting the eco-system but not in a way that disturbs the natural equilibrium. How many cottages does it take before the lake can't cope? I suspect that plus or minus 50 years is not going to make a big difference. I mean, if such a short period of time makes a difference, then we have a much bigger problem in that our planet is not very stable. The solution is obviously to determine ownership of the environment and then let the market decide its use. This should be done gradually.We are moving towards this now. Kyoto is evidence. The EPA organizes markets for emissions in the US. Most Green Parties understand this too. I would say we are about 50 to 100 years away from a full array of environmental markets. Incidentally, for Canadian nationalists, a 1968 classic was written by a Canadian.

What is McQuaig saying? Where did Bush get his votes? CNN Voter Polls (13,660 respondents) (This is not one of those quickie exit polls. This is a detailed survey that paints an extraordinary portrait of both the US and its voters.) Bush won a majority among White women (55% to Kerry's 44%) and a majority of Catholic voters (52% to Kerry's 47%). Fully 44.5% of Bush voters self described themselves as either "Liberal" or "Moderate". Only 22% of voters described "moral values" as the most important issue. Only 16% of voters said that abortion should be "always illegal". 60% of voters said that gays should be allowed to marry or form a civil union. Of those opposed to any legal recognition for gays, 29% voted for Kerry. Bush received 23% of the votes of self-described gays/lesbians/bisexuals. (I don't know what McQuaig is on to in her article. She can't paint Bush voters nor even US voters the way she does. She is engaging in based anti-Americanism.) The most fascinating stat is whether the voter is better off now than four years ago. 32% said they were better off now, Bush got 80% of their votes. Another 39% said they were about the same, Bush got half their votes. 28% described themselves as worse off and Bush got 20% of their votes. Bush won because more Americans are better off than worse off. Check the stats out, MS. The link is above and it makes for interesting reading.

The truly sad story in all this is that Arafat has provided bad leadership and poorly represented ordinary Palestinians. Even the manner of Arafat's death is pathetic. Was the man so foolish or vein not to have determined a succession? No one knows what his illness is nor even how seriously ill he is. At one moment, it is claimed that he will soon return and another that he is in a deep coma. The Israelis are not at fault for this absurd spectacle. It is ultimately Arafat himself that is the cause. And this is the kind of leadership Arafat has provided Palestinians over the past 35 years or so. Ordinary Palestinians have suffered far less from Israelis and far more from their incompetent leadership. This pathetic saga between Ramallah and Paris is perfect evidence.

Am I the only person who has noted that all left-wing business people operate organic, high-end retail food companies that market specifically to urban customers?

I suspected that Arafat's wife was Palestinian Christian. I didn't know that she had lived in Paris for the past four years. Anyone know about this?

Maple Syrup is either a defunct Montreal, Irish, English-speaking Catholic or else an upset Montreal, Scottish, English-speaking Presbyterian. In either case, Maple Syrup is a displaced Montréalais of undetermined religion, and suspected mother tongue.I would go with North American Catholic. Whether French-Canadian or Irish-American, it amounts to being a perceived perennial underdog. Like Michael Moore. The Spanisn and Italian and French Catholic elsewhere thankfully view life elsewise.