Molly

Trouble is, Armyguy, he IS our own. Like it or lump it, that's a fact. It's downright irresponsible to close our eyes and hope he goes away. ... not to mention, a fools faint hope. Short of dying in custody, he WILL be coming home sooner or later. The longer he sits where he is, the bigger a problem he becomes.

You might have been easier on yourself regarding definition, Segnosaur by simply referring to the name of the original treatise. It is "On Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". The utter inanity of demanding a cite to 'prove' the importance of 'natural selection' when describing 'evolution according to Darwin' is ... aaaaah...... not a thing that can be easily described in civil, respectful tones.

Where farming is concerned... the government giveth, and the government taketh away....

I suppose we could be more like our neighbour to the south, the one with the highest documented incarceration rate in the entire world-- three times the rate of the next in line. Compared to that, ANYONES justice system would be considered limp-wristed! I find that stat stunning. I do NOT believe that we should aspire to match it.

Kimmy.. I believe a lot of _extremely_ cynical people take part in beauty pageants on that sort of level. It's not an industry for the innocent. If this was the the West Dog Lake Community Sweetheart pageant, I'd be happy to accept that it was a perfectly honest answer, and heaven knows it may even be one in this case... but once past the local level, answers to possible questions are more likely as groomed and vetted as a campaign address. The target audience is the group that is not likely so liberal. The participants, on the whole, are merely shallow, and playing to that target sensibility. Sorry, but I figure that business is pretty much on a par with professional wrestling. That cheesy; that insincere. It's a fairly high-stakes game of image, not substance.

O-kie fine. I'll bow to majority opinion. It was a wise and completely honest opinion, and true treacly-sweetness, devoutness, and patriotism along with stunning, and unadorned good looks are all it took to become 'Miss California'. There is no cynicism nor bottom-of-the-barrel competitiveness in the nicey-nicey beauty pageant biz, and the selection of Perez Hilton to be a judge was just a rare, inexplicable error in judgement, and was in no way intended to drop any bombshells to bring a higher profile to the event.

Walker-Lindh was actually tried, and convicted... wasn't a child, is an American citizen, and IS home. None of those things is true of Khadr. He is still being held without trial, after 7 years-- that's SEVEN years, half of his pre-detention lifespan. He's the last remaining westerner in the camp. At the rate things are going, he'll be the last PRISONER left there, and still not have had his day in court!

I'm not from there, but my daughter lives very nearby. We have to pass the illegal kiosk to visit. Your point is well taken, but rarely is any situation improved by the addition of one more ranting hothead trying to stir up even more confrontation. Whatever else McHale was/is, he's Trouble.

I hope that's all it is, Kimmy. I'm deeply suspicious of creeping protectionism. I wouldn't care a jot about it if it didn't interfere with trade. I sincerely hope that our own PTB are prepared to make import of US goods/services every bit as thorny as they make export of Canadian goods. Free passage of tourists? Sure! But that truckload of strawberries could have a bomb in it, so it had better wait there for a week, 'til we finish inspecting it.

LOL That would be nice.

Margin of error. Method of collection. I don't grant any of them more than ballpark accuracy, and wouldn't expect a consistent, no backstepping AT ALL series of numbers. Wait and see. Real shifts in trend to be just as visible on the ground, even if not quantified.

"ONLY" McCain? Good lord! What filtered planet do you live on?

I'm amused that it doesn't mention (in absence of transitional creatures) that creation happenned not once, but many, many times, over billions of years and in trial-and-error sequence, each new 'creation' a bit more sophisticated than the rest... as per fossil record. Do we rest in a mighty pile of God's mulligans?

JBG.. Omar was a child born in Canada to Canadian parents, and welcomed by Canadian grandparents. He's as much a REAL Canadian as I am. If the rights of that REAL Canadian can be thrown out the window of convenience, than so can the rights of everyone else. I'm not putting his rights ahead of mine... I'm recognizing that if rights are optional, and should only belong to the folks we happen to be pleased with at the moment, then they don't really exist at all, for anyone.

Oh come on! It was an airhead answer! But then, what else would one expect at a beauty pageant? The hilarious part is that it was likely as completely disingenuous as Hiltons insistence that it wasn't a bomb. So sad to misread the most current, event-specific recipe for (Mom and) apple pie. So very sad.

Yep. Since there's little doubt that the disinformation campaign is intentional, I wonder what the motive is. Is it just to give folks something to 'go apeshit' about to take their minds off the economy... or is it as protectionist as it looks?

Yeah... and perhaps the monkeys are preparing on the gastric runway. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.) I don't see any sign of such a switcheroo locally. There's been the odd bit of positive economic news lately.. of the 'not as catastrophic as we had come to expect' variety, and the news is dominated by almost anything except activity by Canadian politics. (Not to mention the arrival of spring making everyone less grumpy.) That might represent a short plateau in the fall, but as soon as folks remember that there is a government, I'd bet the slippage will continue. Folks are hurting around here- getting moreso every day, in spite of the odd tiny glimmer of hope. That makes 'something different' all the more desireable.

What it means is a tougher question than it looks like. I 'support the troops', because no small part of me is in awe of the willingness to serve at that level, not really knowing whether what will be asked is ones life. (The word 'serve' is pointedly chosen.) I deeply, deeply respect that, and believe it deserves both whatever assistance/seconding the rest of us can offer, and sincere homage. But I may or may not agree with the tasks to which the military is assigned, and don't/won't have a sticker because it comes off as more of a political statement- support or not for the mission, than as an actual expression of respect and appreciation for the people. I would no more stick a statement of support for a political action on my car than I would apply a campaign sign to it.

C'mon, Bill! You have to admit that someone actually from the area would have a LOT more credibility! I'm reminded of a night many moons ago when a railroad work gang stuck in our sleepy tiny town for a several months hoped for access to the only party in town... a wedding dance. Had there only been a dozen or so, it wouldn't have been an issue, but they nearly matched the guests in number, so it really couldn't be. Reason was in the process of prevailing over the minor confrontation until a complete bozo who had little to do with either group decided to 'express his opinion'. Thanks to him, minor frustrated disgruntlement very nearly erupted into a huge brawl, but in the end he was the only person pummelled, and no one at all was successfully arrested. Sometimes, life IS fair.

Perhaps because I'm operating on the evidence of my eyes, my own experience and the reports of others 'direct experience, instead of having having a need to bow to social politics heavily influenced by assumptions/prejudices that aren't borne out in the real world.

Keepitsimple.... that would be about 50,000, not 80,000, only about 20,000 of whom held dual, and not solely Canadian citizenship (aka, tourists) and it is the norm to make folks pay the bill for emergency evacuations. It is hardly their fault that the government called it a special situation and decided not to.

Quibbling with 'tiny' truly is a paltry nitpick, since the article drips with diminutive-indicative references and nuance. And I don't understand what you are questioning regarding a 'weight class equalizer'. The point is simple enough: size is becoming less and less relevant every day... even to combat. Bring a gun to a knife fight, and you win. When the herculean task is performed by the monster machine, at the control of a fingertip, it doesn't take a musclebound gorilla to do it. (It is my own firm belief that the need for brawn has been as wildly overstated/overbelieved for any number of tasks as actual gender-based size and weight variations have been. My experience with concrete work, for instance, is that it is a far less demanding physical workout than a day spent washing walls.) As for your 2%... what EXACTLY would be improved by reducing it to 0%? The troop safety argument is outright false, and the esprit de corps argument ... well... I don't buy it for a minute. I didn't buy it 30 years ago when my brother in law tried it out as a reason to explain why women shouldn't ever be 'allowed' to be pilots, and it's gotten even thinner with wear. Armyguy-- the corps-- rejects it entirely, and I daresay he has a pretty good handle on current 'l'esprit'. Your recruitment article doesn't say that recruitment is down. It says that the dropout rate is far higher than expected... and 2% could as easily be dfined as 'a start' as 'a failure'. Now CLOSING that door, telling that 2%, and the 2% or more to come to give it up and go back to the kitchen.... now THAT would be a failure.

I don't know if this is what Alta4ever was talking about in his reference to warrantless searches, but it is one part of C68 that I find particularly troubling. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/ind...ams=A1SEC821620

...... Um. My mind jumped immediately to the Holocaust. That comment suggests that the goods and property of the millions who died were RIGHTLY dispersed among whoever could manage to steal it, and should not be returned to the people or the heirs of the dead if and as they are found.... I don't agree with that.

This s a chicken coming home to roost! (About time.) Had his case been handled with a little more compassion or respect for citizenship at any point in the past, the problem would be a smaller one now.