SirSpanky

He's a stooge. He couldn't refrain from his toddler style outburst; so his team goes down a man, with the second best striker (Henri) hurt from earlier. Good job Zidane, good job.

Just a quick $0.02 Mike. Just because a person has a degree, does not entitle them to a high paying job. Some of the degrees offered by Uni's are just not practical. It shows a moderate amount of commitment, and a willingness to learn, but many people graduating with the prestigious and revered "degree" are numbnuts. I'm currently finishing up my engineering degree, and I'll say this about foreign students. They pay upwards of 80% more than I do for the same eduacation. To me, that shows sacrifice and dedication. The top 3 students in my department (Electrical eng) are from Russia, and 2 from China. Nothing but respect for these people. As for preventing Canadians from getting an education; lots of schools accept anyone to these types of programs. All that is needed is your high school, then you do up a first year program at the uni. Seems fair to me.

As an engineer, I'll say that we don't tend to the left in general. Our vocation is as diverse as any regarding political orientation, whatever that means.

Carolina's D isn't so bad. They block shots with reckless abandon, and are monsters in the corners. I heard that the Cane's D was bad, on TSN a couple weeks ago, and since then heard it regurgitated over and over. WATCH HOW THEY PLAY, AND MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND. I think the media likes to write off their D, to hype up their potent offence even more. Then you can play up the Edmonton defense - Cane offence matchup.

With the library card, get the kid a pair of cleats and a soccer ball, or a baseball glove, or a basketball....

So what makes a good hockey team then? Why isn't Ottawa who had a much better season in the finals? Is it willingness to work HARD? A hot goalie only? A physical team? A good coach? Jebus the oil might as well put a 3 person couch in the box if they're going to spend that much time there.

You're largely right. But, consider that ANY alternative to our transportation based infrastructure is going to cost muchos $$. People see Hydrogen in a somewhat skewed view I think; as a fuel itself. It is of course, but I like to think of it (meaning fuel cells) as energy storage. It's very true that Hydrogen is (relatively) easy to extract from hydrocarbons, though obtaining it this way solves only the petro supply issue, not the pollution one. Therefore it's only one side of the solution. The other is clean(er) replenishable energy, on a gigantic scale. The safety issues are not much worse than gasoline I think. To be viable at all, it would need to be in a liquid form, and technologies exist to limit vapourization. Even so, just under 2x the volume of liquid h2 is needed for an equivilant volume of gasoline. The situation is dire.

I really wished I'd watched more games of theirs. They're tough, scrappy, and defensive minded. Just what I like. I hope Ward wins the lottery and buggers off to persue his dreams of pina coladas and sun on the shores of Mexico tommorow.

Probably been said before, but by and large most Americans have the same values as us, especially in some of the northern states. I find how America represents itself to the world to be offensive sometimes, but that is government. Our government has it's problems too. We are in no position to tell them to "fix" their system, with all of our problems. I wonder sometimes how Canada would behave if we were the size, and had the economic weight that the US does. I doubt it would be to different.

The only thing that strikes me as detrimental is the rather broad generalization that statements such as this make. The entrapment statement you made is absolute nonsense.

We should also sell any of the natural resources that happen to lie in the 100 mile belt we are keeping. Who needs them anyways?

Agreed. Did we think we'd be able to fight them "over there" indefinately? So what is the solution to these home grown terrorists? It seems to me that short of measures that the facist poster would implement, all we could do is beef up internal intelligence efforts (whatever that means), and put in place some sort of laws to support it. I was always under the impression that the reason these people go so nuts and flock to this fanatacism is sub-standard living conditions, be them social, economic or whatever. This kind of flies in the face of all that, with these people living in our comfortable, relatively prosperous nation. Clearly these people are in contact with someone feeding them these dangerous memes and beliefs. How about we find them?

So what do you propose Q? Your ability to ride your bike depends on oil; I will not even try to list all the uses. Some of them have been mentioned already.

What Blackdog said x2. People I think are smart enough to realize whats going on. They do a fair job reporting the facts. As good as any. And at least you know which way they swing.

I think Toronto-Ottawa tonight might garner that honour.

Man I wish we could stop thinking in such broad generalizations as you did in that post. To say that "appalled at the way the left demonizes everyone who is religious" is a rather disgusting class to put aprox half the population. Are we just too lazy to realize that everyone has their set of beliefs, and we can't lump them all together for convenient analysis? Human behaviour is the most dynamic area of study, and we are reducing it to formulae. Whats wrong with this picture?

Well, if you are going to vote soley on your beliefs, and none of the parties support it, consider running for a set yourself. For the most part, in general people do not support all of a parties policies 100%. They simply make the best choice, based on a weighted consideration of the policies in question. If you're going to be an idealist, go all the way. If you're going to be practical about it, and have your vote count (which sadly means you must support policies you disagree with) then bite the bullet, and pick one.

Goals are good. Specific plans of action are better. Ambitious vague plans are useless.

I think as one so young, if you really want to serve your country in that respect, find a way to educate and get your peers interested in politics. No offense, I have no doubt your intentions are noble and you give a shit (which is one of the most important things to do any job), but sir Argus is right. One so young lacks the experience to lead. I think people see government strictly as a caretaking operation, when ideally there should much more of a leadership role. Especially from our elected officials. I am reminded of Plato. He had some messed up irrational ideas about how government should work, but that our leaders should be older before they are allowed to govern is not one of them.

Unrelated, but a little funny; In Winnipeg, some funny man called into a few gas stations pretending to be from head office in Toronto. Told them to raise gas to $1.80 or so, which they did. This was on thursday night, right when everyone was panic buying like crazy. I went out to a university party down the cities main stretch, and every gas station was lined up. I also hear that the stations that were selling for $1.80 were lined up too (most still had the price at around a dollar). Mobs are scary when they think they're doing the right thing. They simply emptied the city of gas.

Philosophic subjects you speak of Monty. Debateable whether ambition, which is not necessarily a good thing brought on their dominance. A right-ist news system being the most popular in a right-ist society, shifted more to the right after the 9-11 attacks doesn't surprise me at all. I'd be interested to see the ratings/readership before and after 9-11 for the major media outlets. All media is biased, and personally I like knowing which side a story teller is likely to drift towards. Keeps my bullshit guard up.

Not that I'm arguing any of the points here, because I agree 100%, but where do you draw the line? 14? 16? 18? Why at age 18 do people all of a sudden think youth able to make life decisions? Because you finish high school? We teach academics, but not "life-ademics". How about a class or six that teaches the skills to get by in life, like a job search class, a business class to teach you how to care for your finances, a balanced living class. Granted most of the stuff will go in one ear and out the other (as with most other classes), but at least there's some exposure to life outside of high school.

Perhaps hes going to let public opinion simmer for awhile. Build up a little rage, and watch as the libs bungle it up further. Bad move IMHO.

I think thats a good policy when gathering any type of information. Either due to author bias, or half-ass research regarding historical info, the picture will never be quite complete. If the news delivered just the facts, with no commentary, I think most of the viewership/readership would look elsewhere, as most are interested in the news purely for entertainment. Personally I would love it, but thats just me.

As related to the media the trouble with that is the hero complex. You put too much trust in this one human, and believe / follow / promote their views without thinking enough about it. I suppose its also true with the institutionalized media, but I find it moreso with bloggers, which I guess is an arguement to support August's quote. I think the scenario is interesting when applied to purchasing goods. Personally, I would trust a future shop, best buy, or local computer store before I would trust the dude selling refurbed laptops out of his basement. Most likely, the independant seller's goods are just as good, if not better than the shop's, but still I would trust the highly visible, regulated by government seller.