P. McGee

Ok, I concede they likely play a significant role, but a determining role is another matter. Another person might see no reason to suppose the opposite was true. Is there conclusive proof one way or the other? Or is the whole business somewhat speculative?

It seems like there may be an element of dogma to the belief that sexual identity is basically predetermined. To ignore the social and cultural forces at play is a bit simplistic. Is everyone who self-identifies as gay attracted only to the same sex at all times? Some people identify as gay quite a bit later on in life, but were previously involved in heterosexual relationships. Was their earlier identification as 'straight' incorrect somehow? It's also been suggested that self-identified bisexuals can sometimes experience social pressure to pick one side and stick with it. To suggest that sexual identification is completely independent of life choices and experiences in all cases would be absurd, although I don't deny that genetics and brain physiology play some role.

I'll do you one better, the ignore function.

Fair enough, I had no idea that the post was so old.

How do you figure you know so much about me and whatever historical knowledge I might have? Speaking of having no idea what you're talking about, how about a few pages ago when you tried to say that a certain highly populated area in Canada had no demographics.

I don't really understand the huff over jobs that require you to be bilingual. If you want a job that requires French and English, learn French if you want it that much. If someone "French" gets the job instead, that's because they went to the trouble of learning English.

Unfortunately the idea was too easy to associate with the demons of the 'extreme' religious right and privatization. Not to mention uppity private school types.

Probably an accurate assessment. But while marathoners or cyclists may occasionally be a source of frustration for drivers, the real cause of congestion is the number of large and often single-occupant vehicles competing for limited space. Pointing fingers at marathoners or cyclists who occasionally occupy a single-digit square footage of road space as the source of gridlock problems flies in the face of simple geometry. The amount of land available for roads is not unlimited, so the only real way to accommodate population growth is to increase density. You could stack roads on top of each other, but vehicle weight is a huge factor in the cost of a raised roadway, so arguably you might get the most bang for your buck by moving light vehicle traffic upwards and away from the cars and trucks. Carpooling would help with density but it's not an attractive target for regulation either politically or practically. Transit eases congestion, but the TTC is a money pit because of its overpaid union workers who can close down the city by striking when their demands aren't met. Personally I like the idea of a city organized, self-financing car share program using golf cart style vehicles for the smaller road footprint and fuel consumption. I'm not holding my breath though.

Preferential hiring to compensate for demographic imbalances has never really made sense to me on any level. Overhiring in favor of certain groups as if to make up for lost time seems to be particularly asanine. Eventually the older workers retire and you are left with an imbalance in the other direction. Police forces in particular would do better to focus on weeding out boneheads from the pool of recruits.

Which statement is that?

I'm sure you're aware that a large proportion of pharmaceutical drugs in use are modeled after chemicals from plants, so obviously not every "natural" treatment is ineffective nonsense as you seem to imply. It should be obvious that funding or performing treatments proven to be ineffective is pointless, whether the treatment is a plant, a pill or an operation.

I'm not bothered in the least by former civil servants working for a political party once their duties are concluded. It's unreasonable to expect civil servants not to have their own political views, and once they leave the job their time is their own. Ruling parties appointing partisan staffers to the civil service is more concerning.

Could be, are you aware of national opinion polls to support that? It's been some time since the Bloc campaigned on separation, and I wonder if there may be a fair number of voters outside Quebec who bear no particular resentment to the party.

Probably true, since for most urban people it has no direct impact. Also, city-bashing is not something many people get very offended over, since everyone has some gripe about cities.

To me it almost seems like part of the myth of Stephen Harper is that he has Albertan, 'country' roots, although he seems to have spent a lot of his time since moving to Alberta in urban centers as well. I wonder how many Canadians are actually under the impression he was born there? Having been born in Toronto myself, I can relate to people seeing it as an aggravating and sometimes nasty place to spend time around. It also seems to be true that many people who live in cities are almost completely unaware of what life is like in nearby rural areas, having spent little time in them. I suspect that a lot of things that get on my nerves in Toronto would not be absent if I moved to Calgary or Vancouver though. Canada vs Toronto is a smokescreen for rural vs urban in this case, leaving out places like Calgary or Edmonton where everyone is presumably brimming with rural 'street cred' even though they live in a city.