PocketRocket

I'm glad to hear I warmed your heart, AM As for Harper, I do NOT consider him the best person for the job, but given the alternatives at the time he was elected, he was probably the "least worst" person who could realistically be expected to win the election. I didn't vote for him, but in retrospect, he's done no worse than most other PM's, and better than some. Like the man once said, if you can't think of who you want to vote FOR, then think of who you want to vote AGAINST.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but that would imply that about 1/2 the nations of the world have been similarly "invaded". True. They are about making people THINK this is the best man/woman for the job. I chose that word very carefully in my initial post.

Meh.....technology. When I want to quote from multiple sources, or nest quotes, I just do it manually, and if it gets too convoluted for the little text-window we type our entries in here, then I do it on Wordpad, and copy/paste.

Hello??? HelloOo??? HELLO??? Is this thing on???

Oh dear. I think he took his toys and went home

So are most Jehova's Witnesses, but some kinds of help are not always welcome.

Being that I could find nothing conclusive, ie; news articles, to cite, I won't argue with this, but several of those forum posts I mentioned held 1st hand reports of such behavior. I brought it up as a humorous curiosity item, not as fodder for further debate. If you interested enough to research it yourself to see if there's any truth behind it, knock yourself out. Myself, I believe it, but don't care about it enough to argue over it. EDITED TO ADD: Just for the hell of it, I changed the search parameters, and came up with this..... http://cafeselect.blogspot.com/2009/01/canadian-patch-industry-flagging-due-to.html ....which is a blog, but then stumbled across this little gem from MSNBC.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6666338/ .....so, evidently it's not a Canadian-made myth. How widespread it was, I cannot say.

The posts regarding Canadians wearing Maple Leafs on backpacks, etc, caused me to recall something I heard about a few years back. I think it was on CBC radio, but not entirely sure. Anyway, some guy in the USA (California, if memory serves) had started pumpin out Maple Leaf emblems suitable for stitching on jackets, backpacks, etc. He supposedly made quite a bundle from Americans who wanted to travel abroad but were worried about hostility due to anti-American feelings stirred up by our friend GWBush. I tried googling "Americans wearing maple leafs", but after flipping through a few pages, the only links I was getting were all forum-posts from this and other message boards. Just got a bit of a chuckle out of it....

There's a difference between being distrustful of a person and being distrustful of a group or a nation. I have no problems with American people. As individual people, they have no more power than any of us. America as a nation, however, is a powerhouse. Consider also mob psychology. It has been proven time and again in psychological studies that people will act/react differently as part of a crowd than they would as individuals. America represents one damned large crowd right next door to us. A crowd with the most powerful military and economic machinery on the planet. Personally, I don't trust anyone standing beside me holding a gun. And in terms of nations, the USA is one BIG sonofabitch with a VERY big gun. No, I don't think the USA is planning on invading us tomorrow, or even next week, but a healthy dose of skepticism cannot hurt. EDITED TO ADD: Also, the people themselves do not bother me, but what the people may possibly be led to do or believe is another kettle of fish entirely. This is, after all, the same nation of people who were led to believe that Bush was the best possible man to lead the nation. In fact, so many bought into this idea that he got almost enough votes to be elected......not once, but twice. That in and of itself is a frightening thought.

Hi, Gabriel. Nice chattin' with you. I am wounded!!! Really, I thought it was FAR deeper than a Labatt's commercial. At the very LEAST, it shows the depth and insight of a Molson ad... At least a few of the posts in this thread hold some of the aforementioned "bitching and moaning". Sorry if that phrase offended you. It was unintentionally harsh, I guess, but a result of seeing/hearing similar topics debated on forums, on radio, and on TV. It seems like this topic has been hashed and re-hashed for years. But the "examination" is part of what I was railing against. As individuals, do we wake up in the morning and regularly ask ourselves "Who am I, and what makes me distinct from everyone else?". I don't think so. Each of us is who he or she is, and I believe that the vast majority of us just get up and get on with our lives every day. I don't see the post as being over-simplifying. I think attempting to examine such a nebulous concept as identity is borderline-futile. Tell me first what "identity" means, define the word, and how it applies to a nation, and then we'll at least have a starting point. Well, Gabe, a guess that goes back to a definition of the word "identity". How do I identify with you??? Well, based on our first exchange, you seem to be intelligent, well-spoken and respectful, which are a few things we have in common. (Sorry if that seems self-congratulatory. I don't consider myself a rocket-scientist, but I manage to tie my own shoes and cope well with most mental challenges that come my way.....) IOW, our identities as individuals is often tempered by how we are perceived by others, particularly when those perception get back to us via criticism, rumor, and any other number of ways. How do you as an individual "identify" yourself??? Answer that for me, if you would, and then we'll come back and try apply the same criterion to the national-identity thing. But rather than debate with each other the depth of our perception or some such, let's get down to brass tacks and look at the word itself. Dictionary.com describes "Identity" as follows..... 1. the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or conditions: The identity of the fingerprints on the gun with those on file provided evidence that he was the killer. 2. the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another: He doubted his own identity. 3. condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is: a case of mistaken identity. 4. the state or fact of being the same one as described. 5. the sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time and sometimes disturbed in mental illnesses, as schizophrenia. 6. exact likeness in nature or qualities: an identity of interests. 7. an instance or point of sameness or likeness: to mistake resemblances for identities. 8. Logic. an assertion that two terms refer to the same thing. 9. Mathematics. a. an equation that is valid for all values of its variables. b. Also called identity element, unit element, unity. an element in a set such that the element operating on any other element of the set leaves the second element unchanged. c. the property of a function or map such that each element is mapped into itself. d. the function or map itself. 10. Australian Informal. an interesting, famous, or eccentric resident, usually of long standing in a community. Synonyms: 5. individuality, personality, distinctiveness, uniqueness. For our purposes, 1, 3 and 4 are non-starters. They are all simply a way of distinguishing one specific thing/person from another. "That's a bucket, not a shovel" or "That's John, not George". Likewise, 6, 7 and 8 are useless to us as they are simply synonyms for "similarity" or "sameness". Perhaps these definitions influenced my inclusion of how other countries perceive us, as all these apply to how something is viewed from an onlooker's vantage point. 9 and 10 are also out of the equation (pardon the unintentional pun) as one is related to mathematical terminology, and the other to an Australian dialectic usage of the word. So I guess what we are looking at is confined to 2 and 5, both of which apply to how a person views himself. From this standpoint, it comes back to my statement that I see myself as being a tiny part of Canada, and see Canada itself in simple terms; a country of resepectful and respectable people who are largely kind, generous and helpful. A nation with many regions and cultures, each of which carries a myriad of different styles of music, quisine, fashion and even language. To be Canadian is NOT to be pinned down to an archetype, but rather to be one of a large variety of different peoples. At this point in my morning, that's about as god an answer as I can give. More coffee my fuel more ideas, but this at least serves as a starting point for us.

Why all this concern with national identity??? Among the majority of nations, Canada is respected. THEY don't seem to have any problem with accepting us the way we are. Do we really need some all-encompassing national trait to distinguish us from all other countries??? Do you hear Swedes asking what makes them different from Finlanders??? Chinese asking what distinguishes them from Taiwan??? Are people in Costa Rica wondering what makes them different from Belizians??? Nope. All these countries seem to just accept that they are who they are, and get on with whatever they're doing. I cannot think of any other single nation whose inhabitants bitch and moan about whether or not they can think up reasons that they are distinctive. We have good land, good people. We have cold winters with beautifully bleak scenery, warm summers with lush forests, wonderful colours in autumn, and sweet springtime with the aroma of 6 months of frozen dog poop thawing We have a population that is generally respectable and respectful. We, as a nation, are tolerant of differences among our own people, and among other nations. We're non-aggressive, friendly and helpful. We have a wide variety of food and beverages. We have some fine beer and wine made right here at home. We have hockey, the king of sports, a game at which we have reigned supreme practically forever. We are the True North, Strong and Free. Do I need a definition of what it means to be Canadian??? Do I need to take on some affectation to distinguish me from all other nations' people??? Hell, no!!! I know who I am, where I live, who my neighbors are, what I like and dislike. I harbor a great love for my homeland, Canada. That's all I really need to know about my identity, or that of my country.

All previous arguments aside, an anecdote. I've handled rifles and shotguns from a very early age, and am quite proficient with both. My oldest brother (13 yrs older than I) has had handguns since I was about 10 yrs old. I remember him telling me one time that I probably couldn't hit him from 20 feet using a handgun. Well, I never tried to hit HIM, but when he handed me his handgun and said "Shoot that can", I was VERY surprised to miss. With a rifle, at that close range (about 35 feet) it was an unmissable target. Hell, at 3 times the range, it was unmissable. But with a handgun, my shot went well clear. So, I took measure of how far wide my shot went, tried again. Closer. Third time I had my target, and thereafter was pretty much on the money. But the shots tended to wander. Never forgot that lesson. To someone without the amount of experience with guns that I already had at that point, it would probably have taken a lot longer to figure out what they were doing wrong and correct it. Where I was going with this is simply that putting handguns in people's pockets/purses, etc may cause more harm than good in that if they pull out the weapon and shoot "to protect" themselves, a shot going wide could take out a bystander. The other thing is that without a proper holster of some sort, in many cases it would take too much time to get the weapon out of concealment for it to actually be useful, and in trying to get at the weapon, it could easily discharge with embarrassing, and possibly deadly, consequences to the owner. If, and I mean IF we are going to allow conceal/carry, there should be minimum mandatory training which involves LOTS of time on a shooting range, and certification that the person can indeed hit a reasonable-size target at a predetermined range, say a football at 20 paces, consistently, and do so WITHOUT taking a long time to set their stance, aim and so forth, because in a threat situation, they would not have time to carefully aim with the two-hand grip. IOW, draw, aim, fire quickly and accurately, or no license to carry. But better than this, I think they should legalize mace/pepper spray for people to carry. Draw up severe laws that restrict their use so that teenage girls are not indiscriminately hosing down ex-boyfriends who dumped them or something. Sprays of these sorts would be easier to use than a handgun, far less lethal, very effective at close range, and a hell of a lot easier to conceal, not to mention could be kept in-hand when one feel he/she is going to entering a less-than-safe area, ie; dark parking-lot.

You don't see a lot of firearm violence involving a full-length .303, or 12-gauge shotgun. Commit the resources to handguns and illegal auto and semi-automatic weapons as they're the ones used most in firearm-related crimes.

Hi, Greg. Long time. Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that before the cosmetic upgrade to these forums, that when you clicked on a member-posted link, it would open in a new tab. This is quite useful, especially in debate, as it allows one to copy-paste, and to flip back and forth between the two pages whilst creating a post. You may want to think about reinstating that feature. Thanks in advance, and have a good one.... ...PR

Good question, and one I've pondered on occasion. My take is that a person who is willing to accept welfare should also be willing to stand and beg on the street. At least that way the money given to them is freely donated rather than taken from our pockets against our will. However, we cannot always depend on the generosity of others. Economy, a poor paycheck due to illness, or even a bad hair day can all contribute to someone not feeling like handing over their loose change. Therefore, if it's to be a safety net, it must be one that is dependable. Not to say that government is dependable, but I think neither of us wants to see people starving in the street.

I have mixed feelings about the entire welfare system, but I believe it is a valuable and vital safety-net. I do NOT think it should be eliminated, for a few reasons.... I've been lucky enough never to have had to collect, but came damn close to it once. That being said, there is an element of society that choose to abuse the system. My take is this; if you are CAPABLE of working, but are not, and require welfare to get you through, there should be some wort of work-for-pay system. Whether it's cleaning sidewalks, shoveling driveways for elderly people who cannot do so for themselves, sweeping streets, whatever. This would accomplish two things. It would get some menial chores done that otherwise may be left unaddressed, and it would lend some dignity to those who actually WANT to work for a living. The other thing it would address is the abusers of the system. If they're forced to do menial work at minimum-or-slightly-above-minimum wage, it would motivate them to get off the system and into a real job. An aside to this is the day-care situation. A system could be set up whereby daycare is provided by people who are on welfare. Of course the caretakers would have to be screened and monitored, but again, it would lend them some dignity. If they have kids, they can bring them to work where they could be cared for along with whatever kids are being farmed out to them for the day. It would allow daycare which could potentially be far less expensive than many of the daycare facilities now in operation. For those who are unable to work for medical/psychological reasons, give them what they need to survive and to live comfortably.

A few people on this and other threads have asked why Muslims are not taking a stand against the violence and terrorism. Evidently a few are speaking out....... http://www.islamfortoday.com/terrorism.htm http://www.reformislam.org/ http://www.rayhawk.com/classics/matusa/home.html http://islam.about.com/cs/currentevents/a/9_11statements.htm http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satelli...ews%2FNWELayout .....this should do as a start.

Of course not, at least not without me trying to dig up medical records which are over 50 years old (which I'm not sure would even be possible due to the confidential nature of medical information), that's why I stated it's a personal story. I am sure, however, that there are other stories of people who survived against the medical odds. Also true, but the point is that the parents MAY (note the indefinite nature of the statement) have thought that the doctor COULD HAVE (indefinite again) been mistaken. I can see someone rolling against long odds with love as their sole motivation. Bottom line, though, is that the call was theirs to make, not yours or mine. As Julianna grows up, they'll continue to bear their own pain based on how well she integrates. I envy neither her nor them.

Could be a couple reasons. It may have been cold, and she was wearing a simple scarf around her head which is not uncommon with women anywhere in the world. Could be she was trying to show respect for her hosts. Could be pandering. Hard to tell without some sort of statement from her.

Aren't you the person who has spent many posts denying the existence of God???

Not necessarily, as detailed in my previous post.

Well, had a couple more minutes to spare than I thought, found this almost immediately..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coydog Note the two different names. The first part of the name is related to the species of the father, ie; male coyote breeds with female dog=coydog. Male dog+female coyote=dogote.

You may have hit the nail on the head with this. Several years ago I went to this wildlife sanctuary/park/zoo near Gravenhurst. The guide was a knowledgeable young man who obviously loved what he did, and was quite a font of information. Apparently coyotes do breed with dogs. The offspring always look very much like a coyote due to the strong genetics. They sometimes do not ACT like pure-blood coyotes, though. Coyotes usually try to stay away from people. They stick to the periphery of any open areas they may be traversing, always ready to dive for cover. Coy-dogs, as the mixed-breed offspring are known, while bearing an appearance pretty much identical to a pure-breed coyote, are generally more curious, less wary, and bolder. They are also becoming more common as time passes. Keep in mind all of this is 2nd-hand info from a visit I had about 15 years ago. May not be totally accurate. I'll try find a supporting cite to post later.

......are pretty much incompatible.

Then again, we can always use copy/paste..... Then again, we can always use copy/paste..... Then again, we can always use copy/paste..... Then again, we can always use copy/paste..... Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....