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U.S. Says Canada Cares Too Much About Liberties
A cheeky writer at Canada's Ottawa Citizen newspaper has written a story about the U.S. State Department's 2002 Patterns of Global Terrorism.
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We have vast oil resources in Western Canada. It is exported to the US very cheaply, and here in Eastern Canada, we import oil from the Middle East at much higher prices.
Jason
ProfQuotes
They put out a huge ad in the NY Times earlier this year just to let everyone know that they were the US' largest supplier of oil. Apparently not many people know. -Tim
Tim Smith - Ramblings from Nerd Land
As far as I can tell, the headline is simply the author's interpretation of the State Department's report, not the wording of the US government. In actual point of fact, the State Department seems mainly concerned with police funding (which has nothing to do with civil liberties), low penalties for marijuana possession (also not a civil liberty) and privacy laws. Privacy obviously is a fairly important civil liberty, and clearly the US government is going too far with its anti-terrorist legislation, but the headline is also a tad too alarmist. Indeed, the article does not even specify which privacy related laws the US objects to in particular.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
If by "liberated" you mean "purchased for cash money from the people who owned it at the time who were not Canadians", then yes, your sentence is true.
If by "liberated" you wish to draw spurious parallels between the purchase of Alaska and the deposing of Saddam, you're an idiot.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Completely wrong. Canada used to have nuclear weapons but realised that the nuclear arm race was an insane business. In 1978, Canada Prime Minister Trudeau stated, at the U.N., that Canada was the "the first nuclear armed country to have chosen to divest itself of nuclear weapons. USA never asked Canada to stop. In fact USA was very pissed off because Canada did not continue to build more weapons with them.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Uh, 50% income tax? Maybe 30% on a healthy salary... the highest is around 43% above ~$100,000 CAD.
And round here, these things aren't enforced nearly as much. House is worth $1,000,000, paying property tax for $300,000? Nobody cares to hear about it. And you're certainly not getting thrown in JAIL for dodging taxes.
"[A] high IQ is like a Jeep; you will still get stuck, just farther from help!" --Just d' FAQs, c.g.a
Astonishingly, there is no mention in the report on the United Kingdom of the IRA.
There is a section on the IRA in the appendix on "other Foreign Terrorist Organisations" which notes that the IRA "retains the ability to conduct paramilitary operations" but it accepts that "the IRA reiterated its commitment to the peace process and apologized to the families of what it called "non-combatants" who had been killed or injured by the IRA" without noting that its activities of "kidnappings, punishment beatings, extortion, smuggling, and robberies" are active and continuing.
The report does not mention that two of the leaders of the IRA Army Council were allowed to become Sinn Fein Ministers in the (currently suspended) government of Northern Ireland.
Sinn Feinn, a major political party in Northern Ireland, is acknowledged by everybody except itself as the political wing of the IRA. The name translates into English as "Ourselves Alone" - illuminating its racist basis. Sinn Fein is not mentioned in the report.
Most astonishingly, NORAID's role in fundraising for the IRA within the USA is not mentioned in the report either.
Americans should realise that many British people who are temperamentally and politically inclined to give full support to American foreign policy find it severely compromised by America's sentimental and hypocritical blindness to the IRA threat.
Right.
Canada has had dick all to do with any military action in the last 100 years.
Learn your history before you start criticising.
You want us to take up arms? How about that time you guys tried to invade us and we burnt your White House down?
Or how about that time that we were busy bombing the crap out of the Nazis while the US was happily being isolationist for 2 years while he tried to take over the world?
Or how about the time that we organized the UN to intervene at the Suez Canal despite England's Security Council veto?
Or how about how we've supplied troops to just about every single UN mission since its inception?
Or wait. Of course none of that happened. It wasn't in the US papers, so it's pretty obvious that Canada doesn't have a military.
I knew a good number of Doctors from my hometown alone (a rather small town in British Columbia) who were working at the MASH units in the first Persian Gulf war who were risking their lives trying to keep UN soldiers alive (including a good number of Americans). But again, it wasn't in any American newspapers so it obviously didn't happen.
Karma: Non-Heinous
In fact, the War on (some) Drugs has little to do with the will of the people, and everything to do with being a scapegoat for hysteria, and a way to justify egregious pork budget increases.
And it is a witch hunt... People are so scared of the flowers of a harmless plant that job applicants are mercillessly rejected if they "Test positive" for marijuana. In some states, the "pot paranoia" is so pervasive that they've enacted "Smoke a joint, lose your driver license" laws to further stigmatize marijuana smokers. Without a driver license, where can you work in this country? If you live in a city that doesn't have GREAT public transportation (thats most of them) you simply won't get a job.
In the U.S., felons (for non-Americans, a felon is somebody convicted of a "serious" crime) can't vote. Even though arrests for drugs are about proportional to the proportion of the various races in our society, minorities serve vastly longer sentences than whites arrested for the same offense... They are three times less likely to be offered "diversionary sentencing" (ie. non-jail) to avoid felony conviction, and FIVE TIMES more likely to do jail time for a first-offense.
Of course, since white people in the U.S. on average have more money than their minority counterparts they can afford a lawyer who can get them out of trouble without jail.
So even though it might not have been the original intent, what you have is a de facto concerted effort to disenfrachise "undesirables."
The only advice I have is to write your congressmen and tell them you want legalized buds-- And keep your eyes peeled for cops.
Who did what now?
You're such a troll but I will bite anyway.
> Let's not get into WWII. If you think the US
> didn't do dick or spill blood in WWII, then you
> have a real problem.
Yes, you are correct, Americans did die in WW2. Lives lost is not a good thing, no matter when and where it happens. That was not the point though. The point was that the U.S. sat on the sidelines for 2 years while the rest of the "free" world was getting their asses kicked.
> Supplied troops to every single UN mission?
Yes. If you are referring to the current war with Iraq. That is not a UN mission. That's why were are not involved.
> How many of anyone in your hometown gave their
> lives to depose today's hitler?
None. Because there is no equivalent of "Today's Hitler" in the world. Calling Sadam Hitler must be something that CNN came up with. Don't get me wrong, Sadam is bad but he isn't the equivalent of Hitler.
> After all, we deserve it, don't we? You are
> morally superior to us, aren't you?
Nobody said we were morally superior. We have our problems. We make mistakes. We're human. We just don't FORCE our views on everyone else.
> And as for the "riding the backs of the US
> military", I suggest you look within your own
> country for the criticism. Because I've seen it
> come from your own country more than anywhere
> else. From canadian news letters to the
> editors, from canadian news pundits, from
> canadians being interviewed on the street, from
> canadian politicians.
Yes, every country in the world rides the back of the US military. You know why? It's because the U.S. is too busy being the bully of the school yard and sticks it's nose in everything. Someone has to go in and clean up your mess.
Do you really want to know why Canada didn't join your war against Iraq? We all agree that Sadam is bad and should have been removed. There is no argument about that. We didn't join in because we do not want to be a TARGET. That's right, a TARGET. Just think about this in a logical fashion. Look at the possible chain of events.
- We join War on Iraq (tm)
- Terrorists attack Canada (ie Toronto)
- Canada turns to U.S. for support.
- Canada changes privacy policies to help fight "terrorism"
- Canada becomes part of the U.S.
See, you are correct. We ride on the backs of the U.S. military enough as it is and we don't want to. The more we rely on you, the more indebted we are. That's not good.
Please, before moving to Canada, can I ask you all to please register to vote and actually *vote*!?
Register for the primaries too and vote against the encumbants who support the PATRIOT act (I & II), the Iraqi misadventure and other pieces of legislation you love to hate. Remember, a lot of Democrats also voted for the above.
Considering America's low participation in its own democracy, you shouldn't be surprised the American government is acting against its citizens' own best interests.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com