I caught a little bit of that McCain piece on 60 Minutes and I was struck with the idea that he's trying to stake the same space on the Right that Obama does on the Left - he's the one peddling "optimism"...it just shows how low they've sunk that optimism on the Right means saying "well we didn't TOTALLY bung things up!"

People still listen to radio?

huh.

how 'bout that.

I'm most shocked that people actually STILL listen to the radio!

who knew?

shhhh....don't go bringing up that nasty little "c" word! This is america after all, why talk about "class" when you can neatly obscure the issue with "race"?

you're spot on by the way - it's all about class, it always has been, but that simply doesn't fit into the neat little lie of The American Dream, so the issue gets conflated with race.

actually I'm Canadian, we seem to be doing pretty well with immigration. I was reading an article for one of my politics classes and it pointed out that pretty much across the board our policy of multiculturalism is better at integrating immigrants into Canadian society than the melting pot (intermarriages, non segregated living etc). It seems counter-intuitive I know, but allowing people their culture actually speeds up integration!

I know that sounds like a bit of an aside, but it seems to me the underlying issue is one of nativism, or fear of losing cultural homogeneity...but I hate to tell you, the idea of a cultural and ethnic homogeneous state pretty much went out the door with Wilsonian Democracy - it's a 19th Century ideal that's simply outdated and impractical. You're just going to have to get used to it - brown people will be your neighbours.

Also, it seems to me that the same sort of dodge is going on here as with gay marriage - i.e it's not immigrants I hate but illegal ones = it's not gays I hate but gay marriage - that's a neat little way to sidestep any charges of bigotry, but underneath there's a whole lot of bigotry going on.

thanks,

Let's give a shout out to old Sir John A MacDonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. That old Scotsman was such a drunk that once during question period, and drunk of course, he responded thusly to a question from the Official Opposition (and I paraphrase) "Dear Sir, your position is so offensive that it makes me ill" and then proceeded to vomit in the House of Commons.

now THAT is one blessed drunk of a leader!

(as for Yeltsin, that last story about demanding pizza? Well who on earth could read that story and not love him just a little bit more??)

I totally agree with the first part of your post...of course a person in a rural area has every reason to own a gun. In fact I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone other than the most ardent anti-gun advocates argue against rural citizens owning rifles.

but you MUST see the difference between your situation and someone who lives in an urban setting. They do not have to worry about coyotes or bears or any other dangerous animal. You can't deny that guns in a high density area leads to a higher possibility for unintended victims.

the point is: nobody, i mean NOBODY wants to take guns away from a person on the frontier...in the city its a totally different ballgame.

What a totally worthwhile organization! I firmly suspect that most teenage relationships are abusive in one form or another...when I look back on my own highschool relationships and the manners in which both I and my girlfriends behaved I cringe. I suspect it has something to do with both parties trying to figure out their sexual and gendered identities and how they relate to relationships at probably the worst possible time.

Sure Montel isn't exactly top-rung, but any publicity for such an organization is a good thing.

I too remember that race well. But as a 10 year Canadian boy I really remember hearing that Ben cheated, and how that hurt like hell. He cheated me, and everyone I knew. I clung to the belief that he didn't do it on purpose, that his water was spiked, that Carl Lewis did it (I was 10 after all, when you're 10 you still believe in crazy evil schemes). But in the end I had to admit that he cheated, and man, having your heroes exposed as frauds REALLY sucks.

That race proves why the steriod story matters, it's easy to forget when we grow up, but sports are much more visceral for kids...they mean everything.

keep covering the steriods king...nobody else seems to care.

"Canada...is just the 51st state of the U.S. and always has been."

It's this type of arrogance and blatant disregard for the most basic of world histories that infuriates not only Canadians but the world at large. You wonder why people all over the world despise you? The sentiment expressed by this post is your proof.

Open up your eyes a little bit, and you'll see there's a whole world out there...it's not that hard you know. C'mon...give it a try sometime!

ya know, alot of people up here have spent alot of time trying to come up with a "canadian identity", something akin to the shorthand you guys have come up with...and know what we've realized? There's more to a national identity than empty symbolism. Flags and Apple Pie? C'mon man...what exactly does that SAY about a people? I'd much rather have our identity based on the things that Jared2 has enumerated.