green

Oh! This is utterly horrifying and dispicable! Many thanks for posting this.

Jodie, I did read over the article that you supplied and I would like to thank you. I also have some comments. I was unaware that the publisher is a right-wing think tank. But it does seem to me that there are some statistics which are provided in this article which might be clear of bias and those would be the ones which pertain to enlistment by state and region. I also believe that their finding that more rural kids join up is correct, too. I do think that the sorting methods employed were too broad to determine the socio-economic and racial status of the new recruits. I found the article interesting.

Both laurend and Poodles raise interesting points in their posts. Rationalisation that hinges upon emotional thinking which is triggered by such buzz words as democracy, freedom and christianity has nothing to do with logic nor with the actual facts, and everything to do with passion. It is unexamined thought. It is thought that is animated by sound bites, spin, and the same kind of emotion that animates those whacky Muslims whom we have seen burning American and Danish flags and, indeed, by those crazy Nazi Germans who allowed themselves to be swept away by a really good theatrical show and who were, after the war was over, really ashamed of their behaviour. I suspect that there are many Americans who are too patriotic to allow themselves to acknowledge the complexities and the moral ambiguities of, well, America's behaviour on the international stage. I suspect that it is these people who indulge in passionate and unexamined thought and who respond to an analysis of the war in Iraq with brute emotion. Poodles also introduces an interesting point. Since the States has dropped the draft the kids who join the forces are the kids from the underclasses. They come from the lower middle class and from the working or 'honest' poor. They are more likely to be kids from those places which I have heard cruelly referred to as the flyover states. In other words these kids are probably not rich, hip, well-educated, coastal kids. They have joined the military because they want experience, an education, a career. The question as to who goes over to Iraq is to some extent a class issue. Rich kids will never see Iraq.

Cloe, I love the before and afters. Thanks for sharing the pics with us. I want to tell you that you look very pretty in the after shots. Big congratulations on your weight loss :clap2: which is very noticeable and I think your hair looks great in an up-do.

BJean's story reminds me of a very funny joke: What's the difference between God and a doctor? God doesn't think that he is a doctor. My psychiatrist, my family GP who is a splendid woman and whom I have at times been seeing every second to third week, and my brother, also a doctor, did not want to see me go through with the lapband procedure. I suspect that in the case of my doctor and shrink they felt that I might be acting impetuously given that I was on the mend after enduring a profound depression. In the case of my brother his reaction was more emotional; we have recently buried my mother and our younger sibling. He and I are all that we have left. He was afraid of something going wrong. So they had their various reasons but none of them were dismissive of me or my plans to go ahead with the surgery. None of these three medical types treated me with the disrespect that BJean's doctor showed to her. There now is a website where you can go to rate your doctor. I believe it is called something along the lines of Rate docs.com. I heard about it on the news last night. I'm gonna have to see if I can find out more about it. In the meantime maybe one of us should start a thread where we can give our tales, both good and bad, of our experiences with the medical establishment. Sorry for hijacking the thread with the above.:phanvan

Wow! I just learned something. Thanks, Yoda. I guess this comes of me being a city grrl and a non-driver.......:cry and a blonde. LOL

I have been told that terrorism is war as it is fought by the poor and war is terror as it is fought by the wealthy. I don't know who said this first but it does make sense to me. When a seige of terror is being conducted by a group whose ideology we like, we call those people freedom fighters. When it is being conducted by those with whom we disagree, we call 'em terrorists and cowards. The events of 9/11 were both horrifying and terrifying for America. They were for us Canadians, too, for we shared in your sense that this continent was invulnerable to attack and we also lost a number of our own citizens that day. This being said, we cannot share in the dread that many of you suffer as the aftermath of that day. We are, afterall, a foreign country, a minor player on the world's stage, and this was and is your trauma. It made sense to enter into Afghanistan post-9/11; this was where Osama bin Laden was. And, indeed, America did have global support for this mission. European and Canadian troops are still there. To enter Iraq, however, was simply bizarre and carries the stench of hubris for baby BuSh and his gang of cowboys. I have always been inclined to wonder whether his decision to go ahead with this wrong-headed war was not in part based on some kind of Freudian issue of competition with his old man. The ulta-devout al-Quaeda and the secular Saddam have always been natural enemies. The neutral and U.N. appointed Hans Blix and his international crew found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction on Iraqi soil. BuSh was not supported by the international community in his plan to invade Iraq. His claim that he wanted to unseat a dictator and bring democracy to this country does not hold water; there are a multitude of dictators who are either ignored or actively propped up by the U.S. government. By invading Iraq he has hollowed out the American economy. He has further destabilized an already unstable region. He has cleared the way for a new strong man, one who will most likely be a religious fundamentalist and thus hostile to the west and to Israel, to take over the country. He has caused a lot of young men to lose their lives. And he has further degraded America's reputation abroad. None of this is good.

Oh, you are not being geographically anal. You just don't know the city. I would be equally as lost in Calgary. In fact I would be kinda lost in Mississauga. Think in the 30 km range, not 130. Mississauga is a suburb that lies immediately to the west of Toronto. I've always lived close to the core of Toronto and so I know nothing much about the rest of the city or its suburbs. TLBC is really close to my house but Dr. Coburn would be quite a drive from here. This is partly because there are no fast highways that lead into and out of the heart of the city. It is city stop and go driving until you can get onto one of the fast roads that feed into the suburbs. I would guess that getting to Heritage House would take well over an hour of driving (I don't know where it is exactly) but on the other hand it sounds like a fabulous place to recover. I hope I've been of some help. I know my advice must sound a little vague.

They are quite far away from each other. One is in the heart of the city and the other is in Mississauga.

Actually, when it came to that dreadful mess that arrived post-Katrina, a mess that looked every bit as bad to the foreign press as any third world disaster, Canada and a number of other foreign countries were there offering aid to the United States both through the government and through donations to the Red Cross. Cuba offered its help but was turned down by the American government.

The terrorists were victorious on 9/11. That was one battle. Do you really believe that they could win the war? The United States has a population that is in excess of 200 hundred million and has state of the art weapons of mass destruction. Do you really believe that a group of Islamic terrorists can take control of the North American continent? If so, these handful of terrorists are winning the war, aren't they? Let us be logical for a moment and total up the damages incurred on 9/11 and what America is still has with respect to manpower and war toys. Three thousand individuals and four civilian aircraft were lost that dreadful day. Wealthy America was left with over 200 million people and a complete array of state of the art weapons of mass destruction. I should point out that Israel, a country that is situated in the same geographical zone as her Islamic neighbours and enemy states is still alive and well even though this country has been under attack since 1948. Israel has not the massive power that the United States has. And you must remember that America also had the sympathy of all the other wealthy industrialised countries after the 9/11 attack. Had this attack escalated into something resembling a war, something extremely unlikely, she would have had the military support of the industrialised world. What do you honestly think were the chances of a successful invasion by the forces of Islam of this continent? Do you really think that you have ever been at risk of being forced to bow down and worship a foreign God? Aren't you being just a tiny bit irrational? I really am at a loss to understand this spirit of paranoia that invades so many Americans.

I am always baffled when I read posts from Americans which express real fears that the United States could be overrun by Islamic terrorists who will force them to abandon their several Gods - Jesus and Mammon - and to start praying to Allah. As TOM has pointed out, those guys don't have the manpower nor the technology to invade let alone successfully take over this continent. And yet there is this pervasive state of paranoia.... Go figure. Remember boys and girls, these folk haven't managed to wipe Israel off the map yet and this country is much smaller than America and it lives in the same neighbourhood.

This is one of the most incoherent posts I have ever read. You made an unusual assertion in your initial post without backing this up with data or even troubling to provide the reader with an explanation as to what you were talking about. You then follow that post up with the above quoted post where you begin by rambling about molecules, again without providing a coherent explanation, and then launch into a tirade of abuse. Pull yourself together, apologize for the abuse, assume that we know zero about what you are talking about, and then lead us through it, point by point, from start to finish. This is how to improve your communications skills.

I guess it's unsafe to eat politicians, too.:faint:

Yep, the Dame is right. Check it out. My doc loves the machine and I don't like it at all. I prefer the treadmill; I guess it reminds me of life.:phanvan

What I hate are scratchy labels. I end up cutting all the labels out of my clothes as soon as I get them home. Even the so-called designer brands have cheap labels which irritate my skin. :huggie: I remember when I was a kid my mother's clothes had beautiful satin labels sewn into them. Why can't the manufacturers do that today?:lost1.5lbs: I am certain that they have the technology.:heh:

My favourite places for walking and browsing and shopping are along Queen Street West - I like to start at University Avenue and then walk west for quite a long distance - and the Bloor Street West area, including Yorkville and the Manulife Centre. There is some very good eating on Bloor past between Spadina and Bathurst and there is Book City which is one of my favourite discount bookstores. On that strip of Bloor Street you will find a number of Japanese restaurants, a good Thai restaurant near Bathurst (on the north side of Bloor) and a great Lebanese restaurant, Laila, on the south side of Bloor. If you walk further west the street gets a little less interesting but there are a lot of Korean restaurants and if you walk far enough west you come to my street which is just past Dufferin Avenue. There is also a store that sells stuff, including some pretty neat silver jewellery, from around the world. This store is also on the north side of the street. I forget the name but you can easily recognize it by all the neat stuff in the window. The rich part of Bloor Street is the part just west of Yonge. It is fun to walk around in order to window shop. And window shopping is what it is since none of those stores cater to anyone other than wealthy normos. Even the Winners on that strip doesn't have a plus size department. I did buy a great pair of boots and a fabulous bag there, though. There is, however, a Hudson's Bay on the north east corner of Bloor and Yonge. Queen Street West is interesting. When you walk past Bathurst Street the street becomes a weird mix of ugliness and furniture stores; some of these sell trendy modern furniture, some antiques, and some sell furniture from exotic places. My favourite store is Jalan - they sell exotic stuff - and over the years I have bought a lot of stuff from them. Down on Queen Street West you will also find a lot of clothing stores for young people, for Goths, etc. If, when you are walking along Queen Street, you turn south on Spadina and start walking towards the lake you will find a Winners' store. I am a real fan of these stores. They are great for recreational shopping. You never know what you will find on sale and the pickings seem to vary store by store. Getting to all these areas is actually really easy. The core of Toronto is a grid. A subway runs up Yonge and another runs along Bloor. All the other street names I have mentioned are subway stops: either streetcars or busses run from these stops. To make proper use of the system it is crucial that you get a transfer after paying your fare. In the subway stations there are transfer machines which are found on the other side of the entrance just after you pay your fare. On streetcars and busses you have to ask the driver. If you want to meet up with me or if you have any questions, let me know. Oh, and then there is Chinatown, another neat place.

Green is good.........

radioactive sheep? :paranoid OR sheep from outer space?

I like the bumper stickers. Thanks for posting them.

Why do you people worry about poor people scamming the system? Any poor person who does manage to get away with this stunt will never, ever cheat the system of anywhere as much as those corporate swindlers whom we all treat kindly.

I got banded this September at TLBC. I am planning to expense this on my income tax under medical.

Yep, whazzup?

The Moses Chimp! Hahaha Maybe the artist was making a clever comment on the evolution-creation debate! I would have loved to have seen that sculpture. Here is an interesting website: http://www.godisimaginary.com/video1.htm

I did the whole Last Supper thing for a week before I got banded. :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :welldone: