green

Cusano: isn't the point of this thread your desire to alert us to anti-Semitism in France? And yet here you are, dragging your opportunistic evangelical tongue across the floor trying to hoover up or harrass a possible soul or two. Naughty boy! In fact Cusano's article is correct; anti-semitism is alive and flourishing in France. I saw signs of it when I was living there in the early 1980s and was horrified. At that time there was anti-Semitic graphiti and many of the French people whom I met were comfortable saying horrible things about the Jews. Indeed, the French were comfortably racist. Since then the situation has, I gather, degenerated. There was a long article in one of the Canadian newspapers some six months ago that dealt with the issue of the increase in immigration to Canada of French Jews. The article focussed on individuals who have chosen to move to French Canada because they no longer feel secure in France. There was also one particularly horrible story of a young French Jew who had been kidnapped, tortured and killed by a group of Muslim Africans on French soil that hit international news. On a purely anecdotal level, my French friends have mentioned to me that Jews are having a rough time in France. They know that I am interested in such news because my father's side of the family is Jewish and most of them did perish in the Holocaust. As for me, I was baptised and all that but I am another one of them atheists, eh. Yipes!

Christians often like to refer to God as a loving and omniscient father. But if an earthly parent sees that his or her child is in a burning house that parent will try everything in order to save that child. On the other hand, this loving God does not step in to prevent dreadful things from happening to decent people. Did he stop 9/11 or Hitler? And yet he is touted as a loving father. There is something terribly contradictory about the basis of Christian belief. And then of course the God of the Old Testament was dreadfully ethnocentric. He certainly favoured the Jews and was quite casual about either causing or authorizing the slaughter of their enemies, even their innocent children, babies, and babies still in their mothers' wombs. This last activity would indicate that it is okay for God to act as an abortionist; one might therefore argue that abortion is, like slavery, murder, and rape, not so bad afterall for all these activities are condoned in the Old Covenant. On the other hand, you better avoid bacon, shellfish, and sex during or immediately after your period. A woman is unclean at this time of the month. Of course many of you are going to say that this is all stuff that happened in the Old Testament and as such none of it really counts since it was, afterall, pre-Jesus. Well, sorry to give you the bad news but Jesus himself showed no signs of being the first Care Bear ever. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets." Matthew 5:17 NAB "...the scripture cannot be broken." John 10:35 He was a good and pious Jew, you know. It is ironic that a lot of Christians hate Jews.

Well, a few days ago winter finally hit Toronto, Canada. We finally had our first snow of the season, only a couple of inches, and below freezing weather as well. I am wearing winter gear now: a sheepskin coat and boots! I have to confess that I am kinda thrilled even though the weather is causing my torn rotator cuff to hurt more than usual. Animal biologists have been concerned about our extended fall. Animals that should have been hibernating have been up and about and using up their winter reserves of fat. And animals who switch to winter whites in order to blend into the landscape have been easy targets for predators. Their concerns extend to the local population of green frogs, a critter who dines on mosquitoes. These frogs should be in the water under the winter ice. They have been seen hanging out in the mud flats and there is concern that they will not make back to the water in time in the event of a quick freeze. Winter is here now but I have saved a bunch of money on heating costs.

I liked Kerry's wife. I thought that she would have made an interesting first lady. She would have brought some style and wit into the White House.

Then it should be okay for atheists to have the freedom to choose since they don't believe in the Bible or God, any God, anyway.

Bummer! Drink lots of water and cranberry juice. They say it helps.....

Yah, it really is!!!!!!!!

Dr. Joffe thought I might look nice if I weighed 150 lbs.

Magic box steal Green's spirit.:eek:

Oh, you guys.... Well, Green has been spending her time doing her homework and the website is www.RateM.Ds.com or something pretty damn close, close enough to google, eh. Let it be said that Green had spent some pleasant hours on this site. First of all she visited the American state where her brother is a doctor in order to see how he fared. Turns out he isn't even listed...yet. Then she visited her home province, Ontario, in order to scope out her doctors (and dentists), both historical and present. This was tons of fun. Turns out that her GP has a high - smiley face - rating. Green loves her doc and so she added in her praises. Green's shrink wasn't listed. She mentioned that to him this ayem during her appointment. The guy was kind of disappointed and asked her to put him in there but Green feels a little conflicted about the request; she is not, you see, that fond of him. She has, so far without success, been trying to remember the GP from hell whom she saw 12 years ago. She would like to enter her name in order to warn folks away from her. It's too bad that she had gotten into the habit of thinking of her as Fraulein Doktor Mengele. Now she will never, ever remember her real name. Green thinks that this site is a good idea. It does empower the consumer, that is to say us.

It is because their analysis was based on zip code type of information that I believe that their statistics concerning the breakdown of enlistment by state and by rural/urban areas are probably solid and have value for those of us who are engaged in this on-going and fascinating discussion. I was interested to note that Alaska had a proportionally very high rate of enlistees, as did Idaho. Both of these states sit outside of the south, the area as listed as providing more than its fair share of enlistees. Stats are kinda fascinating and the anomalies leave even a bimbo blondie like myself curious. (Green's disclaimer: My degree was in literature; I am dumb when it comes to numbers.) @Jodie: again, thanks for rooting out this article for us and do not get discouraged by the feedback. This is how we learn. This is how all of us learn. I know that I have learned a great deal from participating in these discussions. You are 19 and I am 57 but neither of us wants to turn into old fossils who are frozen in our beliefs and attitudes. Youe voice is an interesting one. Feel free to keep on speaking your mind, eh.

Maybe the simple truth was that we did more chemicals in skule. :heh: For what it's worth Green feels that it is incumbant on herself to admit to you that the only two Canadian national newspapers to which she subscribes are centre-right and far right. She reads 'em because she finds them to be the most literate, interesting and challenging. The Canadian newspaper which might be considered to adhere most closely to her personal political style is kinda knee jerk politically correct and awash in sentimentality. Unexamined thought, passion used in lieu of reason, and spin do not only belong to the forces of the right, you know.

Yah, Green is the Master of public transit!:confused:

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.