green

Yes, I, too, have found this individual's posts to be mean-spirited and angry. They stand in sharp contrast to those of Gadget's who, although she shares the same politics, lack that bitterness and that meaness. Gadget remains respectful of other people.

I don't like Erica Jong's writing.

I thought that this article by Christopher Hitchens was right on the money. Thanks for posting it.

The Republicon strategy does seem to be composed of negative attacks, many of them personal, and not a positive promulgation of their own platform. Actually, many of the TV adverts that I have been seeing - both Demo and Repo - are attack ads and largely negative. It is unsurprising that there is such bitterness amongst the citizens of your country. This is a sad state of affairs, I think.

A great big tumor made up of small cell cancer on my right vocal cord. Small cell cancer can quickly travel to other sites in the body and is considered very dangerous for this reason. Luckily, it does respond well to treatment; there are some cancers which don't. I was really lucky in that although my tumor was really large, the cancer hadn't spread. By the time they figured out what was wrong with me I could hardly breathe and I was talking with a little squeaky voice. They took one look at it in the day clinic at the hospital, booked me a hospital room, and gave me an emergency tracheotomy. For 7 months I had a plastic tube sticking out of my neck. This was humiliating and it gave me constant pain. I was on liquid morphine for the entire time. It also got infected twice.

Once again, you are talking from a position of ignorance and spitefulness. This unpleasant tone and unwillingness to see other viewpoints seem to be characteristic of you. It is obvious that you have never travelled and that you don't read much. The reason Canadians are peaceful is because this country enjoys a high degree of affluence. People who are healthy, well-educated, and who enjoy a high standard of living don't have much to complain about or to rebel over. We are too busy enjoying our lives. Our country is not torn apart by an election (we had one recently and elected a Conservative government), we do not have the kind of poverty that we have seen in New Orleans, etc, we have a surplus, not a debt, and, though the media is much more to the left, I subscribe to a very right wing national newspaper. This is just how we Canadians like it. Our weather does suck, however....

Yes, the cancer treatments are almost as bad as the disease and they certainly can make one feel much sicker. At the point when I was told that I was "tumor-free" I was feeling so sick that I did not, I could not react even though my nearest and dearest were jubilant. Even though the tumor was gone I felt nearer to death at that point than I had when I was first diagnosed; and this was when my situation had been dire for at that point I had been found to have a fast moving (small cell) cancer and my tumor was stage 3 (stage 4 is endgame). I now have hair - although it is very short - and no longer suffer from nausea. Although I am gaining weight I still have problems with my post-nuclear throat and mouth. And my hearing is impaired in one ear. I was warned about all of these side effects when I began treatments. Cancer is no walk in the park.... Please do give your friend my regards.

Nope, you wouldn't be happy up here. The joint is crawling with lefties and the climate is lousy. It is peaceful, though.

People can be weird. After I lost a lot of weight due to the band I had a couple come running up to me screaming repeatedly, "let's see the half-a-woman!" I also had people in my neighbourhood ascribe my weight loss to unacknowledged illness. They wouldn't speak to me directly about this but they would ask my husband or my tenant. What made this worse was that I did end up getting cancer. (Then I lost even more weight. Cancer is very slimming, eh.)

If I were an American citizen I would vote for Obama, too. My brother is and he will be voting for him. As you have so correctly pointed out, abortion is just one of a myriad of issues which currently beset your country. The team, McCain and Palin, which the Republicons have on offer seem to be of no more than average ability and yet they seem emotional, arrogant and set in their ways. Obama, on the other hand, seems to be extremely intelligent, cerebral rather than emotional, and smart enough to know when he does not know something; this is a man who will know when to consult experts, something which is important in any leader but particularly so when this individual will be in charge of a country which is a global super-power.

People who screw up once are quite different from chronic offenders.

Thanks, Jack.

We are very different. Although I really love living in my large multi-cultural city, I have been in many parts of the world where I felt that I could live very happily. Indeed, I did live happily in the south of France for a few years.

Send us Barack Obama instead, please. He is very, very popular up here in affluent "Soviet Canuckistan." In fact, as the polls show, we Canucks prefer him to our local political offerings, and Obama, a Chicagoan, will find our dreadful climate to be similar to what he is now accustomed to. Yes, we have universal health care (which means that my cancer treatment didn't cost me one thin dime), legalised abortion, and same sex marriages. We also have wealthy Canadians and a generally high standard of living.

Thank you. Gadget, I imagine your friend is likely feeling pretty lousy at the moment. Please do tell her from me that this, too, will pass and she will begin to feel better once the effects of the radiation and the chemo fade. In the meantime, rest is the thing. And plenty of liquids; I was tossed into hospital because of severe dehydration.

Aha! So that's your secret! lol

You are right and I am wrong. It is not technically speaking a sound bite but it is presented in an inflamnatory fashion thanks to the voice-over.

You are right and I am wrong. It is not technically speaking a sound bite but it is presented in an inflamnatory fashion thanks to the voice-over.

Thanks for thinking of me, L8. Well, I am finally recovering from the cancer. I had radiation and I had chemotherapy and this seems to have killed the tumor though the side effects of both almost killed me. I went down to 108 lbs and at one point had to be hospitalised for a week. Now I weigh 122 lbs and I am finding that I am getting much of my old strength back. Scans show that the tumor is gone and my hair is beginning to grow back. It is very short but actually looks kinda cute. Turns out my skull doesn't have 4 corners after all.... I always thought that it did. Being skinny is sort of the silver lining in all of this. I can wear belts now. LOL But undressed I look 80 years old or like a sharpei thanks to all the spare skin; I definitely need a full body lift, eh.

This is merely a sound bite and is, moreover, presented in a biased and inflamnatory fashion thanks to the voice-over. I find this kind of media coverage to be sub-intellectual and offensive. Thanks, Carrie C, for posting the complete text of Obama's remarks.

This is a lovely story, one with a very happy outcome. I must admit that it would not have worked in my case, however, as I have something bordering on a phobia with respect to the mechanics of pregnancy and childbirth. This was why I was very careful with using birth control. Unfortunately, this failed when I was 31 and I did find myself pregnant. I was lucky that I was living in a country, France, where arranging for an abortion was quick and easy and legal. I was 7 or 8 weeks along when I had my abortion. Carrying this unwanted and in fact feared pregnancy to term would have taken 9 long months and have caused permanent and unwanted changes in my body. I would be experiencing some of those changes today as a post-menopausal woman. And giving the infant up would have been out of the question for me, too; at that time I was living with a mate who wanted children. I would have been truly trapped by motherhood. Freedom of choice to me means that women have the right to carry their pregnancies to term just as the young woman in Gadget and L8's story will be doing or to do as I have done - have a safe and legal abortion.

It is legal and regulated in the Netherlands. There is a red light district in Amsterdam and the prostitutes are required to have frequent medical check-ups. Of course they pay taxes which means that the state is the official pimp in this country. I am all for the legalisation of prostitution. Human nature being human nature, it will never disappear. Better to protect the sex workers from violent customers, coercive pimps, and to have 'em pay their taxes just like the rest of us do.

I agree with Bjean's assessment of the situation.

Actually, SnT, you have hit the nail on the head. Globally speaking, economies invest in other economies. This is an activity which transcends national borders. And in the case of the formerly high-flying but now bankrupt Iceland, about a decade or so this country deregulated their banking industry and its banks began practising some of the more creative investment techniques, the ones, you know, which have landed Wall Street in this meltdown. Canadian banks - which are heavily regulated and as a result are pretty solid - have lost money because they have investments in the United States. This is what the world's economies do: they invest in each other. This is why Canadians, Europeans, Australians, etc are anxious to see that the United States remains healthy. An interesting and informative magazine on global affairs to read is The Economist.

If she doesn't like fruit flies then she is no fan of Gregor Mendel, I guess.