#21 Sonagi, I can’t agree with you more.

The court has now struck down this government regulation, stating that for such a drastic measure a formal statute, enacted by the legislature, was required (which is not likely to be forthcoming, due to popular resistance against the “francophonisation” of parts of Germany.

http://www.spiegel.de/schulspi.....65,00.html

(soory, the text is in German, but the map shows the area in question)

“The same Canada where every French Canadian sits at home living off public welfare?”

In spite of my occasional criticism of some specific aspects of francophone Canada I regard such a sweeping generalisation of the economic activities of francophone Canadians (or rather of the supposed lack of such activities) as an expression of extremely poor taste.

When I lived in Montréal, Québec for a year in the 1990s I found it to be an econmically quite vibrant place. And this was only partly due to the city’s anglophone minority…

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07.....ref=slogin

YAY!!!!!!!!!

Believe me, Canada’s return to prosperity was a very painful process. We had high umeployment rates, high inflation, a low dollar and soaring taxes. Now that the economy is on track, we are seeing real tax cuts

Paul, different nations decided to take different paths. America has taken the path of world policeman. This has been debated within your country for many years if this is a correct policy. In Canada, we traded a large military for social welfare. This was part of the democratic process of an independent nation.

Besides, having a small military acts positively to keep politicians from getting into ill-considered adventurism and unwinnable wars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_dollar

Looks like somebody in Canada (maybe a designated public relations employee at the Bank of Canada?) is keeping this wiki article current! There’s a sentence there about today’s (16 July 2007) exchange rate vs US dollar, highest in 30 years; this must be a big story up in Canada.

When I was a kid in the 60’s same thing would occur ref: getting change in Canadian coins. Probably happened (& happens) a lot more in the northern US states (such as your NY).

From 1950-76 Canadian dollar remained within 5 to 10 cents of par with the US dollar. Of course for part of that time it was fixed by the Canadian govt at a specificed exchange rate, now that I think about it I do remember this:

“…The Canadian dollar returned to a fixed exchange rate regime in 1962 when its value was set at about US$0.925, where it remained until 1970.”

Canada managed to do that while supporting a much larger defense establishment back in those days as well (here’s an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Bonaventure).

Now that prosperity for Canada is here again, maybe she’ll return to the days of maintaining a strong defense establishment as well. If not to support objectionable US defense and international policies, then perhaps at least to provide sorely needed robust military peacekeeping support of general world/UN approved objectives (such as: a genuine first-rate Western military presence in Darfur, maybe starting around Feb 2009).

Surely Canadians of conscience will want to do something more with their renewed prosperity (other than just flaunting it at sullen US neocons).

Until, one day, the upperclassman shaked his head, and told me,

“No, this is NOT a quarter.”

Huh? Was my reaction. This coin with the deer and an image of a queen isn’t a quarter? I got thru 1.5 years of school doing this. Then, they proceeded to explain to me that one was of the United States and the other of Canada, and one was worth less, apparently.

True story.

Cheap shot, irrelevant shot, yeah. Um, yup.

http://www.who-sucks.com/peopl.....n-protests

Then me, bored at work, posts it here. The circle is complete.

Canada was ranked number one country by the United Nations’ Human Development Index 10 times out of 16 between 1980 and 2004