shedevil said:
> SO, WHAT DO CANADIANS HAVE TO BE PROUD OF?
> 25. And we don't bomb our allies.
> Pass this on if you are proud to be Canadian!!!
> I AM CANADIAN!!!
"Canadian warships to sail to Louisiana"
Actually, to take issue w/ #25, one well placed shot at a certain hi-level plane that keeps going back to the Gulf & screwing up what little passes for "relief" might help the US out quite a bit on a lot of fronts.... Maybe when he's ferrying a bunch of other right wing draft dodgers around to a Texas Rangers game or something during his next 8 week vacation from "work".
Not that I would ever advocate violence of any sort, just pondering the effects of retroactive abortion on deformed fetuses.
but seriously folks, the major rankings of "best cities in the world to live" consistently rank Vancouver (usually ranked #2), Toronto, and Montreal in the top ten year after year -- that's in the WORLD. And Calgary usuallys breaks the top 20.
No US city ever gets into the top 20 on these lists -- few services, and too many idiotic right wing religious nuts with guns who can't seem to save their own citizens when a crisis hits, or they don't really care to.
http://www.citymayors.com/features/quality_survey.html
http://store.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=pr_story&press_id=540000654
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/03/1046540131333.html
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/04/world.cities/
http://www.asiatraveltips.com/travelnews2002/910Melbourne.shtml
http://www.ired.com/news/mkt/can-topcities.htm
http://www.finfacts.com/qualityoflife.htm
"WASHINGTON -- The United States is "the most violent and self-destructive nation on earth," a congressional report said Tuesday.
..."In 1990, the United States led the world with its murder, rape and robbery rates," the report said. "When viewed from the national perspective, these crime rates are sobering. When viewed from the international perspective, they are truly embarrassing."
The report noted that the murder rate in the United States was more than twice that of Northern Ireland, which is torn by civil war; four times that of Italy; nine times England's and 11 times Japan's. Violence against women in America was even more pervasive, the committee said. The rape rate in the United States was eight times higher than in France, 15 times higher than in England, 23 times higher than in Italy and 26 times higher than in Japan...
...based on raw FBI data and preliminary statistics for last year, based its comparisons on Justice Department statistics for industrialized nations. Crime reporting standards vary in those countries, and crime rates for less-developed Third World nations generally are either unavailable or unreliable. But the report made clear that violence in the United States has no equal among the world's developed nations. Nor did 1990 have a modern equal for violence in America "
By Tim Weiner, San Jose Mercury News
"Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages."
"They can't see why they are hated"
article in The Guardian. Seumas Milne.
Thursday September 13, 2001
Foreign Aid: USA is stingiest of the 22 most developed countries6
The USA claims to be, in absolute terms, the world's biggest giver and this is true. However, as a proportion of it's wealth the USA gives least when compared to all 22 of the worlds' most developed countries.
International discord and contempt of the UN (click for full page on this)
"The USA has broken the UN Security Council, leading to it's decreased importance and effectiveness, largely over Israel that the USA supports under any circumstances, vetoing even the smallest and most reasonable measures against Israel's illegal occupations. The reasons for the USA's behaviour is beyond me, some say it is religiously motivated, commercially motivated or simply due to habit. The USA abuses the UN more than any other country, constantly trying to bribe and buy influence, yet is notorious for owing most to the UN, despite the USA's heavy use of it, and wealth. This intolerable attitude towards world consensus causes hatred of the USA at the highest levels in all countries in the world, except Israel, which is perhaps the USA's sole benefactor.
