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While our suggestions were similar, mine, of course, was far more practical.
But you were close. I will save the application.....
Anyway, Korea ~ Gulf War >>> battle of the Honda Accord at International Falls. It would, of course, be a lot simpler if the US and Canada just merged.
If you have any criminal record or unpaid taxes, I think it's much more difficult. Also, the application fee isn't cheap. Otherwise, I would have to say in my experience, it is actually pretty darn convenient.
I assume that you had a green card prior to that. I guess that is probably the hardest part of the process....getting the right to be here legally at all. If there's a reason they don't want you to be a citizen, it's probably a reason they don't want you here regardless. That's probably true for everyone.
Or if we at least had some kind of EU like working agreement.
"working"?
I did and you're probably quite right.
What, you don't like bureaucracy? Who doesn't like bureaucracy?
Yeah, this sounds about right to me. I don't know that I'd be in favour of an EU style government (actually, I know I wouldn't) but some sort of agreement about border security for persons entering Canada or the United States would make sense if that would make it possible to for citizens of either country to then cross with less hassle. That said, I have a hard time seeing how it's possible, given the American phobia about pot and our concern about guns. We're not going to end up with a system where you can just drive across without at least having someone eyeball you. There's going to have to be border guards. They're going to look into vehicles. Seems to me that the thing to do would be for them to dial back the hostility when they're dealing with people who don't seem to present some sort of obvious risk.
To be fair, I'm not just laying into the Americans on the last point. Bill Ayers wanted to come to Canada to give a talk a while ago. I wouldn't have had a problem with it but the government wouldn't admit him.
I don't mean a government, but if any two countries should have fewer barriers between them, it's the US and Canada.
I guess I could start to love bureaucracy if I was a strip club operator in Brussels. Maybe it's time for a career change?
Belgian beer and boobs? You have to think about this?
So you want the U.S. to join Canada?
Usually I could believe that, but now the U.S. leader is the less objectionable for a change...
When Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of America, where do you think they go, after Alaska that is? That's right Canada! And after Canada where do you think they go next? That's right - the real part of America! It is just right over the border.
Strip clubs are perfectly legal in Sweden but there's just two or three in the entire country. It's a tough business for prudes like us.
If the borders had been as tightly guarded before 9/11, the scourge of Alanis Morisette might never had happened!
The Canadian Government has apologized on many occasions for Alansis Morisette.
They'll never get past Alaska, since Palin is watching out her window.
But she sold the state's air force on ebay!
You have Swedish women walking down the street, who needs strip clubs.
Well guys, it's been fun.
Ed McMahon before that, is it now Swayzes turn?
I'll remember that next time I'm shuffling through the lines in sock feet. Oh, wait. No I won't.
As for citizenship, I'm with Butcher Bill. If your people didn't kill Injuns and take their sh*t you're just a second rate poser.
Ingratiating Frenchman to Palmerston: 'If I were not a Frenchman, I would want to be English.'
Palmerston to Ingratiating Frenchman: 'If I were not an Englishman, I would want to be English.'
What about reparations?
THEY TOOK ARRR JOBS!!!!
I'm more against Celine than Alanis(heck I've liked songs by her)
and now that Corner Gas has concluded there is nothing for Canada to export, so close up the borders.
Oh, c'mon. The New P!!
Neko's American. Carl and Dan are not. It's like, cross-breeding or something.
Well, I'm not an insane radical liberal; I'm just someone who understands that the specific contents of that oath are rather less important than the act of taking citizenship itself. It could contain words to the effect that you'll never pass by an upside-down sheep without getting out of your car and flipping it over, and people would still take it. It's symbolic of a set of attitudes and loyalties, and its specific contents aren't hugely important. My essential point was that, if the oath seems to preclude the pragmatic step that many people take of maintaining dual citizenship, then one should either understand that the oath is merely symbolic, or change the damn thing so it's not so-out dated.
As to being someone with no "honor", my essential feeling on that matter is that if you can't conceive of a person whose every intention is not to lie, cheat, steal, and plunder without the act of swearing an oath, you have an odd idea of humanity. I, personally, don't have to wake up every morning and swear to a higher power that I'm going to do right by the people I meet, and the act of doing so would make me no more or less likely to behave well. Swearing oaths, to me, conjures up a whole lot of business that is essentially about magical thinking. I don't need to swear an oath to a God I don't believe in or on the graves of my ancestors or whatever to prevent me from, say, committing perjury, or running out on the woman I choose to marry at the first sign of trouble. I would be just as good signing a contract, or being bound by law without any of the mumbo-jumbo, because my committment to law, order, and ethics comes from something internal, not external.
But, by all means, go ahead and try to impugn my character. Get your dander up. That's not a problem for me, either.
I think it would be funny if you wound up in prison due to a cop perjuring himself.
But, by all means, go ahead and try to impugn my character. Get your dander up. That's not a problem for me, either.
it seems you are focusing too much on the god aspect of the oath (I'm an atheist and don't care about the god aspect of anything--but still get ticked off at pretentious atheist that think their vastly minority opinion should be honored above all else including the massive majority of the community they live in) I'm naive when it comes to people, I believe that as a general rule people are good at heart (if a person was given a choice to 1. save a drowning person. 2. pick up a huge pile of cash. 3. kill a kid, I'm fairly certain that most take the first option) I don't think people intentionally plan on lying, but an oath means you plan on trying even harder to stand within the guidelines you oath yourself too. (mind you I go intent over words, I'm anti-lawyer and think that focusing on the text of something instead of it's intent is somewhat wrong)
I'm guessing you are saying oaths are an old fashioned way of making a promise and that your moral code is more likely to focuse on a contract than intent. I'm sorry I just don't give a rats ass about a contract I sign, if there are loop holes to work around it, which almost all contracts have, then I don't think they are worth the paper they are printed on. There is a legal standing, but I'm personally a lot more bound by an oath, than I am a contract regardless of which one I'm more legally bound by.
Whether or not it would be "funny" if I get sent to prison because a cop perjured himself, I think that the fact that that has been at various times a common practice speaks to precisely what I'm saying here. Swearing on a stack of Bibles to tell the truth isn't going to change someone's nature.
As was noted earlier, this particular oath might carry more weight if it wasn't official U.S. government policy that such oaths are meaningless. If the entity applying the oath doesn't believe in it, why should the people taking it?
If they'd only listen to David Cross, then that's no longer an issue. (Note: do not listen to David Cross.)
Right on! As long as the cop was doing what he thought was the right thing, who cares about some stupid oath?
Do you propose that the oath in fact changes in a significant way people's behavior? The specifics of it, I mean? Or are you just being willfully dense?
Well, then, you can understand why MHS identifies with them.
I've had one terrible experience with Homeland Security, though, involving plane tickets (LA to the Bahamas) purchased for a girl who was born in Syria. I came close to committing murder that day, based on things said to me in that interrogation room.
Unless I had a particular reason to kill the child (e.g., I knew for certain that he was going to grow up to be the next Hitler), then I'd pass on option 3. But I'd have to weigh options #1 and #2. Basically, it depends on:
-who is drowning?
-how much cash?
If it were someone that I truly cared about, then no amount of cash would induce me to sacrifice his/her life. But a total stranger or someone that I disliked? There's probably an amount of cash that I (and I expect most people) would take rather than save their lives.
Is that cold and immoral? Probably, but it's an accurate summation of human nature. For instance, the world has the resources to end starvation, malaria, etc., but we choose to let millions of people suffer and die each year so that we can enjoy our higher standard of living.
No, we don't, at least not without invading and occupying a lot of countries whose people are starving and/or dying of malaria.
And here I think you are wrong. If you are wondering down a street and kid is drowning in a pool and there is a duffle bag full of cash close by the pool, I think most people are going for the kid.
Palmerston to Ingratiating Frenchman: 'If I were not an Englishman, I would want to be English.'
PITT THE ELDER!
I've often wandered down a street. I've even wondered as I wandered (out under the night sky...), but I don't believe that I've ever just wondered down a street. But that's just me.
Anyway, it's interesting that you'd claim that I was wrong in saying that who the person was would be a factor, and then make it a point specify that the person drowning was a kid. If the identity of the person was truly irrelevant, then why would (subconsciously or otherwise) feel the need to introduce a characteristic intended to make the victim seem more sympathetic than just a generic human being?
So implicit in your example lies the premise that a life of a child is worth more than that of an adult. Irrespective of the merits of that argument, you've effectively conceded that a human life has can be assigned an ordinal value. And if ordinal values can be assigned, then cardinal valuation is also possible (i.e., there is an assignable dollar value to each human life). Perhaps you might believe that it's a some insanely huge number, although I'm sure that a review of your checkbook would reveal otherwise...
A French, or Turk, or Prussian,
Or perhaps Italian!
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman!
He remains an Englishman!
I am with Voxter on the oath taking. If it is the right thing to do you should do it - regardless of whether or not you have sworn an oath.
Right on! As long as the cop was doing what he thought was the right thing, who cares about some stupid oath?
The cop should tell the truth, because that is the right thing to do.
(if a person was given a choice to 1. save a drowning person. 2. pick up a huge pile of cash. 3. kill a kid, I'm fairly certain that most take the first option)
What if you are a terrible swimmer and it was a very large person drowning? Or you couldn't swim at all? Can there be no thought for yourself? Does it make you a bad person if you do pass on multiple children drowning even if you know you can't swim and will probably kick the bucket if you do make an attempt to rescue them (there was a football player that did that - forget the name)?
Wrong tense. Is.
It's pretty darn close in to killing someone for money.
Lets say you and a friend are having a conversation, and mention you will do something, it doesn't matter what. Before you can accomplish that thing the circumstances change substantially, and doing that thing is no more difficult and costly, but the thing is fundamentally different. You would probably call you friend explain it and see if he would let you out of it, or if he wouldn't and was being particularly unreasonable you might shrug you shoulders and decline or whathave you.
When you make an oath or really give your word it doesn't matter if the situation is different you have committed to do it, you are obligated to see it through if you aren't released from that committment.
Oath's have a special place and meaning in our culture it goes behyond doing what is the "right thing". In fact it can mean the opposite, doing the wrong thing, if you have committed to doing it. Obviously, each individual has limits of varying degree, and conflicts but I disagree with the fundamental idea of what you two are saying.
If a close friend asked me to cover for him. With his boss or his wife or his parents when was a kid and I promised to do it, and it meant lying. Depending on the magnatude of the lie I would do it, even though it is certainly not the "right" thing to do in a isolated scense. But keeping your word is the right thing.
That may not have made any scense.
You should take a listen to K'naan first.
(And Corner Gas was terrible.)
Joe Delaney of the KC Chiefs
Say you were 'covering' for you close friend and he goes to Vegas, loses a ton of money, blows off work (which screws his company badly), cheats on his wife, hits someone while drunk driving and leaves the scene. Are you telling me since you took his oath you are covering for him no matter what? OK, say you do cover - is that really the 'honorable' thing to do?
Sometimes the honorable thing to do does involve breaking an oath.
It's unlikely I would personally lie to the police, in this situation.
Damn you for doing this to me. I have to defend the rudeness of the TSA now?
Imagine that the focus of your job is to prepare for something that is incredibly unlikely and potentially nightmarish. You must inconvenience people when you and they know that the overwhelming majority of the time it will be for nothing. Nearly everyone you deal with resents the process and resents you. Yet if you overlook something tiny, hundreds of people could die, and of course, you will carry a very public shame as "the TSA guy who let the obvious terrorist blow up the airplane." And if you don't overlook something tiny, you're "the TSA guy who made the mother drink her own breast milk."
That's a horrible responsibility, and a job that requires you to put aside certain aspects of your personality that are part of being nice. You're simply not permitted to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, because the one time you let down your guard could be catastrophic. You can't make jokes or laugh at anyone else's jokes. You can't give the appearance of treating one person better than another, lest you be accused of profiling.
I would rather dig ditches or clean out cesspools than work for the TSA, so I feel obligated to cut them a little slack.
You suck it up and play the odds. You do not throw the concept of civility and civil liberty out the window just because 1/6.5 billionth of the people on the planet tried to blow up his shoes. You accept that the cost of living in a free society is the insecurity that freedom by necessity brings to the party.
Yeah, but they're trying to make up for it by pumping out Sloan material non-stop.
Now seems an appropriate time to remind the class of the first law of all Usenet and/or Usenet derived debates: when Sam and Kneepants agree, that upon which they agree is by definition the case.
I'm very worried about the matter - antimatter effect.
(Little known fact: most oaths in the U.S. -- not including ones on TV or in the movies -- don't use any book at all. You just raise your right hand and recite.)
Well, first of all, the TSA and Customs and Border Protection are different and I think most people were complaining about the rudeness of the Border Protection types (driving across the border from Canada, for example), but in the case of the TSA I would be able to take this kind of rationale a lot more seriously if they were actually as good at doing their jobs as you make it sound. However, there are so many examples of people making it through security with things they aren't supposed to have that it really does cast doubt on the idea that they are being so rude because they are preoccupied with checking every possible security threat with hawk-like vigilance (see the articles by Jeffrey Goldberg in Atlantic Monthly). True anecdote: My wife and I were in Newark airport, going through security. She was pulled aside for "extra screening." Not only did they fail to notice that she had a large bottle of moisturizing lotion in her purse (she had forgotten it was in there, not intentionally tried to sneak it through, then noticed it after we were through security), but they also gave her passport to another passenger who was being screened, and gave her the other person's passport. About 15 minutes later, as we were waiting for our flight, she noticed she had the wrong passport. So she went back to the security checkpoint and told the TSA what had happened and asked them to help her get her passport back. One TSA guy very grudgingly agreed to help her look for the woman who had her passport. And: they couldn't find her. After about half an hour, with my wife becoming increasingly panicked, they finally found the other passenger sitting in the terminal. Here is the TSA that is going to protect us from terrorists: they cannot locate a person in the airport when they have that person's passport and know which terminal they are in. So, what was the point of all this extra security again? Oh yeah, and if you ever want to sneak some liquids through security, try to get pulled aside for extra screening where they will paw through your bag but fail to notice the gigantic bottle of liquid that you have in there.
I suppose it depends on how much value one puts on keeping one's word. When I make a promise, I do so with the intention of keeping it, even if it later become inconvenient to me. If I'm concerned that I won't be able to live up to my promise, or fear the repercussions of doing so, I won't make it.
This is exactly correct, and Voxter's inability to comprehend it says more about him than I could.
We all know 3 oz liquids should be in a clear plastic bag. I was wondering why a few months ago:
"Sir (to a TSA agent) why do I need the bag?"
"Because it limits the amount of 3 oz bottles."
"So, if I only have one bottle, do I need the bag?"
"Yes."
"But why? It obviously fits."
"Well, you just do."
Great. Bag manufacturers somewhere are rejoicing.
I was going through screening and saw a guy get pulled aside for further screening. He was ushered into a u-shaped glass walled 'pen' with the walls about 6 feet high. Typical questions - is this your stuff, can we go through them, take off your shoes, etc. The guy takes his shoes off, and empties his pockets, then proceeds to pass said contents of his pockets to his wife by reaching over the glass barrier. The TSA officials were pretty pissed, it was funny. "Why do you think you were separated?" "Why do you think we brought you in here?" "What are you doing?"
The TSA officials may be mindless drones, but they do have to deal with absolute ####### morons.
Also - if I am ever at the airport and don't really care about making my flight, I would love to pour my water from a large bottle into 3 oz bottles on one side of the checkpoint, then pour the water back into the larger water bottle after I passed through. Be fun to see the TSA reaction.
How much do you care about getting the crap beat out of you and arrested?
The fact that TSA would think they had the right to do as much is exactly what's wrong with TSA. I am not more secure because recent high school grads look at my underwear.
That's sort of what has always kept me from doing it.
Are you sure about that? How many terrorist attacks involving aircraft have there been on US soil since high school grads started looking at your underwear?
("Lisa, I'd like to buy your rock.")
If you don't like the order, I'm sure they'd be just as happy to arrest you, and then beat the crap out of you.
Or that 6 oz, or 12 oz (or 18 oz, etc, if you can find x people to help you carry stuff through) of pretty much any binary high explosive isn't enough to impact the flight worthiness of a designed-in-the-1950's airliner. Heck, with the way modern airport concourses are set up, you could have 50 people on 10 different flights each carry 3 oz of some nasty stuff through, then put it all in one super-sized carry-on bag that gets gate-checked to save $25, and ignited with a cell phone by someone not even on the plane. What would that cost, $20k?
I agree completely, but we're blaming the wrong people. The problem is one of policy and not of implementation. More precisely, the policy is impossible to implement reasonably.
That is not a decision that can be made at the "worker" level. An individual agent doesn't have the authority to decide that this particular rule should or should not apply in this particular case. They are hired to perform a job and enforce certain rules, not to determine that some of these rules are arbitrary or violate civil liberties or unnecessary.
Oh, and the process takes a really long time already, and there's certainly strong pressure to not only be precise, but to be quick. Tell someone that the rules are inviolate, and that they have to push people through the line as quickly as possible, and there's not a lot of time to couch individual discussions in language that avoids confrontation.
And of course, like in all fields, there's going to be an occasional person who is a miserable prick. That's not everyone else's fault in the industry.
And if your employer requires you to be a jackass, well, nothing requires you to stick with that employer.
Has there been an airline hijacking anywhere in the world since 9/11? I don't think there has, but not certain.
I think it's unlikely that a U.S. commercial flight will ever be hijacked again, because anyone foolish enough to try to break into the cockpit would most likely be beaten to death by the passengers before they could get in.
isn't that similar to the old joke, about the guy that does something weird to keep the Lions out of Chicago and is told there are no Lions in Chicago and his reply is "see it works".
how many terrorist attacks involving aircraft have there been on US soil before 9-11?
There was this one, from a couple months ago. Rather than being a part of any organized activity, however, it was just one lone disturbed individual.
If there were some universally present and agreed upon set of rules that constituted common sense, then perhaps that would be fair to expect, but that's not happening anytime soon. What you or I might think of as "common sense" is "stuff that is obvious to us that someone else does differently in a way we consider foolish."
A passenger is told to check a keychain with a small charm on it that is in the shape of a gun in a holster, because of the ban on "Realistic Replicas of Firearms". That's ludicrous, right? A clear example of someone just ignoring common sense. I mean, a 2-inch gun-shaped object? What could that do to someone?
A hell of a lot more than I thought before I read about it.
Not just security theater anymore. It turns out that what looked like a clear violation of common sense is a little more complicated when properly educated.
And if your employer requires you to be a jackass, well, nothing requires you to stick with that employer.
Are there really so many opportunities for the average person (especially in this economy) that he can afford the luxury of turning down work?
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