That is simply wrong. More diversity north of the border? You may try and argue that race relations are more harmonious, but Canada is not as diverse as the US. White make up 69% of the US population where whites make up 90% of the Canadian population. As far as the Anglos and the French: they are the same race and they don't get along. You do not see inner racial problems (problems between people of the same race) like this is America. True, we have a common language but in Swizerland four different language groups of caucasians seem to get along fine.

The reform party in Canada is an openly racist party, and it does rather well in national elections. Is there such a counterpart in the U.S?

We have many mayors, congressman etc. of racial minorities. Where else does that exist. Brazil is the only other large country that I can think of that is more diverse than the US. However, even though Mulattos and Black make up more the fifty percent of the population, it is hard to find any blacks in the upper income brackets, and they certainly don't get elected very much.

You've been more than patient. And I thought it was quite restrained of you not to throw the imbecilic "Let's Annex Mexico" idea of his back in his face when he brought up the Quebec/Rest of Canada rift.

You Canadians are too gosh darned nice!

Hmm. Reform party has not existed for a number of years. When it did exist, it was not "openly racist." That is just complete and utter bullshit.

And who says "Mulatto"?

We have conflicting facts here. Canada is not made up of 26% of non-white. Your study must be including italians and portugese etc.

The Study Area was urban. Includes South Asians, Chinese, etc.; and, yes, Toronto and Montreal are 26% non-white. And to correct my stats, the 26% is visible minorities, i.e., non-whites other than aboriginals; there is a higher number of minorities, which would include all hispanic, Italian, etc.

Dude, time to call it quits, before you bore/offend all the attractive female posters. Because if they go, you lose Clubbie, too.

I will let it go: two points. Here is an article that, although I disagree with some if its points, does point out the racial problems in Canada:

http://zena.secureforum.com/Znet/zma...ec94austin.htm

On the subject of the Reform Party, I belive the term racist is thrown around way to much. Having said that, part of the reform partys platform is reducing non-white and non-european immigrations. That smacks of racism in my book. The reform party has been replaced by the conservative party which is still a significant party in Canda:

http://www.lilithgallery.com/article...nspectrum.html

Boring? I think not. Look what happens if we let down our guard!!

Quebec Separating
 

I don't doubt that you are right, but what happens if Quebec has another one of those referendums and they vote to split off. Do those votes have any legal significance or are they just a show of popular will. Would a yes vote on a referendum actually do anything?

Except where the fucking Irish are concerned.

My Irish-French-Canadian Great Grandmother would have said, fucking Irish, yeh. After eleven with me he maws that American hussy and what, eight more? Yeh, he was a fuckin Irishman sure.

Great Grandpa was a legend.

schools
 

It seems like an excessively blunt tool to solve a more sophisticated problem. I have no idea whether 65% is the right number to pick, but if the problem is that school boards are inclined to spend money on their own administrative apparatus instead of teachers, then we need to find a better way to run school boards. The people who complain most about government waste are usually complaining about the federal government, but I have no problem believing that local government has a lot of waste going on.

eta:

It occurs to me that this sounds like sort of government regulation that you can't abide in other contexts. If the mechanisms for controlling school-board spending are broken, let's fix then, instead of dictating a certain result in this way.

schools
 

Not so sophisticated a problem in my mind; administrators always beget administrators. I personally would like to see teacher run schools, with almost no administration.

BUT, what does that 39% administration number include -- if it includes special ed, reading support services, continuing teacher education, and the various special areas like art, music and sports, or if it includes all building maintenance costs (a very big number), the cuts have a very different meaning.

For example, if the budget really breaks down 61% full time regular teaching staff, 8% special staff, 9% pure administration, and 22% building costs, then cutting 4% is going to be pretty tough since 22% of the costs are fixed. I may still want to take a big ax to admin to benefit teaching, but I probably can't cut 50% of the admin budget. Even if I fire all the principals and superintendents, I'm going to need to pay the teachers something to administer the place, because we aren't going to get them to do both admin and a totally full teaching load without compensation.

And how do we make sure the cut admin stuff stays in the school for teaching?

I don't get it.
 

So what was the alternative?

I don't get it.
 

Emma's War just arrived today from Amazon.com. It better be good, or I may have to go dinasaur hunting.

Reparations now, muthafucka!

http://www.celticdragonpubco.com/shop/nina2cd.jpg