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Originally posted by Ace of Spades:
There not A$$holes about smoking pot either....you won't see minorities getting locked up for possesion of a tiny green plant!!!

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Posts: 558 | From: Munchkin Man | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by turbokid:
thought this was interesting. i jokingly said i would move there if they institued the draft and my wife said "damn right, we'll go live in the woods in a tent if we have to"

Blame Canada!

It may seem like a quiet country where not much happens besides ice hockey, curling and beer drinking. But our neighbor to the north is proving to be quite the draw for thousands of disgruntled Americans.

The number of U.S. citizens who moved to Canada last year hit a 30-year high, with a 20 percent increase over the previous year and almost double the number who moved in 2000.

In 2006, 10,942 Americans went to Canada, compared with 9,262 in 2005 and 5,828 in 2000, according to a survey by the Association for Canadian Studies.

Of course, those numbers are still outweighed by the number of Canadians going the other way. Yet, that imbalance is shrinking. Last year, 23,913 Canadians moved to the United States, a significant decrease from 29,930 in 2005.

"There has been a definite increase in the past five years — the number hasn't exceeded 10,000 since 1977," says Jack Jedwab, the association's executive director. "During the mid-70s, Canada admitted between 22,000 and 26,000 Americans a year, most of whom were draft dodgers from the Vietnam War."

The current increase appears to be fueled largely by social and political reasons, says Jedwab, based on anecdotal evidence.

"Those who are coming have the highest level of education — these aren't people who can't get a job in the states," he says. "They're coming because many of them don't like the politics, the Iraq War and the security situation in the U.S. By comparison, Canada is a tension-free place. People feel safer."

One recent immigrant is Tom Kertes, a 34-year-old labor organizer who moved from Seattle to Toronto in April.

Kertes attributes his motivation to President Bush's opposition to gay marriage, and the tactics employed during the war on terror since 9/11.

"I wanted a country that respected my human rights and the rights of others," he says. "We joked about it after Bush won re-election, but it took us a while to go through the application."

Kertes, who moved with his partner, is happy in his new home. "Canada is a really nice country. My mother is thinking about it. My stepfather has diabetes and has health issues. So, he'd be taken care of for free if he moved up here."

Not that Kertes doesn't get homesick every once in a while. "I have no intention of giving up my citizenship. I have an American flag at home on the wall — I didn't have that in Seattle. All of a sudden, I'm a nationalist. On the Fourth of July, I really missed being home."

Jo Davenport, who wrote "The Canadian Way," moved from Atlanta to Nova Scotia in December 2001. She also cites political reasons for her move, saying that she disagreed with the Bush administration's decisions after 9/11.

"Things are totally different here because they care about their people here," she says, explaining that she's only been back home once or twice.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3433005&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

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Posts: 722 | From: Richmond, Va , USA | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Munchkin Man:

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Originally posted by Ace of Spades:
There not A$$holes about smoking pot either....you won't see minorities getting locked up for possesion of a tiny green plant!!!

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The criminalization of marijuana is not about minorities.

It's about preserving traditional American values.

It's about patriotism.

Marijuana has the effect of turning people into fuzzy headed liberals.

Marijuana has the effect of turning people into wimps.

A major reason why the American soldiers couldn't win the war in Vietnam was because of all the pot smoking that was going on down there.

Pot smoking and fighting don't mix.

Neither does pot smoking and patriotism.

The Munchkin Man witnessed this firsthand back when the Munchkin Man was a freshman in college in 1969.

The Munchkin Man's roommate was a fine upstanding patriotic Richard Nixon loving ROTC student.

Then he started to hang out with the wrong crowd.

He started to hang out with the hippies.

The hippies filled his head all full of hippie ideas.

They told him that Richard Nixon and everything he stood for was bad.

Then they got him to try marijuana.

Pretty soon he dropped out of ROTC and became a hippie too.

He's been smoking marijuana ever since.

Now he's a hippie long haired pot smoking sociology professor in some university in Texas.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Best Wishes,

Munchkin Man

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Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by glassman:
MMsays:
The criminalization of marijuana is not about minorities.

It's about preserving traditional American values.

It's about patriotism.

glassy-eyed bozo says:
sorry MM, it is most definitely about racism.
if you read your history carefully? you will discover that.

in fact? America's first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law "ordering" all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other "must grow" laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp -- try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements - rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth. Oddly enough? The first state law outlawing marijuana did so not because of Mexicans using the drug. Oddly enough, it was because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church was not pleased and ruled against use of the drug. Since the state of Utah automatically enshrined church doctrine into law, the first state marijuana prohibition was established in 1915.

sadly? Hemp is one of the most useful plants on the planet.... it is a very good oil producer...

don't be surprised to begin to hear calls from FARMERS for legaliztion in the next few years as they begin to realise that they could make two to three time the profit they do from corn growing hemp...

i've seen acres of it growing wild on farmers crops already... right by the hiways in the midwest

these wild plants are already Roundup resistant....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup

and close inspection :eek: shows that the bugs had little or no interest in them...

when you start adding up all the costs farmers have from weed control and pesticide right now? hemp looks like a good deal for them...

so far? they aren't saying it too loud, but they are already saying amongst themselves...


PS:
The largest single user of Roundup reportedly is the U.S. Government, which sprays huge quantities of the herbicide over the northern countries of South America in an effort to discourage cultivation of the coca plant. (See article Plan Colombia).

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Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Ramius:

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Posts: 7800 | From: Virginia | Registered: May 2006  |  IP: Logged |