Finally! Canadians talk about their health care

After listening to months of right-wing idiotic exaggerations and outright lies about their health care system, Canadians answer back!




Here's a glimpse of Canada, 'The Evil Empire', as their school children see it: Cut and paste the URL below into your address bar.

https://thefourcornersclassroom.wikispaces.com/Group+27+-+Pre-Project

Ermey Says He�ll 'Square Away' Birthers

August 21, 2009
Military.com|by Bryant Jordan

Troops challenging the legitimacy of President Barack Obama as commander-in-chief -- including at least one who is fighting deployment -- should take heed: Gunnery Sgt. Hartman wants to know your "major malfunction."

R. Lee Ermey, the Marine-turned-actor whose role as drill instructor Gunny Hartman in the late Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" has all but placed the Vietnam veteran in the pantheon of Marine heroes alongside "Chesty" Puller, Smedley Butler and Dan Daly, isn't buying anyone's political objector status.

"I haven't heard about those guys," Ermey told Military.com during an Aug. 21 interview. "If I do run across them though, trust me, I'll square them away."

Two GIs deployed to Iraq have insisted that Obama isn't a legal citizen while another Soldier, Maj. Stefan Cook, has been waging a court fight � first in Georgia, then Florida � to force the president to produce a birth certificate that will satisfy his objections.

The cases are the first known instances of some troops joining what has become known as the "birther" movement, referring to Americans who doubt whether Obama is technically qualified to be president based on the absence of a "long form" birth certificate that documents where he was born.

Cook initially volunteered for deployment, but later refused the orders on grounds that Obama cannot deploy him because he is not legally president. The 64-year-old Ermey, longtime host of the History Channel's "Mail Call," in which he answered letter-writer's questions about the military, operations and weapons, just launched a new show on the network in July. "Lock 'N Load with R. Lee Ermey" will give viewers a more in-depth look at military weaponry.

With Ermey's unabashed support and praise of American troops and his military-related screen career, it might be easy to mistake him for a zealous right-winger.

But Ermey rejects party affiliation or any extreme political leanings, as he explained in an interview with writer/blogger Paul McCormack a few years ago.

"I'm an Independent. I'm not a Republican, I'm not a Democrat," he said at the time. "I'm a middle-of-the-road guy, and I call on logic and common sense, okay?"

Ermey told McCormack that while he voted for George Bush in 2004, he would be just as supportive of John Kerry had he won the presidency, "and I wish more people would be like that."

Of Obama, Ermey said he was "a little wary at first" on how he would handle the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not now, though.

"I think our president is doing a commendable job," he said. "He picked up where George Bush left off. � We're continuing to take care of the terrorist situation."

Ermey said the terrorists have won a small victory since he has to "be strip-searched" every time he goes through an airport, and "you can't let them win any more than they already have."

Ermey found fame after playing Gunny Hartman in Kubrick's 1987 "Full Metal Jacket." Though brought onto the set as a technical advisor, he impressed director Kubrick with his steel-tough portrayal of Hartman, highlighted by a machine-gun like delivery of obscenity-laced lines that was as realistic as it was surreal.

But Ermey told Military.com that there is no truth to the story that he barked an order at Kubrick and so took him by surprise that the director complied before realizing what he had done.

"No," he laughed. "Stanley and I got along very good, very well."
Watch Gunny in his prime; click the headline. But beware, the language is definitely 'R' rated

Nuna 5 vs Eleanor -- It's on, baby!

The World Solar Challenge, Darwin to Adelaide, Australia, a car race of 1800 miles across the Australian outback, has been run every other year since 1987. No flame breathing dragons allowed, all the entrants must be 100 percent sun-powered. A Dutch team from Delft University has won this thing four times in a row, and Nuna 5, this year's entry, is a heavy pre-race favorite.

MIT wants to give the Dutch something scary to look at in their rear-view mirror and has sunk a quarter of a million dollars into its entry, Eleanor.


Writers who are covering this event have pulled out all the metaphoric stops in describing the racers. Eleanor has been called 'a funky, hump-backed IKEA table,' and Nuna 5 'looks like a pool table that's gone through a Pininfarina wind tunnel.'

The starting flag drops on Oct.25, and the winning speed should be in excess of 90 KPH. Hey! Wanna see what these babies look like? Click on 'read more.'

Here they are! Delft is on top. (For the history of this race, click on the headline)

























Update: Click here for race results.


Addendum: In the Apres moi le deluge category, there is a fire-breathing Eleanor out and about, a licensed replication of the 1967 Mustang Nicholas Cage drove in the movie, 'Gone in 60 Seconds.' With a carbon footprint the size of a shopping mall, this piece of super-fast Detroit iron will cost you $100,000 plus!
Wanna see her built and running? Click here.

OK, the gloves are off!

In his first 200-odd days as President, Barack Obama has worked tirelessly to fulfill the promise of his election. He inherited a country that had become a philosophical, economic and political disaster, and to his credit never rubbed his opponents' nose in the sludge of their making; he just worked to fix it.


In his brief tenure, he has staunched the economic bleeding, restored worldwide respect, and has attempted to resurrect a two-party system of government that was on the brink of extinction.


Two out of three isn't going to hack it. Republicans -- notoriously bad winners and worse losers -- are using every ounce of their waning power to bring down a President this country elected freely with a substantial majority. Obama has attempted compromise everywhere, and everywhere he has been rebuffed. "Rebuffed" is a kind word; the GOP has vilified him, excoriated him, called him a Hitler and his followers Nazis, created and disseminated lies about him, his background and his policies.


Now they threaten to bring down his healthcare proposal, the touchstone of his campaign. While he has tried mightily to leave room for conservative dissent and ideas, the GOP has rejected them all.


Well, the hell with them! We have majorities in both Houses. We can go it alone. Let our rallying cry be that of the fictional Cleveland Indian slugger, Pedro Cerrano:



"Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come. I'm pissed off now, Jobu. Look, I go to you. I stick up for you. You don't help me now. I say "Fuck you," Jobu, I do it myself."