By JOSE RODRIGUEZPosted on 07/04/2005 5:19:42 PM PDT by ConservativeStLouisGuy
Not today.
Because even those of us lucky enough to be in the opinion industry (read: professional whiners) know a good thing when we see it.
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It's Canada Day and despite the chronic criticisms that clacks from this keyboard all the other days of the year, today is a day to toast the Maple Leaf and raise a beer to Mother Canada.
So bottoms up -- we have plenty to celebrate.
If it wasn't for Canadians, the world would be without insulin, sonar, pablum and the zipper.
There would be no basketball, five-pin bowling and, quite predictably, no snowmobiles, snowblowers or goalie masks.
We invented the telephone, the TV camera, Trivial Pursuit and the Walkie Talkie.
The first Caesar was poured in downtown Calgary and though we didn't invent beer, we perfected it.
Contrary to what our American cousins might say, the lightbulb was first invented by Canadian Henry Woodward who sold the rights to his patent to Thomas Edison.
As Canadians, we don't need a military parade or a war to affirm our patriotism -- which comes in the quiet confidence of tolerance.
As a result, we are free to travel the world with our flag proudly displayed on our backpacks, our clothing and even our skin.
Our heroes tend to be common folk with uncommon determination.
We prefer Terry Fox to Paris Hilton and Wayne Gretzky to just about any other human being on the face of the planet.
We'll take a Tim Hortons double-double over a Starbucks Grande half-caff frapuccino any day.
We believe in freedom, but understand that freedom is never free.
The blood of young Canadians helped liberate Europe in the two big wars.
The battles at Dieppe and Vimy Ridge stand as testament to our bravery and sacrifice.
We have the longest coastline in the world at 243,000 km and inside that coastline we share our forests, mountains and lakes with moose, geese, bears and beavers.
We have our own language with uniquely Canadian words like pogey, poutine and toonie.
We say zed, not zee, chesterfield, not couch and we ride toboggans, not sleds.
We wear toques out of necessity, not fashion.
The 32 million-plus who call Canada home boast almost 100% literacy and can expect, on average, to live past our 79th birthday.
We bicker about our differences with Quebec, and at times, some of our francophone brothers and sisters threaten to leave.
But in the end, destiny and a referendum always keep us together.
There are many of us, this humble scribe included, who were not born in this country.
We are Canadian by choice and proud to call ourselves Canucks first.
So, no matter how much guys like me groan about government, whine about the weather or harp about the headlines, we're not dumb.
We know this is the best country on Earth.
There's no place I'd rather be -- or be from.
At the risk of sounding like a beer commercial, thank you Canada and happy 138th, eh!
Al Gore must have been a Canadian.
--- and a bit further down ---
We believe in freedom, but understand that freedom is never free.
The blood of young Canadians helped liberate Europe in the two big wars.
The battles at Dieppe and Vimy Ridge stand as testament to our bravery and sacrifice.
---
Cognitive dissonance...another great Canadian virtue.
Canada is insignificant and a majority of Canadian voters are socialists, doomed to repeat the disasters of other socialist societies. They richly deserve the oncoming economic and social disasters.
Or just general reactionary anti-Americanism.
There would be no basketball, five-pin bowling and, quite predictably, no snowmobiles, snowblowers or goalie masks.
And you say that like these were all good things or something...
The first Caesar was poured in downtown Calgary and though we didn't invent beer, we perfected it.
If by "perfected it" you mean "brewed a horribly tasting, horse urine smelling beer", then congratu-freakin'-lations on being the dumb drunks of North America.
As Canadians, we don't need a military parade or a war to affirm our patriotism -- which comes in the quiet confidence of tolerance.
Hey, I've got an idea, how about our military meets your "quiet confidence of tolerance" at the 49th parallel and we'll see who lasts the longest.
As a result, we are free to travel the world with our flag proudly displayed on our backpacks, our clothing and even our skin.
And I'm free to make fun of you and remind you of what a worthless existance Canadians leads.
We bicker about our differences with Quebec, and at times, some of our francophone brothers and sisters threaten to leave. But in the end, destiny and a referendum always keep us together.
That and you're both just different forms of the same socialist pipe dream.
So, no matter how much guys like me groan about government, whine about the weather or harp about the headlines, we're not dumb
Speak for yourself.
At the risk of sounding like a beer commercial...
And at the risk of sounding like someone urinated in my corn flakes this morning, well, someone did. The only difference between you and me is that you bottle it, sell it, and call it Molson Ice.
"Contrary to what our American cousins might say, the lightbulb was first invented by Canadian Henry Woodward who sold the rights to his patent to Thomas Edison. "
But Woodward's electric light simply didn't work and never could have worked. Edison found the key to making it work.
Also the telephone was invented in the US. Bell only lived a year in Canada before emmigrating to the US where he eventually became a citizen. Although Bell had close ties with Canada and lived off and on in Nova Scotia, he was a US citizen when he invented the telephone.
Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and educated at the universities of Edinburgh and London. He immigrated to Canada in 1870 and to the United States in 1871. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1882.
In 1874, while working on a multiple telegraph, he developed the basic ideas for the telephone. His experiments with his assistant Thomas Watson finally proved successful on March 10, 1876, when the first complete sentence was transmitted: "Watson, come here; I want you." Subsequent demonstrations, particularly one at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, introduced the telephone to the world and led to the organization of the Bell Telephone Company in 1877.
LOL...sounds like Scotland's got a better claim to Bell than the Canadians. :)
Didn't Bell steal the idea from an inventor in New York?
"""Didn't Bell steal the idea from an inventor in New York?"""
He and a guy from New York by the name of Elishe Gray were racing each other to the patent office and Bell won by about an hour.
However, they are both imposters.
Antonio Meucci of Italy is today acknowledged as the father of telephone communication, no ifs ands or buts about it!
A friend of ours who is Canadian said the BIG sport he grew up with, and played a lot, was CURLING. Looks boring to me.
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Curling/home.html
A friend of mine from Canada tells me that their medical care is FREE.... I guess she never considered the HIGH taxes that pay for it.
"""A friend of mine from Canada tells me that their medical care is FREE ...."""
It's true. All the outdated technologies used are free, the new ones are free and available only when the probability of a grave diognisis are extremely good so that not much post medical care is needed. It's a money saving thing. And it works like a charm. Oh and incidently, we Canucks define "free" as paying $100 a month in premiums, on TOP of high taxes.
It is also true that Antonio Meucci invented the telephone.
Look:
http://www.dickran.net/history/meucci_bell.html
So it did. Now it is relegated to being sent aloft in creaky helicopters and to sea in leaky submarines. I submit that the difference is that the government of Canada used to care about that blood...and now it doesn't.
All good point/counter-point issues you raised....honestly, though....I read the Canadian Sun newspapers as often as I can....and I have found that (as a whole) they DO espouse the (rare) Conservative views here in a largely LIEberal country....the author of this article was more than likely taking a break from all the negative news about Paul Martin, "same-sex marriage" and the like up here to come up with some POSITIVE things about Canada (and he had to reach just a LITTLE deep for some of them too!) :-)
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