What's your opinion on United States Of America?

[Icarus27k]

Actually the crime rate in Canada and the USA is remarkably similar. This site gives a fair comparison. The biggest difference between Canada and the US is the larger amount of gun crime in the US.
Total crimes (per capita) by country. Definition, graph and map.

Point well taken, but it's hard for me to get over the comparisons of homicides in US and Canadian cities. The difference is so stark that they are really what I mean when I talk about US having higher crime.

Take for example, Washington DC and Vancouver. Similar resident populations (DC has a little more). But still, according to the following link, 18 homicides according in the city of Vancouver in 2009.

CBC News - British Columbia - 2009 another year of B.C. gang violence

In DC during 2009, there were 140 homicides.

There definately are some caveats: there are probably somewhat differing methodologies in determining number of homicides.

Also, it has to be pointed out that the 140 number is exceedingly low for DC. It's been going down for almost twenty years. Other US cities have their homicide rates sliding like that too. I can only expect US cities to become even less crime-ridden over time, but we still got a way to go to reach the Canadian lows.

I mean, only 18 in a year for a city of 550,000-ish people?

 

[Icarus27k]

It's exactly 143 homicides in Washington DC in 2009. As you can see from the link, there has already been 29 reported for 2010 as of April 15.

Metropolitan Police Department: Data at a Glance

 

[Icarus27k]

The closest comparison I could get to Toronto, both population and physical area wise, is Chicago, the US city that is most infamous for homicide (not counting New Orleans which I consider to be a unique case not really comparable to anything else).

Toronto reportedly had 62 homicides in 2009...

Murder in Toronto hits 7-year low : Cancrime

...while Chicago had 453. Since Chicago probably has a little higher population, maybe we should be generous and only say they had 400.

 

[JLM]

Point well taken, but it's hard for me to get over the comparisons of homicides in US and Canadian cities. The difference is so stark that they are really what I mean when I talk about US having higher crime.

Take for example, Washington DC and Vancouver. Similar resident populations (DC has a little more). But still, according to the following link, 18 homicides according in the city of Vancouver in 2009.

CBC News - British Columbia - 2009 another year of B.C. gang violence

In DC during 2009, there were 140 homicides.

There definately are some caveats: there are probably somewhat differing methodologies in determining number of homicides.

Also, it has to be pointed out that the 140 number is exceedingly low for DC. It's been going down for almost twenty years. Other US cities have their homicide rates sliding like that too. I can only expect US cities to become even less crime-ridden over time, but we still got a way to go to reach the Canadian lows.

I mean, only 18 in a year for a city of 550,000-ish people?

There's one of the problems with statistics right there- they don't show all the facts. Canadians are a lot tougher lot than the Yanks. If those 140 who died in D.C. had been Canadians probably a lot of them would have survived. :smile:

 

[CDNBear]

i wish you were concerned that everyone is against of what your poor little country is doing to those baby seals.

Why? What are we doing to those "poor little baby" seals? They're a source of food and fur. They're also an ecological hazard. Culling them is a good thing.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOps....now that crap hasn't changed in ten years.... I could almost recite verbatim the topics brought up, rerun, spun through grinder and spit out....some in humor, some in anger, and some just because there's a brawl goin on ...

Rarely on this topic is one fact brought up which bores everyone to tears and often I put it up to speak once again something I happen to believe in - which has never deviated from the first time I read a Canadian's opinion of the USA....Of course the two nations are different, they had different births, different affiliations and origins, different modes of life and commerce and relationships throughout the global community....and yet the twin pathways have remained in tandem regardless of what we feel personally.

Anyway... the thought goes something like this:

Were either nation - Canada or the U.S. hit with warfare, missile, bomb, invasion, or other warlike activity, the nation joined at the 49th would be on it like flies on you know what....

It is something I have always believed regardless of internet scrapping because as I say so many times, other nations would give their lives to have friends at the common border such as we two nations have.

We think alike, we do alike, we get into trouble alike, we drink alike, we love alike, we take on responsibilities alike, we help other nations alike, we grow good kids alike, and our doors are always open alike.... may it always be thus.

It's also healthy to disagree and diverge - keeps us on our paths and copycats are only smart if they let the other side try it first to see if it works!!!

I quoted this because it deserves to be read again Curio...well said.

BTW anyone who has to resort to profanity and insults in order to make a point has already lost the argument.

:roll:...Easier said then done eh Bar? :lol:

 

[Curiosity]

Thanks Bear

As usual my often used comment stuns into silence - it seems people in forums would rather pick out what's "wrong" with two nations being joined at the hip than observing all the advantages of having a good neighbor.

Comparisons are excellent however it helps to get it all out....Personally I am as always grateful to have known both and have benefitted from both....and now that I can view the topic without anger I see more positives in the differences than
negatives.

You Bear are a man without borders - perhaps that is why you can view it in a different way as well.

 

[theconqueror]

Thanks Bear

As usual my often used comment stuns

Yes. Just like you stun with your beautiful avatar. Hope your Canadian!

 

[CDNBear]

Thanks Bear

As usual my often used comment stuns into silence - it seems people in forums would rather pick out what's "wrong" with two nations being joined at the hip than observing all the advantages of having a good neighbor.

Comparisons are excellent however it helps to get it all out....Personally I am as always grateful to have known both and have benefitted from both....and now that I can view the topic without anger I see more positives in the differences than
negatives.

You Bear are a man without borders - perhaps that is why you can view it in a different way as well.

I think so. I fully recognize my duality on all sorts of levels. One being the fact that as a Native, I just don't see the difference between me and my peeps here, to my peeps in the US. It wasn't a stretch nor hard, to extend that courtesy to the whole of the American people. I am without a doubt a red blooded Red Canadian. But I know what my country of birth is, I know her history, that makes me proud. Therefore I don't have to measure it's worth against that of any other country. I think it does us as a Nation, a great disservice to do so.

 

[Downhome_Woman]

Do you think its the greatest nation ever?
Do this nation offer more land better living conditions that any other country in the world?
what do you think?

No. It's not the worst, but it sure isn't the best, either.

 

[theconqueror]

No. It's not the worst, but it sure isn't the best, either.

C'mon America kicks ass, and I mean America NOT the United States "OF".

 

[Blackleaf]

The United States of America forme is the greatest nation in the world!

I suppose that makes me arrogant, but none can compare to the USA, even with all her faults. Now let's get to work fixing the problems we do have

I would say that Great Britain, is the greatest civilisation there has ever been.

Not only did Britain, the world's oldest surviving democracy,l once have the largest, most powerful and the richest empire the world has ever known, but Britain has founded nations such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States and gave them the Westminster style of government, the greatest form of government in the world today.

When it comes to major inventions, Great Britain has contributed more than any other nation, without doubt (imagine a world without the computer, the World Wide Web, the television, the telephone and the train).

British inventions include:

the anemometer, the tin can, Cats' Eyes for roads, the computer, cordite, corscrews, the crossword puzzle, depth charges, diving equipment/scuba gear, the pacemaker, the electromagnet, the electric motor, the fax machine, the gas mask, holography, the internal combustion engine, the Kelvin scale, the jet engine, the metal lathe, the locomotive, the lawnmower, the lightbulb, the little nipper mousetrap, penicillin, the periscope, the Penny Farthing, polyester, the periodic table (John Newlands came up with the idea before Mendeleev), polyester, the postage stamp, the puckle gun, radar, the rubber band, the rubber masticator, the seed drill (Jethro Tull), steel production, the seismometer, the submarine (a design drafterd by William Bourne back in 1578 ), the Spinning Jenny, the sewing machine, the Spinning Mule, shrapnel (by British Army artillery officer Major General Henry Shrapnel in 1784), the steam engine, tarmac, television, toilet paper, thermos flask, the umbrella (steel-ribbed), the United States Navy (as well as the United States itself), the vacuum cleaner, Viagra, the World Wide Web and waterproof fabric.

I could make this list three times longer, but I'll leave it there.

 

[EagleSmack]

lol

Slums of Detroit: A Look At The Heart of America’s 2nd Most Deserted City - By Matt Harvey - The eXiled

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Photo Gallery

LA actually doesn't have "slums", it has "disinvested neighborhoods" lmao

losangeles

I never said we don't have slums and urban squalor...but those pictures are not from the US.

 

[EagleSmack]

I am curious as to the source of those pics, Anna. The one labeled Detroit appears to be somewhere in Africa, perhaps Johannesburg. It is certainly somewhere tropical judging from the palm trees in the middleground. I would guess the one labeled Pittsburgh is probably also in Africa and the LA pic seems to be in Latin America.

Exactly. We have our slums but c'mon.

 

[Curiosity]

EagleSmack

I only clicked onto the last bottom slum to get the address ...
http://lebbeuswoods.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/slum-mumbai1.jpg

Hmmmmmmm would that be mumbai, california perhaps??? lol

C'mon Anna you are more fair than that bit of picturesque travelogue stuff...

 

[Curiosity]

The other two slums posted....

Properties of Detroit Slums list "detroit....

Properties of Pittsburg Slums list:
http://bespokecashmere.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/slums-3.jpg

Cashmere? Wot a luverly name for such a place...

 

[AnnaG]

I am curious as to the source of those pics, Anna. The one labeled Detroit appears to be somewhere in Africa, perhaps Johannesburg. It is certainly somewhere tropical judging from the palm trees in the middleground. I would guess the one labeled Pittsburgh is probably also in Africa and the LA pic seems to be in Latin America.

I have no idea. Since I typed "Detroit slum", "Pittsburgh slum", and Los Angeles slum" into the google search bar and clicked "images", copied and pasted the first pics that I saw. I didn't check to see if they were actually pics from the places I googled.

 

[lone wolf]

Gotta hate them Google mouse traps.... ;-)

 

[AnnaG]

Anna, did you actually believe those pics were legit? Because that's, for lack of a better term, f'd up.

Do you check each and every source you use for reference? Especially in a forum, where people can post all kinds of nonsense. I doubt you do. That's f'd up.

 

[EagleSmack]

I have no idea. Since I typed "Detroit slum", "Pittsburgh slum", and Los Angeles slum" into the google search bar and clicked "images", copied and pasted the first pics that I saw. I didn't check to see if they were actually pics from the places I googled.

That must explain my Newfie picture. ;-)

 

[Socrates the Greek]

The Democrats are on the way to resurrecting America from financial ruin caused by the past Republican incompetent administration.