American Exceptionalism ... In Canada---A love letter from up north:
American Exceptionalism ... In Canada
A love letter from up north:
On the day that the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favour of Barack Obama’s health-care plan, Environment Canada issued a nationwide Smug Alert.
You could see it floating across the border, a cloud of self-satisfaction with America’s foibles. And who can blame us? It’s nice to have something that the guy next door doesn’t, especially when half his family really, really wants it but his crazy uncle screams blue murder every time he looks at it.
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It’s one thing to know that man, in the abstract, went to the moon. It’s another to know that it was you, your government, your parents, the guy down the road, that made that happen. Suddenly the place seems like a fortress of unlimited potential; invulnerable, if not insensate to the storms it has unleashed upon itself, if only the government could be fixed. Opinions on how to fix the government vary from person to person, which is usually the catch.
MUCH MORE:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/lets-celebrate-july-4th-by-admitting-americans-have-stuff-that-we-want/article4385643/
= new reply since forum marked as read
I'm in Montreal on business and I read that (in paper format!) yesterday. Very amusing. 
America: The world's best armed shopping mall.
Kber
I was a researcher at the sister site, Argonne Nat'l Laboratory, so we got the deluxe tour. No, we didn't get into the tunnel of the main ring -- nobody goes there when the collider is operating who doesn't want to live.
To speak of national pride and excellence it is difficult to not bring up cutting-edge physics. After all, the US did put footprints on the moon multiple times and nobody else came close to accomplishing that feat.
But this Republican party of the last decades seem to hate our previous accomplishments. They abhor science and seemingly any rational argument. (As Monty Python aptly put it, argument is an intellectual process, not just the gain-saying of your opponents pronouncements.)
I hate this shit. What will it take to turn things around? As a former math teacher I confess that we're in big trouble here. And the GOP in TX wants to make it illegal to teach critical thinking!
We're in big trouble. BTW, Congress permanently defended the Fermilab Tevatron precisely at the moment when it could have contributed to the Higgs discovery.
Don't get me started about the Superconducting Super Collider.
Republicans talk about excellence, but it's the last thing they want.
