Birdy

I fly out of Detroit pretty regularly and think it's probably the most organized and thorough airports of all the larger airports I've ever been to. The new terminal, McNamara, is my favourite terminal flown out of to date, and it's a Northwest hub, so it pretty much flies everywhere, direct. The old terminals are pretty shitty, but thats ok cuz it gives them that small time airport charm. Parking is abundant and cheap too. I'd say check out travelocity, orbitz, expedia to find out which airlines are offering the cheapest flights... then go straight to the airline's website to actually book it, as they normally charge a fee to use these search sites or whatever you call them. Northwest though has regular direct flights to Phoenix throughout the day and they're not too bad. In the off season, not that anyone wants to subject themselves to 120 degree farenheit heat, you can fly for $99 (no Canadian bullshit fees, that's it) roundtrip. Have fun though. I'm heading there on Tuesday!

It's through an ETF. I was told the exact same thing by a good friend of the family when he suggested I move my stuff around.

hah! i have an appointment at 1 today to buy me some gold!

I'm not saying Evita the movie was good or bad.. just that I bawled my eyes out.. the whole climatic singing of 'don't cry for me argentina' in front of a weeping nation of mourners who love her.. that stuff pulls at the heart strings!

This is the right's equivalent of a Michael Moore product... garbage!

Never, ever, ever have I bawled my eyes out like I did watching Madonna play Eva Peron belting out "Don't cry for me Argentina" from her little balcony thingy. er... nothing.

That's pretty fucking awesome.

parsnips are beyond gross.

I think things have always been crazy. Talk about a serious step back though!

Your Score Your scored -4 on the Moral Order axis and -1 on the Moral Rules axis. Matches The following items best match your score: System: Liberalism Variation: Moderate Liberalism, Moral Liberalism Ideologies: Capital Democratism US Parties: Democratic Party Presidents: Jimmy Carter (95.58%) 2004 Election Candidates: John Kerry (93.75%), Ralph Nader (87.50%), George W. Bush (56.47%) Statistics Of the 398803 people who took the test: 0.5% had the same score as you. 49.5% were above you on the chart. 43.9% were below you on the chart. 77.6% were to your right on the chart. 15.8% were to your left on the chart.

no 4x4 here. it's all about the emergency brake.

Coming down big time and super windy Chewie! I look out my window and all I can see is white. I just got off the phone with my parents out in Blenheim and they've been out of power for about seven hours now... crazy!

and holy fack do all of you people east of Chatham have some serious weather coming your way!! Get your shovels and boots ready!

Maybe we need to get away from the only a big fat sister from the delta in a Detroit church can have soul mindframe and give these guys the benefit of the doubt. Jim James' voice is powerful and haunting and if this rumour's true, i can't wait!

As much as I think Harry Truman had something to do with dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, yes.

Ok, i don't think either one of us will change the other's mind. Brian Mulroney made the Bruce a national park though. And I love the Bruce.

I don't find this synopsis of the good in religion accurate at all...it's very self serving, and is an element I find despicable in a lot of religions...the tithing of your actions as afterlife investment. What I do find appealing about religion..and why I consider myself a religious person...is the community built upon personal spiritual instinct coupled with a (in true faith) a humbleness before whatever greatness you feel lies behind the veil. I agree with phishtaper that religion is a social mechanism, and as such can be built awry, stormed and defeated, built again....extremely subject to the vagaries of time, history and humanity.But at it's core, it is a way to build connection to others while circling what is a very solitary endeavour...communication with the sacred. Birdy also said something about environment ...I really feel that religions, when started, were built upon a sense of place, a spiritual reaction to an actual landscape and a human experience of it.That the differences in religions arise form different landscapes and the encapsulation of those differences in deeper and deeper symbolism ,myths and rituals. The disconnect between physical environment and cerebral environment becomes/became the tension in religion as it evolved..and that a reclamation of a spiritual experience of the physicality of land is necessary to stabilize the advances in cerebral landscapes. We are a species tethered to here and swimming to there. Where is DEM?He isn't registering on my radar the last couple of weeks... Where is DEM? I was thinking the same thing the other day... I think humankind and pretty much all life in general ultimately very self-serving by nature stemming from the will to survive and the reliance on other forces whatever they may be - sun, water, food, shelter - and in thinking this and in believing of an after life, can't really find human action in this life as a determining factor of how you live on later to be despicable at all. We eat because we need sustenance, we drink because we need fluids, why then does it become despicable for one act a certain way to ensure their souls go on after their mortal bodies die?

don't get me started about Marx! To me recognized religion is only organized personal spirituality... it all started somewhere with one to five people and then took on followers who bought the subscription. Therefore if someone is religious it can refer to them as Christians or Muslims or whatever, or it could refer to people like me who don't necessarily agree or believe in A god but who think there is some kind of a higher driving force out there. The only people i think are truly killing in the name of God are whacked out cultists who arrange meetings behind planets and stuff. A lot of groups who claim to be killing in the name of God, like Al Qaeda, aren't acting as Muslims should or as Mohammed would want but are operating as a political entity with a political goal. And while I agree with you that more people have died on this planet under the name of God, i stick to my guns and insist it's because people don't want to understand one another. My plane's boarding.. back to the freezing cold! brut.

I wouldn't say the social practice of religion brings harm at all. It's people's attitudes towards religion (or other religions) and lack of acceptance that causes problems.

It's not so much about the actual religion, you know Garden of Eden, eating the apple stuff, but about the practice of it -- the want to do good and be good and a hope that because of their actions something will be rewarded to them in the end. That's the stuff that I admire and could benefit to learn from. But I do agree with you over this special pass business, but it's not something that i'd advocate taking away, any day of the week.

I'm all for dialogue! I don't think my posts in this thread really apply to the kind of civilized chats that i think you would sit down and have with people of differing opinions in an attempt to understand or even persuade. Moreso, they're directed (and i don't mean to sound stuffy or uptight) towards some of the seemingly crude posts in here. I too self-identify as a religious person, not in a denominational sense, but in a 'i'm waay intrigued by what's going in your head and think it's pretty remarkable that you are able to hold such faith in something which all the science in the world can't prove' way and from that i find my own faith. I really do think the world has a lot to learn from such people and that in itself should be admired, rather than ridiculed and poked and prodded at. That to me would be tolerance. And while it's really easy and completely understandable to get frustrated and become protective of your right to thought, i don't think it provides for any kind of progressive growth by way of understanding and 'liberally minded' it certainly is not, regardless of what side of the spectrum you fall on. We are all a product of our environments and i think a closer study of the physical, historical circumstances that create environments is needed in order to get past the stereotypes and become accepting, even if only to a varying degree, of why people act and believe in what they do.

you guys are cousins? Happy Birthday c-towns!

moi aussi!

Ya know, this could very well be true.