VIDEO: Self-hatred, self-loathing or self-correction?

Breitbart News reports today on an interview between Bill Maher and Peggy Noonan on yesterday's broadcast of HBO’s Real Time. Mr Maher stated that younger people have fallen into a dangerous level of self-loathing about America. A significant part of this is because, he said, "older generations read about Communism and socialism" and today's generation doesn't. 

Mr Maher added, "Another, I think big gap between generations...is that the older generations just have a more positive idea of this country.... And kids today, I don’t know what they’re teaching them in school, it doesn’t seem like a hell of a lot, but they have this idea, that they live...in a bad country that has only done bad things and is probably the worst place in the world, if they could only find a way to get out."

Ms Noonan responded that while America is "not perfect. To say the least, it’s had an uneven history. But it is a great country, and, historically, has been a good country." To which her host responded, "And it does self-correct. It does correct more than other places."

"Self-criticism is good," the WSJ columnist agreed. "Self-hatred is sick. Self-criticism could get you to a good place. Self-hatred is going to stop you dead."

On reading this, I immediately rememberted George Carlin's special "Life Is Worth Losing", made for HBO in 2005. In the video, the stand-up comedian covers the downfall of America from our "inheritance" of "this beautiful country" to consumerism and today's politicians, "It's a big club and you ain't in it!" 

As you watch this clip, ask yourself: Is this self-hatred, self-loating, or self-correction? 

   

Mr Carlin isn't alive (RIP) to answer my question. I doubt that he intended it to be a recipe for self-correction, since his cynicism -- he was the ultimate kitchen cynic (geddit?) -- would suggest that self-correction is impossible for today's Americans. QED. This clip has had over 31 million views over the 19 years since it was made. I don't see anything or anybody changing. Do you?

The fattitude of America, analyzed by race

If you want to see "typical Americans" or "average Americans", watch Judge Judy. I'm a big fan. The intro to the show says the people are real. "Real what?", I ask rhetorically. "Real stupid," I answer, "and real fat, too!" [Don't you watch your grammar when you talk to yourself? Ed.] The humungousness of some of these "real Americans" -- particularly the black women -- has to be seen to be believed. Used to be we'd go to the county fair to see the fat ladies, but now you can see them, in all their fattitude, right there on the idiot's lantern.

Before you get your shorts in a knot (or, for you Brits, your knickers in a twist) and start calling me racist, sexist or body-shamer, consider some statistics that I've found by diligent research and present here for your enlightenment (the opposite of "enheavyment" - geddit?).

First of all, it is beyond dispute that Americans, on average, are among the fattest people on Earth. Some say that Samoans are fatter, or Britons and Germans close behind, but Americans have been strong contenders for the "Mr/Ms 2x4" title for half a century. According to the 14th annual State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 70% of people in the US of A are "obese or overweight". And...

• The 10 states with the highest rates of hypertension are in the South 
• 25% of young adults who try to join the military are ineligible due to fitness or weight concerns
• Twenty-five states have an adult obesity rate of 30% or higher

The good news is that the growth in girth, so evident for so long, is levelling off. The report says that, between 2015 and 2016, adult obesity rates decreased in Kansas, increased in Colorado, Minnesota, Washington, and West Virginia, and remained stable in the rest of states. This supports trends that show steadying levels in recent years, yet adult obesity rates now exceed 35% in five states and top 30% in 25 states. West Virginia has the highest adult obesity rate at 37.7% and Colorado has the lowest at 22.3%. Here's a map that shows you, county by country, where the fatties are.

Notice the shading, from light (in colour and weight) to dark. Similar patterns may be seen in maps of poverty and maps shaded according to... weight for it (geddit?)... race. The "Disparities" section of the report confirms that "Rates of overweight and obesity have increased across the United States among people of all ethnic and racial groups, all ages and both genders, but some groups are disproportionately affected. Among U.S. adults, Black and Latino populations have substantially higher rates of obesity than do White populations. This is true among both men and women."

National data for 2013-14 show obesity rates for the various races to be: Asian, 12.6%; Black, 48.4%; Latino, 42.6%; and white, 36.4%. The report also contains data on American Indians. According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) in states with reportable data for American Indian/Alaska Native populations, 14 of the 24 states analyzed had adult overweight and obesity rates above 70%. Here are the stats in tabular form.

When you factor in gender, you discover that black women have the highest obesity rates at 57.2%, while Asian women have the lowest rates at 12.4%.

The obesity epidemic is caused primarily by eating too much of the wrong sort of food, and too little physical exercise. However, there is a factor which the SJWs and race deniers refuse to acknowledge, which is that the races are different. Different races have different metabolic rates and require different diets in order to remain naturally healthy.

Races who originate in tropical or equatorial regions have a strong hereditary need for diets high in carbohydrates such as vegetables and fruits and grains and legumes. These foods tend to provide the kind of body fuel most compatible with the unique body chemistry of people who are genetically programmed to live in warm and humid regions of the world. Their body systems are not designed to process or utilize large quantities of animal protein and fat, which form the basis of much northern (read: European) food.

Europeans, on the other hand, aren't genetically equipped to survive on light vegetarian food. We are "meat-and-potatoes" people. We tend to burn body fuel quickly, so we need heavier foods to sustain ourselves. "Rabbit food" won't do! And the farther north you go, the greater the requirement for a high-protein diet. Eskimos (Canucks please read: Inuit), easily digest and assimilate large quantities of protein and fat -- whale blubber, for instance -- exactly the kind of foods that will cause all manner of health problems for people from the Mediterranean regions.

This is not an argument for white supremacy. The report and the many studies on which it is based just show the fact that the races are different, and have different dietary needs. People whose origins are in northwestern Europe origin people have nutritional requirements which are just the opposite of sub-Saharan Africans, and have a hereditary need for more fat than other populations.

The substantial difference in obesity rates between continental Asian populations and those Asian races living in North America (= American Indians, see chart) are directly attributable to the latter group eating "European" food. The same phenomenon is found in the Inuit of Canada's Arctic, and in China, where the burgeoning middle class is now eating more wheat than rice, and gobbling down KFC and Big Macs at an astonishing rate... and growing fatter and fatter in consequence.

Further reading: Click here to view The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America, a project of the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Tales from Down East: of Acadians and the elusive Americans

Yesterday I promised you some tales from "Down East", which is what Canucks call their four Atlantic provinces: Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. (The term "Maritimes", which you sometimes hear, refers only to the last three.) They say the people Down East are the friendliest, the seafood the finest, and the problems the fewest of any part of the Dominion.

All that and more made Atlantic Canada the preferred destination for the many 1000s of American snowflakes, like Lena Dunham, who threatened (or promised) to leave the Excited States of America in the unlikely (so they thought) event that Donald Trump became President.

Which he did. But did the mortally wounded liberals stage a mass exodus to what Michael Moore thinks is heaven? The ballots were still being counted when Canada's state-owned broadcaster, the CBC, cast doubts on whether it would really happen. (See "Are Americans really going to flee to Canada after Trump win?", 9/11/17.) Would they really ignore Gavin McInnes' warning? Guided by Agent 78, Walt spent last week in Nova Scotia, hunting [read "searching". Ed.] for refugees from the land of the free and the home of the wimpy.

In the first picture you see Walt [Really! Ed.] looking out over the Grand Pré ("Big Meadow"), in the heart of Evangeline country, or Acadia, as she is still proudly known. Evangeline is the heroine of an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (an American!), published in 1847. The poem tells the story of an Acadian girl named Evangeline and her search for her lost love Gabriel, set during the time of the Expulsion of the Acadians.

The Acadians who still live in the Maritimes refer to the shameful events of the mid-18th century as le Grand Dérangement (the Great Deportation). When the French ceded most of New France to the British, the latter were distressed to find the area around the Bay of Fundy already settled by people who were French-speaking but, even worse, Catholics. So they threw them out. Deported them. The Acadians were shipped off, from a point just a couple of miles from where Walt is sitting in the picture, to the Thirteen Colonies, to France (which the Acadians did not regard as "the old country") and to Louisiana, where their descendants became known as... wait for it... Cajuns! But many of them returned to Canada, and are there in the tens of thousands even now, still proudly Acadian after all these years.

The point of that story -- and I do have one -- is that the idea of ridding your country of people who do not share your language and your values did not originate with Donald Trump! The lesson for Mr Trump is that it's nigh well impossible to expel thousands or millions of people and expect them to stay gone. Before the Glorious War of the Secession, many well-meaning Americans, including "Honest Abe", thought shipping coloured people back to Africa was the solution to the problem of slavery. That was the notion that resulted in the creation of Liberia. Didn't work any better than did the Expulsion of the Acadians.

The best you can do, IMHO, is to close your borders and hope that the "others" will one day assimilate, as did the Acadians. Today they are the most perfectly bilingual and bi-cultural Canadians -- all-round great people.

But I digress.... The mission was to find some Americans who had, post-Trump, navigated Canada's complex and stupid immigration system and settled in Nova Scotia. Agent 78 and I travelled from Halifax southwest to Lunenburg then up to Grand Pré, across through Truro and all the way around Cape Breton Island without meeting (or even hearing of) one (1) American who had recently relocated to that beautiful province.

We did, however, encounter several American tourists -- whiteys, every one -- the kind who can't work out the "funny money". What they have figured out, though, is how to apologize for being American. "Don't blame me. I didn't vote for him." That strikes me as both sad and unnecessary. If you're from a nice part of the USA -- Virginia, let's say -- Down East people will probably welcome you more warmly than if you were from, say, Toronto. Even if you wanted to settle!

VIDEO: Quick! Go see Cuba before the Americans spoil it!

A couple of months ago, when the Prez announced that the Paranoid States of America was finally going to normalize relations with the evil communists lurking just off the Florida coast, Walt kidded Agent 2 -- a regular visitor to Cuba -- that the days of cheap, quiet vacations on the beach would soon be over. The barbarians are at the gates, I said. [That would make a good book title! Ed.]

Turns out my fears of the dire consequences of the arrival of hordes of rotund not-quite-grown children in silly clothes were shared by others, especially Canadians. In spite of the weakness of the Beaverbuck (compared with real money), the snowbirds have for decades been the largest source of tourists for the People's Republic. Why? Could be the horrors of the Canuck winter. Could be that Cuba, alone of the Caribbean sunspots, is the one place Americans couldn't go. Until now.

But is the end of discount holidays for Canadians really over, now that Cubans have taken down the "Yankee go home!" signs and put up new ones reading "Keep Cuba green! Bring American dollars!"? Jury Krytiuk, who's been "selling Cuba" for decades says don't worry about it. Cuba will have to make some changes to accommodate all the Americans who want to visit, and the improvements in infrastructure and the tourism industry will benefit everybody.


For more information on visiting Cuba, visit the A. Nash Travel website. And yes, Jury will be happy to help Americans, Canadians, Ukrainians or anyone else enjoy all that Cuba has to offer. Tell him Walt sent ya! And no, I'm not getting paid for this. It's an unsolicited recommendation!

Lard butts more likely to die in car crashes than non-Americans

Why is the person in the middle more likely to die in a car accident than those on either side of her? [That's assuming that she makes it through the turnstile. Ed.]  A study published by the University at Buffalo in 2010 gives us the answer.

You would think that extra padding would serve to protect the fatties, kind of like built-in airbags. But noooo. UB researchers found that morbidly obese people were 56 per cent more likely to die in a crash than induhviduals [Hello, Scott Adams!] of normal weight. Moderately obese people were 21 per cent more likely to perish.

What lesson should we learn from this? Does it mean Americans -- the obese people with matching cars -- should think seriously about losing weight? Errr, no. Instead of instituting a national diet, the US nanny state is being urged to force manufacturers to build bigger, stronger cars to better protect the circumferentially challenged.

The lead researcher, Dietrich Jehle [Wonder if his surname rhymes with "belly"? Ed.] noted, "The rate of obesity is continuing to rise, so it is imperative that car designs are modified to protect the obese population, and that crash tests are done using a full range of dummy sizes. If they represented our overweight American society, there could be further improvements in vehicle design that could decrease mortality."

A follow-up study in 2012 found that obese drivers are less likely to wear seatbelts than normal weight drivers and that puts them at increased risk of injury or death in the event of a crash. So the solution, obviously (?), is to build crash-test dummies which are "more representative of the population" -- i.e. fatter -- which will lead to the design of safer vehicles.

So said Chris O'Connor, CEO of  Humanetics, one of the leading manufacturers of the dummies in the US, at the lunch ["launch", shurely! Ed.] of their newer, larger model. "If we have 35 per cent of our population that is obese and they're driving," he said, "certainly we want to make sure they are safe. I think we all know a neighbour, friend, relative, or we can speak of ourselves to say why shouldn't we be safe in these cars, as safe as anyone else?"

Indeed. And may I be the first to suggest a name for the new model. Call it "The Big Dummy". Good luck with that!

Best Team Canada ever!

Walt has been absent for the last few days, having been in Sochi -- in spirit if not in the putrifying flesh. I'll post some thoughts on the Winter Olympiad later today, but first CONGRATULATIONS to the best men's hockey team ever to play in the modern games!

That would be Team Canada, seen above posing with the gold medals they won by beating Team Sweden 3-0 in a game which was well worth getting up in the wee hours to watch on the idiot's lantern. The result was expected, though. The real championship game was on Friday, when the NHL all-stars who are American citizens succumbed to the Canucks 1-0 in a thoroughly thrilling nail-biter.

The Team Canada selectors were faced this year with un embarras de richesse -- a surfeit of talent -- so much so that they could easily have picked two teams which would have been serious contenders for a medal -- the hockey equivalent of an entry in the sport of kings. Walt has comments on just three of the players chosen to wear the red and white.

Sidney Crosby -- Captain and superstar! In the five games played by Team Canada before yesterday's final, Sid the Kid managed only two assists. Typically, Canuck sports hacks started carping about Sid never being the same since his concussion, having lost his touch, being hard to play with, yada yada yada. Yesterday his insurance goal for Canada showed him at his magnificent best. It was picture perfect, and the video clip will be watched again and again, as was his winning goal four years ago, and as will be another in four years time.

P.K. Subban -- Selected for reasons of political correctness -- Canadian media are big on "celebrating diversity -- Pernell Karl was not trusted by super-savvy coach Mike Babcock to refrain from showboating. Result, he played just 11 minutes in the second preliminary game against Austria. He did no harm. See "P.K. can't be trusted on the P.K.!" and "It's time to trade Subban!"

Carey Price -- Do you believe now? When the Montréal Canadiens starting goalie was chosen along with Vancouver's Roberto Luongo, there were plenty of "experts" (Hello Donless Cherry!) who said Babcock with have to go with Luongo because Price was just a kid, never played in the Olympics before, more yada yada yada. Walt, on the other hand, thought that Price is the best Canadian goalie in the business. So who was right...eh? EH?

I take nothing away from Luongo, who shut out the Austrians in his only game. But Carey played all the other games, all five, and allowed just three (count `em! 3!) goals. That's an average of 0.60 goals per game. No wonder he has such a big smile as he stacks the pads in the foreground of the picture. Way to go, Carey!

Now Walt must go and nurse his hangover. Back later...

"They're not very nice" -- a view of Americans and Anglo-Canadians from a neighbour (?)

Big news from Montréal, where, just in time for the Glorious Fourth -- well, almost -- Michel Brûlé has thrown his chapeau into the race for the mayoralty, in the municipal election due in November.

At the moment, Montréal is under the leadership of its third mayor, so far this year. The one who was elected resigned in the wake of revelations at the provincial Charbonneau Commission concerning corruption in the awarding of municipal construction contracts. This is something of a national sport in Québec, but the magnitude of the graft this time -- not to mention connections with a group of patriotic Italian-Canadians -- was such that nothing would be but a change at the top.

Sadly (but not surprisingly), the interim mayor -- a bilingual Jew, this time -- appointed to clean up the mess, was quite quickly accused of being likewise tainted by the stench of "business as usual at la Mairie". So now there is a second interim mayor, and a vigorous campaign to be next at the trough is under way.

Yesterday, staunch Québec indépendentiste ["separatist", surely! Ed.] Michel Brûlé announced his long-shot candidacy. The writer, book publisher, and, errr, former bar owner says he doesn’t expect English-speaking Montréalers to vote for him – and says he isn’t working to get their support, anyway. He doesn't like les maudits Anglos, as a group.

On an individual level, it's a different story. M Brûlé has said in the past that he doesn’t have anything against Anglos as individuals; he could even have one as a girlfriend. But still, he says now, the English culture is not  very nice. And "English is not a nice language," he told Métro reporter Catherine Girouard in April 2009 (according to yesterday's report in the Montreal Gazette) while promoting his published essay on the scourge of English.

"Intolerance and all the most extremist, racist, segregationist movements -- they’re the KKK, White Power, the expression 'Speak White' -- these are all English things. They come from the United States, Canada, England."

Walt notes that Americans are at the top of M Brûlé's fecal roster. In the same 2009 interview, he allowed that not all Americans are dumb, obese, imbecilic, uncultured ignoramuses -- only about 80% of them! "If I say Americans are a bunch of big, obese, imbecilic, ignorant, uncultured dummies, it’s the truth," he told Métro.

"Of course it’s sure bet that out of 303 million Americans, there are maybe 50 million who aren’t like that. But, collectively, they’re still a bunch of uncultured imbeciles."

So far, no other candidates for the mayoralty have taken issue with M Brûlé’s statements.

Snapshot of an American couple in Ireland*

OK, it's not a snapshot. It's a prose portrait. If you don't like reading, look at the Swazi girls.

This word picture appears in McCarthy's Bar (Hodder and Stoughton, 2000), written by Pete McCarthy, by birth but fully Irish in spirit. His mission in life is to visit any and every pub named "McCarthy's",  hence his travels to the Auld Sod which this book describes. This scene is set in Killarney...

Outside the big hotels, pony and trap drivers with the faces of medieval assassins are touting for business among gaggles of befuddled recent arrivals who are wandering around in a collective trance, like Stepford tourists. "Will the horse expect extra oats?" enquires an admirably self-aware American, who, at a guess, has won a trip to Europe as first prize in the Fattest Arse in the Midwest competition.

Perched on top of the card in baseball cap, stripy stretch fabric polo shirt and vast architect-designed shorts, he looks like Tweedledum. It takes two of the assassins to hoist his wife up there to join him, like Tweedledee in drag. The horse craps ostentatiously in derision, and off they trundle, to provide a bit of comic relief for the people stuck in traffic jams....

I'm beginning to realise that the parts of the country I've been in so far have been deserted because every bugger's here. Suddenly the gridlocked traffic is overtaken by Tweedledum and Tweedledee, careering along in their souped-up tumbril as the assassin cracks his whip.

To show that they've been assimilated into Celtic society, they're both now draped in tartan picnic rugs. He's smoking a large cigar, while she's opted for a packet of fudge as big as Dobbin's nosebag, to tide her over till dinner in half an hour's time.

Irish hotels catering for Americans are aware of the need to serve American-sized portions, so she'll soon be tucking into a whole spit-roast pig, followed by a main course, all washed down with pints of Diet Coke to stop her from getting fat....

As I'm about to leave [the pub], the crowded room is suddenly filled to bursting point as the Tweedles come in with great commotion, accompanied by an even heavier couple....
"So how are you enjoying your holiday?" asks the barman, as he pours whiskey for the men, and something green for their partners.
"Oh, it's just gorgeous," says Tweedledee.
"Yeah, terrific," agrees Tweedledum. "So old-fashioned."
"And so unspoiled," says Dee. "Say, do you have a rest room?"
"Upstairs."
"Guess I'll wait then," says Dee. "We don't do stairs."

"So where are you folks from?" asks the barman.
"Oh, we live in Chicago," says Dum, "but my father was Irish."
There's a general murmur of approval and I feel ashamed. This man I've been mocking as a stereotype of mindless tourism turns out to be as authentically Irish as I am. I feel like apologising, though we've never even met.
"Sure, that's great," says the barman. "So where exactly was your daddy from?"
"He was from Texas."

McCarthy's Pub is a fine book, a rollicking good read. And let me reassure American readers that McCarthy  is not anti-American. He's just anti-tourist, skewering alike the English, the Germans, the Italians, the Scandinavians...and did I mention the English? Here's a trenchant quote:

Once somewhere has more tourists than local people, more knick-knack shops than newsagents or groceries, then equilibrium has been destroyed, the game is up, and the balance has irrevocably shifted in favour of revenue, occupancy and the forces of darkness. Real life may continue, but to the visitor it's all but invisible.

Agent 3, who lives in a tourist trap (and sent McCarthy's Pub to me) says this is all too true.

* Note from Ed.: Walt wrote "Eire", not "Ireland", but I changed it so Americans would understand.

Gunless Kalamazoo Kop felt "threatened" by Canucks

You probably saw this story earlier this week, but Walt feels it bears retelling, since it's a perfect example of the ignorance and paranoia Americans experience when confronted by anything or anyone "foreign". Even when the non-American country or culture or person is somewhat familiar, friendly, peaceful and polite. Like Canada and Canadians.

What follows is a true story, from beautiful Calgary, Alberta, which every year hosts a large cowboy festival -- a glorified rodeo, actually -- called the Stampede. Walt (no relation) Wawra, a Kalamazoo MI policeman, decided to pay a visit this year. No doubt he was dismayed when he passed through Canadian customs and immigration [You mean you have to do that?! Ed.] and was told he couldn't bring his gun(s) with him.

He must have been more dismayed still when he was accosted in a Calgary park by a couple of Canuck hosers -- perhaps resembling those pictured -- who demanded (twice) to know if he'd been to the Stampede yet! But let's not speculate. Here's part of Walt's account of his close encounter with hosers of the northern kind, as published in his letter to the editor of the Calgary Herald.

Two young men approached my wife and me in Nose Hill Park, in broad daylight on a paved trail. The men stepped in front of us, then said in a very aggressive tone: "Been to the Stampede yet?"

We ignored them. They moved closer, repeating: "Hey, you been to the Stampede yet?"
I quickly moved between these two and my wife, replying, "Gentlemen, I have no need to talk with you, goodbye." They looked bewildered, and we then walked past them.

I speculate they did not have good intentions when they approached in such an aggressive, disrespectful and menacing manner. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ they did not pull a weapon of some sort, but rather concluded it was in their best interest to leave us alone.

Walt (Whiteman) speculates that if only Officer Walt (Wawra) had been allowed to have his trusty sidearm with him, Canada would today be down a couple of hosers. Which would be a shame, because the “very aggressive” strangers he encountered may have just been representatives from an oil company giving out free passes to the Stampede.

Wawra’s response to the seemingly mundane, daylight encounter has sparked scorn across the Internet. And it is very tempting to have a good laugh about the stereotypical Ugly American. But seriously... as Herald columnist Naomi Lakritz points out, the whole farcical story -- especially Wawra's perception of the threat and what his reaction could have been if only he'd had a gun -- "speaks volumes about the cultural differences between Canadians and Americans. It gives the lie to those who say that Canadians are no different than Americans."

Ms Lakritz sums up: Wawra’s mindset is what America’s gun mania has produced. How paranoid and how very sad.

Walt adds: That's how wars -- more accurately, invasions of small, weak countries -- get started. Remember Iraq? The American and British governments lied to their citizens that Saddam Hussein possessed great stores of Weapons of Mass Destructions, which made the mighty USA and the not-so-mighty not-so-Great Britain feel threatened. Unlike Walt Wawra, the USA and the UK still had their guns.

Further comment: "It’s Kalamazoo vs. Calgary in clash of civilizations", by Heather Mallick, in the Toronto Star.

Footnote: Walt is well aware that the eponymous Ugly American was the good guy in the novel. Don't write to me to point that out.

Barack Obama vs the American people

Just discovered a great blog which I have to share with you. After all, why should Walt be the only blogger with an inkwell full of vitriol.

Check out Yid With the Lid: Exploring theories of political relativity. A couple of days ago the writer published a great analysis of Al's strategy for winning re-election in 2012. It's called "Barack Obama vs the American People". Well worth reading!

How to offend a Canadian

Unlike Americans (see previous post), Canadians can be offended. How? By confusing them with Americans!

So says the British national tourist agency, in guidelines published this week to help the hosts deal with visitors to the 2012 Olympics, which will be held in London.

According to the Associated Press report, the advice says Canadian tourists are likely to be quite annoyed about being mistaken for Americans. The guide urges workers to keep an eye out for maple leaf pins or badges on tourists' clothing.

Here's the rest of the British guide to getting along with Canadians. Walt publishes this as a service to all the American (and other) tourists who may be visiting Canada and find themselves a tad perplexed by the manners of those crazy Canucks.

Social practices – not laws – govern many types of behaviour in Canada. Some traditions are well established and are politely but firmly enforced.

For example:

• Lining up, or queuing: People normally line up or queue according to the principle of ‘first-come, first-served.’ They will be angry if you push ahead in a line-up instead of waiting your turn.

• Not smoking in private homes: Most Canadians do not smoke.

• When you are in people’s homes, you should always ask their permission to smoke. However this may be different in Quebec.

• Being on time: You should always arrive on time. People who are often late may be fired from their jobs or suspended from school. Many Canadians will not wait more than 10-15 minutes for someone at a business meeting. For social events, it is expected that you will arrive within half an hour of the stated time.

• Respect for the environment: Canadians respect the natural environment and expect people to avoid littering.

• Bargaining: Bargaining for a better price is not common in Canada, but there are some exceptions. People who sell things privately may also bargain.

• Smart shopping: Stores compete on price with one another to attract customers. Note: the price marked on goods in stores does not include taxes, which add from 7-15% to the cost of an item, depending on the province.

• Shaking hands: It is customary that you always shake hands at a first-time meeting and always in business situations.

• First names: Canadians are always on a first name basis; especially in social situations and informal business environments.

• Not Americans: The Canadian visitor to Britain is not an American... and don't you forget it!

Footnote: Canadians have their own money too. It's called "dollars" but it comes in different colours. Oh yeah, there's no dollar bill. You get coins with strange names -- loonies and toonies. The loonies look like gold, but they aren't.

How to annoy an American (for Canadians)

Note from Ed.: The original title of this piece (August 2010) was "How to offend an American". As if Walt would ever do that, taking into account that most of our readers hail from the Excited States of America. All the same, although I distinctly recall posting some text, today (4 September 2011) it's a blank. Wonder who deleted it? But you need something to read, so here is
11 ways to annoy an American (for Canadians)

1. Talk really slowly, enunciating every syllable.
2. Refer to the United States as "the eleventh province".
3. Frisk them for weapons.
4. Intentionally mispronounce rapper Jay-Z's name "Jay-Zed".
5. Flash them your Health Card.
6. "Maple syrup or grits? Yeah, there's a tough choice."
7. Tell them they couldn't possibly be American; they're not obese enough.
8. When in conversation, ask them to repeat themselves, saying, "I'm sorry ,I just can't understand your accent".
9. "The next 'Bachelor' is Canadian. Now you'll see how a real man deals with the ladies".
10.When they commend your politeness, tell them to eff off.
11."New York? Where is that exactly?"

Walt doesn't discriminate. He leaves no group unoffended!

Out of work? Broke? American? Try Canada!

One of the websites Walt checks occasionally is the Huffington Post. It's got blogs by Idiot Spitzer, T. Boone "Slim" Pickens and others who should know something about how to make a buck, or at least survive a recession.

The Post's feature article today has some advice for those who are finding it a bit difficult to make the nut in Obama's America. The headline says: Need A Job? Try Canada, Where Hiring Is Booming And Home Prices Are Rising.

The article reports on the generally healthy state of the Canadian economy [No kidding? ed.] which last month added a whopping 93,200 new jobs, while the USA continues to struggle with unemployment woes.

At the bottom of the HuffPost article is a poll, asking people whether they would be willing to move to Canada for work. When Walt looked, over 56% of those who voted said they’d move to Canada if that’s where the jobs are, while 17% said they’d stay in the States.

Warning to prospective wetbacks! Many Americans who venture north of the world's longest undefended border are surprised to learn that they've entered a different country. There's funny-coloured currency, you have to take off your hat at the Legion and don't even think about turning right on red in Montréal.

One more thing. Visitors aren't allowed to work...legally. If you want to come and take a Canuck's job, you have to ask that nice Mr. Harper. He'll probably say yes, but you do have to ask. A smiling, courteous "border services agent" will be glad to explain it to you. You're welcome.