And Canadians say the US is screwy?????

[paraflyer]

http://www.canada.com/national/natio...0-91d26023ec78

[Stalemate]

This is the weird territory at which Canada has arrived. Amongst the free citizenry, the right of armed self-defence is no longer considered respectable. The orthodox position of the federal government is that to store a gun in one's home for the purpose of defence is, ipso facto, illegitimate if not insane. When a shop owner in a rough neighbourhood pulls a 12-gauge or a baseball bat in defence of his life and property, the police in any Canadian city will invariably hem and haw over charges against him while telling the public that he ought to have awaited his fate quietly, phoning the authorities if he happened to survive.

Yet, as a country, we haven't mastered that "authority" thing well enough to disarm the inmates of a maximum-security prison, to arrange to have a guard present at their mealtimes or to prevent inter-ethnic murder committed on the most frivolous of pretexts. Kerr will, without doubt, henceforth be a marked man in any of our prisons. Given their apparent state, we may be obliged to not only allow him a concealable pigsticker, but to provide him one for as long as he is the Crown's guest. Maybe we could engrave his initials on it.

Downright embarassing.

I have a cousin serving time for assault / assault against an officer / arson in which a minor was lightly hurt. He's no saint, and he did these things to prove himself to a biker gang in the area.

Even though he's pulled away from that lifestyle, has completed his studies and has enrolled in university classes, server 2/3 of his sentence and shown remorse for his crimes.

He has just been denied parole and will serve out the remainder of his 4.5 years unless other hearings are more favourable to him.

Meanwhile, the average time spent behind bars for someone who takes another person's life in Canada remains 1.7 years...


PS - that doesn't mean the US aren't still screwy though.