Asymmetrical Information

You're just jaded because you live in New York (damn elitest snob!!!). When I was visiting my spouse in Kansas last year the top story on the Friday night local news was that someone's car had been broken into and some CDs had been stolen. Not CDs containing top secret documents or Hallmark trade secrets, but music CDs. I think one of them was the new Nelly CD. And keep in mind that this was not some podunk town in Kansas, this was the local Kansas City news.

Canada is just like a very large, very cold, very polite (somewhat thinner) Kansas City.

It's generally front page news when postal rates go up in the U.S. as well.

FYI, having done some business with Canadians, I should say that many people there are not thrilled to see "Canada" contrasted to "America," since technically Canada is a part of "America."

With a violent crime rate twice that of the U.S., you would think they would have plenty of news to report.

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/001306.html

Is this better?

> "Canada" contrasted to "America," since technically Canada is a part of "America."

Canada is merely part of the continent known as North America.

South and North America are continents, collectively known as the Americas.

America isn't a continent.

It's remarkable that the Canadians saw fit to raise their postal stamp rate. What...did the literacy rate go up?

Well said Andy. On several occasions I've seen this misguided indignation over using "America" to refer to the USA -- because supposedly Canada and Mexico are also part of America.

As you point out, Canada and Mexico are part of *North* America. They are also part of a larger, 2-continent land mass called "the Americas."

They are not part of America. There is no place that is called America, except for the well understood use of the term as shorthand for the United States of America.

I blame all that living in igloos and drinking Kokanee.

It gets to you after a while. I've seen it in my Canuckistani friends.

Australia was like that. It sometimes seemed as if nothing at all was going on in Australia. I used to watch the hourly news snippets on one of the morning talk shows, and there'd be days when every single story took place in the US. (The UN would do something, and then the President would do something, and then there'd be an earthquake or a blizzard or a flood, and -- oops! -- out of time.)

I didn't think this was because Australians were so nice, though, but that they were badly served by their news media. There was a woman killed in a freak accident where I worked, and I couldn't find anything about it in the local papers. I finally found something on line in the Taiwanese (I think) press, because that's where she was from.

Given that you linked to the Toronto Star, I'm a bit surprised that the headline didn't read "Bush Administration Forces Canada to Raise Price of Stamps". But if you want reassurance that Canada is a cutting-edge place, take a look at this piece on The Eclectic Econoclast:

http://the-econoclast.blogspot.com/2005/01/doing-research-on-polygamy.html

If you don't like calling us "Americans", you just have to find name from "United" or "States" that passes the giggle test. Until then, shut up about it. Or call us "Yanks" - but expect to deal with fits of rage from residents of our southern states. 8-)

Incidentally, the official name of Mexico, in any case is Estados Unidos Mexicanos, which could be translated as "the United States of Mexico," or "the United Mexican States."

"When I was visiting my spouse in Kansas last year the top story on the Friday night local news was that someone's car had been broken into and some CDs had been stolen."

I've lived in Kansas my whole life and have never seen a television story about such a thing -- not in Kansas City, Wichita, Topeka or even Pittsburg (no "h", population 24,000). I'm not attacking your credibility, just saying that would be quite unsual as a tv news story, much less the top story.

A few years ago, The New Republic ran a contest to find the most boring possible headline. They ended the contest early and awarded theprize to The New York Times for actually running a story under the headline "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative".

No, really - I saw the headline myself.

Hey, http://www.dogbreed.mypetdogs.com is a good online information on different dog breeds.

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