Re: America and Canada

[spam@luddite.ca (Simon Williams)]

Sheldon Simms <sheldonsimms@yahoo.com> wrote:

> It seems that everyone has their own definition of what is the
> proper use of the word "America". In Germany, most people are careful
> to say "US" and "US-Americans" and reserve the word "America" for
> the (singular!) continent of America.

Do they call Canadians "Canadian-Americans" then? Maybe the US should be
renamed to "The United States of the Southern Half of North America with
a Bit up North and Some Specks out in the Pacific"... just for clarity's
sake.

> My opinion is that the US and Canada should have a postal union.
> I'm sick of having to pay international postage rates to ship stuff
> to and from Canada.

I wonder why that wasn't part of the NAFTA agreement??? Come to think of
it, our rates to the *USSHNABNSSP* aren't much higher than domestic...
certainly not what I'd call "international rates". Maybe the USPS is
doing a bit of gouging... I know from experience that other carriers
(UPS, Fedex etc) usually charge astronomical rates for anything coming
into Canada, which is why I don't get much Apple II stuff from the
states anymore [see how cleverly I got this back on topic].

Just out of curiosity, I've noticed that a fair number of US eBay
sellers charge us Canadians extra for filling out customs forms... up
here we just have to tell the postmaster/mistress what's in the box and
how much it's worth. Is US customs that much more complicated, or is
this just a cash-grab on the part of the sellers? (not to single-out the
Americans, just personal experience)

-simon
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