Cannon or Nikon?

As someone who isn't a fabulous photographer, but still wants to be able to take great pictures with a camera that's easy to tote, I've had great luck with Canon cameras. I have owned several cameras from their PowerShot line, and all have given me great results! They're easy to use, easy to carry and store, and the picture clarity is awesome. Canon gets my vote!

You are right: both companies make fine cameras; anyone who claims one brand is better than another is just expressing an opinion, not a fact.
Now, there are some models in each line which might suit some photographers better than others, but no-one can tell from the final print which camera was used to take any photo unless they read the EXIF data or a caption, and there are landscape, portrait, macro, action etc. photographers using all sorts of cameras.

a pretty common statement is that it's the photographer who takes the picture, and not the camera. Now, that is not 100% true. Depending of the type of photography you want to make (potrait, landscape, architecture, macro, wildlife), you should have some basic knowledge at least about the basic techniques used for these type of photography. Then, the camera is not THAT important. More important are the lenses.
Want to shoot macro? well, both canon and nikon and even sigma and tamron produce good macro photography lenses. Want to go extreme? Then chose canon, for the mp-e65. To put it simple, a macro lens will reproduce the subject at 1x lifesize (meaning that a bug with the length of 1cm will apear on the ccd/cmos sensor with a length of 1cm). The mp-e65 lens has a magnification factor of 5x (the same bug will appear 5 times bigger on the ccd/cmos sensor).
Want to shoot landscape? Well, the same applies. There are good lenses out there, but i've heard that nikon's 12-24 is one of the best lenses EVER.
For basic portrait photography, a 50mm 1.8 from canon or nikon would suffice. And, if that doesn't satisfy you, you can get a 80-200 (both brands have one). Here, canon has a 85mm f/1.2 (meaning you can shoot in really low light with it).

Oh, one tiny thing i "forgot" to mention about the above lenses. THEY ALL COST A LOT! just look'em up on a camera store.
Now, let's talk about the camera bodies themselves. Well, nikon just recently introduced the cmos sensor on the cameras. Canon used the cmos sensor for a longer time. A cmos sensor gives better results at high ISOs. Then there's the megapixels. well, in my opinion, 10mp are enough. and that's that.
now, i shoot with a nikon, and nikon cameras have something that canon don't. and that is called cls (creative lighting system). this cls allows you to control an external (hot shoe) flash with the pop-up flash on your camera. and that is GREAT! off camera flash lighting is so much better, cause it offers more flexibility. And i've heard that nikon flashes are, in general, better than canon ones. Of course you can get some other-brand flashes, like the alien bees, and get some pocket-wizards to control them, but, then again, these cost A LOT!

There. that should give you a headache and tottaly confuse you.:)
The point is, there nikon is not better than canon, and canon isn't worse than nikon. It's just a matter of personal prefferences. If you have a lot of money, then consider getting a medium format camera (that would go up to 50mp and would cost about 20000 euros - YES, TWENTY THOUSAND EUROS-).

Cheers!

Canon, no reason its really just personal preference.