Craig Read

The only defense of this initiative is that it leaves the Dumbos without much to cry about. -Economy is booming -Within one year Iraq will be under control and Hussein dead -Health Care reform [although it is nothing of the sort] can be a political tool to steal moderate votes -Next on the agenda - Social Security reform and namely - tax free savings account [about time], in lieu of having gov't steal your money from your wage for SS payments Bush can redeem himself on this poor Medicare bill by; -Stop bashing China -Get rid of the steel tariffs -Reform social security.

Maybe the US should charge Canada for the following: 1. Health care technology transfers from the US to Canada 2. Fair market prices for drugs 3. Defence France can also pay the war debts it owes the US plus interest. Then maybe shallow minded nationalist nitwits like yourself would wake up and understand what it costs to be a nation and take a seat at the adult table.

Is there ever any logic to your statements? You said 'the media does not create public perceptions' Huh? Okay so what planet do you hail from ? Of course the media not only forms public opinions but reinforces them, with years of ceaseless propaganda and coverage. Do you think the anti-americanism in Canada is not media fed ? That is akin to stating that job creationism has no impact on the economy. Absurd. The EU media cultivates 'differentiation', 'superiority' and 'arrogance' through the denigration of American values, character and intent. This dogma runs through the education system through to the political elite and is buttressed by the media fascination with 'la gloire du Europe.' Of course niceties such as the holocaust, hitler, napoleon, stalin, and the 30 years war are quickly forgotten. Canada follows the EU model - state owned broadcasting bashing its largest neighbour - and inculcating Canadians post 1965 that high taxes, socialised medicine and ice hockey a nation make. Pathetic.

China will be an ally not an enemy RTOR. There is enough common ground to dispel antagonistic feelings. The Chinese have suffered from a cultural inferiority complex for 150 years. When the old leadership dies off the younger generation will be more accustomed to cooperation and trade, and will be more interested in BMW, Gucci and mansions, than in bombast, guns and mindless conformity. On the US, the economy continues to surge and the stock market will pass 10.000 this year. By next June i predict a Dow of 11500. Not BAD considering they are fighting a war. Stupid americans, don't they know that the Canadian model [<1.5 % gdp growth this year], is the RIGHT model.

China is no enemy of the US. It is still a poor third world country with 2 parts - a progressive coastal area + Hong Kong - and the rest. US and Chinese interests have little to clash over in East Asia - plus the US has Japan, Taiwan, Australia and probably a reluctant Russia as allies. Bashing China on trade, erecting tariffs, stimulating trade sanctions and causing trade disruption is not smart politics nor economics. California exported billions to China this year and closing off that market to Cali exports is the last thing that economy needs. The faster China becomes integrated with liberal trading systems in the world order, the faster we will witness a political transformation. As well Chinese products aid the US and Cdn economies - allowing us to shop at Walmart, save our money and reinvest it elsewhere. Trade is benevolent, sanctions malignant. I am convinced that far from being an enemy, China will become a trade and political ally of the US - IF it is handled properly. Currently Bush is botching it.

NY Times screams 'Pull out of NYC - 1000 now dead in 2003 from homicides'. The Toronto Star moans '150 dead in GTA in disastrous campaign, is it time to pull out ??' The LA Times intones 'UNO says that 900 deaths in LA unsustainable and that the US must pull out.' 20 something airheads and the enviro-hate-everything but fascism crowd - protest in downtown Toronto waving placards 'Pull out of Toronto'. 'Down with Imperialism.' More people die on our city streets than will die in Iraq. Yes it is a pity to ignore the UN, France and Russia - all of whom support terror in one form or another. God forbid that we anger Zimbabwe, Syria, China, Laos, Mexico or other liberal democratic nations. Canada with its closed political system, legal trained elite, and state socialist broadcasting is patently anti-American - the unfortunate aspect is that 80 % of news coverage on the major US outlets is also rather anti-American and pro-internationalism. MRC has many reports on this - on every topic from Iraq to Kyoto. 80 % or more of the time the reports will favor the internationalist position - Iraq and Fox News in particular were exceptions. US Media left wing CNN is a left liberal news station developed by Ted Turner who is a well known fundraiser of leftist projects. His wife is Hanoi Jane Fonda, she of the arrogant liberal position that there were no US POWS in Vietnam, as she pranced and danced in Hanoi shouting anti-American nonsense [should have been tried as a traitor]. CNN is openly hostile to Bush - remember election 2000 when CNN declared 80 minutes before polls closed [this is illegal] that Gore won Florida [and hence the white house?]. Fighting for freedom is a long tough slog. I can't imagine Churchill and FDR putting up with this media circus that now parades around Iraq. Can you imagine CNN and the CBC covering D-Day?? 'Disaster', 'Not enough progress', 'Bad Planning', 'Eiesenhower a fool' etc. Complete with CBC showing tearful mothers in their kitchens crying over their lost sons as they broadcast the body bag count and announce that we need to pull out that the Boche are too tough.

Read the articles on boot camps elsewhere including Ontario. The DID work. The recidivism fell by over half. The plans paid for themselves. It depends on how you implement them and the details of the work involved. Common sense tells us that of course they would work - what Club Med Fed would be better ? No chance. State of Kansas 2003 research summary:

I love listening and watching the left lib news. 1. During the Iraq war - 'We can't win it, they are too tough.' 2. 3 Weeks later - 'Well we won but the French and UN don't love us anymore, this is terrible.' 3. Now the past 6 months - "Vietnam ! Quagmire ! We will lose the peace ! Pull out !' 300 Coalition soldiers lost their lives so far in this war. -In Toronto 110 are killed each year -In Washington 298 were murdered last year -In NYC about 900 die each year. So let's pull out of these 3 cities which have killed in the past year 3x more than the Iraq war. Hey people are getting killed and there is not even a war going on !! I would love to see WWII fought with the Clinton News Network covering it. 'DDay a Disaster!' '10.000 killed in past 3 days !!' 'Churchill a war criminal'. 'FDR lied about the German defences !' 'Eisenhower called stupid by armchair generals in NYC !' Replete with marching boneheads in Washington and London with dumb placards stating 'Pull out of Europe' and 'the Germans love their children too.' What a world we now have built. How about some intelligence and perspective - YES there is a WAR going on. Hello.

Boot camps ARE cost effective. If the recidivist rate drops by half, the system pays for itself. We are talking about a few millions here, when the health care system - bloated, ineffective, supine - wastes BILLIONS in Ontario alone. Criminality and a no tolerance policy are the best prescriptions and teaching discipline and hard work is necessary for young offenders.

The liberals dominate due to the closed political system, the buyoffs, the power of the PMO, the lack of a credible right of centre party, media support, the lack of voter interest [50 % only vote], and the greased up corporate donations that keep flowing. The Libs don't need the West - except as a cash cow.

Verc is right on. Christ is the greatest composite fraudalent figure of all time - Moses would come a close second. This is not to denigrate either vision - both are important for various reasons to civilisation, but it is pretty clear that neither existed. Jesus - a fake though he is - represents a higher ideal. But his teachings were not new, they had been discussed for centuries. Hillel predates Christ by a century, Buddha by 5 centuries and Confucious by 5 as well. The innovation with Christ was that Peter and Paul were able to marry the doctrine, with the person, with the supernaturalty, with the wrath and damnation of a fickle god. Scaring the hell out of peasants is a useful tool to keep them in line as you attempt to invert the social order. Keep in mind as well that for 800 years the figure on the cross being crucified was a lamb - not a man. It was not until the Renaissance that the figure of the man on the cross was burned into the European mind. This followed a papal decree in about 800 AD that the lamb be substituted by a man. Jesus was an ideal, not a real person. Hugo references 2 Roman Historians who wrote 40 years after Christ died, but Suetonious references a Greek in Rome, and Tacitus provides no details of Jesus and just mentions Christ in passing with no source proof. None of the other 38 or more Roman historians and philosophers during the period of Christ mention the existence of Christ. This is very odd. No foreign accounts, nothing from travellers, from political delegations, from religious leaders, from magistrates, from officials, and nothing in written form from Christ or anyone associated with him. But he lived ? Rather improbable. Lots of evidence abounds to support that Confucious, Buddha and Mohammad lived - the first two lived 500 years before Chirst. Walter R. Cassels, and other learned scholars who have investigated Christ in the modern era, find no evidence he existed. For instance Cassels points out that the Gospels were written 50-150 years after Christ died, in Greek, not Aramaic the language Christ would have spoken at the time. History must be founded upon genuine documents or on living proof. The Gospels that were written in the second century no longer exist. They have been lost or destroyed. Between the earliest Gospels and the oldest existing manuscripts of the New Testament, there is a blank gulf of three hundred years. It is, therefore, impossible to say what the original Gospels contained. Can you imagine someone writing FDR's biography on hand me down foreign translated 150 year old transcripts and calling it history ? Me thinketh not. Leo X - who said Christ was a fraud - was funny enough the son of Lorenzo il Magnifico - the personification of the Renaissance. Leo let Rome dissolve into licentiousness, built huge palaces for his cardinals, engaged in a massive arts building program, hired Michaelangelo and others, and taxed the hell out of Europe to pay for it. If you want the source of Luther and of German Protestantism - look no further than the centuries old greed of the Church, the belief in amongst the Church elder's that the story of Christ was apocryphal, the sales of indulgences, the overtaxation and the raucous lifestyle of Church leaders, replete with servants, concubines and easy money. Add to this the competing claims of 3 popes during the 15/16th centuries, rationalism, secularism, the printing press, literacy, and the nationalist movements inspired by Henry the 8 and Luther and voila, you have the end of the Church and its power. Christ is however a useful fraud and vision.

True, like i said Jesus - a fake though he is - represents a higher ideal. But his teachings were not new, they had been discussed for centuries. Hillel predates Christ by a century, Buddha by 5 centuries and Confucious by 5 as well. The innovation with Christ was that Peter and Paul were able to marry the doctrine, with the person, with the supernaturalty, with the wrath and damnation of a fickle god. Scaring the hell out of peasants is a useful tool to keep them in line. Keep in mind as well that for 800 years the figure on the cross being crucified was a lamb - not a man. It was not until the Renaissance that the figure of the man on the cross was burned into the European mind. This followed a papal decree in about 800 AD that the lamb be substituted by a man. Jesus was an ideal, not a real person. Walter R. Cassels, the learned author of "Supernatural Religion," one of the greatest works ever written on the origins of Christianity, says: How can Gospels which were not written until say 50-150 years after Christ is supposed to have died, and which do not rest on any trustworthy testimony, have the slightest value as evidence that he really lived? History must be founded upon genuine documents or on living proof. Were a man of to-day to attempt to write the life of a supposed character of a hundred and fifty years ago, without any historical documents upon which to base his narrative, his work would not be a history, it would be a romance. Not a single statement in it could be relied upon. Another problem -- Christ is supposed to have been a Jew, and his disciples are said to have been Jewish fishermen. His language, and the language of his followers must, therefore, have been Aramaic -- the popular language of Palestine in that age. But the Gospels are written in Greek -- every one of them. Nor were they translated from some other language. Every leading Christian scholar since Erasmus, four hundred years ago, has maintained that they were originally written in Greek. Foreign Gospels, written by unknown men, in a foreign tongue, several generations after the death of those who are supposed to have known the facts -- such is the evidence relied upon to prove that Jesus lived. Another problem - Gospels that were written in the second century no longer exist. They have been lost or destroyed. The oldest Gospels that we have are supposed to be copies of copies of copies that were made from those Gospels. We do not know who made these copies; we do not know when they were made; nor do we know whether they were honestly made. Between the earliest Gospels and the oldest existing manuscripts of the New Testament, there is a blank gulf of three hundred years. It is, therefore, impossible to say what the original Gospels contained. Can you imagine someone writing FDR's biography on hand me down foreign translated 150 year old transcripts and calling it history ? Me thinketh not. Leo X - who said Christ was a fraud - was funny enough the son of Lorenzo il Magnifico - the personification of the Renaissance. Leo let Rome dissolve into licentiousness, built huge palaces for his cardinals, engaged in a massive arts building program, hired Michaelangelo and others, and taxed the hell out of Europe to pay for it. If you want the source of Luther and of German Protestantism - look no further than the centuries old greed of the Church, the sales of indulgences, the overtaxation and the raucous lifestyle of Church leaders, replete with servants, concubines and easy money. Add to this the competing claims of 3 popes during the 15/16th centuries, rationalism, secularism, the printing press, literacy, and the nationalist movements inspired by Henry the 8 and Luther and voila, you have the end of the Church and its power.

Martin has made a million promises including; tax cuts, more spending, more power for the cities, indian land overhaul [about time], HRDC deconstruction [about time], more mature relationship with the US and democratic improvements. Have to see what he does, but without question his troops are already controlling the press and the agenda. No matter what Martin does he will receive favourable reviews from the press. I am not convinced he is a fiscal conservative. No evidence from the 90s supports that view. Spend and over tax/debt burdens went up not down.

Well with free loading allies of course the US is stretched. The Canadians have 2000 men in Kabul, the EU about 5.000 in Afgh., the Brits about 30.000 in Iraq and the EU about 3.000 in total in Iraq and 4.000 Poles. Doing everyone elses job does strain one's resources. Invading Iran in 2 years time is feasible and should be kept open as an option. The last thing we need is some dolt like Clinton or Carter to tell everyone 'no problems we will NEVER invade it is okay.' This is what the State dept. and Liberals do best - give the green light to various dictators. Iran should be held accountable for violating the AEC agreements they signed and the Nuclear Non proliferation pact they should flagrantly flounce. Invasion will mostly likely be necessary before they arm nuclear weapons. After that, it is too late. And anyways Tiny bin laden is dead but AQ is still being nurtered by nation states and monied interests. The UN states that AQ has chemical weapons. They got them from somewhere. Kay's report is pretty clear - the Iraqi's had every intention of building WMD and Kay intimates that much WMD will be found. The war was and is justified on moral, economic, political and security grounds. 9-11 happened - precisely because Bush Sr and the clown Clinton did not do what had to be done - which was a vigorous prosecution of a war that had been ongoing since at least 1983. To requote what KK posted:

Well in Ontario only 30 % of boot campers reoffended vs. 75 % of non-bootcampers. In Nevada, boot camps are used quite effectively to retrain criminals of all stripes and the reoffend rate is negligeable. The Liberal media has this one wrong as well, boot camps offer training, discipline and a tangible sense of shame for wrong doing. They sure beat the Club Meds in the Prisons that we have today.

Flea the EU sends DIRECTLY to the PLA which the world's ugliest man, Arafat, DIRECTLY controls $300mn per year. But of course that is not called funding it is called 'charitable donations' and written off the income statement. Arafat is worth millions and pray tell where did this wealth come from ? Of course the UN and EU fund his war on terror, the UN through aid to the PLA and its maintenance of terror er i mean refugee camps that were supposed to be shut down in the early 50s. The EU geniuses fund terror worldwide. A mere $300 mn is pocket change to have a say in the middle east and to appease the masses at home that the noble Europeans are dedicated to stopping the fascist Jewish state from eradicating the principled and cultured Arabs from the Near East. It makes good political points at home, especially when EU polls indicate that Israel -not Al Qaeda, Hamas, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Hussein, Abu Nidal, or assorted criminals and criminalities - is the #1 threat to world peace. Too many left wing and Muslim votes to buy off domestically. The EU wants to have a role in the ME - price they will pay - the funding of terror. Welcome to paradise. This is post i made a while ago - not even the most tree hugging of EU philes would deny its importance.

[Note on a post above; shroud of turin has been proven many times to be a hoax [unless you read Time Magazine], and the name Christ means 'teacher' and in Greek Chrestus is a common name, so the name itself means nothing. It is like calling someone 'father'. And on travel during 'Jesus' time, in Mark and other books on Jesus' travels all sorts of mistakes are made on distance, name of cities, and time to travel etc. It is clear that many 'trips' are just made up stories and that the author had little clue about the geography of the area.] I don't believe the Bible nor the preachings of the prophets [not Christ since i don't believe he existed] were peaceful. It is obvious in an uneducated illiterate population that Hell and damnation are useful devices to make people conform. The bible was written over a period of 1000 years and was used as a roadmap to civilise the baser instincts of man and allow some common set of values and rules to regulate social interaction. That in and of itself is a good idea. To achieve this Yahweh is not portrayed as a loving god, but a vengeful, even fickle god. The added layers of the bible, added on to the moral ethical code, refer to supernaturality, which is used to illustrate the validity of the claim of god [or of Jesus] and to ensure compliance. Miracles, extra-terrestrial phenomena and magic are allegories not meant to be literal events. This would hold true for Christ - he never existed but his story presents compelling God inspired arguments to adhere to Church doctrine and follow his example - or suffer in hell if you don't. The bible is a useful tool, you can believe in pieces of it, but to state that it is peaceful is wrong, and to state that to be an atheist and a Christian is incompatible is wrong as well. Both Aristotle and Plato could well qualify as believers in God but aetheistic in the interpretation of what is that God. Building out on their philosophies you could make the case, made by Medieval scholars such as Abelard, Petrarch and Da Vinci, that secular ethics based on biblical morality is valid. 'Christian' is a word - the actual moral ethical case made in the Sermon on the Mount was made by many other teachers and religions. The name attached to it is rather unimportant - what is important is the impact that these teachings had on Western civilisation. In a secular age marrying these ideals to modernity and aetheism is entirely logical and justified. To be more accurate these philosophies must be known as 'Judaeo-Christian'.

Take a tour of the FSU , read some economic history, you can start anywhere and quickly find that communist systems fail. You can't regulate price and supply by product, by market, and you can't dictate consumer choice. The market is too complicated to replicate in central gov't models and what happens is that politicians allocate resources to further national advantage. The Russians did this - all capital went into heavy industry, none into the consumer markets. The result; a pygmy consumer economy surrounded by state owned assets and military hardware, unable to generate enough GDP growth to sustain itself. Communism is illogical and immoral. It leads to tyranny and oppression and state sponsored terror, no freedoms, no free speech and a depressed demoralised citizenry. If you love the idea so much, move to North Korea. This thread is about Canada's real National deficit. The over-regulation and taxation of Canada is a prime reason why the Cdn economy has trouble producing enough growth and capital to reduce the standard of living gap with the US which is 25 % and growing.

This post is about France and Germany funding terror. They do, and they opposed Gulf War II due to economic and investment interests. Period. None of the adolescent vitriol by Riff Raff and Fairyius and the well named Fleabag make any sense. The US has freed 35 nations and one of them, South Korea, is according to Fairyius a bad example because it is geopolitically relevant. Good one. Ask the South Koreans if they would prefer to live under North Korean or Chinese dominion. Have a referendum there. Ask them if they prefer US military protection or the good words of the Chinese communist dictatorship. In fact ask Hong Kong that same question. The answer is obvious except to the most rabid of marxist ideologues who vouchsafe that socialism and fascism are redeemable systems - in which millions are murdered of course, but that is preferable to US military-capitalist domination. The US is in Iraq for GEOPOLITICAL reasons in fighting terrorism. As KK said they will never receive back their return on investment from this campaign, UNLESS by so doing they prevent another 9-11. Iraq is the perfect place to start rebuilding the Middle East and as yesterday's PRO DEMOCRACY demonstrations in BAGHDAD made clear [of course NOT shown on the CBC], the Iraqi people WANT reform, not Saddam. I don't know why the mindless minions of marxist anti-americanism are even allowed to post on here. They add ZERO value to the discussion. As i posted previously and it cannot be refuted, certainly not by the trash posted by the 3 merry marxist members:

Well the Turin shroud is a hoax. It dates from the Middle Ages. Other historical religious figures including Buddha and Confucious are littered by evidence of their lives here on earth. Christ has no such evidence. This strikes me as peculiar since he only lived 2000 years ago and various other contemporary figures have plenty of supporting evidence of their lives. Christ has none - only some words written in Mark 35 years after his death and some other thoughts from observers after his death on his life. But nothing tangible, concrete exists. Liberal and mainline theologians generally believe that Mark was the first gospel written, and that it was composed about 70 CE. Matthew and Luke were authored up to 15 years later. John was written after Luke. None of the authors identities are known. If these dates are correct, then it is unlikely that any of the authors were eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry. In spite of their claims, they were relying on secondary or tertiary sources, and accumulated church tradition. And: >There were about 40 Roman historians who wrote during the first two centuries. With the exception of Tacitus and Seutonius [the latter reference a Chrestus who was a Roman trouble maker and both wrote 2-3 generations after Christ died] none stated that Jesus existed in the 1st century. > Jewish literature: The Talmud states that Jesus lived in the 2nd century BCE. However, this passage itself dates from the early 2nd century CE. The authors were probably basing their writings on a reaction to some of the dozens of Christian gospels circulating by that time. > Pope Leo X (1513-1521): He is quoted by Barbara Walker in her Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Page 471, as having said "What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!" Rev. Taylor, in The Diegesis, Page 35, has a slightly different quote from the same Pope: "It was well known how profitable this fable of Christ has been to us." There is a good chance that Christ is like Moses - a composite figure, largely apocryphal. I doubt very much that there was an actual Jesus. Hence the disorganised nature of Christianity.

Black was a builder, though it is questionable how much money his papers made . He was innovative in competing against the Cdn media bias in favor of sappy post modern socialism. I give him full credit for his business efforts, he innovated, developed, hired people, paid taxes and created a conservative organ that challenged Cdn orthodoxy. This however does not give him a license to steal from shareholders or from investors [market investors that is]. Black broke the law and defrauded investors and this is the issue. Legality must be enforced and the SEC in the US has a problem with enforcing its civil regulations. We need criminal regulations to deal with corporate fraudsters. Black falls into this group.

Conrad who used a $50 mn load provided by his father using Argus Inc [investments] as collateral, to start buying newspapers and create an empire, is undoubted a talented, very intelligent, politically conservative and unabashed defender of orthodox liberalism. Canada needs more Conrads. Unfortunately we don't need more men who deceive shareholders, ignore Board directors, and use their business assets as personal ATM machines. Black it looks like stole hundreds of millions from his firms. Conrad should have his assets frozen, be forced to pay off this appropriations and even perhaps do some jail time. Men like Black, give Capitalism a Black eye. WSJ Nov 27

MH good post. You know the topic. I understand that Jesus took his views from Hillel, and was influenced by Confucious [the golden rule] and by Buddha [pacific struggle]. Jesus' teachings were not new in the sense that many teachers in the area had the same notions, including John who was Jesus' cousin i believe and had a marked influence on Jesus' teachings. Most scholars believe that Jesus existed, i just find it interesting that no hard evidence exists that he was real. I would assume that writings, books, pottery, clothes, jewellry, written accounts - something anything would exist that confirms his reality. Christian aetheism is possible if you believe that the universal 'God' is a set of universal rules found in nature not in preachings. You can believe in the Sermon on the Mount or its implications i suppose, but not believe in the righteousness of the Church to manage your morality.

Arafat is not supported by Israel. That is such garbage. That would be akin to AQ being financed by the State Dept. No chance. Arafat is funded by Europe. The chattering EU elite hands over to the world's ugliest man, U$300 mn per annum. The greedy little Egyptian is supposed to use the money to rebuild his little empire, but instead, after creaming off a few millions for himself, and making sure the NY times and the liberal rags of Europe write glowing accounts of his struggle, he uses the cash to foment a terror campaign. The Fence is a necessary barrier against such a madman and where the fence is in place, no homicide bombers have entered. This fact speaks plainly as to the usefulness and security potential of the fence. The only debating point is the actual line of the fence. The PLA and their friends of terror the UNO and the EU moan that it takes the best land and that Israel is building on palestinian land. My response; you are damn right it and Israel should. This is your payback for 50 years of terrorism.

Reads to me like the old deal. Promises of FUTURE tax relief. Yeah right. Okay have heard that one every since 1917. Taxes never go down, unless you cut them. You first cut taxes, and cut spending and then renegotiate the powers of taxation between various levels of gov't. I see nothing in this deal that even bothers to address the underlying problems besetting local government.