Craig Read

I love the irony it is really grand. The perfect Canadians saddled with SARS and BSE. Great. What i would like the media to investigate is: 1. Public Dollars spent on regulations and inspections in Canada per capita vs. other nations - where for instance in Japan each cow is tested for BSE and in the US only 1 in 1700 is tested. What is the total amount spent on regulations of livestock in this country and what is the return on that investment ? From 2 BSE cases in a short while and the attendant economic costs the benefits are negative. 2. The split in dollars for health regulations pertaining to livestock between field workers and administrators and then compare this to other countries. I would bet that 50 % of regulatory budgets are eaten up by swivil chair administrators. 3. The future of reform and health safety in livestock handling. The Minister of Agr. and his staff -at both levels of resp. gov't - get paids lots of money to do something. So where is the push for reform, better controls and better use of our money ? 4. Lastly why aren't people fired for this screwup ? I would hope that given the fact that Canada will cost the US economy $3 billion through its lax management of its livestock that someone in responsibility actually DOES something instead of spewing feel good rhetoric and assorted nonsense.

The Irony is delicious. After laughing and sardonic media reports that the 'Bastards' had BSE - the Canadians are of course to blame. So let's play forecaster - what do you think will happen now ? I bet: -Furious denials will last for weeks -Alta and Ottawa will strike Commissions to investigate -Months will past before reports are issued -The system will be praised as good and only minor adjustments are necessary -Meanwhile the US economy suffers a $3 billion hit and trade tensions behind the scenes rise -A partial reformation of the regulatory body that inspects cattle will be implemented though it will be done in the most inefficient way possible Have to love all the regulatory agencies that fail. But no reforms please. In fact we need more rules and more bodies - just like Manitoba's new Ministry of 'Health Well Being'. So how many of the 39 Federal Ministries will be involved ?

Christianity needs reform, but it has many strengths that allow it to mutate - though not enough to be honest. But at least it is not a petrified, ossified philosophy. Islam is a morbid failure by any measurement - Oliver Roy's book is a great read on the failure of the Islamic system for those who actually like to read. Systems need to address real issues, real problems and deliver 'goods' to the people. Chanting, singing and praying that you get the 72 virgins is not a life - it is an illusion and a sick one at that. Religion that is divorced from reality, that uses superstition to justify itself is no more spiritual than a trickster that pulls a rabbit from a hat. Islam needs to join the real world or face destruction.

Canada in 2004 with a new PM has a chance to start to grow up. It is high time that the country progress past the 12 year old mentality level and start to display some characteristics of adulthood if not, then at least adolescence would be welcomed. Besides a long list of domestic reforms [Parliament, Economic, Internal Free trade, no Regional subsidies etc.], we need a foreign policy and military policy that matches our economic and population size. Witness Iraq and the litany of tearful pre war pronouncements from ninnies in the Canadian Media. All of which failed to pass. Much as Bernard Lewis predicted, in short, respect for America has only increased with this demonstration of strength and purpose. The invasion and its aftermath have gone far toward purging the ghosts of Beirut and Mogadishu, which Osama bin Laden spun into legends of American weakness. As destructive as they are, the truck bombs in Iraq are only strategically notable because this time they are not driving the U.S. home. Much still depends on the kind of Iraqi government that emerges in 2004 and beyond, but the mere possibility that a democratic Arab and Islamic state might exist is already reshaping the region. Another global benefit of the war is the end of illusions about the United Nations and a certain kind of "multilateralism." The U.N. couldn't enforce its own resolutions before the war, and afterward it fled Iraq the first time it was targeted by terrorists. The latter was a special insult to the brave U.N. officials who died trying to rebuild Iraq. The lesson of Iraq, as before in Kosovo, is that only the U.S. has the political will and military means to defeat global threats. American Presidents in the future will likewise have to build coalitions on an ad hoc basis, often working around a U.N. Security Council obstructed by France. Martin and Canada should take note of this - the US will go it alone - and supporting what is right, does not mitigate a country's sovereignty - in fact it enhances it. Canada has a choice - either grow up and join the adult nations and embark on serious reforms with serious purposes - or pretend that reality is relative and that Canadian Idol, the CBC and HNIC is all that matters.

Both frauds are about the same size - U$11 billion. Enron was shut down, its top executives now in the courts [albeit far too slowly]. The company is being liquidated its assets used to pay off creditors. Ironically, given the insinuations of crony capitalism leveled against the Bush administration during the collapse and since, not a political finger was lifted to help the Texas energy giant, which is still negotiating an exit from Chapter 11 reorganization. Enron's and WorldCom's very bankruptcies were proof of the absence of crony capitalism. And Parmalat ? In good EU style the Italian state will ensure it survives. Credit Lyonnais, Bertlesman, AG Metallgeshaft, Vivendi, A-Hold, Sabena, Swiss Air, and the list goes on - all bailed out by the taxpayer. Re Parmalat, last week the Italian government requested that the entire Italian dairy sector be granted "crisis" status by the European Commission. This would allow the Italian state to do pretty much what it wants to prop up anyone from farmers to milkmaids within the sector. All this for the sake of a company that seems to have "misplaced" $11 billion worth of assets. While details trickle out, the broad outlines are clear -- and the scale of the alleged deception is shocking. $5billion in Cash has magically disappeared from the balance sheet. But count on the EU and Berlusconi to bail out Parmalat. Buying votes is easier than restructuring your industry. This is one reason why the EU will fail.

Clown is a good word for the Liberals on Iraq and Foreign policy. Maybe they add some value on domestic issues, when you can cry about love, equality and making sure grandma has enough money to buy dentures. On foreign policy these guys are so out of touch it is shocking. Good report here on Canadian Peter Jenning's and his AntiAmerican Blowhard Corp's [ABC], pre Iraq war utterances. Utterly vapid. Peter and Reality Distortion pre War Peter’s Peace Platoon An MRC study of 234 stories on ABC’s World News Tonight from January 1 to March 7 found that ABC News harshly criticized the Bush administration and its policies, but failed to extend that same tough critical standard to congressional Democrats, UN bureaucrats, skeptical allies like France and even to the dictatorship in Iraq. (MRC Special Report, March 18) Jennings Refuses to Cover NYC Pro-Troops Rally No anti-war protest has been too small for Jennings and ABC to cover but a pro-troops rally that drew 15,000 in New York City didn’t get a mention. NBC and CBS, as well as the three cable networks, did short pieces on the event. (CyberAlert, April 11) Jennings Repeats Himself ABC anchor Peter Jennings used an al-Jazeera report about an American bombing that killed 18 civilians on two successive nights. (CyberAlert, April 5) Jennings and Stahl Raise Vietnam Quagmire Jennings claimed “one Marine” told an ABC reporter that Iraq “sometimes feels like Vietnam.” Over on CBS, Lesley Stahl asked former Navy Secretary James Webb if he was getting a feeling of “déjà vu.” (CyberAlert, March 27) Celebrating Iraqis A Ruse? Iraqis tore down Saddam Hussein's picture and celebrated when coalition forces came through the town of Safwan but ABC News was skeptical. Peter Jennings suggested the actions were done "for the cameras." Correspondent John Donvan went there unescorted and said he "didn't see anything like that." (CyberAlert, March 23) Jennings: U.S. Will Be Welcomed, But We Kept Saddam in Power Jennings interviewed an anti-American former assistant UN Secretary General and made a pro-American point. Sort of. Iraqis will welcome Americans, Jennings said, because they want “to get out from under the yoke of Saddam Hussein, in part because the U.S. supported him staying in power for a long time and kept sanctions.” (CyberAlert, March 21) OK ABC time to fire Jennings the clown - or maybe Fox can buy him and put him on the Simpsons.

Galahad and Morgan - great posts. It always amazes how long its take Cdn officials to actually 1. Admit the truth and 2. Do something about it. Cdns spend most of their time either denying any responsiblity or spinning reality so that they can wear their boy scout badges. There are many posts on a good thread here on immigration and its problems. Fully 60-80 % [depends on the year] of immigrants are not here to work but here on refugee and family programs. Last year 20 % were here for work related reasons. The holes in security are rather obvious with such a pathetic system - but the political-legal complex makes too much money to give it up. Martin is just a fatter Chretien - no change in Canada please - we are too self satisfied to go through all that effort. Canada is quickly deteriorating into a laughingstock - poor media, no army, no security, a 'who cares' immigration policy and social liberalism running amok. Time to pull up the tent stakes and move.

Well dialogue is important obviously, but this matter, and the jingoistic emanations from Canada during the Chretien regime's tenure does nothing to improve a critical relationship. Especially when during the early days of this scare the attitude in Canada was one of smugness and self satisfaction that the US had problems with BSE. There is something deeply flawed about systems that allow BSE and SARS to germinate. Canada is ruining its trade relationship by not reforming its industrial and agricultural practices by; subsidies, poorly managed regulatory regimes, oligopolistic practices. Combined with a grade 6 determined foreign policy and miliary strategy and we have the makings of a huge problem in the relationship. CDN BSE induced paranoia is wiping out stock value and damaging US trade with 20 other countries.

Few are as big of a booster for free markets and enlightened self interest, but all the rules in the world will not stop corporate greed and fraud, unless JAIL TIME and FULL ASSET seizing are instituted - immediately. Witness Dick Grasso - God i hate this guy - received $140 mn walk out CASH for underperforming. No wonder the average person views corporate capitalism with a jaundiced eye. Return the money to the shareholders and put the bum in jail.

Logical, Morgan, excellent posts. I firmly believe that Fascist Islam including the PLA must be smashed, gutted, rooted out destroyed. I have never understood, as Morgan pointed out, the need for politicians to go running to the nearest Mosque and signal that they support Allah. This is unnecessary. If Islam is a religion of peace, then where are the Mullahs raging against the torture of their followers by regime leaders ranging from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia and everywhere in between ? Where were they when Hussein was found - did they express joy at the collapse of his regime and the freedom that Iraqi's will now have or did they resume their chanting and anti-Western drivel ? More obnoxius are the daily feeds from Rotterdam and London where Muslim preachers tell their brethren to destory the West. What a society the West must be to allow such nonsense. Islam is a failure - it is no more enlightened than German Pagan Fascism or Godless Communism. A good book on the failure of Islam is by a Frog nonetheless - Oliver Roy: Read it. Fascist Islam IS the enemy, sure many Mosque lovers might be peaceful, but there is no evidence that in toto Islam is peaceful. It has a violent history and is convulsed by failure that leads to hatred and spite. Islam's goal is simple; Rule the World. Conflict is therfore inevitable.

I would argue and could historical evidence from some large brained people such as Newton, Einstein, Da Vinci, Copernicus and Churchill that secular Christianity is possible and a more 'rationale' approach than following Chuch doctrine. Church history, including the Bible is full of revisionism, insertions of myths, half truths, paradoxically statements and just plain incorrect information. The Bible and Church documents are the ultimate in revisionist historicism. The Church does itself no favors by whitewashing history, elevating dirty old men as near gods, and embracing mysticism. It would be more useful, productive and enlightening as well as attractive for new adherents to present reality, not superstition as the base of church doctrine.

The UNO is so useless it descends into farce at times. Witness the ICJ - a Canadian idea - whose time never should have come. Milosovic and his party have resurfaced as a powerful bloc in the Serb's recent election. This says much about the idiocy of UN-ICJ processes as it does about the sad state of political and mental affairs in paranoiac Serbia. The vacation-like leisurely pace of Hague tribunal procedures has given Milosevic, a platform for preaching to followers back home that they are victims of an international hate-Serbia cabal. They are, after all, being tried in a Dutch courtroom before a Jamaican judge by a Swiss prosecutor, in full sight of Serb TV viewers. In the eyes of ardent Serbian nationalists, these once-disgraced hoodlums have become martyrs. As a result, Milosevic's and the Socialists, boosted by his campaign speeches from The Hague, got 22 seats in the 250-seat chamber in Sunday's elections. Worse the 'Radicals' won the most seats, 81, of any party - and they are the ultra-nationalist left wing party. They are led by Seselj, who's awaiting trial in The Hague for his role in Bosnia's bloody ethnic cleansing campaigns. Insanity. Like any other political institution, a judiciary derives its legitimacy from the people it serves. Everyone, even the most odious leader, deserves to be judged by his own peers. The Hague fails on these counts. More perversely, the far-off cases in the Netherlands made The Hague itself, not the perpetrators of Balkan atrocities, the big story of the election campaigns. Thousands of Serbs complicit in war crimes of the 1990s were let off the hook, and Serbia has been thus far denied its reckoning with history. Welcome to the UNO !!! Where the motto is 'We love dicators and tongue depressors don't send the right message'.

Canada the Great - home to BSE and SARS. Socialised systems and over regulated industries with ineffective processes work - really they do. Now the count of infected Cdn cattle is up to almost 80 - Rah Rah Rah ! In all fairness the chance of getting ill from BSE infected beef as Klein stated is about zero. The media love it - much like SARS - another 'disaster' and 'you will die' story to drool over. You had more of a chance of being touched by God when SARS was 'raging' in Toronto, then actually falling prey to the disease. The CBC and most Cdns were quite glad that those bastards had BSE - it was expressed in the media and in common discourse quite a lot. It just shows the adolescent nature of the country. Why did the US go to Britain and not Canada first for testing and confirmation ? Simple - the Cdn process is not that good, lacks detailed checks and the Americans knew what i know just from living here a while - the Cdns will deny anything is wrong and claim they are perfect. In any event the Cdns have costed the US economy U$ 3 billion per year. Let's add this to the bill we owe them for the military, drugs and health care technology that Canada uses.

Yes it was bad. I always wonder why Mr. Red cheeks gets so nervous on TV. Makes me nervous watching him. As usual as you guys stated, he avoided any and all questions even asking Mansbridge many times why the domed one kept coming back to certain points and lines of questioning. The domed one replied because he as a reporter, and wanted an answer. This was almost too much for our King. How can the hoi poloi expect that he takes a stand on anything without having is C$200.000 salaried spin staff, take it for a ride first ?! Martin is the annointed King based on the media fawning of his role as the Duke of Finance - another thread on that one - but it was a shell game and Martin supported every program spend, every initiative and the maintenance of the ninny state during his tenure. Jack Mintz had a good article in Canadian Business Mag calling Martin's coup d'etat and assumption of King, as a damaging blow to Cdn democracy. No Parliamentary checks, no voter input, no reviews - nothing but an internal coup and replacement of the moronic Chretien with a fellow Liberal do gooder and big spender. I am totally skeptical that anything - let alone democratic reforms - will be done under Martin. He is a Trudeau Liberal - another greasy palm type who is adept at media spin.

I go to Israel, have friends there and spend time with the UJA in Toronto - why since i am not Jewish ? The UJA raises C$50 mn per annum mostly to feed poor Jews in Toronto [about 1/2 their population] and to send over to Israel to resist terror. They are quite willing to grant homeland status to a peaceful PLA regime, but not one to a group of thuggish terrorists that steal international aid and pad their own bank accounts, and bankroll 17 yr old girls to lace their bras with semtex and devastate public buildings. I find it disturbing, nay disgusting that Cdn foreign policy is so ignorant as to grant any rights, privileges or acknowledgements to the PLA and the terrorist Arafat. This 'relative' moral equivocation is inane. Arafat must be overthrown, killed his regime pounded into dust, and the Israeli's together with the Palestinians who are responsible, mature and who renounce terror can work out a settlement. Canada - again proving its femininity, inability to support freedom and democracy and its base crass weakness. [but France is happy !]. International hand gladding, word smithing, smiling grinning photo ops, and visionary peace plans are a complete waste of time. Cut off the head of the snake first before even bringing up the topic of peace. The only thing stopping Sharon from doing what he needs to do is Bush and the US threat to withdraw money and support if Sharon goes too far. Pity.

It is pretty bad when you defend state own broadcasting Mod. I am sure in 1936 you would have been one of the watchful proud Nazi sympathizers excitedly claiming that its coverage of the Jewish question was unbiased and premised on facts. You would have hummed along to the marching bands and Nazi trumpets and mused about the right to lebensraum. This is the same as your current ideas on social engineering, social liberalism and anti-americanism [anti-semiticism as well i should add]. It is beyond the pale when you criticse facts as given by others opposed to your ideology. When will the CBC start apologising for the litany of nonsense that they provided as facts, now redeemed as false ? Even internally the CBC knows it is god awful. Today there is an internal report out on the CBC that confirms what this thread states - it is substandard. CBC is 3rd rate No make it more clear - Left Wing experts and social Liberals - that tell you how stupid you are, and who always state, 'As everyone knows....' When you hear a CBC 'expert' preface his /her remarks with that line, pull out your BS meter, it should start singing. The CBC maintains that you must buy state owned pablum and palaver and rave about Naomi Klein and other 'experts' who have never had to work in the real world and who get funded by the taxpayers to publish unsourced, emotional nonsense. But it is Canadian - so like Avril Lavigne - it must be good. The Media is the watchdog of Parliament. In Canada as J. Simpson rightly explains we have a dictatorship. The media is the ONLY method to keep the all powerful PMOs office in check. The fact that the CBC is a billion dollar crown corp with direct ties to the PMOs office is a scandal. Competition, fair reporting, and making people work for their money is the essence of a well functioning system. Privatise the socialists at the CBC and introduce them to the real world.

Morgan, logic is lost on the left and their blowhards. When people say the truth - they are 'right wing', 'fanatical' and the be all and end all of liberal defence 'not nuanced'. Libs are always 'nuanced' of course. I suppose for Libs the word nuance actually replaces the need to think. They are so nuanced that they are stupid, seditious and defend the indefensible. They are Clintonesque characters splicing word semantics to appear intellectual. Media bias is real and vibrant. Election 2000 [trying to throw it to Gore], Kyoto and the Iraq war are obvious cases in point. How much more proof do you need than what i and some others have posted on media bias on those 3 issues? Fox News which just reports what happens is branded sychophantic, jingoistic and extreme. Give me a break, now just reporting facts and figures is being a conservative. Good Grief. Soon telling the truth will be outlawed, along with the words white, honest, direct, heterosexual and straight. Such terms and definitions are not nuanced enough. Whenever you hear the Lib left utter 'nuanced' pull out your B.S. meter and watch it soar to 10. After all most lib Professors have copy and articles to sell and publish. Inventing dumb theorems on overwrought and useless PhD research, paid by the taxpayers, is vital of course. All the more urgent to get the 'I hate modernity' message out. After all most of these air heads don't work in the real world.

Hard to believe the garbage that the liberals will spew and strew. On this post, people are worried about little Saddam's human rights ? Is his food okay ? Is his hair clean ? Does he have his personal library and maid ? Boo hoo hoo. They showed no concern for 500.000 murdered civilians plus 1 million killed in war. Kill Saddam. Do it with an Iraqi court, backed up by the US, tell the EU ninnies and Canadian 'anti-Tongue Depressors' protestors to go blow. Due process - give me a break.

BSE and SARS - since the US did not experience these outbreaks of course Canada is superior ! What you miss - and your name says it all - are the major points i mentioned which in good Cdn fashion you don't refute just ignore with the 'we are perfect premise...' Here is a nother one for u - IF the cow was Cdn - and probably it was - the US has now suffered a ban from more than 20 trading partners valued at $3 billion US annually. Nice one. Due to improper procedures and the inability of various levels of gov't agencies and regulators who suck off the public teat in Canada to do a JOB - the US will suffer an economic shock. Thankfully the stock markets are unaffected. Rah Rah Rah !!!! I am sure the CBC will have 'probing' analysis that will support the we are great hypothesis, facts notwithstanding.

Mod hates the following facts: 1. Liberal blowhards have been proven wrong on about every issue from Kyoto [socialist world governance !!], to Iraq. 2. Coulter and Matthews and others use the Liberals own printed and stated words and rationales against them. Nothing pisses off a Lib more than having their inanity served back to them as crow. The long list of Liberal idiocies on Kyoto, Iraq and other international issues, not to mention economics, fills entire volumes of Conservative books. 3. Conservative radio and books sales outpace Liberal ones by about 4:1. This is no coincidence. Only the arrogant feminized elite can bother to read the palaver by such 'sages' as Naomi Klein - who don't bother to research or source their rants and who have never worked in the real world and who for the most part are on public payroll and get their books published on public grant money. The mass of the US electorate knows garbage when they hear it - this is another reason why Fox News is bounding up the viewer rankings - people are just plainly tired of listening to the Clinton News Networks anti-America program. 4. Read Goldberg's book 'A CBS Insider' - even as a pink liberal you should read it - why ? Goldberg is respected 28-year CBS veteran AND a confirmed LIBERAL. He just states how reporter's and editor's personal biases influence how they report and present the news. Amen. The Libs hate it when you point out their lies, inconsistencies and stupidities. But then again, these are the people that are pro-Socialist, loved Communism [Russians loved their children too!], are angry Hussein has tongue depressors in his mouth [Geneva violation!], concerned that France is sulking [they after all are the great guardians of freedom!], and wonder why Baghdad has not been rebuilt yet into Bel Air.

That is for another thread. The Nitwit Demolition Party is about as relevant in Canada as the Mensheviks are now in Russia. If you want to discuss the merits of the Nitwit party then we should start another thread - i would imagine your comments will suffer at the hands of the realists. The media do their best in Canada to convince that Axorthian soft power platitudes, Truduea Liberalism and Welfare, Rousseauian emotionalism and French Dirigiste economics are profound philosophies mired in human morality, equality and love. They are mostly hypocritical hodge-podges of self congratulatory illusions. Creating a nanny state, buttressed by 1930s styled state own broadcasting [we are just missing the Nazi marching bands], and self delusional praise of Canada's international status as a moral power [newsflash; Canada is not considered at all to be relevant internationally at any level], is a cruel joke. Canada and its left wing media aspire to be France. Another newsflash - go to France, work there, live there, and you will see why you want to FLEE from there - as do most young and ambitious French. They take a one way ticket to London or New York.

The important items on the BSV case in the US are the following: 1. Puerile attitudes of most Canadians who were glad that the US now has BSV problems. This insufferable ignorance severely damages relationships. 2. The Fact that the US asks the British labs for help not the Canadian is a very important and telling sign - NOT picked up or reported by the Cdn media -why ? It speaks volumes about the 'expertise' and regulations that Canada supposedly has. 3. That if found true that the cow was from Can., then it demonstates a rather shocking level of incompetence on the part of Canadian authorities. 4. The U.S. isn't likely to lift its ban on imports of live Canadian cattle anytime soon. Cdn ranchers must now find a way to stay afloat without the buyer that accounts for about 80% of Canada's exported beef, a portion valued at 1.8 billion Canadian dollars (US$1.38 billion) a year. The U.S. annually imports some C$3.6 billion in beef and cattle from Canada. If the Cow is from Canada - then the entire episode is another sad sorry example of Canadian adolescence and incompetence. Maybe the French will buy our beef ? Or the UNO ?

Various historians of the early Christian era stated that Christians ate bodies of the deceased, engaged in sacrifice and incest, and were well noted for their rousing orgies. I could go on ad nauseum about the early Church and its hypocritical construction. Prof Davidson summarises a lot of them in 'The Canon of the Bible'. He destroys the 3 early presbyters that formed the gospel doctrine namely; Irenaeus, Clement and Tertullian. "No analysis of their authenticity and genuineness was seriously attempted....The ends which they had in view, the polemic motives, their uncritical inconsistent assertions, their want of sure data, detract from their testimony.." The early Church fathers were vagrants - dirty old men - ie. presbyters [Greek word], who traveled from market to market preaching to the illiterate, and the more fantastic their story the larger the crowd. They enthusiastically combined all sorts of mythology, fables, religious ideals and pagan concepts into their stories. Less than 1 % of the population could read or write, and it is safe to say, the learned folk would not rush to the market to listen to dirty old men who smelled and could use a hair cut, spout nonsense. Sources: Celsus is the best early expert and writer on the Church calling the early frauds, ie. presbyters 'charlatans and vagrants, dangerous to the civil ideals of the Roman state.' Origen a church cleric and defender even admitted, 'You have altered three, four times and oftener, the texts of your manuscripts in order to deny objections made to you.' Origen also admitted that lying to further the Church's interest was good [see also St. Jerome an early Cardinal who wore red ladies underwear and gave us the red robes of the Cardinals]. St. Augustine himself - a saint no less - admitted that he 'lusted to thieve and did it.' [Confessions, 2:9] St. Aug. confessed later that the Church was ' a religion of threats and bribes unworthy of wise men.' [see JW Sergerus, 1685]. As for the peaceful fun loving early Christians - a good meal of human followed by an energetic incestuous orgy seemed part of the fun of celebrating god. St. Justin Martyr circa 160 AD wrote; 'they met in secret to eat human flesh and once the lamps had been upset, to participate in promiscuous incestuous intercourse.' [see Flavius Josephus, Jewish Historian of the 2 century AD]. Emperor Marcus Aurelius concurred calling the early Church 'new and wicked superstition.' Minucius Felix a Christian apologist even confirms that 'the names of brother and sister hallow fornification as incest. Their foolish superstition makes a boast of crime, a condemned criminal is the object of their veneration. Finally there is infant murder, cannibalism, and the banquet with incestuous intercourse.' [Luke 10:1 Sinai Bible] This cannibalism and wild sex is called 'love feasts' in the New Testament [Jude 12]. The early Cannibalism and ribald sex was the worship of the Eucharist. Jermome [347-420] and Augustine [395] both condemned these acts. Ambrose of Milan [333-397] tried to forbade these practices but was unsuccessful [Acta of Pilate it was called]. The early Church was peopled not by enlightened wise men with long flowing white hair and purple robes, but by a fanatical mob of pagan worshippers intent on amongst other objectives, challenging the Roman state. To ignore their ignominious beginnings is to miss a fascinating period of history.

Sure Canada and France are much better than the US - they support and stand behind various despots and dictators. Canada's foreign policy is anti-Israel - this of course makes the French happy, and Canada - the lonely boy of international politics - is very happy to have a friend. The people of Iraq were obviously better off under Hussein, silly us, i always thought destroying fascism which funded terror, threatened oil supplies, tortured people and weekly denounced democratic Israel stating that it should be expunged from the earth was a positive. I always maintained that defending Korea, destroying Communism and bringing freedom to 35 countries while guaranteeing the security of the North Atlantic Alliance was a noble initiative. Obviously this is incorrect. Communism is much better than freedom. Silly me. I forgot to ask the French if they concur that winning various wars was okay. The US spends more in total on foreign aid, UNO funding, NGO funding, private charity for international causes and sundry other do gooder projects than the rest of the world combined. But you are right, the French did not agree to this, so it is bad. What the world really needs is UNO socialist government, Kyoto, Mandates on how the Internet is used, and the destruction of free markets and individual initiative. Maybe one day we can all prance around pyramidic structures chanting to RA and wearing festive clothing. Then again the French would have to say it is okay. [scratching head]....when were the French elected emperors on earth exactly ???

Follow the money indeed. The cow is certainly Canadian and what makes me laugh are the little nationalist minds in this country that delighted when the mad cow problem was uncovered in the US. Such simpletons. The US asked Britain for help in analysing and confirming the mad cow case not Canada. This says a number of things: 1. Canadian expertise in such matters is not highly regarded. 2. Canadian beef processes and quality are not trustworthy. 3. The Americans realised rather early that the Canadians would do everything to deny that the cow came from Alberta and would bastardise any testing if they had to. The Cdns are still denying that the cow is from Alta - big surprise !! Yes follow the money indeed. Follow the Canadian self interest in denying the obvious and remaining active in a market of people that they apparently loathe. Follow the money - right to Canadian smugness, immaturity and irresponsibility. Canada - home of SARS and Mad Cow. But it is perfect as everyone knows.