Wilber

Ask that question again in 5-10 years when American tax rates start raising rapidly to pay interest on the national debt created by out of control spending during the Bush years. I'm not sure. We heard the same cries of doom when Reagan was President. We've gone from greater to even greater since. What is it, a sense of guilt from having earned a good standard of living, and enjoying it? The Third World people mill around all day, produce nothing and are poor. A surprise? China is hardly producing nothing. India is also another giant on the rise. The US trade and fiscal deficits have never been higher. I don't know exactly what all that means but I don't think it is good.

Personally I think it is a pretty good line. It won't sound strange to anyone familiar with the shots Churchill and Lady Astor used to exchange across the floor and in the press. Too bad Belinda doesn't have the same kind of bottom as Astor. She might be taken seriously as a potential leader if she did. Can you imagine Margaret Thatcher whining about being put down as a woman? Whether you agreed with her politics or not she was the most successful women politician and effective leaders in memory. Why, because she knew she was a better man than any of them. Belinda? I don't think so.

Mackay and Stronach had a break up that wasn't amicable, personally or politically. It is not surprising if a few shots are exchanged, possibly the odd one below the belt. I daresay that if they didn't both have to cater to voters, it would be nastier. MacKay is at a distinct disadvantage here, being a white Anglo male he can't pull out either the R card or the S card. Stronach has decided to play the S card. Belinda is a person who has aspired to be the leader of a party and hopefully the leader of the country. If she can't exchange insults Mano a Mano she shouldn't be there. Resorting to the label of Racist or Sexist is often the last resort of someone who can't come up with anything better, politicians in particular.

Is this going to be a new trend? Every time a party leader says something about another party which some members don't like there will be a full page add in the Globe? Since when was politics for the thin skinned? Those at the Globe must be rubbing their hands in glee anticipating all the additional add revenue.

I trust my dog to be faithful a hell of a lot more than most humans.

Forgot about them. Their army has been known to surrender to a car backfire or a lightning bolt. France had over 1.2 millon killed in WWI which ended only 18 years before 1936. Could be they weren't in a big rush to do it again.

They could not have invaded, they didn't have the resources. Even in 1940 the BEF only made up 10% of allied ground forces. Only France had an army large enough.

Charles, as you say hot air rises however the burning fuel which produces it does not. In order for there to be smoke on the lower floors there would have to be fuel to create the smoke. As the aircraft did not hit at ground level and jet fuel is not lighter than air, there is no way the jet fuel could have gone up an elevator shaft. Any fuel unburned in the initial explosion would most definitely have tried to go down and an elevator shaft would have been the most direct and quickest route. If you throw a burning stick in the air it does not fly, it hits the ground like any other stick but it will keep burning. Unburned jet fuel is no different. The only fuel I can think of the moment that is lighter than air and could actually go up an elevator shaft is hydrogen. To date there have been no hydrogen powered aircraft built that I know of. The buildings collapsed from the top down. Look at the video.

Interesting, I didn't know kerosene was lighter than air.

Take a look, the building collapsed from the top down.

Collapse Seems simple and quite logical to me. You controlled demolition types are still going to have to explain to me how the buildings were collapsed from the top down. Perhaps you can point out to me a controlled demolition that was carried out in this fashion, because I can't think of one.

Churchill was far more than his wilderness and war years. Like most legendary people he had his contradictions but he has legendary status because he was larger than life. No, my preference is to fight them where they came from and that was not Iraq. Fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda in their home, not be the target of a bunch of different factions trying to carve out their own hunk of the carcass of Iraq. Rather than speculate on where we would be if Saddam was still there, lets speculate on where we would be if the "Coalition of the Willing" had committed the same number of troops and the same kind of reconstruction effort to Afghanistan instead of Iraq. Under the sanctions, Saddam was a menace to his own people, some of his immediate neighbours and not a lot more as it turns out.

Would you have agreed with Churchill in 1936 about the need to take action against Germany? I doubt it strongly. We are not talking about me. I don't claim to be a visionary. You are comparing Bush with Churchill. Kind of like comparing the Monkeys with Beethoven. Are you saying that Saddam presented the same kind of threat to the world as Hitler? The US was attacked by a group based in Afghanistan which hated Saddam's guts and vice versa, so Bush attacks Saddam. This makes him like Churchill?

Bush another Churchill? Give me a break. You had better bone up on your Churchill. I'll give you a start. Churchill saw action as a soldier in 4 different wars and won a Nobel prize for literature. Mr. Bush?

The trick is knowing the difference.

I have no problem with this law. Perhaps those politicians who oppose it should state why they don't think a person who has been convicted three times for violent offenses should be considered a dangerous offender when they have repeatedly demonstrated that they are. What is the matter with putting the onus on people who have repeatedly shown themselves to be a danger to those around them? Who cares about the cost of putting them in jail. What about the cost of leaving them out? Unfortunately the Charter of Rights doesn't seem to say anything about the rights of crime victims. We are not debating California's three strike law but the one that was tabled in our Commons. They are not remotely the same and using California as an example is a red herring.

Unless you are the one being put out of business by a racist, in which case you have no money to spend. That is why I say it is an easy position to take as long as you aren't the victim.

What kind of shirt did Custer wear?

I will not question any of that. I despise the Bush administration for any single one of those examples, let alone all of them. However, from their own selfish stand-point, they seem to be somewhat "competent" at getting what they want. They have been pretty good at getting what they want from Congress but woefully incompetent when it comes to stuff that really counts, as pointed out by Riverwind.

It seems like things are going tickety-boo for the Bush-anti-terror camp what with this new anti-habeas corpus law. If you consider Bush and his bunch to be the same thing as the United States that may be so. My concern is that the US will be weaker both economically and in the moral authority it can command in the rest of the world at the end of his term.

Everything else, like what?? The Iraq fiasco for one. Diminishing the esteem much of the world held for the US for one more.

All the pictures I have seen of the collapse show it collapsing from the top down starting at the floors where the aircraft hit. Pretty fancy flying to plant those 767's right on the floors where those supposed explosives were put. If the Bush administration was so competent at pulling this off, how come they seem to screw everything else up. Just my thoughts.

I agree whole-heartedly. A racist is a racist is a racist. I, personally, would avoid the place and tell everyone I know about it so they could too. I would go as far as drive 5-10 miles out of my way to avoid the place. I don't care who is the benefactor or the victim. A racist is not worthy of my business. I wonder how legal it would be to take out an ad in the local newspaper backed up with quotes urging others to do the same? An easy position to take as long as you personally are not the victim of racism.

According to the people involved they were never given the option of paying more. I had a friend who got evicted becasue the landlord wanted a different feel to his building and a hair salon wasn't what he was going for. Apparently the insurance company is being replaced with another insurance company and the hair salon is being replaced by another hair salon. The question isn't whether a landlord can determine who uses his property or not but whether that determination can be made solely on a basis of race. This could be interesting.

Religions have had a large influence on what many of us consider to be moral in one way or another but to maintain that religions have a lock on what is moral and that one has to be religious to be moral is nonsense. Religions change their concept of morality over time like everyone else. How many present day Christians now consider it moral to kill and persecute non Christians or other Christians who don't abide by their concept of Christianity?