Higgly

You woulda thunk the guy could have put on a suit. I saw it. I had to rub my eyes.

What is wrong with prostitution? If the woman freely choses to do it, then it's none of our business. Hell, there are men who chose to go crab fishing in Alaska when the death toll in that line of work is horrendous. You want to get unctious, then take on the crab fishers.

If you asked a Venezuelan whether they would prefer Jamaica to Venezuela, what do you think they would chose? The primary laguage of Israel is Hebrew. There are many there who do not speak English. All you have to do is listen to Tzivi Lipni give a press conference. The woman is Minister of Foreign affairs and she is unintelligible in English. As for being a free country - Israel is only free if you are a Jew. Arabs are definitely not free in Israel, even if they are citizens. They are even barred by law from sleeping overnight on "crown land" - i.e. lands adminstered by the JNF. OK JBG. Go to those countries without speaking one of the local languages and see how equal you feel. It won't be long before you are asking your taxi driver to interpret for you - if he speaks English. You want to think of Singapore as a free country? You need to learn what a PAP smear is. You do know what PAP means in this context do you not? More ad homminem attacks? Philppinos are leaving because of the Muslim insurrection? That's rich. You might if you knew what you are talking about. You ticked me off by taking one characteristic and labelling it as some sort of freedom marker. English is not a freedom marker JBG.

That whole business is a real mess. If you were born here, you should be a Canadian citizen unless you revoked it for some reason - say if somebody offered you a lordship, or to make you king of the jungle

You're right. But politics is about government is it not? In any case, what you say is true. Canadians do expect government to solve a lot of problems that the US government just leaves to the free enterprise system. That's why we have universal helath care and the US has huge numbers of people going bankrupt because of health care bills. Oops. Forgot. US citizens can no longer declare bankruptcy in the US due to health care bills. Another George Bush innovation.

The problem is that the Chinese government is just not acting fast enough. The only way to light a fire under its ass is to do something that hits them where it hurts. The bigger a success the Olympics are, the less we can expect any respect from China for the problems it is dumping on us.

So it's all about Israel is it?

I'm with you. I like the age of reason argument you put forward.

Your first mistake is standing with anybody. There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as people take sides.

You are going to have to explain this. You lost me.

Slaves go back to the days of the first African cultures. The Aztecs had slaves and so did the peoples of Polynesia.

Actually, Rue, a lot of them don't really care about what it means to be Jewish. What they may care about is what Kissinger referred to as Realpolitik. I know I don't give a damn about what it means to be Jewish. That's your problem. I care more about the fact that there is a constant conflict between the west and the Arab world. I note your allegiance to Kennedy. You are aware that Kennedy constantly launched attacks against Castro's Cuba - the Bay of Pigs was just the start. He put Bobby in charge of this. So much for self-determination. There are a number of people who think that Castro killed Kennedy for exactly this reason. Let's face it, it wouldn't have been hard to do. There was virtually no security around him and the US considered itself invincible. Kennedy was in fact a pretty nasty guy. He escalated the Vietnam war. The movie "The Ugly American" was about what happened during those times. Kennedy gets too much of a free pass.

Not inside the green zone which is, after all, the only thing that the Americans seem able to defend. Maybe it's all they care about. George Bush and the Neocoms set out to change the face of the Middle East and it looks like that is what is happening. And Paul Wolfowitz has still not been brought before the War Crimes court in the Hague. How is he any better than Saddam Hussein? Come to think of it, how is Bush any better? When the US pulled out of Vietnam, at least there was someone to surrender the territory to - the North Vietnamese. All that will be left when the Americans finally leave Iraq is chaos and murder and nobody can do a bloody thing about it. The best option would be to let the Iranians and the Syrians come in and take over. But of course, that is the unthinkable horror, isn't it? Not because it might not work, but becaise they are part of the ... wait for it .... oh wait ... the Syrians have not been made part of the ... axis of evil... bwahahaha....

Hasn't Christmas really become a Western family holiday? There are people in Canada who came from countries like India and China who celebrate Christmas. Hell, they even celebrate Christmas in India. In fact, in India, Christmas even has a little cachet, although Indians generally celebrate Diwhali as their big deal.

It bothers you. It pisses people like me off something fierce, and as Rue will attest, I am no Jew. Relations between the Arab world and the west are one of the foremost challenges facing the world today, and a large majority of people in the Arab world will tell you that the issue foremost on their mind is the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. This problem is not going to just go away because we are all made to believe that Israel is always right and that every Arab is a wild-eyed terrorist. Israel is not some innocent lamb waiting for slaughter. It is a country that has for too long been run by the likes of Netenyahu and Sharon who have done everything possible to stick their finger in the eye of the Arab world. To be sure there are villains in the Arab world too, but to pretend that they are the only ones is to stick your head in the sand. The roles played by the US, Great Britain and France, too, come to little more than self-serving repressive colonialism of the worst kind. Consider the mess in Iraq. Would the people of Iraq have formed such a country if left to their own devices? It kills me that Britain and the US are fighting to preserve Iraq as a country. Really what is happening is the dumb-ass Belle Epoque colonialism of Great Britain has come around to bite them in the ass and they are still too dumb to recognize it.

Yeah I'll bet everybody in Jamaica is just lovin' their freedom. Israel. You must be out of your mind. India. The country has 18 official languages. Singapore - ever heard of Mandarin? How about Bahasa Malay? Natch nobody in Saudi Arabia speaks English. What do you think Osama is so ticked off about? They speak English in the Philippines. That's why so many of them are being granted landed rights here. Why do you think they want to leave? It sure ain't because they feel free over there. You really need to get out more JBG.

My locked in RRSP did not come from the Ontario government. I am not yet ready to transfer the money to a RRIF, so I have to suffer with two separate RRSPs - my personal RRSP and one I got dealt as a result of the stupid locked in provisions. Another idiot idea brought to us by the fools who gave us the Canada Ponzi Plan (CPP).

In a pig's eye. Let them win a referendum first.

Oh you mean the promise he made after hearing the budget deleivered by Lyin' Jim Flaherty? Why is Conrad Black going to jail while ol' lyin' Jim has been promoted?

Religion has no place in state schools. It is time to merge the separate school system into the public school system. Give public school students a semester on the religions of the world. Parents who want anything more should work through their religios institutions.

There is a fundamental difference between Jews and Christians. Christianity preaches "turn the other cheek", while Judaism preaches "an eye for an eye."

Maybe somebody else has made this comment... I am having a lot of trouble understanding why Conrad Black is going to jail for playing fast and loose with his shareholders and Jim Flaherty has been named Finance Minister for the second time after the last budget he presented at Queen's Park. And make no mistake about it. I have no sympathy for Lord Black in the least.

I haven't read all the posts in this thread because it kind of went so far south that I was starting to get uv burn but my take is that women now enjoy sex as much as men do, and ain't it a bloody treat. Kick back. Open a beer. Lean on your shovels. This is the promised land.

Walmart is giving them our jobs - and this is just precious - Walmart is selling to the underclass that are the biggest losers from Globalization. We've had them stealing our good name and adulterating our food. We have our kids licking lead off of their toys. They want our athletes to go over their and suck their pulluted bloody air. I say boycottt the Chinese Olympics. They want to play in the big leagues, then let them buy the bloody uniform.

No, economic realities and US aircraft carriers keep China's hands off Taiwan. Nobody in this day and age believes a sane, intelligent person would use nuclear weapons. It is the insane and the stupid we need to be worried about. Guess who falls under that category?