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Spend a penny and read the bloody article. Do we have to do everything for you? Oh really? And what would be your opinion of a guy like Jim Keegstra who preached to schoolchildren that the Holocaust never happened?

I picked him too. But the villains in Vietnam were really McNamara and Kissinger.

Just goes to show you the benefits of marrying well. If his wife hadn't stood up for him, he would have been at the mercy of the likes of you.

I haven't seen this report. Was there a Syrian or American official present when the consular official was interviewing him? I am willing to bet that there was, in which case all bets are off. This is like having the cops in the room when you are speaking to your lawyer. Anyways, this is a moot point. A Canadian citizen being deported for torture by the US to a third country is a damned good place to draw the line. I frankly don't give a damn whether he is making a cause celebre out of this. It is immaterial. If the guy is suspect, then let the Canadian authorities deal with it. Farming him out to the Syrians just doesn't cut it. Here is a description of one of the torture techniques used by Syria: The German chair. So named because it was invented by a former member of the Nazi SS who escaped to Syria at the end of WWII. This guy is now guarded by a bunch of Syrian agents. The reason for this is that one day he opened a parcel and had a number of fingers blown off. The torture involves a chair which can be manipulated in such a way that it slowly breaks the spine of the victim. Presumably if he talks, the torture is stopped. On the other hand, if he is innocent - as was the case with Mr. Arar, then he has nothing to say, and his back is broken. He is a cripple for life. Have you really thought about the implications of this?

The CBC interviewed people on air who said that he was the target of bullying.

Not sure I get your drift. Are you saying Roosevelt and Stalin were similar? Roosevelt = New Deal. Stalin = sending millions of men to the front unarmed, most not even equipped with a knife or a decent pair of shoes. Press reports talk of Russian soldiers charging half naked at the German lines. Cannon fodder. Is this what you are saying? Here is a parapharse (I do not have the book handy to quote exactly) of a book I read on what this was like for a Russian soldier. You go out to try to find some food to feed your family one day and as you are walking along the street a truck pulls up and three big guys get out, pick you up, and toss you in the back of the truck. At the start of the war, you would have wondered what was going on but later on, you would have known exactly. You are being press-ganged into the war on the Eastern Front. In the back of the truck is a bunch of guys just like you; you might recognize one or two from your neighbourhood. There are also a couple of guys with guns pointed at you. They order you to sit down on the floor of the truck. If you knew what was really going to happen you would have tried to overpower them and take their guns. At one point the truck stops and the three goons get out and kidnap another guy. He resists. They kill him. The other guys in the back of ther truck tell you this is the fourth time they have seen men killed like this. The truck does not take you to an armory where you can get a uniform, a weapon, and some training. It drives for 48 hours straight to the front. The truck stops occasionally for fuel. You are not fed. At the front, you are ordered off the truck. One guy doesn't want to go. He is shot. There is a huge amount of noise, smoke and confusion. Dead men are everywhere. You are near a river bank. You are ordered to get on a boat 50 meters away. You start running to the boat. Men are being shot by the enemy on the other side of the river and are dropping around you before you get to the boat. You make it to the boat. It starts across the river. You are protected behind the superstructure of the boat but bullets are flying all around the boat and shells are throwing up huge plumes of water. A boat 30 meters away from you is hit by a shell and men are sent flying and screaming into the air. The boat sinks. Your boat arrives at the other shore. You are ordered to leave the boat. Men run out to the other side of the superstructure and are hit by bullets from the enemy. Some men refuse to leave the boat. They are shot. You make it off the boat and climb over a pile of bodies on the shore. There is an earthen embankment ahead. You realize that if you can make it there, you will be safe. You run a zig-zag pattern and while others are being hit around you, you make it. You look around at the men who have made it with you. None of them has a weapon. You look behind you at other earthen embankments to your rear. You see men there with weapons who are firing at the enemy. You are ordered over the embankement Some men refuse. They are shot. You realize that your only hope is to make it to the German line and get a weapon. You run screaming and howling, barehanded, at the enemy.

They go to the school and confront the staff. Parents do this all the time. Have you never raised a kid? Did they have conference calls back then? Ok. Why did he become a lunatic? Because he was 6 feet tall and 25 years old? Are we to assume that people who are 6'1" and 26 years old would be bigger lunatics? Enquiring minds want to know.

Argus, you are a bigot.

Maher Arar was deported to Syria and tortured. This is a Candian citizen. We do not treat our worst criminals like this. Clifford Olson, Paul Bernardo. Has Robert Picton been tortured to extract a confession? This is an innocent man and a Canadian citizen. He was deported by a foreign state (the USA) to Syria and tortured on the say-so of the RCMP.

Roosevelt shook hands with Stalin after the war was over and before the iron curtain came down. Only Churchill saw what was coming. The Russians had just suffered monumental losses in repelling the Nazis - we're talking millions of dead here. The Russians sufffered the highest mortality of any identifiable group during the second world war - estimates go as high as 20 million. The Eastern front is what really won the war. If Hitler had stuck to his original game plan, Europe would now be speaking German. The US dragged its feet getting into the war and were damned glad it was over. Not surprised that Roosevelt would want to shake hands with old Uncle Joe. By the way, this is no defense of Stalin. He was the worst butcher of the 20th century. Worse than Hitler. Much worse than Hitler.

You have clearly never taught at a CGEP. Miners, cops, firemen, and a whole lot of other people make more money.

OK. Here's the title from Saturday's (Sept 16 Page A17 - continuation of page 1 article) Globe and Mail article on the matter "Scholarly Observers say Pope simply goofed."

The internet has put bullying on hormones. Consider a high school girl who decides she does not like another girl. She sends a message to the people on her buddy list saying "So and so is a whore. I know a boy who says he paid her $50 to put out. Pass it on." Say there are 4 girls in her buddy list. Two don't pass it on because they know the instigator is jealous of the target and is just trying to hurt her. However, the other two are near the bottom of the pecking order and want to please the instigator, so they pass it on to the girls in their buddy list. Within a week, hundreds of kids at the school are giggling and calling the girl a whore behind her back. Boys are making jokes about her in the locker room. She sees this happening but she has no clue as to why. All she knows is that she is now the school pariah. Fortunately she has good parents who take the matter in hand. They march into the school and deal with the situation. The girl who started it all is identified and is forced to leave the school. Another situation. A boy who does not have good social skills. Somebody does something like this to him. His parents are dealing with their own problems because of a divorce and don't even have time to listen to his problems. The kid has access to guns...... Do you see how close we are to the line here? If you Google Tiger Williams, here is what you come up with - first hit: "While most dominant images of Tiger Williams likely include him sitting in the penalty box..." Tiger Williams was a bully. Bingo.

I don't recall mentioning any trip in a boat... Have you reviewed what life has been like for the intelligentsia in Haiti? This was a guy who is basically a junior college professor. The family would have been a target on many levels, not the least of which would be the fact that they had some money. Imagine living in a place where you could be killed any time you left home. Starting over in Thetford Mines is not exactly starting at the top. This is a family that came here for what Canada has to offer and made the most of it. How many of us who were born here have done that? Still a damned sight better than a retired general.

Yes you are right. My comments about Wong were unfair and unreasonable. My apologies.

I love it. Next thing you know they'll have a troop of nannies standing around waiting to spank offenders with a big cricket paddle. I'm not sure the Brits have much of a choice, though - terrorists (IRA/Moslem extremists), soccer hooligans, race riots, skin heads. They've really got it all. At least they seem to have finally put the IRA to rest. I don't know who your ISP is, but if you get your internet access through Rogers, there has now been a new wrinkle added to the multi-paged document you are forced to agree to when you start using their service. You basically agree to having everything you transmit over the internet monitored by the government. Big brother is reading your mail, and he no longer needs a court order.

Still bitter, Argus? A few Christian crazies? Hitler? Milosovic? You are a forgiving chap. So Moslems threw a hissy fit over the cartoons of Mohammed. Tsk tsk. But then of course the Holocaust cartoon contest went without notice. We all have our sacred cows. The last Pope was into building bridges. This guy has stumbled big time. I see that he has now issued a retraction, but this might actually put him in even deeper doo-doo. The Roman Catholic Church has a doctrine of papal infallibility. This means that the Pope cannot make a mistake. Now that he has issued a retraction, he is owning up to a mistake. If this happened in Parliament, he'd be forced to resign.

I think she is a great choice. An immigrant from a life of extraordinary hardship in one of the poorest and most violent countries on the planet (Haiti) who has taken what this country has to offer and made something of herself. Isn't that what we are all about? Isn't it her job to represent us? When the world looks at her, they are supposed to see us. Do you really want the world to see us as a retired general? What does that say about our country? Besides, she's bilingual, and just a bit hot !

O yeah. Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist. Does this make all Christians terrorists? Pat Robertson issued a fatheadwah against Caesar Chavez. Does this make all Christians warmongers? Oliver North is a Christian. So is George Bush. And so was ... well why bother. Get the picture?

Is this some kind of joke? This is the same woman who said there was no such thing as a Palestinian. Remarkable for someone who whines constantly about people who refuse to recognise Israel. Golda Meir. What next.

How could we miss this one? Good old Harpie. Yes ladies and germs, our very own Prime Minister published an op-ed piece in the New York Times supporting the invasion of Iraq... before it actually happened ! Yowza!

Oh wait. I have a picture of Rummy shaking hands with Saddam. Where is it... rummage, rummage... Oh yes. Here it is Rummy shakes hands with Saddam In fact, I do believe there is a video clip as well....

Am I the only one who was paying attention? Barbara Amiel, wife of Lord Conrad Black. Lord Conrad Black, accused felon. Kenneth Whyte, formerly Editor, the National Toast, formerly Editor, Macleans. Now unemployed.

For some reason, a myth has evolved concerning fiscal conservatism. The myth is that Conservatives are fiscally responsible and Liberals are fiscally reckless. In fact, evidence is entirely to the contrary. In Canada, the guy who did the most to put the country in debt was Brian Mulroney. Look at graphs of national debt plotted over time. Mulroney is the hands down all-time champion of debt. Chretien, the bogeyman of the western world, did the most to reduce it. I'm not making this up folks. And then we have the US. Bill Clinton, cigar and all, did the most to reduce national debt. George W Bush... holy cow. Want proof? Plot the value of the US dollar against the Euro over the past 10 years or so. And the diifference is most definiely not due to an accelerating European economy .

The lady has balls. She is the only one who raised the alarm when panicky Anne (McLel...whatsit) ramrodded the theft of privacy rights after 9/11. She alone pointed out that we had precious few safeguards to our democracy - the House, and the Judiciary, and Panicky Anne had suddenly and unilaterally assigned the latter to the dustbin. Bravo Madame. Please don't forget us.