The EU

[Pellaken]

I think the EU should become a federation.

[KrustyKidd]

I agree, they deserve each other. I also think that we had better get smart, fast, and get with the Americans. We live in North America, not Europe.

[Neal.F.]

The EU a dream? It's a bloody nightmare!

Poland, Spain, Portugal and the UK should get out. Italy has hope too, if the re-elect Berlusconi. So should other former east bloc countries.

The EU is nothing more than Old Germany and Old France trying to achieve economically what they could not do militarily.

[Craig Read]

I agree, if the Brits join the Euro, then the Atlantic alliance will dissipate into a Franco-German alliance to aggravate the US. I am particularly keen that Britain not advance a close partnership with the French.

More than 20 years ago, Eric Hoffer predicted: "France will remain hostile toward any manifestation of courage in the free world. She will go on courting enemies and scorning friends. She will welcome abuse of the Occident from any quarter and celebrate the retreat of Western civilization in the backward world." As if to fulfill Hoffer's prediction to the letter, France gave a red carpet welcome to Zimbabwe's brutal dictator Robert Mugabe this year, despite protests from other countries, after he unleashed a reign of terror against Zimbabwe's white farmers, leading to widespread hunger among the black population.

This was just a prelude to France's obstructionism in the Iraq war, the latest in a long line of French attempts to gain some importance on the world stage as a champion of the Third World -- including Third World despots.

Not all European countries have behaved as badly as France. But neither are they a model that we need to follow, whether in our laws or our foreign policies. Above all, Europe should be judged by its track record, not by its airs of superiority, which some Americans and most Canadians [see Kyoto and its manifold stupidity] seem to want to share.

This to me is the most bizarre aspect of the Atlantic alliance. I have lived and worked in Europe, and anyone who has should be open minded enough about its colossal problems and shortcomings.

Old buildings do not mean you possess culture.

Just travel to quebec city to find that out.