Karen Armstrong, in The Guardian

"We can be certain of one thing in 2004. Unless there is some unimaginable breakthrough, we will see more religiously inspired terrorism. It often seems that we might be better off without religion."

"Religion is the creation of human beings, who are biologically programmed for aggression. We dream of peace but slaughter our own kind, and from the very start our faith systems have reflected this tragic dualism."

From The Toronto Star

At a party the other night, five people were talking about their experiences, or those of relatives and friends, while crossing the American border.

As law-abiding citizens, they do not begrudge the need for post-9/11 vigilance. They even understand the occasional arbitrariness that might creep into the immigration screening process.

What they are saddened about is the bad manners, arrogance and the seeming racism of the immigration officials involved, as well as the obvious idiocy of some of the policies of the Bush administration.

Herewith, the stories told by the five people, plus four from elsewhere.

By Jim Reed, CBC (Canada): excerpts below

But the international process was too slow for an impatient administration in Washington. Spokesmen cited urgent security concerns, worries about ready-to-use Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and even fear of an Iraqi "mushroom cloud."

The administration eventually used these concerns to derail the UN process, to denigrate the weapons inspectors and to seize power from the world community. Inexplicably, the American president decided to ignore the world and deal with Saddam using brute force.
Until then, the U.S. had both power and authority in abundance. But from the moment of its unilateral exercise of power, its authority began to erode. More here

Bush Seeks Help of Allies Barred From Iraq Deals NYT

"A senior administration official described Mr. Bush as "distinctly unhappy" about dealing with foreign leaders who had just learned of their exclusion from the contracts."

** Why doesn't Shrub fly into France, Canada, Germany and Russia with some turkey? Y'know, spread some holiday cheer, and all will be well. "distinctly unhappy"... poor Georgie. He's even managed to fuck up uncle Baker's gallant attempt to pull his ass (a bit) out of the fire he's created. Poppy must be "distinctly apoplectic" over this bit of diplomacy.

Is Tarrant County a unique hotbed of precocious delinquency? Not at all, says Ronald Stephens, director of the National School Safety Center in Westlake Village, Calif. Across the country, he says, "violence is getting younger and younger." In the past five years, Stephens says, an increasing number of school districts in the U.S. have instituted special elementary schools for disruptive youngsters.

"Initially, it was high schools that created these schools, then middle schools. Now it's elementary. Who would have thought years ago that this would be happening?" he asks.

Above from Time magazine full article

"A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them."

"Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them."

complete story at The Inpendent

*
I believe the placebo effect is about 30%... not far from the "efficacy" of many drugs. Wild. Don't you just love the drug companies?

"Western societies are governed by the belief that modernity is a single condition, everywhere the same and always benign. As societies become more modern, so they become more alike."

This is the opening salvo in a book called "Al-Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern" written by John Gray of the London School of Economics. Gray sets out that idea only to trash it in the next breath.

"The suicide warriors who attacked Washington and New York on September 11, 2001 did more than kill thousands of civilians and demolish the World Trade Center. They destroyed the West's ruling myth" that modern societies resemble each other more and more.

Above, by Don Murray, CBC (Canada) the rest here and, copied out in full, in the body of this diary entry, below.

What do you think about this?

he speaks He said one of those "facts" is that homosexuals, due to AIDS and other health problems, have a far lower life expectancy than straight men. "Let's just say if ... anybody that used Colgate toothpaste, their life expectancy was lowered by 10, 15 years. What do you think would happen to Colgate toothpaste? It would be outlawed. Well, we know that's what happens to men living a gay lifestyle." he's fired

The above from a member of the Canadian "Alliance" party, who was earlier an American Baptist pastor in Missouri. But this being Canada, even the socially regressive Alliance party was forced to immidiately fire him from his positon as "Family Issues Critic". The linked stories have quite a few of his incredible quotes from an interview. This is Rick Santorum territory, but has no hope in hell of being allowed in Canada. Read the hilarious/tragic quotes in the two links.

BTW, the right wing Alliance party is not in any power position in Canadian politics, and this will further insure that it remains that way.