Havign been to parts of Sourtheast Asia (Thailand and Malaysia), I can attest to the incredible comfort that carrying Canadian papers lends to a person. Thais, in general, are incredibly friendly people, but once the find out you're a Canuck, the hucksters stop trying to rip you off and want to talk. I had more interesting chats with security people, police and soldiers after showin my passport than I ever would have thought. :-D

Because if Mark Budzanowski's parents had moved to the States instead of Canada he would have richly deserved his fate.

/baffled sarcasm

I was thinking more of the situation he would have faced if he were Mongolain, of course. <p>You make reinsert the in that keeps your knee from jerking, Flea. You will then be able to forgive yourself for your implication by necessity that any nation that has a better reputation for peace must feel tremendous guilt for that, especially when those from that nation put themselves in harm's way are not treated as harshly as possible. It is indeed a shame.

Because a Canadian foreign policy that impresses kidnappers in Gaza is one of which to be proud.

/Alan's jerking left knee

Oh yeah? Sez who! <p>I am off to see Queen now, driving into the City of Sin. See you at the concert. I hear you will be sporting a grey unitard and spats. Natty.

Fleas has scratched the veneer of this false pride.

I think I would find cold comfort if the same words were spoken to me as a passenger, by the highjackers of Flight 93, for instance....

Without in any way joining the odd little snippiness going on above, let me say that my past few weeks in Britain (which included, by the way, a lovely Sunday afternoon in a crowded, noisy pub near Manchester watching Wayne Rooney repeatedly miss easy chances for a hat-trick as Man U beat Newcastle 2 - 0), I was bemused by reaction to my citizenship.

"Are you American?" they would ask.

"No, Canadian."

"Oh, I'm sooo sorry, I didn't mean to imply you were American, please forgive me ..." and onward into a warm conversation that I may not have had were the answer to the first question "Yes."

Parenthetically, I do not share their lack of regard for America and Americans. But I do acknowledge its existence.

It would be interesting to know whether the kidnappers became acquainted with Carlton Street in Toronto before or after they decided to devote their lives to the PFLP terrorist group.

Shabby thinkery. The gnashing nationalism of the new-con is so deeply rooted in self-disgust that much is thrown out. Disasterous Rumsfeldish treatment of all that has come before must be assumed wrong as the treater didn't create it. False pride my ass. How else does the lion learn to sit with the lamb without someone speaking for and acting for peace? It is one of the newer things of these times of lesser thinking that peace in itself is something that can bring out the amateur scoffers when at the end of it all it is what is desired. Too complex for two-dimensionality, admittedly.

Well if you recall correctly, the lion and the lamb do not sit together peaceably except with supernatural motivation and guidance. I do not think anyone will argue <i>that</i> time is at hand.

Let's not forget that the PFLP is responsible for the death of the Israeli Minister of Tourism in 2001. Whether their aspirations rise about mere Jew-hating into the realm of peaceable goals is very debatable.

My harshness was not directed at you, Chris, but the paperman yet...who wiil you have peace with? There is no freeze dried alternative population waiting to be rehydrated? In an armed lawless land, the men with the guns are the men who shop at Canadian Tire in ours. The fact that our culture gives second thought in any context is a gain. In the late 80s my lunch pizzas were made by a former Druze militia man my age. When I asked what made him give it up amd find a Nova Scotian home he said it was playing soccer with a human head. I'm glad he preferred to find a peace and chat with me as he got ahead with making something of his life.

That is the sort of question that is best directed to the PFLP, I think. I am perfectly willing to have peace with them, provided they give up Jew-hating, kidnapping and murder as goals or instruments of public policy.

Without that, though, I do not think peace is possile or should even be striven for. You cannot have peace with murderers, unless they first give up murdering. If your Druze militia pizza guy had still been partial to playing sports with human remains, it's not at all likely you would have welcomed his presence, much less eaten at his establishment.

There are no light switches attached to hate unfortunately. Time is needed to coax.

I do not see haters miraculously growing out of their hobbyhorse, unless at some point the dynamics of hating become far more costly than the alternative. My guess is that a lot of kidnappers are going to have to die pointlessly in order for that calculus to swing in our favour.