I know you won't like this, but I don't see this space filling up, so if I could be allowed a brief further comment, Al. I believe there is “black and white” in this world, "good and evil", "us and them", if you like, and it’s not the terrorists that scare me as much as those “fuzzy” left thinkers, in Canada, and elsewhere, that somehow find a “moral equivalency” in all things, whether it be cultural or political differences, murderers or "freedom fighters",and search for the “root causes” of the acts of murderers in the alleged failings of the West. I'm afraid it is this kind of "live and let live, if only you could understand them, they mean us no real harm" attitude that will get thousands, perhaps millions of us killed.

I’ll be frank and I'll try to keep it short, Al. There is simple “black and white” in this world, and it’s not the terrorists that scare me as much as those “fuzzy” thinkers on the “left” in Canada, and elsewhere, that somehow find a “moral equivalency” in all things, whether it be cultural or political differences, and search for “root causes” of terrorist acts in the alleged failings of the West. Take Chretien’s statement, in reference to 9/11, that the “we in the West are too rich, too arrogant”, as an excuse for the murder of thousands of people. Frightening as much as it is disgusting. My fear is that our open, successful, western liberal democratic systems will be used by those who wish use harm, to do exactly that, with the assistance from these fuzzy thinkers, the left intelligentsia, who are certain the terrorists mean us no harm, if we could just try to understand them and the “root causes” for their desire to completely and utterly destroy us and western civilization.

This why I miss Mark Steyn at the National Post (taken from Toro Magazine March ed. "Post Mortem"): "One of the most tedious aspects of Canadian life is the way Liberal Party policies are always sold as "Canadian values": socialized health care, the gun registry, sitting out the war on terror, etc. Do you listen to CBC radio? Me neither. But, on obscure stretches of highway when nothing else comes in, I love their political discussions, in which a centre-left host moderates a panel comprising someone from the soft left, someone from the hard left, and someone from the loony left, as if that's the only range of opinion acceptable in polite society. These folks genuinely believe in Trudeaupia. But, given that they've cornered the market on that, there ought to be one outlet for those who want a different Canada, a Canada that doesn't despise its own history, that recognizes that the last four decades have seen us slide from a major second-rank power to a global irrelevance, that the Trudeaupian road is a dead end, and that we need something new.

It would be bad enough in a functioning democracy, where at least the asses one is obliged to kiss are rotated every five years. But it's worse in a one-party state like Canada, where it's always the same Liberal Party posterior, no matter how saggy and mottled it gets. Canada is no longer quite a respectable democracy, and I want to write for a paper that understands that."

Canadians shouldn't be satisified until they see Chretien dressed in a Postie outfit with a mailbag full of gun registrations tied around his neck, being thrown from a fast-moving VIA train by two burly Mounties.

And it looks like the amount the Ma Clarkson Gang got away with was originally underestimated at a mere lousy $1M. Now, as it turns out, it’s well over $5M. I knew Ma and Pa Saul weren’t just some pikers, no they’re true “professionals" - not in the class of the Liberals, mind you - but who is? As one 20-something “man on the street” Haligonian said somewhat poignantly, when asked by the CBC for his opinion on this $5M, 19 day “trip”: “I could live comfortably for three lifetimes on that kind of money ”. There you have it in a nutshell - a bit of succinct, devastating East Coast wisdom - something Saul might take a lesson from in his writing.

Now I hear that one of the reasons she didn't "fess up" was that the Feds didn't care to "deal" and still wanted her to prosecute her, in order to, at the very least, embarrass her and to see her do "hard time". In that case, she would have had all the sympathy the media could muster esp. for such a paltry amount of "profit", as everyone makes mistakes, even Martha. She could have donated twice that amount to a local woman's shelter. She then would have made mince-meat out of these "mean spirited, out-for-blood" prosecutors. You know, "the killing the flea with the howitzer" thing. Too bad she didn't see it that way. She got terrible, terrible advice.

I always thought the domestic diva got the worst legal advice money could buy in this case. At least it was consistent: bad advice, right up to the verdict. I wonder if she is that type of intimidating “client” that you just can’t give any bad news to? I would have thought that these experienced lawyers would have told her “straight” from the outset: fess up – you made a terrible mistake (it would be difficult for her to say she didn’t know what her broker was telling her was “insider information” – for God’s sake she was a stockbroker herself at one time - but I suppose she could have tried something along that line) and take your lumps. If they didn’t tell her straight, they should be doing the time along with her. I wonder if they got “written instructions” from her with respect to the defence strategy (ie. Martha not taking the stand)? What’s the law on “ineffective representation”? Can she sue? It seems obvious that the jury believed that she thought she was “too good for them” to have to tell them her side of the story. Maybe she would have gone over like a lead balloon anyway, and may be the strategy now is to fire the legal team, hire new gunslingers for the appeal and blame the old team. I don’t see that she has much choice. Did you know that a plain grey prison blanket can be turned into an attractive “throw”?<p><i>Later</i>: Now I hear that one of the reasons she didn't "fess up" was that the Feds didn't care to "deal" and still wanted her to prosecute her, in order to, at the very least, embarrass her and to see her do "hard time". In that case, she would have had all the sympathy the media could muster esp. for such a paltry amount of "profit", as everyone makes mistakes, even Martha. She could have donated twice that amount to a local woman's shelter. She then would have made mince-meat out of these "mean spirited, out-for-blood" prosecutors. You know, "the killing the flea with the howitzer" thing. Too bad she didn't see it that way. She got terrible, terrible advice.

I like your sense of humour Al, but unlike Wayne, I don't ever remember saying anything 'bout your momma!

Just exploring the medium!

"Hans is preaching liberty, Alan is preaching the middle ground and I am preaching egalitarianism": where it not all true. I don't see it. All I see is these monikers of "liberty" and "equalitarianism" are used as a masquerade for intolerance: for pushing an agenda, for instance, that sees anyone who organizes their lives on their religious values, as being marginalized in your "perfect" society. Perhaps middle America agrees with me.

I think Wayne is right: you don't need "to get your message out", you need to camouflage it better, under someone who is more personally appealing to middle America. Your only hope is subtrafuge: not "daylight"....<p>Thanks for that Lisa; you didn't disappoint....If I've referred to some on the "left as "slackers", I would have only been quoting one of the darlings on the left, Michael Moore who, as I am sure you know, said: "Slackers are going to rise up in this election," he predicted. "The slacker motto is: Sleep till noon, drink beer, vote Kerry." Well, as many have said since, two out of three ain't bad.

What is so striking in some of these posts and past posts on this site from you "leftists" is the paranoia you exhibit towards anyone who questions your position and your inability to ascribe to any "middle ground".

Al talks about "self-appointed moral absolutists" on the right, when the real moral absolutists seem to be on the left, or are at least must now be seen to control and drive the "left" agenda by middle America.

Read the Comment/Editorials in the National Post today (ie. know thine enemy) and maybe start looking a little inward to find a middle ground (as portland and others have suggested).

As Andrew Coyne says is today's Post perfectly: " Ah, Democrats: so intolerant in their tolerance, conformist in their non-conformism, preachy in their militant secularism." You could easily substitute "Democrats" with Al, Lisa Howard, Hans etc. - you preach tolerance, but you run out of room to manoeuvre, you eventually just sh*t all over anyone who disagrees with you.

Robert Fulford also writes in today's Post: "...The widespread and wrong-headed belief in Bush as a dimwit illustrates a contradiction in the thinking of those who consider themselves enlightened. Self-proclaimed relativists, they argue piously against looking at the world in simple black and white terms. But when confronted by something that seriously upsets them, they immediately abandon that principle and wholeheartedly embrace every libel directed against their enemy: they are glad to hear he's stupid and delighted to repeat it."

So maybe middle America is not just a bunch of bible-thumping, NASCAR watching, truck driving, gun toting Jesus freaks who are too stupid to walk and chew gum at the same time. Maybe they carefully looked over what you're selling and they don't want it - not now, not ever. Maybe they see your "product" as intolerant, preachy, and conformist.

Here's one for the left:" "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves..."