Oh, yeah? We're ready, ya hosers! We'll bore you into submission by forcing you to listen to lectures on Canadian history until you start singing The Maple Leaf Forever...or just die in your tracks like unwatered wildebeests. :-)

Spaw - Or what. You knew that, didn't you?

Kendall - Okay, I have consulted my encyclopedia, concerning the Treaty of Ghent. It states that: "The United States had fared so badly in the war that it was in no position to ask cessions of territory and finally dropped even its demand for the abandonment of impressment (of ex-British sailors off American vessels). It proposed merely a return to the situation before the war."

The British, whose primary concern was concluding the long war with Napoleon, agreed to simply return to the former status quo in North America.

And in another place it says: "Though the treaty (of Ghent) fulfilled not one of the U.S. objectives in the war, it received unanimous approval of the senate on Feb. 16th, 1815, and was joyously hailed by the public."

And: "Though the United States gained none of its avowed aims in the war, popular mythology soon converted defeat into victory."

When it comes to building a sense of national confidence, it's clearly more important what people think happened that what actually happened.

And denial is a wonderful thing isn't it?

- LH