Owlkat, I take a bit of exception to your all-encompassing rant. Among other things, you seem to be using a double standard of measurement. On the one hand, you present yourselves as the hapless, helpless victims of U.S. greed and aggression, and you ask us to stop. So, are you saying that you, as an individual, are unhappy with what we, as individuals, are doing? Or are we individuals somehow responsible for governmental policies? If U.S. citizens are responsible for what the U.S. is doing to Canada, why aren't Canadian citizens (subjects, citizens, whatever) responsible for what Canada is doing?

You say that the U.S. is competing unfairly with Canada because our products are privately owned and "the prices are jacked up." What?

Incidentally, you say, BC Hydro has been piping electricity to California for months to help out with the power shortage and hasn't recieved a dime for it yet. If BC Hydro/Canada are worried about payment for the electricity, why in the world are they continuing to send it?

And don't forget that it is *Canada*, not the U.S. or Alaska, that wants to route the projected Alaska gasline (not oil, if we are thinking about the same event) across Canada. My guess is that Canada anticipates a bit of profit in that transaction.

I'm sure you are smart enough to know and accept that each country every where whines and grubs for advantage, that each of them consider themselves in danger of being harmed. The U.S. is no different from Canada in that.

"You people have no idea what it's like on this side of the line, watching successive governments posting FOR RENT signs on our foreheads, watching our culture (such as it is) being McDonaldized, watching our health care systems being privatized to follow the American model, seeing our publishing industry weakened to the point that our school textbooks are being printed in New Jersey, watching the processess of our national elections being pulled down in the American muckraking style of mudslinging, and even seeing the spelling of the language we use being altered to fit the American model." You poor, poor things.

Ebbie