We got back from Toronto last week (biggest city in Soviet Canuckistan ;-)

Although their dollar, the loonie, is a little smaller than the US dollar, junk foods like chips and colas cost significantly more than they do here. At Mickey D's, prices remain at the US levels, adjusted for the exchange rate, but at markets, vending machines, etc, a coke will run you a minimum of $2. A bag of chips half the size of the ones that retail here for $2.50 goes for $3.50 Canadian.

Prices in restaurants in the University area, on the other hand, are very comparable to prices in my city's University area, without adjustment.

Are the Canadians pricing unhealthy foods to discourage their consumption? And why can't the US?

Frankly, if the US government gets involved in the health care system, encouraging healthy eating this way could be considered mandatory.

No, guys - you won't be denied your doritos and donuts. You'll just pay significantly more for the luxury. Letting The Market work its miracles - what could be more American? More Conservative? Making people responsible for their own healthy choices, with the poorer having fewer choices than the more affluent - isn't that a basic principal of both Republicans and Libertarians?

Natural selection is not the same as genetic modification. Selective breeding is not the same as GM. We have not been "genetically modifying" plants and animals for millenia.

The term "genetic modification" in this context refers specifically to changes in an organism made by literally hacking the DNA - for example, inserting a gene that makes insulin into an E. coli bacterium. Stuffing a gene into corn that makes a plant immune to Round Up. Rendering a plant incapable of producing fertile seeds. Using jellyfish genes to make glowing cats.

These are things that would not occur in nature - except that, once the genes have been introduced into profoundly incompatible species, they're in play in the environment. Stray pollen from RoundUp-ready corn engenders RoundUp-immune weeds. Non-reproducing commodity grains contaminate regular plants, causing extinctions.

Corporations, intent on The Bottom Line (may its name be blessed), have traditionally not thought things through nor have taken adequate protections to prevent these lucrative creations from getting loose in the ecosystem. Why should they? It's legal.

And that's why some people are so worked up.

Wow! Reading these letters, I am no longer sure what's worse, the Jew-haters or the rabid Israel defenders. If they were all put into a locked arena together, would they

• Mutually annihilate one another, or
• Recognize how much they had in common and join forces?

Bill Owen to Number 6: "The Prisoner was one of the best rages against the machine - ever. It's so sad to see that they finally broke you."

Naw - he's the #6 from Battlestar Galactica. A toaster would hardly be one to "rage against the machine".

The Republican Party is reaping the benefits of having purged all its moderates, and having recruited bottom-feeding mouth-breathers for the last 3-4 decades now. At one time, Repub office holders and spokespeople could harbor evil, bigoted, racist and generally hateful thoughts, yet be able to convey them to the baser part of their base in language sufficiently coded that mainstream Americans would not notice.

But at this point, the base is made up entirely of these boobs, and office holders and spokespeople seem to be no longer smart enough to know how to look respectable in public.

Manners - once the mainstay of the charming, yet bigoted racist Democrats of the traditional South - are no longer in style in Today's Republican Party. Maybe Senator Bubba never larned enny at his mammy's knee; maybe dittoheads now believe that only effete left and right coasters practice this kind of civilized social hypocrisy. There's some evidence, if you listen to talk radio, that civilization itself is an infringement on American freedoms and so must be opposed by Real Amurkins.

Salon and the rest of the media need to keep publicizing these awful faux pas - people seem to be starting to notice.

"The people of the 60s who carried out liberal protest by shouting obscenities in public, throwing rocks and bags with paint in them, and heckling opposing speakers are now the conservatives who have exactly the same lack of regard for opposing viewpoints."

It's an intriguing hypothesis. Ideologically satisfying, superficially plausible. Before running with this thing, it would make sense to have some kind of evidence.

Name some of them.

Thanks for the responses!

David Horowitz was the first name I thought of myself. There do appear to be several public figures who switched.

However, it was dumb of me to suggest naming people who are not public figures - it would be better to think of people you knew way back when and just make a count, instead of identifying them by name on a public forum. I apologize for not having thought it through.

Really, the hippie to stockbroker stereotype is just so appealing that it needs confirmation. So much of the right wing's success has been in assembling these stereotypes, these strawmen who provide such perfect examples and massage our pre-existing prejudices - but which are totally bogus.

A day without his children. A day without the ol' ball&chain. Send him off with his friends to do those guy things. Then act like all of you are glad to see him when he gets back.

(note: presumably, you won't actually have to act.)

"We have this fiction in America that bright people make money. Well, here is a man, self made, up by his fortunate bootstraps, uneducated, who just cannot be bright,

or can he? Can one be intelligent and refuse to be informed, refuse to read, refuse to think?"

You don't have to be a genius, as long as you have no scruples, no ethics, and no shame. This is how so many of them did it. Not intelligence, not necessarily even hard work. Just greed coupled with a self-centered rejection of the rules of civilized society.