When it comes to Canadian identity, Fox News Channel is apparently a threat. Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, is just another point of view enriching Canadian culture. That's the message sent last week when the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) granted the Qatar-based, anti-American al-Jazeera a Canadian license. Fox has wanted into Canada since 1999 but has so far been shut out -- except in Ottawa, at the Canadian Parliament, which requested and got a Fox feed last August.Isn't it delicious that the Canadian politburo thinks ordinary Canadians can't handle Fox, but the politicians deem themselves able to withstand it's dreadful propaganda? This is what happened during prohibition here in Iceland. There were errand-boys employed by the Althingi (parliament) whose main job was to run back and forth between the parliament building and the pharmacy, where they bought pure ethanol for the legislators - who didn't consider themselves bound by the same laws as the rest of Iceland.
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The darkest interpretation of all of this is that Canada's liberal political elites find al-Jazeera's view of the world more compatible than Fox's. The Arab network is always putting the worst face on U.S. policies, while Fox doesn't mind suggesting that it is rooting for America to win when it goes to war. We prefer to think better of our neighbors to the north, but it would be nice if they gave Americans the same benefit of the doubt that they give to our enemies.
Not that Icelanders in general considered themselved bound by the law - illegal production of schnapps was enormous, and the traditional Icelandic Schnapps, "Black Death", was born during those years.
The funny thing was that a majority voted for prohibition in a referendum in 1915. Another classic case of "I think it's a good idea that X should be banned. I can partake, of course, but it's bad for others who don't know how to handle it".
