Monthly Archive: September 2006

Stephen Harper scores a major diplomatic victory. Watch the left go nuts.

I've been idly updating the Liberal Party webpage reporting on delegate results:

Ignatieff: 27.6% (239 delegates)
Dion: 18.5% (160 delegates)
Rae: 18.1% (157 delegates)
Kennedy: 14.3% (124 delegates)
Brison: 7.5% (65 delegates)
Dryden: 5.8% (50 delegates)
Volpe: 3.8% (33 delegates)
Hall Findlay: 1.8% (16 delegates)
Undeclared: 2.7% (23 delegates)

As only 96 of 465 meetings have reported, it's too early to make too many generalizations. But these numbers haven't changed since 6am Eastern, when I first checked them. Given that the Atlantic provinces would be farther along in the day, it would explain Brison's strength and Volpe's apparent weakness. The numbers are likely to shift around as Ontario delegates are selected.

Which gets me back to the fact that these results haven't change in nearly six hours. Given that this is not a election for public office, the Liberal Party is not actually required to report on anything. But clearly they have set up the website with the intention of keeping everyone informed. So why have six hours passed without any updates? Is there a problem? Something about the numbers that they don't like? Just curious.

Update: Maybe Ontario won't help Volpe. Bob Rae is trailing Stephane Dion, while Volpe is getting one third the support of Martha Hall Findlay.

A US congressman has resigned after it was revealed that he was engaging teen pages in X-rated online conversations. Parents take heed.

William Imona-Russel, the man arrested for the murder of Yasmin Ashareh, is a con man. But is he a murderer?

Maybe Joe Volpe isn't behind StopIggy.com, but it looks like Volpe tried to smear Michael Ignatieff with allegations of membership irregularities. But the man who file the complaint, Volpe supporter George Kunz, has disappeared, and some wonder if Kunz is himself a phony concocted as part of the plot against Ignatieff. Not likely, as I have a picture of George Kunz.

According to Aaron Lee Wudrick, the Finley memo was not leaked on purpose. Indeed, the Tories are hopping mad that the memo got out, and Aaron has another leaked memo to prove it!

Is Joe Volpe holding all the cards in his fight against the Liberal Party executive?

Joe Volpe will pay...over his dead body! (Or a body of one of his recently recruited members of the dead kind).

Update: Is this why Volpe is hanging tough?

Joe Volpe has 30 days to pay a fine of $20,000 to the Liberal Party, or he is disqualified!

Update: Joe Volpe to Liberal party: Screw you!

National Newswatch is following a rumour that the Liberal Party is about to pull the plug on Joe Volpe's leadership campaign.

As in soon. As in today.

If true, why? The problem with the donations from minors is well in the past. Was the recent problem with recruitments enough, then, to push him out?

On its own, I'm not so sure. I do wonder, however, if it has to do with the StopIggy website. I figured that the party had to know who handed the membership list to Marsha Akman. If it was Volpe, then the recent trouble with his recruitment could very well have been the last straw.

Recruiting irregularities can be blamed on low-level campaign workers. But the membership list could only come from the highest levels of the campaign organization. That would give the Liberal Party the ammunition needed to take out Volpe's troubled campaign. It would also provide the party a shield against possible legal action by Volpe. You sue us over pulling the plug on your campaign, and we'll sue you over leaking the membership list.

Update: A highly placed Liberal tells me I'm wrong on this one. Volpe did not help out StopIggy. Back to the drawing board.

An internal Tory memo by strategist Doug Finley was leaked this week, just ahead of the selection of Liberal Party delegates for the leadership convention. It contained an evaluation of each of the candidates from the point of view of being potential opponents. Major media outlets carried summaries of the memo's contents, and in response, some people have suggested the memo was a fiction, intended to somehow influence the delegate selection process.

Well, I've got the actual memo. Decide for yourself.

Update: This leaked memo suggests that the Finley memo was not leaked on purpose.

That Israelis as well as Lebanese civilians suffered as a result of the recent fighting is an obvious fact. Stephen Harper mentioned that fact at a meeting of the Francophonie, and as a result, more negotiations are underway. Presumably the rest of the membership of this French-speaking analog to the Commonwealth is working on how to hide this obvious fact in such a way as to slip it by Canada.

Support the troops today and wear red. Angry in the Great White North will be sporting a red theme in honour of our troops.

Three pedophiles who benefited from police incompetence. In the case of Belgium's Marc Dutroux, more children died before he was finally recaptured. In the case of Canada's Karla Homolka, she was given a light sentence as a result of an unnecessary plea bargain. In the case of America's John Mark Karr, he is likely to go free very soon, the charges against him dismissed.

John Mark Karr is going to walk free. It's playing out just as I expected. But the coincidences are mounting and I can't help but think there is yet another layer to this story.

Marsha Akman was revealed to be the name behind the website StopIggy.com, dedicated to stopping Michael Ignatieff from becoming leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Based on some discussions with Liberal insiders, the feeling was that Marsha Akman was not really behind the website, but that her name was being used to divert attention behind the real website authors.

I've been doing more research on Akman, and I'm reconsidering the viability of that theory.

Ken Dryden's website is down for the count. Still offline at the time of writing, it was felled by a hacker named TamTurk. But before the conspiracy theories start flying, TamTurk does not work for any other Liberal leadership campaign. Ken Dryden was just unlucky.

Quite the choice for the Liberal Party.

This blog announced the identity of the person behind the Michael Ignatieff anti-campaign website, StopIggy.com. It was Marsha Akman, Liberal Party activist and a member of the party's women's commission.

Well, the truth is likely more complicated. It reads like a spy novel.

Update: Re-considering Marsha Akman's role in this.

The fighting in the Liberal leadership campagin is getting dirty, and Michael Ignatieff is the target. So I decide to see what the most famous Michael Ignatieff anklebiter has to say, when I see that the website mysteriously disappeared (not really). But in doing so, she has revealed herself. StopIggy is Marsha Akman, Liberal Party activist and a member of the party's women's commission.

Question: Are you seeing StopIggy.com? Have I been banned?

Update: I can access the site via Internet Explorer but not through Firefox -- still reports "disabled". Odd.

Update: Or is the truth behind StopIggy.com far more complicated?

Update: Re-considering Marsha Akman's role in this.

Richard Paton of the Canadian Chemical Producers Association responds to my request for an opinion on Stephane Dion's recent news release. He is diplomatic about it.

Stephane Dion has released "a comprehensive health and environment plan" designed to protect Canadians from exposure to environmental hazards. He makes a great deal about what it will achieve. Interestingly, he heaped that same praise on the Canadian Chemical Producers Association two years ago. He even uses the same words in both speeches. The only difference is who is responsible for "Reponsible Care".

Update: The CCPA is not entirely pleased.

Jack Layton's blatant lies has cost him one supporter. One that we know about, that is.

It's anyone guess what Joe Volpe is doing in the wake of this latest scandal, but I know what I think.

A young Muslim woman was murdered by her brother in Ottawa. He was upset about her engagement. An honour killing? Very possibly, especially when you dig a bit deeper into the background of this particular community.

News from Australia of legal action against companies importing illegal toys into the country from China. At least one of these toys is also illegal in Canada, and has been since 2003. So why can I still buy it from a Montreal-based importer?

As always, everyone's opinion is welcome at Angry in the Great White North. Too bad that can't be said of very nook and cranny of the Canadian blogosphere.

What has happened to one of the most notorious campus clubs at the University of Western Ontario, the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights. The group has disappeared from the web.

Update: The club has been deratifieid.

Canada takes the lead in yet another battle. A diplomatic battle, but no less important than the fighting in Afghanistan.

The full text of Hamid Karzai's statements exposes the NDP "reality check" for the lie it is.

There is no sugarcoating it. There are lies, damned lies, and then there are NDP press releases.

Update: Was Jack Layton indulging in some petty revenge?

This native leader is truly dangerous.

Who knew it was so easy to get in touch with the prime minister?

Scary title, eh? Well, you should be worried. An accountant is privy to all sorts of confidential information. The conditions under which that information could be disclosed to a third party is about to undergo a major exansion. Accountants are about to become agents of the State.

Yet again, John Mark Karr catches a break.

After thinking about the issue of Greg Sorbara and the management of the Ontario Securities Commission, I started digging around. Who knew so much was going on without any legislative oversight? It makes me nervous.

NDP leader Jack Layton is ripped apart from one of the former members of the New Politics Initiative, the faction of the NDP that once considered Jack Layton to be its great success.

John Mark Karr has been offered a deal that will see him walk free.

Tolerance is not a good thing, in of itself. It is good only if it leads to more good, or avoids evil. Pope Benedict XVI ought to know that.

Liberal Party leadership candidate Bob Rae has a long history of statements concerning the Constitution. Unfortunately, despite all that history, it's not clear where he stands on the issue.

A very unscientific way to determine the popularity of GreenStone Media, the all-woman media enterprise backed by Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda. The answer: not very popular, it seems.

CBC chairman Guy Fournier has resigned. Has he delivered an opportunity to the Conservatives? Depends on what the Conservatives are planning to do with the CBC.

OK, that title sounds a bit off.

It's unbelievable what CBC chairman Guy Fournier has done, stating that Lebanon condones bestiality. What's entirely believable, however, is the support coming from the Conservative government.

Update: Guy Fournier has resigned.

Jim Coutts is supporting Gerard Kennedy to win the federal Liberal Party leadership campaign. Well, so he says. But it sure seems more likely he's a mole for candidate Bob Rae, on a mission to deliver Kennedy and his delegates to Rae.

Some people have noticed some confusion in the blog over the last couple of hours. I've been doing upgrades to combine the post and comment syndicated feed. Now there is only one feed for Angry in the Great White North. It combines posts and comments in one file. In most RSS readers, the combined entry is expandable, hiding the comments until you choose to read them. I hope this makes for a more enjoyable blogging experience for those who watch the blog via the feed. The comments feed will now be disabled (replaced with a statis message directing users to the new combined feed).

Dalton McGuinty announced a cabinet shuffle today. As is typical with Ontario's Liberal government, it is reactive, and not proactive. There is a long-standing cabinet problem involving Greg Sorbara, the Ontario Securities Commission, and the Ministry of Finance, that has yet to be addressed, and is still not being addressed.

The BBC is reporting on an assassination attempt on the president of Somalia's fragile government. Who are the likely suspects? Turns out there are quite a few.

Can a person internalize the values of a culture just by living in a country for while? How about decades? If not, even long-time residents applying for citizenship will be required to take the same tests as more recent immigrants.

Canada's top man in Afghanistan is happy that the enemy is not succeeding in keeping him from meeting his mission goals. Does he mean that the Taliban has failed to stop him, or the Liberal Party?

Some people have noted the PDF icon () appearing in the sub-header to each of my posts. No mystery -- it's just a link to a PDF version of the post. The PDF is prepared using LaTeX, so it has the easily recognizable LaTeX "article" format. The only real difference between the PDF version and the online version is that links are turned into formal footnotes.

If you are wondering, I started doing this before the Stephane Dion citation controversy. I've always thought footnotes were important.

So if you are looking for a printer-friendly view of the posting, or you want to see more formal citations, the PDF file is probably what you are looking for.

One warning: only some of the posts have been prepared in PDF form. It is a manual process, and I'll be doing it in spare moments. I've cobbled together the PHP code to determine if the PDF form is available. If it isn't, the PDF icon links to an explanatory document instead of returning an error to your browser. If you want a PDF version of a particular post, you can always email me and let me know which post you're interested in. I'll try to get a PDF prepared as soon as possible.

The World Health Organization has approved the use of DDT as a means of controlling malaria, a disease the kills over a million Africans every year. But despite the approval from the WHO, some in Africa are opposing its use. Not because they fear it won't work, Not because they fear that DDT poses a threat to humans. But because they fear the fear of others far removed from either DDT or malaria.

If you act suspiciously in front a border officer in the US, you'll find yourself being asked a lot of extra questions. In India, you might end up getting a brain scan.

The latest missive from the spokesperson for the Six Nations longhouse calls the band council illegal. Nothing new here, really, except with the importance of negotiations growing as winter gets closer, you would think the natives would have tried to come to some sort of temporary truce, a coalition government of sorts.

Thankfully, a student in Wisconsin took the step of telling authorities of his concerns about fellow students, and a tragedy that was one bad day away from happening has been averted.

In Spain, malnourished models have been banned from the catwalk of a major fashion show. Why are models so grotesquely skinny? And does that require a government response?

Kimveer Gill opened fire on students at Dawson College in Montreal. He and one of his victims are dead, while others are in hospital. Gill's background is being carefully examined. I've decided to look at people in his orbit.

News is that the Auditor-General report is going to savage Stephane Dion's record as guardian of the environment.

Kimveer Gill, the young man who opened fire on a crowd of students at Dawson College in Montreal, didn't believe in truth, but he did believe in the afterlife, beer, and guns.

It's beem two days since the start of the nuclear war and the first detonation of warheads. So far, I must say, I'm feeling pretty good.

Amnesty International recognizes the obvious -- Hezbollah committed war crimes.

From The New-International (Pakistan):

SHEIKHUPURA: A woman and her daughter were hanged allegedly by their relatives in the Janiwala village, Nankana Sahib district, on Wednesday. Arshad Bibi, wife of Ashraf, along with her daughter Muqaddas had separated from her spouse four years ago and allegedly developed illicit relations with some people. Arshaf had frequently asked her to shun the bad practice and return home, but to no avail. On Wednesday, Ashraf along with his brother Ishaq and Riaz convinced Arshad Bibi and Muqaddas and brought them back to his house. When they reached home, Ashraf, Ishaq and Riaz allegedly hanged Arshad Bibi and Muqaddas. The Sadar police have started investigations after shifting the bodies to a hospital for post mortem.

I wonder what the "illicit relations" were. Probably talking to the neighnours.

Just to remind people like Jack Layton what the price to be paid for losing this fight.

The shooting at Dawson College has the nation shocked. But soon after the shock has worn away will be the search for an explanation. One disturbing possibility comes to mind.

John Mark Karr used a bogus confession to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey to escape from Thailand where he was caught getting a bit too close to little girls. American prosecutors flew him out of Thailand, and then within a week, watched the Ramsey case fall to pieces when the physical evidence proved he wasn't involved. Of course, they couldn't send him back to Thailand -- he's a US citizen, and Thailand isn't seeking extradition. So Karr is facing an old child pornography charge in California. It too will pass, and Karr will walk free -- no record, no parole, no restrictions on his movements.

An all-women, all-talk radio network is on the air in the US. Can any one voice claim to talk to all women?

The constitution on mainland China lists freedom of the press as a fundamental freedom. As with everything else to do with political freedom in China, it is a lie. Today, the restrictions on the press have grown even stronger with the establishment of a news monopoly. A potentially lucrative monopoly, designed to enrich a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Tian Congming.

Michael Coren, one of Canada's leading conservative commentators, is back on radio after being turfed just over a year ago for mocking a person because of his weight during a staged interview. Coren has apologized, and he's been given a second chance. That's good news for him and for the rest of us, too.

Just some more blogging maintenance. If you subscribe to any my older feeds, please be advised that I'll be disabling the following feeds:

• Atom: http://feeds.feedburner.com/angrygwnatom
• Headlines: http://feeds.feedburner.com/angrygwnhlines
• RSS 1.0: http://feeds.feedburner.com/angrygwnrss10
• Smartfeed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/angrygwnsmart

Please re-establish your feed software to point at http://feeds.feedburner.com/angrygwnrss20.

This is a Feedburner "smart" feed that ought to be compatible with any reader in use.

US authorities have arrested major figures in the internet gambling world. The resulting fallout has hit the Mohawks hard, which is a shame, given the amount of native tradition and culture bound up in maintaining computer servers for running internet poker halls.

Technology Partnerships Canada is under the microscope. Many in the Conservative government believe that the state should not be trying to pick winners and losers, and just let the market forces decide what technologies to fund. There is a study, however, that states that TPC is doing a great job. The report comes Hickling Arthurs Low, a consulting firm and a cheerleader for government programs.

Somalia continues to slide into religiously justified oppression. Despite the actions of the Islamists, the democratic government is negotiating a power-sharing deal. A familiar name is leading the government delegation.

The Caldwell First Nation is unique in southern Ontario. It is the only federally recognized aboriginal band without a reserve land of its own. Back in 1998, the federal government came up with a plan to resolve that issue. There has been nothing but trouble ever since. Thanks to the native occupation in Caledonia, it will likely be trouble for the future too.

Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi says Africa should reject charity. And yet his solution to the problem to illegal immigration into Europe is to have Europe pay his African Union 10 billion euros annually. Charity? Blackmail, more like.

An Australian high school teacher who wrote a textbook teaching that the US and Israel are behind state terrorism, and that the Australian government is reaping the benefits from global terrorism, is shocked at the furious reaction. I'm shocked that he's shocked.

With the demise of NealeNews, we have a new news aggregator stepping up to the plate. National Newswatch came on the scene within hours, it seemed, of NealeNews shutting down. I've been waiting to see how committed the site is to keeping up-to-date, and I have to say, I'm impressed. Check it out.

Oh, and yes, he's linked me on today's front page. Sure I liked that. Yes, it influenced me, certainly better than if he linked something abusive or insulting. Shows he's got an eye for quality non-traditional news sources. Doesn't change the fact that he's got a good site going.

OK, I don't think that's what was meant:

With Stephen Harper as prime minister, Canada has lost its way on the international stage, and at home is seeing the reversal of gains made on behalf of children, aboriginals and on climate change, federal New Democrats charge.

The NDP yesterday kicked off one of its biggest conventions ever, taking aim at the Conservative government and the Liberals who preceded them.

Manitoba Premier Gary Doer got delegates fired up with his warning that in the last 12 months, Canada has moved backwards on the "3 Ks — kids, Kelowna and Kyoto."

Let's hear the assembled throng start chanting "Kay-Kay-Kay! Kay-Kay-Kay! Kay-Kay-Kay!"

Sheesh, imagine if a Conservative had said something like that. Where's Hedy Fry when you need her?

Paul Summerville, economist, bank executive, and NDP star candidate, has left the party. Why? Because Jack Layton has revealed himself to be an anti-market anti-wealth pro-tax socialist of the old school. Who says so? Paul Summerville.

Overheard this Thursday, on September 7, 3:30 in the afternoon, at the King Edward Hotel on King Street in Toronto:

"They want payment up front and they want it in small bills."

A strange phrase to be heard in the hall just outside of the bar spoken by such a notable and easily recognizable person. If by some bizarre coincidence you have some insight into what was the topic of conversation, drop me a line. OK, back to regularly scheduled programming.

Liberals tout themselves as the true guardians of Canadian values. Apparently the core Canadian value is anything for a buck. They are wailing that the Conservatives are slighting China, and that will make it tough for Canadian companies to make money. But the Chinese are shameless thieves who selectively open the borders only as a means for their companies, with government approval, to copy ideas and products to make a quick profit, and to bolster their national self esteem. And what do we get in return? Cheap plastic crap choking our landfill sites.

ABC is rolling up everything to do with the 9/11 movie, including the advertising on my feed. Too bad -- they were offering good money.

With her book hitting the shelves next week, Cindy Sheehan reveals she fantasizes about going back in time and killing George W Bush when he was an infant and so preventing the Iraq War. The revulsion evoked by discussing infanticide notwithstanding, her plan could never work because of the inevitable intervention of Skippy the Wonder Dog.

Good news for the Liberal Party. The Bloc Quebecois will vote with the Conservatives in support of the softwood lumber deal.

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty is running out of money.

Characterized as unmanageable, Shaun Joshua Deacon, who likes children around the age of five or so, is out on parole. Again. Where? No one is saying. Will he violate his parole? Asolutely.

The NDP has been taking a lot of heat for calling Canadian troops terrorists in a resolution to be considered during the policy convention this weekend. Apparently it was all a big misunderstanding.

Either the authors of Stephane Dion's "Clean Air Plan" helped write "The Air We Breathe" for the David Suzuki Foundation, or they didn't.

That means someone is lying.

Do all Liberals have the academic equivalent of sticky fingers? I ask because now Michael Ignatieff's environmental plan seems to be a copy. At least he had the decency to go back to 2004 to steal his ideas, instead of to last week.

Updated: Or maybe not.

Stephane Dion speaks out on the controversy surrounding his "Clean Air Plan". He says some of the same people were involved in drafting his plan and in writing the David Suzuki Foundation's "The Air We Breathe". Actually, it looks like there was one person involved in both -- environmentalist, activist, and lawyer David R Boyd, who thinks politicians are simple creatures who react to straightforward stimuli, and who thinks Canadians need to be "dematerialized".

Stephen Taylor has a full set of the NDP draft policy documents. Of course, the NDP did not want to use the head of the Blogging Tories as the means of distributing these documents, but hey, information is information.

The story of how Stephane Dion's "Clean Air Plan" grabbed chunks of the report "The Air We Breathe" put out by the David Suzuki Foundation has made it to the front page of the Globe and Mail online.

Now the spinning begins:

1. It was copied and that's a good thing.
2. It wasn't copied. It's just a coincidence.
3. Suzuki copied from Dion.

I kid you not.

The Globe and Mail has taken notice of the Stephane Dion "Clean Air Plan" story. From Dan Cook on politics:

[Dion v. Suzuki] Plagiarism?

Just one line. But what a line!

I'm betting there will be some phone calls this afternoon. Good thing I had those screenshots!

Caught stealing chunks of a David Suzuki Foundation report to use in his "Clean Air Plan", Stephane Dion has attempted to insert a footnote into his plan linking back to that report.

Too bad it fails on two counts.

First, a footnote does not address the wholesale lifting of text from the report and using it in the plan.

Second, I have the screenshots to prove that the footnote is an attempt to clean up this mess on the sly.

But what's really remarkable is this. The fact that he has put in this inadequate footnote is enough to establish the basis of this case -- the David Suzuki Foundation report was indeed used to write the "Clean Air Plan". Now it's a matter of deciding just how much was used and when.

Normally when an unflattering story concerning a senior member of the Liberal Party is posted on a conservative blog, you'd expect most of the links to come from other conservative blogs.

You know you are in the middle of a Liberal leadership campaign, however, when the first links to this story about Liberal leadership candidate Stephane Dion stealing from the David Suzuki Foundation's "The Air We Breathe" report to create his "Clean Air Plan" have come from Liberal blogs. Are Liberals who support other candidates smelling blood in the water? We'll see.

Here are the links I've spotted so far from Liberal (or at least, non-Conservative) blogs. I'll add to this list if I see more:

• Far and Wide: Dion Steals from Suzuki? [ed, currently pulled by author pending further "homework"]
• Ramblings of a Northern Ontario Liberal: Dion steals environment plan from Suzuki? (with an accompanying graphic, no less)
• apply liberally: Well Known Facts and Common Ideas or Plagiarism?
• Fuddle Duddle: Stephane Dion's Plagiarized Policy a Blemish on his Academic Career
• TDH Strategies: Entry for September 5, 2006
• Liberalia.ca: Where's turnitin.com when you need it?
• Libnews.ca: Dion campaign accused of plagiarism
• Jason Cherniak: Plagiarism my butt!

Stephane Dion, one of the leading candidates for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, and a former professor at the University of Montreal, released his "Clean Air Plan" exactly one week after the David Suzuki Foundation released its report, "The Air We Breathe".

Compare the two and see the ideas, and in some cases, the actually words, Dion rips off from the Suzuki report. No credit is given to the Suzuki Foundation report, either for general references or for inspiration. Not good. Not good at all.

A fence is going up around the Notre Dame Catholic School in Caledonia. The school propery borders on the Douglas Creek Estates site occupied by Native protesters from the Six Nations and their Mohawk Warrior allies. Children aren't stupid -- they will get the message behind the fence, loud and clear.

What is it about Canadian liberals and their hate-hate relationship with the US? They accuse conservative Canadians of being lapdogs of the Republicans, but the liberals are the first to cry foul when the Americans they loathe so much don't give them enough attention. It's sort of sad, really.

When Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Liberal Party opposition MP Wajid Khan to the job of special advisor for South Asia, focus in Canada was on the domestic political implications of the cross-floor appointment. But the appointment has been noticed halfway around the globe.

An interesting comment about the initial investigation into the murder of Yasmin Ashareh -- but for now, just a rumour, without even an email address for me to use to contact the person. So I'm not given this any credence, though I'm not saying it's not accurate either. Just...interesting. Maybe a reader with more knowledge of the situation can provide some insight.

A baseball game can go on for hours, interminably so, and that's only giving each batter three strikes.

What if professional baseball suggested changing the rules to give the batter 100 strikes? You'd think the people running the leagues were insane, and you'd be right.

So when a man is picked up for the hundredth time by police in New York, you have to wonder just how judges think.

NDP leader Jack Layton wants Canada to cut and run, and leave Afghanistan to the Taliban. His plan is to send troops to Lebanon to protect the world from Israel. Unfortunately for him, a fellow NDP MP has publicly said that this is a bad idea.

Remember how Quebec's daycare system was the model we were supposed to follow? The model seems now to consist of daycares bucking government regulation in order to make a profit, of reducing hours to reduce cost, of demanding cash payments to avoid the notice of the taxman -- in other words, chaos.

A Toronto Police bulletin announced to the public that Marylin Linton, an employee of a major insurance firm, had been arrested after she had used information she had gleaned from personal client files to apply for credit cards. The bulletin also assured us that the company was taking steps to protect client confidentiality, but did not name the company. I was frustrated that I couldn't determine my exposure to credit fraud by being told whether my insurer was her employer.

We now know the company: Sun Life.