Angry in the Great White North

Consider the fact that Canada's first attempt to slip electronic spy coins on American contractors was an embarrassing failure:

An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defense Department's false espionage warning earlier this year, The Associated Press has learned.

The odd-looking — but harmless — "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.

The silver-colored 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy — Canada's flower of remembrance — inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors' accounts.

The warning suggested that such transmitters could be used surreptitiously to track the movements of people carrying the coins.

Thank goodness the Americans are laughing this off. It's the only silver lining on a dark cloud of hanging over the Canadian intelligence community. The plan was misguided from the beginning:

"I thought the whole thing was preposterous, to think you could tag an individual with a coin and think they wouldn't give it away or spend it," said H. Keith Melton, a leading intelligence historian.

Of course. Coins change hands. The trick is to make a coin that no one would dare spend. A coin that, if slipped into the target's pocket, is guaranteed to stay with the target through thick and thin.

But what sort of coin would that be?

The Royal Canadian Mint has unveiled the world's first 100 kilogram pure gold coin.

Brilliant!