From Cork to Toronto

All of those who think the process by which Saddam Hussein met his end shows Iraq's maturity as a developing democracy should really watch the video available on the internet, complete with the taunting by the al-Sadr militiamen, not Iraqi government forces, dragging Saddam to his death. I don't know if it showed the actual hanging as I found it revolting and turned it off. Shouldn't be surprised - it's cleaner than how the West's friends in Saudi Arabia do it, after all.

The Globe and Mail seems to think so , quoting former Liberal leadership contender Dr. Carolyn Bennett. The article by Gloria Galloway notes that in addition to providing Dr. John Hamm, former Premier of Nova Scotia, with a nice little retirement earner, the new board appointed by Tony Clement includes: a professor of Jewish studies who has written of his opposition to abortion unless life of the mother is being threatened, a social anthropologist who is director of research for the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, a Montreal oncologist who has spoken against euthanasia at an anti-abortion conference, and a Halifax bioethicist who opposes using fresh embryos for stem-cell research -- an opposition commonly voiced by those who believe life begins at conception. Stem-cell researchers, for instance, are nowhere to be found on this board despite its role in approving more than 20 Assisted Human Reproduction Act regulations controlling testing unborn children for genetic diseases, IVF emb...

Rick has posted on his blog a long write-up about his trip which he made with the Chief of Defence Staff and several entertainers to Kandahar and the various Forward Operating Bases, including how he ended up going in the first place: Gen. Hillier is a very persuasive man. He is also a Newfoundlander. And while he is the chief of the Canadian Forces it has been suggested that he might think he is the chief of all Newfoundlanders. He'll call you up and suggest to you that on Dec. 25 there is only one place you should be and it's so special that by agreeing to go there you render your life insurance null and void. You aren't asked so much as you are voluntold.

Over the next year the United States Fish and Wildlife Service will be considering a proposal to designated polar bears as endangered . At first glance this seems a no-brainer, given that polar bears have been suffering a multi-whammy: a decline in their sea ice breeding areas, a decline in their foodstocks, the release of manmade toxins normally stored in fat due to their lower food intake and their objectification by Coca-Cola every Christmas. The Nunavut territorial government doesn't think this is a good idea , according to the CBC. My first thought that this is a Inuit traditional rights issue, like the hunters in B.C. allowed to use hunting rifles at night because night hunting is a tradition of First Nations. But the USFWS doesn't have jurisdiction over Canada anyway. No, this is about US fatcats coming north for "sport" hunting - $20,000 for a guarantee to shoot a polar bear - for extra you can shoot an elk and have the meat shipped to your home. Acco...

Last night Nicole and I took in The Departed at the Fox Cinema on Queen Street East. We both agreed that Leonardo diCaprio did an excellent job even though he's not an actor either of us usually like. Jack Nicholson and Martin Sheen were their usual immense selves and Mark Wahlberg was incredibly (and amusingly) rude. I did feel Alec Baldwin's character was too much like an extension of a 30Rock/SNL sketch. Personally I would have liked to watch it in a small theatre a couple of rows behind Matt Damon with Ben Affleck making fun of Damon's character through the movie. This morning I read that the same neighbourhood , which had to have a plebiscite to figure out what to officially call itself , was going to have an Out of the Cold shelter set up in a local church until a group of concerned residents hired a lawyer , who tells us "The program itself is very praiseworthy, although it might be questioned on the level of whether or not this is the best way to use ....

The FDA has approved cloned meat for unlabelled sale to the public . US food can now, it seems, be any combo from genetically modified, cloned, growth promoted and antibiotic-laden. Sadly with NAFTA and the flow of livestock across the border some of that food will probably end up on Canadian tables. So it's okay to eat this stuff but not clone stem cells? All of a sudden Soylent Green is looking appetising.

To most Europeans coming from the system of VAT where tax is shown on the "sticker price" to North America where you have to do mental arithmetic to know how much you would pay at the cash register is a bit frustrating. Buying electronics is swiftly making that transition even more annoying. The latest scam is the "mail-in rebate". You open a store flyer and see that a $159 camera is marked down to $70. Good news you think, with tax that's about $80. Then you notice that only $9 of that is "instant savings" and the rest is a mail-in rebate. Well, that's not so bad - you just pay the $150 and tax on the $70 price and you get $80 back in the post. Well, no - in Ontario tax is 14% of the price you paid at the till after store discount. Your "$159 down to $70 camera" means you pay $150+$21 - $171. Then you have to put your receipt in an envelope and send it somewhere. But your rebate may not be what you were promised, since the fine ...

I notice Slovenia will join the Euro zone on 1 January. Last time I went to Slovenia I needed several currencies to get from Cork to Portoroz via Stansted, Treviso and Trieste. Now I would just need two with the UK holding out. Why oh why do they pick such stupid exchange rates though - 239.640 tolars to the Euro. Would rounding it to 240 really make that much difference? When Ireland joined it was 0.787564 punts/Euro - 1.55% short of a nice round 0.8 but the Slovenia gap is an order of magnitude less at 0.15%. The increase in hassle and resentment caused by a ratio only a Brussels econocrat could love is something you'd think they'd have learned to avoid from the last conversions.

The removal of a Christmas tree from a Toronto court building has many people exercised. This piece which I saw on one of my rare checks of novelist/tech writer Jerry Pournelle 's website seems on point. A little late, obviously, but maybe Dalton McGuinty and Judge Marion Cohen should save it for next year. (Letter from Jesus about Christmas) It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival. Although I do appreciate being remembered anytime. How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth, just GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER. (snip) If it bot...

An interesting article in the Toronto Star details the systems some local restaurant chains are installing to recover cooking heat to pre-heat cold water en route to hot water and heating systems. A sophisticated variant had a payback period of 21 months. The system is supplied by a company that used to install bar and restaurant smoking room ventilation prior to smoking rooms being outlawed in Ontario. In summer when no heating is required the hot water supply water can be preheated to 120F/49C prior to entering the boiler. I've sometimes wondered whether the hot air in a Toronto summer, where nightly lows can exceed 20C could be used in a similar way to integrate into hot water systems downtown, especially given the apparent success of Toronto's Deep Lake Cooling System .

Joyeux Noël. Happy Christmas. Well, that's all the official languages taken care of both over here and over there . I hope all my readers have a great day (including the ones for whom this is a day to go out on the town ).

At present, the CFL is broadcast on both TSN and CBC but the Grey Cup Final is shown on CBC. The Grey Cup is billed as a Canadian national institution (the foray into the US notwithstanding) and gets national network coverage as the FA Cup Final does in the UK. Under a new deal, TSN links up with fellow BellGlobemedia stablemate CTV to provide coverage. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it is odd that an outgoing Commissioner would negotiate it and the Globe infers that Argonauts executive and former TSN president Keith Pelley was the one doing the talking . The result was a sole-source bid with the CBC who had planned a bid with Global being shut out. Obviously Keith Pelley's broadcasting experience was a big deal when he joined the Argonauts staff given the dependence on TV revenue by professional sports but one has to wonder whether he really did influence the choice of going sole-source and if this did not form something of a conflict. The CBC's lack of a spo...

If you like Scrubs , you'll love this (seen at Troll Baby ). If Charlie Brown was an integral part of your childhood you may be crushed. Fortunately for me I fall into the former category. Apparently it was done for a cast Christmas party a few years back . It's 10 minutes long and a little rude in parts - i.e. just like the regular Scrubs :)

When I saw this on Keith Martin's site I thought "this has to be a joke", not least because Mark Thomas was a frequent guest on one of my favourite British comedy programmes when I was in secondary school, " the Mary Whitehouse Experience " on BBC Radio 1. Apparently arms brokerage is so easy school kids from the UK and Ireland have been test driving the arms and torture tools market legally via companies they set up called Williams Defence and Seachtar Associates . At the time the UK's legislation existed but with loopholes whereas Ireland had implemented none of the 2003 EU Common Position on arms brokerage . On April 3rd Channel 4's Dispatches broadcast Mark Thomas' documentary . Apparently legislation in Ireland has been forthcoming since but as the UK experience shows that legislation must be vigorously tested for loopholes. How many Yuri Orlovs have plied their trade in Ireland?

On Coach's Corner tonight Don Cherry laid into the online effort to get Vancouver Canucks defenceman, Rory Fitzpatrick, a berth in the All Star game through the online vote . Now I think All Star games in mid season are lame to start with but they're a big thing over here. Cherry has a problem with the ASG going back his time in Boston but he tells Fitzpatrick that he should not go if selected. In Ireland we are well used to these kind of efforts. There was the time Ronnie O'Brien , now of Toronto FC but then a fringe player with Juventus first had a vote stack for the Juventus Player of the Year but then later Time's Person of the Century until Time yanked his name from the poll. The Wolfe Tones' "A Nation Once Again" was the BBC's World's Most Popular Song . Email has created a way for the Irish diaspora to mess with the world's heads. Personally I voted for Fitzpatrick - why the hell not. There are no criteria for entry and anyone dis...

The Harper government has announced that 4,450 hectares of land expropriated to create Mirabel Airport will be sold with priority given to existing renters of the land, most of whom owned it prior to the forced sale in 1969. The mayor of Mirabel is unhappy as he was looking to expand the industrial sites at the airport but that is something he can take up with the new owners. The Kanesetake Mohawks have filed a land claim on the land - I'm going to pass over that one because I don't understand how indigenous land claims work in Canada, and the bigger problem is that it seems to me nobody else does either. Mirabel itself still exists as a cargo airport and occasionally a film set . Apparently Montreal Airport Authority covets it for flights between Dorval-Trudeau and Mirabel (a distance of 32km as a noisy old cargo plane flies) which seems environmentally dubious to put it mildly - is this the hand of Bombardier who still maintain a factory at Mirabel? The next question i...

Whatever did Stockwell Day mean ? And if he meant what I thought he meant when I read the quote, could this be a 10 day wonder like Peter McKay's "bitch" or a career killer like Mel Lastman's cannibals or George Allen's "macaca" ? Some people don't think it's a big deal - unless Stock wants to join Rona Ambrose in Harper's doghouse he better hope more people agree. Some Tory supporters think otherwise .

In a story I bookmarked a few days back entitled " an excess of conscience " the Economist hammers Amnesty for leading a campaign against Estonia's cultural laws by saying they were going after the little guys who were doing their best anyway on ideological grounds while letting the real offenders (like Estonia's former occupier) off the hook and alienating those non-leftists who used to form a large part of its support. It's facile to say 1st and 2nd world countries shouldn't be held to high standards - of those who achieve much, more is expected and rightly so - but too often the atrocities of the third world are written off as solely the product of colonialism and that if only people felt guilty enough about the sins of their forefathers that would help more than criticising the parade of despots that litter the African landscape for instance, particularly that homophobic racist headcase in Harare. To save Jüri Kukk and other inmates of the gulag, people of...

I wondered why Space was moving BSG to Sundays at 10pm for the second half of the season but it seems SciFi in the US are moving it from Fridays to Sundays at 10 and god forbid we'd see it first. It's rare that that happens - a day head start with the CTV viewing of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is the only one I can think of lately which might speak more to NBC's desperation to sell the show. Admittedly the existing BSG slot did suck as it clashed with Hockey Night in Canada but that was a problem solved by our new gadget . I'm interested by the slight difference in promotion of Season 3 - the Canadian/US ads tend to accentuate the romance and action bits teamed with music by Nickelback ( season 3 premiere ) and All-American Rejects ( season second half promo ) but I've just seen the Sky One promo for the UK Season 3 premiere on the 9th which pushes the political - you would barely notice the sci-fi bits until the basestars show up in the final frames - emphas...

In the "more harm than good department" the Register notes that not all "carbon offset schemes" are alike . New research presented at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union suggests that the carbon reducing benefits of the trees is outweighed by their tendency to trap heat close to the ground - especially when they are planted in the normally snowy, higher latitudes. So while they cool the planet by taking carbon out of the atmosphere, they also warm it, like a winter blanket. Ecologist Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory told the BBC: "What we have found is in the so-called mid-latitude region where the United States is located and majority of European countries are located, the climate benefits of planting will be nearly zero." For the trees to have an impact they need to be planted in the tropics, he said. Maybe some of those corporations claiming to be going carbon neutral should be asked where their offsets are going.

This is the time of year when the Toronto Star prides itself on highlighting the plight of vulnerable people, the homeless and so on. It runs a Santa Claus fund . It even tells the story of 85 staff of various parts of a major media company canned just before the Chri... I mean "holiday season". No wait, that wasn't the Star that reported it, it was the CBC . The Star ran a Canadian Press piece with a headline in teeny type on the business page. One can't help but feel 85 jobs gone at the Post would have given rise to a special from Antonia Zerbisias . According to comments on a Torontoist post Torstar are supposedly giving NASCAR branded blenders to the ejectees . Sounds like a re-gift eh? Never mind, the website's been redesigned. Ooh, shiny!

When I'm away for a weekend to relax, I hate getting roped into activities I don't feel like doing. I call it "compulsory fun", an obvious oxymoron. The same goes for enforcing patriotism or support of things like the military. I really hope what I've written about below plays out very differently. I don't know Jacques Beaulieu, the coach of the Quebec Major Junior league Saint John Seadogs but I can safely predict his name being mud on websites like rabble.ca and on various left leaning websites before the night is down, because he fired winger Dave Bouchard, a 20 year old left wing, for failing to sign a flag being sent to a Canadian Forces detachment in Afghanistan . Said M. Beaulieu: "Morally, we have standards with this hockey team and that's a standard that we believe in." "I mean, if Dave doesn't believe in it, that's fine. But he won't be part of it. He won't be part of this organization. That's the standard...

The rationale for this (CBC, seen at James Bow ) escapes me. Space robotics is a field when Canada can truly claim to be a world leader, where the Canadarm and Canadarm2 are integral parts of current space missions, but the Harper government has just refused to permit the Canadian Space Agency's participation in a European Mars Rover project even though no additional funds were required, just permission to reallocate existing funds. The Europeans appeared to regard it as a formality and are now scrambling to find a replacement. Is it because Marc Garneau ran for the Liberals ? Were the funds being reallocated originally destined for Quebec and thus Minister Bernier couldn't abide it? Who is going to get answers to these questions? Via Hassenpfeffer , New Scientist's David Shiga writes : For a country with a relatively small population, Canada has made some very respectable contributions to spaceflight, producing several astronauts and a robotic arm for the space shu...

I saw this post which largely reproduced this article and wondered about the Toronto subway where in summer the heat and humidity alone can be oppressive at peak, especially since some cars don't have air conditioning. Now I wonder whether the conditions observed in Sweden are true here. If so, I think they increase the case for installing full length screens at all subway platforms. Not only would they increase the efficiency of air conditioning on platforms by reducing leakage into the tunnels but they would be an impediment to suicides and accidental track incursions while permitting the operation of shorter subway cars in offpeak times in a safe manner. (Note: there are operational impediments to 3/4 car operation but that's another matter.)

TSN: Why do you promote hockey via the "my NHL" advertisements... during hockey games? Surely if you want to increase the reach of hockey you should be advertising during non-hockey telecasts or on other channels? I'm just asking. NHL: Still think it was a good idea to mess Jim Balsillie, respected and VERY RICH executive of Blackberry, around just to try and force him to keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh? Now you appear to be stuck with (a) loudmouth Mark Cuban or (b) a guy who even the CFL wouldn't give a franchise to and who employs drug cheat Ben Johnson in ads for his Cheetah brand.

During the Liberal leadership campaign, the argument against Ignatieff was that he shot from the hip and was too liable to gaffes. Harper, Time Canada's Man of the Year , was the opposite, too in control of his agenda and those of his subordinates. Well, it turns out Harper's "Qana was a warcrime" may turn out to be "so-called greenhouse gases". As usual, Youtube provides ...

This is one of those posts I read that would be funny if it wasn't deadly serious - that not only would Simcoe County build a rubbish dump on top of an unusually high purity groundwater supply but that they would deliberately divert some of that water into the dump with a view of keeping leachate from leaking into said water supply. Enough clean water to supply 250,000 homes is being dumped into a creek to allow the dump to be built. The Province of Ontario has approved this apparent lunacy. The federal Liberal Party may have found "environmental religion" but Dalton McGuinty sure hasn't, if the complete mishandling of power generation policy hadn't already given that away. More information can be found at the Stop Dump Site 41 website. It has a stupid Java scrollbar which slows the pageload but I suppose it's in a good cause. It also has a song (bottom of page) which does weaken my support a little more.

Via Archiseek among other places I learn the Railway Procurement Authority are looking at a light rail system for Cork . The routes most likely would be on the southwest of the city, taking in UCC and Ballincollig via the " straight road ", a candidate for light rail if there was ever one given its bullet straight alignment, with a spur to CIT and the Regional Hospital - perhaps a loop along Wilton Road, Curraheen Road, Melbourne Road and a new alignment in the area between the industrial estate at Model Farm Road and a junction with the other line at Carrigrohane Road . The tricky part, as has always been the case when discussing south side light rail in Cork (north side is all about steep gradients and rock throwing louts) is what to do about getting it into/out of the city centre and its narrow streets. I'm thinking especially about the bridge here and the route between there and Washington Street which is currently parallel one-ways in part. Then do you route it t...

I came across this google mashup via various blogs including Torontoist . The map includes York Region's VIVA, TTC routes and GO Transit routes. This is just another example of the community stepping in where the TTC and other transit agencies fail to provide, such as the Subway Rider Efficiency Guide or the Subway Buttons . Sometimes this participation comes at risk from snarls from the Commission's legal rottweilers . No sign of Google Transit for Toronto yet despite the TTC discussing it in March . The GTTA will probably spend a billion dollars on consultants and tenders to produce the same thing, as they are bound to with the Smart Card project. UPDATE: Spacing has a post on this , the comments of which include a link to a Toronto Star article which seems to indicate the TTC will not proceed with Google Transit before developing its own solution first. Figures - TTC "made in Toronto" is all too frequently like Tory "made in Canada" environment po...

BA CEO Willie Walsh was in Calgary for the launch of the 5-weekly Heathrow-Calgary service. Apparently he wore the mandatory stetson , though I haven't run down a photo - you can bet there would be one if Michael O'Leary was doing it. While there he had a lot to say about Gordon Brown's increase of aviation taxes , such as that the increased total tax at STG400m was far times more than if BA had paid the current market cost of CO 2 offsets (STG87m). Obviously the environmental impact of aviation such as noise is more than just CO 2 - there's nitrogen oxides, noise, high altitude vapour and so on but Brown should answer whether the money will actually go to ameliorating environmental effects. He paid a visit to WestJet of whom there have been persistent rumours of joining the OneWorld alliance, especially once their new reservations system comes on-line. WestJet would straddle two major OneWorld partners in AA and BA as the former Canadian Airlines once did and ...

Martin Sheen (or as his student registration names him, Ramon Gerardo Antonio Estevez) has just finished a four month stint at University College Galway . During that time he apparently chaired a debate at the Literary and Debating Society which somehow seems more impressive than the parade of celebs to Trinity or to pick up so-called "Fellowships" in UCD being a celebrity and a student member rather than an Honorary. He also took up the cause of underpaid workers in mushroom farms . Having enjoyed the hospitality of UCG several times over the years I had to smile at the anecdote recounted in today's Irish Independent (free rego required) - I could actually imagine it happening in Galway. Despite his instantly recognisable features, there were a few students who did not recognise the actor, but one of his favourite anecdotes concerns one who obviously did: "Is it yourself?" the student inquired when he came across Sheen wandering around the campus, appare...

Twenty Major nails it : I love when people say... "We will not rest until the killer has been found". Come on, if they're really serious about finding the killer then staying awake for weeks and weeks is not the answer. Lack of sleep causes hallucinations, paranoia and distorted thinking. What they want to do is get a good night's sleep and re-examine the facts the next morning over a hearty breakfast. I guarantee you they'll see the benefits of it.

I have had a theory for some time that there is only one sporting brain in Toronto and the various franchises have to share it, given their notorious inconsistency. Nicole called me on this the other day since the Leafs and cRaptors were both sucking. I pointed out that so were the Jays in trade terms but the Argos clearly possessed the brain but it being the offseason weren't using it. With the defeat (slim though it was) of Tampa perhaps the brain has returned to the Leafs. What's worse is that next year they'll have to share with another franchise in an American league, Toronto FC.

Britain is one of the countries that maintains a nuclear deterrent at present. Since the RAF's final withdrawal of air launched nuclear weapons in 1998, it is wholly composed of four Vanguard class submarines , built between 1993 and 1999, at least one of which remains at sea at all times. (Having four maintains redundancy for maintenance etc.) On board those submarines are up to 16 Trident II D5 intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying multiple independent warheads . When Tony Blair looked likely to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom there was a certain anticipation of a move to scrap Trident before the 2018 missile life expiry and 2020 submarine life expiry (if not refitted) given his past as a CND supporter. Not only has he maintained the deterrent force but has proposed to extend its life to 2040 by joining the US D5 Life Extension Programme . This I find surprising and probably unwise. In the past I could see reasons why foreign policy options might cau...

According to the Star , Mike Harris was more hardline on taking cases against tobacco companies than Dalton McGuinty. Could it be that McGuinty is afraid of making an enemy of yet more Ontario farmers ? That said, going into business with someone - as governments did with tobacco companies by licensing their drug business - and then turning on them has always seemed wrong to me. Have smoking bans, advertising bans and sales restrictions by all means but taxing the hell out of tobacco and then suing the distributors stinks of double dipping and general hypocrisy since by licensing their business the governments were complicit in their business dealings. UPDATE: BCer in Toronto has something on this too .

I just upgraded to Reader 8 to solve this security advisory but it seems to perform a bit less than an asthmatic slug compared to versions 6 and 7 too so that's a bonus. For some reason the new logo reminds me of AutoCAD but Autodesk seem to have moved on to blues and greens these days. Here's the link from adobe.com to the dynamic installer but if you're a sysadm you'll prefer the static installer which Adobe hide away in their FTP site. You may also want to check out this advisory regarding the Adobe Download Manager in case it applies to you.

This is a temporary template - am fully migrating to Blogger Beta so will be adding back Newsline (or maybe something else, who knows) in due course. Best to start with a near-clean slate though.

United Position 1/Played 17/Points 44 Chelski 2/16/38 Liverpool 4/17/28 Arsenal 6/16/26 city 12/17/20 God knows how we're doing it . Fergie is still considering 4-5-1 the SAFE option even though we keep conceding goals! At any other time (well, any time before he left Celtic say) Henrik Larsson would have been hailed as the solution to the fragility of United's front line but we already have Giggs and Solskjaer so we don't need any more aging legends. His reluctance to use 4-4-2 stinks of a threadbare squad and a tightfisted board than tactical nous given the success it generally brings when he is forced into it by another lone striker fiasco. The Ginger Prince's vision was reported to be a lot less than 100% and Giggs is having that kind of great season which usually builds up to a climax of a debilitating injury. Big tests await in 2007, including Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea away. That said, I have generally respected Arsenal as opposed to the reflexive disgust...

Especially now that he's going to be a grand-dad. ( New York Times - rego required )

I have written about Ontario's dubious policies in respect of children before and the reports by the Auditor General of Ontario in respect of financial and operational mismanagement just reinforce for me the need to immediately begin a process to "nationalise" the CAS and CCAS. It's time Ontario ends the outsourcing of vulnerable children under the 1990 Family and Child Services Act and instead makes the Ministry of Children and Youth Services directly responsible for Ontario's most vulnerable citizens. CBC: Ontario children's aid societies misspent money, auditors allege. CBC: Ontario vows to stop 'disturbing' spending at children's aid societies Globe: Ontario review also finds children's needs are not being met in a timely manner Star: CAS failing at-risk kids: Auditor.

I wonder what Pat Martin's game is . After all, NDP policy, enunciated only a month and a half ago, is that dual citizens are a bonus to Canada . Bill Siksay who announced it still thinks so but Jack Layton now thinks maybe the PM should be Canadian only . I'd love to hear what Olivia Chow's opinion is - or Libby Davies' or even Svend Robinson's . Certainly some other bloggers seem surprised with Layton's stance, like Politique Vert , blevkog , idealisticpragmatist , where'd that bug go? It seems that some feel denied the opportunity to question the patriotism of the Leader of the Opposition by world-traveller (or more importantly in terms of venom, former resident of the US) Michael Ignatieff's failure to close the deal, and therefore have turned their guns on Dion. It has been noted elsewhere that while Ezra Levant might have been the first to demand Dion renounce his citizenship of France, he was not the first to report it by any means - the S...

Gerard Kennedy talked about moving to Quebec during the leadership campaign to improve his French. Dion should move to Ontario (Ottawa doesn't count - has to be Toronto for at least some of it). I don't think his French needs to improve - I think he needs to meet more Ontarians and stay out of the line of sight of Quebecers. What now for Ignatieff and Rae? Anyone who thinks they should fade away, including themselves, has far too high an impression of the putative Liberal front bench. Frank McKenna should be recalled to duty at an early opportunity too, though not necessarily in the Commons.

This was in yesterday's Post and I agree with every word. A policy of making it more obvious where the bathrooms are in each station, as well as not leaving a gap of, say, 5 stations without a bathroom would be good too. At present the policy as I understand it is to have toilets at terminal stations like Finch and junction stations like Bloor - although the last time I needed it damned if I could find the Bloor one. Some more public bathrooms in other parts of the city would be nice too. Friday, December 01, 2006 BANISH THIS: AN OPEN LETTER TO MOSCOE: CLEAN THE BATHROOMS Dear Mr. Moscoe, I am a Thornhill resident and TTC commuter. On behalf of bathroom-using women from all over the GTA, I am now going to give you an earful about the TTC washrooms. I would like to ask why the TTC bathrooms are so revolting. Have you been in any of the TTC bathrooms recently? I am familiar with the bathrooms at Finch Station, Eglinton Station and Bloor Station. They are always dirty and smelly,...

Previously on "fun and frolics at the Palais de Congres" - only one Liberal still really understands politics. Jean Chretien . Winning's not everything, it's the only thing (since only Ministers get to make patrimony appointments). The format for the speech portion was led off a flashy introductory video for each candidate, undoubtedly made by the ad agency friends who get government money shovelled at them when Liberals are in government as with the federal Adscam and the Ontario trillium logo and government website "oops they accidentally came out looking Liberal" fiascos. I didn't see all the speeches (and occasionally hit MUTE on some of the ones I did) but most led off with a intro speaker. Dion must have regretted having Glen Pearson, who beat Elizabeth May in London North Centre (a homophobe and a backstabber were also on the ballot), do a well-intentioned though laboured intro as it led to Dion himself being cut off before his peroration. I ...

The federal Liberal Party conference is going on at the moment and it's the worst of all worlds - partly Canadian, partly American. Thursday night's content was execrable - mawkish tributes to Bill Graham and Paul Martin, interminable speeches. It also warned of the "CPAC TV" to come - the incessant Franglish made even more unbearable by the translators. There was Howard Dean because apparently none of the 33 million living Canadians could be trusted to be a keynote speaker without being seen to favour one of the candidates. As for Friday, say bye-bye to two hours of CBC and CTV prime time (although this probably constitutes an INCREASE in CBC viewership). The hoped-for absence of thundersticks was not to be and undoubtedly as I type on Saturday morning balloons and confetti are being hoisted to the rafters for a proper Republicat/Democran finale. Can't politicians speak English then French, or French then English then French? Why must it be Engfrenengfreneng...

I saw this referred to in a review of the new Zune player . Apparently Zune itself is designed quite well but Microsoft do have a history in terms of its cluttered design philosophy, especially for packaging. Apparently some Microsoft employees thought so too and fired a warning shot. The video is three minutes long - the music is well chosen too. Still - not everything has changed. The Ars Technica review (second link above) noted: When that three-inch screen burst to life, I thought to myself, "Self, you have got to give credit to Microsoft for a great out-of-box experience." And that's when it crashed.

An interesting comment made on Andrew Coyne's blog in reference to the proposal for a Team Quebec in the World Ice Hockey Championships - "Godot10" wrote Somebody should tell Guy Bertrand that (like Team Slovakia did when it became a country), Team Quebec would have to start out in Group C in the World Championships, to get to Group B, to get to Group A. i.e. There isn't enough seasons for Quebec to get through from Group C to Group A to make the 2008 World Championships. I don't think the rest of the world is going to give up a spot just so Quebec can satisfy its hockey ego. The comparison to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in soccer which others have made is not quite appropriate, since Britain does not field an aggregate team which one or more of its constituents opposed, and in any case those teams actually predated rather than postdated the European and World competitions. With the exception of curling provincial teams are not very usual in pop...

What I found interesting about Michael Chong's resignation was not that he did so - it was clear he had been marginalised in this matter in a way Stephane Dion would never have been in a matter so clearly in his jurisdiction - but why he did it just before the vote, had his press conference and then didn't even record a nay vote as Garth Turner and the fifteen others did but absented himself as several other Tories did. If Michael Chong had a principled objection to this vote his resignation should have come immediately after Harper's announcement of the government's motion on nationhood for Quebec - what made him pause a while? Perhaps he was urged to wait and see what happened on the Liberal benches and if they were in disarray some alternative strategy was planned. Michael Chong may have shown principle in refusing to go along with Cabinet collective responsibility but he has shown more proof that we currently have a one man with one vote Cabinet and also that he ...

Hansard, November 27 Hon. Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.): next intervention Mr. Speaker, I realize how difficult this must be for the minister. Just today we had two soldiers killed in Afghanistan and tomorrow or the next day their remains will be brought home, draped in a Canadian flag and a nation will be very thankful of the work that they were doing in that part of the world, not a nation of nations, but a nation. I am sure that the minister will join me in recognizing that we are paying respect to them as a nation for the work that they are doing in fighting for human rights, justice and peace around the world. I am wondering what we tell the parents of the two soldiers who are coming back. Do we say that this is a nation which is grateful to your sons and daughters or is this a nation of nations which is respectful to your sons and daughters? I am wondering if the minister will share with us the exact expression that he is going to use when he meets those t...

It was previously thought that Mr Blunkett, through his time as Home Secretary of the United Kingdom , to be a privacy invader without compare, particularly through his championing of flawed ID cards. The Big Brother Awards even named the "Lifetime Menace Award" after him. It seems now that he's a private citizen without access to the juicy fruits of State investigation, he reveals himself to be a defender of the right to private conversation . Nice to know he still has the ability to lead a double life .

It's going to be hard for the Tories to make much hay out of the allegations of attempts to keep corruption investigations in Toronto Police out of public view while Julian Fantino was chief - most Tories probably wish that Fantino, who was more or less to TPS what Lastman was to City Hall, was one of them. The investigators claim co-operation was lacking and that the stress led to many of them becoming ill . One wonders if this didn't make for a better story now that Fantino, now on his second posting under the Liberal government, is back in the policing business and getting the "law and order" types, particularly in Caledonia, all excited. Anyone know if this was previously doing the rounds?

It's difficult to credit the actions of the UCPD cops who resorted to Tasering a student (youtube.com) who, against regulations, was in the college library without student ID and was reluctant to leave. The student should not have refused to leave but I doubt the announced review will allow what appears to be current UCPD practice to go unreproved. It is even more difficult to credit Kathy Shaidle who considers herself a Catholic rebroadcasting this intolerant cackle of glee : Let's see more of this… Police taser UCLA student for behaving like a jackass. My God, this cannot happen often enough. Do you have any idea how happy it makes me to watch a black cop taser a college student who is being a huge, whiny baby and screaming "This is an abuse of power!" (No, it's the violence inherent in the system.) And just when you think this story can't get better, there's a hilarious video. Screams of anguish never sounded so beautiful. What makes this even b...

Next time you meet an environmentalist potsmoker ask them where the energy came from for their pot. It's becoming clear that eliminating grow-ops such as this one and the 1,000 watt incandescent lights used for growth would save more energy in Toronto than all those CFL bulbs (and dodgy LED christmas lights) Toronto Hydro are giving out. Apparently apartment blocks are popular with growers because power is part of the rent rather than being individually charged and thus disproportionately high bills being easy to spot. I don't actually have a problem with pot being legalised but growing pot in an old apartment block while rewriting in dodgy manner likely to cause fire, not to mention taxes having to be paid to relocate innocent co-residents - well, that's just uncool man...

I see Silvio Berlusconi fainted during a speech yesterday - maybe it's the stress from his impending trial . The Economist waged a campaign against Berlusconi even before he became prime minister and started rewriting laws to shield himself leading to an open letter in 2003 requesting him to respond to detailed allegations. Perhaps he is just taking a cue from the Sopranos?

I usually use ZoneAlarm, AVG and Spybot for PC defence. Obviously it would be nicer if I didn't have to use any of them but that's life. I've decided to give OneCare a try to see what it's like, because I'm interested in what it offers - a single management console not only for defence but for tuning up the PC. However, once the 90 day trial is up I will probably kick it to the curb because: The Windows Security Centre was supposed to be the single management point for AV, firewall etc. but was inadequate. A central console and scheduler for defrag, temp file clearance and backup shouldn't require a pay service. It doesn't have a registry maintenance service which is and will always be Windows achilles heel. I don't pay for beta - which is what Defender is still labelled. I can see the virtue in paying for AV and spyware definitions as they are ongoing but the 2-way firewall and the tune-up console should be part of Windows - let's see what keeps ...

Seen at Dunner's blog . Not content with self-portrayal as barbarians on camera at Abu Ghraib , these soldiers have added video, making Iraqi kids run in an attempt to get a proffered water bottle. One poor kid ran for ages and then when the idiot grunt tossed the bottle some kids standing nearby got it anyway. Let freedom ring, huh?

I have to say I had the same reaction as Raiméis when I saw the release of 18 - enough re-releasing of past glories and throwing in the odd new track - we've already got them , sometimes twice over . But they have to have something to shovel money into their Dutch tax haven (and avoid the taxes they want governments to send to poor countries ).

On Metroblogging Toronto a recent post contrasts the award of the TTC's new bimetallic tokens to a US firm with the award of the subway contract to Bombardier. It's worth noting the latter contract will also benefit the US as much of the components for the new cars are made there using existing plant - only 51% of the contract is guaranteed to Thunder Bay. But it struck me reading it that the reason these new, more secure tokens are possible is due to casinos rather than transit operators - the TTC is merely reaping the benefits of gambling investment. Perhaps it's time to examine whether a critical mass exists between the various transit systems and casino operators both First Nations and Provincial to invest in a token mint in Canada. At the same time, the TTC should not use these tokens as an excuse to defer the introduction of a GTA transit card as full integration of TTC, GO Transit and the other regional transit authorities is crucial to avoiding even worse grid...

The Telegraph reports that UK Chancellor Gordon Brown plans "green taxes" among which an tax hike on the existing 5 pound sterling tax on shorthaul flights and 40 pounds on longhaul. If Brown had real concern for the environment he would commit to putting all aviation tax above the cost of maintaining aviation infrastructure and security into improving high speed rail links within the UK and to Belgium and France via the Channel Tunnel. Instead the tax will surely pour into the gaping maw of the Treasury. This doesn't make it green - just greedy. Taxes on long haul flights tax on the other hand lacks any alternative route to steer people to short of putting people on rowing boats - paying for facilities to tow and start up aircraft near runways rather than having engines idling on the tarmac should be where such taxes find a home, as well as punishing older aircraft harder than newer more economical ones. There is a case to increase some taxes on flying here in Canada...

Not content with having their harvest festival at a stupid time of year, the Americans have... oh let's just let Barbara Mair tell her story from today's Star letters page : In August 2006, my nephew left his wife and 5-year-old daughter for a 6-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. He, like so many other Canadian military personnel, did this for love of his country and to fight for freedom that too many of us take for granted. On Oct. 9, 2006, our family sat down to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We talked about Afghanistan and wondered if those stationed there would be able to enjoy a similar meal. Later we found out that because the food service at the Kandahar base is run by the American military, they did not observe our Canadian holiday. Being the passive Canadian family, we thought Thanksgiving would be observed on the American holiday, Nov. 23 and didn't voice our disappointment at the time. Can you imagine the shock and disappointment that our troops felt yester...

As someone who flies BA as frequently as I can, at least until Willie Walsh's penny pinching ruins it, I have been following the Nadia Eweida story on and off. Ms Eweida is a BA check in agent at London Heathrow with seven years service. She was wearing a visible cross in breach of BA's uniform policy for employees dealing directly with the public. The existing protocol is that all jewellery or religious symbols which can practicably be worn concealed, should be concealed. An offer of a back office job was made (and rejected) which would have allowed Ms Eweida to wear the cross externally. Exceptions are made for employees for whom the wearing of items is a mandatory requirement of their faith, e.g. Sikh turbans or bangles and subject to health and safety requirements in respect of machinery such as luggage belts. While BA is being hammered for this, other British based airlines such as Virgin and BMI have a similar policy . Ms Eweida did not demonstrate that wearing a c...