Debbye of Being American in TO gives rookie Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper a thumbs up on his first weeks in office; Significantly, Harper asserted that the troops were in Afghanistan to “defend our national interests.” Now I don’t know how often the Liberals openly justified foreign policy on the basis of national interests but [...]

It’s not the price that’s the problem – it’s the “best by date”.

South Florida style. h/t – The Hate-Filled Diatribess.

Bombshell disclosure at the Smoking Gun…

As the saying goes, When you can’t take the heat… HANNITY: Once and for all you need to be challenged. You want to call our vice president a terrorist – fine. You want to talk about stoning people to death, say it on my program. If you want to be irresponsible and call our president [...]

Jonathan Edelstein; (link fixed) [A]nyone who was expecting a firm signal as to Hamas’ diplomatic policy is likely to be disappointed. On the one hand, several hard-liners hold prominent places in the lineup. Mahmoud Zahhar, one of Hamas’ co-founders and the head of the organization in Gaza, will be foreign minister, while Said Siyyam, a [...]

Train declared winner.

AP An Afghan court on Sunday dismissed a case against a man who converted from Islam to Christianity because of a lack of evidence and he will be released soon, officials said. The announcement came as U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai faced mounting foreign pressure to free Abdul Rahman, a move that risked angering Muslim clerics [...]

The Frontier Post has uncovered another sinister plot hatched by the Whitehouse; “The government and media should play their role in creating awareness among the masses regarding this international conspiracy against this country’s poultry industry,” implored Dr. Saeed, president of the Poultry Doctors Association at the Peshawar Press Club. He was flanked by the president [...]

BBC on a new avenue of dna research that may be of some use in crime investigations; The technique is based on work comparing the Y chromosomes of men with the same surname. The Y chromosome is a package of genetic material found only in males. It is passed down from father to son, just [...]

“Tupic said he had no idea there were things like Viagra available but agreed that in future he will try pills before he takes any more chances with pencils.“

Trouble on the trail. Several teams are long overdue at their checkpoint on the Yukon Quest 1,600 km sled dog race. Rookie Whitehorse musher Saul Turner and Alaskan mushers Phil Joy, Jennifer Cochran and Yuka Honda have yet to reach the checkpoint at Central after leaving the Mile 101 dog drop Sunday evening. Some have [...]

Canadian Islamic Congress; Islamic Congress Warns Of Emerging Police State As P.m. Harper Appoints “most Feared Five” To New Cabinet — New Ministers Day, Mackay, Cannon, Toews, And Solberg Could Be Bad News For Canadian Rights And Freedoms. With yesterday’s new federal Conservative cabinet appointments, the Canadian Islamic Congress fears that police-state politics which beganunder [...]

CBC; City workers in the Montreal borough of Ville Marie are facing disciplinary action after an investigation showed it took 90 staff hours to fill nine potholes. The 10 employees involved face disciplinary action. Members of the city’s internal investigation service secretly followed three work crews during their shifts last month. The workers, who earn [...]

No surprise here: More American troops have died on US roads in off-duty motorcycle accidents after they returned from Afghanistan than have been killed fighting there since September 11, 2001, safety records show. Military commanders in north Carolina say the deaths are largely the result of boredom, bonus pay, and adrenalin to burn off after [...]

Scotland On Sunday; Four years ago in Salt Lake, the drug busters came up with a secret test for the blood booster Darbepoetin and caught out two cross-country skiers, Johann Muelegg of Spain and Larissa Lazutina of Russia. But if Repoxygen is used in Turin, the medics have got a headache. America’s Anti-doping Agency senior [...]

Karl Rove has agents everywhere; Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are privately bristling over Howard Dean̢۪s management of the Democratic National Committee and have made those sentiments clear after new fundraising numbers showed he has spent nearly all the committee̢۪s cash and has little left to support their efforts to gain seats this cycle, ROLL [...]

CTV News; A number of Canada’s star athletes have refused to carry the country’s flag at the opening ceremonies for the Turin Olympics, saying they prefer to focus on their performance instead of taking on extra work. According to the Toronto Star, cross-country skier Beckie Scott, speed skaters Clara Hughes and Cindy Klassen and bobsledder [...]

In the current issue of Imprimis, former Prime MInister of Spain, José María Aznar, has advice on the problems facing Europe; Another widely held belief, especially among Europeans, is that the allegedly simplistic, aggressive and imperialist reaction to September 11 by President George W. Bush’s administration has only served to fan the flames of anti-Western [...]

Breaking the cancer code; With cancer, a person may inherit a predisposition that helps set the process off, but it can take decades — even a lifetime — to accumulate the additional mutations needed to establish a tumor. That is why, scientists say, cancer usually strikes older people and requires an element of bad luck. [...]

“I, Flipper, take thee, Cindy”

Across a backdrop of a Liberal Party campaign pledge to “outlaw” handgun ownership, the outlaws go on with business as usual; Crowds of Boxing Day shoppers fled for their lives ? some still wearing the clothing they were trying on ? after gunmen fought it out on Yonge St. just north of the Eaton Centre [...]

Newsday Although more than 100 genes had been linked to pigment production, including genes linked to disorders such as albinism, very little had been known about the underlying basis of normal skin tones. In the new Penn State University-led collaboration, researchers found that two slightly different versions of the same gene could account for 25 [...]

Ottawa Sun; Federal prison guards are raising the red flag on a Corrections Canada program that quietly pays convicted murderers to supervise prisoners on community outings or transfers. The Lifeline program hires “lifers” who have been paroled for at least five years, but remain under community supervision for life, to carry out “in-reach” socialization programs [...]

“Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound — ‘Look, up in the sky,’ ‘It’s a bird,’ ‘It’s a plane,’ ‘It’s …. eh…. Martha… what are you staring at?’ ”

Medienkritik; “Another highlight of Germany’s #1 investigative journalism magazine: the current edition of left-wing, fiercly anti-American SPIEGEL presents an article on “THE EMPIRE OF SHADOW – The worldwide operations of the U.S. Secret Intelligence Service”, and the picture on the cover shows … members of the Canadian military!” Medienkritik has the original photo of the [...]

Is Toyota in a position to take it over? Rumor has long been that Toyota will/may acquire the GM behemoth. That is unlikely to happen in any straight sort of business sense. Perhaps GM has two options for survival: a bailout by the Feds, which Leviathan likely couldn’t afford, or, an acquisition by a foreign [...]

Sweet dreams, circulation managers.

CP; The army is looking into a bizarre incident in which a tractor-trailer loaded with anti-aircraft missile launchers was seen rolling down a major Ontario highway. Several police cruisers were needed to pull over the vehicle as it travelled westbound on Highway 407 near Toronto. The trailer was carrying two armoured personnel carriers bearing Department [...]

The Liberal government of Paul Martin has lost a historic vote of non-confidence, brought by Opposition leader Stephen Harper, 171 – 133. Media reports indicate the election will be held Jan 23, 2006. Conservative MP Monte Solberg live blogged via blackberry, from the floor of the House of Commons.

On the eve of the likely fall of Paul Martin’s minority Liberals, a move by Finance Minister Ralph Goodale to calm angry income trust investors looks to have enabled insider trading; Financial Post; How else are we to explain the sharp jump in the price of income trusts over the past few days, a rise [...]

Public Works is responsible for Government of Canada purchasing, property management and administration of civil servant pensions. (It was also the department involved in “Adscam” – the scandal involving kickbacks to the governing Liberal party through awarding of inflated advertising contracts to Liberal friendly supporters. ) Now the dep’t is at the center of a [...]

A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a teacher to 40 months in jail and 750 lashes for “mocking religion” after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, a Saudi newspaper said on Sunday. Al-Madina newspaper said secondary school teacher Mohammad al-Harbi will be flogged in public after he was taken to court by his colleagues [...]

Turns out there is a way to make money farming, after all; According to Gretchen Shappert, U.S. attorney for the western district of North Carolina, “the Warren Farms investigation is literally the mother of all crop fraud investigations. It was a result of a perfect storm of individuals who were involved in fraud.” Robert and [...]

As Canadians observe Remembrance Day, some veterans aren’t invited: Doug Carey won’t be at the national War Memorial this morning. If he’d been made to feel welcomed, made to feel honoured, made to feel remembered, he might have decided to go, but the Canadian government doesn’t have any such sentiments for Doug Carey, veteran, Doug [...]

Montreal Gazette; Agriculture Department inspectors swooped down on four Wal-Mart stores in the Quebec City area yesterday and seized 72 plastic tubs of yellow Becel margarine with an estimated street value of $179.28. The margarine is butter yellow, which makes it illegal for sale in Quebec. The measure is intended to protect the province’s 3,000 [...]

Out to finish what Bin Laden started… A NEW York jury today ruled that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was negligent and can be sued for damages from the 1993 truck bombing at the World Trade Centre, setting the stage for a potential raft of lawsuits. Islamist militants exploded the truck [...]

“You are a fool if you enter North Korea to make money.”

And I did not speak out…

The Commissar is building a blogging Family Tree, titled Who’s Your Daddy? – or Mommy, as the case may be. He’s inviting submissions.

At least they didn’t remove his manly bits with an icepick.

A somewhat amusing exerpt from an email from a friend in the Canadian Armed Forces; The routine for Canadian movement in Kandahar at the moment is to travel under the cover of dark. So we leave before sun up and arrive home well after sundown. [...] Me and one of the guys were just heading [...]

Saving endangered species through better pharmaceuticals.

The Moon h/t Ken Woods

Omar reports that as of 2:45 local time, things are going smoothly in the Iraq constitutional vote; The turnout in our district looks quiet good and actually going to the voting office was a good opportunity to meet some friends I haven?t seen in months. I met one friend on the way and when I [...]

Guardian; Spanish authorities are rushing to double the height of a fence surrounding the north African enclave of Melilla after a dozen more immigrants were injured in a battle with police as they tried to find a way on to European soil. The injuries followed the deaths of at least three immigrants over the past [...]

Now, this is Cat Blogging! Update: Snopes has more.

D.J. McGuire; Does [Canadian Prime Minister] Paul Martin know what his own government is doing? As Canadian rights activists lamented the deportation of Falun Gong practitioner Xiaoping Hu to Communist China – and try desperately to keep Canada’s Immigration Ministry from condemning fellow practitioners Fang Yaobin and Xiong Fengying to the same fate – Prime [...]

An email arrived earlier today from a friend in the Canadian Armed Forces; It is a beautiful sunny Sunday morning here is Kabul. It is the day of the elections here. There have not been an election like this in almost 30 years. There are 2,775 candidates, 335 of them are women. They are competing [...]