The Somali Pirate Blog.
Via Jules Crittenden – “Anyway, that gave me an idea. Our TOTUS can negotiate with their fax machine.”

Obama reaches out to moderate pirates.

“Flooding serves as warning”

Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent acknowledged the current flood emergency in the Red River Valley on Monday, and warned that global warming could lead to similar disasters in the future.
Considering how bad the flooding is now in Manitoba, imagine what it could be if global warming exacerbates the issue, the PM said.
“I actually think the science around climate change is real. It is potentially devastating,” said St. Laurent, who sat down Monday afternoon for a sit-down interview with six hand-picked journalists from around the country.
“If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in Manitoba and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of 2 degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there?’ that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously,” he said.

CBC Radio archives – A city submerged, Winnipeg and the flood of 1950
“Geoscientific insights into the Red River and its flood problem in Manitoba”

When I care what’s said on The Daily Show. Or for that matter, when I care about photos like this…

… making the email rounds.
Get a grip, people.
(BTW – if US “respect” for our military is your hot button, then this is a hell of a lot more concerning.)
The last word on this comes from Alex,in the comments;

I don’t find their comments particularly offensive, and I’m a serving member who’s lost personal friends in this war. They’re right – it’s pathetic that we have to consider pulling out just so we can recuperate. We should have never allowed the military to degrade that far.
The thing that infuriates me is the smug hypocrisy of the idiots who are most loudly complaining about this. They’re the same people who will will take any opportunity to make insulting jokes about Americans. They’re the same clowns who would gladly vote for a funding cut to the CF so that they can plant more trees in downtown Toronto. Yet they have the nerve to bitch and complain when some Fox talking-heads make a crack at our expense? It’s mind-blowingly asinine.

“He can certainly find a way to appease Rush Limbaugh.”

Related (from a one-time six figure donator to the Democratic Party) – “If that makes me an enemy of the White House, then call me a general of an army that Obama may not even know exists — tens of millions of people who live in fear of having no money saved when they need it and who get poorer by the day.”

h/t to a whole bunch of you.

The turning point.

ht Orville.

For Immediate release December 12, 2008 – Toronto After the website of of Member of Parliament Olivia Chow was “hacked” by hundreds of individual votes “suspiciously cast contrary to Olivia’s position”, technical experts on staff with the Saskatchewan New Democrats were flown in to erect an emergency security fence to protect the Trinity-Spadina MP from future embarrassments at the keyboards of “right-wing groups”. “We are confident that the new innovations at OliviaChow.ca will prevent future online polls from going horribly wrong”, a Chow spokesperson said, in an email to reporters on Friday.

(h/t Robert W.)

Disgruntled sources high within the Green Party have leaked secret details of the inducement offered Elizabeth May to obtain her public support of the Dion-Duceppe-Dipper coalition. …. realizing a Senate seat was beyond her grasp, May is quoted as saying “It’s an offer I decided I could sink my teeth into” … developing….
h/t

h/t Diogenes Borealis

Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?

*
Related: Coincidence and contradiction

h/t

With the Communist Party’s 17th congress coming up China decides to ban advertising for push-up bras. Of course these sorts of things are the least of China’s human rights sins, but you never know what will finally trigger a revolt.

This story is creepy on so many levels:

Two young women who were dragged before a court for allegedly flashing their breasts at a CCTV camera have had the case against them dropped, the Crown Prosecution Service said today.
Abbi-Louise Maple and Rachel Marchant, both 21, were accused of exposing their chests on Worthing seafront, West Sussex, on July 16.
A CCTV operator summoned police and the pair were charged with outraging public decency.

But killing a charging grizzly bear with a knife isn’t bad.

The best part? You can trade in your Canadian Tire money for internet porn offsets.
That Al Gore – he just thinks of everything.