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Well now, this changes everything.
With all the media coverage, the Conservatives hardly need bother running these ads. Which means things went according to plan.
And… “Here’s the video clip of the CTV News from last night. Watch as they tell Canadians that it’s the Conservative GOVERNMENT who is buying ads against the Liberals’ Green Guru.”

The bionic cat.
It’s been a long fight for Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, and now a turn for the worse.
Add yours in the comments.

“where was kinsella when paul bernardo really needed him?”
I’ve said this before – Al Sharpton must be so pleased.

“Our Father, who art in litigation”
Dead.
Add yours in the comments.

A good week for the NDP – kudos for signing on to Brad Wall’s call to legislate job protection for reservists, the praise from the “right wing think tank” Fraser Institute, They’ve been shifting to the right so fast, by the next election rolls around, Calvert & Co will be voting Sask Party !
Junk economics at the CWB.
Middle ground on stem cells.
“I knew Maggie Thatcher. Maggie Thatcher was a friend of mine. And you, senator, are no Maggie Thatcher.”
Add yours in the comments.

”I only saw it when I got home and showed it to my parents.”
Something’s missing from the picture.
David Anderson’s new blog on the CWB – ” The Truth about Marketing Choice” – is off to a good start.
Bookmark The Global Warming Skeptic, a collection of papers and news items.
A true step forward in the battle to end racial discrimination;

Late last month Uppsala University was found guilty of discrimination against Swedes by the Swedish Supreme Court (Högsta domstolen). Three years ago, the university refused to enroll Cecilia Lönn and Josefine Milander in its Law Faculty even though they had better grades than thirty other students with a foreign background.

The surprising Stephen Harper.
Add yours in the comments.

“Just when you think the Winnipeg Free Press can’t sink any further — it sinks further.”
Reservist job woes in New Brunswick.

A military reservist who nominated NB Power for an award for supporting the Canadian Forces has resigned after the Crown corporation refused him a leave of absence to deploy to Afghanistan.

“Hiding behind masks and bandanas, these heroic opponents of free speech matched Taylor’s intolerance with their own.”
The Chinese KillSat test increased the amount of dangerous space debris by about eight percent.
Add yours in the comments.

Another weekend on the road for me – just as well, as I put in a heavy work week and can use a bit of a break, anway.
Though I should be in with a few items, posting will be very light here until Monday, (unless members of the usual guest blogging crew find something they want to bring more attention to).
In the meanwhile, I suggest you surf the blogroll, or better yet – push away from the keyboard and enjoy the weekend!

A very busy day of work ahead, so things will be slow for a few hours. Share your tips here.

Stockwell Day has today’s “easiest job on Parliament Hill”.
CTV viewers are offered a poll asking nothing and 69% answer in the affirmative.
On the global warming debate, Canadians are beginning to agree on one point – Kyoto is a dog.
Add yours in the comments.

A thread for the link dumpers.

From the comments – “David Suzuki is doing a series of interviews on The Weather Network. The big news here is, Chris Sinclair invites our feed-back. “ E-mail: (the boss at TWN)”
The Party of Nothing – for the troop increase before they were against it.
I do believe Stephen Harper’s communications team includes a Director of Helping Jack Layton Say Really Stupid Things Before The TV Cameras. (Note that you must read to the bottom of Rosemary “if you can’t report – speculate!” Thompson’s item to discover the words “trade mission”.)
An uncanny resemblance.
Add yours in the comments.

Still down. You’ll have to amuse yourselves for a while longer.
Update – We’re back in business here, but it’s going to take a while before I’m up to speed and posting again. Thanks Kevin, for filling in.

To start off the day…
Warren Kinsella loses another dick-measuring contest to a girl. Let this be a lesson to us all – never insult someone with a better vocabulary.
Belmont Club;

The more general way to phrase this thought — and I will get to it in a moment — is that Islamism is partly, but not wholly, a product of the same European self-hatred that created Communism.

Charter of Rights and Freedoms website – “meant as a educational resource for educators, high school and university
students across Canada.”
For a change, reporters note a positive effect from global warming.
Use the comments for yours.

I spent much of yesterday and today on the road, so until I’ve had a chance to rest and recuperate, this reader tips thread will have to suffice.

I have a busy day (and busier tomorrow) so blogging will be lightfor the rest of the weekend. Thread is open for your tips.

Patrick Ruffini is back blogging. For those inside the walls of politics, Patrick is the guy you should bookmark for a sense of how to combine the art with a political campaign. He was the guy behind the official 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign blog.
Guess who authorized the Sandy Berger burglary?

The sensitive drafts of the National Security Council’s “Millennium After Action Review” on the Clinton administration’s handling of the al-Qaida terror threats in December 1999 suspiciously disappeared after Berger said he intended to “determine if Executive Privilege needed to be exerted prior to documents being provided to the 9/11 Commission.” Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before the 9-11 commission about the millennium report, urging the panel to ask why the document’s warnings and “blueprint” to thwart al-Qaida’s plans to target the U.S. were ignored by the Clinton administration and not shared with the incoming Bush security staff.

” Who in cabinet has the most juice?” David Akin looks at Cabinet committee appointments.
Cjunk;

From Hitler to Saddam, from Nero to Mullah Dadullah, those bent on the subjugation of others have never shied away from using peace accords to buy time and space. Only Jack Layton and his utopian minions don’t understand this; but then again, Jack Layton types have spent all their time in the union halls and reading Noam Chomsky. They likely find reading real history icky because it deflates any utopian vision they have. Why bust up a good delusion?

The mythology of the “separation of church and state” (video) –

The words don’t appear in any official government documents authored by the founding fathers. This concept was fabricated by an ACLU attorney named Leo Pfeffer in 1947 in the Supreme Court case of Everson versus Board of Education of Ewing Township.

Add yours in the comments.

Your tips here.

Oh no, not again…

Climate change destroys a dynasty. I blame the SUV’s!
Prairie Policy Centre presents the next in a discussion series, “Oil – What does it mean to Saskatchewan?” ( January 10th at the Willows Golf & Country Club, Saskatoon) Registration form
The planned American University of Iraq

…is modeled after the famous private universities in Cairo and Beirut. The project’s managers have a board of trustees; a business plan recently completed by McKinsey & Company, an international consulting firm; three candidates for university president; and $25 million, much of it in pledges from the American government and Kurdish sources. To fulfill their dream, they need much more: $200 million to $250 million over 15 years, said Azzam Alwash, the board’s executive secretary.

“bomb, bomb Denmark, bomb, bomb USA” – It almost reads like a bumper sticker.
This isn’t your father’s Momobile.
Add yours in the comments.

Mark Steyn;

One difference between the Ethiopians in Somalia and the Americans in Iraq is that the former aren’t fighting with one hand behind their back just in case some EU ally or humanitarian lobby group or fictitious Associated Press source leaks some “war crime” or other to the media. In fact, the Ethiopians have the advantage of more or less total lack of interest from the Western media. So they’re just getting on with it.
And, given the potential for Islamist destabilization of their own country, they were wise to do so. The “international community” has reacted in the usual ways: calls for immediate cease-fires so that an ineffectual U.N. force of peacekeepers can go in and enjoy their customary child sex with the locals while propping up the Islamists. The Ethiopians can’t be blamed for not taking the U.N. seriously. To be sure, the alternative to the jihad boys is a bunch of thugs. But that’s the reality of much of the map today: a choice between being an outpost of the global jihad, or a patchwork quilt of warlords, or a bit of both with some feeble, half-hearted multilateral force mediating between the two. I don’t know whether the Ethiopian intervention will work in the long run, but, if it does, the best hope for squashing the jihad might be to outsource the fight to Third World regimes less squeamish about waging it.

Related;

So what do we have here? We have a new AP story out today in which they use anonymous “police” sources to dispute Centcom’s version of a firefight. That same story is written by a man who has helped write stories in the past with Qais al-Bashir of Jamil Hussein fame, plus he has used a known fraud for his work in the past also.
Sound like the AP is changing their ways?

Bill Ardolino is now in Iraq, and has an interview up with an Iraqi journalist. Be sure to catch the comments as well.
Under-reporting in Iraq continues. In most parts of the country, an economic boom is underway.

“Most foreign investors coming to make money in Iraq shrug their shoulders. “Doing business in any Arab country is always risky,” says a Turkish investor who has set up a trucking company and a taxi service. “In some Arab countries, you risk nationalization or straight confiscation by the ruler. In other Arab countries, you must give a cut to one of the emirs (and princes). Here, you face possible terrorist attacks. But such attacks are transitory.”

Four excellent pieces – add your own finds in the comments.

An open thread for your reader tips until I get up to speed.