650 CKOM’s news director is a decidedly left-leaning Bush critic. Leavins has an afternoon show in which he interviews different newsmakers and shares his opinions. Those opinions are typically hinged upon Michael Moore-ish cherry picking of fact, and bolstered by ignorance of historical chronology and context.
But it would be unfair to leave an impression that Mr. Leavins is all gloom and “tsk tsk” anti-Americanism. He is on throughout the day doing general announcer duty, and much of it is lighter fare. This morning featured a prize on offer for the caller with the right answer to the following timely question: “How many beer can fit in the bowl of the Stanley Cup”
As each person called in and guessed incorrectly, he hung up to allow the next one to try. This is a paraphrase of how the contest progressed. Read carefully.

Leavins: How many beer fit inside the Stanley Cup?
Caller: 43!
Leavens: Nope. Too high, next caller..
Caller: 40.
Leavens: Too high.
Caller: 25?
Leavens: Still too high. Caller, how may beer?
Caller: 20.
Leavens: Still too high…
Caller: 10?
Leavins: Oh, that’s close! But too low.
Caller: 12?
Leavens: Oh ! … too high!
Caller: 11!!!!!
Leavens: Too low!
Caller: eh… 13?
Leavens: Too high! Oh, everyone is so close!
Caller: 11 1/2?
Leavens: No, too low! It’s between 13 and 15!
Caller: 14.
Leavins: right!

So, now, I think I have little better insight about how he comes up with op-eds like this one.

The Command Post covers this NYT story, that will remain virtually unreported in Canada.

Shiite leaders and American officials said the armed followers of Mr. Sadr, known as the Mahdi Army, had cleared out of many parts of Najaf, and seemed to be getting ready to leave altogether. The Shiite leaders said American forces, who encircled the city in recent weeks, had also cleared out of the city center and areas near the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
[. . .]
“The people of Najaf are walking the streets, the cars are moving on every avenue and the Iraqi police have moved back in,” said Adnan Ali, a senior official with the Dawa Party, whose leaders took part in the negotiations. “This is a good step forward.”
Iraq’s new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, declared in an interview that the fighting was over. “The armed presence in Najaf and Kufa has ended,” he told Associated Press Television News.
[. . .]
A coalition official said American forces had pulled out of the center of town but were running joint patrols with Iraqi forces within the city.
A senior Iraqi official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Mr. Sadr had grown demoralized in the face of political isolation and relentless military pressure. American commanders claim to have killed hundreds of Mr. Sadr’s fighters in the past weeks.
“There is every indication that the man is in a deplorable state of affairs,” said the senior Iraqi official. “He feels very weak. The Mahdi Army has suffered big losses.”

Not news for anyone who has been following reports on the fighting on the blogosphere. But it will never be news for Canadians who depend upon the mainstream media here. The El Sadr story has always been reported as being – at best – a “stalemate” between the American troops and his militia. Now that they are all but anhilated, there will be no further comment at all.
One can’t leave the impression that American troops are capable or successful.

Who best to grease the skids in your business dealings with totalitarian regimes? Why, the guy with the proven track record!

“Oil, I don’t know what for you talk for. Oil – I put that in my car.”

(The CEO of PETROKAZ has an interesting resume.)
Of course, this isn’t a full time gig. The dance card started filling a few months ago.

Mr. Chr�tien is expected to hold meetings with CITIC’s top executives, who plan to visit Canada this year. Chinese sources say he also has tentative plans to meet next week with top executives of Unicom, one of China’s two main cellphone companies.
He’ll be accompanied by his son-in-law, Andr� Desmarais, the president of Power Corp., who is a director of CITIC Pacific Ltd., the Hong Kong affiliate of the CITIC group.
The subject of their meetings is unknown. But Power Corp. has extensive business interests in China, including property development in Shanghai’s booming Pudong district and a joint venture with Bombardier to manufacture railway cars in the coastal city of Qingdao.

All in the family. (This is the Desmarais family with major holdings in PetroFinaElf .. the French oil company who had billions in contracts at stake in Saddam’s Iraq.)
Right after Chr�tien retired from the PM’s office, Warren Kinsella appeared on local talk radio. When a caller brought up the family connection between Chr�tien and Desmarais – he interrupted, threatened to sue the station, and the caller was cut off.
Nice touch and such a loving reminder of the old man.
Hey, maybe while he’s there, he can have someone dig up Zahra Kazemi and ship her home. It’s not like she has to stick around for the trial.
Crossposted at the Shotgun

As the Small Dead Animals contribution to the perpetual blog drink mixing meme, I offer this recipe.
I recieved a bottle of the sugar cane liquor that is the basis of Brazil’s national drink as a going away gift from my Brazilian hosts in April. A couple of weeks ago I had friends staying for a couple of days, and we ran out of rum. Too late to run out for more. The obvious solution – open the liquor. Without the required ingredients (tropical limes, sugar) to make Caipirinha (pronounced ky-pee-reen-ya), we came up with our own recipe for the cacha�a (pronounced oh-my-god-this-is-made-of-fermented-calf-scours ).
1 1/2 oz� cacha�a
pour over ice
Attempt (vainly) to put tinfoil cap back on bottle to control odor.
Debate the wisdom of what you are about to do. “Give it a chance”. ..”They wouldn’t go to the trouble of bottling this stuff if it tastes as bad as it smells” …. “maybe it’s better with the limes” … Hold breath… take slow sip.
Spit.
Invent new expetives.
Add 3 gallons of running water, flushed through mouth.
Take 1 regular kitchen sink. Again, holding breath, pour remainder of cacha�a down drain. Add 3 cups vinegar, follow with 1 cup bleach, full strength. Remove empty bottle some distance from house. Open windows.
Re-evaluate everything you thought you knew about Brazilian compliments and generosity.

Ich

Accused serial killer Maury Travis was found dead in his locked cell. He was hanging by the neck from a strip of bedsheet tied to an air vent, with a pillowcase over his head, toilet paper in his nostrils, a washcloth in his mouth and his hands bound behind him, with tape.
Took his own life, they say.

Damien Penny;

David Reimer’s life was sacrificed to a politically correct theory. What a disgusting waste.

What’s that? You need 5 bucks for a taxi?

$1.93 a gallon?
I wish.

That’s for a litre, kiddies.

Oops

Officials hope to explain today how explosives mistakenly wound up in a passenger’s bag during a security exercise at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

This comes as no surprise. Not to anyone familiar with the problems in First Nations communities, and not to the Innu themselves. Ray, at Pol:Spy writes:

When the feds moved 680 people from Davis Inlet, where many were killing themselves after a life of gas-sniffing, alcohol abuse and violence, they spent an average of $223,529.00 per person on modern bungalows with heat and running water – something the Innu never had before.
Two years later, according to the CBC, the Innu are still abusing alcohol, and now marijuana (though less gasoline, likely because the pot is cheaper than the gas), and suicide is still a problem. But the Innu feared the problems would migrate with them, and they were right.
So how come the Innu could see this before the $152 million was spent and not the bureaucrats? With that kind of vision you would think they’d be the better bureaucrats. Or maybe not.

Here in the west, one of the most visible shortcomings of the Indian reserve system is played out year after year. Unlike the majority of urban Canadians who seldom see or drive through a reserve, many of us do on a regular basis. And it’s impossible to ignore that the “modern bungalows” built on reserves are too often vacant and uninhabitable in just a few years.
I live in a small, modest house that is around 100 years old. Though its seen only moderate upgrades (plumbing in the 50’s) it is still sound, square, the windows are unbroken, the doors on their hinges and I haven’t yet chainsawed a hole in an exteriior wall so cattle can drink out of the bathtub.
Of course, I paid for it myself. And I hold the title. Property on reserves is owned by the band. If it’s difficult to create respect for property (and self) among those who do not earn the money to pay for it, try cultivating it in people who have no hope of ever owning it.
Until we come to grips with the reality that racial entitlements breed beaurocratic corruption, stagnation, dependancy and lack of personal responsibility, there will be no end of Davis Inlets, suicide, unemployment and early death among First Nations people.
There has to be a better way to honour treaties than this current Canadian version of “separate but equal”.

Last night, Saskatoon police chased a vehicle through the streets at speeds reaching 85 mph. The chase ended with the suspects wrapped around a pole. Both the driver and passenger were taken to hospital, where the passenger was treated and released. (wtf??) – and the driver treated and escaped.
So, everyone, be on the lookout for a male: 5 feet tall – 100 pounds, with strong limp, staples in his face and heavily tattooed arms.
Just blended into the crowd, as they say….

Anti-war activist, author and former US Army Ranger. One of these things isn’t true.
Anti-war activist, avid cyclist and Vietnam veteran with the support of his former military colleagues. One of these things isn’t true.
Anti-war activist, former cartoonist for the NYT and waste of skin. All of these things are true.

“yeeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrhhhhh!!!”
update.

The jury in the Farah Khan trial was expected to begin its deliberations yesterday. Her mother and stepfather are accused of killing and dismembering the little girl in 1999.
Instead, the judge granted a jury request to delay deliberations until tomorrow, so that jurors could catch game seven between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators before they are sequestered.

The classic stereotype of the con man as smooth, crafty and clever just took a hit.

[the] former Harvard University instructor of medicine who was arrested on Tuesday for conning friends, colleagues and Internet acquaintances out of $600,000 was himself duped when he trusted other swindlers with the money, police said.
Weidong Xu, 38, quickly lost his ill-gotten loot by investing it in a dubious Nigerian business offer he received by e-mail. The spam message promised gains of $50 million, police said.

But, what does it tell us about Harvard professors?

Two members of Canada’s First Family of Al Qaeda are back in Toronto. The Canadian authorities issued them “emergency passports”.
Apparently, Pakistan has no doctors.

I trust this will help put to rest the stubborn fairytale of “First Nations stewardship” of natural resources.

More than 30 caribou were slaughtered in a protest that about 70 Quebec Innu hunters staged near Churchill Falls last week. Many of the animals are believed to be from the endangered Red Wine herd, which had fewer than 100 animals last year.
The hunters were protesting against the seizure of guns, equipment and 32 caribou carcasses by provincial conservation officers who said the natives had killed the animals in an area where hunting is banned to save the Red Wine herd.

No one familiar with Indian hunting and fishing practices in the Western provinces will be the least surprised.
Though, I’m sure there will be plenty of NDP and like types who will split the difference between defending First Nations and defending the environment, and weasel out a way to blame someone white and European.

Victor Li has backed out of talks to rescue Air Canada. I will be in Brazil at the World Show when the airline’s bankruptcy protection expires on the 15th, with an Air Canada return ticket for the 20th.
Just great. Just bloody great. And now, this

Vampire bats kill 13 people in Brazil

The dog has his shots. I don’t.