LONGEST SANDWICH: The longest sandwich measured 634.50 m (2,081 ft) and was created by Pietro Catucci and Antonio Latte of EuroSpin in Mottola, Taranto, Italy, on August 7, 2004. The ingredients included 920 kg (2,028.25 lb) of flour, 512 litres (112.6 gal) of water and 25 kg (55.11 lb) of salt.
MOST UTTERANCES OF WORD “NO”: In May of 2005, during telephone conversations between members of the Canadian government and staff, and an opposition Member Of Parliament, the word “no” was uttered by government officials 14,327 times (averaging just under one “no” per second) over a taped four hour time period.
WALKING – GREATEST DOCUMENTED LIFETIME MILEAGE: Between 1969 and 2000, Arthur Blessitt of Florida, USA, walked 34,501 miles on seven continents while carrying a 3.7-metre cross.
LONGEST GUITAR MARATHON: The longest guitar marathon by an individual lasted for 42 hours and was achieved by Guillermo Paolisso Terraza (Argentina), at the Galleria Umberto 1�, Napoli, Italy, from 22 to 23 January 2005. During the marathon Guillermo Paolisso Terraza played about 800 songs in an assortment of 16 different musical styles.
HEAVIEST KIDNEY STONE: Peter Baulman (Australia) had a kidney stone removed from his right kidney in December 2003 at The Gold Coast Hospital, Southport, Queensland, Australia, weighing 356 g (12.5 oz) and measuring at its widest point, 11.86 cm (4.66 in).
More Guinness Records here

Via Nealenews this Globe And Mail item;

The federal Liberals would consider ignoring a House of Commons defeat should they lose any of the several coming votes that are matters of confidence between now and the end of the spring session, Chief Government Whip Karen Redman says.

She goes on to explain the reasoning, of course, but that’s irrelevant.
They have been governing illegally for a couple of weeks now. What’s another year or two?
update – Coyne weighs in.

Habamus Rodentum has done something that the mainstream media couldn’t be bothered with – actually read and report on the contents of the Kroll report. While CBC and CTV reported that the actual figure for Adscam was $355, it did not occur to them to report how the Liberals managed to get millions in extra funding through without the approval of parliament – which is required under the Constitution Act.

The Kroll Report (KR) has indicated that the amount of $355 million, $105 million over the Auditor General’s amount, was increased because other funding was given by various departments of the Liberal government for SPS (Special Programs & Sponsorship) on top of the that given within the Public Works budget for SPS.
Any requests for money, under Treasury Board rules, were supposed to document what the money was to be used for by segregating the budget for each use. This was not done but allowed to pass through the [Treasury Board] and PMO’s office for authorization to spend, bypassing Parliament.
Anything that was submitted to Parliament for SPS spending did not contain appropriate details in “Reports on Plans and Priorities” (RPP�s), “which include the individual expenditure plans for each department”. Any increased spending over the budget does not have spending authority and has to go back to Parliament to be voted on.

The big story of the Kroll testimony yesterday wasn’t the extra $105 million – it was the fact that parliament was misled. This wasn’t the work of a few “rogue” ad executives or civil servants. The extra-parliamentary spending – or as “habamusrodentum” puts it, “a fraud against the government” – was directed by the Prime Minister, the Treasury Board and Public Works Minister.

Sorry. Forgot to post a Disturbing Mental Image Alert.
Check out the questions Ian Scott has for Sinclair Stephens. (He has several posts – be sure to go to the Ianism main page just scroll down).
Something smells.

Angry ITGWN provides a breakdown of a sample sponsorship contract, from the Kroll Report;

Out of a total of $46.32 million:

$460,000, or 1%, went to sponsorship

$8.34 million, or 18%, went to actual work done

$26 million, or 56%, went to “unrelated or unknown parties”

$11.52 million, or 25%, was unspent or the invoices were not found

MK Braaten is liveblogging. Double funding of programs, double skimming of $$$! update And more here.

-The Finance department was responsible for 115.19 million of the sponsorship costs.

Apparently the Liberals are already issuing denials that more or less state that these latest revelations are just, you know, the word of an auditor.
Meanwhile over at Occam’s Carbuncle, Alan has been looking past the limitations of Paragraph K, and guess what?

…”the Gomery Commission terms of reference do not exactly call for the publication of a report. They call for the submission of two separate reports to Cabinet.”

Sponsorship losses were actually $355 million.

There is nothing that the Libranos won’t lie about. At the same time Paul Martin was on our television sets claiming credit for starting the inquiry, he was dipping into our pockets to pay others to discredit it.

The war room and its cost came to light on the heels of last week’s complaints from Justice John Gomery about officials exaggerating the cost of his inquiry.
Officials at the commission looking into the sponsorship scandal say the total cost of the actual inquiry will come in under $32 million. Judge Gomery said government officials have “leaked” to the media that it is costing departments another $40 million to cover costs at four key departments, including the Privy Council Office. “It’s an exaggeration and it’s twisting reality,” Judge Gomery said last week.
[…]
Judge Gomery has made it clear he doesn’t appreciate the Martin government adding its hidden costs to his overall budget. In an exchange with an ad executive, the judge said: “What they did was … put together the fees of everyone in the Justice Department that worked on the file, the photocopies they made at the PCO and God knows what other expenses that were totally beyond the commission’s control.”

Speaking of dollars and cents, forensic accounting firm Kroll Lindquist Avey is bringing down their Adscam report today. Advance reports suggest it’s going to be ugly.

Internationally renowned forensic accounting firm Kroll Lindquist Avey is expected to shake the foundations of Justice John Gomery’s inquiry today with a detailed report on whether pockets were lined in the sponsorship scandal.
The Kroll report is expected to follow the money trail from federal coffers to the Liberal- friendly ad firms and possibly into the wallets of Grit organizers.
The findings are expected to make more waves than any other testimony before Gomery and have been kept under such tight wraps that not even a kernel of information has leaked out.

(Thanks to tipsters in the comments who have already done the roadwork by the time I check in each morning.)

Anti-Corruption.ca has the most useful chart detailing the Adscam money flow, according to Gomery testimony so far. (A good one to send to your disinterested Canadian friends.)

Further to events of this morning; Reading Coyne’s column again, can anyone point me to a passage that accuses Tim Murphy of committing a crime?
You know, among my first thoughts in reading this were that the National Post is a big place, with lawyers and whatnot, to vet columns before they run. Are we assuming too much in thinking this column is the target, or if it is, is this just a ham-fisted attempt by Murphy to intimidate the leading critic of Papa Paul – and more importantly, the powers that be who publish him?
Pure conjecture on my part, I’ll readily admit. But now that I’m in conjecture mode (and the first beer I’ve ever consumed before dinner hour since I turned 17…);
Recall the threats to bloggers for linking to Captains Quarters – and for all the crowing of the blogosphere, that threat was successful – several bloggers fell into line and delinked, while almost all in the mainstream followed suit. For all the pomposity of our press, they are willing litlle sheeple like the rest of us when it comes to, you know – actually taking risks for the truth.
A very long time ago, before I first ventured onto the blogosphere, I speculated that the core difference between Americans and Canadians wasn’t “a more European world view”, or medicare or our “cultural mosaic”.
It is the singular fact that Canadians have never had to fight on their home soil for the right for their nation to exist. We had no Indian wars, no Canadian revolution, no civil war. No Pearl Harbour, no 9/11.
I think that fact alone explains the national angst about “Canadian identity” more than any other. We don’t know how to fight, truly fight for what should be our inalienable rights.

Apparently, voicing the same opinion as Jack Layton and Gille Duceppe – that Tim Murphy committed an offense under the Criminal Code in suggesting that rewards would come the way of certain Conservative members if they were to abstain – can get you sued;

Andrew Coyne is being sued by the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Tim Murphy for libel. There’s no other details on exactly what Coyne wrote that was so libelous, but I’m guessing it’s the column in the National Post that directly accused Murphy of breaking the law. Coyne has not put the column up on his site as he usually does, and his site has shut down comments and has had no new content added for a couple of days. Something’s happened; it may be the thuggish hand of the Liberal Party, or it may be a bad case of stomach flu.
Debbye Stratigacos of Being American in T.O. and I feel that the Prime Minister’s office should not be able to shut down the questioning of their ethics with legal threats and have decided to post the column. Because of copyright issues, we’ll both post just half of it. If Andrew Coyne requests we take it down, we will, but for now, here’s the first part of the offending column.

Debbye has more.
Correction According to this Globe & Mail piece titled “Layton joins call for probe into MP’s allegations”, Murphy is “considering” suing Duceppe, too.
Now, why not Jack Layton, do you suppose? Or is he granted “immunity” so long as he remains a member of da Family?
update
Coyne explains why his comments section has been closed. It’s a reminder of why I asked a couple of days ago for folks here to keep it in check. It’s one thing to get pissy – indeed, I think that having a place to allow readers to let off steam is an important function of blogs – it’s quite another to piss in your own bed.
another update: My presumption that Coyne was “voicing the same opinion as Jack Layton and Gille Duceppe” is inaccurate. (The original quote at Autonomous Source has updated as well).

I can’t download this, so am trusting London Fog that it’ s as advertised;

GOPinion “has obtained an exclusive unreleased recording of a conversation between British Columbia MP Gurmant Grewal and the Canadian Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Tim Murphy. We cannot yet confirm the authenticity of this tape.

It’s 8.2 megs.

Globe And Mail. (Conservative MP Germant Grewal and Tim Murphy, Paul Martin’s Chief of Staff);

Murphy: [unintelligible] …best for you and best for us, in a way that allows everybody to feel comfortable, and also allows everybody to feel principled, and I think to be principled. Both.
So, I was kind of thinking about that and I talked to Ujjal last night and again this morning, just before I came, which is why I was a few minutes late.
I apologize.
Grewal: That’s OK.
Murphy: What I think… what might be the easiest thing to do, and see what you think about this, because we have the vote tomorrow night, and if the government doesn’t fall, it’s not the only vote we may have to face. My guess is that when you look at issues like supply, final votes on the budget, opposition days, there could be as many as eight votes between now and the end of the session which could bring the government down, right?
Obviously, each one of them will be a nail-biter right to the end, and obviously, the two votes that you and your wife represent are the way the House is made up now, matter a lot, or can matter. There are, just to be honest, as I think I told you yesterday. There are other members of your current caucus who are facing the same dilemma that you face, and are musing, so �
Grewal: [unintelligible] many?
Murphy: I don’t want to, in the he same way I don’t want to do anything that, I don’t want to�
Grewal: [unintelligible]
Murphy: If I’m to honour your trust, I have to honour others.
Grewal: Definitely.
Murphy: So, I hope you don’t take that wrongly.
Grewal: Absolutely not.
Murphy: So I think the way to make it work, and the way that allows us the freedom�as you can tell. Right? Just to be blunt, right?
I think it’s a bad idea, truthfully, to have any kind of commitment that involves an explicit trade. Because I think anything that [unintelligible]. I don’t think it’s good if anybody lies. So if anybody asks the question well, was there a deal, you say, ‘No.’ You want that to be the truth. And so that’s what I want, is the truth to be told.
Secondly, though, I mean obviously it’s an important decision for you and your wife and I understand that you want to ensure that you can continue to contribute. Both of you. So, I understand that.
And, as I said, people who make decisions like this in a principled way are people who ought to and deserve to continue to contribute. So how do we square that circle?
Grewal: Okay.
Murphy: So one of the proposals I have is this, that, tomorrow’s vote is, let me phrase it in the abstract. If two members of the Conservative Party abstain from that vote… don’t vote against their own party, right? Don’t have to.
But equally don’t vote to bring it down tomorrow night on the two/ I think there’s two key votes. And that can be done on the basis… those members can do it, on the basis, well, you know.
Look, my riding doesn’t want an election. Doesn’t want one now. Thinks it’s the wrong time to do it. But equally, you know, to vote the opposite way is to vote against the party I’m a member of, the leader of the party, and I’m not prepared to do that.
But I don’t think an election’s the right thing � I don’t want to say that won’t create some…
[interjection by Grewal, unintelligible]
… some flak, but it keeps freedom, right? Allows someone to go back home in the right circumstance and it also allows someone an opportunity, right? So if there is an abstention. If someone then, though, in my view, if someone then abstains in that environment, who has exercised a decision based on principle, it still gives the freedom to have negotiating room.
On both sides. Both going back home � then it’s actually the freedom to have discussion is increased if someone has made a decision that doesn’t preclude any options based on principle.
Then you can come and say, “Well look…” � then you can have an explicit discussion. And then in that environment, you know, a person can say, “Look, I obviously abstained, and that created some issues, and now I’m thinking hard about.”
You can say, “I’m thinking hard about what’s the right thing for my riding and the contribution that I could like to make.”
Then we can have a discussion that welcomes someone to the party. And then in that environment we know if those two votes continue to vote, either the one vote switches, or one switches and one abstains, or both abstain, from now until the end of the session the government will survive, right?
We know that. And then we get through to the end of the session, right?,
And then, if one person wants to switch and make the contribution, then that makes a lot of sense.
If the other wants to switch and then serve until an election, or some time in advance of that, and then… and then… and then… you know, something would look to be done to ensure that that person…
[…]
Murphy: All of which is to say, that in advance of that, explicit discussions about Senate. Not Senate. I don’t think are very helpful, and I don’t think frankly can be had, in advance of an abstention tomorrow.
And then we’ll have much more detailed and finely hued discussions after that with some freedom.
And I think what that allows is negotiating room for you, in either direction.
You can easily, say, “Look. Yeah, you know, if you don’t like it, you can stay home, stay back with… where you are. And if you do like, we can make an arrangement that allows you to move. Now look, I don’t expect, you to react to that right now. Think about it. Please talk to Ujjal. Ujjal knows this is the discussion I’m having with you. Please feel free, and say, you know, he knows. And then, if that proposal is of some interest to you, then I will talk to Volpe and get something happening.
(Pause. Grewal starts to speak. Murphy interrupts.)
Well, I have talked to Volpe, already. So �
Grewal: Is he manageable?
Murphy: Yes.
Grewal: What happens is�..[unintelligible] you know how we came together. There are some common friends. He approached me. [unintelligible]
Murphy: No, it’s a bit… it’s the same. I understand. Sorry. Please accept, I understand completely. It’s much like Belinda, where there is a third party who is independent of both sides. You didn’t approach, we didn’t approach.
Grewal: They did approach me.
Murphy: The independent party played the role, like we didn’t approach, you didn’t approach.
Grewal: [unintelligible] End of tape

So, where is our media? Where is the discussion about the possible conspiracy to commit a criminal code offence?
You know, in between those debates about how “scary” “hidden agenda” Conservatives are to “mainstream Canadians”?

Gagliano is attempting to join the the legal action launched by Chretien to have Gomery removed.

Perspective matters.

clarification – the trust fund proportion is indicated by a red dot in the expanded view. You may have to increase your text size to see it. (My apologies to colour blind readers about whom I thought after selecting the colors.)

The Librano Election Sign Generator

While the media titters about events of the past 24 or so hours, few seem to have noticed that Paul Martin has quietly withdrawn his commitment to calling a post-Gomery election.
April 21, 2005

I commit to you tonight that I will call a general election within 30 days of the publication of the commission’s final report and recommendations. Let Judge Gomery do his work. Let the facts come out. And then the people of Canada will have their say.

May 17, 2005;

Ms. Stronach will assume responsibilities for democratic renewal and will help guide the implementation of the recommendations that flow from the Gomery Commission’s final report.

Thankyou. Now we return you to regularly scheduled Belindarella programming.

Colby Cosh;

The lede here–that this move pushes the constitutional crisis which began last week into full-scale red-alert mode–hasn’t just been buried, it’s been taken out and shot. It is arguable whether Stronach’s defection is a “blow” to the Conservatives in either the short or the long term. What’s not arguable is that the delay imposed last week on a formal non-confidence vote in the House of Commons has now–with the balance of power in the House teetering on the razor’s edge–visibly become a banana-republic power tactic.
[…]
The whole point of the tradition that the confidence of the House will be tested at once, upon the government’s defeat in a supply-related division, is to prevent exactly the sort of shenanigan just perpetrated. Martin has used the delay he imposed unilaterally to purchase the services of a disaffected Conservative leadership candidate–one, it bears noting, elected by her constituents as a Conservative. (She’ll be in charge of “democratic renewal”, says Martin–never let it be said the man lacks a taste for irony.) “I am not sure,” Bliss concluded, “that Canada has ever had such a serious parliamentary crisis.” There can be no doubt about it now. If the Liberals win Thursday’s confidence vote by virtue of Stronach’s presence on the government benches, we will continue to have a government openly acknowledged to be illegal by most if not all of the major constitutional authorities in the country.

Via Damian Penny, who has a collection of pithy reaction.

A reader sent this to me, noting the sanitization of language. Though, “sanitization” doesn’t really do this Toronto Star item justice – a dripping propoganda piece by “immigration and diversity(?)” ‘reporter’ Nicholas Keung. The ‘scare’ words are worth a drinking game of their own – why, there’s even a dead baby!

Hope fades for plan to aid illegal workers

Hope fades…

Plan by the Liberal government to legalize up to 200,000 workers could die

200,000 workers could die…

A plan to legalize thousands of undocumented workers in Canada’s underground economy would be in jeopardy if the Liberal minority government falls as a result of a non- confidence vote on Thursday, says Immigration Minister Joe Volpe. The Toronto MP has already signed off on a final draft of the long-anticipated “regularization” plan, which is now “in the queue” for the cabinet’s feedback and approval – provided there isn’t an election call.
The issue leaves in limbo many of the 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented workers living under the radar in Canada, as well as employers facing shortages of the skills some of them bring.

Initiating the “skill watch” … at this point in the article, Canada has a shortage of skilled labour….

“We’re bringing things closer to a point where some decisions could be made.” Juan Sierra, a construction-union outreach worker, said he has fielded calls from hundreds of undocumented construction workers since Conservative leader Stephen Harper vowed publicly to bring down the Liberal government in mid-April.

Hundreds. Panic in the streets.

They’re worried the plan to legalize their status in Canada will go down, too. “They are really freaked out by the prospect,” said Sierra, of the Labourers’ International Union of North America. “Their hopes were so high because Volpe has promised that this is a priority for the government. If nothing happens, their hopes would be destroyed totally.”

(Harper = “Go down. Worried. Freaked out. Destroyed”. Volpe = “Hope”)

Vilma Filici, president of the Canadian Hispanic Congress […] fears a Conservative government could dump the plan as, he says, the Tories tend to view undocumented workers more as security risks than as potentially valuable contributors to Canadian society.

(Fear Conservatives. Note that the security risk is a “Tory view”, compared to the “non-partisan” description of illegal immigrant as “valuable contributor”.)

Daniel Castro, his wife and their two teenage sons from Argentina are among those living in limbo. The family arrived here in early 2001 and had their refugee claim rejected last May. Together they earn $6,000 a month, which they take in cash. Savings are stashed under a mattress because they’re afraid to keep a bank account. They don’t get to know neighbours because they move every few months to keep ahead of immigration authorities.

That’s some kind of limbo. Any readers here from Canada Revenue Agency who can fill us in on what a family of four has to earn to take home $72,000 a year?

When eldest son Walter was robbed of his pay at gunpoint near Jane St. and Lawrence Ave. W. last summer, the 18-year-old didn’t dare go to the police. “Our life is between work and home, but we are grateful when we see everyone home in one piece at the end of the day,” Daniel Castro said. “We pray the family will still be together the next day.”

Their lives are typical among those in the underground economy, who do jobs Canadians often consider undesirable, particularly in construction, the hotel and hospitality industries, domestic help and general labour. They don’t qualify for social assistance or employment insurance, and if they get sick they pay for care out of pocket.

Gone are those paragraphs of the past when illegals were sought after “skilled workers” .

They literally live their lives out of a suitcase …

Q: How many undocumented workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Don’t be stupid. They’re too tiny to lift a lightbulb.

Authorities sometimes sweep down on construction sites, where undocumented workers help fill a shortage of skilled workers.

Skilled, unskilled, skillled… my head is spinning….

A string of broken promises by Volpe’s predecessors, who never seemed to stick around long enough to deal with the issue…

Odd, that.

“We just want to live a normal life, but it appears that Canada thinks that it is easier to keep people like us illegally here in the country than to deal with the issue head-on,” said Luis Vargas, 43, who came from Mendoza, Argentina, in 1988. “Every time you have a new minister, they always say they will help. But all they want is some cheap labour for the economy. They want to give us no benefit.”

But wait! It gets better – this skilled unskilled undocumented worker who lives in a suitcase, keeps thousands under his mattress and fears for his life, owns a construction company;

In fact, Vargas, a failed refugee claimant, has been a successful construction subcontractor in Canada since his arrival and hired three others: one undocumented and two with refugee claims still active. His company makes about $150,000 a year. …

What is the number for Revenue Canada, anyway? Ready now… here it comes ….

All 29-year-old Martin wants is a better future for his 2-month-old daughter. Her birth followed a miscarriage that, in addition to the emotional toll, brought a hospital bill of $4,500.

A dead baby and no medicare! Holy crap! Does it get any better than this for a Star “reporter”?

Martin, another Argentine afraid to be identified, said undocumented migrants are not “jumping the queue” in the usual sense, since most would never qualify under the immigration points system, geared as it is toward immigrants with higher skills or money to invest.

All of you teeming, law-abiding, queue respecting masses, yearning to be taxed…
You’re going about things all the wrong way. Why are you patiently awaiting your legal fate under Canadian immigration policy, when you could just flush your passport down the airplane toilet and begin a new life in Canada as an skilled unskilled Liberal voter?
Offer ends soon.

The Canadian Wheat Board has announced initial payments for board grains “have been increased”. As curious as the unexpected windfall is the payment date.

The CWB today announced that 2004-05 initial payments for wheat, durum and designated barley will increase effective May 18, 2005.
The increase in initial payments for wheat and feed wheat will be $15.00 per tonne. In the case of durum, the increase will be $30.00 per tonne, except for No. 5 Canada Western Amber Durum, which will see an increase of $10.00 per tonne. For designated barley, the increase will be $13.00 per tonne on two-row and $15.00 on six-row.

(What else is going on May 18th… somebody help me out here…)
Previous dates:
2004 – May 13 (just prior to June 2004 election)
2003 – May 19
2002 – Mar 21
2001 – June 25
2000 – Feb 17
1999 – Feb 25
1998 – April 23
As cynical election ploys go, this one is especially egrarious – to help the Liberals gain a few farm votes the “arms length” Wheat Board is throwing the grain producers’ own money at them – pre-payment for grains they are legislatively mandated to sell to the CWB. The overpayment will be dealt with later in the year, when final payments are “adjusted” to claw the pre-election bonus back.
hat tip – John Gormley LIve, 650 CKOM Saskatoon

The Liberals claim to be putting ($8 – $9 – $10?) billion into security. Really? Where are the new cops?