Updated with video. 787 Dundas St. W, today (red sign). Sun News: Suspected bawdy house raided in Project Cobra
“Jack” is short for “john”, isn’t it?
’96 police report, breaking now on SunTV. Short form: Jack Layton was found naked in the company of a woman, getting a “shiatsu massage” during a police raid. No charges laid. Getting further analysis now from Sun’s expert adulterer.
Update – print story up now.
Apparently, the campaign decided the first response was best delivered by Olivia Chow. Now, that’s Prime Ministerial.
Uh oh. Urban Dictionary Update.

“Three words, though, are not usually associated with Layton: ‘ready to govern’.“

Ok, so who’s providing the money behind this group?
I just got a robo-polling call.

Good grief.

In early 2009, Michael Ignatieff had been, or was about to be installed as Liberal leader (I’m too lazy to look up the exact dates). I was doing an image search for something (I can’t remember exactly what), and came across the above picture. I noted that the soldier in the middle was a dead ringer for Iggy (the photo appeared on a military-themed collection of images with no indication of their nationality or where they were taken). I thought they were most likely Americans (or possibly Brits). So I decided to make up a little story about Ignatieff and his rather muscular approach to foreign affairs.
The original post is here. You can see that I pretty obviously intended it as a joke (if there’s any doubt, click on the “enhanced” popup that I included with it).

And the rest is history.
It’s a pattern with this party. Just when things start to go really well, someone decides to let the children play with the machinery.

Here’s a nice surprise! The UK based Surly Beaver will be coming out of retirement in a few days.
Of course, as the blog isn’t yet out of retirement, I have noooooooo idea what-so-ever what Drew plans to blog about. You might bookmark it though.

Forget the Coyneses and the Wellses and the rest of the preening political pundocracy. I’m going to nominate Skippy’s “last letter home” as the best thing you’ll read all week.

If the NDP displaces the Liberals as the Official Opposition, or even comes close to it, the Liberals are effectively finished. If Ignatieff winds up losing seats, especially in Toronto, he’ll be beheaded by his own party on election night next Monday, which leaves the Grits leaderless and in the throes of a leadership campaign.
Assuming that there even is a Conservative minority (which is getting harder to do every day,) defeating them on a confidence motion would require the Governor General to decide whether to invite a coalition or an accord to assume government or to hold yet another election. That would require some kind of assurance that said coalition could hold for at least two years. I don’t know how a leaderless Liberal Party can make such an assurance to David Johnston.
There are also large swaths of the Liberal Party that want nothing to do with the NDP, and that segment of the party can be expected to run for the leadership. Or there might be sufficient opposition in caucus to defeat the idea outright.
Barring a coalition or an accord, another election would utterly break a bankrupt Liberal Party and English Canada would be divided up between the NDP and the Tories, almost certainly resulting in a massive Conservative majority.
After spending weeks asking the question, no one has been able to tell me why Jack Layton would even want to get into bed with the Grits. As I’ve explained before, it isn’t in his strategic interest. Harper’s fear-mongering about a coalition is adorable, but it assumes that Layton is stupid enough to still be afraid of the Liberals at this point. He pretty clearly isn’t, and seems to know that if he just waits a few months, the Grits will collapse all on their own, leaving him as the only credible alternative to the Tories.
Regardless of Monday’s outcome, the Liberals won’t be able to raise money (which is already a giant problem for them) or recruit halfway serious candidates (which they haven’t focused all that much energy on anyway.) By Tuesday morning, anyone with any brains will see the future of the left in this country, and it isn’t going to include the Liberals.

But read the whole thing. (h/t Lord of the Fleas)