A steam explosion has occurred in the heart of Manhattan and the scene is absolute chaos...

A couple of days ago, on the eve of Harper's trip to Columbia and Haiti, I asked the question whether Harper would be consistent on his human rights lectures of countries and whether he would apply it to countries he considers friendly or friends of Canada and not just those he considers adversaries, such as China and Russia...

Typical Conservative. Kiss up, kick down...

It has been one year since Hizbollah rockets rained down on Israel and prompted the Israeli army to invade Lebanon.

Today, the whole region seems to be on pins and needles. However, the main goal of Israel's invasion, the security of Israel, was achieved. As far as I know, no more rockets are raining down on Israel...

If you adopt universal healthcare, the terrorists will win!

The great problem it seems to me here in the US is that you can get away with saying anything and no one will call you on your shit. Particularly, for example, Dubya, who can make all sorts of pronouncements (that get yelled at by the NY and LAT and that's about it), and people buy it.

But this one takes the cake. Universal health care leads to terrorism? Huh?

In one 10 minute editorial, Keith Olbermann proved that he -- not Brian Williams -- should have gotten the anchor job at NBC. And demonstrated the kind of American patriotism that used to be admired however grudgingly by those outside the States and which has been so mercilessly tramped on by the Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal with the events of two days ago being the final straw...

So why did he change Scooter's sentence? Libby wasn't even going to be put to death.

Scooter Libby took an oath before God to tell the truth. Libby is a liar and betrayed that oath. Bush chose to reward Libby's faithfulness to Bush and not God. I am surprised that Bush defended a deceiver...

The only thing I recall learning from my ninth grade English teacher was that “Irony makes the world go ‘round”. With respect to the current American Presidential administration, the saying rings truer than ever...

According to CNN.com, Afghanistan accounts for 92% of the world's illicit opium production; opium is, of course, the main ingredient in heroin. The U.N. report recently released states that the "runaway train of drug addiction" has slowed, with levels of usage remaining steady for a third year in a row; however, the production of opium in Afghanistan has increased dramatically...

Hamid Karzai was visibly angry and in my opinion, took the only position he could take. He blasted NATO and the US for their tactics...

Apparently Rick Mercer and Stronach joined forces with CTV Globemedia, Kids Horizons-Air Canada, and TAXI, last November to raise enough money to purchase 500,000 anti-malaria bednets. I checked the site and they are still far short of their goal, having raised only 65,000 bednets to date...

It seems that Sudan has finally agreed to allow a UN backed peacekeeping force into the country attempt to halt the genocide in Darfur...

One popular adage dictates that hindsight is 20/20. Judgments are always easier in hindsight. So too is foresight when one has the advantage of hindsight. Today, members of Israel's Labor Party amnesically elected former Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the Labor Party Primary. Did the Party forget about Barak's catastrophic political failure and diplomatic debacle at camp David in 2000? I suppose they did...

They're now talking about arming some of the militants so that they will attack each other...

General Colin Powell is bang on the money on this one. Closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and relocating the inmates to the mainland U.S. is about due process...

Who on earth could possibly have foreseen that the conflict in Afghanistan would turn into a guerilla war? Oh, I don't know… how about absolutely everybody with the exception of the Canadian Forces. For some inexplicable reason, the military now claims they were “caught by surprise” at this entirely predicable development...

Despite Bob Geldof's over-the-top rhetoric, he does have a point (G&M). Canada has consistently provided little foreign aid directed at anti-poverty objectives. Worse yet, the country isn't even living up to its international obligations, providing only 160M$ instead of 623M$ as promised earlier...

Well Harper and Co. just received another F on international measurement scales. This time it's for our pitiful progress on climate change. The CBC reports...

I am not surprised about Putin's stance on a Western Missile Defense system for Europe. Bush is getting on just about everyone's last nerve these days...

Oxfam believes the world's industrial giants should begin paying tens of billions of dollars a year in reparations for climate change damage being sustained in the Third World...

It seems that the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations has begun a campaign to complain about the large Liberal turnout for the UJA Walk with Israel. They are using my blog post to spread the details. The NCCAR is also complaining about the below press release from the Liberal Party...

Dubya has announced his choice for the next head of the World Bank -- Robert Zoellick, current a top official at Goldman Sachs. While there really should be someone from the Third World running the agency and not yet another American, I think Zoellick is a somewhat palatable choice...

From the BBC website, it appears a bar in Australia is going to ban breeders

This has to be the dumbest thing I ever heard. Apparently gay men are tired of fag hags and the bar owner wants to have an establishment that caters to gay men only...

As many will already know, there has been a controversy brewing over Knut, the Polar Bear that was born at the Berlin Zoo and was abandoned by his mother...

I hate Bush's idiot argument that if we don't fight them there, they'll follow us home. It's bullshit, and today, Fred Kaplan knocks it out of the park...

I see a nasty game of chicken is afoot in the US. Who will blink first?