the blog quebecois

Andrew Coyne, editor of Maclean’s, live-blogging the farcical Mark Steyn "trial" by the B.C. HRC:

2:37 PM We’re going through an interview Awan gave on Mike Duffy Live. He tells Duffy that this isn’t a case of free speech versus minority rights. Rather, he says, Maclean’s can go on publishing what it likes, Steyn can write whatever he likes, just so long as “the Muslim community” gets a right of reply. (I’m paraphrasing. The video of the interview is here.) So really, what they’re proposing (he explains in the interview) is an extension of free speech.

I think I see his point. Every time Maclean’s wants to publish an article some group doesn’t like, they just have to give them an equal amount of space in the magazine. Double the space, at twice the cost to Maclean’s - but zero cost to the complainants. That’s “free” speech, of a kind.

2:43 PM Porter turns to the Amiel column. The two have a detailed discussion of it. My eyes are beginning to glaze over.

2:54 PM The tribunal’s majestic eye now turns to the important question of Little Mosque on the Prairie. Porter is incredulous. “Are you taking a review of a CBC sitcom comedy, to be judged as to whether it’s politically correct?”

God help me, this reads like a Monty Python script. I can hardly wait for the man from the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Diane Francis:

Forget Hillary and the others who have made Obama's short list of running-mate possibilities. If he decides a female will help enhance his electoral hopes, then Arianna Huffington should be high on the list, if not at the top. She is the Queen of the Left in the United States and she dominates the blogosphere and broadcast waves with her no-nonsense viewpoint.

Good grief. This one is truly off the wall, out of left field. (Or look back a few years, and it`s out of right field.)

Leaving aside the erratic Ms. Huffington`s political leanings, there`s a minor roadblock in the form of the US Constitution:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Since the Vice President must be available to serve as President in case of death or incapacity; and since the President must be a native-born citizen (the `fourteen-year Resident` clause is unclear and has never been litigated), but most observers agreed that it precluded any Presidential ambitions by people like Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm; and since Huffington was born in Athens, Greece . . . well, it was an interesting idea for a newspaper column, but that`s as far as it`s going.

A collection of crime reports that you see in (usually) small-town newspapers.

Even more intriguing is the item immediately below: "A kitten on Shaw Drive apparently has rectum" (cut off, but it looks like) "problems" and why exactly this should concern the police.

Via J-Walk Blog

there you will find Miracle, The Sewer Horse ™, keeping watch from above.

Er, below.

For the benefit of my psychotic-loner readers (you know who you are -- take a bow!), I present this handy-dandy guide to recognizing Secret Service agents. (Because, um, everybody likes to be recognized?)

Ordinarily they're not too hard to make out. They're the guys with sunglasses (to cut down on glare), and earpieces, talking into their sleeves. But there are other clues. Look at the positioning of the agent's hands in the photo above:

I personally believe the most likely foundation of this stance is Japanese Aikido. Which also has a similar "stance" sometimes called the natural position. It is best understood as a position of relaxed readiness. In the case of bodyguards it allows a ready position primed for action that is non-threatening to an uninitiated observer. It also signals an initiated observer that these individuals are adequately trained and ready for action

More on Aikido here.

With his hands in that position, he's ideally placed to parry a knife thrust or grab a gunman's arm and force it down and away, with the full force of his upper body behind it. It doesn't hurt that most would-be assassins (at least of the American variety) are, in addition to being psychotic loners, seriously scrawny psychotic loners (Note: research The Assassin's Diet for potential best-seller.).

And he won't have to delay him for long, just hold him up long enough for his fellow agents to react.

At which point the gunman is going to get an idea what it feels like to be an uninvited tackling dummy at the Dallas Cowboys' training camp.

More discussion and photos here.

Via grow-a-brain

This is a remarkable achievement, No, not Dion's proposed "Green Shift" tax program -- which is approximately the stupidest idea ever. I refer to the director of this commercial, who accomplished the previously-thought impossible task of getting politicians to clap in time. Go to any political convention and you'll get the idea.

Watching it, I was reminded of this (probably apocryphal) story from a few years ago:

Bono is at a U2 concert when he asks the audience for some quiet. Then in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands. Holding the audience in total silence, he says into the microphone, "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."

A voice from near the front pierces the silence: "Well, f***ing stop doing it then!"

Update: I knew it was too good to be true. Here's the snopes.com link.

Jughead:

Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America's addiction to "dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive" oil if he is elected U.S. president - and one of his first targets might well be Canada's oilsands.

A senior adviser to Obama's campaign told reporters it's an "open question" whether oil produced from northern Alberta's oilsands fits with the Democratic candidate's plan to shift the U.S. sharply away from consumption of carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

Oh well, can't put nothin' by you, huh? I guess we'll have to build that pipeline out to the coast and wait, wait, wait for someone -- anyone -- to buy our filthy oil.

In the meantime, good luck replacing 1/4 of your imports. I'm sure your Saudi "friends" will be delighted to accomodate you. For certain considerations, of course.