Florida is for real -- involving two time zones and strong pockets of national security conservatives, social conservatives and fiscal conservatives. Perhaps the biggest change since South Carolina is the sudden fear -- and "fear" is not too strong a word -- among Republicans that Gingrich might seal the nomination.
01/27/2012 11:54 EST
Despite poll results that 67 per cent of Canadians support legalizing assisted suicide, it's unlikely to gain traction in North America in the near future. The reason: We aren't convinced those who would make life-death decisions would do so in the applicant's interests and not the bureaucracy's.
01/26/2012 11:56 EST
It's often difficult to figure out who wins a political debate. And so it is with the seemingly endless road-show debates by the four contenders to be the Republican choice for president next November. If Romney didn't gain lustre on Monday, Gingrich certainly lost some -- even though he now leads Romney in Florida polls by an average of seven per cent.
01/25/2012 12:48 EST
Boston Bruins' goalie Tim Thomas chose not to visit the White House with the rest of the team. Horrors! Can you imagine the uproar among Boston fans for even considering the foolishness of suspending the best goalie in hockey for a personal choice that has nothing to do with his professional life?
01/24/2012 04:56 EST
As far as Canada is concerned, Chinese industrial and social espionage is more active, intense, and threatening than the Russian version. Among our Chinese community, tales of Beijing's intrusion are more common than rare.
01/23/2012 12:49 EST
Regardless of one's outlook, it's pretty hard to see anything emerging from Afghanistan or the Middle East that doesn't represent defeat for America's foreign and military policy.
01/20/2012 11:37 EST
The key question for most Republicans is which candidate is most likely to beat the President in November. Gingrich and Santorum (who did well in Thursday's debate) are in a struggle to depose Romney as front-runner -- which encourages the media to push the idea that a cliffhanger looms in today's vote. This may be wishful-thinking.
01/20/2012 11:19 EST
What, one wonders, are the "secrets" S/Lt. Deslisle would be handing off or peddling to the Russians? We don't have much of a navy these days, and telling the Russians (presuming Delisle was) which dry-dock our four aging submarines (that the British conned us into buying) are being repaired in, can't be a much of an espionage coup.
01/18/2012 12:46 EST
According to a South Korean publication, <em>Daily NK</em>, "[North Korean] authorities are handing down six-month sentences in a labor-training camp to those who didn't participate in gatherings to mourn the death of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il." The same sentence is dished out to those who did attend organized grief sessions, "but didn't weep hard enough, or faked their tears, or didn't seem genuine."
01/18/2012 06:52 EST
Even before the earthquake, Haiti got more humanitarian aid than any other country. Haiti's endemic dependency on foreign aid, and its legacy of corruption is a malignancy that still holds the country back from recovery.
01/17/2012 12:32 EST
What to do about Syria? It's a valid question, about which there is no valid answer.
Perhaps a better question would be, is there anything we (meaning the developed or civilized world) <em>wants</em> to do?
The outside world is neither policeman nor colonizer. Syria wouldn't be the pushover Libya was, and if we became involved it could well boomerang when democracy doesn't occur, and a different tyranny ensues.
01/17/2012 09:56 EST
There are those who think -- and I am one of them -- that Maggie Thatcher rates as Britain's greatest PM of the past century. Perhaps the greatest ever. Conventional wisdom would side with Churchill in that role, but he was a wartime leader who saved his country from Hitler.
01/14/2012 11:31 EST
Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae implies Lise St-Denis switch to the Liberals is an act of principle and conviction. Phooey. If anything, it seems an act of opportunism because the NDP is going nowhere in Quebec. Anyone who thinks the NDP won't lose seats in Quebec in the next federal election is smoking something that is illegal.
01/12/2012 10:52 EST
I said I had been an acquaintance and had maintained contact with [serial killer] Clifford Olson for over 20 years; that I considered myself a friend of Leonard Peltier, who was serving a life for the murder of two FBI agents; and I was a friend of the late Laurie ["Bambi"] Bembenk who had been convicted of murder.
01/11/2012 10:40 EST
Ron Paul is a classic spoiler. No one is sure what he's likely to do. Perhaps not even himself. Maybe it hinges on how seriously he wants Barack Obama replaced as president, because if decides to run as an independent or whatever, Obama's chances for re-election sky-rocket.
01/10/2012 01:38 EST
It's only since Afghanistan that Canadians as a people have become appreciative of what their military has done on their behalf. In past wars or UN missions, what soldiers endured largely went unnoticed at home. The fact that it gnaws at Dallaire indicates that he may not understand soldiering the way others do.
01/09/2012 12:42 EST
Military history is replete with oddities and trivia. How many casual history buffs of the U.S. Civil War know that U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant would become enraged at horse abuse, while committing Union soldiers to die in droves attacking the Confederates because he knew attrition was on the North's side?
01/07/2012 08:03 EST
Wanna know how 2012 is likely to be? Judging from how 2011 ended, 2012 as it unfolds is going to be a year that doesn't look very encouraging to anyone who isn't a congenital optimist.
12/31/2011 10:58 EST
Much of what Wikileaks has "revealed" is in the public's interest -- a network that relies on whistle-blowers. It is all mindful of Daniel Ellsberg, the former U.S. military analyst who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and was variously regarded as both a traitor and a folk hero. So it is with Assange. Sort of.
12/28/2011 03:10 EST
Since Smoke was apparently proud of beating of Gualtieri, it's hard to see how the mild sentence will persuade him to refrain from lawless behaviour -- especially when the OPP are apparently fearful of aggravating aboriginals, or having another Dudley George incident, as happened at the Ipperwash stand-off.
12/27/2011 02:59 EST
