Stephane Dion resuscitates the lingering anger over the sponsorship scandal by stating that he'd be open to allowing Marc-Yvan Cote back into the Liberal Party. Well, why not, he was one of the larger donor to the party right? Seriously, I don't know what could have been going through Dion's mind when he spoke aloud on this particular topic. This is Mme. Royal-level ludicrous, and no doubt the Tories allowed themselves more than a slight giggle over this one.
The federal government has made a settlement with Maher Arar for their role in his being shipped off to Syria to be tortured. That's a good move on Ottawa's part, though, let's be honest, no amount of dollars can ever undo the horror of what Arar had to go through. When the state, whose primary responsibility is to ensure the livelihood and security of its people, fundamentally fails in that obligation and instead turns him over to people who show no regard for his life and integrity, it's a big deal, which makes some of the comments over in the Globe's comments section on the story so hard to comprehend. It may "mean the world" to Arar to get the settlement, but it's more on the lines of the Canadian state admitting it did him wrong than the dollars, I would imagine.
Jean Charest would like to see a Canada-EU free trade pact. I'm an economic liberal, I say go for it. Just make sure they don't try to slap any regulations on the curvature of Okangan-grown cucumbers. And don't trade for French wine, you can get that from Kelowna, too. I wanna go home.
The Bush Administration has authorized American soldiers in Iraq to kill Iranian agents that are fuelling the insurgency. This can be problematic, as it will either compel Tehran to stop meddling in Iraq's affairs, or it may be a step towards a larger war between the United States and Iran. I think a lot of this depends on how far along the Iranian nuclear weapons program is, which got a moral boost today after Mohammed ElBaradei said that he's calling for a timeout, in which the Iranians would stop enriching uranium and the UN would stop imposing sanctions. Brilliant, that's the type of strategy at which the Iranians will happily agree to and promptly turn around and keep on enriching uranium. With fewer inspectors to oversee the program, it's going to be much more difficult to hold Iran accountable.
Have a good weekend everybody!
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