Margaret Wente asks a great question about the accused Khurram Sher.

A hate-filled product of poverty or a ball-hockey-playing doctor?

I guess it must have been rhetorical.

I’d go with
c) Ball hockey playing accused wanna-be terrorist.

The comments are open.

Troubled Fonyo can’t make $20,000 bail
Former cancer crusader Steve Fonyo will remain in jail for another nine days, after he was unable to pay $20,000 bail.

I’m thinking that it should have been something closer to…

Dangerous Criminal Still in Jail, Thankfully
Finally, a career criminal wasn’t able to sucker someone into giving him $20K for bail.

Fonyo isn’t a Fox, he’s a weasel.

Next step, rename the beach to something respectful and rename a detention centre or the next natural disaster after him.

A group of Quebec protesters say people from their province were targeted at last weekend’s G20 summit and arrested simply for speaking French or having fleur-de-lys license plates.

Hmmm, something smells fishy.

So says the CLAC, Montreal’s Anti-Capitalist Convergence group, which said Monday that only 125 of its 450 members who had taken buses to Toronto had returned.

Many of its members were detained over the weekend and remained unaccounted for.

The anti-capitalist, anti-state, anti-authority group describes the controversial Black Bloc tactics, blamed for many of the incidents in Toronto, as a legitimate form of protest.

Smashing windows is a legitimate form of protest? And you are wondering why they were targeting you?

The protest tactic sees people using black clothing to blend into larger crowds and, in many cases, taking advantage of that anonymity to escape arrest for vandalism.

“We respect a diversity of tactics. People are angry, particularly in the context of an event like that,” said Mathieu Francoeur, another CLAC member.

“For us it’s vandalism against certain institutions . . . it’s symbolic and doesn’t compare with violence in general in society.”

But organizers for the Quebec-based group said they were surprised by the targeting of French-speaking protesters.

One member who was detained on Sunday said she and two other Quebecers driving along College Street were stopped only because they had a Quebec licence plate.

Camille, a slight redhead who refused to give her last name, said police then rifled through her possessions and found some black clothing.

She also had a lawyer’s telephone number scrawled on her arm and an anarchist book in the car.

Ever think the license plate NUMBER could be used to identify you???

The CLAC organizers deflected allegations that people affiliated with their group were in large part responsible for the damage.

The CLAC says about 1,000 members went in Toronto, but were immediately targeted as soon as their buses pulled into the city on Friday.

“Anyone who had the protester look,” Francoeur said.

“There was institutionalized profiling, and we figured it might happen, but we never thought politicians would also give police carte blanche to do as they pleased.”

The CLAC had spent months organizing trips to Toronto to protest the G20.

But the spokespeople said they did not produce a video that appeared on their website entitled “Mon voyage a Toronto” (My trip to Toronto); the video shows off different points of interest using skulls as landmarks.

The Montreal protest group is planning to hold a demonstration on Thursday to denounce police handling of the G20 protests.

OK, let me get this straight. You think it is because you are from Quebec that you were arrested? If the police didn’t target you I would say they had really bad intelligence. They should have kept you all on the busses for a week and give you Lake Ontario water to drink in used Starbucks cups and cold McDonalds to eat.

“U.S. citizens should avoid traveling in or through downtown Toronto during the summit, if possible,” says the advisory.

I personally recommend this for everyone, regardless of nationality, and just ignore the timeframe as well. I’ve driven in downtown Toronto and I would never recommend that. In fact, if you stay out of the downtown core, you won’t ever accidentally watch the Maple Leafs live, surrounded by their fans.

World Juniors honour the Riders

Hockey Canada announced Saturday that the Canadian junior team will wear green jerseys during next year’s IIHF world junior hockey championship in Regina and Saskatoon.

The jerseys are designed to honour the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, and were unveiled Saturday during the Saskatchewan-B.C. Lions game in Regina.

This didn’t happen when the World Juniors were in Vancouver.

Nor should it have.

Go Riders.

It was a game that had it all, from big catches to big hits and even a little controversy. It was, in a word, a “classic.” Due to Grey Cup preparations, McMahon was beyond capacity. There were over 38,000 fans on the edge of their seats on a perfect October afternoon for football – and yet the game was blacked out.

I live 64.2 km away from the cement and dirty white roof of BC Place and when the Roughriders are in town, I am unable to watch the game because of blackout. Now, I could buy a ticket and travel the distance to watch the game in one of the worst places to watch a game in Canada. I love the crowd noise (even though it is piped in) but the game hosts yelling into their microphone to try and get the normally dry crowd going is really annoying.

With gas, parking and the two hours of time to get there it just isn’t worth it. Not to mention that my wife works Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and I have to watch the kids, making babysitting another cost I’d have to budget in for the night.

Blackouts are a thing of the past. The Canucks have no problem filling their seats for 40+ games a year and almost all of their games are televised.

The CFL product is not the problem and it isn’t even the stadium. The problem is that the CFL does not market its players or its game properly. Suitor nails it in his blog post.

Then, there are those who can’t afford to buy season tickets or can’t physically get to a game. And don’t even get me started on the possible marketing opportunities when you show hundreds of thousands of potential new customers your product on what, when it is right, can become the best three and half hour commercial you will ever get. Some owners will argue that it costs them thousands of dollars to lift a blackout, but I wonder how much it would cost to run a three and a half hour advertisement promoting your product on national TV.

Has anyone actually decided to go to a game because it may have been blacked out at home?

You’d think a self-proclaimed expert with decades of experience would have picked an actual anonymous blogger rather than myself to use as an example of anonymous blogging from the right. My name is on every piece of text I write, including when I comment. Or do I really have to put a profile page up and talk about myself in the third person?

John, a simple Google search would tell you who I am. Maybe get one of your pupils to show you how to use a search engine. I’d email you but I guess you’re still trying to get sympatico to come to your house to hook up your email for you.

Kate had a few comments of her own. Thanks for pointing it out Kate, I never would have seen that the doctor wrote about me. For some reason, I never look at his site. Am I allowed to call him a doctor if he isn’t actually a doctor?

I drink bottled water because I have to wash my tap water down with coke to get the aftertaste out. [via]

Reporting from inside _________ Airport where thousands of angry and frustrated travelers are stranded, this is __________ with ______ news. They aren’t getting the answers they need from Air Canada. _______ is trying to get from Montreal to Newfoundland. He gets put on a flight… it is cancelled, repeat.

Every year, the same old news broadcasters send out the same old reporters to cover the same old story. Let me help with some advice.

1. Don’t fly Air Canada. If another airline is too expensive, take the bus instead. You will probably arrive around the same time at your destination as the Air Canada flight will.
2. Winter doesn’t start in December in Canada. If you aren’t from around here, assume that it will start in September and will end some time in June. Ignore the season listings on your Calendar.
3. If you are wanting to travel during the Christmas season, give yourself an extra week to get there and an extra two weeks to get back.
4. You are flying at one of the busiest times of the season, expect long lines. Bring a friend and a deck of cards. The house of cards you build together will be as stable as the weather.
5. If you are interviewed by a news reporter, have fun with them. Pretend you are in the NHL and use some quality clichés about giving 110%. Repeat clichés regardless of the question asked.
6. Wear a “Global Warming, Please Start Here!” shirt. You’ll find out who you can’t trust really quickly. They’ll be the ones arguing with you, telling you that the awful weather is actually climate change and not winter.
7. If you are near the front of a line, invite someone near the back to go ahead of you. The thanks you get will be worth the whining from the other thousand people.

If you are in Canada, it isn’t unexpected to be stranded in an airport during a blizzard in December. It is also very normal for Air Canada to suck. Why in the world is that news?

Canada is on the whole a gentler, softer and more liberal nation — but there is also less freedom, opportunity, prosperity, competition and dynamism. Canada is well-loved by other nations — but the country has little diplomatic or military clout.

From the WaPo Oops… Wash Times. [via]

Personally, I would rather have Obama than Jack! but only if he comes in third place like Jack! I like Obama because he brings out the Hope and Change in the left rather than the regular despair and complaining. Sorta.