The state-within-a-state...

...that the Mennonites have been building in Paraguay since 1926 is made up of three main colonies: Menno, Fernheim and Neuland. The million hectares that fall under Mennonite control are nothing like the rest of Paraguay.

This inhospitable terrain is home to a vibrant community of 30,000 Mennonites, around 9,000 of them Canadian citizens.

There is no tax, no national service, no political instability, no alcohol. Frivolity is discouraged, abstention ensured, and guns forbidden. The predominant language is Plattdeutsch, an 18th century dialect of low German.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Gotta be some place in Canada where we could set up the same deal. Except it would allow guns, frivolity, backribs, loose women and hockey."

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Attention Syed Ryhani

"Should garbage collection be outsourced to private businesses?"

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UPDATE:

Note that this weekend poll is curiously absent from the Globe's archive of recent polls.

Funny how that works.

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The passing parade

Henry Allingham, the world's oldest man and one of the last surviving World War I servicemen, has died at the age of 113, his care home has said.

Mr Allingham is survived by Harry Patch, who turned 111 last month and is now one of the last two British survivors of WWI.

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"If you're happy and you know it..."

"Actually, since having them done I’ve become a much happier and nicer person. Before, I hated pretty much everything and everybody."

"I just wanted to pass out in the gutter and swear at cars as they went by, shit like that."

"I wasn’t a happy person at all."

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Puh-leese... no more legal bullshit

If you can get out in five years... in what way, shape or form... is this a life sentence?

"Is that what your child's life is worth?"

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RELATED: G & M reporter goes with...

...not enough basketball courts makes for bloody homicides theory...

"Aggravating matters, gangs have arrived at an area with no community centre and few social services, and experts on crime say that gangs thrive in a place where young men have nothing else to do."

Nothing else to do... but kill people?

Thank you Josh Wingrove.

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Via David Thompson

"The bloody apex... of usb peripherals."

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"At the same time..."

"...striking municipal workers in Toronto have made a claim to having a new kind of human right called the right to sick days, which it turns out actually means a right to get extra days off even when they're not sick, in which case they should call them well days."

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

Crossing the picket lines during the OPSEU strike, I carried a neat little piece of paper. On it were some words: "Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained".

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LAST WORD: Sweet Jebus... lunatics... asylum

"When it comes time to storm the castle, I suggest everyone drive instead of walk. Your own vehicle, too... none of this carpooling to save gas."

"Bonus points if you can crush a Toyota Pious on the way."

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Bright lights, big city...

...reach for the sky, podnuh....

-- SCARBOROUGH -- A 22-year-old man was riddled with bullets in what is believed to be an attempted robbery as he sat in a car at a Malvern townhouse complex late last night.

But despite being shot as many as six times in the arms, chest and face, the victim is expected to survive.

Mayor's office... yet again... strangely silent on which gun club the shooters belonged to.

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UPDATE: Be careful what you wish for...

A 22-year-old Markham man may have been trying to buy a gun when he was riddled with bullets as he sat in a car at a Malvern townhouse complex Wednesday night.

The victim, his brother and a friend were sitting in a Honda Accord in the visitor's parking lot at 50 Empringham Dr. -- a notoriously dangerous townhouse complex near Sewells Rd. and McLevin Ave. -- when they were suddenly surrounded by between seven and 10 men on foot, at least one of whom opened fire just after 10 p.m., police say.

Police sources allege the three drove south from York Region to the troubled neighbourhood in the northeast corner of Scarborough in the hopes of purchasing an illegal handgun.

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Coming soon to a...

...city near you...

The near-simultaneous bombings ended a four-year lull in terror attacks in the world's most populous Muslim nation. At least 18 foreigners were among the dead and wounded.

The blasts at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, located side-by-side in an upscale business district in Jakarta, blew out windows and scattered debris and glass across the street, kicking up a thick plume of smoke.

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UPDATE: Unlike those "humane" terrorists, huh?

Speaking from the presidential palace in a live television address, the angry and visibly shaken president said the attackers were irresponsible and inhumane.

Whoa, buddy... you wanna dial down that spluttering outrage?

Just don't get him started on that pawn of the Great Satan... George Bush.

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RELATED: In other "Will of Allah" news...

-- KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A roadside bomb tore through a vehicle in southern Afghanistan on Friday, killing 11 civilians, including five children, a border police official said. A British solider died in another explosion.

The Obama administration, meanwhile... offered this reaction.

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Why shouldn't a government agency...

...take over total responsibility for everyone's healthcare?

I mean... they're so good at everything else.

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Oh, okay...

..we give up.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Swap for Khadr?"

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Another Canadian casualty

Private Sébastien Courcy, 26, died around 6 a.m. Thursday morning, Kandahar time, while taking part in military operations in the Panjwayi District, about 17 kilometres south-west of Kandahar City.

He will be remembered.

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BAG-O-HAMMERS

The pictures (which I assume some ad agency was paid big bucks to create) are comically bad, and the subject matter ridiculous.

I also tend to think that the sort of people they are aimed at are exactly the sort of people least likely to read them.

That's because they are too busy cleaning their ears with a car key, or scratching their sweaty nuts while standing at the urinal and then borrowing your favorite pen during a meeting.

And really, this type of thing is all around us these days, isn't it?
Maybe "global warming" isn't the biggest threat to our existence after all.

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It ain't the crime that kills ya...

...it's the cover-up...

The order would have been given during this spring's provincial election, in which questions around Mr. Campbell's involvement in the sale of BC Rail – at the centre of the corruption case – was an issue. Mr. Campbell's Liberal Party easily won the May 12 contest.

The new information would appear to contradict statements made in court last month by government lawyer George Copley, who said that executive branch e-mails from 2001 to 2005 could not be recovered because backup tapes were kept for only 13 months.

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It's Car-B-Q season

France's national holiday, Bastille Day has been overshadowed by a night of rioting in which more than 300 cars were torched on the streets of Paris and other cities.

Despite a deployment of 10,000 police officers, the number of cars set alight represents a rise of almost seven percent from the previous year. Youths threw home-made explosives and fireworks to set alight bins and cars, before targeting police officers, 13 of whom were wounded in the riots.

A total of 240 arrests were made -- almost double the number recorded in 2008.

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I guess it's just like GM...

...it's a "re-invention"...

The "Alberta Greens" Green Party of Alberta has been de-registered by Elections Alberta as a political entity in the Province of Alberta. De-registration of the party is an administrative opportunity to re-organize and rebuild the party into a viable political organization.

The importance and mainstream acceptance of the Green Party’s values and principles are on the rise, and the Green Party's many supporters can now look forward to a fresh start.

And speaking of "values & principles".

(h/t reader scott)

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Green Eggs and Ham (it up)

Screw health care... McSlippery's got bigger, greener eggs to fry.

-- July 15 (Bloomberg) -- The Ontario government will offer buyers of electric cars incentives of as much as C$10,000 ($8,852), the Globe and Mail reported, citing unidentified people.

The subsidy will be available to consumers beginning next year, the newspaper said. Canada’s most populous province will also make plug-in or electric vehicles account for as much as 20 percent of its government fleet by 2020, the Globe said.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty will announce the new program at a General Motors Corp. car dealership in Toronto today, the newspaper said.

Heck... it's not like it comes out of his pocket, huh?

"Premier Dalton McGuinty says he doesn't regret giving General Motors $250 million of Ontario taxpayers' money, even though the company is closing its Windsor transmission plant."

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Why aren't the rich funding my kid's braces instead of us funding their electric cars?"

And...

"I only hope I get to pick the colour of my Government Motors electric car."

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RELATED:

Industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers echoed Mr. Beatty's concern. "A cynic would say this is just government subsidizing a product that is produced by a company they own. I think that is a bit too cynical."

"I just think it is bad policy from a variety of perspectives."

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Darwin Awards - Dusseldorf

A German who tried to fix his leaky air mattress blew up his apartment instead, the fire brigade in the western city of Dusseldorf said on Wednesday.

The 45-year-old man used tire repair solvent to plug a hole in his airbed and left it overnight.

But it blew up when he went to inflate it the next day. “A spark from the electric air pump ignited it,” a fire brigade spokesman said.

Fire fighters evacuated the 12-apartment building and a neighbouring housing block while they checked for structural damage.

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Socialised medicine...

...sometimes there's...[*]

Gunshots, car chase...

...must be Tuesday...

-- TORONTO -- Police are looking for several suspects following a shooting in Toronto's east end in which a gunman lost his firearm in the road when the car he was firing from hit a speed bump.

No one was reported injured after residents heard about a dozen gunshots at a townhouse complex on Walpole Ave., near Gerrard St. E. and Greenwood Ave., just after 8 p.m.

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RELATED: Toronto shooters found guilty

"I love you, Mom. You raised a good kid, you know that," Atkins shouted to his mother."

Pithiest comment of the week...

I think he meant, "You raised a good shot."

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