I guess the first couple hundred...

...are deductible, huh Georgie?

Health Minister George Smitherman says there is no need for an independent investigation into the deaths of hundreds of patients in Ontario hospitals from C. difficile bacteria.

The Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats insist a provincewide inquiry is needed into the deaths of 260 patients from C. difficile at seven Ontario hospitals.

"You've gotta have priorities!!!"... cries Gorgeous George.

And what's with all those whiny cardiac and cancer guys?

Patients scheduled for bypass surgery at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute had to wait an average of 70 days between January and March 2008, skyrocketing from the previous quarter's average wait of 44 days.

According to a report that will be presented Wednesday to the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), wait times for cardiac bypass and cancer surgeries continue to climb.

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"A pitcher of warm spit"

"An Obama-Hillary ticket would be everybody's worst nightmare, beginning with the ritual photograph of the running mates and their spouses on stage on the final night at the national convention, where Jimmy Carter chased a reluctant and bemused Teddy Kennedy around the podium, begging like a puppy for his hand."

"The spectacle of Barack, Michelle, Hillary and Bill standing with arms upraised would frighten the millions, hardly the second occasion for Michelle Obama to feel pride in her country."

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Wake up & smell the species

The fiberals just don't seem to understand... crime is all about, "pay me now, or pay me later."

One reason for the surge in violence is that Mr. Calderón and his public security minister, Genaro García Luna, have upset longstanding arrangements between the police and drug traffickers at every level of government, several experts on crime in Mexico said.

Think it couldn't happen here?

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Yeah... life is so unfair, huh?

Michele Mandel wants to applaud his "courage and altruism"... I just wanna make sure he doesn't live in my neighbourhood.

-- "The stigma around mental illness is huge in itself. The stigma around killing your own child is amazing." --

You know, David... I'm not so sure that publicly celebrating your "victimhood"... is a very reassuring... or appropriate... sentiment either.

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RELATED: Oops... I just hate when that happens

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I wonder which way this guy...

Would swing... on that confounded taser conundrum.

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The Land of the Free

And the home of the brave.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Speaking of Memorial day..."

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Geekin' out

Images from the Mars Lander.

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R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

We get out to the garage and he's got shovels and rakes and coffee cans full of bouquets. And I said, 'What are we doing?'

And he goes, 'We're doing the graves.'

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See, the part I don't understand...

Is how getting involved, or even sympathising with the Big Circle Boys can be perceived as the classier move...

The frustration on Toronto police Insp. Peter Yuen's face was unmistakable as he addressed the Chinese community two weeks after a hard-working father of two was killed by a stray bullet in east Chinatown.

Two weeks had gone by and police had not received a single tip, he told reporters at a news conference.

"We have yet to receive a single phone call from this community," he said. The January shooting remains unsolved to this day.

And before... yet again... we start into how our racist Canadian system discriminates against non-whites... let's examine that Asian "class" thing...

Karen Sun, the executive director of the Toronto chapter of the Chinese Canadian National Council, said for some parents, becoming a police officer is as prestigious a job as becoming a plumber.

"It's a class issue," she said. "Not that policing is bad but we want our children to have good professional jobs. Policing is seen more as being a lower status kind of job."

Of course, that's not the fallacious "hot-button argument" that's inevitably offered up first...

The police have a less than honourable reputation in China. The stereotype is that the profession tends to attract people who are uneducated and unmotivated to move past their working class stature.

Moreover, police officers are often seen as being corrupt, taking advantage of a stringent regime to exert excessive power over the people.

Hang on a second... if that's an accurate perception of the mindset within "the community"... wouldn't that logically throw suspicion on the motives of every Chinese recruit on the police force?

Whaddaya call that? Oh, c'mon... the word is right there on the tip of my tongue...

P.S. -- Any Chinese readers out there... who care to weigh in here?

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Fly me to the moon

-- MONTREAL -- The new CBC/Radio-Canada president has asked the federal government to give the public broadcaster a $215-million boost and commit to a seven-year funding plan.

In his first public speech since being appointed CBC president in January, Hubert Lacroix asked the government to fork over $40 more per Canadian in annual funding -- the broadcaster currently receives $33 per Canadian.

Lacroix also asked for an exact dollar figure on how much the government will contribute to the CBC over the next seven years.

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Another Toronto Star...

"Smell the Diversity" push-poll...... goes horribly wrong...
Time for Ali Hindy to rally the Internet troops.

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UPDATE: Well, he huffed and he puffed...

And 1500 votes later... an identical result.

By the zero hour...

Fournier will already have been breathing pure oxygen for two hours to help his body adapt. The balloon will then rise, taking more than two hours to reach its apex before he steps out to pierce the sky in temperatures plunging to minus 65 C and in pressures that, without a special suit, would quickly bring his blood to a boil.

He'll be tracked with global positioning trackers, radar, a helicopter and a Learjet. He expects to land within a 40-kilometre radius south of North Battleford.

If he lands unconscious, his team will have 15 minutes to get to him before his air runs out.

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Now you see it...

Now you don't...

-- VANCOUVER -- Sweeping changes to Canada's home on the World Wide Web will put the country on the vanguard of Internet privacy.

It's long been standard for website registrars to publicly provide detailed contact information for individuals who own domain names under dot-ca and dot-com through an easy Internet search called a Whois (pronounced who-is).

But all that's about to change.

The Canada Internet Registration Authority says it will buck the trend by June 10, instituting new privacy policies that will protect private information from roaming eyes.

Bringing the Internet authority's policies in line with the law on June 10 will let potential whistleblowers – or those worried their political blog postings will lead to a home visit from a dissatisfied Internet user – breathe a little easier, Mr. Geist said.

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Matthew's gonna go with...

The Johnny Maudlin defense...

"They claim I was too stoned to remember," Matthew said, adding his school is taking a "holier-than-thou" attitude.

So was he?

"I was, but they don't have it on camera so they can't prove it," he said.

Now, I was actually gonna make a crack about how proud his parents must be... but apparently, well... read on...

Matthew's mother, Delma Bruni, said Matthew wasn't doing anything wrong and he was on his own time anyway.

"Regardless of whether he was high, the school is stepping over the line here."

Well... I guess that explains a few things.

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Apparently, they've ruled out...

Any sort of extra-terrestrial serial-killer...

Nycki Basra, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told the CBC they are working to trace where the foot came from, and said it could be a result of suicide, accident or foul play.

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Answering that age-old question...

How close to brain dead can you be... and still manage to live and breathe?

-- BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- Police in southern Germany say they have removed a seven-month-old boy from his parents after they tried to sell him for one euro (US$1.57) over eBay.

Krumbach police spokesman Peter Hieber said baby Merlin has been put in care of youth services in the southwestern Allgaeu region and was doing well on Saturday.

On a brighter note... they didn't chuck him down a concrete staircase in the middle of winter and then run away.

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If you're good with gay marriage...

How can you possibly criticise polygamy?

-- TORONTO -- It was easy. He simply found an imam willing to break a Canadian law, in exchange for upholding an Islamic one.

"Polygamy is happening in Toronto; it's not common, but it's happening," said Hindy, imam at Salahuddin Islamic Centre.

Hindy, hardly a stranger to controversy, is well known for his friendship with the family of Omar Khadr, the young Canadian detainee at Guantanamo Bay, and his outspoken views on the implementation of Islamic law.

See folks... if you're willing to toss out the thousands of years old definition of marriage as a union between "one man and one woman"... you can't, in good conscience, throw up barriers to other forms of matrimony.

In the past five years, Hindy said he has officiated or "blessed" more than 30 polygamous marriages; the most recent was two months ago. Even some imams in the GTA have second wives, he added.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Does the government have any balls to deal with this issue and this imam in specific who has openly admitted to breaking the law and expressing his contempt of Canadian law?"

Uh... that's some sort of trick question, right?

A controversial Toronto imam warned Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan at a closed-door meeting to stop "terrorizing" Canadian Muslims."

"If you try to cross the line I can't guarantee what is going to happen."

"Our young people, we can't control."

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RELATED: In other urban crime news...

A man is in serious condition after being shot twice and left for dead in a field.

Police were originally notified of the shooting on Driftwood Ave. in the Jane St. and Finch Ave. area by Peel police, said Staff Sgt. Steve Tedford.

The victim, believed to be in his 20s, called his mother, who lives in Peel, after being shot. His mother reported the shooting to Peel Regional Police who in turn notified police in Toronto.

And he's not just the victim. Turns out this dickhead is wanted for a string of robberies.

Bright lights, big city.

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No word yet...

On how many axes he bought this time.

-- MONTREAL -- A man who escaped from a mental hospital where he was confined after killing his daughter with an axe was arrested Friday as he shopped for camping supplies.

A Quebec Superior Court judge found him not criminally responsible for killing his nine-year-old daughter in 2001 during her first unsupervised visit with him. Mr. Masiak had recently separated from his wife.

The girl's skull had been crushed by repeated blows from a hatchet.

And that "escape" that the media is reporting?

A manhunt was started for Mr. Masiak on Thursday when he did not return to Pinel after being out on a day pass.

Oh Canada.

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Clinton confirms speculation...

She would drown her own grandmother to get the Democratic nomination...

"I ain't quitting while there's still plenty of time for someone to pop a cap in this guy's ass."

Well, alright... I'm paraphrasing.

In an interview with the editorial board of the Argus-Leader, Clinton stated...

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?"

"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing the idea of abandoning the race."

Good, sweet jebus.

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"Turn this crazy bird around"

"Should not have got on this flight tonight..."

The city of Brantford is asking that the Canadian Forces be put on notice in case of a potential riot by aboriginal protesters. That request is in a court document that goes before the Superior Court today asking for an injunction.

The injunction seeks to prevent aboriginal defendants from protesting at development sites around the city. The motion being filed by the city asks the judge to notify the attorney general that the services of the "Canadian Forces are required".

It goes on to say that tensions in the city are mounting due to "the defendants' unlawful activities" and a confrontation "or riot is inevitable and imminent."

The result of the McGuinty government's unwillingness to to uphold the "law of the land."

Pay me now... or pay me later.

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