The UN is keen to inspect US POW prisons such as Abu Graihb, where poor, innocent people are being held for no reason at all, and tortured by the big, evil, capitalists of America.

UN human rights experts are demanding to visit prisoners in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

A group of 31 experts issued a rare joint statement on concerns about the effects of some US counter-terrorism measures on human rights worldwide.

Perhaps if the UN had supported the US in the war against terror and the war in Iraq, they would have some say in the condition of the prisons. But since they seemed to wholeheartedly side with terrorist regimes (and still do), I can't see what business it is of theirs.

The experts said they were motivated by "a number of recent developments that have alarmed the international community with regard to the status, conditions of detention and treatment of prisoners in specific locations".

The UN needs to remember that it would not have ever existed were it not for Britain and America, and without the support of those two powerhouses, they will fade into obscurity.
So jump on board, or just jump.

Another job interview tomorrow, my third so far. Wish me luck, y'all!

I found this link to FrontPage via Jihad Watch. I print Ralph Peters' column in its entirety.

Perhaps the greatest blasphemers in any religion are those who appoint themselves as God's executioners. When an entire civilization embraces such butchers, both the civilization and the religion are in trouble.

The ritual slaughter of Paul Johnson Jr. in Saudi Arabia wasn't simply the act of a cluster of terrorists, but a reflection of the failure of the entire Arab world.

Religions are what men make of them. In the Arab heartlands of Islam, Muslims are making a gory mess of their faith. It's time to end the politically correct baby-talk insisting that Islam isn't the problem. In the decaying Arab world, Islam is the problem - because of the way bitter old men interpret and deform its more humane precepts while embracing its cruelest injunctions.

The decapitation of yet another American civilian can't be dismissed as an aberration from "true" Islam. The tradition of beheading unarmed prisoners dates to the earliest decades of the Muslim faith. The butchering of Paul Johnson, Nick Berg and others isn't a new phenomenon - it's revivalism, "that old-time religion" returning for a re-match with secular devils.

Millions of Muslims find such atrocities inspiring. Millions more view such cruelty as just. It's the vicarious revenge of the self-made failure. And for every rent-a-cleric the Saudi government pushes in front of a television camera to condemn such acts, thousands of other mullahs continue to preach anti-Western hatred - the brutal specificity of which would horrify even America's leftists, if only they stopped apologizing to terrorists long enough to listen.

The Saudis, especially, have sown the wind and now are reaping the whirlwind. I personally have seen their attempts to "purify" Islam and provoke anti-Western rage, from Africa to Southeast Asia, from Central Asia to the Arab homelands. No matter how many terrorists the Saudis kill on their own soil hereafter, they will remain guilty - in great part - for every murder committed by Muslim extremists. They created the monsters who now have run amok.

But the problem is far greater than the degenerate House of Saud. We face a phenomenon new to history: A once-great civilization failing before our eyes. Whether or not one subscribes to the idea of a "clash of civilizations," we are incontestably witnessing the crash of an entire civilization, that of Middle Eastern Islam.

After centuries of self-destructive behavior, Arab civilization is unable to compete in a single field of human endeavor relevant to progress. Instead, Arab societies are racing backward into superstition, bigotry and a narcotic culture of blame. They have grown so impotent in every other regard - unable even to translate great wealth into minor power - that Arabs rich and poor, educated and illiterate, are enraptured by their rare "triumphs" over the West, from 9/11 to the barbaric murder of Westerners doing the work that Arabs themselves are too slothful or incompetent to do.

Baghdad fell, to the collective shame of those Arabs who prefer homegrown despots to Western-inspired democracy. The Arab revenge is to slaughter innocent captives. It makes no difference that the Koran specifically forbids the mistreatment of prisoners. As with the worst demagogues in every religion, the apostles of terror cite religious texts selectively. But if such practices are limited to fringe elements in other world religions in our time, the perversion of faith pervades today's Islamic mainstream.

One can't say that, of course. Arab Muslims are allowed to spew anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Hindu, anti-everybody-else hate speech. That's just their culture, you see. But it's taboo for a Westerner to suggest that the roots of terror may go a bit deeper than a black sheep or two in a few Middle-Eastern families.

Leftist apologists for terror here in the United States attack any attempt at a frank discussion of the Middle East's problems with charges of bigotry and neo-imperialism. But if we examine the madness of the American Left dispassionately, we find that it's the Noam Chomskys, Susan Sontags and their acolytes from the campus greensward who are the true bigots. Imperialists, too.

By refusing to hold Middle Eastern civilization to reasonable standards of behavior and responsibility, our domestic Left has given new life to the "little brown brother" school of colonialist thought. According to the Left's internal logic, Arabs aren't capable of the same moral reflection and behavioral maturity well-educated whites demonstrate. And, of course, Arabs are oppressed (no matter that their oppressors are all Arabs).

Arab extremists and dictators have become the ghetto blacks of hard-Left foreign policy. They're all victims of Washington and bear no personal responsibility for their own errors, failures or crimes. It isn't the Saddams, Abdullahs, Assads or Mubaraks who oppress the Arab masses, you see. Despots are never guilty - unless they get too chummy with the Americans. Anyway, dictators are victims, too. The mass graves and misery that haunt the Middle East (if such inconveniences must be mentioned at all) are my fault. And yours, dear reader. We're to blame for all that's wrong with the world. And don't you forget it!

The family secret of the hard-Left is that its followers share one powerful trait with Osama bin Laden: They need to look down on others, to feel superior and just. If the lords of terror dispense with displays of pity for their victims, it's only because they haven't yet attained the leftist's level of hypocrisy.

Why shouldn't we hold a civilization accountable for its own failures and horrors? Why does our domestic Left revel endlessly in the excesses of a few renegade guards at Abu Ghraib prison while remaining silent on the industrial-scale massacres of Saddam Hussein - and other terror regimes? Why don't our self-appointed "voices of conscience" speak out against the beheading of Paul Johnson Jr. or Nick Berg? What about the hundreds of Iraqi doctors, lawyers, engineers and educators slain by terrorists for trying to build a humane government in the Middle East? What about the countless civilians killed by car bombs? What about the victims of 9/11?

The silence isn't just deafening. It's revolting.

We all await, anxiously, Michael Moore's film "Trolling For al-Qaeda." A pity Paul Johnson Jr. won't be around to watch it.

Firstly, I would like to send my sympathies to the family of Mr Kim.

Secondly...

Motherfuckers!

The body of a South Korean hostage in Iraq who was killed by his captors was today found between Baghdad and Fallujah, the South Korean government has confirmed.
The South Korean foreign ministry verified a report on the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera station that Kim Sun-il, a 33-year-old man whose captors had threatened to behead him, was dead.

I get angrier and angrier every day. First they came to America to kill us. Then they killed American's on their soil. Now they're killing Koreans? They are looking for a WWIII, and they just might get it if they keep this up. I would be more than happy to to nuke the Middle East and live with the consequences of the fallout, just to rid the world of these cockroaches.

The South Korean consul in Iraq and Kim Chun-ho, president of Gana General Trading the company that employed the victim, were travelling to the site 35km west of Baghdad to collect the remains, Mr Shin said. Gana is a supplier to the US military.

And there you have it folks. What better reason to kill him other than supplying the Yanks? A victim of terrorism via free trade. They are using our values against us.

Al-Jazeera, which said it received a videotape showing that Kim had been executed, said the execution was carried out by the al-Qaida-linked group Monotheism and Jihad.

Kim's kidnappers had threatened to kill him at sunset on Monday unless South Korea cancelled a troop deployment to Iraq. The Seoul government rejected the demand, proceeding with plans to dispatch 3,000 soldiers starting in August.

Good. Get the troops in there, and kill them. Just start killing whoever you see, like they are doing to us.

**I will probably apologize for the feracity of this post later, but for now I reserve the right to be angry. Every civilized human being deserves the right to be angry today. Go ahead Michele, get mad!**

Still searching. I haven't been having much luck these days, but I'm patient (well, actually, I'm not, but right now I can afford to be). I'm actually going to try to land a part time retail job while I'm looking, just to pay for groceries and the like. It will save some of our capital. I've had two interviews, both of them crap. One was with an agency that said they wouldn't even try to place me till they confirmed my reference, but they still haven't contacted her. It's been two weeks. The other was advertised as a marketing position, but turned out to be door-to-door sales. Seriously.

I've been reading Monster Careers: How to Land the Job of Your Life by the guy who founded Monster, Jeff Taylor. I've been out in the job market often enough to know what I'm doing, but I find books like this inspirational and motivational. They see you through the slow days, when things aren't going according to plan. Y'know, like the Bible does. And these days are mightly slow. I had hoped to be working by July 1, but now it's starting to look like I'll be lucky to have another interview by then. I won't let it get me down, as long as we can still afford to live. When I think of all I've done in my 27 years, I know this isn't the hardest, or even the most exciting. It's just another risk in a long line of them. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. But like my idol once said, As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry.

Sounds like Michele over at A Small Victory is getting some flack over her personal reactions to the death of American Paul Johnson at the hands of Saudis. Since I had a rather similar "kill them all" reaction to Michele's (and like her, I had the same reaction on September 11th), I wanted to post this in my support of her.

While the blogging community, especially the political one, is made up of mostly fair writers who will admit when the are wrong about a story, it is also a place for us to vent our own opinions. Less cheesy than web diaries, but serve a similar purpose. If I'm pissed of about something, my readers will know about it. And when I told you I hate my sister in law, well, it's my choice to do so, and you respected that.

Michele had a negative reaction to the killing of one of her countrymen. Most of the rational thinking Americans were angry. She wanted to kill the Middle East. All of it (except Israel). I have felt that way for a long time. But what makes Michele and I, and America itself different from the Jihadist mentality of the Middle East is that we won't. We will not go out and solicit funding from each other in order to wage a holy war against those we think are wrong. We are hoping to disarm them, not arm ourselves. We will support those who go out and fight for us, but we will not commandeer a few commercial jets and fly them into mosques. The difference between US and THEM is that we are not terrorists.

That's right, folks, someone has made a musical out of that cult classic of the 80's & 90's, Evil Dead. Mr right and I went to the dress rehearsal last night, and had a scream, so to speak. We even came home covered in blood.

Everyone knows how cheesy Evil Dead was; just imagine it set to great, original tunes like Join Us, What the Fuck Was That?, Big Reliable Jake, and Look Who's Evil Now.

It will be playing in Toronto all this week, and then opening at the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival on July 2nd.

Iran's government has launched a crackdown on women who flout the strict Islamic dress codes during the hot summer months.

The BBC (usually so pro-Islam) is reporting this summertime ritual in Iran.

In keeping with Islamic values, Iranian women are required to cover their hair entirely and wear long, loose clothing to disguise the shape of their bodies.

Offenders could risk fines, prison and even flogging.
[D]uring the scorching summer months, when in many Iranian cities the temperature goes above 40C, observing such strict rules becomes unbearable for many women.

This is a culture where a woman has to keep her body covered because the men cannot be trusted with their libidoes, and if they rape her, it will be her fault for leading them on, and she will be stoned to death. As much as I felt Irshad Manji was harping on about the plight of women in The Trouble with Islam, I never said she wasn't right.

Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada. 

I started running today. No, there was no one chasing me. I just... wanted to. You can't live in this neighborhood and not run. So I got myself a decent pair of shoes yesterday (the theory behind this is that I lived in Scotland long enough to become thrifty - if I buy it, I HAVE to use it!), and hit the park today. Not a pretty site, let me assure you. How do people do this, and enjoy it?

Oh well, I'll do it again tomorrow, to see if it get's any easier.

Another American businessman was beheaded in Saudi Arabia today. Paul M Johnson Jr of New Jersey. Another civilian. Not content to kill soldiers, are they? Motherfuckers.

Mr. Johnson, 49, who worked on Apache attack helicopter systems for Lockheed Martin [RG: I wonder what Michael Moore would say about that], was kidnapped last weekend by militants who threatened to kill him by Friday if the kingdom did not release its al-Qaeda prisoners. The Saudi government rejected the demands.

An al-Qaeda group said Friday it killed American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., posting an Internet message that showed three photographs of a severed head that appeared to be his.

Read the story. I am too angry to even write about it now. At least we don't have a video this time. My sympathies and distress are with Mr Johnson's family. My rage is in the Middle East. I wonder if there will be any mainstream news coverage of this. After all, it doesn't send out the kind of message that the leftist, terrorist-loving media wants to force down our throats.

I just found this Seattle Times article linked to on Jihad Watch.

When it's 4 a.m. in this one-stoplight prairie town, it's 3 p.m. in, say, Karachi, Pakistan, the sweltering hours just before the evening call to prayer. That's when [Shannen] Rossmiller, while her husband and three children sleep, finds the Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards frequented by radical Muslims and jihad warriors are busiest.

Mrs Rosmiller is a cyberspy, who advises the FBI when she finds something amiss.

So it was that, on one of Rossmiller's trawls through Web sites with names like bravemuslim.com last fall, she came across a posting by a man calling himself Amir Abdul Rashid. It was clear from the message that Rashid was edging toward the violent fringes of Islam.

Over time, it also became apparent to her that he was an American soldier.

Posing as an Algerian with ties to that country's outlawed Armed Islamic Group, she sent Rashid an e-mail with the subject line "A Call to Jihad." Rashid responded by asking if it was possible that a "brother fighting on the wrong side could defect."

Over a period of four months, Rossmiller drew out Rashid through a series of 27 e-mails. She learned, with growing alarm, that he was a National Guardsman about to be deployed to Iraq. And he appeared willing to share information on American troop vulnerabilities with the enemy. Rossmiller provided the information to the Department of Homeland Security, which passed it to the FBI and the Army.

The arrest in that case of Ryan Anderson, 26, a troubled Muslim convert and a specialist in the Washington state National Guard's 81st Armor Brigade, was splashed across the country's newspapers in February. It was a direct result of Rossmiller's work, and she is expected to be the reluctant star witness at his pending court martial. She testified in a preliminary hearing last month.

Rossmiller, 34, was born and raised in Conrad, her father a farmer and her mother a special-education teacher. A former high-school cheerleader and honors student, she now draws on her legal-research skills in her quest.

Rossmiller says there is no mystery to how and why she developed her avocation. It traces to Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001.

We should all be doing this. Who's willing to make a pledge to trawl the anti-American Jihad websites and chatrooms, hunting out the enemy? I will start tonight. Further information can be found at 7Seas, an amatuer sleuthing organization formed shortly after 9/11.

How Samizdata feels about the Liberal Democrats, the British version of the NDP in Canada. I couldn't agree more.

I have long thought that Liberal-Democrats deserved to be rounded up and kept in high security prisons. However, a friend suggests a more useful alternative. Why don't we use genetic engineering to breed a four-headed hydra with the likenesses of Hayek, von Mises, Friedman and Reagan? It could seek out Liberal Democrats, wrap itself around them, and suck the collectivism out of them. The discarded husks could then be shredded and recycled as packaging for the fast food industry.

Last night was the English-language debate for the federal election at the end of the month. The 4 major parties were represented (My husband asked "Four?" Yes, 4. Apparently, the Bloc Quebecois counts as one of the major parties, which really pissed off the Green Party, who were not invited to the ball. Because no one cares.)

Jack Layton of the NDP (read: Commie Pinko Dogs) has this enormous smiling head, kind of a cross between a Mickey Mouse balloon and the talking head from The Wizard of Oz. For the first time, I understood the sickening turn of phrase: Shit Eating Grin.

Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois (read: separatists), was hard-assed but charming, starting off the debate by saying he was not going to cooperate on policy with any of the other attendees, and effectively saying that he was just there for the free sandwiches in the green room, because he wanted nothing to do with Canada. How pissed off would he be, if just for a lark, the whole country voted him as Prime Minister, and he actually had to think outside the Bloc, er, box for once?

Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party (read: got my vote) was the most grown-up of the bunch, and tried to take a step back from the childish squabbling that was going on around him. Well dressed, poised (with the least amount of hand flailing), and well spoken, he did not allow himself to be dragged down into the mire with the brats.

Which leaves us with Prime Minister Paul Martin, of the Liberal Party (read: $3/4 billion lost in scandal). Oh my. His smug-factor was off the clock, with his casual dismissal of what his opponents were saying, and not bothering to answer the touchy question, although what he has to be smug about is beyond me. His party is trailing in the polls, they are quagmired in scandal and lost funds, and the country has had a looong 10 years of Liberal screw-ups. See this morning's Macleans article for a similar take:

Who taught Paul Martin to put his hand in another man's face to shut him up?

Beyond that unique little display of offhand barbarity, Martin was not alone. Give Gilles Duceppe a bye: as far as I can tell, it's his job to be a jackass. The other offenders, in rough descending order of offensiveness, were:

• Jack Layton, skinnin' and grinnin' like a third-rate used-car salesman;
• Martin, who claimed the others weren't listening even as he steadfastly refused to look at them.

Harper was the only remotely civilized adult on stage. He was also the only candidate who paused, even if only briefly, to acknowledge that government sometimes requires difficult choices. He did not shine; he simply stood back a few paces from the mud wrestlers he found himself trapped with.

As an aside, however, I heard Paul Martin speak in Montreal on September 14th, 2001, at a memorial service for the WTC victims. Out of all the religious leaders in attendance, all making flowery speaches about Heaven and the life beyond, Paul Martin's speech was the best, and he's just a politician. He spoke from his heart, about how the tragedy made him and his family feel, and how we stood in solidarity with the USA that day. I like Paul Martin as a man, but not as a politician.

As for last night's debate, it was nothing but a media circle-jerk, and nothing was accomplished, except that CTV managed to go a full two hours without commercials. Impressive indeed.

Today I finally finished reading The Trouble With Islam by Irshad Manji, a Canadian, a lesbian, and a Muslim. It is her open letter to her faith, a faith that casts her out for her choices; and one which she has come dangerously close to casting out of her own life because of its prejudices.

I would urge all my fellow right-wingers, but more importantly, all those liberal leftists out there, to read this book. I can see it now: all the Righties nodding their heads, wondering what the next move should be. And all the Lefties, crying racism, and wanting to arm Islam for the Jihad. But that's not what this book is about. This is not another Michael Moore trying to undermine a system. It is a lone woman, looking at her religion objectively (a freedom she could only have here in the West), and asking What went wrong? and How do we fix it? She is calling for reform.

It is not the Extremists who raise her ire, but the Moderates of Islam - those who silently accept the status quo without argument, regardless of what they think is right. It is to them that Irshad directs the bulk of her letter, telling them to stand up for themselves and their religion - not to let the autocrats turn it into a political tool, as they have done for so long. She wants to take back Islam from those who seek to destroy in Its name.



It starts off "I have to be honest with you. Islam is on very thin ice with me." and ends with a joke. But the joke you'll have to read for yourself. You learn about her life in Richmond, British Columbia, as a child - even then she was questioning what she was being taught about Islam. The majority of the book is a close inspection of the practices of Islam over the span of Its lifetime, with special attention being paid to the situation in the West Bank and Gaza, and her visit to Israel. Of course, given her own views, there is much ranting over the state of women within the faith, but although excessive, it's true. Muslims to not value their women, the treat them like property. They can't vote, can't travel without permission, they are considered minors - children.

Her note to non-Muslims: Dare to ruin the romance of the moment. When Muslims insist "We're democracies in our own way," you need to pose only one question: What rights do women and religious minorities actually exercise? You'll doubtless hear in reply that the West should take a hard look at how it's mutilating women through breast implants and tummy tucks for the sake of social acceptance. Agreed, the West should look hard. Still, in all my years as a feminist in the West, I've never met a girl whose parents have disowned her because she wouldn't inject silicon into her boobs - and yet more than a few Muslim parents have rejected their daughters for resisting ciscumcision. Non-Muslims do the world no favors by pushing the moral mute button as soon as Muslims start speaking. Dare to ruin the moment.

About Americans beating up on America, and how this is part of the freedom of America:
There's a second reason that it feels like fair ball to question non-Muslim Americans - and Westerners in general - but not Muslims. People of the West don't make a habit of physically damaging you for dissenting with officialdom. Not every American welcomes the fact that the New York Times Magazine skewered the FBI's estimated number of Al-Qaeda recruits in America, calling it "more or less a wild guess." But, were the magazine's offices set ablaze, as happened in Nigeria when a columnist inadvertently ticked off the ruling Muslims?

Get this book. Read it now! Share it with your friends - Right and Left! It's about time someone from the inside had the courage to stand up and say what's wrong with the so-called religion of peace. I only hope that nothing bad happens to her because of this.

This is 90 seconds of my life I will never get back.

We knew this anyway, but it still smarts when you're smacked in the face with it.

Yesterday I ordered tickes from the Toronto Blue Jays website. My husband has never seen a baseball game, so I thought I would treat him to one. So I went on-line (everything's cheaper on-line, right?) to get two "cheap seats", since they're the most fun. Well, the seats were cheap enough at $9 each, but the admin fees were ridiculous. Eighteen dollars for the tickets. Fine. Six dollars for tax and "processing fees". Okaaay.

How would you like to receive your tickets?

- We'll post them to you = $4
- You can pick them up at the box office = $4 (!?)
or...
- You can print them at home = $3.50!!!

Three-fifty for the privelege of using my own ink, electricity, paper, etc? Fuck you! So I'm having them posted. Someone at the Blue Jays ticket office will put my tickets in a 30 cent envelope, put a 49 cent stamp on it, and post it 5km to my house. For $4.

Nothing compared to what a hockey game is going to cost in October, but what can you do?

Unfortunately, I have lost all the comments that anyone has posted recently.

I am a fan of Pamie's site, and when I was setting up this blog, I hadn't the first clue how to begin. So I went to her site, and copied her source template (I couldn't figure out how to put a colored column down the side - how lame is that?), removing personal stuff like her images and links, and changing colors and stuff to make it more mine than hers.

But because I was so new to the blog scene, I didn't understand what other tags might be in her source code. Like her comments section! So she's been stuck reading our comments, trying to figure out what they mean.

I have now sorted the problem by removing any trace of her Haloscan account from my source.

Please accept my apologies, Pam.

RG

They say death comes in threes. Last weekend, we lost one of the greatest Presidents America has ever seen.

And last night we lost Ray Charles. He was 73.

Charles recently had hip-replacement surgery in Los Angeles, but doctors diagnosed other ailments, and he never returned to good health.

Charles -- who had not missed a tour in 53 years -- gave his last concert performance on July 20, 2003, in Alexandria, Va. He canceled the remainder of his 2003 tour dates after doctors insisted that he stay off the road.

"It breaks my heart to withdraw from these shows," he said at the time. "All my life I've been touring and performing. It's what I do. But the doctors insist I stay put and mend for a while, so I'll heed their advice."

I tend to wonder, when extremely active people are told to rest, is that really the best thing for them? We've all seen cases of men who love their work, forced into retirement, only to suddenly become "old" because they have nothing to focus on. They lose momentum.

Either way, I'm sorry to lose Ray Charles. I saw him in concert at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2000, and it was worth every penny of admission. We had a blast that night, with the Molson Centre (as it was called then) cut down to half its normal size, to create a more intimate setting. And here was this small, shrivelled old man on stage, bouncing around and forgetting everything but his music for nearly 3 hours.

Most of my favorite musical artists are dead. Elvis died when I was only 10 months old. Johhny Cash cancelled his Montreal concert at La Ronde when I was just a kid (I had bought my dad and I tickets for Father's Day), and now he's gone (well, they both are - Dad and Johnny), and Frank Sinatra, who I will ever regret not being able to see perform live, left us on the 7th anniversary of my mother's death. That was a very hard day. I was in mourning for a week. My answering machine picked up "Frank Sinatra is dead, and I am in mourning. I cannot possibly talk to bill collectors at this time. However, you may leave a message of condolence at the tone." I actually got a message of condolence from the agency trying to repossess my car!

Most of the cool people I grew up to are gone, and not just singers. A list of my legends includes Ronald Regan, of course, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart (that was heartbreaking), Anthony Perkins (I cried - when I was little, I fell in love with those sad brown eyes of his - didn't matter that he was stabbing women in the shower and dressing like his mother. This may explain certain types of men I've dated...), Carey Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Pierre Trudeau (conflict of politics, I know, but you have to admit, he was way cool), Princess Diana, Mother Theresa... this list could go on forever, and I'm certain I am missing some of the big ones.

When I was 11, I made a list of the most influential people I would like to meet. Except for the Pope and Madonna, all those people are dead now.

And there's still time for the Pope to go this week - because it always comes in threes.

My job hunt is officially underway. I received my first call to an interview, with an agency. I can't say I'm thrilled about it (my husband is, though. he feels that I should be over the moon since it only took me two business days to get my first call), as the guy on the phone was kind of a jerk. I'm not excited at all about meeting with him this week. After all, as much as I need a job, we're not starving, and I'd like to hold out for the right opportunity with the right people. I've got excellent experience and skills, and I don't wish to sell myself short because it's the first thing thing that comes along.

I'll have to think of this the way I thought of relationships before I met Mr Right: Try a bunch until you find the one that makes you happiest, with the person who understands you best.

We were walking home from the subway this afternoon, and we passed a lawn sign for our local Conservative candidate. Someone had defaced the sign, and written

NAZY

over the man's name.

It's hard to get angry over that.

This morning dawned cloudy, but warm and humid. Thankfully it cleared, and this evening we had our first barbeque of the season. I undercooked the steak (by my husband's cook-it-till-it's-dead British mentality), but they were fabulous anyway.

I've been tuned into the news today, watching tributes to Ronald Reagan. I'm a bit weepy.

And I also found this unusual article on the New York Times site. They're still debating about what they're going to with the site of the World Trade Center. It's really a no-win situation, isn't it? If they don't replace those towers, where are all those displaced companies supposed to go? But if they do rebuild, it will seem as if people are just moving on and forgetting. So instead, they're being politically correct (ugh!), and discussing options for opera houses and Museums of Freedom (whatever than means).

There's an asshole voice in the back of my head that keeps whispering an idea to solve all this. It's extreme, so be warned: If the ground is now sacred, which I believe it is, then keep it as a memorial park. But because NYC is short on space at the best of times, and can't afford two enormous city parks, Central Park will have to be sacrificed. Be reasonable - Central Park is a lovely part of New York City, but the city needs space - and Central isn't a mass gravesite. WTC wins that battle. And Ground Zero is much smaller than Central Park, so only part of the park will have to go to make room for offices and other businesses.

Like I said, it's extreme, but it's a helluva lot more useful an idea than building a hall to showcase modern dance!

Ronald Reagan has died at the age of 93. This is breaking news, and the only article I could find that this time.

I am very sad to hear this, because Reagan is the first president I recall from childhood. I was born during Carter, but I remember everything from Reagan. I remember watching television one morning, and a news bulletin breaking into whatever gameshow my Nana and I were tuned in to, only to watch the President of the United States get shot. I was 4. Nana dragged me away from the television and called my mother at work. Mom helped me write a get-well letter that night.

Sleep tight, Mr President. I hope that wherever you are now, things seem a little clearer than they have this past decade. It's such a shame that a man who accomplished so much during his time in office has been unable to reflect on any of it. Rest in peace, Sir.

It's been two weeks since I've touched this blog, and so much has happened in that time.

We arrived in Toronto on Monday May 24th. I highly recommend using Zoom if your flying between Canada and the UK. We had a seat upgrade which gave us plenty of room, and free food and drink throughout the flight. Anyway, upon arrival we immediately set out to view our new apartment, which I had reserved over the Net. Why did I do that? Because I am retarded.

Aside from the homeless people milling around outside, and the roaches inside, it was lovely. Needless to say, we cancelled the reservation. This left us homeless (and milling around outside). Thankfully, the management of Roachville were extremely nice, and I got my full deposit back. Word to tourists: The East end of Toronto is gross - don't go there.

So we checked into the hotel, and proceeded to panic. I called the moving company to postpone my delivery, only to be told that the goods were already in Toronto, on the truck, ready to be delivered the next day. Aaaaghh! I had no idea I possessed enough French to beg and plead with the guys in the Quebec City dispatch office of my moving company, but apparently necessity is the mother of bilingualism. They agreed to store my furniture with an associate company in Toronto, and it would only cost me the equivelent of a kidney on the black market.

After some much needed sleep and Taco Bell (not in that order) we faced a new day, and the challenge of finding an apartment. We headed back to a place we had visited the previous year, this time safely west of downtown. A glorious highrise community, with pools and all the other amenities middle-class, white-bread, cockroach-hating types like ourselves seem to want. It was my ideal place to live in Toronto, and the only reason we hadn't booked there in the first place is that it's an extra $200/month. Two hundred dollars is not a huge price to pay to live without fear and pests.

We spoke to a very friendly woman in the rental office, immediately won her over with our tale of woe, and we got an apartment. There's much more to this story, but I can't reveal it just now. Heaven forbid her boss sees this blog, and she ends up jobless, and I homeless. Yikes!

So we're moved in (boy, that makes a long and interesting story rather short and boring, doesn't it?). We got the apartment last Friday, but lived on an air mattress for a week until the furniture was delivered. The cat lived better than we did - she was at a local vet who spoiled her rotten for a week!

Now my biggest priority is finding a job. So here is my shameless plug:

If you or someone you know needs a top-quality Customer Service Team Leader or Supervisor, please get in touch. Thanks.

In other news, there is an election coming up in Canada at the end of the month, so expect much blogging about that. Mr Right and I were sitting down to take-out last week and I said to him "There's an election this month, I have to find out how to get on the electoral roll..." And there was a knock at the door... Elections Canada was there to verify that my name was on the electoral roll! So the minute I was through with them, I turned to Mr Right and said, "Well, that was lucky - now I need a million dollars!" Alas, nothing has come of it yet...