Am I imagining things, or have there been a spate of plane crashes lately? Today, CNN is reporting that the body of Dick Ebersol's son may have been recovered from the scene of their weekend crash, from which Dick is lucky to be alive.

Also reported within the last couple of days:

Two Killed in New Zealand Plane Crash

CAOHC Launches Jet Fuel Inspection after Crash November 21st

Passenger plane skids off runway in Indonesia, killing at least six people

Except for the Indonesian plane, all of the above were smaller aircraft. The Ebersol aircraft was a private jet. But that aside, what has happened to air safety standards lately? Is it the weather, or have we all invested so much time and money into security that we've been neglecting safety? If that's the case, terrorists won't have to use our planes to blow us up - we'll do just nicely on our own, thankyouverymuch.

The Greatest Canadian was named last night by the CBC. Tommy Douglas, who created the social healthcare system here in Canada was named our greatest person. I can see some of the wistful theory behind that - after all, it seemed like such a good idea at the time, and Douglas would have brought it over from his native Scotland, before the Bonny Isle turned into the welfare money pit it is today. Douglas never could have imagined that by offering free healthcare to the masses, we would have plagues and infections to rival those of the pre-medicare Victorian times. He could not have guessed that by this century, we would have C. dificile, hospital aquired infections, and massive quangos who do nothing all day except sit around discussing how to combat these problems - all the while charging the governments outrageous consulting fess and not really solving anything. By offering medicine for free, our doctors, nurses and other hospital staff are not making adequate pay. Older docs are forced to keep working, because today's generation of graduates have all moved to the U.S. to find their fortunes - fortunes they could never attain here.

Tommy Douglas had a brilliant vision that was not thought through to reflect the ages. I'm sure that if he were to look at Canada and the UK today, he would be the first to say "If I knew then what I know now..."

Sheer dollars and cents wouldn't have given Tommy Douglas the award for Greatest Canadian. In fact, he would not have even been considered, given the amount of money this country and its taxpayers have lost on Medicare.

However, on sheer visionary spirit, it is understandable why the older generation of Canadians (the only people who actually watch the deplorable and boring CBC now that there's no hockey) would have voted for him. These are the same people who time and again vote in the most corrupt government our country has ever seen, just because they used to have a good thing going, and they used to be people you could believe in. Canada is crying for it's glory days of the past, and leaving no hope for the future. Perhaps it's time to stop looking back, and hold a new contest - The Most Promising Canadian.

There is a Town Hall on Global Terrorism: Inside The Mind Of The Jihadist meeting here in Toronto on Thursday night, the 25th.

The guest speakers are Dr Bruce Taft, counter terrorism and intelligence advisor to the NYPD, and David Harris, formerly of CSIS>

Admission is free, and it's from 7-9pm at the Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles Street @ Queen's Park, across from the ROM.

See you there?

I am currently reading Speaking My Mind by Ronald Reagan. It is a collection of his speeches from throughout his career, including Hollywood. I have just read a passage that I must share with you, from a speech he made in 1967 in support of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

You will see how in nearly 40 years, not a damn thing has changed on the left or the right.

There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace...and you can have it in the next second... surrender!

Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face...that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace or war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand - the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the cold war, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have been weakend from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he "would rather live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin - just in the face of this enemy? - or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain! Where, then, is the road to peace?

Reagan was even cool in the 60's, and the 60's aren't that much different from today. The 60's were a time of peace-loving, flag-burning, whining socialists, just like today. But better times are coming - we just have to wait. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Everything happens in cycles, and the pendulum will swing back for us, knocking down the Democrats, the Michael Moore's, the politically correct welfare statists. Having Bush reelcted to a second term was a sign that things will improve. We just need to wait out the scary stuff, and hope that Giuliani is on the ballot for 2008.

President Bush has nominated national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to replace Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"During the last four years I have relied on her counsel, benefited from her great experience and appreciated her sound and steady judgment. Now I'm honored that she's agreed to serve in my Cabinet," Bush said in a ceremony in the White House Roosevelt room.

So much for the left's cry of how minorities are quashed under Bush, as Condi would replace another black Secretary of State.

If confirmed, Rice, who turned 50 on Sunday, would be the first black woman, and only the second woman ever, chosen as the nation's top diplomat.

I know that I grew up in the 80's, when Ronald McDonald and Birdie would skate around in the famous McDonald's Christmas ads. I remember "you deserve a break today", and the catchy songs - twoallbeefpatties,specialsaucelettucecheese,picklesonionsonasesameseedbun. But I can't say I'll miss the current hip-hop nightmare that is the I'm Lovin' It ad campaign. And perhaps if I'd stayed in Britain, I wouldn't have to see it anymore:

Adverts for junk foods would not be shown on television before 2100GMT as part of a government plan to tackle obesity.

The proposed ban would include products high in fat, salt or sugar.

This would not only take in burgers, crisps and soft drinks, but would also target certain breakfast cereals and even fish fingers.

I'd be lovin' that.

The on-line edition of Newsweek has an excellent article this week about violence in what is supposed to be the world's most peaceful city, The Hague, and the killing of Theo Van Gogh in Holland on November 2nd.

Although it's much to long for me to post in entirety, here are some excerpts from this insightful and frightening piece.

The tumult began on Nov. 2 with the gory killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, whose documentary "Submission" was an attack on Islamic treatment of Muslim women. His alleged assailant, a Muslim who considered van Gogh's film blasphemy, fired half a dozen bullets into his body, slit his throat and, with a knife, pinned to van Gogh's chest a note proclaiming jihad against Holland, Europe and the United States.

The police quickly arrested a suspect—a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan named Mohammed Bouyeri—and scooped up seven other young Muslims, charging them under antiterror laws. Within days an escalating spiral of violence engulfed the country. A Moroccan immigrant was killed in the town of Breda. Attacks on mosques and Muslim schools brought retaliatory attacks on Protestant churches. Mean-while, antiterror police launched a series of raids, including the one in The Hague, which police said they traced to a separate plot to kill the woman who wrote the script for "Submission," Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

...

French political scientist Catherine de Wenden believes the Netherlands erred first and foremost by failing to integrate its immigrant population, which is predominantly Muslim from Turkey and Morocco. By funding religious schools that isolated many migrant children from mainstream Dutch life and by not doing enough to encourage immigrants to learn Dutch, even as job prospects were diminishing, the government created ghettoes of discontent, especially among those who came from outside Europe. University of Amsterdam anthropologist Thijl Sunier says immigrants to Holland—and even their second- and third-generation descendants—are treated like "foreign guests." They are "visiting an island," Sunier says, and, unlike immigrants in, say, Britain, most of them live outside the greater society.

I hate how the French feel they can weigh in on things that they themselves are guilty of.

The problem for the Netherlands, and Europe, is that issues of religion and immigration have become explosively conflated with terrorism. Three days after the van Gogh killing, Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm said, "We are declaring war" to "make radical Islamic movements disappear from the Netherlands." The fanatical blow of an assassin against a filmmaker on a busy Amsterdam street thus, rightly or wrongly, becomes part of a chain stretching from the World Trade Center and Bali through the Madrid train bombings to Abu Ghraib and Fallujah. "Of course we have to take measures against violent and aggressive behavior," says Amsterdam city official Ahmed Aboutaleb. "But let's not let these measures get out of hand."

Cheney Has Common Cold, Adviser Says

Vice President Dick Cheney, back home after a brief hospital visit, has nothing more than a cold and his heart is fine, an adviser said Sunday.

Uh-huh.

Yesterday, someone ran a Yahoo search under Naked Girl On Golf Cart, and it led to me.

Cool.

Does anyone remember Remembrance Day anymore? 

On a day when we are supposed to be remembering veterans who died for our freedom, how many times have you switched on your local Liberal television news to hear Yasser Arafat being deified? How many people took the time at 11 o'clock this morning to remember? How many rocks were thrown at "fat, socialist weasel" Michael Moore today? Not even one, I'll bet.

Soldiers, on this very day, are off trying to end this damn thing in Fallujah, are off getting shot at, and nobody cares. Nobody gives a shit.

My grandfather fought in World War II. Both my grandfathers did. Mr Right's grandfather was a 15 year old Polish boy, coerced into joining the German army - his parents were held in concentration camps until he and his older brother enlisted - and wasn't released into the Polish Free Forces until he was captured by the British and taken to Scotland. Sometimes going to war means fighting for things you don't necessarily believe in. When that happens, you just buckle down and do it. You do not haul your cowardly ass up to Canada to smoke pot in Vancouver and have benefit concerts thrown for you. Those cowards that my country is harboring chose to join the military. Grandpa Right didn't have that choice.

On this day of remembrance, let's try to get the bleeding hearts - who weep for the dead terrorist, who fight for Sharia Law in the West, who demean the government and the military in speech, film and radio, and who throw bottles and rocks at peace rallies - to remember that without their fathers and grandfathers before them, they wouldn't have the room to do what they do. And they shouldn't take advantage of that in such a way. After all, many of these fathers and grandfathers are still alive, and it hurts them. They are hurt by their lack of visitors in government-run veteran's hospitals. They are hurt by the words and deeds of those who feel that war is wrong, and that soldiers are bad. They are hurt by Farenheit 9/11, and by John Kerry's discarded war medals.

So for all the men who fought all those years ago, and for the men and women who fight on today, thank you. I have not forgotten.

Please, click here to view the names of those who have given their lives in our current fight for freedom, the war in Iraq.

The 75-year-old, who dominated Palestinian politics for 40 years, died at 0330 (0230GMT) on Thursday.

It has been a long couple of weeks for Arafat, the Palestinians, the Iraelis, and world peace as a whole. And now the wait is over. In a way, I feel sorry for the way the old man died, like an unwanted patriarch, his family squabbling over his fortunes, and his partners planning his burial before his heart stopped. Certain news reports I've been following over the last several hours had stated that the funeral would be set for Friday. The reason I found this sad is that I read these reports about two hours before he died. I admit to writing my father's obituary while sitting in the hospital with him the night he died, but I had the good graces to leave the time/date blank until he was cold.

That having been said, I didn't come here to romanticize a man who is responsible for some of the most heinous acts of violence against the Jews in the Middle East since Ramses II. The actions of the PLO and it's various factions have been despicable at best, and with Arafat's death, perhaps the world now has an opportunity to put this ugliness in the past. I will leave that kind of romantic gushing to CNN, who makes it sound like Mickey Mouse has died.

I am not the sort of person who would do a dance on his grave or anything, but I am glad that a miserable tyrant such as Arafat is no longer there to stir new generations to the kind of fever pitch of violence that we have seen over too many decades of his rule. I will not bid that he rest in peace, for there are too many lives burdening his soul. Too many people have died at his command for his soul to rest, wherever he is. There will not be 72 virgins waiting for him. Most likely there will be hundreds of dead Israelis, on a burned-out bus, waiting to cart him to Hell. He had a chance to make his peace with them, he was even given an award for thinking about it, but his actions led only to death and destruction. I don't hope that he rots and burns in hell, but somehow, I know that will be his fate. I wish him luck.

The diagnosis of the day is liver failure. Not something I would wish on anyone, even a radical Islamic terrorist, since I watched my father die of it nearly a decade ago. However, if I had been given the choice between my father or a radical Islamic terrorist dying like this, I would have had to say bye-bye Arafat.

Yasser Arafat lay critically ill with liver failure on Sunday and his condition was getting no better, a Palestinian official said, as Palestinian leaders adopted in his absence a plan to restore order in their areas.

Israel completed preparations to bury the Palestinian president, should he die, in the Gaza Strip -- a move that would contradict Arafat's stated desire to be buried in Jerusalem.

It should say something about the life a man has lived, when he is to be denied the choice of final resting place. Jerusalem, usually so accommodating in situations such as this, will not have him. I compare it to the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris that has been trying to evict Jim Morrison since the day he moved in, in an effort to reduce the detritus and trouble left behind by his fans.

Ironically, it is France who is footing the bill for Arafat's medical care. And no one in the country seems to think there is anything wrong with that.

The French government (almost a third of the population in France are the government, by the way) is trying to combat anti-Semitism with ads portraying all of us as the children of Jews, which we are. But this is nothing more than lip service if they can turn around and extend hospitality to the enemy of Israel, and do it with taxes paid by Jewish citizens.

American Jews, however, are not so silent with their opions on harboring Arafat.

In an unprecedented and extraordinary attack on France, the American Board of Rabbis has demanded a worldwide ban on French products.

The New York-based association which promotes Jewish unity abroad voted unanimously to call on Jewish people around the world to boycott everything French: goods, services, and even the language.

The board is outraged at France's providing hospital treatment for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who it describes as a "master terrorist", responsible for "the murder of thousands of infants, children, women, and men."

Association President, Rabbi Mordechai Yitzchok Friedman, said "France's harboring of Arafat, is consistent with its tradition of anti-Semitism and anti-American activities."

The Rabbi said the hosting of Yasser Arafat was an act of terrorism and was in breach of the U.S.'s Global Anti-Semitism Bill, under which the U.S. State Department is to monitor global anti-Semitism and annually rate countries on their treatment of Jews.

To treat a man with proper Western medical care is not the issue here. They are treating him on the hospitality of the house. Chirac is trying to send some kind of political message that is supposed to make him look generous, and remind us all that medicine transcends borders. However, in the eyes of most Jews, and in my eyes as well, the message he is sending is that he cares not for the wishes of 585,000 of his taxpayers. Why should he? When Muslims hold the largest share of the population in France, at 25%, it makes the Jews insignificant. Again.

World War II saw Jews stripped of their belongings, their gold and silver used to pay for the trains and machinery that would ultimately lead to their deaths. Now it's just called taxation.

And yet, the French call Bush the new Hitler? I think not.

John Kerry and the Democratic Party have had a bad week. Kerry flip-flopped his way to defeat, as we all hoped he would, but here's something the Kerry/Edwards team couldn't have seen coming.

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of John Edwards, has breast cancer.

This post is not going to be funny, or detracting. Instead, I am going to add another reason why I am glad the Democrats did not win the election: Because Mrs Edwards needs her husband right now.

Thursday night, the Edwards were in Washington, D.C. where they are awaiting further test results that will dictate the course of her treatment. But aides say both Mrs. Edwards and her doctors are optimistic that this breast cancer is beatable.

Ginsberg said spirits are high at the Edwards household. "Everybody feels good about it, that this is beatable," he said.

Edwards, who leaves his North Carolina Senate seat in January, said in a statement, "Elizabeth is as strong a person as I've ever known. Together, our family will beat this."

Good luck to the Edwards family.

Conservative party leader Stephen Harper has offered to provide the Canadian flags to the Legion branches in Quebec, after the Bloc Quebecois refused.

John Hill, vice-president of Richmond's Royal Canadian Legion branch, said Thursday night he had received a call from Harper's office telling him the branch would be getting 10 flags in time for their ceremony. "I said I would be glad to accept them," Hill said, adding Harper was also going to send a letter of commendation to the branch.

Hill said the flag flap had gotten a lot of media attention after it was reported the area's Bloc Quebecois MP has refused to provide Canadian flags to veterans for Remembrance Day services.

Hill said Thursday he was told providing the flags would be in direct conflict with the Bloc's primary goal of Quebec sovereignty.

The emphasis is mine. I realize that the Bloc desperately want Quebec out of Canada, but until that time comes, they should have a little respect for the soldiers who liberated France. France, for chrissakes!

Of course, the French, as we know, don't seem to have respect for soldiers of any kind. Except maybe the Germans and the warriors for Allah.

There are conflicting reports that Yasser Arafat is dead. All the major networks and news providers agree that he is fighting for his life at this time.

Anxious Palestinian leaders held an emergency meeting in the West Bank on Thursday. Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said top officials were in touch with Arafat's hospital every 30 minutes to check on his condition.

"The Palestinian leadership is in constant meeting to follow up on the president's health," Shaath said from Ramallah, where leaders of the PLO and Arafat's Fatah movement were meeting.

A prolonged Arafat incapacitation or death could have profound impact on the Middle East. There are fears of unrest among Palestinian factions, which Arafat, viewed as a national symbol by even some who opposed him, was largely able to prevent. Furthermore, chaos in the West Bank and Gaza could make any cooperation with Israel even more difficult.

On the other hand, Israel and the United States have in recent years shunned Arafat as a terrorist and an obstacle to peace, and his replacement by a new leadership could open the door to renewed peace talks. Such a scenario could affect Israel's current plans to pull soldiers and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in a unilateral move not coordinated with the Palestinians.

CNN currently reports that Arafat is slipping in and out of conciousness.

As if today could actually get any better, I'm hearing early reports that Arafat's health is deteriorating. I can't find a credible source to quote yet (although BBC World News was where I first heard it, I couldn't find it on their website), but I'll keep on top of this.

What an amazing day!

Congratulations Mr President. Enjoy the next 4 years. 

President Bush declared victory in his race for re-election Wednesday, telling his cheering supporters that "America has spoken."

"America has spoken, and I'm humbled by the trust and the confidence of my fellow citizens," Bush said. "With that trust comes a duty to serve all Americans. And I will do my best to fulfill that duty every day as your president."

Bush and Kerry can duke it out over Ohio till the sun comes up on the 11th day after the election (or whatever the provisional ballot rule is in Ohio). I am going to bed. I'll catch up tomorrow, if there's anything to catch up with.

The early results are promising, with Bush in the lead at 52%. Bush has officially won 17 states, and Kerry 11. We're still waiting to hear about Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Surprisingly, Bush is in the lead in Michigan, a smaller swing state.

We're popping popcorn and mixing Cosmopolitans. Jon Stewart is about to come on.

I'll be back.

UPDATE 10:29pm

Bush at 193 electoral votes, Kerry at 112, where he has been for over an hour now. I'm sure that will change when California gets counted.

UPDATE 10:53pm

Kerry won California, as expected, and now sits at 178. Bush has moved ahead to 210. Yikes! As I wtite this, Kerry has been given Pensylvania, so he's at 199. This is now officially a close race! Bush is going to have to get Florida and Ohio. He looks good for Florida, but Miami-Dade is saying it could take till Thursday to count their votes.

UPDATE 11:12pm

I'd like to correct the above information. It comes from CBC, which is Canadian, and can afford to make projections that the American stations learned not to make after 2000. For now, on the American networks, Kerry is at 188, and Bush at 197. I just prefer watching the Canadian network coverage, because there are fewer half-dead talking heads.

The Jon Stewart special was a disappointment. Very boring.

UPDATE 11:34pm

Although the numbers on CNN haven't changed (still at Kerry 188/Bush 197), I was checking out some of the unconfirmed returns for the uncounted states. Looks good for Bush.

New Mexico: Bush 151,120 / Kerry 135,208
Ohio (IMPORTANT SWING STATE): Bush 1,752,395 / Kerry 1,620,131
Florida (IMPORTANT SWING STATE): Bush 3,552,627 / Kerry 3,228,834

They're saying that there are still line-ups for voting in Ohio, because the rules are that if you are in line when the polls close, you still have the right to vote. so technically they can't call the vote in that state till everyone is done voting.

UPDATE 11:45pm

MSNBC is reporting my earlier numbers of Bush 210 and Kerry 199. Maybe they just want it to be over so they can go home before the second week of December. Unlike last time.

UPDATE 12:11am

Bush has Florida and its 27 votes - officially. Bush is at 234, Kerry at 188. It all rest in Ohio now. I'm never going to bed, am I?

UPDATE 12:22am

Looks like Bush is getting Colorado at 9 votes, as expected. Montana, too, at 3 votes. Someone get me a coffee, please - they're still counting Ohio...

UPDATE 12:42am

Kerry has just been given the 7 votes in Oregon. It was expected. CNN is drawing pictures over a map of Ohio counties. Dear God, please bring Fox News to Canada. CNBC is speaking in foreign languages, and the actual Fox Channel is showing Celebrity Justice - very important stuff. CBC is projecting too early, and CNN is so, so, so boring. How long has Larry King been dead? When will he have the good grace to fall down and let us bury him?

UPDATE 12:53am

Bush gets 3 in Alaska.

UPDATE 1:35am

Kerry has been given 11 votes in Washington State, bringing the tally up to Kerry 211, and Bush 249. Come on, Ohio!! RightGirl wants to go to bed!

Brilliant! 

An outspoken Dutch film-maker was shot and stabbed to death yesterday by a Dutch-Moroccan man in apparent reprisal for his campaign against Islam, sending shock waves through a country that exalts freedom of speech.

Theo van Gogh, 47, a provocateur and enfant terrible of Dutch cinema, was ambushed by a bearded man in Arab clothing as he cycled through the heart of Amsterdam.

Van Gogh (great-great-grand-nephew of Vincent) had directed a film portraying the repression of women in Islam, and was openly condemned for it in Holland.

In footage intended to infuriate Muslims, he depicted a voluptuous girl in a transparent gown with verses of the Koran painted across her naked chest, back, stomach and thighs - ostensibly to dramatise the humanity of the oppressed female beneath the Muslim veil.

It followed van Gogh's book, Allah Knows Better, in which he savaged Dutch imams for advocating wife-beating and voicing vicious homophobia at mosques in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and The Hague.

You might remember a couple of years ago, the right-wing, anti-immigration politician, Pim Fortuyn, was murdered in a similar fashion.

Both had made a career of ridiculing political correctness and taunting Islam. Fortuyn's death - the country's first political assassination in over 400 years - was viewed by most Dutch as an aberration.

I guess it's not so unusual in "tolerant" countries after all.

I saw Team America: World Police yesterday. I found it funny, although my (capital L) Liberal best friend didn't see it the same way. It has occurred to me, and not for the first time, that conservatives are more likely to laugh at themselves than liberals are. In scenes where the Americans are trying to save the world, but blowing up national treasures like the Eiffel Tower, liberals guffaw and say how true it is. On the flipside, when Michael Moore is described as a "Fat, Socialist Weasel", liberals get huffy. I got the jokes on both sides.

Even George Bush is a caricature of himself. He's a hillbilly because it's part of his schtick. Terrorism, wars, and elections are not jokes, but humans need to laugh to keep themselves grounded. Otherwise they become bitter. They hate too much. Laughter helps us keep perspective. Throughout history, Jews have laughed at themselves. They are by far the best comedians on earth, despite the torture they have endured through the centuries. Are they laughing because they are God's chosen people, or do they still feel God within them because they choose to remain light of heart?

Tonight is the election. I was planning on going out, but was struck with an extrememly painful case of pinkeye this morning. So tonight, my one good eye will be focused on the Jon Stewart/Daily Show special presentation of the election. Why? Because even though Jon Stewart is a Democrat, at least he's willing to laugh at the foibles of both parties. And that makes him more fair and square than the NBC's and CNN's of the world. And after all, isn't that the freedom that makes America so great?

Fuck yeah!