Here is something I wrote, along with my colleague Phil Hahn, for CTV.ca. It reviews the first half of Election 2006.

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Jack Layton's campaign bus made a left-hand-turn in front of me yesterday! Which somehow seems appropriate.

Was out to look at the lights on Candy Cane Lane in Edmonton last night. Saw some Anne McLellan lawn signs.

Landslide Annie's smilin' face was very prominent, as was her name, but her party's name appeared to be in the fine, fine print -- if it was there at all.

Who is she running for again? :^)

However, it was dark, so if I didn't see the word 'Liberal', it may have been an oversight on my part.

Update:

Saw the sign in daylight. 'Liberal' was down in the right-hand corner in type about one-quarter the size of her last name.

Now, when I arrived back in Toronto, as I drove through the streets, I saw the signs of Liberal incumbent Tony Ianno, who has held Trinity-Spadina since 1993.

Ianno still got top billing, but 'Liberal' occupied the bottom third of the sign.

What a difference a province makes! :)

There is actually a place called Redneck's Haircuts.

Specializes in either mullets or buzzcuts, I would presume.

A bit of a catch-up post (mainly for personal note-taking purposes) on Dubya's speech from Sunday and his assertion on Monday that he would keep up with the spying on Americans because it could save millions and jillions of lives.

Whitehouse.gov: Transcript of Bush's speech

NYT: Asking for patience, Bush cites progress in Iraq

NYT: In Sunday speech, Bush is more humble but firm (analysis)

BBC: Bush defends phone-tapping

Somewhat bizarrely, from my perspective, is the fact that Globe and Mail columnist and editorial page editor Marcus Gee spanked Dubya over this one. It's in Wednesday's paper.

CIA Chief Admits To Torture After 6-hour Beating, Electrocution

Rove Implicated in Santa Identity Leak

I'm on a bit of a Christmas break -- one that will also be from blogging.  Not entirely, but I won't be posting very regularly from now until early next week.

So whether you're obsessively addicted to this blog (a small, elite few, I must say), a casual visitor or whether you tripped over it by accident while Googling various pejoratives, please have either a Merry Christmas, a holly, jolly Christmas, a white Christmas, a rainbow Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Festivus, happy holidays or simply enjoy some outstanding bargain-hunting and U.S. college football bowl games on Boxing Day.

Whatever. I don't judge at this blog.

Well, actually, I do, but I want to make a show of not doing so at this oh-so-special time of year.

Slate contributor Daniel Gross takes a less-than-sympathetic look at the economic plight of New York-area journalists (H/T to Kevin).

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Is your young daughter torturing her Barbie dolls? Don't worry, she's not turning into the next Eileen Wuornos; what she is doing is perfectly normal.

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This is a catch-up post from the weekend, but if you didn't hear about the Santa rampage in Auckland, N.Z., please, read on! There's some new stuff too!

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One cynical definition of news is anything that scares mothers. If that's true, this NYT story about teenagers who make money selling images of themselves online is a doozie.

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Chile is likely to elect a socialist leader in January. Bolivia just did. This NYT story talks about why Latin American is shifting leftward again.

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Sean Fine, 9:22 p.m.: Duceppe and Layton are like flat characters in a play. Every time they walk out on stage, they say the say damn thing. And the audience laughs, because flat characters are innately funny. But who wants to vote for such flat characters?

Mary Janigan, 9:23 p.m.: Do you think there is a category of Canadian that has been overlooked tonight in terms of what will be done for them?

Sean Fine, 9:23 p.m.: 45-year-old journalists.

Marcus Gee, 9:24 p.m.: Still, it's sort of nice having an acutal leftist on the scene, such a rare sort of character in today's world. It's like seeing a man with a top hat walking down the street, an amusing anachronism.

Full exchange here.

Jack Anderson, one of the great muckrakers in the history of American journalism, passed away Saturday at age 83.

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Artists, architects, fashion designers ... New York used to be a magnet for them. But as the cost of real estate and health care skyrockets, and other locales are willing to cut them a deal, many are fleeing the metropolis.

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How can one determine when sauerkraut has gone bad?

Taste or smell don't appear to be accurate indicators.

Dubya says he authorized the spying order, and is mucho pisso-d at those who spilled the beans to the New York Times.

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Freshly washed hardwood floors are slippery and dangerous. Hardwood floors that go long periods without seeing a mop are not.

Draw your own conclusions.

This NYT editorial argues that U.S. troops and national security agents need moral clarity, not weasel words.

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Douglas Bandow, a senior scholar at the Cato Institute and a columnist for the Copley News Service, has resigned after it became public he took money from Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for stories favourable to Abramoff's clients.

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According to an email I got earlier this week, D.H. Lawrence once said this about his fellow Englishmen:

Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering palsied pulse-less lot that make up England today.  ... God, how I hate them! God curse them, funkers. God blast them, wishwash. Exterminate them, slime.

Actually, the author of Lady Chatterley's Lover and other books of renown walked the walk. He spent most of his life as an expat, dying in 1930 at age 45.

With the death of singer Kirsty MacColl, the legendary Irish punk-traditionalists The Pogues were looking for a new guest singer.

In this story for The Independent, accordionist James Fearnley puts us at the scene (H/T to Kevin).

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The spirit of the season descends over a bank ATM lineup.

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Richard Gizbert, a Canadian-born journalist let go by ABC News after he refused assignments to Iraq, has won his wrongful dismissal case.

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Editor and Publisher says it's a possible first for a major NYT story: The paper's website has linked to external bloggers' comments about its big scoop on the Bush adminstration allowing some domestic spying by the NSA without a warrant.

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According to the BBC, some U.S. senators are not pleased with the Bush administration to allow to National Security Agency to conduct some domestic spying without a warrant.

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If this story is true, then maybe the Iraqis really aren't ready to take over responsibility yet for their own security.

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