This film, about the dirtiest joke ever, has opened in New York and will be coming to Toronto on Aug. 12.

   more »

From ultrahip to uber-midmarket: Leah McLaren and Tralee Pearce check out Dairy Queen and Kensington Organic Ice Cream.

Kensington is owned and operated by Brad Kurtenbach. He doesn't use sugar for flavour. If you want a ginger cone, that puppy is loaded with ginger (I almost choked on a test spoonful; tasting is encouraged).

<update>I would be remiss in noting that my tasting companion one May day was fellow blogger Sarah Marchildon, who was visiting from Vancouver. She went through a test spoon of ginger like it was vanilla, leaving me feeling embarrassed.

As evidence of Ms. Marchildon's generous spirit, she bought me a cone as a celebration for this blog's 1,000th post. It's now over 1,500. </update>

I can vouch for the strawberry and chai flavours. I adore the coconut-banana one from last year, but I haven't seen it there this year.

Here's one flavour mentioned in the Globe piece that I've gotta try:

 Chocolate with sugary swirls of cayenne and butter throughout. Hot, yet cold.

To find Brad's stand, it's just south of Baldwin on Kensington on the west side. If you've gone to the TD bank machine entrance, you've gone too far. :)

The Globe also had good things to say about Kawartha Dairy ice cream, available at Tequila Bookworm on Queen West, for starters.

But no discussion of T.O. ice cream would be complete without a touting of the Big Chill (Manning and College), the gelateria in the Corso Italia nabe (a few blocks west of Dufferin on St. Clair), another ice cream joint on St. Clair a block or two west of Bathurst (north side) and a joint way out on the Danforth between Main and Vic Park (south side).

Two women, approximately mid to upper 20s, are walking westward on Bloor Street near Christie station.

One says to the other with a matter-of-fact shrug: "Frankly, I just get more satisfaction from fucking men."

That news was received with a reciprocal shrug.

An NYT feature looks at why young British Muslim men are killing themselves and others in reaction to conflicts thousands of miles away from them.

   more »

Javed Akbar, director of outreach at the Pickering Islamic Centre, notes that at the beginning of the 20th Century, Muslim intellectuals were in love with the West. So where did all the goodwill go?

   more »

One common link between many young extremists is the search for a commanding figure in their lives -- a figure that embues their lives with some dignity and meaning.

   more »

Stephen Holden of the New York Times:

"Must Love Dogs" is an Internet dating comedy so weightless that it makes a trifle like "You've Got Mail" look like Chekhov.

Sadly, that's the only great line in the review.

The Museum of the American West is hosting a show called "Once Upon a Time in Italy: The Westerns of Sergio Leone."

   more »

The NYT looks at the scourge of corruption in Latin America and claims it is threatening democratic development there.

   more »

Lachlan Murdoch has left News Corp., but Rupert still has one son to go -- James.

   more »

Muckraking columnist Jim DeFede of the Miami Herald took a call Wednesday from a well-known Florida politician -- just before that politician shot himself in the Herald's lobby.

DeFede recorded it without getting the permission of Arthur E. Teele Jr., in violation of Florida state law.

By late Wednesday, DeFede -- a talented columnist but bit of a dissident within the Herald newsroom -- was unemployed.

   more »

The Russian government summoned a senior U.S. diplomatic official in Moscow to vent after an interview with Shamil Besayev, architect of the 2004 Beslan massacre, on ABC's Nightline.

   more »

The NYT's Bob Herbert on why Dubya isn't about to cut and run from Iraq any time soon.

   more »

On Wednesday night, one 20-something woman told her friend outside the Bathurst subway station: "My first priority is to solve all my emotional problems."

If you're wondering about the headline ...

Jean Charles de Menezes is to be buried today in his home town of Gonzaga.

   more »

At least seven French citizens have died fighting for al Qaeda, Nicolas Sarkozy, France's interior minister, told a French newspaper.

Another 10 are known to be in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said, according to this BBC story.

ABC News broadcast footage of an unexploded terrorist bomb and the inside of a bombed out London tube car on Tuesday night -- after the London Metropolitan Police asked them not to.

   more »

Went for lunch today, and while walking through Nathan Phillips Square, saw three young women chatting on a blanket spread out over concrete.

One mildly unusual thing about that was the sign on the blanket, which read "Two friendly therapists!" To their credit, they did look friendly.

They invited people to talk, get help with their problems and, perhaps most importantly of all, "be heard."

No indication of cost, but it didn't strike me as being the most confidential setting in which to vent about your wounded inner child.

Relatives of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian man mistaken for a terrorist and executed by London police, wasn't wearing a bulky jacket nor did he jump a ticket barrier, say his relatives.

   more »

Some good news from the world of armed insurgencies. The IRA says it has abandoned armed struggle and will now only pursue its goals through political means.

A transit advocate makes the point that terrorist threats aside, public transit is still the safest way to travel.

   more »

Newspaper readers in 12 U.S. cities jonesing for a fix of their daily Doonesbury cartoon were left sadly disappointed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

   more »

A Dutch court sentenced Mohammed Bouyeri to life Tuesday for the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.

At least one columnist -- the Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee -- has said fanatics like Bouyeri will hate us no matter what we do. To which I say, "And his point is ...?"

   more »

This BBC story talks about how the British government is frustrated tht it can't go about tossing mouthy Islamist imams out of the country with impunity.

   more »

The NYT's Nicholas Kristoff scolds the U.S. media for paying more attention to Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise than Darfur.

   more »

From The Onion:

WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush officially responded to the latest round of London transit bombings Monday, challenging terrorists to "do their worst." Said Bush, in a televised statement from the Oval Office: "The proud and resilient people of London can take anything the forces of evil and cowardice can throw at them. They will never live in fear of you. Bring it on." Prime Minister Tony Blair thanked Bush for his comments, inviting him to visit London and ride the Underground in a show of solidarity.

Veteran journalist Ron Haggart, writing in Tuesday's Globe and Mail, opines that the news media "failed us miserably in the first days after the fatal shooting at London's Stockwell tube station."

Some of his criticisms deal with the nature of "objective" journalism -- and while chafing, methinks those constraints might be a good idea.

   more »

The NYT's Paul Krugman described those two factors as key to a Toyota decision to build an assembly plant in Ontario instead of Alabama.

   more »

A round-up of China-related stuff from the past week.

   more »

Telesur, which hopes to become a state-owned CNN of Latin America, had its first broadcast on Sunday.

   more »

So who torqued the Iraq police recruitment story and who didn't? You be the judge! I give you the first seven grafs of each story.

   more »

This is a slightly belated birthday wish: "Honest" Ed Mirvish turned 91 on Monday, I believe, and an official birthday party was held Sunday at his department store at Bathurst and Bloor.

Here's why I think it's worth acknowledging the birthday of someone I've never met.

   more »

Olivier Roy, author of Globalized Islam, offers an explanation of what motivates the jihadists -- although I find it incomplete.

Essentially, Roy says the roots of global Islamic terror go beyond the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine and South Asia, which is true, but then he curiously downplays their aggravating effect in the current context.

   more »

Not so long ago, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said the Iraq insurgency was in its "last throes." He appears to have been very, very, wrong about that.

   more »

Cyrus Kar's plans to film part of a documentary about Cyrus The Great (no relation) in Iraq landed him, through bad luck, in a military prison for almost two months.

   more »

The Globe and Mail's Stephanie Nolen goes to Somalia to give us a real-world example of what a failed state looks like.

   more »

More evidence of U.S. tolerance for dissent: Five Raging Grannies in Tuscon, Az. have been charged with tresspassing (along with four journalists) for entering a U.S. army recruiting station and asking to be sent to Iraq.

   more »

This is wrap-up post, looking at the latest London bombings and whether we can expect to see an attack like that here. The short answer? Yes.

   more »