Barrett Hooper sayeth: "The Hour's weak and whiny host can't sustain CBC's hipster entry."

Here's a news release from Sun Media announcing an editiorial re-org of sorts:

Charles LeBlanc, who regularly buttonholes cabinet ministers in Fredericton, N.B. to interview them for his blog, found himself charged with obstruction last year following a demonstration. He plans to use a 'freedom of the press' defence based on the fact he was doing journalism at the time.

Real estate prices in New York City aren't what they used to be, but then again they are dropping across the U.S.. And with lots of of condos about to hit the market, developers are are getting more "creative" about selling them.

Flavor Flav, one component of the seminal hip hop group Public Enemy, has used reality TV -- namely his hit VH1 show Flavor of Love -- to power his own career. But some are asking whether he's treading too close to the line between satire and the perpetuation of racial stereotypes.

The NYT has obtained a classified briefing for U.S. Central Command that suggests Iraq is edging towards chaos.

The less educated among us -- ok, like me, for example -- may well ask, "no shit?"

The NYT and CBS News have a new poll that says Americans expect the Democrats to "substantially reduce or end U.S. military involvement in Iraq" if they take control of Congress on Nov. 7.

And just as surprisingly, they think Republicans will try to maintain or increase troop levels if they win the midterms.

According to the Delphic Oracle known as Wikipedia, right-wing pundit and sometime presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan first coined the phrase "Soviet Canuckistan" (which I use below) in 2002 to describe our home and native land.

While that phrase has always made me smile, there are some obvious problems.

For one thing, as we move forward in time, more and more people will have no clue there was once a Soviet Union (the end of history and all that).

The Canuckistan part still has some legs, IMO.

However, with the "new government of Canada," we're not a bunch of over-taxed, pot-possessing, gay-marriage-positive hedonists out to bang 14-year-olds any more. Nope, we are sober family values types who work hard, pay our taxes and play by the rules. So maybe it doesn't fit after all.

I don't often beg for comments, but if somebody -- anybody -- has a more au courant idea for an amusing replacement for Soviet Canuckistan, I really, really want to hear from you.

There may even be a prize involved. I'm thinking a really cheap keychain with some sort of Toronto motif (if you've walked Yonge St. between Gerrard and Dundas, you know what I mean). But don't think about the material reward; think of the exposure.

Yesterday, I noted an NYT story about falling newspaper circulation in the U.S.. Don't be smug, Soviet Canuckistani newspaper people: You're losing ground too, although your Web audiences are picking up.

Oh, and the National Post? Down 10 per cent weekdays and 11 per cent on weekends.

Most, but not all newspapers in Pakistan think the government was right to act when it leveled a madrassa on the Pakistan border, killing 80 people. They do have one request: Show some evidence it was a militants' training camp.

More at this BBC article.

On Nov. 1, 1996, al-Jazeera -- the Arab satellite TV network based in Qatar -- hit the airwaves. Since then, it has built an audience of 40 million Arabs. Its long-awaited English channel starts up on Nov. 15.