Warren Kinsella -- political spinmeister, author, blogger, middle-aged punk rocker -- can now add media columnist for the National Post to his list of accomplishments.

His first column is about the latest death rumours hitting the Post.

For whatever reason, the paper's continued unprofitability periodically triggers whispers the Aspers are about to shut it down.

But after reading Warren's column, I am now convinced the N-P is here forever! Or until it's not. Whichever comes first.

Ho hum, a lazy day off.

Get up late. Blog. Drink orange juice. Blog some more. Shower, put clothes on, run errands. Stop for something to eat and read the Globe.

At this point, in terms of inadvertently (and unavoidably) overheard conversations, things took a turn for the explicit.

Four young women, about 20 to 21 years old by my guesstimate, were sitting about 30 feet away. There were about six other occupied tables around them.

From topics like friendship and favourite teachers, the conversation eventually moved (and loudly) into penis size and terminology.

The topics ranged from length ("it's really bad when it hits your cervix"; "Oh yeah," chimmed in another, with a grimace. "Jab, jab. Jab.") to absence thereof combined with a lack of rigidity at the moment of truth ("Oh, that's okay, little fella!" -- which had the table screaming with laughter).

They also found it funny when one said she had a Brit boyfriend, and she called his private member a "dink." "'It's naugh'a dink!'" she yelled, doing her best imitation of a drunken, outraged, loud, young Brit.

Personally, I always thought that was more bar talk kinda stuff, but perhaps social mores are changing.

Friday bonus: Here's the Frankalized version.

The Globe and Mail's Mark McKinnon files from Beirut, where he says the vast majority of Muslims inflamed by the infamous cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad have never seen them and, in some cases, are being inflamed by things that are no more than rumour.

A Muslim leader in Britain says the Prophet Muhammad cartoons aren't free speech, but hate speech against Muslims. I disagree.

Filmmaker Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi on the Shiite Muslim festival of Ashura, which marks the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

From Reporters Sans Frontieres:

Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they’re tremendous tools of freedom of expression.

Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.

Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.

Handbook 1 (1.68 Mb)

Handbook 2 (.pdf, 3.46 Mb)

Reporters Sans Frontieres claims that Yahoo! gave the Chinese government information that led to the arrest of two Chinese writers since 2003 and called on the Internet giant to say which writers it has identified to the government there.

Turkey, one of the most rigidly secular Islamic states and one that would like to join the European Union, has plenty of Muslim citizens who are angry with the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.

In a strange way, the crisis over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons may help Denmark get to know its Muslim community better.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on integrating Muslims into his society.