Peter Donolo, former communications director for Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and Michel Gratton, who held the same job for Tory Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, will hold forth on globeandmail.com on Friday starting at noon EDT.

Update:

Thursday's globeandmail.com story on the PMO-PPG feud attracted 302 comments. A measly 217 people  commented after the Friday follow-up story. And only 97 commented on Friday after the Donolo-Gratton chat.

So I guess interest is dying down. :^)

However, the Globe also ran an editorial and two op-ed pieces: One by Jeffrey Simpson and one ny former press secretary Mark Entwhistle.

So they must figure somebody's interested in this stuff.

The Edmonton Oilers did not administer the coup de grace to the Anaheim Mighty Ducks tonight.

Far from it.

In fact, 6-3 from it.

My head is quite fogged right now by multiple pints of Steamwhistle, so I can offer nothing more substantive than "the better team one won tonight."

Well, the luckier team too. For example, one Ducks goal trickled in after hitting an Oiler defenceman's skate first.

However, take  that away, and the Ducks were still the better team -- tonight. They fired 25 shots at Oilers goalie Dwayne Roloson in the first period alone.

The Oil put themselves into three, two-men-down situations in the first. They were probably lucky to escape being down 3-0. And while they came back a bit in the second, the Oil looked sluggish in the third.

Anyway, the one day off I have this week to watch hockey like a civilized human being and the Oil loses! Agghhh!!!

An NYT story looks at the current crop of college interns who head off to corporate jobs -- and then blog about what goes on behind closed doors.

An Alternet article on the growing number of "you be the editor" news websites.

Susan Delacourt, the Toronto Star's bureau chief, had a note to Zerby on the PMO-PPG imbroglio turned into a posting.

Maclean's magazine columnist Paul Wells reprinted part of a late 2003 speech he gave to civil servants. You can find it here.

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean has a "scheduling conflict" and won't be attending this fall's Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner, CTV is reporting.

Last week, officials in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office indicated he might not be going. Harper, of course, is in a righteous snit with the gallery these days.

Sigh. Nobody wants to party with the pundits any more. :^)

My pal Deborah Jones blogged on the Harper-PPG controversy over at Canadian Journalist.

Here's an excerpt:

 The absurd tug of war with Canada's Prime Minister's Office is simply a part of a much bigger picture. As much as the idea appals any professional journalist, walking out of a press conference with the prime minister is the right thing to do. I'm on side with Yves Malo, a TVA reporter and president of the press gallery, who said yesterday, "We can't accept that the prime minister's office would decide who gets to ask questions . . . Does that mean that when there's a crisis they'll only call upon journalists they expect softball questions from?"
I support Malo, and say that reporters who stay and play by the prime minister's rules are betraying not just their colleagues, but our craft.

 Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a London TV station that he's going to bypass the national media and speak mainly with local outlets from now on.