From UK's The Prospect: Communism is the only political system to have created its own international brand of comedy. The standard interpretation is that communist jokes were a form of resistance. But they were also a safety valve for the regimes and jokes were told by the rulers as well as the ruled—even Stalin told some good ones. (Thanks, Kevin!)

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Down in Vermont, people were asking why Chris Graff, the state's Associated Press bureau chief, got whacked by the news co-operative.

Here's the termination letter sent to Graff by Larry Loughlin, Graff's supervisor at AP.

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Dick "Aim for the Face" Cheney was in Kazakhstan Friday, and called for new routes to export energy commodities that didn't require crossing Russian soil.

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Veteran South Asian journalist Ahmed Rashid for the Beeb on why relations between Pakistan and the U.S. are the worst they've been in years.

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It answers questions like why the U.S. State Dept. doesn't consider the Taliban to be a terrorist organization.

On College St.:

"I don't have any money because I work less than everybody else."

-- A candid slacker

"That is so fucking Minority Report."

-- A woman in her early 20s referring to one of the city's new trash bins.

Tavola Calda, one of my favourite Italian restos on College St., is no more. It's being replaced by a sushi joint.

Tavola was great. Laid-back atmosphere, terrific, flavourful southern Italian food and reasonably priced to boot. I'm sad to see it go.

The second disappearance is the Rui Gomes Portuguese butcher shop.

While I didn't patronize it, the shop had the most eccentric window display in Little Italy: A number of frolicking, anatomically correct male pigs (the guy must have got complaints from time to time, because he would sometimes position the pigs in a more modest manner).

Instead, the space will soon be home to something called the 'Boulevard Cafe' (sounds very one-of-a-kind).

A unique bit of College St.'s character has been lost, although I understand not everyone might mourn the passing of Rui Gomes for the same reasons I do. :)

As I'm getting on the streetcar, I open my wallet and flash my pass as I've done hundreds, if not thousands of times before.

This time, however, it would not do.

I start walking back to a seat, but the operator calls out "Sir? Sir??" I return to see what the issue is.

"Can I show you something?" she said in that tone that the really smart people reserve for the learning-disabled.

"It's really important that you pull the pass all the way out of your wallet so the operator can see this," she said, rapping the giant As (for 'adult') on the bottom of the card, still with the tone.

"OK," I said with a shrug. "But this has never been an issue with any other operator. Like -- ever."

"Well, some operators like to take chances," she said smugly.

"Yeah, like every other operator in the TTC,"  I responded in a surprisingly muted WTFF tone, not quite believing I was having this conversation.

I'm not going to amend my transit-pass-showing habit just to see if this ever happens again in my lifetime. What silly bureaucratic nonsense.