The Associated Press, the world's largest news agency, decided to have some impish fun and not move any Paris Hilton stories for a week to see if anyone would suffer from withdrawal. The answer? Not really.

I found myself at Roncesvalles and Queen earlier today. There was but a white void where the sparkling, blue, sewage-and-dioxin-contaminated waters of Lake Ontario could normally be seen. Keep in mind you're only a few minute's walk from the lake at that vantage point.

The street cars were all getting jammed up at that critical intersection as the heavy snow iced up the streetcar tracks.

Ultimately, it proved faster to walk up Roncesvalles to Howard Park (about 20 minutes in normal times) to catch the eastbound 506 than to wait for the northbound streetcar. In any event, the one that passed me was simply too full to take on any more passengers.

At the turning point from Dundas West to get onto College, a streetcar had died, backing up yet more streetcars. There's a bit of a hill at that junction. One vehicle required a push to get up and into Dundas West's westbound lanes. It was a Toyota four-wheel-drive.

Clearly, this is going to be an excellent day and evening to stay indoors and off the roads.

And the freezing rain hasn't even started yet! :)

For more, read this Tyee article -- if you can handle the truth.

Democracy Now! talks to two representatives of the Union of Concerned Scientists about two studies the group did -- One on the muzzling of U.S. government climate scientists and the other on the efforts of ExxonMobil to control the debate.

In Seymour Hersh's latest article in the New Yorker, he writes that the Bush administration has indirectly bolstered Sunni Muslim groups that are sympathetic to al Qaeda as part of an effort to counter Iran's growing influence in the Middle East.

The Bush administration may have overestimated North Korea's progress on a uranium enrichment program, and that raises questions about the decision to confront that country back in 2002.