From globeandmail.com:

Here's the story link.

Besides the most perplexing headline, the Globe also had the most terrifying one today:

Plastics ingredient linked to smaller penises

Update

I checked back at 11:48 p.m. Duib was out, Dion was in. BTW, reporters generally don't write headlines.

The Globe and Mail's Graeme Smith talks with CBC Radio's Dispatches about his tour of duty in Afghanistan.

"It's been frightening, at a lot of times. My car has been followed -- repeatedly. I've been shot at, rocketed, mortared, hit by a suicide bomber -- lots of nasty stuff."

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From the NYT:

Georgia and its American backers, including the Republican and Democratic United States presidential contenders, have presented Georgia as a plucky little democracy in an unstable region, a country deserving of generous aid and NATO membership. But a growing number of critics inside and outside the country argue that it falls well short of Western democratic standards and cite a lack of press freedom as a glaring example.

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For the NYT story Global fears of a recession grow stronger:

When the White House brought out its $700 billion rescue plan two weeks ago, its sheer size was meant to soothe the global financial system, restoring trust and confidence. Three days after the plan was approved, it looks like a pebble tossed into a churning sea.

From CBC.ca:

Two things about the whole debacle are of interest. One is the matter of protecting writers' safety when villagers approach with torches and pitchforks. One of my employers immediately provided me with a security guard. I had offered to cancel a speech I was giving at a Catholic university in Canada - I didn't want to embarrass them - but they refused, on the grounds of free speech, and they had also liked the column.

The other matter is the vexed state of cyberspace. Online has brought instant media democratization as well as the erasure of national borders. And websites have not devised a way to keep online forums civilized. "There's no point debating anything online," writes the columnist Charlie Brooker. "You might as well hurl shoes in the air to knock clouds from the sky."

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper said something pretty damned similar back in April.

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CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition had a panel this morning on the climate crisis (which I sort of listened to in a sleepy haze after doing some Nuit Blanching).

The credit crisis in the United States has been building for years. I can remember having lunchtime conversations in years gone by marvelling at the reckless amounts of debt that Americans seemed prepared to carry and speculating this couldn't end well, yet there was little public discussion of the problem or about how policy-makers should respond.

Many commentators saluted the "resilience" of the U.S. consumer without noting that it was all being done with borrowed money.

And now, the bill is becoming due. Years of economic pain will be the likely result.

To my mind, we're running a climate deficit by pumping carbon into the atmosphere to keep today's economy propped up (in part so we can buy stuff we don't really need by using borrowed money). The longer we put off meaningful action on reducing emissions, the greater the bill will be -- and as this post shows, things are getting worse globally instead of better.

 Andrew Weaver, a prominent Canadian climate scientist, suggested during the Sunday's panel that maybe a mini-catastrophe might be needed to capture people's attention. Others have previously made that argument.

Think of it as having your credit card publicly rejected in a very crowded restaurant. Except if you use the European heat wave of 2003 as an example, about 35,000 people died. That's a tragedy, not just an embarrassment.

Unless the science is very, very wrong, we will have to deal with our climate crisis at some point. The question the world must ask itself is how bad does it wish things to get before acting in a collective, meaningful way.

From the NYT:

Ms. Mallick, Mr.  (CBC Ombudsman Vince) Carlin wrote, was unable to present evidence to support her suggestion that that Republican men were deficient sexually or that Ms. Palin’s supporters were “white trash.”

After receiving Mr. Carlin’s report, John Cruickshank, the publisher of CBC News, removed Ms. Mallick’s column from the network’s Web site (it is still available at www.heathermallick.ca) and promised in an online posting to improve the editing of opinion items.

Both Mr. Cruickshank and Mr. Carlin said that the column would have worked if it had been labeled as satire, but Ms. Mallick disagreed.

“It wasn’t satire though; it was straightforward political commentary, admittedly with jokes,” she said by e-mail. “I had no idea anyone would take the remark about sexually inadequate Republican men literally!”

In the movie Wall Street, financier Gordon Gecko lays out the game for struggling stockbroker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), who he is trying to seduce into breaking securities laws for him, after first thrashing Bud in squash. In the process, Gecko let Bud know that he knew a hot inside tip had Bud had given him originated with Bud's father:

The public is out there throwing darts at a board.

I don't throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things.

Read Sun Tzu's The Art of War: "'Every battle is won before it's ever fought.'" Think about it.

You're not as smart as I thought you were, Buddy boy. Ever wonder why fund managers can't beat the S&P 500? Because they're sheep -- and sheep get slaughtered.

I've been in this business since '69 (Note: The movie was released in late 1987). Most of these Harvard MBA types don't add up to dogshit. Give me guys that are poor, smart and hungry -- and no feelings. You win a few, you lose a few, but you keep on fighting. ...

Now you stop giving me information and start getting me some.

I've also got a post on the famous 'Greed is good' speech.

Here's a look I took at the challenges facing Ontario's economy, and what the various parties are proposing.

From the BBC:

Green groups have welcomed the creation of a new energy and climate department in Gordon Brown's government reshuffle.

Ed Miliband will head the new department, and will join his elder brother David around the Cabinet table.

Previously, the UK's energy policy and climate strategy has been divided between two separate government teams.

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From The Globe and Mail:

The commodities sector, which has been the main driver of Canada's economic strength and a buffer against the subprime woes of the United States, imploded yesterday, stoking fears that Canada can no longer outrun the global financial crisis.

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Man on Wire and Patti Smith: Dream of Life.

Times and whatnot at the Royal's MySpace page.

Here's my look at Oshawa riding from a few days ago.

Globe and Mail columnist Russell Smith wonders if CBC burbling about "diversity" and "accessibility" -- part of but not necessarily stemming exclusively from l'affaire Mallick -- is code for populist dumbing down and pandering to conservative critics.

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Heather Mallick has maintained she quit in a huff over principle when she ended her business relationship with the Globe and Mail on Dec. 1, 2005.

eFrank.ca has reposted some of its correspondence between Mallick and "Daphne Merkin" (a real New York writer, but that fact was initially unbeknownst to Frank in its sting correspondence with Mallick)  from those heady times between October and mid-November 2005 (sorry, it's paywalled).

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From the BBC:

The Central Asian state of Turkmenistan has adopted a new constitution that supporters say will promote multi-party politics and the market economy.

The measure was passed unanimously by the People's Council, a group of 2,500 tribal elders and local lawmakers. ...

The energy-rich former Soviet nation has hinted it wants stronger ties with the West and to open up to investment. ...

However, exiles and observers said the measures were superficial, leaving President (Kerbanguly) Berdymukhamedov free to rule by decree.

From the BBC:

An appeals court in Egypt has ordered newspaper editor Ibrahim Issa to be jailed for two months for publishing rumours about the president's health.

The ruling reduces the sentence of the editor of al-Dustour from the six months imposed at his earlier trial.

Mr Issa said the verdicts were unjustified, and showed that Egypt was inhibiting freedom of expression.

The government says the false rumours about the health of Hosni Mubarak damaged Egypt's economy.

From the BBC:

A spokesman for the Taleban in Pakistan has denied media reports that leading militant Baitullah Mehsud has died of an illness.

The spokesman, Maulvi Umar, told the BBC that Mr Mehsud was "fit and well".

Television channels reported that Mr Mehsud, who leads an alliance of pro-Taleban groups, died on Tuesday night.

Mr Mehsud is accused of masterminding the killing of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He denied involvement in the attack.

From the BBC's Magazine: The layman's finance crisis glossary

From AP via Yahoo News:

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin repeatedly failed to cite a newspaper or magazine when asked what she had read regularly before John McCain picked her as his running mate, saying only that she had read "most of them."

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From Patricia Best's blog at globeandmail.com:

David Radler is out of U.S. prison - but he is now in the hands of Corrections Canada and in prison somewhere in Canada.

A number of journalistic experts rounded up by the Globe and Mail all agree that the base of columnists writing viewpoints stuff for CBC.ca needs to be diversified.

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"There's a slightly higher degree of responsibility expected from journalists who blog" than people who blog as a sideline, says Maclean's Kady O'Malley in a radio documentary about Tory blogger Stephen Taylor broadcast on CBC's The Current.

From a news release:

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Oct. 1, 2008) - The 24 hours free daily newspapers in five major urban markets are launching a new design this week with a "hi-speed news" format shaped by extensive research with readers and advertisers.

The redesign of the 24 hours newspapers starts with a content-rich front page - presenting important stories of the day as well as quick flash highlights for major content inside - and an improved navigation system to help readers move quickly to specific sections.

"Insights from our readers, prospective readers, advertisers and ad agencies set the course for the redesign," said Chris Brockbank, Vice-President of Marketing at Sun Media. "Essentially they want sharp and fast headline news and a consistent, quick navigation system to get to content they want.

"We've put the emphasis squarely on those characteristics in this first step of our program to introduce improvements driven by research."

The brouhaha over Heather Mallick's notorious column on CBC.ca rated a news story, column and editorial in Tuesday's Globe and Mail. I never saw any mention that her relationship with the paper as a freelance columnist ended on a bad note.

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Some lessons applicable to the current crisis in the United States can be found by examining the period leading up to the Great Depression.

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From the NYT:

Katie Couric’s newsmaking interviews with the Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, last week had only a slight impact on the ratings for her CBS newscast. But if the network could have added up all the other viewers the interviews (and its spoof) racked up, on places like CNN, YouTube and “Saturday Night Live,” Ms. Couric would surely have been more seen and talked about than in any week since she began her tenure as anchor.