From CTV.ca:

The Green Party of Canada will go to court if necessary to persuade Canada's broadcast consortium to include leader Elizabeth May in the televised leaders' debates for the federal election due to be called on Sunday.

The Globe and Mail's Simon Houpt had this observation at his TIFF blog (post headline - Did you get sTIFFed?) about the difficulties of getting tickets:

TIFF is a massive machine that needs ever-increasing amounts of cash to keep going. But is it in danger of killing the goose that lays its golden eggs? One buyer for the Canadian marketplace told me: "Last year, I realized it's easier to see films at Cannes than it is here." Sure, buyers can get into industry screenings, but the real value of TIFF is that it's always been a people's festival. If you're a buyer or potential distributor, you want to see how a film plays with an audience of real people: that's why you come to Toronto, and that's why producers bring their films here. But if real people are having trouble getting into screenings, will the movies keep coming?

He had a follow-up post: Who do you love? (the ticket fiasco edition)

I didn't do too badly. I got eight out of 10 first-choice movies (I was in Box 66), but none of my second-choice ones. I had two tickets left, and went zero for nine today in trying to use those up (the schedule board said those films were still in play; "it's hard to keep it up to date," explained a clerk). I guess I'll have to rush.

So if you're a more casual TIFF goer hoping to see a glamour film's screening at this point without going the rush route? Good luck to you -- and the festival hasn't even started yet.

Individual ticket prices are $20.50 (yikes!!). A regular film at most downtown T.0.theatres costs about $12. Many of those glamour films will be in theatres within a matter of weeks. Do the math.

PS

TIFF produced one of the most boring festival t-shirts in memory this year. It wants $27.54 for one.

At the request of the Tyee, B.C. j-prof Crawford Killian has developed a list of blogs to watch for with respects to election commentary both here and in the United States.

What, no mention of Daily Kos? Or firedoglake? Or Instapundit?

In Canada, Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor deserves a mention by name as a conduit for the PMO. :)

Liberal Jason Cherniak -- who, as everyone knows, is "as influential as the mainstream media" -- is an enthusiastic Dion booster. Calgary Grit, who blogs from the other centre of the universe, is another Liberal name worth checking out.

Robert McClelland has been a hardnosed, partisan supporter of the NDP.

Killian had a problem finding "green boogers." Here's one -- the inimitable JimBobby.

Scott Tribe blogs from a "progressive" perspective and is usually worth a read. POGGE is a collective progressive blog.

Revolutionary Moderation had one of my favourite features from the 2005-06 campaign -- The Gaffe-O-Meter! He's geared up to go this fall!

On the MSM side, I like Paul Wells. I liked Andrew Coyne's blog more when he was a National Post columnist (his personal blog hasn't been updated since May).

Ace Toronto Star reporter Linda Diebel does political blogging ("The Decoder") for the paper's website. But she only posts once per day (if that) and her blog is hard to find if you don't have it bookmarked.

Globeandmail.com makes it somewhat easier to find blog postings than TheStar.com. But here's a bizarre defect. In the right-hand column, there's a section called Insights with 'commentary' and 'latest blog posts' tabs. At the bottom is a link called See all commentary, which takes you to the 'opinions' page. However, you won't find one globeandmail.com blog link there.

Globeandmail.com does have two decent national politics blogs -- Adam Radwanski's and Dan Cook's Blogolitics. But both are on the national homepage. Reporter Siri Agrell has been doing some blogging from the U.S. Democratic and Republican conventions and it seems like she'll be keeping the blog ("Stumped") going throughout the political season.

If you have any suggestions of your own, have your people call my people.

I'm especially interested in learning the identities of the covert contributors to CBC.ca's Political Bytes blog. :)

From AP via TheStar.com:

John McCain's campaign Wednesday angrily called for an end to questions about its review of Sarah Palin's background, deriding a "faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee" for vice-president.

From AP via the NYT:

One journalist was shot and killed and another was left with a fractured skull after a beating in Russia's troubled North Caucasus, and police and co-workers said Wednesday the two men were likely targeted for their work.

The attacks on an Islamic TV reporter and an opposition newspaper editor are the latest violence to renew fears about the safety of journalists in Russia. A third journalist was shot by police on Sunday -- a killing the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said represented ''a further deterioration of media freedom in Russia.''

From the NYT's The Caucus blog (video attached):

Hey, what did Larry King ever do to anybody?

Nothing, aides to Senator John McCain said. Still, Mr. McCain will no longer be sitting down with Mr. King on CNN on Tuesday, as punishment for what his aides said was an unfair interview of a McCain campaign spokesman by the network host Campbell Brown on Monday night.

   more »

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail:

Diplomats in Pakistan are investigating a report that two Canadian militants were killed by a possible U.S. missile attack that blew up a house in a remote tribal region of the country.

Canadian Foreign Affairs officials, in conjunction with other agencies, are working with Pakistan to determine the identities of men killed Saturday after villagers said they saw U.S. Predator drones in southern Waziristan.