I Blame Morrisey

Business Time

This one goes out to all my married friends...

Everything's Great in Afghanistan

Just ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs...actually, don't bother...

The government's decision to gag Foreign Affairs and other departments from speaking to the media has left Canadians with a flawed understanding of what the Afghan mission is about, members of the panel reviewing Canada's role in Afghanistan charged yesterday.Mr. Manley, Mr. Burney and Pamela Wallin, a broadcaster and former consul-general in New York, cited the salacious story of the Corrections Canada officials' boots as an example of what can go awry when Foreign Affairs is muzzled.

According to government documents released in November, Corrections Canada officials inspecting Afghan jails asked for special boots because they were walking through blood and fecal material - the implication being that detainees handed over by the Canadian military to Afghan jailers were treated in a horrid manner.


Read the full Globe & Mail Article

Alice's Restaurant

From Allyn and Sara...

...From a bio of musician Arlo Guthrie, son of folk music legend Woody. This is funny to me. I think Steve Lindstrom would also find this humorous:

When he graduated from high school at the Stockbridge School in Massachusetts in 1965, he enrolled at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT, to study forestry with the intention of becoming a forest ranger. He dropped out after only six weeks, however. Returning to Massachusetts, he stayed at the home of Alice and Ray Brock, a deconsecrated church. The Brocks were former faculty members of the Stockbridge School who had opened a restaurant called the Back Room. Celebrating Thanksgiving with them, Guthrie and his friend Rick Robbins undertook what he later called the "friendly gesture" of attempting to dispose of a large amount of accumulated garbage for them. Finding the city dump closed, they threw it down a hillside. As a result, they were arrested for littering. Convicted of the offense, they paid fines of $25 each and retrieved the garbage. This proved fortuitous shortly afterward, when Guthrie was summoned for the military draft and judged unfit for service because of his criminal record.