France rejoins NATO command

A long running pastime in the United States, at least among civilians, is to be against France, a long time ally of the country. This is in part due to the 1965 decision by Charles de Gaulle to pull France out of the command structure in NATO in 1966 -- which partly had the effect of shutting down NATO bases in the country (although Chirac also said the country would respect the remaining treaty obligations, including the Article 5 "attack on one, attack on all" clause which was eventually invoked after the 9/11 attacks on the US).

Many cite this continued reticence towards NATO for the last President, Jacques Chirac, not sending troops to fight in Iraq which made things between his country and America even worse.

I don't know if Americans are going to say "Vive le France" all of a sudden, but they'd definitely better put away their freedom fries if they haven't already -- because Nicolas Sarkozy, in a surprise decision, has said his country will rejoin the command structure. His argument is that there are NATO missions in which his country participates but his government isn't involved in the decision structure and needs to be going forward. He also said that coordinated action with its allies did not undermine its independence, nor the country's nuclear deterrent which remains firmly in France's hands.

It's certainly the right decision and should help improve relations across the great pond, but it does put France in a bit of a bind -- when it comes to multilateralism is its first priority to the European Union, or to the United States? Also, Europe is trying to develop its own defence policy independent of NATO, how does that affect the Atlantic alliance especially in this, the 60th anniversary year?

Remember Bill O'Reilly's "boycott" of French products, saying it would bring the country to its knees, and citing figures from the "Paris Business Review" to prove it was working? Actually, trade between the US and France increased after the Iraq War started, and the magazine he cited never even existed -- it was an April Fool's Joke (and one which one a Peabody Award. How many Peabodys has O'Reilly won, eh? Stuart Smalley, the comedian who should be Senator from Minnesota except for a wasteful court challenge from Norm Coleman should be able to answer that one for you!)

Mind you, Ted Baxter didn't seem too upset with Germany -- a country which has always had its military structure integrated with that of NATO's and was also opposed to the war. The so-called boycott has long ended, and the consumer advocate (which is all he really is, plus the pomposity) has one less excuse for his "Factor."

Let's not forget, France is heavily involved in NATO missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina and taking heavy losses. But they are involved, unlike some other NATO members who are just throwing money at the situation rather than providing ground troops and air support. Unlike Canada, the UK and even Poland which have stepped up to the plate.

It'll take a lot more than today's decision to put Sarkozy back in my personal plus column. His overreaction to the Paris riots back in 2005 still draws a nerve.

But it's a good step. We are stronger united than divided, especially when the new threat is terrorism which no one country can contain on its own.

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It's still a mad, mad, mad world

The last few days, it has seemed the world has gone mad. First, two shootings in Northern Ireland orchestrated by the "Real" and "Continuity" IRA that threatens to derail the entire peace process -- and perhaps even put an end to the Common Travel Area that ensures border-free travel between the UK and Ireland. (Even Sinn Féin has disavowed the attacks -- although I think it may have more to do with Gerry Adams trying to position his way to eventually become Taoiseach, the Irish PM, by hook or by crook. Don't say it'll never happen.)

Then a minister in Illinois gets killed during a service on Sunday. Then the gun rampage yesterday in Alabama, followed by the mass murder at a school in Germany today.

And oh yeah, North Korea threatening to start World War III if the rest of the planet tries to "intefere" with a satellite launch -- really, a test of a new style of missile vehicle. The US now thinks it really might be a satellite, but what does a country that is a "black hole" for the Internet want with a satellite anyway, other than to shoot down satellites of its enemies?

I thought we were officially in the Age of Aquarius now? Not that I believe that schitck, but whatever happened to "Can't we all get along?" It sounds trite, but Martin Luther King was right -- it's nonviolence or nonexistence.

On the plus side, someone went over Niagara Falls today and survived in the freezing water -- without a barrel or a lifejacket. Little miracles, I suppose.

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Not smart, not now

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation is in enough trouble with little to no disclosure of insider wins as well as other questions about how it manages its operations. Now we learn of another major gaffe, and certainly one of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing.

Although GM and Chrysler are before the federal and Ontario governments asking, as they have in the States, for billions in loan guarantees, the OLG decided to hold a contest the casinos and racetracks -- and the grand prize at each is a Mercedes Benz B200 fastback.

Forget the fact that the steel does come from Hamilton (the Dofasco division of Arcelor-Mittal) and that it is assembled in Alabama. The notion of a German car being offered to players, many of whom may be auto parts or assembly line workers and who been laid off by the current recession, is really quite the insult. People in the plants remaining open must be asking questions too. Why not one of their cars? If the government had to insist on "foreign," why not one of the Suzukis made in Ingersoll, a Toyota in Woodstock or Cambridge, or a Honda in Aliston? Keep in mind many of those plants also rely on steel from either Dofasco or Stelco (US Steel), the latter of which is about to be on indefinite shutdown.

George Smitherman, the minister responsible, should resign. It's just not acceptable, not at a time like this. We should be employing the maximum number of Ontarians right now, not subsidizing Alabama (not that I have anything against people from that state personally).

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Sarah Ferguson: "Canada could have saved our marriage" -- Uh, yeah

Last night on The National, they had a discussion about the production of a new movie about the early years of Queen Victoria and her reign. A couple of surprises -- First, the fact they used a French-Canadian director, Jean-Marc Vallée, almost totally unknown outside of Québec, to direct the film. The second is that one of the producers is none other than Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York.

Ferguson has confirmed that at the time of her marriage to Prince Andrew, the talk about his being appointed Governor General to Canada wasn't just scuttlebutt -- there were serious discussions about it. Ferguson suggested that had the plans gone through, she would have been able to spend more time with Andrew. During the first five years of their marriage, because of his naval duties, they only spent an average of forty days a year together -- which she blames as a huge factor in their eventual breakup. (Most of his time was at sea, the rest was on official business with or for his mother.)

Could the move have strengthened our ties to Britain some more? Maybe. And it certainly would have been a way to get rid of Jeanne Sauvé who just two years into her term was proving to be the most unpopular GG in our history -- she closed the grounds of Rideau Hall to the public, and she caused quite the fuss when she insisted there be a toast to her and not the Queen whenever she showed up for a banquet, which was considered an outrage especially in Western Canada.

Sauvé would also not allow people to sing the words to God Save the Queen at events she attended -- insisting instead on the music only vice-regal salute (six bars of GSTQ followed by the first four and last six bars of O Canada) -- which while technically correct from a protocol standpoint did not exactly endear her to a lot of people. While generally competent in the job, many thought her attitude towards it was so far off-base that only a royal couple could knock sense back into the institution.

I don't mean any disrespect to Ferguson, but there are a few problems with her line of thinking. First, she was a free spirit to begin with -- which was still very unwelcome in "The Firm" at that time. Diana had already overshadowed Charles, and Sarah was outclassing Andrew. Whether by accident or by design, the two women were outsiders, and the House of Windsor had already predetermined they had to be ejected sooner or later.

Second, by the 1980s the idea of having a Canadian as viceroy or vicereine was well established. Being appointed Governor General, effectively our head of state, is the ultimate patronage appointment and no prime minister would want to give that up perk after Louis St. Laurent fought so hard to wrest that from Buckingham Palace in 1952. A trade commissioner or some other high appointment, perhaps, but not GG. (Besides which, and slightly ironically, Andrew is now Britain's foreign trade representative, a very political position.)

Third, she knew full well what she was marrying into. She really can't complain about "what if." Especially since their marriage produced two daughters who both seem (so far anyway) to have their heads on straight, if you know what I mean. And she's not hard done by either -- she paid off her debt to the Queen and easily makes seven figures a year. Not bad for a woman who grew up in an English village with no title, no silver spoon and nothing going for her -- except a very high grade point average and the fact she was a military brat, daughter of a guy who attended Eton. (Yes, she's descended from aristocracy but far enough removed from it she would not otherwise be entitled to a hereditary peerage.)

Despite her history, including the infamous "toe-sucking" incident, I think a lot of guys would jump at the chance to try to date her and make her wife. Who wouldn't want to be a step-father to two princesses, one of whom who just might by fate become Queen some day? I'd tell Ferguson to stop dwelling on the past and live in the present. She seems to be doing quite well for herself -- and so does Canada, thank you very much.

To be fair, I actually have a great deal of respect for Sarah Ferguson. But on this one, she's living in a glass ménagerie.

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Who ARE these people? A washing machine?

What is it about Vatican Hill that makes its denizens keep putting their feet in their mouths?

In an editorial in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's "semi-official" newspaper, a church official said the washing machine did more to liberate women than the oral contraceptive. You can't make this stuff up.

In a world where so many women live in fear of their husbands and boyfriends who believe that God made them "masters" over their women, even their "property," in a world where women who need to work can't get affordable daycare, in a world where women have to fight just to be on the front lines in wartime -- this is the best the church, my church, can come up with?

This isn't funny. Equality denotes mutual respect and this kind of attitude does anything but foster feelings of that. This isn't just demeaning, it's repulsive. If the Virgin Mary was here on Earth, she'd slap that editorial writer right in the face, as he so deserves to be. For that matter, even St. Mary Magdalene would as well.

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That satellite radio commercial

Satellite radio is quite the nifty invention. Originally marketed to truckers, it has become a boon for a lot of people tired of conventional radio -- and often, an add-on or standard equipment on most new cars. The commercial-free music stations are great, but the other stations, like comedy, news and -- yes, sex information and talk -- have commercials. Some of them totally unsuited for young audiences.

I suppose this is a throwback to the trucker-oriented days, when the men and women who haul the loads that keep Canada and the United States rolling needed something to spice up their lives for when they came home to their spouses. But there is this one commercial that's been running in various forms for about a year now. And I almost cringe waiting for it. In fact, whenever friends I carpool with hear it, they laugh out loud and can even recite it verbatim along with me.

The ads are for a little "breakthrough" pill for male "enhancement" one that makes Mr. Happy not longer, but "thicker and wider." First it was one of the men who claimed to have invented it, learning from the "experience" he had with four female co-eds as roommates. Lately, it's one of the women involved in the project, who says, "All you women are nodding their heads -- thicker and wider is what we REALLY want."

And the line at the end --- "Order now, and we'll even throw in a FREE MEASURING DEVICE" -- to evaluate your "progress."

I'm not naming the product, although many of you know it by name either by hearing that commerical or by word of mouth. Note they never mention the price on the air.

But I finally looked it up, and they're charging $76 US (plus shipping and handling) for a 30 day supply. 76 bucks for something that supposedly works better than all those other "enhancement" products there? Hasn't anyone actually evaluated this?

Anyone remember something that was supposed to help arthritic pain, by "stimulating" it with a push button? It turns out that it was -- a barbeque starter. That's it, and a consumer advocate show proved it, by disconnecting the regular lighter and connecting it to this "miracle" device.

Another consideration: Like the ED drugs out there, one has to be concerned about the possibility of a "rise" (pardon the pun) in sexual assaults. Remember when the blue pill came out and a lot of women were reported being raped by their men who could finally get it up but the women didn't want to respond? Seems to me a woman could be seriously injured by a very thick -- um, Mr. Happy -- if they were forced to do something against their will, even more so than in a rape where no sex aids were used whatsoever.

Why aren't federal regulators actually checking this thing out, or the ingredients that are in it? Something tells me that this "male enhancement" product could be either a placebo or a big load of -- um, hot air. I don't know too much about women, but I'm sure that no matter what's out there, there's two things that remain true -- it takes a lot more to get in bed with someone than with charm and claims of prowess; two, it's not the size of what's down below or how to use it, but how one uses the most important sex organ of all, the one between the ears.

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And the winner is ... Horwath

Andrea Horwath did indeed win the Ontario ND leadership last night on the third ballot. Many in the media predicted in the last few days she was emerging as a dark horse and the second choice of many in the party. In the end, after Gilles Bisson crossed the floor to support her, it wasn't even close with Ms Horwath getting 60.4% of the vote.

In her acceptance speech, she drew on something that is so vital -- and precisely the point that the very pro-business Lee Iacocca wrote about over 25 years ago: It's great to have a service industry and a resource industry, but the strength of a developed economy is its manufacturing sector. Iacocca, who noted IBM's (then) three biggest non-defence contractors were the (then) "Big Three" said, "You can't have Silicon Valley without Detroit."

It's true now. We can't have Blackberries if we don't have steel and auto plants. As Horwath said, it's the salaries and wages in the industrial core that flows through to the rest of the economy, ensuring high wages for all and the ability of families to pay for post-secondary education for their children. She called herself a "union brat," which I think is sadly a dying breed.

And given the opening provided by the now vacant Ontario PC leadership, she has the ability to begin to pounce every day the legislature is in session, and in scrums when it is not.

Recall that having a leader in place for quite some time worked to the NDs advantage in 1990, when the PCs who had been leaderless for nearly three years after Larry Grossman (peace be upon him) embarrassingly lost his seat in a general election and the party had to be guardianed by Andy Brandt until a little known guy named Mike Harris came along just before David Peterson's stupid decision to call an election a year before it had to be. Harris was a fish out of water back then; which gave Bob Rae who had been relentless in the legislature a chance to topple Peterson, which he did in one of the biggest come from behind upsets in Canadian history. (Brandt didn't do too badly for himself: Rae, Harris and McGuinty -- guys from all three parties -- kept reappointing him as head of the once stuffy but now classy wine and liquor shop, the LCBO).

Many Ontarians still smart from what the NDs did during the early 1990s, particularly on raising tuition feeds, forcing unpaid days off for public service workers as well as breaking their promise to have public auto insurance -- and during a recession too. Such turmoil gave Mike Harris the opening he needed to sideswipe the Rae team and crush the Liberals.

Certainly Ontario's economy is more diversified than in other provinces, and this recession is different from past ones, but if Horwath can find the right balance between socially liberal policies with ones that encourage economic growth, she could prove to be a winner. I'm not saying she's going to be the next Tommy Douglas but I see that kind of optimism and verve in her and she's going to need that to go after Generation X (which I'm in) et sequens, where elections will be decided in the future.

I wish her luck.

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Ontario NDs choose new leader

Later tonight, the Ontario NDP will be choosing a new leader. While I am a Liberal federally, I consider myself to be an independent at the provincial level and generally choose the party I think can best move the province forward at election time. After five years, Dalton McGuinty has become a rather stagnant Premier and he reacts as if he was blindsided by the current recession -- like he wasn't expecting it to hit this hard. While that does not necessarily mean I would vote NDP come the fixed date election in 2011, it does mean that the Liberals aren't the only option.

Based on who the NDs choose today, they may convince me to look their way. There are four very good candidates -- all of whom are sitting in the legislature which avoids the problem John Tory had running the PCs from the gallery before he resigned yesterday after losing in a by-electon. Any one of them would be a good choice; but of the four, I'd like to see Andrea Horwath get it. Not just because she's from my hometown of Hamilton, although in a different district, but she's the kind of person Ontario needs right now -- a community activist who understands the real pain we're facing right now. She is also, based on what people of all parties have told me who have met her, a very approachable and likable person yet also someone who is not a pushover.

And of course, she's a woman. Even many men are pissed off with the way men have run this country into the ground.

Win or lose, she's put her foot forward. If Ontario elects the NDs next time out, she definitely will be on the front bench.

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God bless the rains down in Africa

It's been a couple of days, but I did have to make a comment about the International Criminal Court issuing an indictment against Omar al-Bashir, and his immediate reaction to kick out ten NGOs providing aid to the Darfur region. Not surprisingly, Bashir thinks the indictment is a joke and instead claimed this was an attempt to impose "colonialism" against Sudan. Hmmm, where have we heard that expression before? Oh yeah ... Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. I'll get to him in a moment.

It's worth remembering that the civil war in Darfur isn't Christians versus Muslims, but rival Muslim factions. But religion shouldn't be an issue, humanity is humanity and deliberately displacing nearly three million people is a war crime even if a single person has not been killed. Of course, hundreds of thousands have been murdered, raped and tortured. Since Sudan won't deal effectively with its own leadership, since the rule of law doesn't exist in Sudan, then the world must act. With any luck, Bashir will drop in on the Vatican, which doesn't recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC -- and he and Ratzinger will play a marathon game of Texas hold em while millions continue to starve.

Enough. The moment any plane he is on is over international waters, a military escort should intercept it and send him straight to the Hague where he belongs. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty in that forum. If he is truly innocent, he should turn himself in voluntarily.

As for Zimbabwe -- very interesting that Mugabe's main rival and now Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, was involved in a motor vehicle accident today where he was injured and his wife was killed after their car ran into a tractor trailer. Can anyone believe it was really an accident, despite the poor state of repair of roads in the country? This looks very suspicious, even though Mugabe paid Tsvangirai a visit in the hospital. You just don't spend years trying to knock someone down only to suddenly make him your PM like that without having an ulterior motive.

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How to write the cv of John Tory

John Tory is almost certainly going to quit today, as leader of the Ontario PC Party. A history of this man's remarkable career:

1. After graduating from the private University of Toronto Schools, a private high school connected to the U of T, hired by Rogers Communications. Moonlights as a journalist for CFTR (then a Top 40 station, now 680 News) while earning law degree from York University's Osgoode Hall.

2. After a stint in the last term of Bill Davis' "Big Blue Machine," is retained by Mulroney on acid rain issue, his work leads to new treaty with the US.

3. Runs Kim Campbell's disastrous 1993 election campaign, the brain behind infamous "funny face" ads that ridiculed Jean Chrétien for having Bell's palsy; knowing full well that many celebrities have suffered the affliction -- Pierce Brosnan, George Clooney, Jane Greer, Curtis LeMay, Gordon Lightfoot, Ralph Nader, Jim Ross -- and that it is not funny at all.

4. Returns to Rogers. Brain behind controversial "negative option billing" campaign that leads to record cancellations of subscriptions and a flock to satellite TV.

5. Runs the CFL. No comment.

6. Challenges David Miller for Toronto mayoralty. Finishes in a strong second place. Helps to pay debts of Miller and the far trailing third place finisher, Barbara Hall, as a good sport.

7. Becomes leader of Ontario Tories. Parachutes into safest possible seat, the one held by outgoing leader Ernie Eves, wins.

8. At general election of 2007, decides to pass up on rerunning in safe seat and runs in hotly contested seat in Toronto. Loses by 11%.

9. Runs party from gallery, until supposedly "safe" seat northeast of Peterborough opens up. Runs, loses by 900 seats.

If this was the resumé I was presented with for a job offer ... I'd tell Tory, okay, there's some good you did there, but you were an idiot in a lot of other respects; so get some humble pie and for a change work in the coke ovens or in a call centre, like REAL people do.

I think there should be a rule: Anyone who went to private school should not be allowed into politics, period. Ordinary people -- those of who went to real schools -- are a lot smarter, and would run the country and businesses better, if the tables were turned and it was the "old boys and girls" who had to work the factories from the shop floor and not the board rooms for a change.

Ta Ta, John. We hardly knew ye even though you've been in our faces for 30 years.

UPDATE (8:42 am, 1342 GMT): Earlier I said Mel Lastman ... of course, it was David Miller as a commenter pointed out.

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How low can it go before we get to Armageddon?

In an even greater sign of desperation, the two major central banks in Europe cut interest rates to historic lows. The Bank of England, serving the UK, cut its overnight rate to 0.5%, the lowest interest rate ever in the country, and announced it would print £75 billion of "new money" (or what they call "qualitative easing", whatever the hell that means!) -- while the European Central Bank cut the base rate in Euroland to 1.5%, the lowest since the creation of the Euro ten years ago, and pretty much announced similar measures to float money.

It's not they're really making new money -- that would severely devalue the currencies. Rather, it will be as has been in the case in the States an electronic swap of good money for the commercial banks' bad loans. But eventually, the interest rate is going to hit zero -- which means banks will loan money to each other for free. They don't like loaning money to each other even in the best of times. And car loans are still at 10%? Is something wrong here, people?

Most developed countries, including Canada, only print new money under the most extraordinary of circumstances and it is well known to be a risky strategy. Let it get out of hand -- well, we saw what happened in Zimbabwe, turning from the richest country in Africa to the poorest in just one generation.

Who knows where this might lead. Then again, everyone thought "the smartest guys in the room" were at Enron. I hope the central bankers are a lot smarter than that -- they are now collectively Atlas with the weight of the entire planet on their shoulders and the rate things are going we're going to have Armageddon without a single shot being fired in the infamous Israeli town.

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New York State finally relaxes 70s drug laws

As Stephen Harper moves to toughen Canada's drug laws (an overreaction and "one size fits all" approach to the very serious problem of street gangs, by bringing people far away from gang culture into the view of the criminal law), the State of New York which notorious for having some of the toughest laws in the United States (the so-called "Rockefeller Laws"), is moving to relax them. This is possible since the Democrats now control both houses in Albany, having broken the Republicans' long time strangehold on the Senate in last year's elections (in part to the demographic shift on Long Island).

In short, the laws currently require a prosecutor's permission before a judge can consider sending a first time offender into drug treatment -- now the lower house has said that discretion will go back to the judge where it properly belongs.

The bill has to be reconciled with a similar measure working its way through the state Senate, but when passed should help reduce the huge overcrowding that exists in the NYS prison system, and follows up on a 2004 measure that ended mandatory life sentences for most drug crimes. It also puts NYS more in line with other states who have come to realize that mandatory minimums are packing the prisons and bankrupting the criminal law system.

We of course have to deal with a firm hand with drug kingpins as well as those who for whom treatment is an impossibility. (Especially kingpins: Murder in the course of a drug transaction should carry a life sentence.) But the more we realize that drug use is a public health issue and not a crime issue, the better we'll be able to handle the problem. First and second time offenders, who have otherwise not committed any other crime while in possession or under the influence of drugs, should be in treatment and not in jail.

Harper would be well advised to learn from the American experience: Zero tolerance simply doesn't work.

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Federal Court to Harper: Stand up for death row inmates

The Harper government got another well deserved smack down today, when a federal court ruled that the Conservatives acted unfairly when they decided the foreign affairs department would no longer seek clemency for Ronald Allen Smith who is facing a death sentence for double murder in Montana -- even if he was convicted under accepted rules of "due process," which of course does not nor can it ever exist where capital punishment is a sentencing option in the first place.

As you may recall Harper announced back in 2007 that it would no longer offer such assistance where Canadians were on death row in "democratic" countries. The House of Commons overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution slamming the decision, one which overturned more than three decades of policy followed by Liberal and Progressive Conservative PMs.

Today's court decision does not excuse the actions of the prisoner in question, of course. Smith, on death row for 26 years, admits he did it -- hunting down two people with a sawed off shot gun.

Nor should it be seen as a license by Canadians to break American law at will.

Today's decision does say, however, that Canada made a decision to abide by certain human rights standards and it is bound to do so, no matter the religious or personal ethical views of the incumbent chief operating officer of the government. If Canada wants to end its obligations then it has to ask Parliament to withdraw from specific treaties or express reservations in certain aspects of them. It just can't do so by executive decision. More important, the government can't drop its attempts to seek clemency just because there's a change in the horse or the rider. And if we're not willing to stand up for our citizens even the most despicable of the lot in of all places the United States, then why should countries with less complimentary human rights records give our citizens fair treatment either?


One other thing: While I think Smith should get clemency -- if for no other reason than that he's actually spent more time on death row than most murderers do who haven't been condemned -- he should still spend the rest of his life in jail, and he shouldn't be allowed back into Canada to serve out his sentence, which under current rules would mean he automatically gets parole. This wasn't a crime of passion, it was killing two people in cold blood.

No one should applaud that. Let him rot away in Montana; we don't need scum like that here. Where there is no doubt whatsoever -- none at all, not even the slightest reasonable doubt -- murder one should carry life without parole. That should also apply to Canada.

UPDATE (9:19 pm, Thursday 0219 GMT): Thanks to Impolitical for her link to this post.

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Different ads for different folks?

During the 1990s, there was this one small cable company in the suburbs of Washington DC, maybe about 20,000 customers that had become the first to go 100% digital. It also adopted a very bold pricing strategy: Rather than paying so much for so many channels each month, it went to a pay per view for everything, that is à la carte -- even network programming. The idea was you'd pick ONE show to watch in a time slot, so as not to fall into the trap of channel surfing. For most, the monthly bill actually worked out to what it would have been prix fixe, especially for those who wanted to see just one or two movies on HBO rather than pay to get the channel for the whole month.

But the system went further. It recognized the demographics of each individual viewer and for local station breaks (other than the network commercials) it would feed content on that basis. So, for example, an executive might see a commercial advertising yacht sales or charter airline rentals. Someone towards the middle might see a commercial advertising the next cultural event at Wolf Trap. And for those with lower incomes, this week's specials at the discount supermarket chain.

Or if the same company was advertising to homes, the richer people might see an ad for an HDTV, the "little people" the video game of the week.

Now, there is going to be an adaptation of this in the NYC area, targeting about 500,000 homes with differentiated commercials, with a roll out to all 3.1 million by next year. There was a pilot project with about 100,000 homes last year with "targeted" and "untargeted" ads that seemed to indicate a far higher buy rate for premium services from those who were "targeted."

While people have the right to opt out and just get the "general" feed, this raises major invasion of privacy issues. The claim is they're going solely by demographics and personal information is double-blinded, but who's to stop someone from reverse engineering and getting personal data about someone -- and more importantly, what they are watching and / or ordering?

And don't be surprised if this comes to Canada soon -- the technology does exist since we already have on-demand programming. I don't mind customized ads, but I think I should have the right to opt in rather than being told I must opt out. To not give a choice is basically another version of negative option billing, which is wrong.

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More rot (2009-03-04 edition)

Three more Canadian soliders killed by a roadside bomb, this time northwest of Kandahar City. Dead are Warrant Officer Dennis Raymond Brown of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment; Corporal Dany Fortin of 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron, 3 Wing Bogotville; and Corporal Kenneth O'Quinn of 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group Headquarters and Signals Squadron.

That brings the total of Canadians killed in the line of duty since 9/11 up to 114 -- 111 soldiers, 1 diplomat and 2 aid workers.

Is this what we're fighting for? To stop the flow of opium? Because if that is what is it, then we're clearly into a war we have no possible way of getting out of. And to think we in this mess until 2011 at the least? What did we ever get ourselves into? We were supposed to smoke out OBL and his cohorts -- in and out -- and not fight a civil war.

Oh, and notice pretty much everyone killed, besides the one diplomat, have been enlisted or NCOs members of the forces? Why can't the commissioned officers do some of the dirty work themselves?

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