Thursday morning dribs and drabs

- The Supreme Court of Canada has just ruled that it is legal for a 12-year old Sikh student in Montreal to wear a "kirpan", or ceremonial dagger, to school. I don't think this is a good decision. What if a bully or deranged adolescent somehow gets ahold of the kid's knife and decides to attack a teacher? See here for background.

- Is Alberta Premier Ralph Klein drinking again?

- Thomas Sowell is doing a series titled "Something for Nothing" (and no, it's not a critical analysis of the 1976 Rush tune.) See parts one, two and three by clicking the links above, and click here for another real-life example.

- While Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain is suggesting that the Western members of the G8 boycott the next meeting in St. Petersburg due to Russia playing ball with both Hamas and Iran, this former UK minister suggests that India be invited into the group. I think that would be a great idea as they move towards a healthier form of market democracy.

- Speaking of India, while the President scoring points both there and in Afghanistan, he's having a pretty bad week at home. Not only has the Dubai ports controversy been handled extremely sloppily, a video has emerged which showed that not only was he warned about levees being destroyed by Katrina prior to the hurricane, he insisted that the federal government was "fully prepared". Then, four days later, he said "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees". Uh, I think someone did, Mr. President. It still doesn't excuse the poor response by state and local levels (remember the empty buses?) but it's not exactly a stellar demonstration of leadership from the White House.

- And finally, Oscar weekend is quickly approaching. Oh, joy. Even though I think she's obnoxious and narrow-minded, I have to admit that this piece by Ann Coulter is pretty funny. So is Mark Steyn discussing the Purple Heart-worthy "bravery" of George Clooney.