Friday digest

- SI's 21 biggest sports brawls of all time, here. (Sadly, the Nordiques-Habs Good Friday fight from the mid-80s isn't included. No doubt the Quebec bureau of Sports Illustrated was away covering Expos spring training at the time.)

- This hasn't been a good week for the federal Conservative party. First, a poll is released showing them virtually tied with the leaderless Liberals. Then, they kick Garth Turner out of caucus, which is clearly more trouble than it's worth. The Clean Air Act, introduced yesterday, is basically a whole lot of nothing - "a plan is coming!" - for environmentally-minded voters, a growing sector of the Canadian public. (Although palatable to skeptics of Kyoto like me, politically, this thing has failture written all over it.) And now, the Foreign Affairs Minister has demonstrated a complete lack of class.

It's pretty tough to get really excited about this bunch.

- North Korea tells China they're "sorry" for testing nukes but then hold a rally in Pyongyang with over 100,000 people to celebrate.

Kim Jong-Il is clearly a farce. If I was China, I'd cut him off if for nothing else than that he drags down Beijing's prestige.

- Then, we have this guy. Sabre-rattling? I don't know, but it's long past time for a good ol' coup.

- In a three-part series, Investor's Business Daily asks if the national media are doing their jobs well (see here, here and here). On that note, a very interesting interview with talk-radio host Larry Elder puts forward the observation that ignorance of the fundamental truth of supply and demand led to the demise of Al Franken's "Air America". Meanwhile, Peter Hitchens, Christopher's brother, weighs in on conservative caricatures here:

I have just taken a phone call from a radio station wanting to discuss Muslim veils. What did I think? You can guess. My views were rejected by the show's producer as being 'too reasonable’. Here's the rule. Moral, social and political conservatives can generally only get on the BBC if they can be cast as extremist monsters, perched on the extreme end of the panel and 'balanced' by a presenter who pretends to be neutral and isn't, and at least three other panelists who disagree with them. BBC bias? Whoever would say there was such a thing?

There's also an interesting contrast between what liberal conformists think I believe, and what I actually do believe. Generally, they think they know, but haven't taken the trouble to find out, so are often wrong. So I talk myself out of quite a lot of broadcasting by foolishly explaining my position, rather than waiting till I am in front of the microphone.

- Finally, according to the Montreal Economic Institute, Quebec's much-lauded $7-a-day government babysitting program both costs almost double the Canadian average for daycare across Canada in real terms (who's paying for THAT bill, I wonder?) and also is most beneficial to families with household incomes of over 60K per year.

What? A massively subsidized and inefficient social program that disproportionately benefits Quebec's upper-middle class?

You don't say!