Monday digest

- Reason #4456947 why the West shouldn't count on Iran and Syria to help solve the Iraq problem: on Israel, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad recently stated that "(t)he Zionist regime is on a steep downhill towards collapse and disgrace" and, in a reference to the U.S. and U.K., "the collapse and crumbling of your devilish rule has started".

As the old saying goes, with friends like this ...

- An interesting article here makes the case that overpopulation isn't problematic as long as there are markets to go along with it. Also on the doom and gloom front, it should be noted that this was the quietest hurricane season in ten years.

- Here's a valuable contextual piece about the underhanded and sinister goings-on in Russia right now. It seems like, after reading this piece, that Putin's reach may be farther than most realize, even after the happenings of last week.

- I love the fact that even elements of the left-of-centre party in the US can call for a constitutional amendment for balanced budgets and it's not deemed as heresy. Such discussion in Canada would be completely off the table.

- As Pandora is out of the box on the "Quebec as a nation" motion, a wise Liberal word of warning, here. It needs to be spelled out in no uncertain terms by the Prime Minister that this motion will have no legal impact. And as my Quebecois brother-in-law said to me, it really doesn't matter if Quebec is considered a nation or not by the federal government when the fact remains that if you can even get a family doctor in the province, you're damned lucky if you can even get an appointment when you need one. It's clear that Harper has snookered Duceppe on this, so let's just vote on the motion and be done with it so we can get on with the nuts and bolts of what really matters to people.