Monday digest

- Some leading Democrats are already touting the idea of Bill Clinton as a replacement for Hillary if and when she leaves the Senate to assume position in the White House.

Isn't that a little bit presumptuous, twenty months out?

- Seven of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers are apparently alive and well.

Who knew?

- This just in: Canadian foreign aid dollars are largely wasted.

- Here in Ottawa, much fretting about the annual circus at City Hall known as budget time. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has found time to stop damning Israel and are now running ads threatening the end of municipal services such as libraries unless taxes go up accordingly. Meanwhile, the Ottawa Public Library system as run by City Hall is also running ads telling kids that if they need help with their homework, there's a dedicated number that they can call to get help.

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought parents were supposed to help kids with their homework. Perhaps that's expecting too much these days. More to the point, since when does having a good public library system include paying people out of the public purse to answer grade 7 science problems over the phone?

With programs like this in place, I'm not buying this "crying poor" routine from CUPE for one second.

Nor should you.