Thursday digest

- Aspiring Liberal politician Justin Trudeau went in front of the MySpace/Facebook crowd yesterday in Windsor, Ontario, and told them to "question the system".

In between supposedly profound observations about "time" and "space", Trudeau also "suggested to the students the capitalist 'machine' that sustains modern existence may also become modern civilization's downfall."

How utterly pathetic.

If he had any guts, he'd have gone to the Toronto Board of Trade, the Montreal Economic Institute or some other similar outfit and made the same remarks rather than in front of a bunch of wide-eyed, camera-phone toting teenyboppers who get their current affairs programming and analysis from the likes of George Strombolopoulos.

Thinking Liberals have got to be embarassed by this.

- Al Gore has written a book called "The Assault on Reason".

I wonder if he discusses statements like the following from 1997 - "We will not submit this (Kyoto) for ratification until there's meaningful participation by key developing nations" - but I doubt he will, given that it came from his own mouth.

Meanwhile, here are a few more scientists who are doing a 180 on their previous analyses concerning the causes of global warming.

- Michael Moore is back and is doing the rounds to promote his new movie, Sicko. In this interview, he suggests that "every fact in my (sic) films is true". I'm still trying to find out how that Afghanistan pipeline is going, but in the meantime, I've identified two blatant errors in this interview alone along with some completely amateurish analysis.

First, he says that his ally Al Franken came up with the line that Republicans are the party that tell everyone that government doesn't work, and then get elected and prove that very point. Nonsense - it was the libertarian writer P.J. O'Rourke in his 1991 classic "Parliament of Whores".

Then, he says that the administrative costs of the Canadian health care system are at 1.7%. Anyone who lives in Canada knows that this is patently false, so much so that it's not even worth looking up the correct figure because Moore's assertion is so outlandish.

Finally, he says that Cubans live, on average, one month more than Americans do and implies that this is due to their superior health care system. If that's true, I'd suggest that perhaps the fact that hardly any of them are driving cars (thanks to Marxism) has something to do with it, since if you can't afford a vehicle, your teenage son or daughter won't get into a fatal car accident with it and bring down the average life expectancy of your country.

Rigour has never been Moore's strong suit.

- The mainstream media's favourite "conservative", Andrew Sullivan, is a big fan of Ron Paul, the Texas congressman who came extremely close to suggesting that the US had 9/11 coming the other night, and allowed Rudy to bat that one out of the park.

In my opinion, if Sullivan wasn't gay, HIV positive and singularly focused on silencing anyone who doesn't share his position on same-sex marriage, he wouldn't get nearly the attention he does.

Totally overrated.

- By all accounts, Iran could be a year away from joining the nuclear club, but after Iraq, we won't be able to do anything about it until Tel Aviv is levelled. Some say we needn't bother with the whole region, which is a perspective I disagree with, but is interesting nonetheless.

- A hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan is opening a women-only floor and accompanying lounge. This isn't anti-men, it's the free market in action - and I love it.

- It doesn't matter to me how trendy or designer this becomes ... I will never drink coffee brewed from a byproduct of something that came out of an animal's ass.