Last night, we sat in the #mixedwingnuts channel on IRC chatting about the Canadian elections. Vinny mentioned that the NDP leader Jack Layton looked liked the Video Professor. So… What do you think?

     

Jack Layton on the left, the Video Professor on the right. Separated at Birth?

"Including Turkey in the EU would prove that Europe is not the exclusive club of a single religion, and it would expose the 'clash of civilizations' as a passing myth of history," Bush said.

Chirac said on Monday that Bush should not comment on Turkey's EU entry hopes as EU affairs were none of his business.

"If President Bush really said that the way I read it, well, not only did he go too far but he went into a domain which is not his own," Chirac told reporters at the summit.

"It is like me trying to tell the United States how it should manage its relations with Mexico," he added.

Jacques Chirac has a lot of nerve telling President Bush that Turkey's admission into the EU is "none of his business", especially when, he himself did what he did back in February of 2003. He would never tell other countries how they should manage their relations with the United States, right?

The French president, in an unusually emotional outburst in Brussels after the European Union meeting Monday on Iraq, derided the Central and Eastern European countries that have signed letters expressing their support for the U.S. policy on Iraq for being "badly brought up" and having missed "an opportunity to keep quiet."

All 13 candidates on Tuesday endorsed the joint declaration on Iraq issued on Monday by the 15 European leaders, warning Saddam Hussein that he had "one last chance" to disarm and vowing to "avoid new lines of division" over European policy on Iraq.

But divisions exist. The war of words highlighted not only disagreement over Iraq, but also France's struggle for dominance in European affairs in the face of an enlarging European Union whose incoming members are historically beholden to the United States.

France has long been concerned that the former communist countries, indebted to the United States for liberation from Soviet domination in the Cold War, would turn out to be a sort of Trojan horse bringing America's influence into the union.

France fears that expanding the European Union membership will erode its influence and weaken Europe's position as a potential counterweight to American power.

Of course, Chirac went a step further in his rant of 2003, because he showed us all exactly why he does not want countries like Turkey (and others) to be admitted into the European Union. "France's struggle for dominance in European affairs in the face of an enlarging European Union". That says it all.

In his attempt to say "it's none of your business", Chirac has succeeded in saying, "I am a hypocritical worm".

Iraqi militants killed an American soldier they have held hostage for nearly three months, saying the killing was because the U.S. government did not change its policy in Iraq, Al-Jazeera television said Tuesday.

The report of the killing of Spc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio, came hours after the United States returned sovereignty in Iraq to an interim government. The report did not say when Maupin was killed.

If we had changed policy, they would have killed him "because we changed our policy, but not to their liking".

Note to AP reporters: Those persons who committed this crime are NOT militants. They are terrorists. They are animals. Start reporting the news, dagnammit.

Well, it looks like our neighbors to the north will have a liberal minority government. I wonder which party they will reach out too, to form their minority coalition?

On a bright note for me personally, my favorite candidate in this election, Ed Broadbent, won handily.

Congratulations, Ed.

Why does it say NPD?