On the other side of the coin, the Russians are deceptive in their seriousness about horizontal non-proliferation when it comes to Iran and North Korea, and perhaps this should have been included in the treaty, but such negotiations are fraught with too many dynamics to make a serious criticism of the treaty on this front. None-the-less, it is becoming more than apparent that if the United States is serious about preventing a mullahist-nuclear Iran, sanctions – that would necessitate full Russian and Chinese cooperation – are simply not going to happen in any meaningful way. Both the Russians and Chinese are adept at playing a game that ingratiates themselves to the Western allies, while at the same time playing good-cop with rouge regimes.

Treaties like today’s that control the vertical proliferation of nuclear weapons deserve a cheer, but decisive and undaunted action is needed to control the horizontal proliferation of these weapons. Reducing the capacity of the United States and Russia to destroy the world over with a few less salvos is all fine and great, but as the cliché goes: it is the wrong the man with a single bomb that is the real threat to peace.

After considering the game in the bag after Montreal missed the field goal required to overcome it’s  2-point deficit, the Riders were defeated by a redo closer to the goal-line.  Why?  Because somebody failed to count and had an extra player on the field.  This tiny mishap cost the Riders a game that until then, they had deserved to win. Montreal won fair and square, but the nature of the win must make this a bitter pill to swallow for many on the praries right now.

A few decades ago, another Westerner – Joe Clark – failed to count how many MPs of each party were sitting in the House of Commons during a vote of no confidence in his government.  In this case it was too few men on the field, but history was just as cruel.  Montrealer Pierre Trudeau ended up winning – fair but perhaps bitterly square – the subsequent election.

Mistakes happen, as do other obnoxiously odorous substances.

Note: I promise all Saskatchewan fans that I will never compare their team with Joe Clark again.

“Confederation was an act of will. So was medicare. So was equalization. So was the Charter of Rights. So was free trade”.  -Joe Clark, Summer 2009

Well, that pretty much sums it up.  Medicare, federal welfare and a short term in office that was “won” without winning the popular vote.

Today’s Conservatives have at least won two consecutive elections and managed to stay in power longer the average term of a west-African coup-leader, but unless they distinguish themselves from those that they defeated, their relevance in the history books may look uncomfortably familiar.

While spending our children’s money today on the faulty Keynesian premise of “economic pump-priming” appears to be in vogue, spending it elsewhere for the same purpose seems new to me.

There is certainly merit in helping poor countries integrate into the world market, expanding temporary foreign worker programs and pushing various other initiatives mentioned by Joe in this article, but dumping Canadians’ borrowed money into other governments that will likely waste it just as poorly as us is concept that I think merits special applause.