I'm heading down to Toronto today, red clad and camera in hand, to show my support for the boys in Afghanistan.

Saturday I will post pictures, plus a story on the rally.

I'm glad to see lots of blogs getting in the act: Jack's Newswatch is featuring it at top of page, and Right Girl to name two I have seen. Meanwhile Officially Screwed has videos of last weeks Ottawa rally (note the sea of red in the picture to the right):

And today's lead editorial from the Sun:

EDITORIAL: Let's show our soldiers a sea of red

Anyone who knows Sun columnist Joe Warmington can tell you, the guy wears his heart on his sleeve.

That's why he's asking you to show up at Yonge-Dundas Square in the heart of Toronto tomorrow at noon, wearing something red to show your support for our 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan.

Bring a Canadian flag, wear a red tie, t-shirt, or cap. But most important, bring yourself.

Warmington has been organizing tomorrow's impromptu event ever since he proposed the idea in his column last Saturday, after thousands of Canadians attended a huge "Red Friday" rally for our troops last week on Parliament Hill.

The concept was started by two military wives.

"I hope there'll be a sea of people dressed in red so we can send that photo over to our soldiers in Kandahar," Warmington says.

Based on hundreds of supportive e-mails he's received over the past few days, Warmington says Canadians are looking for a way to publicly thank our soldiers.

"So many people have said: 'I'm just an ordinary person. I don't care about the politicians. I just want our soldiers to know I support them.'"

Radio stations CFRB 1010, AM 640 and Q-107 deserve kudos for getting behind the Red Rally right away.

Same goes for Police Chief Bill Blair and the Toronto Police Association -- who normally can't agree on anything. Even in the middle of a heated battle for the police union presidency, incumbent Dave Wilson and challenger Mike McCormack instantly agreed to lend the help of the TPA's media expert, Louise Gray.

Justin Van Dette, a young assistant to Coun. Bill Saundercook, immediately offered his help as well.

And Greyhound Canada VP Brad Shephard is pitching in. Greyhound had booked Yonge-Dundas Square months ago for a promotional event tomorrow, but Warmington says Shephard is doing all he can to ensure both events go smoothly. Bravo.

Finally, Warmington says while he and most people he's heard from support our mission in Afghanistan, he knows many others don't. He's asking them to come too, to show support for our troops, if not the mission, because "some things are bigger than politics."

Right on, Joe. And this is one of them. We hope to see you on the square tomorrow.

The Blue Blogging Soapbox Tories Site of the Week is The Phantom Observer:

I browse the vast domain of the Web, seeking knowledge and enlightenment. From time to time I will observe the peculiarities and eccentricities of human endeavour, and I will post my observations here.

My observations can be on any subject I choose — that is the beauty of the web log. You may agree, or disagree, and that is your right. But my observations are always thought out after much deliberation. This is not wisdom, but only a path to it.

I claim no special knowledge or expertise. My passions and politics will be obvious to those with careful observation. I speak only with one voice — my own, untainted by diplomatic nicety or correctness.

I am the Phantom Observer. Welcome.

It has been MeatLoaf week on my MP3 player, since I heard about Bat out of Hell III being released next month. I have heard some of it, and I am very impressed, especially the old Jim Steinman song Bad for Good, which makes a guy wish MeatLoaf and Steinman could have made it happen back in 1981.

Meat is 55 today, and because Bat out of Hell, 30 years later, is still great; because II plays well even today; and because III is better than II - Happy Birthday Mr. Loaf.

The Tories found 13.2B in extra money at the end of this fiscal year, and blew it all on one debt pay down. Some will likely offer all manner of excuses why they shouldn't have, but I say good on you. Here's why:

Paying down debt, in the long haul, saves the government money. Debt comes with interest charges, which must be paid. According to the National Post, the debt, after this payment, will be $481.5B. We pay (all of us as taxpayers) $20B a year on this money (assuming a 4% interest). By paying off $13.2B, the Conservatives have saved us half-a-billion dollars a year. Half-a-billion that goes back into general revenues.

At its highest point in 1996-97 the debt was $562.9B. The difference between then and now is $81.4B, for an interest savings of 3.25B a year.

Remember this when people are yelling in the next few weeks that a) there’s no real need to pay off the debt and b) the sky is falling because the Conservatives want to cut $2B from expenditures. That $2B is nothing compared to the money being saved by not paying interest on debt that has been paid off in the last ten years.

The Tie Domi divorce has made great tabloid fodder the past week here in Southern Ontario (the center of the universe to you Westerners), The Sun particularly seeming to enjoy themselves.

I have heard for years that Tie is really quite a jerk, that if your paper pissed off Tie Domi, your paper lost access to the Leaf dressing room. The most blatant example being the Star losing the room when they were reporting on Tie's brother Dash during the MFP enquiry. It is interesting that Tie retired on Sept 19, and by September 22nd this story was being reported. How incautious do you have to be for the media to take only three or four days to start exacting their pound of flesh?

However, sordid question of who did who aside, a serious issue has arisen from these proceedings. In yesterday's Sun they do a feature piece called Tie's a rat: Leanne. Two paragraphs, raised my eyebrows when put together. It should be duly noted, this is from Leanne Domi's court filing, and is an allegation that has been untested in court:

"Tie assured me that Belinda was nothing more than an important 'business contact' and said I should be nice to her since she held the key to an important and lucrative deal ... involving the supply of steel to Magna ... and he stood to make monumental commissions from this deal."

and

Tie's "intimate sexual relationship may have commenced when he began working on her political campaign in January, 2006," Leanne says. She notes that Tie "informed the news media he had been dating Stronach."

Tie was looking to make a "monumental commissions" "involving the supply of steel to Magna?"

Are we to believe that a full time pugilistic hockey player, in his spare time, has become such a salesman in the realm of automotive steel, that he's genuinely eligible for such a contract? Let's be clear, Magna is a huge company with contracts with all the major car company. They don't buy steel from hockey players, they get steel only from reputed companies. Yet Tie Domi was working Stronach for a fee?

I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but at the very least, shouldn't election's Canada be looking into this?

Javelin Catcher...



I thought everybody knew that!

No no no no NO!

Leanne Domi, Tie's soon-to-be ex, has now let out that not only is he...merging with Belinda Stronach, he was once defiling that immortal goddess Tia Carrere!

This is just wrong on so many levels.

Canadian citizenships of convenience have been much in the news lately, with 50% of the Lebanese-Canadians that were rescued during the Israel-Lebanon battle last July having returned to Lebanon.

Now comes word that Lord Black of Crossharbour, after having renounced his citizenship in order to get his British peerage, wants to become a Canadian citizen again:

Conrad Black wants to be a Canadian once more and he is working on regaining his citizenship.

In an interview aired on TVOntario Monday night, Lord Black said he is going through the "“normal channels"” to become a Canadian citizen again.

"“I always said that I would take my citizenship back, and if it wasn't for all these legal problems, I would have done it by now,"” Lord Black told journalist Steve Paikin. "“But I'm working on it, going through the normal channels like everyone else."

While were contemplating laws to stop citizenships of convenience (i.e. residency conditions, filing a tax return if you live out of country), perhaps we could add a special clause for people who renounce their citizenship.

At the very least, there should be extra hoops you have to jump through.

The recent format changes to this blog have had a particular effect on me.

I really can't read it. And that's with my glasses on.

I understand that you want to conserve space by reducing the older material, but could you find a way to keep the newer stuff larger? Or at least make the script darker. It tends to disappear in the parchment background.

I guess it's one of the consequences of getting older. Or maybe it's from all that time under the covers reading Playboy by candlelight.