Here’s the opening statement from Prime Minister Harper later this afternoon, as delivered in the National Press Theatre:

Once again, federal lawyers have been reviewing the new affidavit sworn by Karlheinz Schreiber related to his dealings with Brian Mulroney before, during, and after his time in office.  The new allegations ...   more »

Just out from the Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition:

Statement by the Honourable Stéphane Dion, Leader of the Opposition, on the Need for a Public Inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber Affair

Prime Minister Harper's decision to appoint an independent third-party to advise him on what to do next ...   more »

The press release from Ispos Reid about their latest poll tries to emphasize the positive news — Canadians have an increasing awareness of some historical facts about our country’s military past — but the overall news is embarrassingly awful: Canadians know squat about some of the most basic facts ...   more »

There is only one kind of narrative fiction that Naipual understands to be properly modern; a sort of late Victorian, realist, slightly constipated fiction with a thoroughly old-fashioned narrative, an economic use of words, plenty of natural description (countryside, gardens, townscapes) and so on. The nonsense of post-Joyce, post-Svevo, post-Musil narriative, the 'literature of exhaustion' once celebrated by John Barth, can and should be flushed down the latrine. ; - Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "Where Does He Come From?", in The London Review of Books, Nov.

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From The Hill story: In an effort to avert having to shut down its Georgia production line in three years, Lockheed Martin is lobbying the Air Force to buy an additional 120 C-130J aircraft under an offered multi-year contract worth more than $6 billion .... Meanwhile, a writer at Defense Industry Daily picks up on this news and adds a little more context to the story: The USAF has about 20% of its C-130E/H Hercules fleet on the ground or under significant flight restrictions right now, and has been pleading to be able to retire them instead of spending time and maintenance dollars on aircraft that will probably never fly again.

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No, really, they're serious: The solution we're creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English.... Eventually, once the research is completed, we plan to release core engine source code for incorporation into content management systems, blogs, wikis and the like.   more »