The only thing missing is a Christian Scientist as Health Minister.

Stephen Harper provided a lot of things with his new Cabinet yesterday, but leadership wasn’t one of them. I like the extra-cynical touch evident in two things: first, picking an unelected — and therefore unquestionable in the House of Commons — Montrealer as Public Works minister, and topping it all with naming a unilingual anglophone as Canadian Heritage minister. I guess there really are more ministerial posts than French-speaking conservatives.

To live and die in the USA.

The US seems headed down the slippery slope to a police state — with a twist. It’s not about the executive branch seizing power arbitrarily — although there’s been plenty of that recently — rather it’s about the increasing tendency for police departments all over the US to use SWAT teams for everything, including the arrest of people not even suspected of violent crimes, and the inevitable resulting deaths by accidents and overreactions. Well worth a read.