Ontario's conservation officer suggests the unbanning of clotheslines. Did anybody even know that clotheslines were banned in certain parts of Ontario? Why would anybody ban a clothesline anyway? Clothes flapping in the wind are aesthetically pleasing! Pakistani police detain Benazir Bhutto in her home. Officials denied that this was a house arrest, claiming instead that they were just vigorously enforcing Pakistan's anti-trespassing laws, and that the five thousand of her supporters that they rounded up......

Microsoft has agreed to buy 1.6% of Facebook for $240,000,000, giving the social networking site a valuation of around $15 billion. The deal is good for both parties, with Bill Gates finally hanging out with the cool kids, and 23-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg getting to throw an awesome kegger. John Tory has officially backed away from the faith-based schools funding issue that may have cost him the provincial election. Seems kind of silly......

David Miller has enlisted the aid of a team of hired guns to find savings in the municipal budget. Their recommendations should arrive in time to incorporate into the 2008 budget, but too late for Tuesday's vote on controversial new taxes. City Council is optimistic that the group, whose members include Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, Templeton "Faceman" Peck, "Howling Mad" Murdock, and B.A. Baracus, will be able to solve all our problems. Karen Butler-Lynch was......

Brampton's mayor and police chief are looking to dispel a local urban myth that the municipality is paying Toronto gang members between $5,000 and $10,000 to move to Brampton. Officials deny the payouts, but admit they may have distributed a pamphlet suggesting that in Brampton "the streets are paved with 9 mm shells and the malt liquor flows like water." Back in 2002, a CSIS official with a gift for euphemism noted his belief that......

Farmer finds life ring believed to be from the Edmund Fitzgerald. In response, the Tragically Hip grumble about having to rewrite one of their songs. An in-depth report on whether we should demonetize the penny. Short answer: yes, we should demonetize the penny, even though it looks very pretty in its own way and can be used to scam Europeans. David Miller will announce the full list of service cuts either today or tomorrow. A......

Ottawa reaches $10 million settlement with Maher Arar. Meanwhile, Arar is still on the American no-fly list, so the next time some American asks you why us Canadians are so smug and self-superior as regards them, just point them to this and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. One in four Canadians lists the environment as their chief issue of concern. Twenty percent say they are very likely or somewhat likely to vote Green......

George W. Bush made his State of the Union address last night. Among his policy initiatives introduced in the speech were a request to Americans to reduce their gasoline consumption by twenty percent in ten years (while simultaneously claiming American needed to increase domestic gasoline production), and a proposal to tax employer-based health plans to pay for HSAs (which don't actually solve the problems facing American healthcare). An annotated and rather niftily clickable rebuttal......

Condoleezza Rice promises to "look into" why Maher Arar is still on an American terrorist watchlist. Remember when you were at work and someone at work kept stealing your yoghurt and you were pissed so you went to your supervisor and complained and he said he'd "look into" it? This is kind of like that, except Maher Arar is probably a lot less important to Condoleezza Rice than yoghurt is. Queen's Park Grits and Tories......

Amazingly, Maher Arar is still on the US government's terrorist watchlist. No, seriously. No joke. He's still on it. Metro police place three closed circuit cameras around Dundas Square for the holidays. Remember, nothing deters criminals determined to shoot at people in the busiest intersection in Toronto like cameras. Ontario Hydro's combined costs have risen 50 percent in five years; during the same time period revenues have increased only 15 percent. At the press......

Twenty machine workers win $22 million dollars. I include this bit of news just to remind you that you, yes you reading this, do not have $22 million dollars. (Probably.) SUCK ON THAT, TORONTO! RCMP commissioner admits to "a mistake" in his testimony regarding Maher Arar. But we shouldn't judge him because everybody makes mistakes now and then. For example, I ate an extra sandwich yesterday, and he lied in a commission to see......

Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary renditions, security certificates, Maher Arar, enemy combatants, torture, all of them erosions of democracy and symptoms of a larger problem. Government abuse of power isn't anything new, and as the sole holder of power and force in most societies, our elected "representatives" can often do so with impunity. The Alphabet City Festival, looks at how "the war on terror" has created a whole new set of bogeymen, irrational fears and......