Now that our sullen neo-conservative prime minister is on speaking terms once again with former PM Brian Mulroney -- in desperate hopes of staving off an eventual electoral disaster in Quebec at the hands of the federalist NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair -- one wonders how long it will be before the Harper Government sits down to sup with separatists.

If the New Democratic Party had chosen Dave Barrett as federal leader in 1989, they'd be the Official Opposition in Ottawa today.

More important, it is said here that if the NDP had selected Barrett over Audrey McLaughlin, Stephen Harper would have never been prime minister and the Reconstituted Reform Party of Canada or whatever it's called would not be on the verge of forming a majority government.

It would be easy to make fun of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's control-freak Conservatives for yesterday's revelation in the mainstream media that they have tried to put a deep chill on reporting about the Ice Age.

Leastways, it was a story about the Ice Age that tipped the media to the fact the Harper government has muzzled scientists employed by Natural Resources Canada, instructing them to say nothing about anything without the approval of political commissars in the office of Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis.

Has the Conservative government of Stephen Harper privately reached the conclusion that the West Bank and Gaza are now integral parts of Israel? A passing remark in a blog post by an Alberta Conservative Member of Parliament suggests this may be so.

In his July 28 post, Brent Rathgeber, MP for the riding of Edmonton-St. Albert, wrote: "Canada, the United States and the United Nations all support a 'Two-State Solution,' in which the existing Israel would be partitioned to allow displaced Palestinians a sovereign nation of their own." (Emphasis added.) Rathgeber then goes on to set out his arguments for why this approach "remains impractical."