Then came September 11, and along with it a new openness in the Bush administration’s approach to other nations. Overtures were made to Europe, Indonesia, Russia and Pakistan.

The White House began receiving foreign heads of state.

On Friday, Commodore Eric Lerhe, commander of the Canadian navy's West Coast warship fleet, was temporarily relieved of duty for doing what most employees do every day: using his work computer for something other than work.

Specifically, Lerhe confessed to surfing "Penthouse-like" Websites on his department of national defence (DND)-supplied laptop computer while he was off-duty.

When AIDS first hit public consciousness twenty years ago, it was as a mysterious illness affecting North American gay men in urban centres.

They contracted strange sicknesses, like fatal strains of pneumonia, or disfiguring Kaposi sarcoma lesions. They quickly became virulently ill and died. Though it would soon spread to the heterosexual population, early on, the disease was so identified with gay men that it was briefly dubbed GRID: gay-related immune deficiency.