Random News & Views Roundup

- This doesn't make much sense. MP Irwin Cotler's wife quits the Liberal party over Ignatieff's claim that what happened in Qana was a war crime? She actually quit because a leadership candidate said something she disagrees with? That's quite the overreaction, even if she is active in the Jewish community. Ignatieff isn't the Liberal leader. He's just an MP who wants to lead the party. If she feels so strongly about what he said, and considering the widespread influence that she has, she could have stayed in the party and rallied for the candidate she felt would lead the party according to her principles instead.

(Mrs Cotler's letter to the National Post is only available to subscribers, of which I'm not one. If anyone has access, can you please either post her letter in the comments here or e-mail me a copy? Thanks.) Tory Steve Janke (who thinks her actions are an endorsement of Harper's statement that 'virtually all of the Liberal leadership candidates are 'anti-Israeli') has posted Mrs Cotler's letter which I will post in the comments section here.

- Whose leak of classified information eventually led to the Washington Post's bombshell story about the secret CIA prisons? Former head of the CIA, Porter Goss.

- Sen Harry Reid's (D-NV) non-disclosure of earnings from a land deal is now receiving widespread coverage via the WaPo, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution - all critical of Reid's ethics. The question is whether this will bring him down as the Senate's minority leader. Stay tuned.

- Wanker of the day: Peggy Noonan whom Glenn Greenwald rightly tears to shreds.

- In a controversial move:

The body overseeing Manitoba's doctors is considering giving physicians the authority to stop or withhold medical treatment, even if the patient or family disagrees.

So much for living wills and patients' rights.

- The British army chief who made waves when he said Britain's troops should get out of Iraq has 'clarified' his remarks. No doubt, Tony took him to the woodshed.

- Congratulations to this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammed Yunus.

- Gorby on US foreign policy:

In comments that were among the harshest he has made about the United States, Gorbachev compared U.S. foreign policy to one of the deadliest diseases on the planet -- AIDS.

"Today our American friends are suffering from an illness worse than AIDS. And I would say this is the victor's complex," Gorbachev was quoted as saying in an interview with the Netzzeitung.

Update: Via Canadian Publius, is turncoat MP David Emerson on his way out?