I do recall, lo, that here among us there were people who hoped that Canada would arrest George Bush or something. Well, not only did they not do that, but they've just prohibited another George from speaking in Toronto: maverick British MP George Galloway.

More specifically, Alykhan Velshi, an aide to the execrable minister Jason Kenney, quoth trollishly:

"We're going to uphold the law, not give special treatment to this infamous street-corner Cromwell who actually brags about giving 'financial support' to Hamas, a terrorist organisation banned in Canada," he said. "I'm sure Galloway has a large Rolodex of friends in regimes elsewhere in the world willing to roll out the red carpet for him. Canada, however, won't be one of them."

You have to understand: Canada is now run by mini-Cheneys. Stephen Harper is not just *relatively* worse than Obama, in that his direction is more conservative, he and his lieutenants are *objectively* worse, in that their behaviour and policies are little closer to the side of fascism. What they're good at, however, is message discipline and media manipulation.