Apparently Stephen Harper avoids First Ministers meetings in order to keep expectations low and appear to be over-performing. Good to know. And suddenly I’m reminded of these old MadTV sketches. Seems rather apropos.

The Canadian Forces wants to spend a billion dollars on armed drones. Considering their recent track record when it comes to procurement, and the fact that we still don’t actually have any kind of white paper or policy direction when it comes to what our Forces are supposed to be doing and what roles they’re supposed to be filling, um, perhaps we should get on that first, before we spend a billion-plus dollars on drones that we might not actually need, no? Just saying.

Oh, look! More MPs wailing and gnashing their teeth about the state of decorum in the Commons, never mind that these kinds of debates are really just a distraction from things we should be talking about – like policy, or scrutiny of the estimates, or anything substantive rather than the fact that Question Period is really just theatre.

CSIS has formed an Information Sharing Evaluation Committee to examine whether information from foreign sources was obtained through torture and how to deal with it.

And over in the Quebec election, Quebec Solidaire wants to assure you that they’re not crypto-federalists with a secret pact with the NDP, and hey, they’ve made an animated ad showing them kicking a beaver to prove it. I wonder how uncomfortable the “federalist” NDP is feeling right now, especially since they’re under strict orders to keep out of it, no matter how many ties to Quebec Solidaire that they have ongoing. Meanwhile, Pauline Marois seems to be running against the Queen, if one of her own ads is to be believed. Um, historical revisionism is fun and all, but you do realise that it’s because of the monarchy that Quebec was allowed to retain its language and culture, right? Just checking.