Saturday Post

How does one say “playing chicken” in French?

With a steady lead in the polls, Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois is already sketching out plans for her first weeks in office and they include making contact with Ottawa.

The pro-independence leader, who is the front-runner in the leadup to Tuesday's provincial election, says she'd take a few days to prepare a cabinet.

Then she says she would contact Prime Minister Stephen Harper about transferring powers to Quebec — in areas like employment insurance, language and communications.

"In the days that follow, in the weeks that follow, it will be a short delay, I will contact Mr. Harper," Marois told reporters Friday while campaigning in Gatineau, Que., near Ottawa. She made the remarks a few hundred metres from Parliament Hill.

Marois brushed off a question about whether she would adopt a belligerent tone with Harper: "No, not at all. I will employ an attitude of respect."

The party has said it wants Quebec to have control over multiple things from copyright law to international aid funds. If Ottawa refuses, it says, that will bolster the case that Quebec and the rest of Canada must go their separate ways.

But the news in the polls isn't all good for the PQ. In fact, some of it is terrible. A CROP survey today suggests that while the PQ leads by four percentage points in the popular vote, support for the party's raison d'etre — Quebec independence — is exceptionally low at 28 per cent.

The survey indicates support for sovereignty has dropped eight percentage points during the campaign, while the number of undecideds has increased to 10 per cent and support for Canadian federalism stands at 62 per cent.

Either way, Pauline Marois gets what she wants. If Ottawa caves in, Quebec is treated differently. If Ottawa balks, Quebec threatens to separate. It’s the same old dance.

Why is a Chinese bid for a Canadian oil company even considered? Why would anyone dream of handing over an important resource to communist China?

Canada's main opposition party criticized how the government is handling a $15.1 billion bid by China's CNOOC Ltd for Canadian oil producer Nexen Inc on Thursday, underlining how politically sensitive the matter has become.

The Conservative government is probing the offer -- China's richest foreign takeover bid yet -- to see if it is of net benefit to Canada.

Political sources say the cabinet is split over the CNOOC deal, in part because of concerns that China would gain more control over Canada's energy patch.

Who stands in front of a bulldozer, anyway? Withdraw from the UN.

And who is halting this “significant progress”?

 North Korea has made significant progress in the construction of a light water atomic reactor over the past year, a U.N. watchdog report said, a facility that may extend Pyongyang's capacity to produce material for nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), citing satellite images, also said "certain activities" had been observed at locations where the reclusive Asian state "reportedly" conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

But "without access to the locations the agency is unable to provide a technical assessment of the purpose of these activities or of whether nuclear material is being used," the annual report, issued to IAEA member states on Thursday, said.

North Korea's nuclear program is a "matter of serious concern", it said, adding that the country's statements about uranium enrichment activities and the construction of the reactor "continue to be deeply troubling".

North Korea says it needs nuclear power to provide electricity, but has also boasted of its nuclear deterrence capability and has traded nuclear technology with Syria, Libya and probably Myanmar and Pakistan. It is believed to be pushing ahead with plans for a third nuclear test.

Related: this will be fun:

Iran and North Korea have signed an agreement to cooperate in science and technology, Iranian media reported on Saturday, and Iran's supreme leader declared that the two countries had "common enemies."

The two countries will cooperate in research, student exchanges and joint laboratories, and in the fields of information technology, engineering, biotechnology, renewable energy, the environment, sustainable development of agriculture and food technology, the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) reported.

ILNA said the agreement was signed by Iran's Minister for Science, Research, and Technology Farhad Daneshjoo and North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun.

North Korea has had close ties with Iran. Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables from 2010 showed that U.S. officials believe Iran has acquired ballistic missile parts from North Korea.

Pyongyang's Communist government and Iran's Islamic republic share little in the way of ideology, but both were named as part of an "axis of evil" by former U.S. President George W. Bush in his 2002 State of the Union speech.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also met with North Korea's Kim Yong-nam, seen as a figurehead head of state, who was in Tehran for the Non-Aligned Movement summit held this week.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran and North Korea have common enemies, because the arrogant powers do not accept independent states," Khamenei was quoted as saying by ILNA on Saturday.

How many nuclear weapons would it take to destroy Tel Aviv if it had the population of Seoul? Watch the mad tyrant math equations take place.

Beslan: in case it didn't boil your blood enough.

And now, to the American election.

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney delivered powerhouse speeches that frightened the Democrats and the left somuch that they had to  invent ways to discredit them.

Ryan acknowledged that the plant had already been slated for shutdown in 2008.  That was his point.  People voted for him because they thought Obama represented hope to get the plant back in operation.   In fact, that had been known since at least February 2008, when Obama came to Janesville to speak, and specifically addressed the plant closure in his remarks, delivered at the plant itself — and promised to keep it and other plants like it open “for the next hundred years” …

Marco Rubio is an example of the American dream. That also frightens the left.

My Dad used to tell us: “En este pais, ustedes van a poder lograr todas las cosas que nosotros no pudimos” “In this country, you will be able to accomplish all the things we never could.”

A few years ago during a speech, I noticed a bartender behind a portable bar at the back of the ballroom. I remembered my father who had worked for many years as a banquet bartender.

He was grateful for the work he had, but that’s not the life he wanted for us.

He stood behind a bar in the back of the room all those years, so one day I could stand behind a podium in the front of a room.

I truly believe the economy will be a deciding factor in this election. As much as Democrats like to stand by their "empty-chair" leader and assume that women voters care nothing for unemployment, the price of gas or their kids' schools because they have other things on their minds but how will an administration justify its uselessness to the millions of unemployed and destitute voters? 

(With thanks to all)