Free Republic

MONTREAL — A Quebec comedy duo notorious for prank calls to celebrities and heads of state has reached Sarah Palin, convincing the Republican vice-presidential nominee she was speaking with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In the interview, which lasts about six minutes, Ms. Palin and the pranksters discuss politics, pundits, and the dangers of hunting with Vice-President Dick Cheney. The Masked Avengers, who have a regular show on Montreal radio station CKOI, intend to air the full interview on the eve of the U.S. elections. The well-known duo of Sebastien Trudel and Marc-Antoine Audette have also tricked Rolling Stones singer Mick...

My favorite headline of the year so far comes from the Daily Mail in Britain: "Government Renames Islamic Terrorism As anti-Islamic Activity' To Woo Muslims." Her Majesty's government is not alone in feeling it's not always helpful to link Islam and the, ah, various unpleasantnesses with suicide bombers and whatnot. Even in his cowboy Crusader heyday, President Bush liked to cool down the crowd with a lot of religion-of-peace stuff. But the British have now decided that kind of mealy-mouthed "respect" is no longer sufficient. So, henceforth, any terrorism perpetrated by persons of an Islamic persuasion will be designated "anti-Islamic...

He is an enigma still, even as Canadians seem poised to choose Stephen Harper as our next prime minister. He has a strange, almost buck-toothed smile and icy blue eyes that never seem to warm. Even with advisers who have done their best to make him appear less aloof, Harper still seems uncomfortable outside the realm of policies and ideas. But while he may not be warm and fuzzy, no wolf lurks behind that mock turtleneck, insist Harper's admirers. Fearmongering to the contrary, no bogeyman appears when the Conservative Party leader lets down that helmet head of hair. After all,...

Reform party founder Preston Manning yesterday warned of an "explosion" of separatist sentiment in Quebec if Paul Martin's Liberals win the next federal election. And he said there will also be "quasi-explosions" of separatist sentiment in Western Canada. Speaking at a meeting of the Canadian Club at the Palliser Hotel, Manning recalled the federalist side won the 1995 referendum on Quebec independence by just 1.2% of the vote. "It was a scary moment, and it's coming back -- the separatists again have the cause they need," Manning said. Separatism was dying in Quebec until the revelations by Justice John Gomery's...

Thirty-year-old Larry Clark, already an accomplished commercial airline pilot and flight instructor, is in line to become one of the world's first private astronauts. Clark's company, Canadian Arrow, was among more than two dozen teams that competed earlier this year in a $10 million race to send a privately developed spaceship into sub-orbital flight. He is the only American among Canadian Arrow's six-member astronaut corps.

An Egyptian sailor who died in Brazil of a suspected case of anthrax aboard a merchant ship now quarantined outside Halifax Harbour was carrying a bag to a friend in Canada, say Brazilian police. They alerted Interpol about the potentially contaminated package Ibrahim Sayed Soliman Ibrahim was carrying on the Wadi Alarab, said Neder Duarte, federal police chief of the city of Belem in Brazil’s northern state of Para. “Maybe he had opened the luggage and then had problems with anthrax,” Duarte told The Daily News yesterday. Brazilian police are investigating the case to determine if Ibrahim was somehow involved...