I mean, I understand these are small, poor countries, but is a six figure sum really "huge"?

Maybe we could trade them for some blood pressure meds?

With the NHL on strike, Canadian tax revenues are significantly down.

The sailor's life is dear. I wish he were honored by better than the reporting of his death:

"The remarkable revelation, which comes as it emerged that the Canadian Prime Minister had warned Tony Blair that the UK could be facing legal action over the wrangle, effectively shatters the public show of unity maintained by both governments in the wake of the tragedy."

Go ahead . . . read it once, read it twice . . . and I defy you to make sense of it.

Whoever you are, dead sailor in the blue, please forgive us for our written transgressions. May you rest in peace.

You get your wish, Fred, although not in a way I think you would respect much.

This comic opera caught the (minority) government by surprise and unleashed a full-bored opposition attack on neglect of the military. The panicked government responded by doing a Bigley. For several days this week, all flags in Ottawa were at half mast,we drowned in eulogies and the press has been going wild over family interviews, etc. I'm sorry, but, brave as he undoubtedly was, the man died in the equivalent of an industrial accident. Hundreds of others have died in the last decade or so and no one noticed.

By chance, I met up with a lawyer colleague who is very active in the reserve and very much part of the military culture. It was very, very painful to see the look of anguished confusion on his face as he struggled to make sense of all his proud vocation had become.

I wonder what legal action Canada is threatening against Britain? International Criminal Court? World Court of Justice? US District of Southern Illinois (Madison County), for selling a defective submarine, seeking $200 billion in punitive damages?

This is a fun story. There is a body of law that deals with this and it is not whiplash law. Maritime salvage is a matter for Admiralty courts: ships have been getting in trouble and needing to be rescued for thousands of years. Who pays how much, and to whom, if not set out in advance by insurance contracts, treaties, and things like that, gets decided by a judge with a ceremonial silver oar on the wall. I don't much beyond that--to find out more we must consult a specialist with the coolest title in the professions: a proctor in admirality.

Lou:

Second coolest. In Scotland, the public prosecuter is called the Procurator fiscal. I'd do it for free if I could be called that.

Lou is the optical thing that he uses the proctorscope?

Wasn't under a warentry?