We finally have liftoff. Congratulations, NASA, sixth time's the charm.

Now we wait for the shuttle to catch up and dock with the International Space Station, which should happen around midday Friday. Here'a site that lets you follow the choreographed dance between the two vehicles in more-or-less real time:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/

Once the two spacecraft are docked together for their 16-day rendezvous, they should make a spectacular sight from Earth.

I don't actually know how the folks who manage Eve Online plan to deal with this, except that they've booted the virtual fraudster out of the game.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/07/03/science-online-bank-heist.html

Happy Canada Day, everyone. Snap quiz, if you're up to it:
1. Exactly what are we celebrating the anniversary of?
2. Who gets top billing as "Father of Confederation?"
3. Name one other.
4. Where exactly is the Canada-U.S. border (I mean the long straight part)?
5. Why did Canadians decide they wanted a country anyway?
6. What's the national anthem? Fairly easy one.
7. What's the flag? Ditto.
8. What's the national sport? What, another gimme?
9. How many provinces are there? Territories?

I thought I'd share one of those channel-surfing moments that make you wish all TVs came with a screen-grab function. I happened to switch to TSN as they were doing an item on the end of Manny Ramirez's 50-game suspension. What immediately caught my eye was the chyron at the bottom of the screen: "suspended due to darkness."

"Holy crap, TSN," I immediately thought. "You can't say that. They caught the guy fair and square." A second or so later, I realized I was seeing the second half of a line that probably referred to the game he'd been expected to play in.

For those of us who, like Mir Hosein Mousavi, are wondering what happened to our projected landslide green revolution, Josh Marshall links to an interesting Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/iranian-election

The torch design for next year's Winter Olympics was apparently unveiled months ago. Only now have some sharp-eyed reporters started asking each other, "Hey, what does that look a bit like to you?"

Personally, I love it. It sums up in one image the best British Columbia has to offer: winter sports and B.C. Bud. Now if only the organizers can sign up gold medalist Ross Rebagliati to kick off the torch relay.

Orlando posed a puzzler yesterday: if you shut the Camp Delta prison, what do you do with inmates who have committed no known war crimes or acts of terrorism, but who still pose a security threat? How do you keep them from taking up arms or otherwise waging jihad against the U.S. and its allies?

It's triflingly simple: Ask them to promise not to.

"Huh?" I can hear you all saying. "That's crazy talk, acanuck. What's to stop them from breaking their word?" Well, first of all, the concept of "parole" has an honored place in Arab and Muslim history. It resonates.

OK, Hockey Afternoon in America.

Tomorrow (Sunday), at 3 p.m. Eastern, the NHL's Western Conference final series kicks off between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings.

Why should you care? Why should anyone care?

Near the start of the military offensive against Hamas, Orlando sparked a spirited but civil debate with the question, "What is Israel thinking?" I argued one strategic goal was to drive a deeper wedge between the West Bank and Gaza, by forcing Egypt to open its Rafah crossing to refugees and wounded and take on the task of supplying food, fuel and medicine. If all Gaza's lifelines ran through Egypt, Israel could make the claim it is no longer the occupying power.