It looks like Lil' Kim and his crazy band of commies are up to their old tricks. North Korea tested two short-range missiles on Tuesday, following the test of a nuclear weapon on Monday. The reclusive communist state has also increased its war-mongering rhetoric directed toward South Korea and reports indicate it has restarted the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which it agreed to shut down in 2007 in exchange for aid.

None of this should come as much of a surprise, as North Korea has been playing the same game for years. I suppose the international response should not come as a surprise either. Let's see, American officials give the North a stern talking to, Russia and China pretend to be onside with the rest of the international community, the security council drafts a resolution imposing some token sanctions, etc. etc. I think I've seen this episode before.

What should be surprising is if anyone believes the same old response will yield new results. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there will be consequences for North Korea's actions and urged them to return to the six-party talks. The problem is that the U.S. has very few options left in terms of punishing North Korea. More sanctions could be imposed on the impoverished country, but they already engage in very little international trade and further sanctions would likely hurt their already starving citizens. Moreover, the six-party talks have consistently failed and are unlikely to yield better results in the future.

The opposition parties continued to hound the government on Tuesday over proposed changes to Canada's Employment Insurance (EI) program.

The opposition would like to lower the number of hours people need to work in order to be eligible for EI. They would also like to standardize the eligibility requirements across the country, instead of the current system, which varies depending on the unemployment rate of the region in question. The issue has become so heated, that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has threatened to force an election over the matter.

As though this doesn't seem silly enough, the Liberals launched a coordinated attack against the government Tuesday in question period, which saw the party simultaneously calling for increased spending and deficit reduction. Here are two back to back questions from Michael Ignatieff and John McCallum:

I always assumed it would be a cold day in hell when Vancouver city council came up with a good idea. They are usually too busy trying to make a bad road system even worse or harassing small business owners like Marc Emery. I was, therefore, quite surprised to hear that council will be debating a motion on open standards and open source software on a day that is forecast to be sunny and 19 degrees.

The motion would see the city developing and procuring free and open source software (FOSS), making more information accessible to the public, and publishing the information using open standards.

FOSS is a method of developing computer software, whereby an application’s source code is made freely available and software is developed collaboratively by programmers from around the world. Popular applications developed using this method include the Firefox web browser and the Linux operating system.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in Washington Monday to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama. The key issues on the leader's agenda were how to deal with Iran and its suspected nuclear weapons program and whether or not Netanyahu will endorse Obama's two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

As always, middle east politics is extremely complex, so it's a good idea to look at some of the different perspectives on the viability of a two-state solution, as well as the other potential solutions that could take its place.

Daniel Doron lays out the case against a two-state solution in Forbes:

Mark Steyn has an interesting new piece, which examines Hollywood's reluctance to pit superheros against our real enemies:

This issue would appear to be the giant elephant in the closet since 2001. As Steyn points out, Captain America was fighting the Nazi's even before the United States entered World War II. This is because even before the U.S. got involved, it was abundantly clear that the fascists were out to slaughter all the Jews and take over the world. Yet do the Islamofascists, many of whom have strikingly similar goals, receive the same treatment? Of course not.

Craigslist, a popular online classified ads site, announced yesterday that it will be removing the "erotic services" section for U.S. cities and replacing it with a new section that will be moderated by their staff:

A few months ago, CBC reporter Duncan McCue gave a talk at the University of British Columbia, where he showed a news story about an environmentally friendly hair salon. He explained that it was part of the CBC's One Million Acts of Green campaign, where they challenge Canadians to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I said that I had a problem with a news organization, especially a government funded news organization, picking up a social cause, trying to get people to change the way they live, and then reporting on themselves as if it were actual news. I was apparently the only one there who thought this was objectionable.

More recently, there has been a lot of talk about how the media has handled the swine flu story. For weeks we were told that this was the beginning of the next great pandemic. Now, however, it seems as though cooler heads have prevailed. The story has been pushed off the front pages and people have begun to realize that the outbreak is actually quite mild so far. We have seen similar bouts of media hysteria in the past in regards to everything from bird flu to global warming. Not to be outdone, the CBC has managed to combine these two issues in a piece that is sure to cause fear and uncertainty in at least a few people. Watch out for the next major threat to human survival: killer microorganisms that are thriving thanks to global warming.

The Pakistani army is pushing deeper into the Swat Valley, in its offensive against Taliban militants, who now hold territory a mere 100 kilometres outside the nuclear-armed state's capital Islamabad. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has replaced the top American general in Afghanistan and committed tens of thousands of additional troops to the region. These events highlight just how much the geopolitical situation in the region has changed since the Canadian parliament voted the extend the mission in Afghanistan in early 2008.

The Canadian mission was extended beyond the existing 2009 deadline after the Manley Report endorsed the extension provided that other countries sent additional troops and the Canadian military acquired new equipment. The initial motion to extend the mission was watered-down in order to appease the federal Liberals, whose leader—Stéphane Dion—had voted against the initial extension in 2006.

Canadians should be used to Prime Minister Stephen Harper caving into Liberal demands and making their issues his own. First he abandoned his tough stance on the Afghan mission, initially expressing full support for it and then arguing that it should end by 2011. Then he flip-flopped on the economic file, first supporting sound economic policies and then running up one of the largest deficits in history. However, there is no reason to believe that this charade needs to continue any longer. A few months ago, I wrote about the possibility of a historic alignment between the Liberals and Conservatives on foreign policy issues, as it related to the war in Gaza:

Right of Identica is a group created to facilitate discussion among right-of-centre identi.ca users. It is an inclusive community, which welcomes discussion on right-wing, conservative, and libertarian topics of interest. It was created in the same vain as other similar communities on Twitter, such as Right of Twitter, Top Conservatives on Twitter, and Top Libertarians on Twitter. Since identi.ca offers much better support for groups than does Twitter, it is an ideal place to start such a community.

For those who don't know what identi.ca is, it is an open source micro-blogging service that is similar to Twitter. One of the big problems with Twitter, as I see it, is that it is a closed network. Unlike technologies such as the telephone or e-mail, Twitter is controlled by a single company. If they decide to change their end-user license, people are stuck. If they decide to change their API and not release it to the public, none of the software designed to inter-operate with Twitter will work. Likewise, no one is able to setup another instance of Twitter. While anyone can operate their own e-mail server, only Twitter can operate a Twitter server.

Luckily, Laconica is an open source Twitter replacement. There are a number of sites that currently run Laconica and they are able to communicate with one another. The largest of these sites is identi.ca, which has the ability to republish your notices on Twitter and Facebook, so your friends on all three networks can see what you're saying.

There's positive news on the war on drugs coming from south of the border, where California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signalled his willingness to debate the issue of legalizing marijuana: