found via dan4th:

The Canadian dollar reached parity with the U.S. greenback on Thursday for the first time in almost 31 years, capping a spectacular run that has seen it rise 62 per cent since 2002. The loonie briefly reached $1.0003 US on foreign-exchange markets shortly before 11 a.m. ET, the Bank of Canada said. The currency spent much of the rest of the day flirting with parity — at one point trading at $1.0006 — before closing at 99.87 cents US, up 1.37 cents from Wednesday's Bank of Canada close. full article

I feel the need to say: I called it.

British sailors and marines were blindfolded and kept in isolation from each other during most of their 13-day detention in Iran, members of the naval crew said Friday in their first public comments since being released. Six of the 15 captured crew held a news conference at Royal Marine Base Chivenor a day after they arrived back in Britain. "The pressures we were subjected to were quite diverse. It was mainly psychological and emotional," said Lieut. Felix Carman. "We were blindfolded at all times and kept in isolation from each other." ... Carman said when they first arrived at the Tehran prison, they were blindfolded and ordered to stand against a wall with their hands bound as "people were cocking weapons in the background." That experience was "an extremely nerve-racking occasion," said Carman. "There were lots of tactics like that that were employed." At one point, the lone female sailor, Faye Turney, was told the other 14 sailors and marines had been sent back to Britain and that she was left alone, they said. full article

The British sailors were treated badly in Iranian hands. But, they are lucky the weren't captured by the Bush regime and sent to Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib. The ordeal these sailors endured was nothing compared to what the Bush administration has been promoting as standards of prisoner treatment and interrogation.

This sore of psychological and emotional abuse of prisoners is not acceptable, but Bush's long term unapologetic abuse of prisoners have made it virtually impossible for any United States ally to effectively speak out against this kind of mistreatment, and that goes doubly for the Bush's closest friend and enabler: Tony Blair.