To John Kennedy Toole it was A Confederation of Dunces to Canada's Outspoken Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish it's a "Coalition of Idiots." (August 30, 2004)

    While the specific targets of Toole's Posthumously awarded 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner and Carolyn Parrish' August 26 barb are not identical they belong to the same genre.

According to Paul Gresser, Summer Intern for Bob Park's What's New Column, (Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be.) Canadian Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin wants to talk about possible participation in Bush's non-existent ballistic missile defence system.  The Liberal caucus is sharply split over any Canadian participation in the program, with critics saying the program is unproven, expensive and likely to start a weapons race in space. It was all too much for the outspoken Liberal backbencher Carolyn Parrish who last week protested that Canada oughtn't to join a "coalition of idiots".

Parrish told the press that Prime Minister Martin while asking that she temper her remarks for the shake of cross boarder relations, did not ask her to retract her assessment or apologise which she has no intention of doing. Nor from the viewpoint of scientific credibility ought she. The succinct comment by one US physicist sums it up, "Even if it would work it wouldn't work, but it won't work." Expanding on that theme an American Physical Society Study demonstrated the infeasibility of the US missile defence strategy.

Thirteen months ago Daniel Kleppner, MIT professor of physics and co-author of the study wrote, "Few of the components exist for deploying an effective boost-phase defense against liquid-propellant ICBMs and some essential components would take at least 10 years to develop. According to U.S. intelligence estimates, North Korea and Iran could develop or acquire solid-propellant ICBMs [which have a shorter intercept window] within the next 10 to 15 years. Consequently, a boost-phase defense effective only against liquid-propellant ICBMs would risk being obsolete when deployed."

Despite the fact that the Australian Defence Department concluded in March that Son of Star Wars was too costly Senator Robert Hill, Minister for Defence, has joined the Coalition of...  (we dare not mention its name) to defend the nation with a "non-existent ballistic missile defence system."