Many indictments may be laid at the feet of Joe Volpe, but the most severe I can think of is this: I think he means it. I accuse him of sincerity. I accuse him of believing his own humbug: that all those children of all those Apotex executives each individually decided to donate the maximum $5,400 to his campaign of their own free will and out of their own bank accounts, because they were excited about his "message"; that the dead people his Quebec campaign signed up as members are the kind of "anomalies" one should expect in the
"hurly-burly" of politics; that he is the victim of an anti-Italian smear
campaign on the part of unnamed members of the party "establishment," but that he will fight on because, after all, it's for the kids.

It would be one thing if Mr. Volpe mouthed these absurdities in a
cynical, calculating attempt to divert attention from his campaign's multiple misdeeds. That at least would be recognizably human behaviour, the kind of thing you expect from your average grifter: Caught in the act, deny. Caught again, deny again. But in fact it's much worse than that. We haven't seen this sort of self-delusion since Sheila Copps's encounter with the woman at the bank machine.
You remember: The reason she finally agreed to abide by her campaign promise to resign her seat if the GST was not abolished was that she found herself unable to look the woman behind her in the eye -- a fabrication of quite mind-warping dimensions, inasmuch as it was supposed to illustrate how deep-down honest she was: how troubled she was at having broken her promise to resign. But the promise, as her subsequent behaviour made clear, was never intended to be kept. It was itself a lie, told to make people believe the original, ur-lie, namely that the Liberals would abolish the GST. Only Ms. Copps had been in the game so long she was genuinely unable to see this.

The moral she drew from the whole experience? "I don't think I'll ever be putting my seat on the line again if the voters are generous enough to reinvest their confidence in me." Spend a couple of hours plumbing the depths of that one.

The sacking of Chen Liangyu comes ahead of the key Communist Party Congress later this year when Hu Jintao will be hoping to consolidate his leadership.

Until now, Shanghai - China's second city and financial centre -
has been considered a stronghold for officials loyal to Mr Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin. Mr Chen was a protege of Jiang Zemin.

There has been a continuing power struggle between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Shanghai says.

Mr Chen's dismissal is being widely interpreted as Hu Jintao strengthening his position both within the party and the country as a whole, our correspondent adds.

The sacking of such senior Communist Party members are rare.

Not long ago, kids amused themselves shooting baskets in the park. Now millions of them are shooting the all-too-human characters that populate the strangely addictive world of videogames.