Phelps gets smoked

At the Santa Clara Grand Prix in California last Sunday, Vancouver’s Brent Hayden finished the men’s 100-freestyle race in 48.44 seconds, a meet record, beating eight-time Olympic gold medallist Michael Phelps by a full half-second. “I was really excited,” Hayden told the Canadian Press. “Michael is such a great competitor and every time I get up and race him, it’s such an honour.” Phelps—newly mustachioed, and recently back after a three-month suspension by USA Swimming for getting caught smoking marijuana on film—won two of his four races at the meet. “I’m ready to go home and sleep in my own bed,” he said.

Here’s your visa, Mr. Rae. You’re not welcome.

Last week, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae was turned away at a Sri Lankan airport, allegedly for being a Tamil Tigers supporter and a “security risk”—and an Ontario resident may be to blame. According to the Toronto Star, Irangani de Silva, a Sri Lankan expat who lives in London, Ont., wrote an opinion piece in the June 8 issue of The Island, a major Sri Lankan newspaper, in which she counselled Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona to revoke the visa that had been issued to Rae for a three-day visit. She also denounced Rae for having suggested in the Commons recently that Canada ought to look into human rights violations committed by Sri Lankan officials over the course of the bloody 25-year civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority. “We are sure that [Rae] will return with a damning report on the government of Sri Lanka and push for war crimes investigations, publish media reports that there is discrimination, etc.,” de Silva wrote. Granting a visa to Rae, she said, was an “act of foolishness.” In Sri Lanka’s state-owned Daily News, the anti-Rae vitriol continued after his departure. One columnist argued that Rae is pandering to the large faction of Tamil expats he represents in Canada “who are not just vocal but openly violent in their support for the cause of terrorism in Sri Lanka.” In his statement, Rae called the charges made against him “absurd” and “a lie, pure and simple.” Continue…