Both depressing and encouraging is the news that the Canadian government gave a nicely sized sum to a suspected terrorist who had been… interrogated in Syria before being let go again.

Maher Arar was detained in the US while returning to Canada from Tunisia. He has dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship.

A Canadian government inquiry cleared him of any involvement in terrorism. Syria denies that he was tortured.

PM Stephen Harper said Mr Arar would receive $10.5m (US$8.9m, £4.54m) compensation, and urged the US to drop him from its list of terror suspects.

See, I still get confused with the strange dichotomy of rendering terror suspects to Syria while at the same time pointing the finger at them as an aid to terrorism in the Iraq Fiasco. Like we might send them people they sent into Iraq initially.

Now, the thing that really gets me is that we have a good idea about how many (or, more accurately, how few) people in our custody are actually guilty of anything. If the Canadian government were to pay them all for their trauma, the country would go bankrupt before everyone got their checks.

And, unsurprisingly…

Despite repeated calls from Canada to drop Mr Arar from its security watch list, the US refuses, saying it has reasons of its own to keep him on the list.

Yep, reasons of its own. Meaning, “we don’t care what you found out.”

I’m not big on hearsay and rumor, but this is too hard to ignore. Comedy Central, not known for being the pillar of journalistic thoroughness or their ability to break stories first, apparently called Rummy’s resignation before anyone else after getting an anonymous tip. Well now it’s phase 2: out with Cheney, in with Condi.

The CC Insider/InDecider has just heard more rumors (see earlier posts) from a SECOND reliable source that Dick Cheney will be stepping down as Vice President and will be replaced as Vice President by Condoleezza Rice. And now we’re hearing that she would like to be on the ticket as the GOP VP candidate in ‘08.

According to our rumor-meister, John Negroponte will be filling Condi’s current position as Secretary of State. Negroponte is currently the Director of National Intelligence (the first person ever to hold the few-years-old position) and the former US Ambassador to Iraq.

It could be true, it could be false, but if true it would be something incredible. Cheney is somewhat of a liability to the president. His approval numbers are dismally low and his constant attack style of dealing with questions can’t be helping the administration’s image. Throw in the leak scandal that’s growing by the hour and there’s not much of a good reason to keep him around.

Keep an eye on this one, folks.