David Janes points to a collection of articles on The National Post written by former columnists of the paper.

Mark Steyn: “Iraq? The Post now argues that Washington should "accelerate plans to bring the United Nations, international NGOs, and other Muslim nations on-board." Who needs The Globe And Mail? The NGOs have fled Iraq. Say what you like about the wicked Halliburton, its murky subsidiaries, and its sinister private-sector compadres, but, unlike the pussies at Oxfam, they're still sticking it out over there.”

Mark Kingwell: “Column-writing, unlike other forms of discourse, has almost no external burden of proof. People read newspapers quickly, restless for stimulation, and respond more to tone than substance. You can engage in debate without the endless punishing qualifications and mitigations of academic prose. By the same token, classic fallacies of rhetoric - false attribution, straw men, plain insult - are rife.”

Kingwell mostly disparages a paper whose editor he disagreed with politically, but he has praise for both the then-editor (Ken Whyte) and Natasha Hassan, comment editor.

Patricia Pearson mostly namedrops, but that's okay. The Arts & Life section was fun to read. (Rebecca Eckler being the exception.)

Adam Sternbergh says that because of The National Post, there are too many columnists in Canada. Too many? But substitute "weblog entry" for "column" and "blogger" for "columnist" in his guidelines at the end of his piece...

Andy Lamey cuts & pastes sentences from National Post reader emails.