Remember that brief flurry of excitement when SLA announced that Bill Clinton would be the closing keynote speaker for the SLA conference? Then SLA said he’d had to cancel because he had a schedule conflict in conjunction with his work on tsunami relief and, with the support of Factiva, were able to line up Gary Hamel as the replacement closing keynote.

Well, guess where Bill Clinton actually was yesterday, while Gary Hamel was delivering that keynote speech — in an Indianapolis bookstore, autographing his book. Then, according to the Indianapolis Star , he headed to a local synagogue to deliver a 1-hour speech that touched on peace, global interdependence, how Southeast Asia views the U.S., energy policy, and healthcare. Not libraries. Not information professionals. Although he did cite yesterday’s announcement by General Motors of layoffs in the U.S. but not Canada (which was on the front page of the Globe and Mail but that story said “Canada is also involved”) and attributed the lack of job losses in Canada to their national health policies.

Reminded me of a T-shirt I saw in Toronto. It said that Canadians were unarmed Americans with healthcare.