Truth & Justice

CNN BREAKING NEWS! (no, not the war)

2006-08-02T15:40:00.000-04:00

Dog goes berserk, destroys Elvis' teddy bear

LONDON, England (AP) -- A guard dog has ripped apart a collection of rare teddy bears, including one once owned by Elvis Presley, during a rampage at a children's museum.

"He just went berserk," said Daniel Medley, general manager of the Wookey Hole Caves near Wells, England, where hundreds of bears were chewed up Tuesday night by the 6-year-old Doberman pinscher named Barney.

Barney ripped the head off a brown stuffed bear once owned by the young Presley during the attack, leaving fluffy stuffing and bits of bears' limbs and heads on the museum floor. The bear, named Mabel, was made in 1909 by the German manufacturer Steiff.

The collection, valued at more than $900,000, included a red bear made by Farnell in 1910 and a Bobby Bruin made by Merrythought in 1936.

The bear with Elvis connections was owned by English aristocrat Benjamin Slade, who bought it at an Elvis memorabilia auction in Memphis, Tenn., and had loaned it to the museum.

"I've spoken to the bear's owner and he is not very pleased at all," Medley said.

A security guard at the museum, Greg West, said he spent several minutes chasing Barney before wrestling the dog to the ground.

Homegrown Darwin Award Nominee

2006-05-30T10:57:00.000-04:00

British Columbia: Man dies trying to steal live hydro wires

A 35-year-old Surrey man was killed early yesterday trying to steal copper wire near a BC Hydro substation in Langley, B.C., police said. A BC Hydro worker found the man dead near a hydro substation at about 3 a.m. Police were called and found the body in an underground junction box. A preliminary investigation revealed the man was attempting to cut a live wire and was electrocuted. The man was known to police and he had a criminal record. Police said such thefts have occurred before. "Last year we had a fellow who lost two fingers trying to steal Telus wires, and now we've got a death," said RCMP Cpl. Diane Blain.

Sabrina: The End

2006-05-17T11:47:00.000-04:00

Owner fought the law and won a flying squirrel
Peel police pounced: Canadian food agency's fears have subsided

Melissa Leong, National Post, with files from CanWest News ServicePublished: Tuesday, May 16, 2006

In his fight to keep Sabrina from being deported, Steve Patterson lost money,
sleep and 18 pounds.
In 2004, he hired a high-profile defence lawyer to
represent him against the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which wanted Sabrina
-- a U.S.-born northern flying squirrel -- kicked out of the country for
violating a ban on rodent importation.
He fielded media calls from all over
the world and circulated petitions.
Today, the 53-year-old naturalist from
Mississauga, Ont., says he would do it all again -- anything for his furry
friend.
Mr. Patterson will be headed to Ohio next Monday to bring Sabrina
back a companion -- a seven-week-old male southern flying squirrel, weighing 20
grams.
He said he does not anticipate any trouble this time since he won his
battle against the government; also regulations on the importation of rodents
have changed.
"I knew that everybody who might want to give me a problem
would think twice because of my record. I won't sit back and take it; I'll fight
back," he said.
Sabrina, who is two years old, five inches tall and likes to
hang out in Mr. Patterson's shirt, helps him during educational
presentations.
Mr. Patterson bought the nocturnal squirrel in Indiana after
obtaining permits from both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Ontario's
Natural Resources Ministry to legally import the animal into the country. He
showed his permits to Customs Canada officials at the border where they allowed
him through on June 26, 2004.
Neither he nor the authorities knew the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) had passed a ban on importing any
squirrel species because of a scare created by a monkey pox epidemic in the
United States last year.
Nine days later, the CFIA contacted Mr. Patterson to
order him to give his squirrel up.
He refused and hid Sabrina in a nearby
"safe house." Two CFIA officials, accompanied by two Peel Region police
officers, later showed up at his front door, demanding he hand over the
rodent.
The federal government then took Mr. Patterson to court, claiming
that Sabrina remaining in the country would cause "irreparable harm."
With
the help of lawyer Clayton Ruby Mr. Patterson won the court battle and the court
ordered the government to pay his costs. The government appealled the decision
but the appeal was denied last May.
Regulations were amended in November,
2004, to allow the importation of rodents for research, educational purposes or
zoos, said Dr. Debbie Barr, acting national manager of the import export section
at the CFIA.
She said there should not be an issue with Mr. Patterson
bringing in another squirrel so long as he has a permit from the province
indicating that the animal is for educational purposes. Also, the squirrel must
get a clean bill of health from a veterinarian before crossing the border, she
said.
Mr. Patterson said that since he won't have to deal with a bureaucratic
mess, he can concentrate on spending time bonding with the new pup.
He has
yet to name the squirrel.
"I'm thinking something like Sparky. I sort of have
to meet the animal."
and...
Sabrina to get a new friend
John Stewart
May 16, 2006 Sabrina the flying squirrel, whose owner fought a court battle to win the right to stay in Mississauga and Canada, is getting a new playmate.
Steve Patterson, the Mississauga naturalist who brought Sabrina across the border with permission of customs officials in 2004 and then fought a lengthy court battle to keep her here, will be doing some cross-border shopping next week.
He's going to Ohio where he will pick up a seven-week male squirrel to keep Sabrina company.
The two-year-old Sabrina is a northern flying squirrel while her unnamed friend is a southern flying squirrel.
Government officials claimed Patterson had broken the law by importing Sabrina, who is classified as a rodent.
Lawyer Clayton Ruby, famous for taking on celebrated cases, successfully argued that Sabrina could stay, since the government had subsequently passed regulations permitting importation of rodents for research or educational purposes or for zoo display.
Patterson will have to get a clean bill of health from a veterinarian for his new pet and a provincial permit saying that the squirrel will be used for educational purposes.
Sabrina visits local schools in Patterson's shirt, where she likes to hang out, and is always a big hit with students. The Mississauga man, who is as knowledgeable about flying squirrels as many academics, was the guest speaker this winter at the new education resource centre at Riverwood, where the City's public gardens project is being developed.
Just like the last time he brought back a flying squirrel, Patterson doesn't expect any problems at the border.

Sabrina History:
Part 1: October 2004
Part 2: April 2005

Statistics are pretty hard; especially for StatsCan

2006-04-20T19:47:00.000-04:00

I actually sent the following e-mail to the contact person for today's "The Daily" at Statistics Canada.
They posted their e-mail address next to their math. It warranted a letter...

To: frances.kremarik@statcan.ca
Date: Apr 20, 2006 7:22 PM
Subject: "Travel between Canada and other countries" - April 20th

Dear Frances,

I am writing to inform you of a serious breach of mathematics, if not ethics, within today's release.

You have reported in great detail about a "decline" in travel between January and February 2006, to and from the United States.

You are, however, dealing with total figures for the months in question. This is not the correct way to measure monthly changes of this type. You cannot, and in good conscience SHOULD not release percentages without a common base to compare. In this case, you MUST use vehicles per day. Total vehicles will not work, because the lengths of the months are not fixed.

February has 28 days, while January has 31. Any child is capable of reminding you of this. I will take it one step farther and assert that February is 9.6% shorter than January.

Quite simply, every number you show as being LESS than a 9.6% decline, is actually a net GAIN in the number of vehicles per day.

Please correct your mathematics at once and direct this serious error to your superiors, the Minister of Transportation, Prime Minister Harper's office, and each and every news outlet that has reported this erroneous information today, so that they may have the correct information, and not this blatantly incorrect assessment. (see: CTV.ca)

Canada is waiting on you to perform your duty.

Sincerely,

Rich

Russell The Grouch

2006-03-13T13:15:00.000-05:00

Sesame Street snubs Crowe

Gladiator star Russell Crowe won't be stopping by children's show Sesame Street, after producers rejected an appearance by the actor, claiming he's not a good role model.

The actor has a two-year-old son, Charles, with wife Danielle Spencer and another baby on the way - but Sesame Street producers don't see him as a family-friendly guy thanks to his hellraiser reputation.

Sesame Street executive producer Carol-Lynne Parente said of the star's prospects of joining the show: "He may not be the best role model for kids."Although I'm sure our writers could come up with a nice piece about dealing with emotions - healthy ways to deal with emotions."

Crowe has a reputation for having a bad temper and was arrested last June for throwing a phone at a hotel clerk in New York City.

However, one of Crowe's fellow Australian's would be welcomed with open arms by the show. Parente adds: "We would love to have Nicole Kidman on."

I thought it was a truck

2006-02-25T14:49:00.000-05:00

I wish I'd posted this last night when the original article said it was a 2.9. I had a whole bag of "multiply by 2.2" jokes lined up.

Anyways, here's some earthshaking news from home:

Earthquake shakes Ottawa

The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Friday, February 24, 2006

An earthquake rattled Ottawa on Friday evening.

Residents reported the ground shook for about 30 seconds.

Natural Resources Canada said the magnitude 4.5 earthquake occurred at 8:39 p.m. and struck seven kilometres north of Thurso, Que., about 40 kilometres east of downtown Ottawa.

The U.S. Geological Service said the quake occurred about 15 kilometres underground.

The shaking was felt in as far west as Arnprior, as far east as Hawkesbury and in Chelsea, Que., about 20 kilometres north of Ottawa.

"It started as a rumble, then shaking ... the whole house was shaking and the glasses were rattling," said Jeff Thiessen, who lives in Manor Park.

Floralove Katz was having dinner in her Centretown residence at Frank and Metcalfe streets.

"The whole house was shaking violently," she said. "It started around 8:40 and lasted a good two minutes ... at least a minute ... we were all holding on to the dishes."

Ellen Thompson, who lives in Manotick, said she was sitting on her waterbed watching television.

"There was a swell in the waterbed going on here. The ceiling fan .. was not on, but it was vibrating."

Robert Chaffers said he thought snow was sliding off the steel roof of his Chelsea home. "We could here it coming for several seconds before the house shook," he said, adding that it was "like a gigantic truck or something coming down the road."

There were no immediate reports of any damage or injury.

Because I'm a good citizen, I also filled out the earthquake survey form:

Thank you for filling out the earthquake felt report. You entered the following information:

postalcode/codepostal: --- ---
town/ville: Nepean
province: Ontario
street/rue: Meadowlands Dr
crossstreet: Hogan St
didyoufeel/ressentivous: Yes
date: 2006/02/24
time/heure: 8:40
othertimes/autretemps:
location/lieu: At home in my apartment
storey/etage: 1st (ground)
activity/activite: sitting, painting at my kitchen table.
heard/entendu: sounded like a garbage truck out in the parking lot
felt/ressenti: felt a low rumble in the floor for approx 30 seconds
sawduring/vupendant: saw my cat run to the window to investigate the noise
sawafter/vuapres: one picture on the wall was slightly crooked
damage/dommage: No
otherfelt/autreressenti:
name/nom: Rich

Tandi's complete failure to react appropriately to an earthquake has now been properly recorded by Natural Resources Canada. I hope they use this information responsibly.

Goalie Fight!!! Wait a second... Goalie fight?!?!

2006-01-25T23:26:00.000-05:00

No fine, suspension after goalie fight

TSN.ca Staff

1/25/2006 11:42:16 AM

The Calgary Flames will not face any fines or suspensions for last night’s late-game fight involving Calgary netminder Philippe Sauve and his Colorado counterpart David Aebischer.

The NHL has reviewed the incident and decided to repeal the “automatic” one-game suspension to Sauve and the "automatic" $10,000 fine to Calgary head coach Darryl Sutter for Sauve instigating a fight in the final five minutes of a game.

While a new rule this season - put in to prevent coaches from settling scores in games that are effectively decided - specifically states the fine and suspension are automatic, NHL vice president Colin Campbell reserves the right to review each incident on a case-by-case basis to ensure the “instigation” truly violates the spirit of the rule.

In this case, Campbell decided it did not, so there will be no further discipline.

Remember, kids: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Happy Election Day!

2006-01-23T18:34:00.000-05:00

It's election day!

Naturally, this post is about flying cars.

Flying Car spotted in OZ

This election-day update is brought to you by andrewcoyne.com

Why modern journalism isn't "cool" anymore

2006-01-01T22:51:00.000-05:00

Happy new year! Welcome to 2006! I'm going to take a wild guess that journalism isn't going to make any great strides this year. Why's that, you ask? Style has officially defeated substance. They're not even trying anymore.

Don't blink or you'll miss leap second

Dec. 31, 2005. 01:00 AM

HUGO KUGIYA

ASSOCIATED PRESS

If life is often a matter of split seconds — the train door that closes in your face, the chance encounter with the love of your life, the near-collision with an oncoming SUV — then the universe is about to bestow upon us a generous gift: the leap second.

Today, at exactly 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, one second will be added to our official record of time — Co-ordinated Universal Time, kept by a series of atomic clocks, housed in environmentally sealed vaults in 80 timekeeping laboratories around the world and certified by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris.

The reason for the extra second is simple: Earth is slowing down. Since the days of Sir Isaac Newton, scientists have understood the time it takes for Earth to make a full rotation is getting longer. The gradual deceleration is caused by the gravitational pull of the moon. The same force that brings the tides is putting the brakes on the earth, albeit very slowly.

Because time is a function of planetary movement, our days are getting longer and, depending on how you look at it, time's slowing down. This discrepancy is something we've only been able to measure with the advent of atomic clocks, which measure time using the resonant frequency of cesium atoms.

---
One wishes the universe would bestow upon us a paper that doesn't bury the news under the flashy giftwrapping of an oncoming SUV.

Almost fittingly, it was 25 years ago to the day that Marshall McLuhan died. Too bad nobody at the Star remembers him.

Wikipedia: Marshall McLuhan - "hot" and "cool" media

Timing is everything

2005-12-04T16:21:00.000-05:00

Montreal the focus of global warming protests

Dec. 3, 2005. 08:29 PM

MONTREAL (CP-AP) — Tens of thousands of people ignored frigid temperatures Saturday to lead a worldwide day of protest against global warming.

...

Don't you love how the freaks all come out at election time?

This H2O's for you!

2005-10-20T16:37:00.000-04:00

Here's a simple post for you alcoholics, in point-form:

-People drink beer at bars
-These drinkers like to play drinking games
-Beer makers want to sell more beer
-Beer marketers promote a drinking game to sell more beer
-Panic ensues when the beer company learns that the drinkers are playing the game with beer and not water

If you're drunk right now, you might have mis-read that last point. Go back and try again.

If you're not drunk, follow these links:

Bud Pong promo canned after youth drinking reports

Students toast beer game, but guzzling worries some (Original New York Times article, reprinted)

This week's sign of the impending apocalypse...

2005-10-11T21:04:00.000-04:00

Unicef bombs the Smurfs in fund-raising campaign for ex-child soldiers

By David Rennie in Brussels
(Filed: 08/10/2005)

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

The short but chilling film is the work of Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, and is to be broadcast on national television next week as a campaign advertisement.

...

The short film pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom- shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

The final frame bears the message: "Don't let war affect the lives of children."

----
I don't know about you, but this is decidedly UNsmurfy.

Duck... Duck... GOOSE!

2005-10-09T23:32:00.000-04:00

Swedish hunter knocked unconscious by Canada goose after his son shot it dead

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - A Swedish hunter spent two days in bed after being knocked unconscious by a Canada goose that landed on his head moments after his son shot it dead, news reports said Wednesday.

The goose had been flying about 20 metres up in the air when it was shot by Carl Johan Ilback, who was hunting with his father, Ulf, along a stream in eastern Sweden in August.

When the goose dropped from the sky, it hit Ulf Ilback in the head and knocked him out, he said.

"It wanted to extract its revenge, I assume," Ulf Ilback told local newspaper Extra Ostergotland. "If it had gotten a better hit, it could have broken my neck."

Ilback spent two days in bed with severe headaches before returning to work.

"The story brought about a lot of laughter at work," he was quoted as saying, adding that during this month's moose hunt, he may wear a helmet.

---

That'll teach you to shoot at our geese.

More dolphins

2005-10-07T15:13:00.000-04:00

Dolphins sing 'Batman' theme

Scientists have taught dolphins to combine both rhythm and vocalisations to produce music, resulting in an extremely high-pitched, short version of the Batman theme song. ...

Yep. It's come to this.

"Mi have talent"

2005-10-07T15:10:00.000-04:00

'HAIR' IS THE HAT

Best hair story, and best quote:

Housen said that he was once stopped by a policeman while coming from a dance early one morning who insisted that he removed it.

"Him shine di light pon mi an' look. When him see it seh a mi real hair him frighten an' seh mi mus come check him a di station di following morning. When mi go him shake mi han' an' seh mi have talent an' mi fi keep it up," he said.

Reindeer Games

2005-10-04T08:49:00.000-04:00

BEST STORY EVER

Danish air force compensates Santa after fighter jets scare reindeer to death

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - The Danish Air Force said Thursday it paid the equivalent of about $5,880 Cdn in compensation to a part-time Santa Claus whose reindeer died of heart failure when two fighter jets roared over his farm.

The animal, named Rudolf, was grazing peacefully at the central Denmark farm of Olavi Nikkanoff when the screaming F-16 jets passed overhead at low altitude in February.
The reindeer collapsed and died, leaving Nikkanoff with the prospect of only one animal pulling his sleigh next Christmas.

He complained to the air force, which agreed to compensate him for the cost of the reindeer and veterinary expenses.

"We got a letter from Santa complaining about his reindeer's death and looked into it seriously," air force spokesman Capt. Morten Jensen said.

The air force checked flight data and veterinary reports and concluded the planes had likely caused the animal's death.

"We're more than happy to pay if it means that children around the world will get their presents," Jensen said.

Nikkanoff said he was satisfied with the compensation and would use it to buy a new reindeer before Christmas.

Please help!

2005-09-28T12:29:00.000-04:00

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to you on behalf of Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Nigeria, who needs your assistance in re-claiming £1.8m in cash from his offshore investments.

Considering his very strategic and influential position (in London; on trial for money laundering), he would want the transaction to be as strictly confidential as possible (no talking to the BBC about this, please). He further wants his identity to remain undisclosed at least for now, until the completion of the transaction (or the end of the trial; whichever comes first). Hence our desire to have an overseas agent.

The deal, in brief, is that the funds with which we intend to carry out our proposed investments in your country are presently in a coded account at the Bank of England (watched carefully by the OCU, I assure you) and we need your assistance to transfer the funds to your country in a convenient bank account that will be provided by you before we can put the funds into use in your country (we understand there's a bridge in Brooklyn for sale, and we're very interested).

For this, you shall be considered to have executed a contract for the Governor, for which payment should be effected to you.

In the light of this, I would like you to forward to me the following information:
1. Your company name and address if any
2. Your personal fax number
3. Your personal telephone number for easy communication.
4. Any past criminal record that we should be aware of. (This would really save us some time)

Your quick response will be highly appreciated. Thank you in anticipation of your co-operation.

Yours faithfully,
OCU Commander Detective Chief Superintendent James Perry
SCD6 - Economic & Specialist Crime "Fraud Squad"
New Scotland Yard
London

Kids these days...

2005-09-26T17:29:00.000-04:00

Eighteen-month-old runs over family

Mon Sep 26, 2005 12:39 PM ET

WARSAW (Reuters) - An 18-month-old child started the family car and ran over three family members in a southern Polish village Saturday, police said.

"The child somehow started the car, whose keys had been left in the ignition, and it began reversing," police spokesman Adam Jachimczak said.

The child's mother, who tried to stop the car, and her four-year-old daughter, got run over by the vehicle which pinned the grandfather against the wall of a barn.

The four-year-old, who suffered the most serious injuries, was rushed to hospital together with her mother and grandfather who were also hurt, Jachimczak said.

We're back! (A Dolphin Story)

2005-09-26T17:24:00.000-04:00

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

by Mark Townsend
Houston
Sunday September 25, 2005
The Observer

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels.

Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

'My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,' he said. 'The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?'

Usually dolphins were controlled via signals transmitted through a neck harness. 'The question is, were these dolphins made secure before Katrina struck?' said Sheridan.

The mystery surfaced when a separate group of dolphins was washed from a commercial oceanarium on the Mississippi coast during Katrina. Eight were found with the navy's help, but the dolphins were not returned until US navy scientists had examined them.

Sheridan is convinced the scientists were keen to ensure the dolphins were not the navy's, understood to be kept in training ponds in a sound in Louisiana, close to Lake Pontchartrain, whose waters devastated New Orleans.

The navy launched the classified Cetacean Intelligence Mission in San Diego in 1989, where dolphins, fitted with harnesses and small electrodes planted under their skin, were taught to patrol and protect Trident submarines in harbour and stationary warships at sea.

Criticism from animal rights groups ensured the use of dolphins became more secretive. But the project gained impetus after the Yemen terror attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Dolphins have also been used to detect mines near an Iraqi port.

-----------------
"You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!"
-Dr. Evil

Summer non-reading group

2005-09-19T10:49:00.000-04:00

Son of a Witch : A Novel by Gregory Maguire

"From Publishers Weekly: The death of Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West, brings about spectacular changes in this masterfully imaginative sequel to Maguire's 1995 blockbuster Wicked—most notably, the startling possibility that Elphaba had a son. Scattered among the ruins of great portions of Emerald City, many residents have been skinned and bloodied, supposedly by the barbaric Yunamatas. Travel caravan leader Oatsie Manglehand stumbles upon the body of an unknown young man, badly beaten but still alive. She presents him to the wise Superior Maunt, who recognizes the hurt boy as Liir, rumored to be the dead Witch's secreted son. A mute waif named Candle revives him with her haunting, ethereal music and hidden affections. Meanwhile, Maguire supplies alternating chapters of extensive, mesmerizing backstory of Liir's boyhood, from the witch's watery demise, to the trek to the Wizard's Castle with Dorothy and company, his search for the imprisoned princess Nor, and a long stint in the Munchkinland Army, all while donning his mother's black cape and clutching her magic broom handle. Along the way, a headspinning cast of vividly described, eccentric characters emerges, but nothing prepares Liir for Candle's shocking surprise announcement. Tucked into Maguire's enchanting fable are carefully calibrated object lessons in forgiveness, retribution, love, loss and the art of moving on despite tragic circumstances. Ten years after Wicked (which is still on Broadway), fans will once again be clicking their heels with wonderment.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "

Am I the only one thinking "what have we done to deserve another bloody trek through OZ?!?"

Note the keywords: extensive backstory (translation: boring); long stint (translation: boring); vividly described (translation: boring); carefully calibrated (translation: boring); shocking surprise (translation: boring)...

I feel bad for this Candle character, getting dragged into this mess with another stupid name.

Yep, gonna skip this one, too, methinks. The 'clever' title should be warning enough.

Summer reading group... part 4

2005-09-19T10:27:00.000-04:00

I'm not a fan of Can Lit. Carol Shields doesn't do it for me. Margaret Atwood holds no thrall. Margaret Laurence can take a long walk off a short pier, as far as I'm concerned. When I was a kid, I loved stuff by Gordon Korman and Farley Mowat and I still do, but as an adult reader, I'm finding that the Canadian books everybody talks about are crap. Someone seriously needs to lend me some Douglas Coupland before I start to get depressed about this.

I just finished "Fifth Business" this week. Yep, it took me two whole months. Want to know why? Because it's crap. Not because the author can't string a sentence together. Robertson Davies seems to be able to do that just fine. He just has no idea how to tell a story. And he's got the makings of an engaging one here. It just falls on its head. Frequently.

For example, here's one complaint I had: if your story opens with a snowball fight, a snowball is the catalyst for your main character's life, and you return to that damn snowball again and again, wouldn't you think it prudent to mention that there was a rock in the snowball? Alas, no. The rock in the snowball - an "ordinary egg-shaped piece of pink granite" - plays the role of deus ex machina, arriving in the last chapter just in time to get stuffed into the mouth of a character just before their untimely demise. I was seriously distracted by this rock, if you can't tell. Every review of this book mentions the rock, but not having read them before, this was an unpleasant surprise.

Complaint no.2, now. Saints. So our main character Dunny likes learning about saints. When he's a kid, he finds a book in the library about saints and reads it over and over and even to the neighbourhood kids. Later, after he grows up and fights in the war, guess what he discovers for the first time! Saints! He finds them fascinating! There's some comment he makes about how he never realized how fascinating the subject could be. Sorry, Dunny, but for a guy explaining your life story to me, your memory sucks. You can recount a snowball fight blow-for-blow and quote your mother's rants word-for-word, but you apparently can't recall your favourite book. Not too bright for a history professor, are you dumbass?

There's dozens of these little mistakes scattered throughout the book where something blatantly contradicts a fact given earlier.

It's not all Dunny's fault. His author is just incompetent. He starts a tale about a girl, goes off on a tangent, comes right back where he left off suddenly at the end of a paragraph, and then scrambles to do something about the point. Invariably he kills off someone. Now, as I've said before, I'm not one to talk about killing off characters (*cough* black hole *cough*), but seriously, these deaths were a waste. They still had some milage to go, and in the hands of a better writer, they could have contributed more.

This whole novel is a brutal, wasted, tangent. It's written as a letter from Dunny to his headmaster to prove he's a man of substance and has lived a worthwhile life. In classic Can Lit fashion, he proves the exact opposite and even goes so far as to explain the concept of "Fifth Business" to the headmaster (not to the reader, oh no... that's what the preface was for at the start of the book), and then claims to take up his role as fifth business with gusto in the final act, while not actually doing any of the things that make lesser characters important to the denouement. His apartment provided the setting. Oh, and he provided the rock. That stupid damn rock, again.

According to Wikipedia, "Fifth Business is perhaps Robertson Davies' best-known novel, and is widely considered his finest." If that's so, I'm writing off the rest of the Deptford Trilogy. No thank you. Wikipedia also says "The book's characters act in roles that roughly correspond to Jungian archetypes according to Davies' belief in the predominance of the spirit over the things of the world." Jung. Yep. I'm starting to understand more and more why I hated this book. He was trying to be too clever when he wrote it, and the story suffers a fate worse than death: this book will never be read again.

Anyone want my copy? I'm off to buy the latest Vonnegut book today. Chapters has finally obtained a few copies. Somebody still has a vague concept of literature...

Summer reading group... part 3

2005-07-20T17:21:00.000-04:00

Short post because nobody is going to read this book but me: The official movie novelization of Fantastic Four. See? Just me. I bet nobody else has seen the movie! Oh wait, Heather has. Ok, 1 of you has seen this film.

I picked this up because the author, Peter David, is one of my favourite paperback fiction authors. He's witty and if you're a geek like me and know a little about the source material, there's plenty of in-jokes. For that, it was worth my $6.

However, with this material, he was clearly struggling. There were a few cute jokes (for lack of a better word) in the beginning ("You're stretching yourself thin, Reed" says one character. We all know that Reed Richards turns into the stretchable Mr. Fantastic. Har Har.) and he dragged out the movie's opening 15 minutes into a solid narrative for a few dozen pages, but the action itself was no more interesting than the film.

The thing he did best was establish the characters' flaws to a higher degree. Unfortunately, the movie did this all wrong to begin with, and I resented both for it.

I enjoyed the book for the two hours it took to me to read it. I enjoyed the movie for the two hours it took to watch it. The book cost me $6 and the movie $13. The book was clearly a better investment of time vs. money. The film had me cringing at Jessica Alba's acting (she's hot, but she can't hardly act. one of those unfortunate things in life) and both left me feeling like someone wasn't taking care of some characters I grew up with. There was no "Wow!" factor like with X-men or Batman Begins.

The movie is worth seeing, eventually, if only for Chris Evans' portrayal of The Human Torch. I'd recommend waiting to rent the DVD. Only the space scene looks good on the big screen, and it's not quite star wars. If you have no interest in the fantastic four to begin with, I certainly won't make you see this one.

Next up I'm trying to work my way through a Canadian classic for the first time. I won't promise anything, just in case! I'm hoping for some guest reviews in the meantime from some friends who are working on their own summer novels. I will promise a Harry Potter review in the near future from one of them.

Summer reading group... part 2

2005-07-12T08:53:00.000-04:00

I still haven't seen Fantastic Four, so we're going to skip that and move straight on to Wicked. One marathon weekend of reading and I'm suddenly finished it, so this is probably the best time to discuss.

I didn't like this book.

To anyone who's read it, and knows me, you probably think you know why. I'll correct you up front, though: it wasn't the content that I found offensive. The parts you're thinking of I just found mildly distracting from a story I was trying my best to enjoy.

No, what offended me most was the waste of perfectly good characters that the author took the time to introduce us to, only to discard in the worst fashions imaginable. Ok, maybe not the worst. My first story in grade school had a pair of astronauts fly into a black hole and die because I had no idea how to end it. That was the worst way to go, but we're not far off from that with Wicked. Characters who manage to live to the end do so without any development, or they experience massive changes in character that turn them into entirely new people altogether with nary a reason given.

The setup in the first half of this book was excellent. I was getting excited to see how things would turn out for Elphaba (the 'Wicked Witch'), Galinda, Boq et al in the novel. I'd seen the play, and I thought I knew the characters pretty well. Good thing that, since the author leaves characters' motivations entirely up to the reader's imagination. For example, let's take Galinda for a second. She changes her name to Glinda part way through her story. Why? In the book, it's just a single throwaway line in passing, telling us why she said she's done that. In the play, the character has an actual personality with real motivations, so when she changes her name it's a bright spot of humour that becomes a bit of a running joke, totally in line with the expectations you have for the cute ditzy blonde.

In the book's second half, Glinda disappears almost entirely, only arriving near the end to fulfill her contractual obligation as the Good Witch of the North, giving Dorothy the slippers and sending her off to see the Wizard.

I think this bugged me more than Elphaba's 1-dimensional character. The play establishes Glinda and Elphaba as best friends, different in many ways, but alike in far more. The book doesn't bother to give Elphaba a personality past her toddler years (note to the author: when your characters are boring, having them run off and have sex all the time does not give them a personality. It just makes you look inept, and badly in need of an editor), and Glinda is largely ignored as Elphaba putters around Winkie country for months and months. If ever a time period was in need of one of the author's frequent fast-forwards, the time in the castle would get my vote.

Here, she is surround by yet another group of wasted characters who don't even rank high enough to be given proper names (only numbers), and are removed from the plot without a second thought. On her trek to the castle she picks up a dog, some bees, three crows and a monkey. This convinced me to never take a stroll in Oz, since everyone that does seems to wind up with an odd assortment of travelling companions. The dog (which multiplies into many dogs at some point without explanation), bees, crows and monkey (who also gets some friends out of thin air) are all necessary for L. Frank Baum's original story, but they're a total waste until then, and their appearance is laughable in hindsight.

The sub-plot of the snow monkey, Chistery, is also an exercise in character assasination. In school, Elphaba became an Animal-rights activist. At the castle, however, she's suddenly experimenting with sewing wings onto Chistery's monkey pals and teaching them to talk and fly, killing the failed attempts until she gets it right. Is it believable that an Animal- (or animal-) rights activist would experiment on animals in such a cruel manner? I don't think so. The play does a much better job of creating the winged monkeys, trust me. Elphaba's one pet cause is strengthened by the encounter, not betrayed by it.

At one point, on one of the last pages of the book, the author highlights a few of the characters that he failed to do justice by providing them with some sort of conclusion. Rather than wrapping up his loose ends, however, he just leaves the reader hanging once more. For a section entitled "The murder and its aftermath", I found very little aftermath. I could have done with an epilogue. Or two. Oh, that reminds me: the prologue... ugh.

The prologue is stolen from a scene late in the book. It features the Witch spying on Dorothy and her friends from a treetop. It ends with a line that goes something like "She could wait. She knew they would meet again.". When we revisit that scene later on, the witch is in a panic... she's pressed for time, has places to be and people to see and she just wants to collect the shoes and be off. That patience from the prologue is gone, and the dichotomy annoyed me.

Where's that editor gone, anyways? How could you miss this? Better still, how could you miss the part where Elphaba is worried that Avaric will turn her over to the police. The police?!?! It's been well-established that there the 'police' in Oz are known as the Gale Force. You know, while we're at it, can we just cut out the entire dinner party at Avaric's altogether? Ok, thanks. We didn't need it rammed down our throats that a character with the name 'Avaric' has a problem with avarice.

This book needed a few more drafts before it saw print, and I'm glad that the authors of the broadway play took it upon themselves to fix everything that was wrong with the book and create a much tighter and more enjoyable narrative in the process. Wicked is suppossed to be a look at the nature of good and evil, but instead of exploring the moral ambiguities of both, the novel gives us the truly evil (the dwarf, the crone, Morrible, and so forth), and the truly boring (everyone who's not in the first group). The play paints everyone in equal shades of grey.

And the ending was way better.

See the play; skip the book.

Summer reading group... part 1

2005-07-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

If you haven't seen War of the Worlds yet, I'm going to spoil the ending for you right now: the aliens all die because they have no natural immunity to Earth's bacteria. They get sick, their plants die, they turn white, they drive out to the forest on their bmx bike to build a telephone to call home... oh, wait, wrong Spielberg movie.

This shouldn't be such a surprise to the critics who hated this movie and the ending. The book has been in print continuously since 1898. H.G. Wells was a student of T.H. Huxley's, a defender of Charles Darwin, and it's not surprising that many references to evolution, and indeed the fate of the alien invaders, turn on Darwin's theories of natural selection. I have my own issues with Darwin, but there's still a story to tell here, and I have to agree with the critics that the movie doesn't pull it off. The kicker at the end, that these powerful beings with their advanced tech and unstoppable war machines are brought down by the tiniest speck of living matter, comes off as forced and more than a little lame in context.

The book, however had no such problems with critics. It's regarded as the first science fiction novel, and has been borrowed, sampled from, adapted, and outright plagarized ever since. Perhaps because it didn't stray from the science angle? Perhaps because it was truly suspenseful? Perhaps because the main character never gets sucked up into the innards of an alien war machine, just to detonate it with a handful of grenades and escape unscathed with his ethnically diverse fellow captives and scene-hugging daughter? The hero of the book didn't have a daughter. He had a wife and brother, a maid, and that's it. His single goal was always to find his wife again, and their ultimate reunion was even more joyous than the fall of the invaders.

In the film, of course, Tom Cruise's wife is actually his ex-wife so that we can have lots of "I hate you, dad" scenes, and his brother (used in the book as an excellet tool to switch from 1st person story-telling to the third person for the main action) is used only as the punchline of a joke. We don't even meet him. The other 'brilliant' character change was to meld the Curate and Ogilvy the soldier into one, thereby ruining both characters. The film Ogilvy is an ex-ambulance driver "in the city" who gets drunk on peach schnapps and hits on 9-year-old girls. The book character of the same name witnessed his regiment die at the hands of the Martians' heat-ray, and has plans to start an underground resistance, if only he weren't so lazy to do the heavy lifting himself.

The Curate is a minister who can't believe that God would be so cruel to His creations as to send the Martians to wipe humanity of the face of Jolly Old England. He's paralyzed by fear, driven by hunger and greed and eventually reaches such a low that he turns to madness and gets himself killed by the Martians. As far as crazy sidekicks go, he was top-notch. Again, there was a real story with this guy. H.G. Wells was notoriously anti-religion, and these views are personified in the Curate, but his role is important to the story. In the movie, when Ogilvy goes a little more nuts than usual, Tom Cruise is there to beat him to death with a shovel. Behind a door of course. We can see humans get vapourized, but showing them getting sucked or beaten to death would be too much for Mr. Spielberg.

Here's my one criticism of this book: I still don't understand why the Martians go around heat-raying everyone in sight at the start of the book when they need them for food later on. This is never clear. That's ok, though. It's just the one point. The movie raises a lot more questions, like why the EMP didn't knock out the handiCam, or the tv crew's truck. Or how G.I.Joe launched four shoulder-cannon-propelled missiles at the last alien war machine without reloading. Or what purpose the downed plane served. It all looked very cool, but Mr. Spielberg, I think you and Mr. Lucas are using the same story editors in the twilight of your respective careers. This time you even had a ready-made story that's been popular for over a century and you still missed the mark.

Week one of Summer Reading Group is off to a good start, with a classic story and a little debate. Stay tuned next week for what promises to turn into another movie rant as I take on the Fantastic Four novel. Two weeks from now I should be done Wicked, and we can start having intelligent conversations again...

...making it worse

2005-06-20T23:29:00.000-04:00

So she beat me. And then she beat my points system with the following story about a MINERAL from the front page of the globe and mail.

Not an approved food

Monday, June 20, 2005 Updated at 9:14 AM EDT
Associated Press

Hanoi — All that glisters is not ... edible?

A restaurant in Vietnam's capital has been ordered to stop putting gold into its meals until authorities test the metal's purity and consult with experts about potential health risks, the official newspaper Vietnam News reported Monday.

Gold is not on the Health Ministry's list of necessary nutrients, nor is it listed as an approved spice or food additive, the report said.

The Kim Ngan Ngu Thien (Golden Feast) restaurant opened in January, offering dishes mixed with small amounts of gold, which it claimed enhanced the food's nutritional value.

In Asian nations such as India, Japan and China, gold has long been regarded as a restorative or as a treatment for diseases such as smallpox, skin ulcers and measles. In Japan, gold foil is added to tea, sake or food.

Evidence of the metal's effectiveness is largely anecdotal, however, and official health bodies elsewhere, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, do not support such claims.

Despite the lack of medical proof, owner Nguyen Phuong Anh's restaurant has attracted about 100 diners a day since its opening, the paper said. The sparkly metal isn't free, however. Gold comes with a 15-per-cent surcharge.

It even sounds like she wrote it. That's how much this stings. I need to go lick my wounds now.

Too close to call

2005-06-17T14:36:00.000-04:00

This was a fun contest this round.

I'm not sure how to settle this, so I propose the following scientific method, based on merit points:

animal/vegetable/mineral points:
1 point for a funny story about an animal;
2 points if the submission stars a vegetable;
3 points if the topic of interest is a mineral. Minerals aren't funny. That's why there's so many points available here.

sex & violence points:
1 point for any sex or nudity;
1 point for every person that gets hurt in the name of bad news
(2 points for the ultimate sacrifice!)

fact or fiction points: (this category exists so ashe doesn't slaughter me with animal stories, I admit)
1 point if bad things happen to good science;
2 points are awarded for total fabrications

So...
Ashley:
Day 1 - 1 for animal (fishy fish)
Day 2 - 1 for sex (naked underwear robbers)
Day 3 - 1 for animal (mad cow)
2 for violence (dead cop)
Day 4 - 1 for animal (sullen cow part 2)
2 for violence (cop/bus driver???)
Day 5 - 1 for animal (hungry goat)
Day 6 - 1 for animal (migaloo the whale)
1 for sex (whale sex, no less...)
Day 7 - 1 for fact (robots run amok)

Rich:
Day 1 - 1 for animals (frog weddings)
Day 2 - 2 for violence (doughnut trucker)
Day 3 - 2 for fiction (jack and jill)
Day 4 - 2 for violence (hit and run victim)
Day 5 - 2 for fiction (historians in gravity boots?)
Day 6 - 2 for vegetable (pickles go bad?!? no shit!)
Day 7 - 0 points! (that'll teach me for going into politics)

So my count gives Ashley the edge, 12-11. Sheesh. I can't even rig the points in my favour.

The "Best in Show" article has yet to be determined, by you, the readers. Please vote in the comments here, or on Ashley's blog.

Going out in style - Day 7

2005-06-16T10:17:00.000-04:00

Here's a new addition: federal politics.

Insanity is nothing new in this arena, but today we went all the way into the absurd. The following is my last entry for this round:

Paul Martin offers Stephen Harper weighty advice for the barbecue circuit

Canadian Press
Wednesday, June 15, 2005

OTTAWA (CP) - Paul Martin has some weighty advice for Stephen Harper.

In an attempt to lighten up his image, Harper is about to hit the summer barbecue circuit. And Martin apparently doesn't want his heavy-hitting political rival to end up widening his waistline.

So Wednesday in Commons, Martin waved a copy of the South Beach Diet book, which outlines a regimen he's been following on the advice of his wife.

"I understand the dangers of the barbecue circuit, and I would therefore like to table this document for the benefit of the leader of the Opposition this summer," he said.

And now for something completely different - Day 6

2005-06-15T09:48:00.000-04:00

Ok, maybe not *completely* different... it's still from the toronto star, after all, but I'm trying to move past the fictional 'stories' I've been posting and try something that someone thought was actually news-worthy.

Like food.

From the 'Food' section in today's Star, I give you:

Condiment hoarders must beware of spoilage

"News flash: condiments don't keep forever, in the fridge or out. Once they're opened, flavour not only fades, but mould and bacteria begin their infiltration..."

I was not aware that mustard stays fresh for an entire year if you keep it in the fridge. This is a brand new reason for me to detest the stuff. It's like processed cheese: it just never goes bad.

The quip at the end of the piece adds a delicious hint (yes, bad pun) of irony: "In addition, we would recommend this variation on a newspaper editing adage: when in doubt, throw it out."

Someone should have had more than a few doubts about printing this, in my opinion.

The gravity of the situation - Day 5

2005-06-14T09:40:00.000-04:00

Something's wrong.

There's been nothing funny in the post for days.

The Star, however, is becoming more erratic by the day.

Witness today's entry:

Up is down in the world according to George

'Best' (worst?) line:
"Run for it!" the historians cried. But they couldn't run because of their magnetic shoes. Fearing for their lives, they kicked the shoes off, forgetting, in their desperation, what would happen next.

When the History Police broke the door down, they looked around and saw no one. But then they looked up and discovered a pile of historians on the ceiling where, once a ladder was sent for, they were easy pickings.

George would be George W. Bush, but beyond that, I'm at a total loss here...

Been saving this one - Day 4

2005-06-13T10:29:00.000-04:00

Yes, this isn't today's news. Yes, I found it in the 'Weird News' section. You'll have to forgive my laziness on a monday morning after our weekend break.

The story is kinda funny though, in a really sick way:

Officer runs over hit-and-run victim

GASTONIA, N.C. (AP) — A police officer responding to an emergency call of a man struck by a car accidentally ran over the victim with his cruiser, authorities said.

Investigators remained uncertain whether the victim was already dead when he was struck a second time by the police car, said Sheriff’s Department Capt. Tony Robinson.

The North Carolina State Highway Patrol was investigating.

The 911 call was received early Thursday, police said. After reaching the scene, officer J.C. May was blinded by the high beams of a parked car and struck the victim.

The man was in the road and was pronounced dead at the scene. His name was not available, Robinson said.

May was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

The Star scares me - Day 3

2005-06-10T10:43:00.000-04:00

After this story appeared in yesterday's Toronto Star ("A black helicopter swooped down menacingly, firing lethal rounds into Eminem, Owen Wilson and The Rock. In a moment of panic, Jessica Simpson jumped into the arms of Johnny Knoxville. Seconds later, he was obliterated by a rocket-propelled missile."), I decided I should look to that same paper for today's entry.

I found it:

Jack and Jill went up the hill to suck you into buying

My favourite part?

"And," said Jack, "if I may be so bold, even more kissable. In fact, you look quite hot. Which reminds me, I better renew my Cialis prescription."

Jill winked, and said, "Just so long as you remember to first inform your doctor if you have heart, kidney or liver problems, low blood pressure, stomach ulcers, blood cell problems, or an erection that lasts more than four hours."

In related news, The Star has announced the hiring of Jason Blair and Stephen Glass in an effort to beef up this page. :p

A jelly-filled Day 2

2005-06-09T09:54:00.000-04:00

Ashe had a good theme going today, with public nakedness and all. I wanted to use the Ottawa Citizen article about the flasher on the Rideau Canal. But then something happened.

"Due to severe production problems at our Toronto area press facility, National Post will be delivered late and throughout the day today. ... As a result of the production delays, we offer all subscribers complimentary access to our electronic edition today. "

Free Online National Post! YESSS! Researcher says that Jesus died of a pulmonary embolism! Wife kills husband with a strawberry milkshake! German World Cup sex garages! AND today's entry:

Trucker killed by doughnut load in 401 crash

Collision stopped eastbound traffic all morning
BY NICHOLAS KÖHLER
National Post

A trucker hauling 20,000 kilograms of frozen doughnuts died on Highway 401 yesterday after he plowed full-speed into the back of a lumber truck and was crushed by his own load.

“If you put an egg on your desk and get two bricks — that’s sort of what happened here,” said OPP spokesman Sergeant Cam Woolley.

“And the cab’s the egg.”

Provincial police said the collision took place at around 3 a.m. in Scarborough between Meadowvale and Port Union roads on Highway 401’s eastbound express lanes.

The lumber’s weight threw the oncoming truck’s engine a metre back through the driver’s compartment, while the weight of the frozen doughnuts pushed forward; the driver was crushed between the two loads and was killed instantly.

The second man was “shaken” but not otherwise injured.

Investigators cannot say why the frozen-doughnut truck, which appears to have been travelling at speeds of around 100 km/h, failed to slow down before tearing into the back of the lumber truck, which was driving in the righthand lane at half that speed due to a flat tire.

The lumber truck had its hazard lights blinking and was preparing to take the next exit and seek repairs. Sgt. Woolley suggested the driver of the frozen doughnut truck may have been distracted, asleep or the victim of a medical catastrophe such as a heart attack.

Provincial police identified the driver of the frozen doughnut truck as 40-year-old Randall Truelove, of Kingston.

“It was a terribly unsurvivable crash,” Sgt. Woolley said.

“The engine area and the driver’s compartment are completely crushed.”

The fatal mishap closed eastbound traffic completely through all of yesterday morning, while in the 401’s westbound lanes drivers craned their necks for a view of the dramatic accident scene, creating delays of up to 15 minutes, Sgt. Woolley said.

Return of the newpaper wars - Day 1.

2005-06-08T09:37:00.000-04:00

Today is the first day of another week-long battle to find the worst stories in the world. Or, at least in Canada and Australia. Ashe will be representing Australia, and my stories will all be taken from Canadian news sources. I'd say 'respected' Canadian news sources, but that's a laugh.

The last newspaper war was a pretty close race. This time I intend to win. This time I want to be Pulitzer. Nobody remembers Hearst.

Day 1: Ashe started things off with fish in a dress. I had so much to choose from in the Ottawa Citizen today: Anna Kournikova, funny-looking NHL nets, Wheelchairs on loan from the Smithsonian, Anne of Green Gables being auctioned off at Sotheby's as a classic American children's tale...

I shall, however, respond to the fish in kind with the following gem from today's National Post. (Yes, we're starting out in style, boys and girls...)

Guests cheered, sang hymns as toads dressed in red were wed

The story is subscriber-only so here's the tale (with picture, courtesy of CNN):

Two giant toads were married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in eastern India on the weekend by villagers hoping to propitiate the rain gods and end a dry spell.

About 400 people cheered and blew conches as women put streaks of vermilion on the female toad's head while a band played music and priests solemnized the marriage to the chanting of Hindu hymns.

The toads were picked up from separate ponds, dressed in bright red clothes and brought to the marriage venue in a decorated palanquin in Khochakandar in West Bengal. T

hey were released into a pond after the ceremony in the village about 365 km north of Calcutta. The area has been reeling under temperatures touching 44C.

"Our forefathers used to organize marriages of toads to get sufficient rain for cultivation. We hope rain will be coming very soon," said Konica Mandal, one of the organizers of the wedding.

A woman puts vermilion on the female toad's head.

The heat is on.

2005-05-30T12:47:00.000-04:00

Crazy Frog tops Coldplay on UK Singles Chart

BY POPJOURNALISM STAFF
MAY 30, 2005

Here's a perfect press clipping for Coldplay: "Beat by a ringtone."

Yes, the massively hyped Brit rock group took second place on the Official UK Singles Chart, beat by a track based on a ringtone — Crazy Frog's "Axel F."

The Frog song blends the annoying, but best-selling Crazy Frog ringtone — which is a high-pitched imitation of a revving moped — with a cheesy trance remake of Harold F. Faltermeyer's "Axel F." theme from Beverly Hills Cop.

Representatives from the UK Singles Chart said the novelty track sold 150,000 copies and was at one point outselling Coldplay's new single "Speed of Sound" on a four-to-one basis.

"Axel F." also marks the first time a song based on a ringtone has topped the charts. Crazy Frog is sold by ringtone marketer Jamster and is said to have sold approximately 11 million copies in Europe.

And as with any novelty hit, the UK can expect another cash-in Crazy Frog single sequel soon. No official release date has been announced.

----------
Now that song is stuck in my head...
Allllllltogether now:
doot doot doot-doot-doot doot-doo
doot doot doot-doot-doot doot-doo
doot doot doot do-do do-do doo doo

"The claw is my master!"

2005-05-24T10:08:00.000-04:00

Elkhart boy trapped inside toy machine for an hour

ELKHART, Ind. (AP) - A 3-year-old boy upset that his mother wouldn't let him use a crane vending machine to try to win a small stuffed animal took matters in his own hands. He climbed inside up the chute to get the prize himself.

Danielle Manges said she took her eyes off her son, James, for a moment to pick up a juice bottle he threw. When she looked up, he was in with the plush toys.

"I bent over to clean it and within two seconds he had climbed through the hole, into the chute and pushed the door shut so we couldn't get him out," she said. "He climbed up in the toys and was in there for a good hour."

Manges said James has been sick and sleeping odd hours so they went shopping about 3 a.m. Thursday at a Wal-Mart in the city some 15 miles east of South Bend. She let the boy play on some of the rides, but wouldn't give him money for the vending machine.

At first, Manges thought it was funny.

"He was playing with all the toys and hanging from the bar like a monkey," she said.

Manges said people leaving the store went back inside to buy disposable cameras to take photos of her son. She bought one herself.

She became upset, however, when Wal-Mart employees said they did not have a key to let James out. So Manges called the fire department for help.

"I expected his hand to be caught in the machine but it was his entire body in the machine," firefighter Anthony Coleman said. "He was swinging from a bar, jumping around. He was having a ball."

About 40 people watched as the firefighters removed the back of the machine and freed him.
James still came up empty handed.

"He definitely didn't get a toy after that," Manges said.
---------

So... She takes her kid to Wal-Mart at 3 am, because he won't sleep? When he climbs in, she leaves him trapped in a vending machine so she can go buy a disposable camera to capture the event on film?

I don't want to be another example of a "mommy drive-by" here, and tell someone else how to parent, but I'm sorely tempted.

Headlines never lie...

2005-05-11T09:26:00.000-04:00

From the post:

Gerrard offers spice of life

Judging from the content of the article, though ("I am a fiend for Indian cookery, and would happily eat the stuff three times a day..."), they're probably talking about the street in Toronto, and not about me.

That's ok.

It's an easy mistake to make.

"Inspired by a true story..."

2005-04-25T16:12:00.000-04:00

My suggestion for Tim Hortons' next ad campaign revolves around the following incident. Someone get me a job at Timmy's ad agency, quick!

Down-on-her luck Hamilton woman lucks into $1,000 prize at coffee shop

Canadian Press
Friday, April 22, 2005

HAMILTON (CP) - A down-on-her-luck Hamilton woman has learned how quickly fortunes can change.

Seeking some cash, she tried to sell her CD collection at a used record shop Sunday but was rebuffed, and became so upset she started yelling and crying. That drew the attention of police, who, along with a psychiatric nurse, took the distraught woman to a Tim Hortons to discuss her options.

The 30-year-old woman rolled up the rim of her coffee cup and won a doughnut.

Const. Gary David told her that since she was on a roll, she might as well roll up the rim on his cup.

She did and won a $1,000 cash prize.

The woman offered to split the prize, but David and the nurse declined, saying it "made their day" to see her win.

Monkey Business

2005-04-20T14:26:00.000-04:00

So, there's something wrong with the world. They found a new type of monkey and held an auction to let someone name it. Guess who bid highest? If you guessed GoldenPalace.com, then you sure know your 21st century auctions!

Publicity-seeking casino buys right to name monkey

The GoldenPalace.com monkey, one of about 30 species of titi monkeys, has a golden crown and a white-tipped tail. Its formal name will be Callicebus aureipalatii — Latin for "golden palace."

In related news, drunk monkeys attacked people in India, in what must be retaliation for this tragedy.

Marijuana monkeys

A gang of drunk monkeys went on a rampage through a village in India, injuring three people.The monkeys had been boozing on liquor made of marijuana leaves, which they stole from outside the residents' huts in Baralapokhari village.Locals had been preparing the drink as part of an offering to Hindu gods for a religious festival, the Times of India reports. Villagers fought back against the group of drunken primates with sticks and other weapons, finally managing to drive them back into the forest.However, three people were injured in the battle and had to be taken to hospital.

With more monkey business from houston, we present the following:

A SWAT monkey? Police look into possibility

Truelove, who declined an interview request from Reuters, told the newspaper that the idea came to him in a dream about 18 months ago.

The test monkey could be trained to unlock doors and search buildings for police on command, Truelove was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Lastly, for no reason other than I thought it was funny:

British motorist injured by flying frozen sausage

LONDON (AP) - A British motorist, driving home from work with his car window wound down, had his nose broken by a flying frozen sausage, an official said Monday.

The 46-year-old man was driving near his home in South Woodham Ferrers, Essex, east of London, when the sausage came through the window and hit him on the nose, a spokesman for the Essex Ambulance Service said on condition of anonymity.

"The man said he was making his way home after work and had the window down because it was such a nice afternoon," the ambulance spokesman said.

"He said he saw a car coming the other way and felt a searing pain in his nose.

"His nose was undoubtedly fractured and he had lost quite a lot of blood.

"It must have been an incredibly lucky, or unlucky, shot to get the sausage through a moving car window. I have never seen or heard of anything like this before."

Essex police said they were investigating the incident.

Checkmate!

2005-04-15T23:11:00.000-04:00

Breaking news: Kasparov assaulted in Moscow

16.04.2005
We have just learnt (on Russian radio) that Garry Kasparov was attacked after a meeting with youth activists in Moscow. He was approached by an autograph seeking participant with a chessboard. The young man circled Kasparov and delivered a sharp blow to the head with the chessboard. We will update this story as news comes in.

The Russian news agency Interfax news agency quotes Kasparov's advisor Marina Litvinovich, who described the events as follows: Garry Kasparov, co-chair of the Fair Elections 2008 party, was subjected to an attack on Friday night. After a meeting with youth activists in Moscow he was approached by one of the participants with a chessboard. The young man asked the 13th chess world champion for an autograph, but then suddenly went behind Kasparov and delivered a strong blow to Kasparov's head, yelling obscenities as he did so. The attacker was taken out by the people present according to Litvinovich. Kasparov suffered an acute haematoma (Russian gematoma, hemorrhage), but declined to seek immediate medical treatment.

Litvinovich added that Kasparov was meeting with the activists of the youth movement in order to discuss tactics and strategy of creating a united democratic front.
----
(þ: Cosh)

"Doing the right thing..."

2005-04-13T16:22:00.000-04:00

“Doing the right thing doesn't mean much when the right thing is easy to do. The true test of character is whether you do the right thing when it is difficult.” -Prime Minister Paul Martin (Globe and Mail )

I can't put my finger on why this scares me so much; it just does.

Any thoughts?

Cookies are NOT a "sometimes" food!

2005-04-08T19:54:00.000-04:00

Cookie Monster cuts back on his favourite food

Hoots the Owl, left, and Cookie Monster (AP photo)

NEW YORK - Cookie Monster, the blue-furred Muppet known for his voracious appetite, will be eating less of his favourite food in the coming season.

The change in Cookie Monster's diet is part of a new focus on television's Sesame Street, one that will stress healthy eating habits for children.

Cookie Monster is famous for scarfing down cookies by the plateful. He is so enamoured of cookies that he has been known to burst into song, chanting in his throaty voice, "'C' is for cookie, that's good enough for me."

Now that Sesame Street is in its 36th season, which kicked off this week, he will be singing a different tune – called Cookies Are a Sometimes Food.

The song will preach restraint, telling children that some foods can be eaten "anytime," while others – like cookies – should be eaten only "sometimes."

Each new episode of Sesame Street will also open with a health tip for kids about nutrition or exercise.

Guest stars, like singer Alicia Keys and New York Senator Hillary Clinton, will talk about the same topics.

New characters will be featured, including talking eggplants and carrots. The segment American Fruit Stand will parody American Bandstand.

The makers of Sesame Street stress, however, that despite the changes, Cookie Monster will not be mending his ways entirely.

"We are not putting him on a diet," Rosemarie Truglio, the show's vice-president of research and education, told the Associated Press. "And we would never take the position of 'no sugar.' We're teaching him moderation."

According to Truglio, Cookie Monster will continue to scarf down cookies, although they may be a healthier variety than his favourite kind, chocolate chip. He will also eat the occasional non-cookie object.

In addition, Cookie Monster finishes the Sometimes song by asking insistently, "Is sometimes now?"

He's still Cookie Monster, Truglio explained.

Newspaper Wars

2005-04-05T09:42:00.000-04:00

Ottawa is under attack.

Two new free Daily papers are being given out around the city and everyone wants your attention, if not your pocket change. (Don't worry, though: the homeless in the market still want that.)

'Metro' and 'Dose' have hundreds of people (volunteers? employees? who knows which...) handing out their latest edition on the streets, in the malls and on the busses. This morning I ducked to avoid a Metro peddler, and ran smack into a short girl with an armful of Dose. She gave me one. My streak of avoiding the dailies came to an abrupt halt.

So I opened it. And then I found a Metro when I got into work. And... in the Metro... was a story about Sabrina!!!! (Original story here; Follow up on Ashe's blog here; Today's Reuters source here.)

The Ottawa Sun has responded to these new threats by dropping the price of their paper to 25 cents, Monday - Friday. This is pretty smart, since last month they cut their content by half.

Today's Ottawa Citizen has a full-page picture of something Pope-related for the third day in a row. (For those keeping score at home, we've had a giant cross; a guard watching over the Pope and a massive crowd waiting to see the Pope.)

Not to be outdone, the National Post is covering the issues of the day: Gomery, Gomery, tea towels and a little gem.

The headlines:

"Liberals call in RCMP"

"Gomery's secret star witness"

"Thousands of tea towels, mugs commemorating royal wedding recalled"

"Man sues brother for biting off his nose"

WINDSOR, Ont. - A Windsor man is suing his big brother for biting off the end of his nose.

...

So who is today's loser? Why don't you pick.

Gomery + Brault + Blog = Jail

2005-04-04T14:16:00.000-04:00

So I was surfing the net today. Big surprise, I'm always surfing the net, I know. I read lots of online newspapers and today they're all talking about publication bans of the Gomery inquiry and an American blog that reported the information that's banned from publication in Canada... and then I happened across the blog. (It wasn't exactly hard.)

Now, just so we can all appreciate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that my friends like to go on and on and on and on about when we get together, get this: if I mention the name of that blog here on my blog, hosted in the US, but authored by me (a Canadian living in Canada), then I could be charged with contempt of court. If I don't mention the name of the blog, but I link to it? Same deal. See, I haven't even mentioned what it says (in fact, I'm still reading through it), but yeah: jail.

So the next time one of my friends mentions their beloved Charter, I'm going to have a hard time taking them seriously. I'll probably laugh in their faces. Ashe, you might miss a good show.

Our justice system is still broken, and our future lawyers are taught to cherish a document that's still a work in progress without question. Yay, Canada! I'd move, but I like the stat holiday on my birthday...

Donkey bombs?!?

2005-03-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

The following animal-interest story arrives courtesy of Ashley:

Donkey suspects the law is an ass

Apparently, the police had to impound a donkey after it was involved in a car accident with a motorcycle.

In the middle of this story, there's this:

"The beasts are widely used as transportation in the South American country, and also for a more sinister purpose - as donkey bombs.

Marxist guerilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been known to load them up with explosives and detonate them near their targets. "

I don't know why this was relevant.

Oh, and "FARC" stands for "Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo". The People's Army. I confess I looked it up when I didn't quite understand how they got FARC out of RAFC.

Thanks, Ashe!

Who? What? WHY?

2005-03-28T10:55:00.000-05:00

A timeless question: Is Doctor Who gay?

LONDON - If you met an unmarried man with elaborately coiffed hair who wore a frilly shirt and velvet cloak, and whose best friend was a foxy young woman in whom he displayed not the slightest sexual interest, what conclusion would you come to?
...
-------------

Here's a better 'timeless question': Why the fuck are you reporting this kind of shit on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen?

See? Timeless.

It's not easy bein' green

2005-03-17T09:28:00.000-05:00

I've been saving this one for St. Patty's day:

Puppy has look of the Irish

Time Capsule

2005-03-15T07:30:00.001-05:00

Today is a day for reflection.

Today we celebrate the 4th anniversary of the greatest news story of our time.

Today we remember the cat that started it all.

"The cat."

"CAT"

For Ashley

2005-03-03T23:25:00.000-05:00

Sex, lies and cockroaches. What more could you ask for? Snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes? This little package of everyone's favourite things couldn't be more complete if it were wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string.

Check it out:

Sex hungry roaches lured to death

There are so many ways to run with this story, but I think anything I could say has already been covered in a far side comic somewhere.

"Responsibility, what's that?"

2005-03-02T09:13:00.000-05:00

Brockville Wal-Mart yanks Cosmo after complaint from mother of 13-year-old reader

The March issue of Cosmopolitan was considered too racy and pulled from a Wal-Mart store in Brockville on Friday after a complaint by a woman whose 13-year-old girl had bought the magazine. The magazine, which features actress Jessica Alba on the cover in a low-cut dress, is back on the shelf today but stocked in the general magazine section, away from the checkout where it was first placed. The unidentified woman was concerned about the photos and content of the magazine her daughter had brought home for a school project. The woman told the manager she objected to some of the cover headlines with such titles as "Sex Bonanza: Thrill His Body: 65 Electrifying Mattress Tricks. They'll Remind Him How Freakin' Lucky He Is."
...
-------------------

It's called "taking responsibility for what your daughter is buying and reading". Just because you don't know how to raise a kid, doesn't mean you can blame wal-mart. I mean, yes they're evil, but that's really no excuse for you not to do your job.

And I also know that 13-year-olds aren't exactly Cosmo's target audience, but I'm willing to bet there's nothing in there that she doesn't know about already. Maybe this would be a good opportunity for you to sit down with your daughter and have a real talk for once?

Or maybe that would make too much sense. You're right, of course. In fact, all you're forgetting is the lawsuit for emotional damages inflicted upon your frail princess.

Beam me up. Please.

2005-03-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

From today's Post (of course), sans 'pictured' warbird:

This will come in handy if we're ever attacked by the Klingons

A "cloaking device" that makes objects invisible is closer to reality, a science journal, Physical Review Letters, reports. Two Pennsylvania scientists have found a way to block light waves from an object, like the Romulans in Star Trek. (Romulan Warbird pictured.)

The theoretical breakthrough has a catch: it can block only some light wavelengths -- long waves from big objects, short waves from small objects. If Electrical engineers Andrea Alu and Nader Engheta wanted to "cloak" a person, they could block only long microwaves from the person's body. They think they could hide small objects, like espionage gadgets.

"My fence seemed confident enough."

2005-02-28T15:13:00.000-05:00

I think "Piriya Wachachitphan" is Thai for "Danny Ocean":

Thai man arrested for smuggling dinosaur fossils, trying to sell them online

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - A Thai man who offered dinosaur fossils and valuable antiques for sale on the Internet has been arrested for illegally trading in ancient artifacts and art, police said Friday.

Acting on a tip-off from U.S. authorities, undercover police arrested Piriya Wachachitphan, 25, on Monday and confiscated 108 large dinosaur fossils and five boxes containing smaller pieces from his home in Bangkok, said police Lt. Gen. Thani Somboonsab.

"It is the first time that police have arrested a smuggler of dinosaur fossils in Thailand," he said.

Police said Piriya had also sold more than 1,000 cultural artifacts, including Buddha statues, worth more than $200,000 US.

He was free on bail pending trial.

If found guilty of trading in ancient artifacts, Piriya faces a maximum seven years in jail and a fine of up to the equivalent of $18,000 US.

At a news conference announcing the arrest, Mark Robinson, a Bangkok-based official from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, describes the arrest as "quite significant."

"Usually we find people selling one or two pieces," he said.

Thai and U.S. police had been co-operating for eight months on the case since American authorities seized stolen antiques exported from Thailand, said Robinson. Some of the items originated in Cambodia, where rampant plundering of cultural artifacts has been going on for decades.

Police said Piriya told them the dinosaur fossils, over 100 million years old, were purchased from villagers in the northeastern provinces of Kalasin and Khon Kaen, an area of growing archaeological importance.

---
From IMDB:

Rusty: Dealing in cash you don't need a fence.
Danny: Some people lack vision.
Rusty: Probably everybody on cell block E

Alissa, you've been holding out on me

2005-02-17T23:47:00.000-05:00

Sexy road reports

TERRACE, B.C. (CP) - Northwest B.C. residents who dial a toll-free government number in the Terrace-area phone book to check on road conditions will get an explicit description.

Just not about roads. "Ummm, baby, you've dialled the right number, hot, wet and . . . ummmm . . .," the sexy female voice at the other end of the line moans, then gets into detail.

The 1-800 number for Ministry of Transport road report appears in the B.C. government blue pages of the northwest region directory.

But the number in the new edition of the phone book hooks callers up to a phone-sex line. The last digit is two numbers off.

A spokesperson for the ministry says the U.S. directory company that publishes the phone book never verified the information with them and it was a simple mistake.

The Utah-based company says it's a simple typo and it's considering withholding distribution of the rest of the books.
---

So I ask: How did I not hear this from you first, Alissa? Hmm? My big map of Canada says Terrace is right next door to you! Maybe you were just too busy knitting. Either that or you're secretly moonlighting as the road reporter for the gov't of BC, and this is your way of doing things... yeah... I wouldn't put that past you at all. ;)

unböring

2005-02-11T09:49:00.000-05:00

And I thought that the Future Shop grand openings were chaos... I guess things could be worse. I know my life is worth more than a £49 sofa.
---

Ikea opening turns into bargain-hunter bedlam

By Richard Alleyne (telegraph.co.uk: Link to full story)

Britain's biggest Ikea store opened at midnight yesterday - but closed just 40 minutes later as 6,000 frenzied shoppers stampeded for bargains, leaving 20 in need of hospital treatment.

One woman was said to have been threatened by a man with a mallet, and another waiting in the checkout queue was "mugged" for her cut-price sofa. Security guards were reported to have fled the scene.

Police were called and a fleet of nine ambulances ferried people to hospital with heat exhaustion and crush injuries.

A huge crowd had gathered for the opening of the Swedish furniture store in Edmonton, north London, entertained by fire eaters, stilt walkers and music. They stood patiently as Tom Williams, the store manager, chopped a log - the Swedish equivalent of cutting the ribbon.

But as his axe struck its final blow at midnight and the doors swung open, the crowd - three times the size expected - surged forward.

Mr Williams and his 750 "co-workers" could only watch helplessly as thousands of bargain-hunters raced for the soft furnishing department, determined to get their hands on one of 350 sofas, usually on sale for £325, for just £49 each.

Mayhem erupted in the warehouse where the sofas were stored.

Karyn Christian, 38, a civil servant, was seventh in the line when the doors opened, having started queuing at noon.

She said: "Throughout the day we had been treated so well. The staff had handed out tea and coffee as well as food and everybody was in a good mood.

"But when they opened the door everybody just charged. I was pushed over and twisted my ankle and my cousin was thrown to the floor.

"Luckily we were given vouchers guaranteeing that we would get a sofa but for everybody else it was total chaos. My friend had grabbed a leather sofa only to have to give it up to a man who threatened her with a wooden mallet.

"There were people diving on sofas and lying on them and others pulling them off with their feet. There were people tugging at two different sides of the same sofa and shouting 'mine, mine'. It was just horrible. People were going crazy."

A 50-year-old woman, who did not want to be named, said she had managed to get a sofa into a trolley and was waiting in the check-out line when three younger women wrestled her for it.

"I couldn't believe it," she said. "They manhandled it off me and then took it through the check-out and paid for it."

Merrison Gittens, 48, described the scenes of "mayhem" as female customers were pushed out of the way by male shoppers.

"There was a large gathering of people who weren't in the queue," he said. "A manager came out to the car park and told them, 'Those of you who have come to get a settee, there isn't a hope in hell's chance.'

"Then everybody decided to dash for the store. There was a massive surge forward."

The store, which was due to remain open for 24 hours on its first day with a succession of offers, was in such chaos that the police were called and just 40 minutes later it was closed.

A man in his 20s was stabbed near the car park but it was unclear whether the incident was connected to the opening.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said police intervened quickly to make sure everybody was safe. No one was arrested.

William Bird, of the London Fire Service, described the situation as "extraordinary". He said: "I have certainly not attended anything like this before."

John Olie, Ikea's UK deputy country manager, appeared yesterday at the front of the store, which will remain closed until further notice, to apologise for the chaos.

He said: "This is all a total shock. I am overwhelmed by what happened. We could not have predicted the numbers.

"We are really, really sorry. We are very concerned about what happened. I can't stress that enough and I can't apologise enough.

"This was meant to be a very special day for our customers and it's turned out to be a very sad day."

In Sand Lake, Mich., Car drives you!

2005-02-08T09:56:00.000-05:00

This one is just cute... I'll post it all:

Michigan boy, 4, takes mom's car for middle-of-the-night video store visit

SAND LAKE, Mich. (AP) - A four-year-old boy with a hankering to drive took his mother's car to a video store in the middle of the night and back, police said.

Although unable to reach the accelerator, the boy managed to put the car in gear and make his way to the store, just under a half kilometre from his home, at about 1:30 a.m. Friday, said Doug Heugel, chief of the Sand Lake Police Department. Finding the store closed, the youngster began a slow trip home.

Weaving and with its headlights off, the car got the attention of Sgt. Jay Osga, who first thought he was following a car that had been left running at a gas pump.

He flipped on his lights when the car turned into the apartment complex and struck two parked cars. The boy then put the car in reverse and struck Osga's cruiser.

"He knew how to go from forward to reverse," Osga said Monday. "The mother said she taught him how to drive by letting him sit on her lap and steer."

No charges will be filed against the boy or his mother, Heugel said.

"He's four years old. His mom didn't even know he was up," Heugel told the Grand Rapids Press. "I don't think he even realizes what he did."

I plead temporary insanity

2005-02-02T10:04:00.000-05:00

I wasn't going to do this.

I wasn't going to post stories about cute furry animals today.

I was going to resist the cliché.

I even ignored the story in today's citizen about the funeral for an elephant.

But this... this... there's something here that speaks volumes about the front page animal stories that I can't leave alone.

So, from today's Globe & Mail: February 2nd, Groundhog day.

Mixed forecast from Canadian groundhogs

Everything starts off so innocently. We get the forecast; we get the explanation; we get the typical turf war between the various groundhogs with unpronounceable first names.

Then: this. Two paragraphs in the middle of the article that have no discernable reason for being there:

"The event draws attention in part because newspapers are happy to provide a more lighthearted offering once in a while, Ryerson journalism instructor Suanne Kelman said.

“It also gives you an opportunity to film or shoot a picture of a cute animal,” she told Canadian Press. “If you get really lucky, the animal bites someone. What more could you ask?”"

What more indeed?

Have a break...

2005-02-02T09:21:00.000-05:00

Kit Kat brain food for Japanese students

TOKYO - The makers of Kit Kat are struggling to cope with a surge in demand for the chocolate bar in Japan, prompted by a belief among teenagers that it will help them pass exams.

-----
For the rest of the article, plus picture (!), we go to the Telegraph, as usual:
-----

A scene from the Japanese Nestlé website showing young people studying while enjoying a Kit Kat

Kit Kat, an expression invented in Britain in the 1930s, sounds eerily close to "kitto katsu," a Japanese exam-season mantra that literally means "I'll do my best to make sure I succeed".

The quirk of language has provoked a run on the snack.

Tens of thousands of students' lunch boxes will contain the bar this month, put there either by ambitious parents anxious for their offspring's success or by the nervous children themselves.
Nestlé Japan has noticed previous surges in sales of the product, which is Britain's most popular chocolate bar. This year the company has made an extra effort to sweeten the tough process of getting into a Japanese university.

And to appeal to more Japanese youngsters – who are notoriously keen on sweet foods – the company has introduced a range of flavours that Rowntree never dreamed of back in 1937 when it launched the chocolate.

As well as the traditional red and white packaging of the familiar four-fingered bar, Japan's Kit Kats also come in lemon cheesecake, passion fruit, white chocolate and even green chocolate flavour. The latter tastes of that Japanese staple, green tea.

In the past, students preparing to sit dreaded "juken" entrance examinations for both high school and university would be served "katsudon" – breaded pork cutlets served over rice – as a good luck meal before the big day.

But as with much else in Japanese culture, this homegrown tradition has been forced to make way for a western import.

"We're finding that parents are buying them for their children for exam days, but also some determined pupils are buying Kit Kats for themselves as a sort of reminder that they are really going to give these exams their best shot," said Yuko Iwasaki, a spokesman for Nestlé Japan.

Initially produced by Rowntree as the Chocolate Crisp, Kit Kat is believed to take its name from the famous 1920s club of the same name in London.

Unruly nursing home? You need the Taser 3000

2005-01-31T09:25:00.000-05:00

Stun gun used on senior, 75

By AP

ROCK HILL, S.C. -- A police officer used a stun gun on a 75-year-old woman who became distraught when she could not locate a sick friend at a nursing home, according to an internal report. Officer Hattie Jean Macon received a verbal warning and was required to attend a Taser retraining course after the investigation found she acted prematurely when she used the 50,000-volt Taser, according to the report.

Macon was called to the nursing home after Margaret Kimbrell refused to leave. Kimbrell has said she was distraught after the staff would not disclose the location of her friend, and she became concerned the friend had died.

Kimbrell jerked away from the officer and swung her arm at Macon, according to a police report. She then used the taser, police say.

Kimbrell claims she did not swing her arms or threaten Macon.

Crime doesn't pay...

2005-01-26T09:23:00.000-05:00

...but you can claim your gun as a business expense when you're filing your T1's!

Judge allows robber to deduct gun

BRUSSELS - A Dutch court has allowed a bank robber to claim the $3,200 cost of the pistol used in the hold-up as a legitimate business expense.

---
This was subscriber-only content. I HAD to know more. So: enter The Telegraph.

Robber's gun a deductible expense

By David Rennie in Brussels(Filed: 26/01/2005)

A bank robber has been allowed to claim the £1,400 cost of the gun he used as a legitimate business expense.

The 46-year-old criminal was able to set the price of the pistol against his gross proceeds of £4,700, which he stole in the southern Dutch town of Chaam.

Jailing him for four years, the judge at Breda criminal court reduced his fine by that amount.

The Dutch prosecutors' service said yesterday that the judge had followed sound legal precedents.

Leendert De Lange, a spokesman, said: "You can compare criminal acts to normal business activities, where you must invest to make profits, and thus you have costs."

Therefore drug dealers would be within their rights to claim the cost of a car used to ferry the drugs around, he said.

However, Mr De Lange scoffed at the hypothetical example of a drugs dealer claiming his Ferrari against the proceeds of his crimes.

"No, he would have to prove that he needed the car to transport the drugs and I hardly think he would transport them in a Ferrari."

The Owl and the ... Puppy Dog??

2005-01-25T09:28:00.000-05:00

From today's Ottawa Citizen:

Yorkie was almost a late-night snack

"A tiny Yorkie dog was attacked and nearly carried off last week by a determined owl in search of a midnight feast."

---
Thank you, Bruce Ward, for bringing this to our attention. I especially liked the three pictures of the various animals involved. Very effective.

Public Service Announcement

2005-01-21T10:03:00.000-05:00

I'd like you all to follow the link below and check out "Crawl Across the Ocean". There's an entry that tears into a story the Post ran this week -- on the front page -- that I didn't have the energy to dig into. Someone else did, however, and you'll be doing yourself a favour by reading what he wrote.

The Bad, the Ugly and the Whatever Comes Next After Ugly

Cheers,
-R

Burst your Bubble

2005-01-20T17:08:00.000-05:00

Rare topic today: sports. Soccer, even.

Belgian soccer match has to be replayed because the ball burst

BRUSSELS (AP) - A Belgian league game between Anderlecht and La Louviere in which the ball burst during the scoring of a goal will have to be replayed, the Belgian soccer federation ruled Thursday.

Anderlecht beat La Louviere 2-1 in a 12th-round match on Nov. 5, rally to equalize in the 65th minute when midfielder Walter Baseggio scored with a drive in which the ball burst. The ball was limp going into the net, but the protests of La Louviere players were rejected.

Anderlecht won on a 71st-minute penalty by Par Zetterberg.

An initial plea from the club was turned down, but the federation's appeal body accepted La Louviere's complaint on Thursday.

It was unclear when the game would have to be replayed. Anderlecht is currently second in the league, seven points behind leader FC Brugge.

----

'It was unclear'??? The headline says the match has to be replayed. The lead says the match has to be replayed. I don't get what's unclear, here!!

This is getting out of control...

2005-01-19T15:00:00.000-05:00

The news today is nuts. It's official. Between the follow up to the nail gun guy (he wants a career change now) and the seeing eye dog that relieved itself on an NBA court at halftime PLUS all the other bits I posted already... we have this:

Spain launches probe after Barclays ordered to pay 1.1 quadrillion euros

"MADRID (AP) - A Spanish judicial body said Tuesday it will investigate how Barclays bank received a court order to pay 1.1 quadrillion euros ($1.4 quadrillion US) in compensation to the former owner of a Spanish bank it acquired a quarter of a century ago.

The amount - a quadrillion is a 1 followed by 15 zeros - is the equivalent of 1,400 times Spain's gross domestic product, or the wealth that Spaniards could generate in 1,000 years, news dailies said, triggering speculation that the figure may have been the result of a typographical error by the Madrid court.

"It looks as if it's a mistake, but we have no information yet," said an official with the court watch agency, called the General Council of the Judiciary. "
...

I think I want US$1 400 000 000 000 000.00, now.

"Everybody knows that the world is full of stupid people..."

2005-01-19T14:16:00.000-05:00

Prison for klutzy crook

"A rookie drug dealer who left a knapsack with $91,000 in cash at a shopping mall food court and then tried to reclaim it was about as dumb as they come, court heard yesterday. Shu Tshung Wong was sentenced in Court of Queen's Bench yesterday to five years in prison on drug-related charges.

'It appears he is totally inept,' said Crown attorney Paul Jensen. "

Sure... blame the computer...

2005-01-19T09:37:00.000-05:00

A new story today in the ongoing series: "Math really isn't that hard, people!!"

Computer glitch skewed rate of obesity in U.S.

(AP) Atlanta — Blaming a computer software error, the government Wednesday admitted overstating the nation's weight problem in a widely reported study last year that said obesity was about to overtake smoking as the No. 1 cause of death in the United States.

The study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published last March in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said that obesity-related deaths climbed between 1990 and 2000 to 400,000 a year — an increase of 100,000.

In the journal's latest issue, the government ran a correction, saying the increase was a more modest 65,000 deaths or so.

Donna Stroup, acting director for the CDC's co-ordinating centre for health promotion, attributed the mistake to a computer software error.

The original study put the number of tobacco-related deaths per year at just under 435,000, and contended more Americans could soon be dying of obesity instead of smoking if current trends persisted.

Despite the correction, the agency said the finding that obesity is a major cause of death still stands.

"The combination of diet, physical inactivity and tobacco are all leading causes of death, causing far more than a majority of total deaths in this country in the year 2000," Ms. Stroup said. "Regardless of the controversy, it's clear to people these are the three underlying causes of death most important to the country."

The errors in the study were discovered soon after it was published, as scientists inside and outside the agency began to dispute its findings. That prompted the CDC to review the study, using two independent statisticians.
---

I highly doubt the computer created 35,000 more people. Statistics is notorious for tossing out figures that don't fit predictions and, if anything, the error should be in the other direction: an under-recording/reporting of deaths.

Hey, Ashe, have you heard the latest stats joke?

Science Fiction! Double Feature!

2005-01-17T09:42:00.000-05:00

Man... gotta love mondays. This is from the Toronto Star, and I'm posting it all. This is crazy. (Make sure you read the part I've emphasized in bold!)

Dentist's x-ray nails source of toothache

A dental office x-ray reveals the 4-inch nail Patrick Lawler, 23, accidentally shot into his mouth with a nail gun. Lawler went to the dentist complaining of a toothache, not realizing that he'd shot himself in the mouth with the nail a week before.

Man didn't know why he had pain
Unknowingly shot self with nail gun

ERIN GARTNER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LITTLETON, Colo.—A dentist found the source of the toothache Patrick Lawler was complaining about on the roof of his mouth: a 4-inch nail the construction worker had unknowingly embedded in his skull six days earlier.

A nail gun backfired on Lawler, 23, on Jan. 6 while he was working in Breckenridge, a ski resort town in the Colorado mountains. The tool sent a nail into a piece of wood nearby, but Lawler didn't realize a second nail had shot through his mouth, said his sister, Lisa Metcalse.

Following the accident, Lawler had what he thought was a minor toothache and blurry vision. On Wednesday, after painkillers and ice didn't ease the pain, he went to a dental office where his wife, Katerina, works.

"We all are friends, so I thought the (dentists) were joking ... then the doctor came out and said, 'There's really a nail,'" Katerina Lawler said. "Patrick just broke down. I mean, he had been eating ice cream to help the swelling."

He was taken to a suburban Denver hospital, where he underwent a four-hour surgery. The nail had plunged about four centimetres into his brain, barely missing his right eye, Metcalse said.

"This is the second one we've seen in this hospital where the person was injured by the nail gun and didn't actually realize the nail had been imbedded in their skull," neurosurgeon Sean Markey told KUSA-TV in Denver. "But it's a pretty rare injury."

Lawler was recovering yesterday in the hospital, where he will likely stay a few more days. Despite his lack of medical insurance and hospital bills between $80,000 and $100,000 (U.S.), Katerina Lawler said her husband is in good spirits.

"The doctors said, 'If you're going to have a nail in the brain, that's the way you want it to be.' He's the luckiest guy ever."

No fish for you! Next!

2005-01-17T09:24:00.000-05:00

Hmm. I thought I'd put together a big post last friday, with a story courtesy of Alissa... Blogger seems to have lost it. I'll see if I can re-post it later today.

For now, there's a story in this morning's post (of course, you say, where else would it be?), about a recreational fisherman who plead guilty to illegally catching and possessing Atlantic salmon.

As part of his sentence, the judge has prohibited him from eating any Atlantic salmon for three years.

Here's the link: 'Very bizarre' ruling bans man from eating salmon

Best line: 'Added Mr. Young: "You can get some pretty weird conditions in probation orders."'

Yeah, no kidding.

National Mitten Registry

2005-01-13T10:38:00.000-05:00

I wish I was making this up...

Mitten Registry Home Page

Just follow the link. This latest bout of psychosis has roots in Ottawa, too.

Truth day!

2005-01-11T10:42:00.000-05:00

A few thoughts on truth today, with only a little bit of justice tossed in.

I have a bit of a bias against lie detector tests; I've done some reading on them over the years (the inventor of the lie detector was the same guy who created Wonder Woman, but you knew that, right?) and I tend to agree with most psychology professors who claim the results are bunk. I seriously distrust government agencies that still use them to screen candidates for jobs (CSIS; DND; etc...) .

Anyways, today I'd like to make the claim that I'm at least as good as a polygraph 'expert'.

Link: Suspected sleeper agent passed lie detector test

"A polygraph expert testified Monday he believes suspected sleeper agent Adil Charkaoui told the truth when he denied in a lie detector test having any links to terrorists."

"Polygraph expert John Galianos told the court he believes Charkaoui answered all questions truthfully during the Nov. 17 test."

"Charkaoui was asked five questions during the test: whether he planned to tell the truth, whether he trained in terrorist camps, if he was ever a member of a terrorist network, if he was currently a member of a terrorist network and whether he had ever planned attacks. He responded "No" to all of the questions, said Galianos."

So... if he said he wasn't going to tell the truth, then you can't use the results of the next four questions, because he said he's lying about them, even if they register as true.

If he said he wasn't going to tell the truth, but then told the truth anyways, then the first answer was technically a lie, which the detector didn't catch, and if the detector didn't catch one lie, then how can one be sure it didn't miss others?

Anyone else see where I'm going with this? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I want this guy's job just so I can testify that, in my own 'expert' opinion, the lie detector test should be tossed.

The more things change...

2005-01-07T09:43:00.000-05:00

New year; same old stories.

Escaped kangaroo captured after a frigid walkabout in Wisconsin

This one is short, so I'll just paste the whole thing:

Canadian Press
January 6, 2005

DODGEVILLE, Wis. (AP) - A kangaroo that went on a walkabout in frigid Wisconsin was captured Wednesday. But where the marsupial came from remained a mystery.

Sheriff's deputies cornered the 68-kilogram kangaroo in a barn after receiving calls for days from shocked residents who had seen it.

Officials from Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, about 70 kilometres away, planned to pick it up and take care of it.

Zoo director Jim Hubing said the kangaroo would not have survived long in the Wisconsin winter. Temperatures in the animal's native Australia generally do not drop below freezing.

Sheriff Steve Michek said some people who spotted the kangaroo were hesitant to report it "because they didn't want to be made a fool of."

He said the animal might have escaped as someone was bringing it through the county.

Morris The Moose

2005-01-04T23:39:00.000-05:00

When I was little I had a couple of children's books about Morris and Boris. Morris was a skinny naïve moose, and Boris was a big cantankerous bear. They were the Laurel and Hardy of illustrated children's books.

Anyways, on the front page of today's Ottawa Citizen, there's another dim-witted Morris the Moose, who managed to freeze himself into some ice up in the Yukon.

Link: Winchester pair rescues frozen moose from icy lake

Front page part: FREEING MORRIS THE ICE DANCER
Matt Schenck, left, and Grant Booth of Winchester break the ice surrounding a moose trapped in Kathleen Lake, about 160 kilometres outside of Whitehorse on Boxing Day. Along with Sean MacKinnon and Hazel Booth, they freed the animal using a pulley system made from ice-climbing gear.

Picture:

Morris

'Used Condoms'?!?!

2004-12-30T10:13:00.000-05:00

Seriously, who does this shit?

Link for AOL people only...

Man Accused of Mailing Dead Rats, Birds

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (AP) - A former state worker has been charged with second-degree stalking, accused of mailing dead rats, dead birds and used condoms as part of a pattern of harassment against 14 people.

State Police say Jack Rodack, 50, of Central Islip, was also charged with second-degree forgery, accused of falsely reporting police emergencies and child abuse at victims' homes, terminating their utility services, and ordering products delivered to homes.

Rodack is a former caseworker with the New Jersey State Division for Youth and a former investigator with the New York State Department of State and had victims in New York City, Long Island, New Jersey and at least one in the Southern Tier, police said. He was sent to Broome County Jail without bail.

Vestal police had been investigating the local case of harassment for about eight years, State Police Senior Investigator Susan Mulvey told the Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin.

Authorities said many victims came into contact with Rodack through his state jobs, but only some recalled having a problem with him.

Best Foot Forward? Um, no.

2004-12-28T17:27:00.000-05:00

Here's a good one. It's for AOL subscribers (Mom's on AOL here in Simcoe; poor Mom...), so I'm cutting and pasting:

Doctor Mistakenly Amputates Wrong Foot

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico (AP) - A doctor at a public hospital in southern Mexico mistakenly amputated the right leg of an elderly patient who had sought treatment for an infection in his left foot, the patient's family announced Sunday.

Seeking treatment for a foot wound aggravated by diabetes, Alberto Lopez, 74, was admitted to a Social Security Institute hospital in Tuxtla Gutierrez, 430 miles south of Mexico City, and underwent surgery on Friday.

But the patient emerged from surgery without a right leg - and still suffering from the original infection - according to family members who filed a complaint Sunday with the state attorney general's office and a national medical arbitration commission.

As of Sunday, Lopez had not yet been notified that the wrong limb was amputated unnecessarily, according to his daughter, Esperanza Lopez.

"He could die on us just from the impact,'' she said. "What we are demanding of the authorities is that the person responsible be punished.''

Hospital director Jesus Siman acknowledged that a mistake was made and said the responsible doctor had been removed from the hospital while authorities investigate the incident. The doctor under investigation could not be reached for comment.

"...gave a lustre of drizzled icing"

2004-12-23T13:53:00.000-05:00

Freezing rain on top of 10-25 cm of snow. Souther Ontario weather is gross. I miss frigid Ottawa where it's now too cold to do any more freezing rain.

I'm trapped now without a means of transportation (not that I want to go out in this mess), and all of the canada.com site is down, so I'm feeling a little cut off from my news, too. I'm not having a Merry Christmas yet.

So, CNews, it is:
Heavy Ontario snowfall spells misery for airlines, joy for ski areas

Not really a funny article, but it had this great line: "Just to highlight how bad conditions were in the area, the Toronto Metro Zoo, which generally stays open every day of the year except Dec. 25., announced its gates were closed Thursday. "

The 300 car accidents weren't an indication. But the zoo was.

In unrelated news, Rob and Ashley should be pleased at the announcement of the next Harry Potter book that will be released on July 16th... just in time for... neither of your birthdays. Sorry!

Now I'm sleepy...

2004-12-21T01:04:00.000-05:00

Alberta judge admits snoozing during sentencing hearing of drug dealer

Best line: "The critical evidence you missed is wholly inconsequential,"

Anyone who can explain to me how critical evidence is inconsequential will get an extra Christmas present this year.

Yes!!! Cats & The Post!!

2004-12-13T11:53:00.000-05:00

Today is a very special day. A cat has returned to grace the front page of the National Post. The electronic edition, at least. I haven't seen the paper edition yet.

Pair fined for attempting to rescue kitty by highway

"MONTREAL - A couple of cat lovers who saved a kitten abandoned by the side of the road were fined $52 for their efforts. "

Now THIS is the post I know and love! ;)

Always room for Jell-O

2004-12-12T17:28:00.000-05:00

Girl suspended over 'Jell-O shots'

Check this out: "The girl told the principal that her mother, who works in a bar, makes alcoholic shots at home and sells them at work. The fourth-grader said her mother had instructed her to take the shots to school and sell them, three for $1, to make some money for Christmas, Nowakowski said. "

I love the holiday season! There's so much COMPLETE IDIOCY out there this time of year. Like having your 8-year-old illegally sell alcohol to minors, at school, for Christmas money.

Alissa, this is one for your wacky web news, I think.

Blocked

2004-12-05T02:13:00.000-05:00

It's a weekend of report writing for me, and I have the worst case of writer's block ever. I'm seeing if maybe my blog can help loosen up the creative sparks inside.

Here's a great story from the post, coming soon to [insert your favourite new york city police drama here].

Flying shrimp killed husband, lawsuit says

"A New York widow alleges a chef at a Benihana restaurant who fired a shrimp in the general direction of her late husband is responsible for his death. "

Well, writer's block is still in full force. Maybe I'll try sleeping.

Although we've come to the end of the road...

2004-11-26T13:23:00.000-05:00

I haven't been this entertained in months. This week has been full of laughs, triumphs, and bitter defeats, and I loved every minute.

Here's how I see the final tally:

Day 7: Mugging Monkeys vs Gander the grenade victim

Winner: Ashe. Everyone knows that monkeys and squirrels trump any other story, any day. There's no comparison, and the monkeys here walk away with a HUGE victory.

Day 6: Shunned Seahorses vs Carry-on Chainsaws

Winner: Rich. But not by much, I don't think. I claim victory based on the fact that Ashe says that Australian papers carried the sub-story of the granny and the revolver as well. While seahorse sex is always an interesting biological event, ripe for parody, the chainsaws (who carries chainsaws on planes?) is just a bit farther over the line.

Day 5: Virgin Toast 2 vs Lithuanian Suicide

Winner: Rich. Alissa agrees, the dude with electric chair is a trump.

Day 4: Desperate (Romainian) Housewives vs Aussie police chases

Winner: Ashe. Since the Aussie story came from me, there's no contest here. That and there was a story that didn't even need to be used to beat my pathetic entries...

Day 3: Colonel's Ketchup vs. Bloodsport Cricket Fighting

Winner: Rich. Crickets that fight for sport! Place your bets! In defence, I think that this wins because my sister was still laughing about this one days later.

Day 2: Exhumed Chihuahua vs Brewery's Baby Jesus

Winner: Ashe. My best submission of the contest could not compete against Ashe's best entry. Not even by a long shot. The chihuahua struts. Or would, if the thing wasn't dead.

Day 1: Crafty Crows vs Ice Ice Wallaroo

Winner: I have no idea. NBC news says: "Too close to call".

This is looking suspiciously like a tie, although when I was outclassed, I was REALLY outclassed. And all my storied about Australia are not going to help my case for a clear victory here. (The post has two more aussie stories today, btw)

I don't want to concede, so maybe we'll just have to decide this in a second contest the next time a slow news week comes along. ;)

100% Canadian!

2004-11-25T11:56:00.000-05:00

It's another one of those days. Every story seems... off.

Here, I'll let you pick the best one today.

Candidate #1: Two female passengers in screaming match nearly forced Air Transat flight to land early
best line: "The women -- aged 19 and 25 -- were charged with uttering death threats and released. One was also charged with common assault. "

Candidate #2: White Rock councillor's assault charge stayed in alleged stabbing with pen
best line: ""I maintain I was jabbed," [Mr. Annable] said. Ms. Woods, however, said stories that she jabbed him were "not true.""

Candidate #3: B.C. women 'provoked' Golf Club feud
best (actually, only) line: "A group of women alleging gender discrimination at an exclusive Vancouver golf club is being accused of orchestrating a publicity campaign against the club and recruiting lesbian golfers to their cause."

Candidate #4: School reprints its yearbook after encrypted anti-Jewish message is discovered
best line: there isn't one... the whole story thing is weird.

Candidate #5: Two men charged with stealing puppy
best line: "Two men went into the [humane] society on inline skates, took Sarah [the terrier] from her cage, and scooted out, police said. "

Candidate #6: War monument honours Canadian canine hero
...this whole story is a happy tale about Sgt. Gander, a Newfoundland dog that is being honoured as a war hero, with other animal heroes. You'll understand, then, how the last line caught me totally off-guard:

"The Japanese threw a grenade that rolled by a wounded soldier and some others who were helping him. Gander picked up the grenade and ran away from the soldiers, but it blew up and he was killed."

I didn't need that.

Ok, it's up to you now! Choose the best one for my entry today, please!

Some Days Are Better Than Others

2004-11-24T13:57:00.000-05:00

In my opinion, today doesn't stack up to whatever it was that infected every page of the National Post yesterday. But I'm not competing against yesterday, I'm only up against Ashley's entire continent! So here we go:

Here's the warm-up teaser: (subscriber only)
Montreal caleche association sparks debate over carriage safety
"MONTREAL - It is one of the most cliched Montreal moments, a ride in a horse-drawn caleche along the old city's cobblestone streets. But tourists who hop on one of the buggies could be entrusting their lives to drivers high on drugs or alcohol, a group of caleche-owners is warning. "

Your animal interest story of the day: (1/2 article; subscriber only)
B.C. plans military-style fight against American bullfrogs that are the size of dinner plates
Best line: "People in hipwaders armed with electroshock devices are set to stun and net the monster frogs before setting traps designed for tadpoles. The team will later kill the B.C. kermits humanely -- by freezing."

And here's today's best Post article:
'Doofus' U.S. air travellers carry chainsaws, landmines in luggage

Back in the game

2004-11-23T13:14:00.000-05:00

After yesterday's defeat, even without the use of the mouse, I'm back. The Post wasted valuable cover space and a full-colour photo of the JFK game that I can't use today.

They also ran a follow-up of their own to the Virgin Mary cheese-on-toast story, which Ashe also beat me to, and I also can't use.

However, they didn't let me down today. I've got a handful of subscriber-only stories here for a quick laugh, first off:

In local news:
Canada Post pulls service until pit bull leashed
"OTTAWA - Canada Post has notified residents of an entire block in Ottawa's hip Westboro neighbourhood that their mail service has been suspended because of a loose pit bull in the area."

Animal-interest:
Dolphins rescued us from shark
"WELLINGTON - A pod of dolphins circled protectively around a group of New Zealand swimmers to fend off an attack by a great white shark."

World news:
Fun-loving earl feared kidnapped
"Fears are mounting for the safety of an eccentric English aristocrat who has not been seen since he checked into a posh hotel in Cannes at the beginning of November."

Health news:
Back pain linked to brain shrinkage
"A small but startling study suggests back pain makes some people's brains shrink, while separate research suggests obesity may have the same effect."

Travel:
Monks say tourism ruining cradle of kung fu
"SHAOLIN TEMPLE, China - Every morning as a new fleet of buses unloads tourists at the Shaolin temple, Li Yaojin thinks wistfully about the peaceful days two decades ago when he first arrived as a Buddhist novice."

...and that's ignoring a follow-up to the crazy deer hunter story, and a story on how different kinds of toilet paper clog toilets in the UK.

Here, at last, is today's submission for the contest:

Lithuanian man commits suicide with self-designed electric chair

CSI: Wisconsin

2004-11-22T14:57:00.000-05:00

I was dreading sunday, since the post has no sunday edition, but I should have been more concerned with today. Day 4: Monday. Every paper is so concerned with Grey Cup aftermath, that it's turned into a slow news day for slow news stories.

There was a promising headline in today's post that read "When grizzlies and humans meet". It had no substance, however.

For true gore, I do have this frightening CP piece out of Birchwood Wisconsin, about some crazy deer hunter that climbed the wrong tree, shot 8 other hunters instead of deer, left his sniper perch and promptly got lost in the woods.

5 killed, 3 injured in hunting dispute

I still fear for humanity when reality gets more messed up than what I see on TV on CSI.

My entry for today, therefore, is the following story:

Aussie cops hunt dumb bandits

Yep, it's out of Australia. This is becoming a really frightening trend, and for the first time I'm worried about the outcome of my little contest here. Half my stories are about events in Australia, or related to Australia in some way (like Vanilla Ice and his hybrid kangaroo). Ashley, meanwhile has had some great stories about Indian Colonels and ketchup, exhumations in Prague, and magpie-wannabe crows in Okinawa.

Today's will be about the mouse in Shanghai and I know I can't compete with that. *sigh* Here's hoping for better luck tomorrow!

Shampoo, crickets and public urination

2004-11-21T17:27:00.000-05:00

That's right... after yesterday's embarrasing defeat at the hands (paws?) of a dead chihuahua, I'm back in force today for day 3.

You want animal interest? You got it.

Chinese officials crack down on ancient bloodsport of cricket fighting

This story ends with one of the hallmarks of any good animal interest story: "There was no word on the fate of the crickets."

We take you now from the dangers of cricket fighting to the dangers of washing your hair:

Health Canada warns against imported shampoo

Besides, everyone knows domestic shampoos are better for you anyways, right?

And finally, for fun because it's not a full article (stupid subscriber exclusives...), I give you peeing in saskatoon. That's right, I DID just turn this into a pissing contest.

A woman among 28 people fined for urinating in public in first test of Saskatoon bylaw

Personally, I love the shock the paper expresses over the one female offender. It can't be that rare, can it? Have any of your girls ever relieved yourself in public? Don't feel shy to share where and when.

To hell in a handbasket

2004-11-20T13:17:00.000-05:00

Day 2 of the newspaper competition, and I'm breaking out the dirty tricks today.

Here's a story out of Australia printed in our National Post with a nice CP byline...

I'm using this one so you can't, Ashe. ;)

Aussie brewery offers cases of beer as reward for stolen baby Jesus' return

This is a throwdown...

2004-11-19T13:57:00.000-05:00

...a showdown
Hell no, I can't slow down
It's gonna go

Ashe thinks Australian newspapers might be worse than the Post. I linked to some kind Australian papers that provided full colour pictures of the virgin mary on cheese on toast in my last post, and so she thinks Australia can vie for the inferiority title.

It's on.

All this week, I'll restrict myself to the National Post (though I may stray to other CanWest Global sources if absolutely necessary) in my quest for the worst articles EVER. Based on the current offerings, this looks like the slowest news week of the year, so we should be in for a treat.

You ready, Ashe? If you're up for a competition, the rules are these: list 1 "news" story each per day, until one of us runs out of ridiculous articles; you're restriced to your continent, and I'm restricted to CanWest publications; no listing a local version of a story the other person has already listed... and that should cover it.

I'll go first:

Vanilla Ice wants wallaroo back, but exotic animals not allowed in Florida

Now top that!

Obey All Signs

2004-11-17T13:59:00.000-05:00

Today the Post came out swinging with not one, not two, but three absurd stories (all linked off the main page, all subsriber exclusives, so the links only give you a tease at the stupidity that's sure to lie below)

#3: Australian cowboys might be forced to wear protective helmets under new safety regulations

#2: Virgin Mary icon on 10-yr-old Cheese-on-toast up for sale on eBay (Full story here) (Picture of Mary on Cheese-on-toast here) (My favourite part? How the mary-on-toast helped her win $70,000 at the casino. You can picture it, no? 'The Virgin Mary appeared on my cheese-on-toast! It's a sign that I should go play the slots today!')

#1: Ex-stripper sues lion safari after tiger mauling affects her income
(Full Toronto Star article reprinted here: http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=5ndime&static=335464)

This happened in 1996, 3 years before I worked at the Safari. How is it only coming to court now?

Every single sign says don't roll down your windows, and enter park at your own risk. It's very clear that the park takes no responsibility for the stupidity of people, so why is this even seeing the inside of a courtroom?

Do accordian players really earn enough to warrant the $1M he wants in damages? Do strippers deserve $2.2M if they look funny on stage because there's a nice set of tiger teeth marks in their skull?

If he doesn't know how the window got down, why is he suing her for opening the window? If she did open her window, doesn't she assume all responsibility? Isn't that what "your own risk" means? His window was also open, so is he only suing her because the tiger chose her window instead of his?

And she's suing him for driving a broken car?

These two are extremely fortunate to be alive. In my mind they're candidates for honourable mentions in the Darwin Awards. They can't get the top prize, because they didn't let the tiger finish them off.

Pity, that. The world needs more tigers to end the 'careers' (such that they are...) of a few more accordian players and strippers that can't comprehend "Obey all signs"; "Keep all windows closed"; "Keep all doors locked"; "Do not feed the animals"; and "All visitors enter reserves AT THEIR OWN RISK".

In Remembrance

2004-11-11T14:55:00.000-05:00

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we stop to remember the sacrifices that were made for us in the First & Second World Wars...

...unless you're the Ottawa Citizen. Beneath the requisite poppy collage header on the front page, they break out the "WAR!"-sized type for a headline to proclaim the death of Arafat and, below his gigantic face, there's something else we should all remember today:

Big Bird.

That's right, the Ottawa Citizen wants us to reflect on 35 years of Sesame Street today. They've even supplied a picture of Bid Bird himself, decked out in a fancy tie for this special event. Here's the link, sans picture: How Sesame Street helped spawn the MTV generation.

If Big Bird isn't enough to get you in the proper mood today, there's this added feature online: Strawberry Shortcake has aroma of nostalgia.

Not exactly what I call holding the torch high. They're spinning in Flanders today.

"I'm glad you're here to tell us these things!"

2004-11-03T13:19:00.000-05:00

Breaking away from election garbage (there's plenty, but even I've had enough), I want to direct your attention north of the border for just a moment.

Court upholds ruling Kemosabe not racist term

Lone Ranger’s 'kemosabe' not racist, court says

In the land of the True North, Strong and Litigious, a woman in Nova Scotia was offended when her boss called her 'Kemosabe'. Since she's native, her lawyer no doubt advised her to take the guy to court.

Here's the best part: "After a day of watching reruns of The Lone Ranger TV series, members of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission ruled in a workplace hearing that Kemosabe is not a racist term. The board's conclusions were recently upheld by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal."

They watched TV for a day!!! They watched tv and got paid for it, thanks to the taxpayers that fund their salaries. And this is what they have to show for it:

""The board concluded Tonto is the Lone Ranger's partner and friend. He is clean-cut and well groomed and, although he speaks a form of broken English, he is neither dumb nor stupid," Justice David Chipman wrote."

Wow. What a deep conclusion there. He could have got half that from TV Guide, without watching tv all day. And the rest? 'he is neither dumb nor stupid'? Thanks for clearing that up. The distinction between dumb and stupid is an important one, and we're glad we're paying you to elaborate on this point.

The MSNBC article is entertaining, too, in the way that it makes the board sound like an intrepid band of archaeologists, searching for buried treasure troves of profound truth: "The board found that at the start of their relationship, Tonto, a native American, had recognized the injured Lone Ranger as the man who had saved his life years before, and started calling him kemosabe."

In related news, I'm waiting for the right lawsuit to come along so I can do my own 'research' into the treatment of [insert disenfranchised group of the week here] in old Superman reruns.

Math is fun!

2004-11-03T01:34:00.000-05:00

It's 1:30 am. Fox news is about to call the election for Bush at any time now.

Meanwhile, at CBC, we're having problems counting votes!

No, not the individual votes that are being cast (still, at this hour, in New Mexico!)... that would be too easy.

No, at the CBC, they can't count the 538 electoral college votes. It's a smaller number. You'd think it'd be easier.

Right now their pretty map shows 249 for Bush; 220 for Kerry, and 68 too close to call.

You, um... you lost one, there, boys.

Update: 1:43 am The lost vote has been found! The map is complete! There, that wasn't that hard, now was it??

Stop Hurting Canada

2004-10-24T03:27:00.000-04:00

Wow. So: the editorial board at the Toronto Star is the only paper in North America that's had anything nasty to say about Jon Stewart's Crossfire appearance (see below)

Star article: Jon Stewart should stick to comedy

Leslie Papp either feels threatened by this "fool" Stewart, or ... well, I can't even come up with an alternative. I just don't understand her position. Most viewers saw Stewart say what desperately needed to be said about the state of mass media and the levels that it has sunk to. What Papp saw was nothing less than an outrage.

Much like Tucker Carlson (Stewart's target on Crossfire), Papp demands that Stewart stick with the comedy, and not venture into the realm of the real. Her realm.

She gets her facts wrong on a few occasions, as any good Canadian journalist should. She says "When challenged in his call for civility, Stewart used an expletive (referring to part of the male anatomy) to deride one of the show's hosts and then made fun of the man's tie."

The actual sequence of events went more like: Stewart challenges hosts; hosts deflect focus away from themselves; hosts are brought back to the point; hosts deflect focus away with hypocritical attacks; Stewart then calls the show theatre, because the host wears a bow tie; host replies with ad hominem attack & begs Stewart to be funny; host makes personal attack on Stewart; commercial break; other host steps up for his turn; long discussion of media spin; host opines again that Stewart isn't funny; Stewart opines that host is a dick; commercial break.

So she's got a bit of a train wreck going on there with her facts, but then she gets to the kicker: "The irony in that was lost on Stewart's legion of fans, both within the media and outside it. ". Ahhh, precious irony. My favourite word. Amazingly, Papp is one of a VERY small number of people that are able to use the word 'irony' correctly! (For reference she's going with definition 1b at dictionary.com)

She uses the word properly, accusing Stewart of failing to elevate his own discourse while demanding precisely that from his hosts. She missed the point here, though. If we take her use of 'elevated discourse' to mean 'no name-calling, etc', then Stewart didn't demand this elevated discourse at all.

Rather, he demanded that shows like Crossfire be accountable to the people and present honest discussion instead of lies, deceit, spin and obviously, the 'partisan hackery'. So... follow me here... if he didn't demand an "elevated public discourse", as Papp claims, then he can't be expected to hold himself to such a standard... and *poof* goes the irony.

Demanding honest speech is different from demanding respectful speech. To lump the two together as 'elevated discourse' is to commit the fallacy of equivocation. Irony may be lost on the masses. The facts are lost on this journalist, however. And her argument sucks. To borrow her own phrase: "Sadly, it was also uninformed."

That's just the start of this. She also drags the court jester metaphor out for another walk, even mentions Shakespeare's Fool to convince Stewart to go back to his own TV show, and she makes an admission I doubt we'll ever see again in print.

"Its pointless to look here — or anywhere else in the media — for grand truths, or for society to be saved through earnest and elevated debate. Truth isn't that easily found. Yet Stewart, in his blissful naïveté, expects media outlets to provide one-stop-shopping for ultimate answers — a sort of Wal-Mart for political truth."

This is the Star saying that they don't care to help us find the truth. It's too hard. It involves some ethics. It involves knowing the difference between "its" possessive and "it's" the verb 'it is'.

So now I say to Leslie Papp, The Toronto Star, and all papers that feel threatened by the forces of truth and justice: Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting Canada.

Damn Leafs

2004-10-23T01:30:00.000-04:00

Fantasy league shows Leafs in front a little over a week into NHL season

I'm so mad. This was my idea, and someone smart like I am went and did it for real, and now there's a funny story on MSN, and the CP is going to be running fantasy scores for the rest of the lockout-delayed season and it was all my idea to begin with, and my sister and I had a good laugh and didn't do anything more about it and now THIS...

*deep breath*

I think I'm just upset that Brian Leetch got a hat trick against Hasek to beat Ottawa. That's crap.
EA Sports has the whole season up for viewing at EA Sports.com

Somehow Ottawa didn't even make the playoffs. That's also crap.

Ashe, whatever you do, don't tell Tom about that results page. Seriously, trust me on this. ;)

The first thing we do...

2004-10-20T01:40:00.000-04:00

Yes, half my friends study law. I'm still not a fan of lawyers, though.

Here's partly why: stupid legalities that waste our time. Our taxes. My freaking patience.

Globe & Mail: French just the ticket for fledgling lawyer

CTV: Court rules T.O.'s English traffic signs illegal

CBC: Court decision calls into question thousands of Toronto traffic tickets

The CBC story is different in that it features a picture of the english-is-my-first-and-only-language lawyer lady who decided that, instead of paying the fine when she was caught turning left at an intersection where there was a 'no left turn' sign, she'd have her firm's new hire argue the ticket, and in the process call into question every unilingual sign in the G.T.A.

If the city's appeal doesn't go through, we, the taxpayers, will have to pay for the replacement of every sign in Toronto (and Ottawa, and London, and Thunder Bay, and...) because once again, the interpretation of an obscure piece of provincial language legislation conflicted with the explicit intent of Highway Act laws (ie "don't turn here, dumbass, you'll hurt somebody"), and their municipal execution. In the eyes of a single Justice of the peace, the argument for the language laws was enough to dismiss the ticket.

In my mind, the kicker is that French signs will help precisely nobody. Out of those who identified their first language for the 2001 census, French came in behind English, Chinese, Italian, Portugese, Punjabi, Spanish, Polish, and Philipino, with only 63,970/4,847,830 respondents in the Toronto/Oshawa area. That's 1.3%. Great. We should get busy replacing them right away.

I really have to agree with Dick the Butcher, in Henry VI, part 2. It's not the signs, it's the lawyers that have to go.

Oh, Canada...

2004-10-18T04:10:00.000-04:00

...what the hell have you done now?

From the Globe & Mail: Greatest Canadian list pared down

This makes me sick. I'll get to the top ten in a moment, but THIS is who the rest of Canada voted for? Rick Mercer?

Jean Chrétien came in higher than Billy Bishop?

Brett Hart beat Avril; Avril beat John Candy; Candy beat Laurier and Sir Sanford Fleming? Why? Is MTV, the WWF, SCTV and SNL more valuable to us than time zones or a united Canada?

Jim Carrey over Rick Hansen? Celine Dion over Sir Isaac Brock? Wait... Brock wasn't even a Canadian. Why's he even on this list?

Isn't it nice to see Bethune make the list, as well as Riel? In Canada, we honour all our heroes. Even the traitors who fight for the other side.

With all the flotsam here, I'm surprised not to see Joe Shuster. But then, even our respected artists failed to make the list. We like our performers too much to vote for the visual arts, I suppose.

For that matter why do Pierre Berton and Peter Gzowski make it and not other authors, like John McCrea; Marshall McLuhan; Mordecai Richler; Robert Service; Robertson Davies; Timothy Findlay; Stephen Leacock; Lucy Maude Montgomery; Farley Mowat... or even the ones I don't much care for like Carol Shields or Margaret Laurence. What about our adopted son, Robert Munsch??? Oh, right... the ones that made it were CBC broadcasters too.

Maybe it's rigged. The internet drive that landed Don Cherry in the top ten speaks volumes about the absurdity of this list. I'd take a Roberta Bondar or a Marc Garneau over a hundred Don Cherrys (Cherries?) any day.

As happy as I am that Brantford's best made it twice in the form of Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky, I'm proud that my vote also helped put Terry Fox on the short list.

I'll be truly sad if he's not crowned 'The Greatest Canadian'. I may be able to fogive these other travesties if Canada's votes come through in the end. Somehow, though, I doubt it. Terry, I need your hope again.

Update: The city of London is starting a campaign to get people to vote for their boy, Dr. Frederick Banting. The curator of the Banting House National Historic Site said "We want to illicit support from Canadians." That whole sentence is illicit, as far as I'm concerned. Read the rest here: Banting makes Top 10 list in Greatest Canadian contest

Here it is: your moment of Zen

2004-10-18T04:04:00.000-04:00

"We're talking to Jon Stewart, who was just lecturing us on our moral inferiority."

Blogger lost my tirade about ethics in media, and trust me you're better off for it.

Here's the short version.

Watch this clip: Jon Stewart on CNN's Crossfire - Windows Media

Read this transcript: Crossfire with Jon Stewart - October 15

Laugh at the sarcasm here that flies over the head of the pitifully inept:
BEGALA: Which candidate do you suppose would provide you better material if he won?
STEWART: Mr. T. I think he'd be the funniest. I don't...
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Don't you have a stake in it that way, as not just a citizen, but as a professional comic?
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: Right, which I hold to be much more important than as a citizen.
BEGALA: Well, there you go.

Agree with the following:
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one.

Go search on google news to see just who has the guts to run this. Hint: try drivel first, like mtv.com, the new york daily news, the drudge report, or the tv critic's page in the washington post...

He deafened me with Science!

2004-10-14T01:30:00.000-04:00

With apologies to Thomas Dolby, we bring you the following stories culled from Canadian News Sources. (Warning: The following contains typical Canadian research methods. Viewer discretion is advised)

Exhibit A: CTV News "Noisy toys can damage kids' ears, experts warn "
Exhibit B: CBC News " Toys could damage children's hearing "
Exhibit C: Globe and Mail " Loud toys endanger children's hearing, tests show "

Rhetorical Question #1: Why is it *kids'* in one and *children's* in the other two?

Rhetorical Question #2: Why does the CBC report call the loudest toy a car, while the other two quote the same researcher and call it a toy cell phone?

Now, the fun part...

Why does nobody understand decibels? I'm going to fault the papers on this, but the researchers seem to be partly to blame, here, too.

Common error #1: the percentage thing. Decibels do not rise and fall the way, say, temperature does, and you can't measure changes with percentages the same way you would most metric scales like grams, metres, litres or degrees.

Decibels operate on a logarithmic scale. Simply put, if you up the decibels by 10, the intensity goes up by a factor of 10, making it ten times as powerful. There is no upper limit, and percents only work when scales have a limit, or an imposed arbitrary cap.

This quote from CTV: "the loudest toy was a cell phone that shrieks at 115 decibels, or fifteen per cent higher than Health Canada regulations allow," is, well, WRONG. 115 dB is ~31.6 X more powerful than the regulation of 100 dB. This is the best measurement I can give you, because there can be no percentage for decibels without a maximum value (The "100% dB").

There's likely no such thing. Humans are killed by sounds at the 200 dB level. Nuclear bombs are around 240-258 dB (imprecise, because there's no device that's going to be able to record that...) and no one can even guess what the highest possible decibel value is.

Setting an arbitrary cap, like the article attempts to do at 100 dB, means they're actually looking at a figure that's "462.34% higher", which is totally meaningless, without explaining the log scale of the ratios that are used to properly calculate that number. I'd hoped that I shouldn't have to point that out, but it looks like maybe I do. Ratios and percentages just don't mix this way.

Common error #2: the loudness thing. Decibels don't measure loudness, they measure intensity. You may think these terms are interchangeable (the papers do!), but they aren't.

Intensity measures the pressure of the sound wave. Loudness depends not just on the pressure of the wave, but its frequency as well. Since human ears are only sensitive to certain frequencies, this needs to be taken into account, and you can't explain your findings in just dB units. There are other metrics for these sorts of things.

CTV and The Globe use this quote: "“It's lower than a jet plane but noisier than most discotheques,” said Richard Larocque", and CBC uses this: ""120 decibels would be a jet plane taking off, so it's not as loud, but it's close," Larocque says." Our resident expert has no idea what he's talking about.

If he were talking about intensity on the decibel scale, then he has the positions right, if not the words to describe it ('close' is even worse than just 'lower', because of the log scale I outlined above). If he's talking about actual loudness, that's a subjective scale that depends on the listener and other factors, and he's out to lunch.

Common error #3: the range thing. The intensity of a wave decreases with distance. This is also a logarithm. CBC and CTV mention range, with the researchers measuring intensity at a distance of one centimetre, since "Children playing with toys often hold them closer than the regulated noise limits specify". Nobody says what this regulated limit is, and the comparison of dB levels to a 100 dB standard isn't of any use without range factored in as well.

The Globe ignores this issue altogether. Too complicated, maybe?

Common error #4: exposure times. The stories all mention the new proposed standard of 87 dB for 30 minutes, but fail to explain this very well. Hearing damage occurs over time, and is a repetetive strain injury. Just like all this typing is killing my wrists, repeated exposure to intense sounds can damage your hearing.

8 hours of exposure every day to a 90 dB sound (ie. lawn mower) can damage your hearing the same way that 30 minutes of exposure every day to a 110 dB sound (ie. rock concert) can.

Every story neglected to mention the 'per day' part. Just like one rock concert won't kill your hearing permanently, a dozen cell phone 'shrieks' won't deafen your child for the rest of her life.

The ugly: Look at these three quotes, and apply what I've just taught you:
CBC: "Researchers found that more than 60 percent of the toys were dangerously loud when the noise was measured one centimetre from the speaker."
CTV: "When the 40 toys were tested against that [87 decibels for 30 minutes] measure, 13 per cent were deemed unsafe. None passed the safety standard when the test microphone was held at a distance of one centimetre from the toy."
Globe: "The study found that 25 of 40 toys tested made enough racket to cause hearing damage if they were held up to the ears of small children. [...] Two of the toys, including the cellphone, failed to meet the federal standard,"

From this I get the following: All 40 toys are at at least 87 dB @ 1cm. 10 toys miss any sort of qualification. 5 toys (there was some nasty rounding with the 13% figure) are "unsafe". 25 toys are "dangerously loud", and since "loud" isn't what we're talking about, we have to look at the globe quote and notice that if they can cause hearing damage, we're in the 90's on the decibel metre.

Since one would have to listen to these sounds for 2 to 8 hours every day to actually incur hearing damage, we're not discussing normal scenarios. The cellphone (or was that 'car'?) is an offender, requiring just 30 minutes of exposure or less per day, but it should already be banned under the existing regulations.

I just killed the sensationalism of this story, too. Sorry. After all that we're left with a pile of bad science, worse math, and a non-story all in one amazingly neat little package.

I'd expect nothing less!

Next: Subcutaneous Implants!

2004-10-12T17:46:00.000-04:00

Interesting story in the Ottawa Sun today (and elsewhere; assumed from the AP byline):

Japanese students tagged at the door

This isn't a rant against ID tags: I'm of two minds on the issue, really. On one hand, every job I've had in the last three years has required me to carry a badge in order to access the building, and this makes a lot of sense to me. On the other hand, how far are we really from the mark on the right hand or face that allows you to buy or sell with impunity?

Ethics aside, I do find fault with the technology at use here. They're using an RFID array, with a reception distance of 4-5 metres, judging by the photograph at CBS. This means they have a 13.56MHz system (bear with me, this makes a difference), with the higher-end 4 watt receiver stations.

According to this press release, Fujitsu has a kit here that sells for 900,000 Yen (as oppossed to the 15,000,000 Yen system cited in the article). The article mentions this insane price tag (16X!?!) includes the cost of the cards, but this figure is also troublesome.

13.56MHz cards are the size of credit cards making them portable in wallets, etc, and can transmit through your body. The longer wavelength means a high-powered sensor can detect the tag at a larger distance, making range a selling factor. These cards are less arduous to produce than their rivals, the 125KHz type, as they require 13-33X fewer wire loops to achieve this frequency. With me so far? Less loops = less bulk = less manufacturing time & raw materials = less cost. These cards actually cost between $0.25 and $1, depending on the deal you get from your supplier.

This leads me to my point: this school needs to fire their supplier. Especially since the same company has a rival product ready to deploy in just such an environment, at 1/16th the cost of the current system they're using now for just 40 students (but soon to be 700!). Even the fancy receivers they're using to get the 4 metre range (which saves the kids the hassle of swiping their badge over some reader like I'm used to...) doesn't come close to this high price tag.

Back to the article: "But Tanaka, Rikkyo's headmaster, says it's worth the expense. 'The school has to do all it can to ensure the safety of the children,' he said. " One assumes this includes ripping off the sponsors of this little project, exploiting his kids for a little media exposure, and scaring their parents.

Once again, stupidty takes the day when security concerns are paraded past the woefully uninformed.

I believe a man can fly...

2004-10-11T13:53:00.000-04:00

Christopher Reeve
1952 - 2004

Why Ashe Rocks

2004-10-07T10:21:00.001-04:00

After last night's lament over the lack of cute fuzzy animals in my papers, I woke up this morning to find a story from Ashe in my mailbox about Sabrina the flying squirrel.

SQUIRREL 1, CANADA 0

And the best part? Page A1, baby! Ashe, you rock.

Today's follow up editorials are even better. Dawn Hanna writes in to rate the episode as absurd, but she feels hopeful. Hopeful about what? I dunno... I haven't subscribed.

Another editorial (no author) compares Sabrina to Rocky the (animated) flying squirrel.

The best, however is Frederick Warren's take. Allow me to quote the smidgen they give us for free: "I agree with the government that Sabrina the flying squirrel does pose ''irreparable harm'' to Canada, as do the rest of her kith and kin who fly or leap across the border from American trees to Canadian trees unchallenged by the authorities. "

Ok, Fred... Can I call you Fred? Fred, look... we HAVE flying squirrels here already, you dolt. It's the act of bringing a tame one over that's at issue here, because of more than one stupid law. You can't capture the wild ones here, but domestic ones brought here from the U.S. are ok, if they weren't technically rodents, and therefore banned from import. Got it? Good.

Go start petitions against illegal immigrant butterflies from Mexico or something, will you Fred?

I just love the sweeping general laws aimed at mice and rats that catch cute fuzzy squirrels in the grip of legislative death, don't you?

Porn for Puppets

2004-10-07T01:06:00.000-04:00

With the latest revamps to the Post, my favourite paper is taking another downturn.

Where, I ask you, are the stories of cute fuzzy animals that used to be all over the front cover? Am I the only one that misses the front page animal-interest stories?

Don't answer that.

In my post-Post world, I've turned to the Star. Today there's a charming story about the new marionette movie: "Team America".

Puppet sex lands 'Team America' in trouble

Best quote: "But because of contractual obligations that require the filmmakers to deliver an R-rated product to Paramount, the production team submitted the [oral sex] scene with various alterations to the board 10 times before it agreed to an R rating."

Can you imagine having to watch ten different versions of a puppet sex scene? I'd cave and hand over the rating, too, to escape the torture! "The horror! The horror!"

I also like how the article calls this movie a "political satire". I was always taught that satire was a subtle tool that holds folly and vice up to ridicule and scorn, in an effort to correct said vice.

I'm going to hazard a guess and venture that there's nothing subtle about this movie... It seems that the word 'satire' is quickly joining 'irony' in the ranks of the misunderstood.

If anyone wants to see this movie... don't call me. I'd rather be reading my Vonnegut, Heller, and Swift.

For the record...

2004-10-03T19:39:00.000-04:00

Ok, I totally missed this one.

I thought this was the best quote: "Soon after Dr. Cushman spoke, the women latched their babies onto their breasts and the counting began."

But then I came across this one: "One mom, Julie Cooper [...] said she's tired of the strange looks she gets occasionally when she nurses her 18-month-old son Jacob in public."

Let me say up front I don't think there's anything wrong with breastfeeding in public.

But, Julie, people aren't giving you strange looks because of the breastfeeding itself, it's because you're still nursing a toddler. One who can walk already, and who already has a limited vocabulary. Don't you think maybe it's time to wean poor Jacob, rather than parade him around the malls so that you can enjoy your "feeling of community" and your "sense of accomplishment"?

Wait... sense of accomplishment? What on EARTH are you talking about?

In doing some background reading on this, I've found a lot of (poorly-written) articles lauding the benefits of breastfeeding toddlers. Some point to studies on primates, like this one by 'Kerstin' of Prince George BC about her daughter 'Finlay', as if that proves anything for humans. (And I truly hope those names have been changed to protect the guilty)

This entire topic has started to scare me. I've always frowned at women who still count their child's age in months when they're 1, 2, or even 3 years old. Now I'm beginning to see that this brand of crazy can go much, much deeper.