(Hurting) Headitor’s note: Its late, its New Years Eve, and I’SATIREd, sauced please accept that some (or all) of my wreckollections of the year gone by might be a bit scotchy. You should double-check my fracts with some more staid and reputable news sources before using any of the stories that I have dismembered from last year in a serious conversation.
Western defence analysts thrown into a pandamonium of kungfusion
China, the most populous country in the world, with the largest army, and a policy of one child per human couple announces that they have artificially bred not one but fourteen “Giant” Panda cubs. Analysts fear, these cute giants may be used to further infiltrate and destabilize western economies (See my 2012 story ” Canadian Prime Minister’s giant attempt at pandaring to the Chinese loses lots in translation) and/or be used to seed the ranks of China’s already giant army with truly giant Kung Fu trained super-soldiers fuelled on a steady diet of performance enhancing drugs.
There is ecstasy in Toronto city hall when their mayor strips is stripped of most of his powers.
There is a torontial downpour of sediment as Toronto’s mayor is buried in revelations that his drunken stupors might be a problem. After pathologizing again and again, our latest Canadian hero vows to seek the help he so desperately needs from therapy voters. Yes, he will take another crack at regaining his stupor powers in next year’s election. At last report he is still flying high in the polls.
The golden age of internet commerce
As the price of gold is literally plummeting from USD $1,675 last year to $1,200 as at the close of 2013, the digital bitcoin experiences a virtual roller-coaster of a ride in the other direction as it rises from USD $100 last year to $1241 in November before closing the year at $808. The bitcoin, often dubbed the currency of choice for criminals and money laundering, is digital cash for the internet that is not backed by a government or a central bank.
Just doing their bit for society
Coincidentally, while on the subject of exponential growth, government, criminals and money laundering, lets not forget that several Quebec mayors and Canada’s Senate found themselves in a little bit of hot water (and in some cases they had no money to buy their way out).
This issue that will not die is of special interest to everyone.
Take a pill terrorism, step aside same-sex everything, move over marijuana; there’s a new obsession on the political horizon. After a B.C. Court of Appeals killed a previous court ruling allowing physician assisted suicide, Quebec, the province that has had some experience trying to pull the plug on confederation is now tabling their own legislation designed to legalize assisted suicide for terminal cases that prefer to die with dignity. This is a story that is not likely to die of its own accord. Judgement day is coming.
Orwell, we can always share this finely researched history of hockey.
While the rest of the free world is obsessed with securing state secrets from wikileaks, whistleblowers, and wiretaps, Canada’s ruling Conservative Party continues to fret over the possibility that any of our scientists might share environmental information with the taxpayers that fund their research. Stories of crippling layoffs, inquisitional censorship and KGBish media shadows for federal scientists as well as over 900 “special” Revenue Canada audits on non-profit environmental groups have prompted Democracy Watch to submit a complaint to Canada’s Information Commissioner. see: http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/harpers-war-science
Related Quote: “This government has abandoned evidence-based policy making to pursue its own brand of policy-based evidence-making.”
— Megan Leslie, Member of Parliament
Drone like the delivery guy? Buy Amazon?
Shock and awe everywhere when Amazon unveils their plan for delivery by drone. Although they acknowledged that their plan is still not bulletproof, it is the opinion of this analyst that their drones had better be if they are ever going to survive the not so friendly skies of the good old U.S. of NRA.
Is it time to rail on the stability of North Dakota Bakken Crude Oil?
Although the tragic rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic is not funny, it certainly looks like there might be something funny about the type of oil that was involved. Four months after Lac-Mégantic was portrayed by some officials as a “once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe caused by a confluence of coincidence and errors”, 90 tank cars carrying that same Bakken crude oil detonated in an Alabama swamp on Nov. 8. Another derailment of 10 cars carrying the very same Bakken crude out of North Dakota, exploded onto the scene yesterday (December 30). Ironically, the absence of fatalities in these latter two derailments may be due to the absence of sufficient human operators to properly manage the train (which was cited as one of the causes of Lac-Mégantic’s runaway train).