Jan 01
No winner. There were a few entertaining nuggets; however, nothing jumped out as worthy of an award (although I did find myself dodging a few 3-D thingies that jumped out from the Hobbit).
Notable or Different: The Hobbit pt 2; Now You See Me; White House Down; Pacific Rim; Sharknado
Jan 01
Kiss it Goodbye by Nickelback
Outside of the rock genre, it was a pretty ho-hum, no-hum year for music. My song of the year, an unapologetic rant against the musick sic(k) moguls of the entertainment industry, wasn’t officially released or given any airtime. As the song goes, “It’s tough to see through bull–it when it’s up above your eyes”
Honourable mention:
Deal with the Devil by Pop Evil
Fly On the Wall by Thousand Foot Krutch
Jan 01
Pharmageddon by David Healy
A scathing exposé of how Big Drug companies have perverted medical research and the healthcare system. The anecdotes and revelations herein will make your head spin. In short: “Pharmaceutical companies sell diseases rather than cures…The focus of the pharmaceutical industry is not to create cures, but to create blockbuster medicines that can be marketed and re-marketed indefinitely. By 2001, blockbuster drugs like Lipitor represented 45% of the pharmaceutical industry’s annual sales [which were over $300B in 2012] around the world.”
Runner Up: Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
Loaded with food for thought. For a small taste of what is served up in this book (and your grocery aisle) consider this: Tobacco giant Philip Morris became the largest food manufacturer in North America when it purchased General Foods and Kraft in the 1980s. In the late ’90s, after observing the lengths their food companies were willing to go in laboratories to masque and short circuit the human body’s natural defences against too much salt, sugar, and fat, it told its food companies they would “face as great, if not greater, issues of public trust” as the tobacco industry had over nicotine. Philip Morris encouraged them to “find ways to lessen dependence on salt, sugar, fat.” Perhaps realizing that there was a fat chance of that ever happening, the tobacco giant divested itself of its food holdings shortly thereafter.
Related Statistic: There are now 29 million children and adults being treated for diabetes in Canada and the United States. Globally, the number is estimated to be more than 371 million people. Furthermore, the number of people with diabetes has doubled in the past decade alone.
Related/Runner Up Statistic: Roughly 10% the Pharmaceutical Industry’s total drug revenue in 2012 was attributed to drugs sold for the management of diabetes and high cholesterol
What the other guys liked: New York Times Bestseller List
Jan 01
PooPourri
The name says it all. Ironically, its a real stinker. You can sniff-it-yourself at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKLnhuzh9uY)
Jan 01
Does socialism work? A classroom experiment.
What happens when everyone in a university economics class agrees to share the same mark derived from the average of everyone’s collective achievements. Find out at: Does socialism work? A classroom experiment .
Runner Up: Explaining Modern Technology Would you be considered a God if you travelled back in time? Probably not.
What everyone else was watching: Top 10 Viral Videos 2013
Jan 01
“Just because everyone can’t do everything doesn’t mean someone shouldn’t do something.” — Joel Salatin, author of Folks, This Ain’t Normal
Runner up: “Ambassadors are expected to dip their vocabulary in a rich coating of multisyllabic vague—a pudding of nicety and nuance. It should never take less than a week, a thesaurus and two of the characters from National Treasure to solve the mystery of what an ambassador is really trying to say.” — MacLean’s humour columnist (and speechwriter for Liberal PM Paul Martin) on the Mexican ambassador’s expression of outright indignation that Mexicans should require a visa before visiting Canada.
Jan 01
For the first time since Napoleon Bonaparte, France unilaterally (and successfully) attacked an enemy when they aided the Government of Mali against Islamist insurgents. There are, however, some who claim that the attack was merely a diversion to cover the French Government’s retreat from the real enemy which is their ballooning deficit at home.
It is sheer pantamonium when Lululemon, a designer of ridiculously expensive gym cloths, gets its knickers in a knot after an adoring public sees through the marketing glitz and discovers there is really nothing behind (or between) the latest thing in yoga pants.
In five short seasons they managed to transform everyone we thought were likeable into eggsactly the opposite. The one mind blowing exception is the sleazy lawyer who remains in character throughout the series and winds up the most likeable of the bunch. He scores his own spin-off series while the rest of the caste turn sunny side up with the airing of last year’s final episode.
Runner Up: That RCMP dude who didn’t see a problem with taking the odd medical marijuana smoke break while in uniform.
For those of you who think your streets have been going to pot, just be happy you are not Russian to get home along the streets of Samara where cars and buses have been known to vanish into their epidemic of sinkholes. (see for yourself at: Russian city being ‘eaten alive’ )
Convinced that this was yet another conspiracy on the part of the Great American Satan to convince the world that all Muslims were radical terrorist bombers, my middle eastern friend exploded into a marathon rant that would last the entire ride home.
Even as the captain who failed to go down with his Carnival cruise ship, the Costa Concordia (that sank of the coast of Italy last year) is up to his ears in –it, the 7000 passengers and crew of the Triumph, another Carnival Cruise ship, are up to their knees in –it as they are unable to flush their toilets for 5 days. Hey everyone, I think they’re’ having a potty on the poop deck!
NIMBY (an acronym for the phrase “Not In My Back Yard”) is replaced by BANANA (an acronym for “Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone”). Who needs to eat? We want our cake…outlawed, as everyone everywhere just says no to pipelines, railways, nuclear power plants, pet chickens, clotheslines, …
Past rumours of the demise of the electric car appear to have been greatly exaggerated as they now appear to be racing along the road to redemption. There were no less than 15 different models of electric car on sale in 2013 and, at prices ranging from USD$25,000 – $80,000, you don’t need to be a guzzillionnaire to buy one. That notwithstanding, the high end Tesla Model S ($71,000-$91,000), by one estimate, captured 8.4% of the luxury car market in the US last year. When Prince Charming arrives to put paid to our happy story for ever after, there is a good chance he might riding a $1.4Million LaFerrari that boasts a 160-horsepower electric engine strapped to a 12-cylinder, 800-horsepower gasoline engine. (ref: Running on Fumes)
Tell all the “little Borgias” their party is over because there is a new sheriff in town. In February Pope Benedict bucked papal tradition when he voluntarily resigned (an event that last occurred way back in the 13th century). This came as a complete surprise to the mob of mostly Italian cardinals who were expecting to assist the aging pontiff through his waning years in office. The election of his successor, Pope Francis marked yet another blow to church tradition, as his arrival would break a 1272 year European hammerlock on the Supreme Pontiff in what many insiders describe as another clear message to the mob of mostly Italian cardinals administering the Roman Curia that enough is enough. Like his 13th century namesake St Francis of Assisi (and the Cathars of southern France who were barbarously annihilated at the behest of the 13th century Church), Pope Francis set the tone early by snubbing the glory and trappings of office in deference to the fundamentals of Christ and the people.
In a state of the union address, the president unveils an executive order that will bolster cyber-security through greater sharing of information between public and private sectors. Ironically, some bugs may still need to be ironed out as the digital dominoes start falling when America’s allies discover their lines are being bugged by their American friends. Alas that minor breech of trust takes back seat to the President’s global obsession with a game of drones that has been instigated to locate and extract (i.e. go bin Laden on) Edward Snowden for his personal breech of trust while contracted by an uber-untrustworthy National Security Agency.
Jan 01
Their calendar was not as good as Mayan
The world did not end on December 21, 2012.
Jan 01
See Story of the Year
Honourable mention: Electric car wins Motor Trend Car of the Year
In an electrifying game changer that Detroit automakers cannot continue to dodge, the Tesla S becomes the first electric car to claim the vaunted award, not because it is the best electric car, but because it is the best of all cars on the road. With 250 patents covering the Model S, and more pending, the Tesla goes from 0 to 60 mph in a Porsche-rivaling 4.4 seconds. With a top speed of 130 mph, it travels farther on a charge than any electric car in history—up to 300 miles on the optional 85-kilowatt-hour battery—and recharges three times as fast as the industry standard. The sticker price today is $59,000.