Tag Archive: Awards

My “Wicked Witch of the West” award  goes to… New York City.

New York and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States melt-down in a rain storm that is merely a punctuation point on one of the hottest years on record worldwide. Are the rain storms getting worse?  Well let me just tell you sunny, “When I was your age, I had to walk barefoot across the living room to switch the channel.”  For shame!  Life’s a (Sandy) Beach when Global Warmnings shift from apocalypse to baseball rain delays.

My “Get Reddy for This” award goes to… the Communist-Industrial Complex

Shortly after their Yangtze river turns an unprecedented shade of red, Canadian authorities endorse a $15.1 billion take-over in the Canadian oil sands by a state owned Chinese drilling company.  I guess they never red the flood of articles polluting China’s environmental record because they were too busy rationalizing the bad ink surrounding China’s human rights policy (or lack thereof).  Move over Manitoba, there’s a new Red River on the Canadian horizon.

My “Home Body of the Year” award goes to… Charles Zigler

Michigan Police found the dead man’s mummified remains sitting upright in the living room.   His roommate said she kept his remains clean and dressed and  talked to the body often, especially when “they” watched auto racing.  She admits cashing his benefit checks since his death in 2010 (or six months ago by her estimate).

My “Apocalypse Now” (or “You’re not Smarter than an American 5th Grader”) award goes to… Canadians

With the American sub-prime mortgage melt-down fresh (and Eurogeddon foremost) in everyone’s mind, Canadians manage to roll their household debt up to an average of $1.53 for every dollar they brought in – just below where the U.S. was before its housing crash.

My “What`s so Great about the Outdoors” award goes to… The BioLite CampStove

This wood burning(?) energy generation device is voted recreational innovation of the year by Popular Science.  Now everyone can go out and play even if they don’t want to get away from IT all.

“Why won’t they eat their vegetables?”

This feels more like an “its good for you” story but, in a year that was basically a cacophony of harsh headlines, it is the only thing I could pound into this placeholder. The main premise is that parents need to understand a little about biology and animal survival theory that goes something like this: “babies are born with more taste buds than adults, a biological mechanism that “protects children from eating something rancid or poisonous…” This is also one of those, “if I knew then what I know now stories” that might be helpful for any new parents that you know out there.  See the story here.

“Bail-Outs for the Rich and Shameless”

They’re baaaaack!  Yes, the banks appear be “Greecing” the wheels to recovery from some (more) of their bad investments at the expense of you and me.      Having made their fortune milking the sub-prime mortgage and loans market state-side and then sticking us with the bill, we now learn that the banks need to dip into our pockets and life savings (that will now conveniently fit into our pocket) once again to underwrite their latest ingenious round of investments – this time it was in sub-par European states. There is as yet no explanation for how they became so heavily invested in a country (Greece) where even the landed billionaires were apparently living beyond their means (if not below the poverty line).

In a related story we hear, “The world’s rich are restless, says a Canadian lawyer specializing in ‘tax-efficient citizenship, residence and domicile solutions’, whose clients are worth between $30 million and $1 billion. Most work in financial services… Last year, nearly 12,000 people moved here under the federal government’s Immigrant Investor Program…Tax specialists even use terms like “the Great White tax haven” and “Switzerland of the North” when talking about Canada.”