Tag Archive: Headlines

Canada’s Menu Pet Food, the dominant player in the pet food industry was forced to recall sixty million cans and pouches of pet food because of tainted wheat gluten from China.

While the political brain trust of the Federation is busy arguing over who should and should not be the captain of the Canadian national hockey-team and whether captured Taliban fighters should be brought back to Canada and given a “house (to have) arrest” (in), over on the dark side of Canadian politics, the Parti Québécois quietly replaces its party leader with a lady.  [You will need to see my predictions to understand this headline – if you don’t already see it coming]

Just when we thought the Conservatives might be the only ones bent on selling us out to big business, Ontario’s Liberal Party proves that they haven’t missed the boat when it comes to “giving us the business.”  The Province of Ontario’s proposed, “Safeguarding and Sustaining Ontario’s Water Act” proposes to protect water from being diverted from the Great Lakes via a whopping $3.71 surcharge on every million litres of water consumed by water bottlers, canning companies and heavy industry. That’s progress for you.  Big Business will no longer be freeloading on our water-supply, while in some cases selling it (the same water supply we are already taxed to provide treatment infrastructure for) back to us for $1.69 per 1 litre bottle. To date Businesses have not indicated any plans for appealing this ghastly $0.00000371 operating cost and/or whether they will round it up to a penny and pass it along to the consumer.

 In a related story:  Apparently the new math being used in Alberta is not that much better. According to a MacLeans magazine article entitled, “Doomsday, Alberta Stands Accused”  the three oil sands projects currently operating in Alberta are now licensed to extract 349 million cubic metres of water a year, twice what’s required annually for the entire city of Calgary. With 20 more projects in the works, extractions from the Athabasca River could triple in the next decade. By 2020, the oil sands could use as much as half the river’s flow in winter, a time when it is at its lowest ebb and fish populations are most stressed. Alberta’s oil sands operations also struggle with the problem of what to do with the water once it’s been used. Only eight per cent can be made sufficiently clean to go back to the Athabasca. The rest stagnates in huge ponds. “Birds that land on them never take off.”  Consumption of natural gas, another critical oil sands ingredient, also boggles the mind. The industry’s daily consumption could heat 3.2 million homes for a day. Environmentalists have long decried the absurdity of wasting such huge quantities of reasonably clean energy to extract dirtier oil.

Politicians of all stripes are suddenly spinning a full 360 on the environment in their usual “small minded way” with well articulated plans and debates that generally translate into:

“I’m greener than you are.”

“No way, I’m greener than you!”

Oh yeah!

Proving that only his beard was dying, Osama bin Slidin’ silences previous rumors that he was at death’s door when he appears in this year’s 9/11 state of the nation redress sporting a trendy new makeover that some interpret as evidence that Al Queda might be one step closer to getting with the program.  Yes, after all of their bluster and bombs fail to overcome Anna Nicole, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears for America’s attention, Al-Qaeda re-chanels their effort from shock and sabotage to schlock and superficial – it works, for a minute (now back to our program).

According to a study quoted in “The Telegraph,” a daily newspaper from London, England, the average female spends three years getting ready to leave the house.  Research found that the average woman takes one hour and twenty minutes to prepare for a big night out – 22 minutes to shower and remove unwanted hair; 7 minutes applying moisturizer and fake tan; 23 minutes doing her hair; 14 minutes applying makeup and 6 minutes putting on her clothes. The typical woman is also apparently spending another 40 minutes a day getting ready for work and 3 months of her life shopping for the right purse and/or the ideal pair of shoes.

All of a Sudan, riots break out in Khartoum, not because several hundred thousand (and counting) Muslim and non-Muslim men, women and children have been killed by government sponsored militias in Darfur, but because “da furry” teddy bear was named Mohammed by 6 and 7 year-old children. Islamic fundamentalists call for a volunteer teacher from Britain to be put to death for allowing such a heinous crime.  The good news: she was released and deported to Britain after tense negotiations; the bad news: it’s business as usual in Khartoum with no more reports of righteous indignation or riots.

In related stories:  Quebec holds public hearings on reasonable accommodation for minorities while Canadian taxpayers must “bear” the burden of costs associated with detaining undesirable aliens who prefer prison here to deportation from whence they came.

While on the subject of reasonable accommodation, take a look at this article entitled, “Don’t Push That Viking Mythology On Me” from Ottawa Citizen Newspaper columnist Dan Gardner.

Those (non prison) records are more bark than bite as the sports world has pretty much gone to the dogs. NFL football superstar, Michael Vick set the bar when he opened the year by being charged with operating a dog fighting ring and closed it servicing the first of his 23 month sentence in the big (dog) house.  The New England Patriots’ perfect regular season record is tainted by their having been found guilty of spying earlier in the season; however, their $750,000 fine was eclipsed by the $100 million fine that was levied against the McLaren Formula One racing team that same week for the same infraction.  Meanwhile, Barry Bonds broke baseball’s all-time home run record but has been indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to a federal grand jury when asked about his use of steroids.   American Track super-star Marion Jones was stripped of all of her medals (including three Gold at the 2000 Summer Olympics) after she plead guilty to lying about her steroid use to US investigators. And then there was Floyd Landis who was stripped of his 2006 Tour du France cycling championship for – you guessed it – Steroid use.  We closed the year with a report that listed MLB Pitcher Roger Clemens (previously listed as the 15^th greatest baseball player of all time) with 87 other Major League Baseball players who are alleged to have used steroids or drugs.  While on the subject of  “the juice”,  O.J. Simpson was arrested (again) this time for his part in the armed robbery of sports memorabilia. Ah, those were the days when memorabilia meant something.

…and all those new bands who exhaust their creative song writing juices coming up with a band name and then crank out the same old, same old based upon the CSI Television formula of “if I write about a city I will have an endless supply of material to draw upon.”  Take for example the following examples of what just might be the most overplayed songs of 2006:

Beverly Hills by Weezer

Santa Monica by Theory of a Deadman

Pretty Vegas by INXS

(Hurting) Headitor’s note:  Its late, its New Years Eve, and I’SATIREd, sauced please accept that some (or all) of my ^wrec_kollections 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.