I’m an emergency sub-in for the person who normally handles this task but who is suffering from the after-effects of a gastric misadventure of some sort and not up to blogging:
1 Top story today, in a Canadian context anyways, likely related to the installation of David Johnson as the new Governor-General replacing Michaele Jean. He’s a figurehead, yeah, but with a federal election looming in the near to moderate future, and another minority Parliament expected, Johnson could face the same dilemma Jean did deciding whether an Opposition coalition should be allowed to take a crack at forming government.
2 I’ve never gone hunting in my life, but according to experts the woman who was acquitted today of shooting and killing her husband in Newfoundland after she mistook him for a bear, did a whole pile of things wrong. Now in a relationship with her husband’s brother (ewww!) and having scored a $550,000 insurance settlement, she doesn’t appear to have suffered too much from the tragedy.
3 Concerns people have about BHP Billiton’s takeover bid for the Potash Corp of Sask won’t be assuaged by today’s announcement by U.S. Steel that, several years after taking over Stelco, it’s going to shut down the plant in Hamilton down indefinitely.
4 Not the marquee athletic event it once was (in 1954, Roger Bannister and John Landy squared off in the Miracle Mile at the games in Vancouver), the Commonwealth Games still qualify as a major happening. The 2010 Games are set to open in India on Sunday. Characterizing them as “problem-plagued” is putting it mildly. Citing unsanitary and unsafe conditions, a number of competitors have already pulled out. So any hopes India might have had of using the games as a springboard to First World status aren’t going to succeed this time around.
BONUS: Admiral food poisoning just croaked at me to post this: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill today decriminalizing possession of up to one ounce of marijuana. In the November election, there’s a proposition on the ballot to actually legalize the herb. Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan, our College of Physicians & Surgeons dithers over the use of marijuana for medical purposes, preferring to prescribe powerful and addictive opiates for pain relief like Oxycontin. It is to marvel.
