Your (week-)daily morning news update and linkapalooza.
1 CANADA SETS MEDAL RECORD I know eh?
2 CHILE HIT BY THREE AFTERSHOCKS The country is in shambles after an Armageddon-class 8.8 magnitude earthquake smote it on Saturday. Sounds like there’s been a wise decision to recognize the difference between looters and quake victims just trying to find urgently-needed provisions, so that’s good. Our thoughts go to the nation’s people. Read more by clicking on this link. (New York Times)
3 ROGUE OVER The Olympics are done and parliament is back Wednesday for the throne speech. There’s a lot to talk about. One really ominous quote in that Toronto Star article is from Ralph Goodale. who says the Conservatives “”want to cripple the fiscal framework. That is a deliberate strategy.” Well, he’s a politician playing politics but he’s also 100 per cent right. Taxes have been cut to a level that doesn’t support spending. It’s called a structural deficit–and the nice thing about structural deficits for government-hating politicians is they give you an excuse to trash spending. bad bad bad stuff. One thing that’s different from a few months ago: it’s not likely we’ll have an election anytime soon. (Toronto Star)
4 SASK GOVERNMENT REACHES TENTATIVE DEAL WITH GOVERNMENT WORKER’S UNION Well, good! (Leader-Post)
5 EBERT SPEAKS?!? Apparently some software wizards have built a program that will let Roger Ebert “talk”using a “voice” rebuilt from samples of his own, pre-cancer surgery voice. I love this! This is news from a world I actually want to live in. (Associated Press/CBC)
6 MEANWHILE IN U.S. HEALTH CARE Wondering where that’s all at? Here’s a ginormous article you can read. I got three graphs in myself, I’ll have to come back to it later. Dudes! I’m busy here! (TPM)
FOOTNOTE: This Six In The Morning was written while I was blowing out my ears with the New Pornographers. The superstar mostly-Canadian band (prominent players are Carl Newman, Dan Bejar and honourary Canadian Neko Case) has a new disc coming out this spring, too. Yeehaw!
The New Pornographers – All For Swinging You Around
Download Music Video Code at Roxwel
