Saturday's news ...

This has been a rough week for blogging as a long-deferred household project took center stage so the spousal unit could “have my new bathroom in for Christmas”. And since nothing got me riled enough that wasn’t more than adequately covered by other, more erudite bloggers, I basically took the week off.

But as is often the case, the Saturday papers opened the flood gates. Our local rag (The Ottawa Citizen) saves the interesting stories for the weekend papers. Like steroids to an athlete, these little snippets bulk it up to justify the higher weekend price.

Here are a few that caught my eye:

$400 toboggans. Say what?!? Talk about conspicuous consumption. The idea of paying that much money and more for a Porsche-designed sled or a “heirloom” toboggan so your kid can race it down a hill (and if he’s a male, intentionally crash it into something at the bottom, like the toboggan carrying the cute girl from next door) is beyond me. Folks, it’ll get just as wrecked, and just as fast, as the $20 Canadian Tire special. Put your money to better use.

Joe Clark gets a bloodied nose. While he’s walking down the street in Montreal, minding his own business, former PM Joe Clark gets punched in the nose by some guy who apparently held a grudge. It’s like Hockey Night in Canada broke out in downtown Montreal. Fortunately, aside from being a bit sore, Mr. Clark is fine. He and the RCMP are now discussing whether he should have a full time bodyguard (the decision to not have one was Mr. Clark’s) although I expect that will be considered an over-reaction and Mr. Clark will continue to walk the streets unencumbered and, hopefully unmolested, in future.

Hindu gods summoned to court. In a New Delhi courthouse, a disagreement over who owns a Hindu temple has resulted in the judge issuing a summons to “Ram, the most worshipped incarnation of the deities in the Hindu trinity, and to the monkey god Hanuman”. Apparently court officers are having some difficulty trying to find someone (anyone) to accept the summonses on behalf of the named gods. I can’t imagine why that would be. Perhaps they need a public inquiry. We should send them one.

New cobra species discovered in Africa. This new spitting cobra was discovered in Kenya and is described as being “about 2.6 meters long and with enough venom to kill up to 20 people in one bite.” Yup, that’s 20 people with ONE bite. The article doesn’t go on to explain how the cobra actually manages to bite 20 people at once, so I’ll just stay away from spitting cobras until they have all the answers.

And that was just in the first section. I can’t wait to see what’s in the rest of the paper.