This BBC story looks at how the Cambodian government is growing ever more intolerant of dissent.

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This BBC backgrounder talks about the safety of the U.S. coal industry, but the eyeopening figure in it is the number of Chinese mineworker deaths per year -- 8,000 -- versus 30 in the U.S.

Here's the backgrounder in the context of the Sago disaster, and here are two on the China situation:

China acts on mine safety lapses (Dec. 23/05)

Life cheap in China's mines (Nov. 28/04)

On the subway the other day, a woman, who could best be described as "free-spirited," walked up the car, singing quite loudly to herself.

Clothing-wise, her outfit spoke of Goodwill.

When she got to one exit, she turned to one round-faced elderly man and told him: "You look really sane! I know a lot of crazy people, but you look sane."

While shopping for groceries, the aisle was partly blocked by a restocking cart and someone's grocery cart.

There was a middle-aged man using the aisle too. My guess is he was in his early 50s, slightly balding, bespectacled and had a bad haircut and a cheap trench coat.

I excused myself as I passed by him with my cart.

A second after I passed between the two carts, he's in front of me. He opens his rat-like mouth full of rotting teeth and, in Italian-accented English, says (words to the effect of):

"Read the paper in three weeks and you'll save a lot of money. At least 10 per cent. And remember, the second coming of Jesus Christ will give us all eternal life!"

I smiled politely and avoided eye contact.

On CTV Newsnet's Countdown, they introduced a new segment Thursday night featuring eight-year-old Daniel Cook.

To see his interview with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, go to CTV.ca News's Election 2006 page. You can find the link in the right-hand features column.

Look for the picture of Harper with a red-headed waif. :)

On Monday, CBC News is to unveil a minor makeover to appeal to those fussy cool kids.

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Microsoft shut down the blog of a Chinese blogger after that person used it to discuss a high-profile newspaper strike in China.

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The Congressional Research Service released a report this afternoon that says Dubya's domestic spying policy rests on what could charitably be described as shaky legal ground.

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Hugh Thompson, who put his U.S. Army helicopter between Vietnamese civilians and the kill-crazed troops of Lt. William Calley at My Lai in Vietnam, has died.

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From the BBC:

Two thousand people will be invited onto the pitch to watch the band's half-time performance on 5 February.

But only people aged between 18 and 45 are eligible, US National Football League spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

"You have to attend rehearsal and be able to stand for long stretches of time," he told Detroit Free Press. The youngest Rolling Stones member is 58.

Update:

The NFL has relented. The 46-and-ups can now apply to get up at half-time and shake their groove thangs too.

This Poynter.org story looks specifically how the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the closest major paper to the story,  handled the Sago Mines disaster surprise ending.

This NYT story looks at how various U.S. newspapers handled the curve in news at the Sago mine disaster.

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Democracy Now! talks with Ken Ward Jr., an investigative reporter at the Charlotte, W.Va. Gazette, in part about mine safety issues and the media in relation to the Sago Mines disaster.

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A Vancouver woman who poisoned trees in Stanley Park to improve her view of English Bay has suffered "coast-to-coast humilation", her lawyer has claimed.

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The Toronto Star's Antonia Zerbisias surveys the black-and-white evidence of how many newspapers got the mine story wrong.

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Some of the West Virginia coal miners had enough time to write notes to their families saying they weren't suffering, that they were just going to sleep, says one relative.

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Way back, long before I was born, my paternal grandfather (my namesake; he died young [roughly as old as I am now], so we never met) worked the coal seams in long-forgotten places like Rocky Mountain Park, located in Alberta's foothills, and the Drumheller badlands.

If you're ever in Alberta and are curious about that life, there are mining museums in Nordegg (the foothills west of Rocky Mountain House) and near Drumheller.

The big one, however, is an interpretive centre in the Crowsnest pass, where the famous 1903 Frank Slide occurred, wiping out the little mining town of Frank in just 90 seconds. There are also some colliery ruins down there and a working mine (for tourists) that can give you an insight into just how tough, dirty and dangerous a job that was (and still is).

One of the worst mine disasters in the Crowsnest -- actually, in Canadian history -- was the Hillcrest mine explosion on Friday, June 19, 1914, which killed 189 miners. The blast was so powerful that some standing at the mine's entrance died.

According to the website When Coal was King, the most tragic story of that tragic day belongs to the Murray family. Miner David Murray survived the blast, but then realized after his escape that his three sons were still down there. He went back in to try and rescue them but instead joined them in death, overcome by the toxic fumes.

The website quotes Mack Stigler, a miner who was there and who said this at his retirement banquet in 1948:

 I started in Hillcrest and was there when that never-to-be-forgotten day, June 19, 1914 passed, taking with it 189 lives of which the big majority were as great and big hearted men as ever wore a boot, and most of them were my good friends. Every year I go to Hillcrest and spend an hour or more walking amongst those graves of my old friends, talking to them. They were my friends and they were murdered.

When he worked down in the Crowsnest in 1987, Calgary-based folk singer James Keelaghan wrote a song called Hillcrest Mine, which I think is one of his best. Here's the lyrics:

Down in the mines of the Crowsnest Pass
It's the men that die in labour
Sweating coal from the womb of the pit
It's the smell of life they savour
And in that mine, young man, you'll find
A wealth of broken dreams --
As long and as dark and as black and as wide
As the coal in the Hillcrest seam.

(Chorus)

And they say you don't go, say you don't go down in the Hillcrest Mine,
And they say you don't go, say you don't go down in the Hillcrest Mine;
'Cause it's one short step, you might leave this world behind,
And they say you don't go, say you don't go down in the Hillcrest Mine.

I've heard it whispered in the light of dawn
That mountain sometimes moves.
That bodes ill for the morning shift
 And you know what you're gonna lose.
Don't go, my son, where the deep coal runs. Turn your back to the mine on the hill
'Cause if the dust and the dark and the gas don't getcha,
Then the goons and the bosses will.

(Chorus)

Well son, I'm gonna open up
I'm gonna have my say
You'll get no peace from the Hillcrest Mine
'Cept the peace of an early grave
Go out and work for the workers' rights
Go work for the workers' needs
Don't stay down here to toil for your buck
To be a tool for the owner's greed

(Chorus)

The song is on Keelaghan's Small Rebellions album, released in 1990. He's recorded an updated version of Hillcrest Mine, which is available on his 2004 CD Then Again. Better record stores should handle his stuff, otherwise, check out Festival Distribution.

Finally, for a dramatic film treatment of a 1920 clash between West Virginia coal miners and their employer, I can highly recommend John Sayles' Matewan.

Exhaustion and miscommunications were the reasons behind the false news about finding 12 trapped coal miners alive, says the company's president.

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No beer in the dwelling.

No wine.

Maybe one shot of Jack Daniels left.

A few ounces of Cointreau at best.

Vodka, rum, Grand Marnier - all drained.

If I were just my booze inventory manager, I'd fire me. But hey: I'm family.

So what can you do, right?

Man From Canada Acts Like He's Not Cold

January 4, 2006 | Issue 42•01

BOSTON—While visiting family in Boston, Geoff MacArdle of Ottawa refused to admit that he was cold Monday. "This is nothing—this is like May in Ottawa," insisted MacArdle, wearing a light spring jacket despite 23-degree temperatures. "Where I'm from, we have picnics in this weather." MacArdle then went indoors, saying he had nothing to prove.

(From the Onion)

I offer the following without comment:

Armenia's culture minister attacked and pistol-whipped two local utility workers Wednesday after electricity was cut off to his apartment, police said.

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This is unbelievable. I go to bed thinking the coal miners had been found alive, and wake up to headlines that say quite the opposite.

Word the miners had been found came right around midnight.

Ben Hatfield, president of the International Coal Group Inc., which owns the mine, said they knew within 20 minutes that reports the men had been found alive were incorrect.

Despite that, the governor's office --apparently not kept in the loop by the company -- had confirmed the initial report the men were found alive.

One man did survive. He's currently in critical condition.

But the company didn't set the record straight for three or four hours! From the CTV.ca story:

The Associated Press reports that chaos broke out in the church and a fight erupted among families of the victims upon word there was only one survivor.

Meanwhile, about a dozen state troopers and a SWAT team have been deployed along the road near the church to quell further violence.

What a cruel, cruel joke to be played on the families of the victims. :(

Update:

Here's video of CNN's Anderson Cooper being told 11 of the 12 men were actually dead.

Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist with close ties to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, among others, has pleaded guilty to three felony charges, setting the stage for him to spill the beans against some lawmakers.

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The PDA in this case would stand for Public Displays of Affection, like one person having their head in their partner's lap. The case has triggered a kerfuffle in India.

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My question is this: At what point do they merge, thus creating a virtual reality experience for the user(s)/movieoer(s)?

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Read the column on Rabble.ca for details, but here's his list (this was Stanford's Globe and Mail column from Jan. 2):

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Democracy Now! interviews Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency intelligence officer (he was fired) who has volunteered to testify before the U.S. Congress about black ops programs there.

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Twelve of the 13 West Virginia miners trapped after an underground explosion have been found alive!!

Gamemaker David Broben talks about the next generation of video game consoles (Xbox, PlayStation 3). It's an interesting read even if you aren't a gamer (and I'm not).

An excerpt:

The games industry is at a watershed right now. We have been moving ever more to games that are driven by the subject matter.

But there comes a point where, as with the film industry before us, the artistic content becomes the main driver rather than just a small part, and the extra impetus given by the massive step-up of Xbox 360 and the forthcoming PlayStation 3 has the potential to push us into this new era.

A similar transition happened in the early 1930s in the film industry. In the 1920s, films were almost pure spectacle, and that spectacle became ever more extreme to keep the audiences coming back - cars skidded around towns, people dangled and fell from buildings, cars were forever being smashed to pieces on railway crossings.

The stories were light-weight justifications for linking the dramatic moments together. The advent of synchronised speech, the Talkies, didn't change this right away.

But it opened the door for the golden age of film, where Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd gave way to Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles in the 1930s.

Here's a feature I did for CTV.ca on Quebec and the election.

While Dubya defends the NSA domestic spying program, a senior U.S. Justice Dept. official had some severe problems with it, the NYT reported in a Jan. 1 article.

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If you can't earn goodwill, I say buy it! :)

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This NYT Magazine piece profiles Yulia Tymoshenko, once the Queen of Ukraine's Orange Revolution, now a bitter enemy of President Viktor Yushchenko.

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A former host for REN-TV in Russia, the country's last independent network, has accused it of censoring stories that conflict with the worldview of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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This NYT story looks at tactics interview subjects are using to take the final word away from the news media.

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A Wonderful Country is portrayed as a take-no-prisoners effort in televised satire -- one that captures 60 per cent of Israel's television-viewing audience on Friday nights.

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NYT public editor Byron Calame says he is experiencing "unusual difficulty" in getting the paper's top editors to explain why they sat on the NSA domestic spying story for more than a year.

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Psychologist Timothy D. Wilson says spending a lot of time reflecting on the past  -- a favourite passtime for many at this time of year -- can screw you up worse if you're mildly depressed....   more »

Larry David, an inspiration for Seinfeld and force behind Curb Your Enthusiasm, on why he won't go see Brokeback Mountain.

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If you're wondering why Dubya's been dropping the names Churchill and Truman a lot lately, read this NYT piece.

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