If you guessed being accused of criminal harassment, you win a restraining order!

Sacha Baron Cohen has announced he will no longer perform his signature Ali G or Borat characters.

From The Globe and Mail:

CanWest Global Communications Corp. has been cleared to acquire rival broadcaster Alliance Atlantis Communications Corp. in a federal ruling that provides a new blueprint for allowing foreign investors into the broadcasting sector.

Shannon Rupp looks at the origins of Christmas and how it may have been an attempt to steal people away from paganism.

Montrealer Daniel Lemay has been selling Christmas trees on the streets of Manhattan for the past nine years, cultivating a regular clientele in the process. However, the U.S. kept him out this year on the grounds that he's taking jobs away from Americans.

From the AP via IHT:

A man dressed as Santa Claus was knocked unconscious by a thrown object while he was riding in a parade on the back of a truck decorated as a sleigh.

"One second I was up there waving to people, and the next minute I wasn't," Kevin Smith said.

The blow Saturday broke his nose and gave him a concussion and two black eyes.

Other volunteers realized something was wrong after they had not heard from Smith for a few minutes. They stopped the truck and found him lying unconscious.

"It pretty much cold-cocked him," fire Lt. Scott Himelspach said.

From The Globe and Mail:

Employers aren't making much progress on the employee (dis)engagement front: 15 per cent of Canadian working stiffs report that their jobs are “extremely boring,” according to a survey released Thursday.

Almost 30 per cent say they are stuck in dead-end jobs, and 38 per cent consider their job as “just a way to make money, rather than a career,” Royal Bank of Canada found in a poll of 2,052 Canadians conducted on its behalf.

Only 36 per cent told the polling firm, Ipsos Reid, that they are “very satisfied” with their jobs – down significantly from the 49 per cent who were very satisfied when RBC tested the mood of Canadian employees a decade ago.

John Barber's column in today's Globe and Mail is about a study that confirms the obvious: Toronto has evolved into three cities: The wealthy, the poor -- and with middle incomers simply disappearing.

From AP via CTV.ca:

Al Qaeda has invited journalists to send questions to its No. 2 figure, Ayman al-Zawahri, in the first such offer by the increasingly media-savvy terror network to "interview" one of its leaders since the 9-11 attacks.

Gate House at Victoria University on the U of T, reportedly an inspiration for the toga party scenes in the 1978 frat classic Animal House, is going co-ed after going one prank too far.

As some might have noticed, I'm on something of an oddball Christmas news binge.

I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the time of year.

Anyway, more inside.

From the BBC:

Drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, have opened fire on a helicopter carrying a Santa Claus to one of the city's shanty towns.

No one was hurt and it is thought the gunmen believed the helicopter belonged to the police.

The helicopter was taking an actor dressed as Santa Claus to a Christmas party in the favela of Nova Mare when it came under fire. ...

The Santa later returned to Nova Mare by car to deliver his presents, where more than 1,000 children and parents were still waiting for his arrival.

From the NYT:

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

From the NYT:

In an “unforeseen and unprecedented” shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the United Nations’ top food and agriculture official warned Monday.

The changes created “a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food,” particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

In a vote that split on partisan lines, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has made it easier for media companies to own a newspaper and television station in the same market.

The BBC Radio One will leave in a particular word in the old Pogues song Fairy Tale of New York.

And what word is that? It starts with 'f'' and rhymes with 'maggot'. (Thanks, Kevin S.!)

My favourite oddball story of the day, from AP via CTV.ca:

Police say a woman has been charged with sexual assault after a Santa at the Danbury Fair mall in Connecticut complained the woman groped him.

"The security officer at the mall said Santa Claus has been sexually assaulted,'' police Det. Lt. Thomas Michael said of the weekend complaint.

Sandrama Lamy, 33, of Danbury, was charged with sexual assault and breach of peace. She was released on a promise to appear in court Jan. 3.

Police quickly found and identified Lamy because the suspect was described as being on crutches, said Capt. Bob Myles.

From the NYT:

More journalists have been killed worldwide in 2007 than in any year since 1994, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent group that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.

In the committee’s annual report to be released Tuesday, 64 journalists died in circumstances linked to their work in 2007. Nearly half of those deaths, 31, took place in Iraq, which was ranked as the deadliest country for journalists for the fifth consecutive year. Most of the killings were targeted attacks, as opposed to deaths caused by cross-fire, according to the committee.

In Africa, the number of deaths rose to 10 this year from 2 in 2006, according to the committee’s report. Somalia, the second deadliest country in 2007, accounted for 7 of those deaths.

The committee’s annual report tallies the deaths of journalists that result directly from combat, violence or a direct reprisal for a journalist’s work, like the assassination of the Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, who was killed in January on a street in Istanbul. The report covers the period from Jan. 1 through Monday.

In Iraq, the committee cites “unidentified gunmen, suicide bombers, and American military activity” as the main contributors to the deaths.

Here's the CPJ's page on Journalists Killed In 2007.

Conservative writer Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine have ticked off the Canadian Islamic Congress.  Maclean's published a screed taken from Steyn's book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. The excerpt, published in October 2006, was entitled The Future Belongs To Islam.

The group has filed three separate human rights complaints for what they see as an Islamophobic rant -- an injury compounded by Maclean's' refusal to publish a multi-page, unedited rebuttal, according to a Canadian Press article.

B.C. writer Terry Glavin asks if such disputes are really what human rights tribunals should be adjudicating.

David Radler wound up getting his plea bargain deal rubber-stamped.

Here's the globeandmail.com and CTV.ca stories (the latter with video).

There was some speculation that because Radler was seen at the time as a spectacularly bad witness, the prosecution might break the deal.

Here is what juror Monica Prince told the Toronto Star in a story published July 15:

Radler, who pleaded guilty to fraud in exchange for his co-operation, was supposed to be the prosecution's star witness but, by the final rebuttal, the prosecutors had distanced themselves from him.

"Radler, he was a farce," Prince said. "Radler sounded stupid on that stand, he kept contradicting himself. I said, 'he's playing us.' For (Black and Radler) to run a business for so long, and you're talking to someone intelligent like Conrad Black, you're not going to come off silly like that."

His testimony played little if any role in their decision, she added.

Let us recall this snippet from prosecutor Eric Sussman, as recorded in a June 26 CTV.ca story:

... Sussman told jurors Tuesday at the trial in Chicago that they "do not need to believe a word David Radler told you to convict every single one of these defendants."

How's that for distancing? :)

However, Black was convicted on four minor charges (and acquitted on nine), so I guess that made Mr. Fitzgerald and company forgive and forget.

Still, it would be interesting to have a parallel universe for test purposes to see if Radler would have still gotten a 29-month sentence had Conrad Black and company walked.

See this Dec. 10 post for my analysis of how Black's and Radler's sentences compare.

Addendum

The Globe and Mail had this snippet in its Tuesday story:

Legal experts say that by negotiating a 29-month jail sentence, Mr. Radler effectively tied the judge's hands when it came to sentencing everyone in the criminal case.

"These other defendants, in a weird way, owe a lot to David Radler for setting the bar so low," said Hugh Totten, a Chicago lawyer who has followed the case and attended yesterday's hearing.

Going to work this morning in the early hours of The Storm of the Century, I had to take a (company-funded) cab to work, as the subway doesn't start until 9 a.m.

The driver claimed to never have been up to McCowan and the 401 before.

He blanched at the thought of taking the Gardiner/DVP/401 route*. My thinking was the big roads were more likely to be plowed. They were, although what practical difference that actually made will be an object of intense debate among traffic historians in the years and decades to come.

* I'm reminded of this snippet of dialogue from The Matrix Reloaded:

Link: Sir, are you sure about this? The freeway, I mean. It's dangerous, in 14 years of operating, I've never seen...
Morpheus: Link, what did I tell you?
Link: Yes sir, I do, sir, Winsor[?] overpass, I'll be ready for you.
Morpheus: Good man.
Trinity: You always told me to stay off the freeway.
Morpheus: Yes, that's true.
Trinity: You said it was suicide.
Morpheus: Then let us hope that I was wrong.

My guy rarely got over 40 km/h, and was easily the turtle of the road. Thing is, I drove up to CTV two weeks ago when we had another storm, and saw vehicles spinning out all over the place. That didn't happen this time.

When we got to CTV, the guy apologized, saying the car was out of alignment, and that prevented him from reaching breathtaking speeds like 50 or 60 km/h (I'm paraphrasing for dramatic effect).

On the way home, the SRT was dead between Scarborough Town Centre and Kennedy Station. Then I read the subway was down between Warden and Victoria Park stations.

I phone a cab. I'm told it will take an hour.

After more than an hour, I spend 40 minutes trying to reach the cab company (I got disconnected twice).

The company tells me it has no cabs in the vicinity of CTV, and can't say when one will show up. The company agent helpfully says to phone other cab companies and just take the first one.

Just before 6 p.m., the magic call comes. A cab has materialized.

Shortly before 7 p.m., I get downtown, a mere three hours and change after I was off shift.

At Ossington Station,  I hear a message that the subway is now down between Woodbine and Kennedy, which means the virus is spreading.

Hopefully the Better Way will be more functional tomorrow.

From the BBC:

Kenya's state-run broadcaster is biased in favour of President Mwai Kibaki in its coverage of this month's elections, the electoral commission says.

Samuel Kivuitu condemned the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) for not providing equal coverage to all presidential candidates.

"KBC has let us down as tax payers," Mr Kivuitu said.

"In an election year reporting should show competition, it cannot be that others are so stupid that they have nothing which can not be reported."

Officials at KBC have not responded to the accusations.

From the BBC:

A French journalist has been abducted in northern Somalia by unidentified gunmen, sources say.

"He was abducted this morning at around 1100 (0800 GMT). The journalist arrived in Bosasso yesterday," a humanitarian worker told AFP news agency on Sunday.

French media named the victim as Gwen Le Gouil, a cameraman. It is not clear for which organisation he was working.

He was apparently in the semi-autonomous Puntland region for a story on human trafficking.

A look at the ridiculous blurring of lines between human and critter as some people continue to anthropomorphize man's best friend, and what the social implications are.

From the NYT:

Deeply concerned about the prospect of failure in Afghanistan, the Bush administration and NATO have begun three top-to-bottom reviews of the entire mission, from security and counterterrorism to political consolidation and economic development, according to American and alliance officials.

The reviews are an acknowledgment of the need for greater coordination in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, halting the rising opium production and trafficking that finances the insurgency and helping the Kabul government extend its legitimacy and control.

Taken together, these efforts reflect a growing apprehension that one of the administration’s most important legacies — the routing of Taliban and Qaeda forces in Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — may slip away, according to senior administration officials.

Unlike the administration’s sweeping review of Iraq policy a year ago, which was announced with great fanfare and ultimately resulted in a large increase in troops, the American reviews of the Afghan strategy have not been announced and are not expected to result in a similar infusion of combat forces, mostly because there are no American troops readily available.

A fellow named Fons Tuinstra posted a lament about the usefulness of his LinkedIn account in terms of developing his business relationships.

From the BBC:

Social network sites are moving to make it much easier for software developers to write add-ons for the hugely popular web destinations.

Bebo, Facebook, Meebo and Friendster have unveiled plans to help them become more than places to keep in touch.

The add-ons will allow users to add extras, such as video and music clips, to the personal profiles they maintain. ...

Significantly, Bebo's interface tools will work with Facebook's already announced development system. This will make it possible for the many developers who have written applications for Facebook to use their code almost unchanged for the Bebo network.

Despite the tie-up on tools, Bebo and Facebook will not become a unified network.

SOCIAL SITES: DAILY VISITORS MySpace - 29 million Facebook - 15 million Friendster - 5.9 million Orkut - 9.6 million Bebo - 4.8 million Source: ComScore July 2007

Bebo said it would also support Google's Open Social initiative which aims to create a unified system of tools that can be used on any and every social network site. The Open Social tools are due to appear in early 2008.

Social networking giant MySpace is backing Google's initiative

From CBC.ca:

Google Inc. is testing a new user tool that invites people to write authoritative articles on particular subjects, a move that could put the internet search giant in direct competition with the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The user-generated knowledge project, dubbed Knol, was made available this week to a small group of users in a trial, said Google's vice-president engineering, Udi Manber, in a Thursday evening post on Google's official blog.

"We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that," wrote Manber. "Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it."

Google said it would provide tools for writing, editing and provide free hosting of the content. Authors would receive credit for their work and could choose to include Google ads on their pages, with authors getting a share of the revenue generated from those ads.

Multiple articles — called knols — on the same subject would be allowed. The articles would be ranked according to a reader voting mechanism.