From the BBC:

Britons 'bored but happy' - study
Britons are more bored, tired and less likely to know their neighbours than others in Europe, a study suggests.

From the NYT:

No Snickering: That Road Sign Means Something Else

By SARAH LYALL

In the scale of embarrassing place names, Crapstone ranks pretty high. But Britain is full of them. Ask the residents of Titty Ho, North Piddle, Spanker Lane or Penistone.

From ctvedmonton.ca:

There's new hope that an Alberta journalist missing in Somalia may still be alive.

Ransom for Amanda Lindhout has reportedly dropped from $2.5 million to $100,000 and a Somali journalist who was traveling with Lindhout has been released.

Abdifatah Mohamed Elmi said he has no idea why their group was abducted back in August but he still has hope that Amanda Lindhout will be released safely.

The U.S. South has always had a strange pull on me. It's a place with a legacy of slavery, violence, bigotry, poverty, fundamentalist religion -- and is the wellspring for much of 20th century America's musical culture.

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From MSNBC.com cartoonist Daryl Cagle's blog:

Patrick Corrigan, the cartoonist for the Toronto Star, sent me this caricature of Obama (left) that his editor refused to run, because it was too much of a “racial stereotype.”

See it here.

This was one of my favourite films of 2008! Here's the trailer:

The trailer promises no wires and no stunt doubles. Believe it. By the end, you feel like you spent the whole time on a treadmill.

Much discussion of the tagline at Topless Robot (seen first at Twitter).

From a Canoe.ca story from Wednesday night. Read the headline, then the lede:

Globeandmail.com did a live blog of the Osgoode subway shooting using Cover It Live.

The first post went up at 12:21 p.m. (approx. 1 hr 36 min. after the shooting) -- and linked to the site's breaking news story.

Editor Sasha Nagy did much of the blogging. He grabbed snippets off CP24 (a CTVglobemedia property) and a screencap photo from CTV (my employer) of the victim being wheeled on a gurney.

If this was meant to be a citizen journalism exercise, however, citizens didn't appear to contribute any hard information.

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If you live in t-dot, you know there was a subway shooting today.

I did a ctvtoronto.ca feature on TTC security.

If you live in t-dot and use the TTC regularly, please answer me this: How often do you see TTC special constables on the subway?

An inspired mashup of Raging Bull and Fred Flinstone. Enjoy!

Antarctica was supposed to be the one continent that wasn't warming. Unfortunately, a new study suggests the southern cap of the world is indeed heating up.

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From CP via therecord.com (Jan. 20):

There's been a shakeup at CBC News in Ottawa.

The public broadcaster says the bureau's managing editor, George Hoff, is no longer with the CBC.

It wasn't clear whether Hoff had left the CBC or been let go. 

The wording of the rest of the story suggested to me that Mr. Hoff's coat was handed to him.

So why now, after 29 years?

I have no idea.

As an aside, isn't Krista Erickson supposed to return to the Ottawa bureau?

From CP via globeandmail.com:

The Alberta government has ordered four oil sands giants to reduce the amount of water they use from the Athabasca River.

Alberta Environment says water flow levels in the river have dropped into the “yellow” warning zone and withdrawals may increase stress on the ecosystem.

The companies affected are Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Suncor Energy Inc., Syncrude Canada Ltd. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Albian Sands.

All of the projects are located downstream of Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta.

The province says the low water levels are naturally occurring, but noted it's the first time the government has ordered the companies to reduce the amount of river water they use.

Environmental, conservation and aboriginal groups have been critical of the amount of water that oil sands projects use.

If you care to study a map, you'll see that the Athabasca River originates in the Rocky Mountains, its headwaters being the Columbia Icefields. It flows past Jasper, Hinton, Whitecourt, Athabasca and finally Fort McMurray before it empties into Lake Athabasca to the north.

Pop quiz: What phenomenon is causing glaciers the world over to do what?

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From CP via ctvtoronto.ca:

Canwest Global Communications Corp. says Global Toronto is eliminating its noon television newscasts.

Canwest spokesman John Douglas wouldn't confirm how many layoffs the decision will result in, but says fewer than 40 employees will be affected.

He says Canwest decided in November that it would eliminate the morning newscast, and in the process of reviewing Global Toronto's operations, decided to cancel the noon newscast as well.

I went to the Bloor Cinema today to cover the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States -- and the first black one.

Here's the story.

And here's my coverage of the Nov. 4 festivities at Plaza Flamingo when Obama won his historic victory.

Outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush has said one of his main accomplishments had been keeping terror groups from carrying out another strike on U.S. soil.

But what if the big leaguers, al Qaeda, weren't really trying in that period? What if it's been waiting for a time more to its strategic advantage? What if that time is coming?

Columnist Gwynne Dyer explains the theory of the "South Waziristan Institute for Strategic Hermeneutics."

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From Metronews.ca: (seen first at Twitter)

... All full-time staff with the company’s more than 70 publications were given the opportunity to reduce their work week to four days from five, accepting a 20 per cent pay cut for the duration of 2009.

“The four-day work week offered to publishing employees is purely voluntary and time limited,” for 11 months, said Louise Leger, spokesperson for the company. “Its purpose is to save money.”

Note the interest rate reported in this story.

From the NYT:

The New York Times Company said Monday it had reached an agreement with the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú for a $250 million loan intended to help the newspaper company finance its businesses.

Under the terms of the deal, Mr. Slim, who already owns 6.9 percent of the Times Company, would invest $250 million in the form of six-year notes with warrants that are convertible into common shares, the company said in a statement. The notes also carry a 14 percent interest rate, with 11 percent paid in cash and 3 percent in additional bonds.

The deal comes as the Times Company looks to raise money amid flagging advertising sales and approaching deadlines to pay back $1.1 billion in debt in the next few years.

The company will use the proceeds from the transaction to refinance its existing debt. One of its two $400 million revolving credit lines is set to expire in May. The $250 million investment should help free some of the company’s borrowing capacity.

From AP via Google News:

A Russian human rights lawyer renowned for his work on abuses in Chechnya was shot to death Monday by a masked gunman who followed him from a news conference, officials said. A young journalist who tried to intervene also was gunned down.

The broad-daylight shootings of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova prompted grief and outrage in a country where lawyers and journalists who challenge the official version of justice are frequently targeted.

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The horrible economic conditions facing U.S. newspapers are causing rapid-fire turnover at the editor-in-chief and publisher levels.

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The Politico drew up a list of 10 Bush pardons to watch for.

One-time newspaper guy and eternal corporate crook Conrad Black isn't on the list, although that doesn't necessarily mean he won't get one.

Still, the Politico said Bush hasn't shown any Clintonian-like proclivities to hold a pardon party in his dying days (less than 26 hours left as president!).

Oh dear.

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The US$700-billion bailout of U.S. banks was supposed to melt the frozen river of credit and get those institutions lending again to (worthy) borrowers. It hasn't been working out that way.

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From Nicholas Kristof's column:

If you win, you won’t be practicing tourism but journalism. You’ll blog for nytimes.com and file videos for The Times and for YouTube.

I’m doing this for two reasons. First, I want to engage young people about global issues that I’m passionate about. Second, it’s good journalism, for you’ll bring a tool to reporting from Africa that I no longer have: a fresh eye.

He goes further into the need for grassroots reporting from foreign lands:

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CNN.com doesn't just want you to pop in for a quick burger or burrito and leave. They now want you to luxuriate on the site like you would at a fine-dining restaurant.

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The battle may come down to Time versus the Economist, but in any event, the shift to viewsweeklies is already well underway.

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The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones on the remarkable Twitpic of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 down in the Hudson River by a guy on a ferry with an iPhone.

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On a very packed eastbound Queen streetcar Friday morning (normally busy, but zany with the blackout surge), a guy texts, "I ache to be with you my love."

And on the SRT, a woman was reading The Art of Seduction.