From the Globe and Mail:

Health officials in Alberta confirmed Friday that there are more cases of cancer than expected in a small aboriginal village downstream from the massive oil sands plants, but they said there was no cause for residents to be alarmed.

In 1964, the Trashmen recorded a manic, two-minute ditty called Surfin' Bird that went on to be covered a dozen years later by punk bands such as the Cramps and the Ramones.

It was a popular Vietnam-era song (it came out just the U.S. was just gearing up to get serious in Indochina) and helped sonically illustrate one battle scene in Stanley Kubrick's 1987 film Full Metal Jacket. The movie's final act is based on the battle of Hue*. The actual scene keeps getting removed from YouTube. If it disappears again, do some searching:

* For more, see this Jan. 31, 2008 post: The Tet Offensive. Oddly enough, it remains among my most clicked-on posts even today.

And in 2006, the torch was passed to a new generation and a new war -- but this ain't a movie scene:

From YouTube - "Reporter turns ghetto in 3 seconds":

(Seen first at Twitter)

Guardian blogger Owen Adams looks back on Lux Interior of the psychobilly punk group the Cramps. Interior, 60, died Wednesday of a heart condition.

Craig Oliver, CTV News's chief political correspondent and co-host of Question Period, is the winner of the 2009 Hyman Solomon Award for Public Policy Reporting.

From the Public Policy Forum website:

In 1994, the Public Policy Forum established The Hyman Solomon Award for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism to celebrate the journalistic standards and intellectual integrity of the late Hyman Solomon who, as Ottawa Bureau Chief of the Financial Post, covered the complex interplay of the public and private sectors, and the intricacies of national decision-making.

The award is presented each year to a journalist whose work, in either official language, provides insights into the policy-making process in Canada, and explains to Canadians how changes in public policy affect their individual well-being and collective economic progress.

Here's the list of previous winners. I think it's distinguished company.

For more on Craig, read this Nov. 16, 2008 post: G&M profiles Craig Oliver