1 EGYPT SHUTS DOWN TEH INTERNETS The off switch was pulled last night. They’re having some protests, apparently. Things are pretty heated. Here’s another report. And here’s some background.

2 TWENTY-ONE CHILDREN DIED FROM POVERTY IN BC Poverty kills kids. Maybe bring that up the next time you hear someone yakking about how great tax cuts are. Nearly one in 10 Canadian children live in poverty, by the way.

3 GAY ACTIVIST BEATEN TO DEATH IN UGANDA How evil, ignorant and disgusting. Certain evangelical Christians has blood on their hands.

4 ALSO, SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IS STILL A NO-GO IN FRANCE Well, that’s embarrassing for them.

5 SWINE FLU! It’s here. And one of my co-workers is pale and sniffling… stay away… stay away! NOOOOO! (Achoo.)

6 LITERACY LACKING There aren’t enough teachers and tutors to teach Regina’s immigrants English. Meanwhile, 40 per cent of Canadians struggle with math and reading. Yikes.

FINALLY, today’s the 25th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger explosion. Story: I used to have a friend who was a pathological liar. Like, clinically. This guy would lie and lie and lie to get people to respect him, but they were always outrageous, stupid and clueless lies. Like, he once claimed his family were refugee ninjas. And he was a computer hacker who cracked NORAD computers. He was the ghost author of several Hardy Boys books. Uh, yeah.

He also dabbled with crime: he’d been involved in high school locker break-in where he and an accomplice stole calculators from about 30 students, then tried to sell them back to the people they’d ripped off (talk about developing a market for your product).

In short, this guy had troubles and I felt bad for him because no one liked him. Wherever he is, I hope his life is more peaceful now. Anyway. Take a wild guess who the first person was who told me about the Challenger disaster was. Naturally, I thought he was full of shit. We argued for 10 minutes about this. Unfortunately, turned out he wasn’t making this up. Even a lying clock gets the time right twice a day. The shuttle did explode, seven people died, it was tragic and (the otherwise despicable) Ronald Reagan gave a speech for the ages.

That’s my story, hope it wasn’t too boring.