1. NORTHWEST REGINA PLAYGROUND TORCHED At the last prairie dog story meeting, Whitworth learned that I live in McCarthy Park. “We’re too downtown-centric,” he said. “Keep an eye out for stories from the northwest,” he said. The problem is that when you go out into the concrete wasteland suburbs, like the Rochdale or East Vic strips where there are Tim Hortons in such close proximity to one another that they threaten to wrinkle space-time, all you ever get are the usual bored suburban assholes doing bored asshole things. Case in point: some bored assholes in the northwest set the city’s only fully accessible playground on fire yesterday. Thanks a lot, assholes! Way to piss away whatever goodwill we garnered from snagging Brown’s Social House! (via Leader-Post)
2. SLOW DOWN, ECONOMY Looks like the next round of horrible economic apocalypse about to hit the U.S. is likely to affect us too. It’s just “slowed growth” so you can all keep your bunker doors closed for now, but if nothing else it shows that we aren’t impervious to what happens to the States’ economy. (via the Globe & Mail)
3. HA HA ROB FORD IS THE WORST Notorious anti-pork mayor Rob Ford is currently asking the Ontario government to send him money to bail out his stupid and unfeasible subway plan. The lesson we should all collectively take from this is that when people with anger problems campaign on low taxes and “spending cuts” and basically nothing else, maybe we should not elect them, because they are just angry people with bad ideas! This is a good lesson to learn, I think. (via Toronto Star)
4. COMPLETELY INSANE NCAA BOOSTER SCANDAL Seriously, it’s hard to sum this thing up in a single paragraph. Here goes: I was right, it’s too hard and basically impossible, so just go read Yahoo! Sports’ dizzyingly comprehensive report detailing everything booster Nevin Shapiro has done for University of Miami athletes and recruits, from giving players money to buy wheel rims to paying for a stripper’s abortion after a player impregnated her (!!!!!!!!!). It’s a jaw-dropping read and an amazing piece of sports journalism. (via Yahoo! Sports)
5. WISCONSIN’S RECALL ELECTIONS A NEAR-MISS Remember the whole Scott Walker anti-union brouhaha from Wisconsin earlier this year? The state recently held a bunch of state Senate recall elections and voted out two Republicans. Unfortunately for union members, the middle class, teachers, and basically anybody who isn’t a super-rich friend of Scott Walker, that’s still one short of state Senate control. On the other hand, one of the sitting Republican state senators voted against Walker’s cartoon supervillain-esque union-busting measures, meaning that maybe if something like that came up again Walker might get defeated and take out his rage on another picture of poor people or something. (via Reuters)
6. KATY PERRY’S TEENAGE DREAM TIES THRILLER FOR MOST NUMBER ONE HITS FROM THE SAME RECORD (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ (via Vulture)
To make up for that news about Katy Perry, here is a brand-new video from Canada’s own charming guitar-pop hero, Shotgun Jimmie.
