6-in-the-morning1 YEAH, BUT THE OIL INDUSTRY DOES SO MUCH FOR SASKATCHEWAN that having some oil in our drinking water … what’s a few drops between friends, eh? Signed, Joe Oliver.

2 RCMP DROP THE BALL, AGAIN Let’s be honest: a police force whose members think sexually harassing women is standard operating procedure isn’t exactly the group of investigators that would do a good job in investigating an alleged rape. And if someone like Rehteah Parsons gets caught in that, well, so what? A few tours of the Musical Rider should make everybody feel better. That’s why people such as author/onetime Liberal Party of Canada strategist Warren Kinsella now have more faith in the investigative powers of Anonymous than of the RCMP.

3 COMPARED TO THIS, ‘EBONY & IVORY’ IS LANGSTON HUGHES My vision of Hell would be to be trapped in a pickup truck for hours on end listening to nothing but a country music radio station. And I know most country music fans are dim enough to think that Brad Paisley’s ‘Accidental Racist’ song is a good idea. A short note to Brad Paisley: if you don’t want to be a laughingstock, remember these three things: The Confederacy was based on the assumption that white men could own black men as slaves, the Confederacy lost the Civil War, and the world is a better place for it except in the minds of a relatively few white supremacists. What’s so difficult about that? I don’t see any Germans claiming the swastika is a cultural icon …

4 OKAY, MARTIN O’NEIL MAY NOT HAVE BEEN THE ANSWER, BUT THIS … Then again there’s a certain soccer coach in England who’s a fan of the late Il Duce. That should make Remembrance Day a little awkward.

5 BOOK THE RECORDING STUDIO, SHE’S GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER HIT RECORD Taylor Swift isn’t dating Sidney Crosby, but if they did here’s what the breakup song would sound like.

6 THIS IS WHY WE’RE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO HAVE NICE THINGS You know how people say that building a fancy new stadium is going to drive a whole bunch of money into the city? Well, here’s what Marlins Park in Miami looks like a year after it opened — with a supposed attendance of 13,000. And to think the city and county have another 35 years to pay for it.

YOUR MUSICAL MONET OF ZEN Somebody told me that The Wolf’s morning man/John Gormley-in-training Michael Ball railed on a couple of days ago about the disgrace of Margaret Thatcher not getting a state funeral. If she was so beloved, Ballsy, then why has this song made rocketed into the British Top 10 pop music chart the week she died? From the movie The Wizard of Oz, here’s Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead …