The CBC locked out its employees in a labour dispute and replaced their news broadcasts with the BBC World News prompting Canadian viewers to realize the world is not just comprised of North America, the Middle East and a ragtag crew of other American foreign policy – a.k.a. oil interests. It might have also set back the covert assimilation of Canada into the U.S.A. by as much as a decade.

The Ontario Premier announced that religious laws will no longer be recognized in Ontario.   Muslims cry foul.  Jews claim anti-Semitism. Catholics kiss dream of reinstating inquisitions, torture and good ole burnings at the stake goodbye.

In a related story: French Muslims celebrate the 100^th anniversary of “secularism”, a law that barred the state from officially recognizing, funding or endorsing religious groups in France, by burning over 10,000 cars.

Catholic bishops meeting in Vatican City at the first synod led by Pope Benedict XVI are expected to consider refusing communion to politicians who pass laws that violate church doctrine.

*  For those of you who are not up on your Puntiffs, my headline (and perhaps their synod) is inspired by Pope Innocent III who excommunicated just about every Christian Monarch on the planet at one time (early 1200s) or another.

Fido rolled out a national ad campaign that sports a sheepdog herding all the coolest (?) people together with the tagline, “Fido brings people together.”

(Hurting) Headitors note:  Sheepdogs are cool, but I think this one let the cat out of the bag in its effort to fleece the masses into following those other sheep who believe it is absolutely un-cool to not be able to be found and/or bugged by someone wherever you go.

Although free to pursue life, liberty and happiness, Americans discover that said freedoms (or what remains of them) does not extend to death.  After winning a long court battle for the right to disconnect her breathing tube, the husband of a Florida woman fends off some last ditch attempts to intervene by both the U.S. President and Congress and allows her to die with dignity after 15 years in a “persistent vegetative state.”  Still earlier in the year, a Canadian man organizes and attends his own wake, before returning home and quietly ending his life behind closed doors.  I am not sure what the outcome of the ensuing police investigation into the potential for criminal charges was.

During his 700 Club telecast, the founder of the powerful Christian Coalition of America lobby group and one time U.S. presidential candidate, ranted (on the subject of Venezuelan President Chavez), “You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”  “It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war … and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”

Chavez responded by suggesting that his government might ask Washington to extradite Robertson to Venezuela for suggesting U.S. agents kill him.  “Calling for the assassination of a head of state is a terrorist act,” said Chavez, who has regularly accused the U.S. government and its allies of plotting to overthrow him.  The U.S. State Department said Monday that Venezuela does not appear to have a sound legal basis for extradition.

In an attempt to prevent the masses from illegally downloading all their great music, Sony encrypts their music CD’s with spyware that installs itself on the “purchasers’” microcomputers and secretly transmits personal information about their owners back to Sony (while at the same time providing a conduit for other not so honest businessmen to slip through that same back door).  Microsoft orders them to “buzz off” and take their noise with them.