Tag Archive: Headlines

Over 20,000 Palestinians jam a compound about the size of a football field shooting their AK47’s into the air to mourn the passing and kiss the coffin of Yasser Arafat.  Preliminary reports cite 120 casualties from the crowd’s crush and falling bullets. It was a poetic end to the reign of terror of a man who would probably have preferred death and martyrdom under a “rain” of bullets. Perhaps the “gravity” of the situation will finally lead fanatics to spend a little less on bombs and a little more on education (at least in the area of physics).

It was a year of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the world of Arts and Entertainment. At the movies, “Shrek 2”, the story of a large green ogre out-muscled the latest instalment of Harry Potter, boy genius of the dark arts, to become #1 in the hearts of our children.  That’s bad right? … No that’s good!  The big green ogre is the good guy.  Meanwhile, “The Passion of Christ” was the big stir at the theatres in the hearts and wallets of millions of adults.  That’s good right? … No, by all accounts I have heard, it was pretty ugly in a gorious way.  Elsewhere, a video game called “Halo 2” breaks opening day sales records for all mediums of entertainment.  In fact, if you can believe the hype, it’s one day sales of US$125,000,000 eclipses (by a longshot) the single day receipts of the top selling movie, book and record album combined.  Now that’s got to be good, right? … No, that is very, very bad – Halo 2 is actually one of the more violent shoot’em-up war games. Did I mention it stole it’s sales record from another not so angelic video game called “Grand Theft Auto.”   Rounding out a record breaking year in the world of Arts & Entertainment is Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel, The Da Vinci Code, which has far outstripped previous bestselling record holders with no less than 12 million copies sold worldwide (despite the fact that it has yet to enter paperback).  Don’t ask.  Yes, the Catholic Church figures prominently in the plot, but considering it was accused of doing much of the plotting that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Liberals get that sinking feeling, as Canada’s military struggles to float their new(?) fleet of 2^nd hand submarines. Their new estimate for readiness is 2008. In a related story, our recently purchased Cormorant search and rescue helicopters are also grounded due to cracked rotor blades.

2004 is marked by a significant dip in fighting.  Analysts attribute this anomaly to the NHL Hockey strike.  Not content with beating Russians on the ice, the NHL Players Association makes a concerted effort to also challenge Moscow for bragging rights to their “most millionaires per capita” title.

Despite mounding evidence that has forced baseball ^sl/drugger Barry Bonds and a growing number of other high profile professional and Olympic record holders to admit to, according to Barry, unknowingly using illegal performance enhancing drugs, there is no action planned or taken to strip him of his records.  Bonds is expected to overtake Babe Ruth’s All-Time Home Run record in early spring 2005.

(Hurting) Headitor’s note:  Its late, its New Years Eve, and I’SATIREd, sauced please accept that some (or all) of my ^wrec_kollections of the year gone by might be a bit scotchy.  You should double-check my fracts with some more staid and reputable news sources before using any of the stories that I have dismembered from last year in a serious conversation.

2003 ushered in the 100^th anniversary of the Wright Brothers 1^st flight.  France and England mark the occasion by simultaneously moth-balling their fleets of faster than sound Concorde jets.  Not to be outdone, Canada celebrates by sending Air Canada, it’s only remaining national air carrier (unless you count the Irving Family’s private jet), into receivership.  The United States, ever the life of the party, bomb the crap out of Iraq.

In the height of the SARS epidemic paranoia, and 2 short days after health authorities in Toronto threaten criminal charges against a man that “might” be infected with SARS who, rather than entering voluntary quarantine, went to work; the Quebec provincial health authority declares that there will be no threat to the public health if their casino (de Hull) remains open 1 day after a food handler and four other casino employees “are” diagnosed as having TB.  One day later, Canadian health authorities lament the probability that the SARS epidemic could get dangerously out of hand over the upcoming Easter weekend.  News Flash: TB, like SARS, is a known deadly respiratory disease.  Southeast Asians are particularly susceptible to gambling addictions, and SARS.