Yep, They’re Gay

Friday, Jan. 26, 2007
By John Cloud

Zoologists have known for many years that homosexuality isn’t uncommon among animals. (My own cat has raised suspicions ever since he tried to mount a cowering male dachshund.) But I was surprised to learn recently that male sheep exhibit homosexuality at least as often as humans: roughly 8% of rams turn out to have sex exclusively with other rams.

G** bless you, airline movie censors

January 26, 2007

All mentions of God are bleeped out of a version of Oscar-nominated movie The Queen distributed to Delta and some other airlines.

Jeff Klein, president of Jaguar Distribution, the company that supplied the movie to the airlines earlier this month, said it was a mistake, committed by an overzealous and inexperienced employee who had been told to edit out all profanities and blasphemies. “A reference to God is not taboo in any culture that I know of,” Klein said.

“We excise foul language, excessive violence and nudity.”

Passengers hear “(Bleep) bless you, ma’am,” as one character speaks to the Queen. In all, the word “God” is bleeped seven times. Jaguar has been sending out new, unedited copies.

The employee is still working in the editing lab, Klein said.

Associated Press via The Toronto Star

450 ‘Canadians’ find out they’re not

Little-known 1977 law requires some born abroad to reregister as citizens
January 25, 2007
Thulasi Srikanthan
Staff Reporter

A little-known legal loophole has left hundreds of Canadians without their citizenship.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada yesterday identified 450 recent cases where people have come to apply for a new passport or renewal of an expired one and found out their citizenship is not valid.

Terror Free Oil

Look closely…

A sign on the pump of the Terror-Free Oil gas station in Omaha, Neb.

© Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

From The Globe and Mail, January 23, 2007

Drunk man rescued from chimney

January 19, 2007
Tamara Cherry
Staff Reporter

A drunk Toronto man who spent five freezing hours in a stranger’s chimney Thursday morning was simply trying to enter the home after no one answered his knocks at the front door, police say.

The 35-year-old man left his friend’s Muskoka Lakes cottage in the middle of the night to “relieve himself,” Ontario Provincial Police said.

France proposed U.K. union, papers show

January 15, 2007
Associated Press

LONDON – Would France have been better off under the Queen?

The revelation that the French government proposed a union of Britain and France in 1956, even offering to accept the sovereignty of the British Queen, has left scholars on both sides of the Channel puzzled.

`Water intoxication’ kills radio contestant

Tried to consume as much as possible without urinating in bid for video game
January 15, 2007

SACRAMENTO, Calif.–A woman who competed in a radio station’s contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the bathroom died of water intoxication, the coroner’s office said Saturday.

Procrastination is a 4 letter word

The science of keeping up with yesterday
‘To actually not procrastinate takes planning, effort and will,’ expert says
DAWN WALTON

From Thursday’s Globe and Mail

CALGARY — Do not delay. Read this story now. Although I know some of you will likely never get to it, I understand. You have other things to do. Sleeping, watching television and checking e-mail.

But it’s not your fault.

Parrot’s oratory stuns scientists

By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short.

The bird, a captive African grey called N’kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.

Where mince pies break the law…

If you fancy eating a mince pie in England this Christmas Day, you could find yourself in legal hot water.

But nip across the border into Wales or Scotland, and you can tuck into this festive treat to your heart’s content.

It is one of the odd old laws on the statute book, although rarely enforced by even the keenest police officer.