Santa Claus is coming to town today, but he’s not coming alone. For the first time in history, Mrs. Claus will be making an appearance at Toronto’s Santa Claus Parade. Twenty-six floats will be featured in Canada’s oldest parade, which will end at St. Lawrence Market. To show just how hip Santa can be, the new “Santa Cam” will photograph the crowd so participants can download images of themselves off the parade's website after the event. An iPhone app will also allow fans to stalk Santa during the parade. To show solidarity with Rudolph, red noses will be distributed throughout the city. In Montreal, 100,000 people turned up for their Santa Claus Parade on Saturday.
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Some of the first official figures about government spending were released this week as the annual federal government performance report was presented in the House of Commons. In Harper’s first five years as prime minister, federal spending has risen 22 per cent, totalling $270 billion in 2010-2011, compared to $222 billion in 2006-2007. Most of the extra expenditures came from stimulus spending to counteract the global economic crisis, with the rest attributed to the rising costs of health care, which is roughly worth $135 billion. Harper’s government is now looking to cut billions in spending in the coming years.
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The World Trade Organization has laid down the law this weekend in the country-of-origin labelling (COOL) rules case, and the victor is clear: Canadian livestock producers. In 2008, fears of an H1N1 epidemic and BSE in Canadian cattle led the United States to impose strict labelling laws about the country of origin on all meat, including lamb, goat, and chicken. This meant segregating Canadian animals in order to process, package, and label their meat separately. As a result, the minister of agriculture has said Canada lost almost half of its feeder cattle exports and more than half of its slaughter hogs between 2008 and 2009, with some estimating costs to producers at $5 billion. Mexico joined Canada in asking the WTO to rule against COOL.
Image courtesy of Reuters.
LINK: An American study by recruiting company JobVite has found that among job seekers, Facebook is still far more popular – and successful – at landing people jobs than LinkedIn. When recently employed people were asked which networks led to their current jobs, about 78 per cent mentioned Facebook, and only 40 per cent included LinkedIn, surpassed even by Twitter at 42 per cent. Despite the increasing use of social networks for job seeking, the survey also revealed that, at the end of the day, most jobs came from personal or professional contacts with less than a fifth of successes attributed to social networks.
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For children being picked on in the schoolyard, there may be nothing more reassuring than the results of a new, mostly Canadian study about bullies. According to longitudinal data, children in Grades 1, 4, and 7 who exhibit aggressive behaviour are far more likely to get injured, sick, or need dental work when they are adults. The research team originally identified the kids by asking their classmates to nominate the kids in their class who were the most “mean and cruel” towards others, then followed about 4,000 of those kids into adulthood. Bullies were more than 44 per cent more likely to develop illnesses correlated with lifestyle, like obesity, Type 2 diabetes, alcoholism, and drug use. Not that that’s a better retort to a bully than, “I know you are, but what am I?”
LINK: It’s election day in Spain, where a rough economic crisis has sent longtime Prime Minister and Socialist party Leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero packing. If the polls are accurate, the conservative Mariano Rajoy will likely win with his commitment to reduce the deficit any way he can. Rajoy has suggested tax cuts for businesses, though he says he will not cut pensions. Spain currently has a 21.5-per-cent unemployment rate, rising to 45 per cent among the young. The results of the election will be announced this evening. Since Zapatero called the early election and did not run for a third term, Spain will soon be home to the third government this month to lose power over the dire financial situation in Europe.
LINK: Egyptian protesters have headed back to Tahrir Square this weekend demanding that the military stop trying to control the new constitution and transfer power back to civilians. On Friday, tens of thousands of people, (mostly Islamists and a few left-leaning revolutionary groups) rallied in the square, offering an alarming sign that Egypt’s Islamists and ruling military council were no longer cooperating nicely. A proposal to give the military power over the new constitution has been widely controversial, sparking riots as the country prepares for parliamentary elections. The military forcibly tried to stop the activists on Friday and dismantled their tent city, claiming that daytime occupation is fine, but overnight or long-term occupation hurts the city.
LINK: Introducing: the world’s lightest material. Or at least, possibly the lowest-density material. Researchers at the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Project Agency have developed a new, ultra-light material made of nickel that is essentially a lattice of hollow tubes. Each wall of the microlattice has a thickness of 100 nanometeres, which is about 1/1000th of a human hair. It is 99.99 per cent air in volume and is 1000 times less dense than water. It's so light, in fact, that images have surfaced of the material sitting on top of a dandelion. The microlattice was created by using lasers and resin, and may someday be useful for absorbing sound, vibration, and shock. When squashed, it also rebounds most of the way, giving it an elastic property that could make it very useful for something so light it makes Styrofoam look like Chris Christie.
LINK: Queen’s University’s century-old marching band has been given a massive time-out. The troupe has been suspended by the university and will not be allowed to participate in Toronto’s Santa Claus Parade this weekend or other band events after the university administration came across vulgar and offensive materials in the band's lyrics and distributed materials. Members have also been asked to undergo human rights training before reviewing their policies. One of their pamphlets allegedly read “I will rape you with a lamp” while another flyer boasted about “perpetuating racial stereotypes since 1905.” Despite the suspension handed out on Friday, the band has not lost its funding and is still allowed to practice.
LINK: The court has made its decision: Occupy Vancouver protesters must vacate their tent city by Monday afternoon. Justice Anne Mackenzie, Associate Chief Justice of the B.C. Supreme Court, ruled that the city trespass bylaw had been breached, so the city of Vancouver was granted an interim injunction to shut down the site. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Justice David Brown is still making his decision about whether to evict occupiers from St. James Park. The group has argued that an eviction would violate their charter rights, and that the tent city is a “physical manifestation” of the idea that a more equal society is an option.
LINK: Colonel Gadhafi’s son Saif al-Islam is said to have been captured- most likely for real this time- by rebel forces in the south of Libya. The last lynchpin of the Gadhafi family to be caught, Saif is wanted by the International Criminal Court for indirectly co-perpetrating murder, persecution and crimes against humanity in his father’s regime. Though he had been falsely reported as captured in August, this time there is photographic evidence. A picture of the captured 39-year-old has surfaced on a branch of the rebel group’s Facebook page. As many Libyans celebrate on the streets, the NTC’s justice minister announced Saif would soon be moved to Tripoli.
Image courtesy of Reuters.
LINK: A research team at Oslo University Hospital has found that consuming kiwis may lower blood pressure. The group conducted a small study of men and women with mild hypertension and asked them to eat either 3 kiwis a day or one apple (hey, kiwis are smaller!) a day for two months. When their daily blood pressure readings were taken, the researchers found those eating kiwis had 3.6 systolic points lower blood pressure than the apple-eating control group. The team thinks the result may be similar to the effect of eating dark leafy greens which, like kiwis, contain the carotenoid and antioxidant lutein.
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