kiran’s pensieve

AP has selected Colbert as its Celebrity of the Year, which makes a lot more sense than the former KGB officer chosen by Time magazine.

“It is truly an honor to be named the Associated Press’ Celebrity of the Year. Best of all, this makes me the official front-runner for next year’s Drug-Fueled Downward Spiral of the year. P.S. Look for my baby bump this spring!”
—Stephen Colbert

Industry insider blog Deadline Hollywood Daily, among others, is announcing that The Colbert Report and The Daily Show by Jon Stewart will be returning to the air starting January 7, 2008. Finally I can start paying attention to the news of the world again! Without these two around making regular commentary on world events, watching the news was like chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes. Thanks, Universe!

Extremist Muslims and Right-Wing Westerners can agree on one and only one sociocultural phenomenon: hating gay people. It’s painful for the moderates of both sides to accept, but it is a reality that must be confronted by intelligent people on all sides before any real, positive, progressive change can be realistically forged.

Found this off this blog:

Most people saw this coming years ago.

At 10:59 a.m., a cheer went up on trading room floor

Is that in Canadian or American dollars?
“It didn’t really matter,” Mr. Feig says with a laugh. “It’s the same price either way.”

BBC NEWS | Health | Woman sees own heart on display

Accompanied by a video of this rare sort of news story.

This should make things even more interesting…

Aging workforce a tidal wave ready to hit economy

This was an interesting article about Canada’s aging population, that is not being replaced with children at the same rate. RESP’s, child tax credits, public healthcare, open immigration policy, these are all methods in which the government is trying to raise the numbers of the Canada’s youth population. As a G8 country with universal health care and high living standards, it’s quite an ominous thought that if the human “refill rate” in Canada remains the same, that within the next 10 years, “Canada may have more people at the age where they can leave the labour force than people at the age where they can begin working,”.

That doesn’t sound good.

Extending the working lives of everyone over a certain age is not only not going to solve the problem, it could make things worse. Ever seen an 95 year old drive? But seriously, after having worked for all these decades, the generations of people approaching their later years should be allowed some rest and reprieve, wouldn’t you agree?

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