It’s noon somewhere
Manitobans like beer, according to nearly everyone, and according to a newly-released report from the Conference Board of Canada: From Farm to Glass: The Value of Beer in Canada.
The report, sifted through by the Freep, ranked Manitoba No. 5 in the country for consumption per capita, approximating each person in the province to have consumed 240 bottles of the nectar in 2012. Manitobans best the national average of 235, but fell shy of No. 1-ranked Yukon’s 385 bottles per person.
The beer industry supports 163,200 jobs across Canada, 3,658 of which are located in Manitoba. It generates $130.8-million per year in tax revenue in Manitoba alone.
Go beer! [Source: Freep]
Peace talks halt
Peace talks between Israel and Palestine have reached a stalemate, according to the BBC. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is blaming the Palestinians for the stall.
“I’m concerned about their progress because I see the Palestinians continuing with incitement, continuing to create artificial crises, continuing to avoid, run away from the historic decisions that are needed to make a genuine peace,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been pushing the peace process between the two at secret locations since July, will now meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Kerry is selling a two-state solution that imagines Israel and a Palestinian state consisting of the West Bank and Gaza Strip existing as neighbours.
Netanyahu’s peace demands include recognition by Palestinians of Israel as a Jewish state, and Abbas’s peace demands include borders and security.
The talks are due to end in April. [Source: BBC]
We’ve come so far: Kids fighting kids in cages
There is such a sport as kids’s MMA, cage fighting, and it looks as brutal as you think. New-York photography Sebastian Montalvo travelled across the U.S. to document this growing trend among parents, who are sending their children as young as five to fight other children in often-televised brawls. As many as three million boys and girls are involved in this sport that critics are blasting as barbaric, and supporters are praising as a way to teach self-discipline and fair-play.
The images say a lot. And, according to the Daily Mail, a search on YouTube will yield more than enough footage for the curious reader. [Source: Daily Mail]
Lynn Coady wins Giller
Edmonton’s Lynn Coady won the Scotiabank Giller Prize along with $50k for her short-story collection, Hellgoing. The award honoured her work as the best Canadian fiction title in Canada. The Giller celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.
Coady’s publisher House of Anansi’s 13th time nominated for the sought-after prize and its first win.
From the Globe and Mail’s Sandra Martin: On Coady: “A deceptively quiet writer, Coady’s power comes from her screen-shifting narrative style and her propensity to turn into a literary dominatrix, pummelling and pressuring her characters in stories that evoke the horrors of high school, the self-loathing of anorexia, alcoholism and obesity, and the shame and despair of teenage pregnancy – all with spine-grabbing honesty.”
[Source: Globe and Mail]
The three muskateers
It was a success and a momentary opportunity to slow-clap, when the Senate voted to suspend Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, and Patrick Brazeau. And Stephen Harper went on record, happy the three would no longer have access to public money.
All three Senators, under scrutiny for the misuse of public funds, will be suspended for the remainder of the parliamentary sitting.
But, according to the National Post, their time out of office and without pay may count towards their years of service required to receive a pension, paid for with public money.
These musketeers could come out of this smiling. [Source: NP]
Hounourable mention: Rob Ford and everything in his orbit. And the humongous country-sized pile of floating debris from Japan’s 2011 tsunami that is floating towards the U.S. deserves some attention.
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Toban Dyck doesn’t have any kids, but if he ever does, will not put them in an MMA ring. They will instead play with augers and tractors the size of small houses.
For more follow @tobandyck or Spectator Tribune @spectatortrib