Saturday digest

- The professional wrestling world has lost yet another member of the fraternity.

Bad News Brown, who won the battle royal at Wrestlemania IV after he double-crossed fellow heel Bret "Hit Man" Hart, passed away this week in a Calgary hospital after suffering a heart attack. He was 63.

Click here for some footage of Bad News from the late '80s as he beats the crap out of some ham n' egg jobber named Steve Reese, complete with vintage commentary from Vince McMahon and Jesse "The Body" Ventura.

- The number of polar bears in Canada's North has almost tripled over the last twenty years due to temperature change.

I thought global warming meant that they were drowning en masse and floating away stranded on ice floes.

Maybe the media isn't doing their homework.

Nah, couldn't be.

- Speaking of half-assed journalism, closer to home we have ourselves a story here about the CBC hardly calling things down the middle. No one should be surprised.

- Those who are looking for straight-shooting press coverage can take heart in the re-emergence of Maclean's, which has done a complete 180-degree turnaround from the days when it was a wishy-washy Trudeaupian establishment rag. Case in point: a former national affairs reporter at the magazine, a mature student with whom I took a course titled "Politics and the Media" as an undergrad about 10 years ago, once referred to Kim Campbell as a "neo-conservative". Now we have articles like this one which takes the gloves off concerning issues like the lethargy of the distinct society. To summarize:

* Every Quebecer owes $17,000 in provincial government debt.
* The GDP of the province ranks 54th out of all the provinces and states in English North America, behind such juggernauts as Montana and Arkansas and just slightly ahead of Mississippi;
* GDP is regularly 20% behind Ontario and household wealth for a family of four is $21,028 less than that of residents of neighbouring Maine.

This comes despite Quebec already getting $2.2 billion more net annually than it contributes to Confederation. For those who would point to the much-loved daycare program as an achievement in Quebecois public policy, consider this: a child care spot in the province costs $11,600, nearly double the national average, and in the last 5 years, the cost of the system has increased by 140%. Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that the number of civil servants in Quebec is approximately twice that on a per-capita basis than Ontario. Not only that but civil servants in Quebec missed an average of 14.14 days of work in 2005, also double the national average while the 44% of Quebecers holding a full-time job (compared to 57% in Ontario) missed 11.2 days compared with Ontario's workers who averaged 8.6 days off.

And do you think for a minute that despite all this, combined with the fact that Quebec's share of the Canadian population has now declined to 24.1% (down from 27.9% thirty years ago) is going to mean a much-needed tough love budget from the feds later this month? Gimme a break. With announcements like this, Stephen Harper continues to prove that he's just another politician masquerading as a conservative.

At least Maclean's will be on the case.

- Another loss as one of the greatest voices in melodic rock, Brad Delp of the band Boston, has passed away. Take a look here at the video for "Don't Look Back".