Ack! With October behind us, winter is officially on its way. Did we even have a summer? No matter. There’s no use in fighting the inevitable. But there is definitely use in fighting for unpasteurized milk, digital books, and the rights of sperm donor offspring. From Google’s next steps, to the Catholic Church’s preventative steps, to Vietnamese chest-size discrimination, please read on to discover more odd tidbits that occurred during the month-that-was: October.
Hell Hath No Fury like a Rock Star Scorned – Much to the ire of rock bands, Heart, Foo Fighters, and Van Halen, the McCain campaign have been using their songs during campaign speeches without their consent and they are not happy.
WTF? – Rumours swirl about an NHL expansion team for Toronto. Four words: Bring back the Jets!
Get Outta Here – Who needs enemies when you’re a part of the Liberal Party? Stephane Dion gets the chuck after the disappointing election results for the Liberals. Alright, so he may not be charismatic, an eloquent speaker in English, handsome, or have a commanding presence (and so on and so forth), but goshdarnit, he seemed like a pretty nice and genuine guy – someone who could run the country with a conscience. But alas, Canadians have opted for another round with the Side Side-Part and his recycled band of cronies.
Ack! Math! – Leave it to Google to keep our dignity intact. Google has introduced Mail Goggles, a mechanism which asks Gmail users to answer a series of short math questions before an email will send to the recipient – all in an effort to minimize morning-after regret over emails written during one’s darkest and drunkest hours.
Google For President – Google does it yet again by settling two copyright suits for its venture into creating digital versions of printed books. Google has established a payment arrangement to keep publishers and authors happy, while retaining a cut for themselves. Since 2004, Google has scanned some seven million books, four to five million of which are currently out of print. I have nothing snarky to say about this other than we may all be paying dues to Google some day soon at the rate they are becoming a modern day global cultural force.
The Spy Who Shagged Me – I love hearing stories like this – something that seems totally out of the ordinary and straight from a James Bond movie. Assassination training with toxic chemicals. Sex. Stolen state secrets. They’re calling her the Korean Mata Hari, Won Jeong-Hwa, a 34-woman from North Korea who allegedly defected to the South, only to seduce high-ranking military officials in an effort to extract top-secret military and weapons information to send to the Communist North.
Glarg – “The rich and sweet taste of unpasteurized milk would blow most people away.” Yeah…I 
don’t think so, but organic farmer, Michael Schmidt, does. Schmidt goes martyr and has asked the Ontario court for the maximum penalty in the case against him for ignoring a court order, banning him from selling unpasteurized milk. Health officials warn against the consumption of unpasteurized milk, which could contain e.coli and an array of other bacteria, but proponents of raw milk contend that there’s nothing like the taste of it. Yeah… I’ll just stick to coffee, thanks.
Milk of Human Horrible – The toxic chemical, melamine, used in watered-down milk to up protein levels in China, has made roughly 53,000 infants and children sick with kidney stones. The international media have reported that four babies have died from it. But I can’t help to wonder if these figures have been severely low-balled. In a country of one billion people, 53,000 doesn’t add to too many and four barely registers. Numbers aside, it is the outrageousness of the act that is the most infuriating and incomprehensible. The consumption of milk is widespread amongst babies and children, what kind of person are you to side-line yourself with profit margins to justify such heinous acts on the defenseless? And don’t get me started on the lack of access to justice of the victims’ families.
Who’s My Daddy? – 26 year-old BC woman, Olivia Patten, has launched a landmark lawsuit on behalf of individuals conceived of sperm, egg, or embryo donation. Patten argues that the rights of those born from methods of artificial insemination have been neglected and wants access to records to identify biological parents. Her case may be strengthened by the potential intervener, Dwight Jones, a 64 year-old BC man, who has sold his sperm on 300 to 400 occasions over a period of 10 years and wants to find those people who share his genetic code.
Ya Think? – The Vatican has announced that clergy hopefuls will now be subject to psychological screening to determine their suitability for entrance in an effort to minimize priest sex abuse scandals. If there is evidence of homosexuality, the future priest’s training would be “interrupted”. The Vatican is looking for those who are able to “integrate his sexuality in accordance with the obligation of celibacy”. Word to the homophobic: homosexuals are no more likely than heterosexuals to engage in child molestation. Being a pervert crosses all sexual orientation lines.
WTF? II – This is stupid. The Vietnamese government has reached new heights in absurdity, proposing regulations that set a minimum chest size for licensed drivers. Under the new amendments, anyone with a chest size under 28 inches (or 71 centimetres) will be prohibited from driving a motorbike. My bad – I didn’t realize that all skinny people were bad drivers. WTF! What about just testing someone’s eyes for freak’s sake?
The Watercooler is a monthly feature written by Ottawa lawyer AAK!