Northman's Fury

Technically, I'm a live-long Montreal Canadians fan, but since they didn't do too well this year, (or decade), I've gotten into the habit of cheering for whatever Canadian teams make it to the playoffs. (It's getting to the point that this could soon include Toronto.)

Add to that the fact that I flew into Ottawa late last night to run a half-marathon tommorow, and I thought I should try and get into the spirit.

Despite some people's issues with the scheduling, I still think it would be great to see them win this year, even though I'm unfortunately not going to be in town long enough to catch any the games live.

After reading this, I'm seriously thinking about getting a hunting license for caribou, gardening being pretty much out of the question up here.

I’m not a very spiritual person, but I’m having a crisis of faith.

Twice a week I sit in on the FDA’s media teleconference regarding our growing food safety crisis, and twice a week I come away struck by the difference between what officials believe and what they actually know. As a born agnostic and a fan of science, I can fully appreciate the FDA’s reluctance to express absolute certainty. But as a devoted father and pet owner, I can’t help but find their reassurances less than reassuring.

First we were told that none of the adulterated wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate had made its way into the human food supply, and then we were informed that a mere 6,000 hogs had eaten feed contaminated by “salvaged” pet food. Next it was chickens. 3 million of them. Slaughtered, butchered and eaten by unsuspecting Americans.

Then 20 million more chickens, and today another 50,000 hogs… not to mention the God-knows-how-many fish in the US and Canada raised on farms now known to have received Canadian fish meal manufactured from contaminated Chinese flours.

Still… not to worry, we are told, because large manufacturers are “unlikely to have exposed their animals to large amounts of the tainted pet products.”