Hooray, Parliament is back in session! And the first item of business on everyone’s list? Arguing over a proposal to create a new logo for the House of Commons. That’s democracy in action. The Tories and Bloc actually had the balls to call the debate a waste of time while still throwing out hilarious suggestions such as a snake eating its tail. Bar har har har.
Oh, and 80 MPs took the day off. The Citizen says the House “was a wasteland of exhausted MPs” – poor babies, I guess having all of last week off wasn’t enough for them.
Get fit quick!
I’m doing the MediaScout post this morning, so I was subjected to the evening broadcast news last night. CTV played up a McMaster University study that suggested six minutes of intense workout a week can do as much for a person’s health as an hour-a-day fitness routine. It also went out on the CP Wire, and the Globe picked up the story. Both CTV and the Globe reported the study basically as truth, as health stories are often run. The key detail however, which CTV really buried, was that the people tested were in excellent shape and critics suggest the benefits could be limited to a small percentage of the population. There are also a number of risks with such intense training, which were buried quite a way down.
This is sadly par for the course on health study reporting. CTV seems to love these kinds of stories, but I was surprised to see the Globe jump on it too.
*Yawn* Darfur
Hey, remember how we’re sending a bunch of troops into Darfur? Apparently yesterday the head of the Doctors Without Borders contingent in the country was arrested because he published a report documenting rape in Darfur. He had the gall to (based on witness testimony) publish the report without checking with the Sudanese authorities first.
Given that we’re sending our troops in to work with this very same government, shouldn’t this get some coverage? The Globe, Post, Citizen and Star were the only papers to report it, and each of them only gave it a brief.
Hrm. I’m pretty sure I wanted to write more, but I’m bloody exhausted and can’t really think of what. Check out today’s MediaScout post for more of my thoughts on today’s coverage.