Here are some of my favourite quotes of 2005:

"You would have to eat 10 billion meals of brains, spinal cords, ganglia, eyeballs and tonsils to get the disease." Alberta Premier Ralph Klein on the chances of being infected by mad cow disease.

"You are jerks!" French actress Brigitte Bardot of Prime Minister Paul Martin and Fisheries Minister Minister Geoff Regan for allowing the seal hunt.

"The justice system has never given Indian people a fair shot at anything." Robert Whitehead, chief of the Yellow Quill First Nation, after a white man convicted in a gang rape escaped jail time.



I am back in the "middle east" of Canada (Ontario, and more specifically, Toronto) and it is great to be around humans that don't like to focus on how powerful, snobby and arrogant (stereotypically) my hometown is. I think people despise cities they don't know out of ignorance and inferiority complexes.

On the Toronto front, the talk is all about midday shootings in public areas. Inncent bystanders being killed because of the disillusionment of young, impoverished youth. I sincerely do not understand why some people are attracted to gangsta-bullshit. I think the root causes of such disrespect for life are complicated (social welfare cuts, familial norms, poverty, a soft justice system, popular culture glorifying guns and gangs, a lack of role models, etc.) Toronto still has the second-lowest crime rate in Canada, however!