As expected, Manchester United has won the Champions League title after drawing Chelsea 1-1 and winning on penalties in Moscow. This win bookends the League title (see below).

Manchester United has won the Premier League title, defeating Wigan 2-0 away. Ryan Giggs came off the bench to tie Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of 758 appearances for the Red Devils. Giggsy’s second half goal clinched the win and nosed United ahead of Chelsea, which drew Bolton 1-1 at home.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal has just published the results of research concluding that Tasers may have harmful effects on the heart, as well as a sardonic and hard-hitting editorial bemoaning the lack of independent scientific study of the weapon’s safety.

The editorial can be linked here:

EDITORIAL – CMAJ – May 1, 2008

The Frank Paul Inquiry has invited public input on various issues set out in its terms of reference, including the polices of the BC Coroners Service, Office of Police Complaint Commissioner and Criminal Justice Branch to deaths in custody. The submissions are due by May 16, 2008.

The Frank Paul Inquiry has been hearing evidence related to the death of Frank Paul, a homeless, incapacitated, soaking wet aboriginal man who died of hypothermia after Vancouver police left him in an isolated alley in December, 1998.

Further details are available at frankpaulinquiry.ca.

As one would have expected, the editorial page writers for Vancouver’s two major dailies have parrotted Vanoc’s John Furlong in expressing dismay over the protests dogging the Olympic torch relay. Politics and sport should not not mix, they say. The protesters are opportunistic. Think of the athletes and their dreams. Take issue with China if you must, but do not sully the Olympic image.

What utter nonsense! While the Olympic games may once have exemplified pure ideals of amateur sport, and even that is arguable, the modern Olympics are all about money. The IOC is a monopolistic cabal intent on lining its pockets with as much cash as possible. It selected China as a host for its 2008 circus for one simple reason: money. China represents a vast untapped market for the IOC and its sponsors, and they plan to make money there as they never have before. By choosing to hold its event in one of the world’s most corrupt, repressive and bloodthirsty states, the IOC deserves to reap what it has sown.

We should not shed a tear for the athletes. They are incidental to the IOC’s goals, mere pawns in its ambition. As human beings, each athlete should ask him or herself; should I endorse China and its abysmal behaviour by participating in this event? I would like to think the answer would be a resounding no.

Olympics in China? What were they thinking? What if they held an Olympic Games and nobody came?

…….

VIVA MORELLO!

What is it?

What is it that would cause an otherwise reasonably sane and well-adjusted heterosexual male to sleep overnight on the concrete outside Buffalo’s Rich Stadium, to dodge flying bottles and riot police on horseback outside Rotterdam’s Feyenoord Stadium, to travel to Koln, Munich, London and a host of other cities around the globe, putting jobs and relationships in jeopardy?

What is it that would cause him to jump around onstage before hundreds of classmates, in makeup and too-tight clothes, to render off-key versions of “Brown Sugar” and “Bitch”?

What is it, indeed?

Martin Scorsese gets it.

Martin Scorsese got it.

Thanks, Martin Scorsese.