I saw this headline on CNN yesterday: Canadian Farmer gives Swine Flu to Pigs. Here in Canada we’ve been reassured that it is still safe to eat Canadian pigs. However, one might want to avoid Canadian farmers.

It is always nice when Canada makes the international news. A while back I mentioned the severed feet that were washing up on the coast of British Columbia. Another headliner: last summer a one Greyhound passenger decapitated another one. (If you’ve ever ridden Greyhound, doing the same may have crossed your mind.)

These stories get more thorough treatment in the Canadian press, of course. In the Greyhound story, an editorial in Canada’s leading national magazine wondered whether a Canadian character flaw was revealed in the behavior of the other Greyhound passengers who scrambled in panic over seats and out the door to get away from the passenger who was calmly cutting off the head of his victim. And the police who finally arrived at the scene and waited patiently outside the bus while the passenger with the knife cut off and ate parts of the recently deceased. Sometimes Canadians can be just too polite.

A story that has been making big headlines for months in Canada, though I haven’t seen it on CNN, is about the airport police that tasered to death a Polish immigrant at the Vancouver airport. The passenger couldn’t speak English, and because of some misunderstanding was trapped in the arrival area for something like 12 hours. Understandably he got more and more agitated as time went on. (I know the feeling!) Evidently the last straw for the police was when the Polish passenger brandished a stapler at them. I guess everyone has their breaking point.