Our MPP, Bill Murdoch, has been suspended by the Progressive Conservative Party.  I never intended to write about politics on this blog, but Bill is one of the local heroes in our area.  He's been re-elected in every election since he won initially in 1990, but is now unsure of his status within the party after stating that John Tory, the party leader, should get a new job.  My understanding is that the public feels Murdoch's comments are more or less justified, as many are unhappy with the major blunders Tory made leading up to the last election.  I tend to agree, and I don't see how this can possibly turn out well for the Conservative Party.  You can read the full story in the Toronto Star.

Kanye West was arrested at LA airport following an altercation that included a TMZ.com cameraman.  He made bail about an hour ago.  Mahalo is tracking the latest news sources on this story.  You can watch the video of the incident here.  I am fully aware that this counts as celebrity gossip, which I will be doing my best to avoid blogging about in the future.  I just couldn't resist this time.

Getting enough sleep can help your business, according to a CNNMoney.com article out today.  Entrepreneurs and business owners are especially vulnerable to sleep deprivation, as it's tempting to stay awake to get more done.  However, new scientific research shows that too little sleep can negatively affect your health, memory, ability to make decisions and more.  Researchers also believe that sleep deprivation is a leading cause of diabetes and obesity.  I guess this means I'll be cutting down on my 3am blogging in the future!

America's rich, in these volatile economic times, are becoming more value conscious than ever.  One Telegraph article even quotes the head of a private jet brokerage firm as saying that customers, while flying private, can no longer find value in paying $50 for an in-flight lunch.  Considering the amount of spending attributed to the top 10% of income earners, I'm not surprised that I've seen so many articles published on this topic in the past several days, including one in my local Toronto Star.  However, it seems to me that a lot of this is based solely on the perception of value, rather than actual dollar-over-dollar savings.  It's not like those choosing private jet travel have to save, they just want to feel that their spending is a little more reasonable than it used to be.

Here are a few interesting blog posts and articles that I've collected over the past week.  Depending on the amount of quality content I can find, I may end up making summaries like this into a weekly thing.  If you've written about something interesting or entertaining over the past seven days that you think should be included, feel free to contact me using the form on the Contact page of this website.

The Financial Blogger discusses television, the biggest time waster in everyone's life:

http://www.thefinancialblogger.com/my-tv-is-eating-out-my-brain/

Jonathan Chevreau from the Financial Post talks about good debt vs. bad debt:

http://www.financialpost.com/magazine/family_finance/story.html?id=610662

For the home and garden fans, Kathleen N. Brenzel covers how to build a patio for under $200:

http://realestate.msn.com/improve/Article_sunset.aspx?cp-documentid=9127735&GT1=35000

Cell phones should be banned on airplanes because they're annoying, according to some legislators in the US House of Representatives.  TheInquirer.net is reporting just that, and that the discussion is being driven by the legislators' personal experiences tolerating inconsiderate phone users while traveling back and forth between Washington D.C. and their home districts.  Feel free to click through to the article for a few detailed examples of conversations that should have been kept private, but the bottom line is that this is really about courtesy, and that's not as easily legislated as one might think.

Avon, which hit a 52 week high yesterday, has announced a new men's fragrance created with Patrick Dempsey.  It's called Patrick Dempsey Unscripted, and will be available in the US in November and globally in 2009.  Normally, this wouldn't be something I'd be interested in writing about (I buy Burberry Brit from Holt Renfrew), but I started thinking about how this partnership could be expanded.  Isn't one of Avon's largest consumer groups actually its distributors, and aren't the majority of Avon distributors female?  I would have thought that bringing Patrick Dempsey on board to create a women's perfume would have been a guaranteed hit.  Is it coming down the pipeline, did Avon miss the boat, or am I missing something?  Maybe they simply couldn't get the trademark rights for the perfect title:  McDreamy.

I was alerted this week to a law that I've always thought must be out there; I just never had a title for it.  In contrast to Murphy's Law, Muphry's Law states that "if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written."  The earliest source I can find for this law is The Society of Editors Newsletter from March, 1992, though I suspect that it's resided on hot-under-the-collar forums and message boards since the beginning of computing.

Have a great Canada Day!