If you enjoyed Bowling for Columbine, you must see The Corporation. After explaining how modern corporations came to be defined as "persons" in legal terms, this documentary shows how such a person would qualify, based on their behaviour, as a psychopath.

This film is well-paced, well-researched, well-structured, and, well, confirms all the horrible things you suspected about corporations, as well as some you never would have imagined. Along the way, some ridiculous but little-publicized facts of law are exposed, such as the loophole that let Fox television off the hook in a "whistle-blower" lawsuit: it isn't illegal for a media organization to falsify the news. That's right. As if we needed more blatant justification for distrusting the media, knowingly lying, in a news broadcast, is perfectly legal.

Junk email has gotten just plain ridiculous. Normally, I just erase every message that isn't from somebody I know, but that's dangerous to do with your work email if you get inquiries from strangers who you would like to become clients. So in some cases, I actually start reading the message before I decide to delete it.

What's become very entertaining is that email "spammers," in their attempts to evade email filters that search for certain subjects or phrases in the email text, have started including random sentences in their messages. It's pretty easy to develop a software program that can construct these kinds of sentences, and integrating this with a mass-mailing program would also be pretty easy, which means spammers are able to send completely different messages to every recipient on their junk mail list. Embedded somewhere within the message is the product or service they are trying to sell. Take for example this one I received today:

the slimy fish hates the drug dealer Hey baby wanna let me start melting your string?
Get a free of charge debt consultation with no commitment
Get started right now visit our site
A elegant letter makes baby Jesus cry Pin the toenail on the donkey
the monitor said ' Stop recording the bone! ' sweet jebus! uncomfortable hair!
Cut your credit card debt at this moment
you is so hard that I am studying the turtle
Captain Kirk looks like a fluffy mall I wonder if the duck was rough
the king is riding the sweet sugar cube?
We better go by the flashlight!

Wow. Of the 9 lines in this email, 3 of them are are about the debt reduction service being sold. My big question is how are spammers being paid for their work? It can't be by referrals from the emails, since I can't imagine many people, badly in debt, deciding that the company who sent this email would be their best choice for financial freedom. "Yes, hello? I'm calling because I got your email regarding uncomfortable hair. I'm also interesting in having my string melted."

This is why there will never be peace in the Middle East: the Israeli ambassador to Sweden sees a piece of art with suicide bomber imagery and flips out, destroying the exhibit and endangering the lives of other patrons in the gallery.

I understand being emotional. But this guy couldn't control himself long enough to critically analyze something that is admittedly "art." He didn't even read the accompanying text, that described the innocent lives lost.

Admittedly, I can't understand what Israel is going through. Neither can I understand what the Palestinians have endured. But to lose control of your faculties in another country's art gallery, and then be unrepentent and obstreperous about your behaviour, is absolutely inexcusable. The fact that Ariel Sharon completely supported his actions is the icing on the cake.

Perhaps if somebody showed some leadership and took the lessons of love in all those holy books to heart, we could see some actual progress. But what do I know, I'm agnostic.

It appears I'm getting into the wrong business. A story on CBC's web site details how a man in New Brunswick has invented (and patented) an ingenious way of producing hydrogen gas using aluminum, water, and sodium hydroxide. If it works as well as expected, we'll be able to produce all the hydrogen we need, safely, on any site, with shredded pop cans. Hydrogen creation and distribution has been a huge thorn in the side of the environmentally friendly hydrogen car campaign, and now it may possibly be plucked.

The kicker: he never even finished high school.

That phrase isn't just for hockey anymore. Walking home after class today I looked up. Like, at the second floor level of buildings and higher. I discovered some beautiful and surprising architecture in the 10 minute distance from school to my house: perilous balconies, strange old windows, and brightly painted siding that seemed out of place so close to the gray Ottawa pavement.

After a while I realized that I hadn't been looking where I was going. The amazing thing was that on the slippery -30 sidewalks, I hadn't fallen and busted my head open.

All around me were students moving to and from school, staring at the square meter of slush-covered concrete rolling ahead of their feet. This has got to stop. Please act as an ambassador of heads-up in your area. If I can manage it on the treacherous slopes of Sandy Hill, you can too. Courage.

It seems the urge to shear has struck again. This time, it was a fellow student who parted with his beard. He went from looking like rugged woodsman to a stand-in for the Barenaked Ladies. Not to say it looks bad, it's just weird being able to see his whole face.

Funny that we should all be cutting our hair back the same month the temperature is taking a nosedive. Luckily I have a new tiger toque that keeps me ferociously toasty. That's right, ferociously. As in "grrrr" instead of "brrrr."

[Ed's Note: Someone should notify Josh that his practicum teaching 11 year olds is over.]

Freaked some people out at school today. I guess I look pretty different with short hair, because lots of my friends and profs walked right by me without even saying hi... at least I think that's why they walked right by me.

The feedback I've received is mixed. The guys, obviously, don't give a crap. Older women seem to like the new look, but a few younger chicks have teased me that I've lost my "mystique" and my "mojo."

Luckily I had no intention of putting either of those anywhere near those particular girls.

It is done. The hippy hair that has dogged me for the last 22 months has been shorn.

My good friend's sister, Lydia, performed the ceremony, and according to my mother's wishes, saved the ponytail to donate to the cancer patients at sick kids hospital who need wigs after their chemotherapy. Sounds good to me, but it doesn't seem like there's much there to work with. When Lyd chopped it off, the rest of my hair fell dramatically forward, and Lyd and the other girl in the salon (who was waiting for her hair colour to "take") gasped: I had the exact same haircut as Whitney Houston, circa 1992. Lyd called it the "Diva" cut, and she'd whipped it up on me in about 12 seconds just by sawing through my ponytail. After careful consideration, I opted to continue past the Diva style into the regular, non-drag queen cut we'd planned on, and Lydia did a predictably stellar job.

When she saw it, my mother almost broke down and cried with happiness. For me it's a liberating and painless transformation. I like my hair short. The story behind the locks is rambling and ridiculous, but maybe I'll write a little article on the whole experience later this month. Right now I'm just enjoying that strangeness of shampooing the new "fro lite."