What Caught My Eye Today

Canada - The war in Afghanistan has overstretched Canada's armed forces, and according to Canada's top army official, will need a yearlong rest to recover. That should be fine. After all world peace seems to be on the rise. What with the global economy being in the toilet, no one can afford to fight wars anymore. He went on to say ongoing personnel shortages meant that new recruits could not be properly trained and vital equipment could not be maintained. Canada currently has 2,800 troops in Afghanistan compared with the U.S.'s 30,000. To put this into perspective, The Canadian army has about 35,000 total troops compared with the U.S. army which has 1,088,000 troops.

Bolivia - Bolivian President Evo Morales kicked another U.S. diplomat out of the country accusing the man of conspiring with opposition groups. Morales claimed the diplomat had been helping a Bolivian policeman accused of spying on the state oil company for the CIA. Here's the shocking reaction from the U.S. State Department officials denied the allegations as well as the notion that the CIA had infiltrated the state oil company. Just out of curiosity, when was the last time we did admit to spying on another country. Morales booted out the U.S. ambassador for similar reasons last September and expelled all U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officials in November. I get the distinct impression that this guy doesn't like us very much. And another question. With the U.S. Ambassador, the DEA and most of the diplomatic corps gone, how many Americans are still left to be accused of spying?

Brazil - The Brazilian government took the unusual step of criticizing the Catholic Church after the church opposed an abortion for a 9-year-old raped by her stepfather. Doctors who performed the abortion said the girl could have died if she had brought the twin fetuses to full term. Brazilian archbishops responded by excommunicating the girl's mother, the doctors, and others involved in facilitating the abortion. Why stop there? I say we excommunicate the whole country. And did you notice that somewhere in all this fray, the church had nothing to say about the jerk stepfather who raped this poor kid. I respect the tenets of the Catholic church; I may not agree with them, but I respect them. What gets me is how the Church can say that it respects the sanctity of life, but thinks nothing of endangering the life of a 9-year-old girl in the name of God. Give me a break. I never met the dude, but I'm pretty sure He would have cut a little slack to a kid that got raped by her stepfather and had the misfortune of becoming pregnant...with twins.

120 - You know me and my numbers. According to the The Economist, the average Facebook user has 120 friends in his or her network. It turns out that figure roughly corresponds to the "Dunbar number," a hypothetical limit on the human brain's capacity for social networks, which peaks at around 148 people. Of that 120 friends, the average Facebook man interacts with only 7 of his friends on a deeper basis, by responding to postings and leaving messages of his own. The average Facebook woman is slightly more social--interacting with an average of 10 friends. In my defense, I only have about 30 friends on Facebook, so I'm thinking my average interaction with friends of just under 25% is looking pretty good.Curiously, 120 appears in another venue. The average American home receives 119 television channels, yet we tend to watch only 16 of them. And those 16 aren't anything to write home about either.

Basketball - Memo to the boss man. Just so you know, I'll be out sick this coming Thursday and Friday as well as next Thursday and Friday. I think its the flu. The fact that March Madness starts this Thursday is purely coincidental.

Golf - No longer the best player without a World Golf Championship, Phil Mickelson won a spirited duel at Doral to win the CA Championship and put himself in position to reach No. 1 in the world. Mickelson won for the second time in four weeks and moved to No. 2 in the world ranking, as close to Tiger Woods as he has ever been. Depending on how Woods fares at Bay Hill, Mickelson might have a chance to go to No. 1 when he plays again. Woods was pretty much out of contention after the first two rounds, 10 strokes behind Mickelson going into Saturday. But Tiger did outplay Phil on both Saturday and Sunday (68 to 69 both days). And considering this was Woods' first stroke play event after a 9 month layoff, a 9th place finish isn't half bad. Still, kudos to Mickelson. Dude has a track record for imploding on Sundays. It's nice to see the lad close the deal.