It’s been a couple weeks of protests, earthquakes, tornadoes, royalty and a dead hockey goon. Here’s some brewing news stories that might’ve slipped through the cracks!

• > Oh wow, hey, there’s a new Governor General? I’d just planned on mailing in a News In Briefs today, but the changing of our head of state’s official representative deserves its own full post, no? I’ll get on that sometime.

• > RAISE THE ELECTION THREAT LEVEL! Or at least I would, if I wasn’t at work, and had Photoshop on-hand to edit that graphic you’ve been quizzically eyeing to your right all these months. This comes after the Tories are talking tough about an election after Liberal senators stripped the budget bill of all the juicy red-meat Conservative bits, like selling the AECL, and selling Canada Post. Also, as I link to that Winnipeg Free Press article I’m seeing a fantastic poll question on the right side that you just don’t get from big-city Toronto newspapers: “Should the City of Winnipeg kill gophers?” Your options are Yes, Yes but not with poison, and No. I VOTED YES, fucking gophers.

• > To celebrate Pride Week, Minister to voluntarily get probed: The Canadian equivalent of the American political catchphrase “I did not accept money from Jack Abramoff” is “I did not have contact with Rahim Jaffer in a lobbying capacity.” Rahim Jaffer, known sleazeball who used the tenuous political power of his batshit crazy wife, dirtbag mob connections in stripclub backrooms, and the greased palms of one-time Tory connections in order to scam governments out of mysterious, money-burning “green initiatives”, has – according to pretty well everyone on Parliament Hill – “never talked to me! Sorry, who? Rahi-wha? Never HEARD of the guy!” Well, obviously someone had more than a passing nod at the guy in the hallway, as a number of federal Ministers, most recently RISING SUPERSTAR Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis, are now under an ethics probe for wheelings and dealing with the Jaffster. OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: MapleRag has never taken money from Rahim Jaffer.

• > Liberals down in polls, all hope lost, Liberal Party to disband. In other breaking news, the sun rose this morning, the sky is blue, and Justin Bieber can’t sing.