Things you may have missed

Since a federal election doesn't come every day, a few stories may have slipped through the cracks.

-- There was another case of mad cow disease confirmed in Canada. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed bovine spongiform encephalopathy was found over the weekend in a 6-year-old cross-bred cow born and raised on an Alberta farm. Everyone involved seems to feel that this isn't a big deal. Let's hope they're right.

In July, the U.S. reopened its border to young Canadian cattle after being closed for more than two years.

-- While Ford Motor Co. announced it will close 14 factories in North America by 2012 with the loss of between 25,000 and 30,000 jobs, the job loss in Canada was under 2,000. A major plant in St. Thomas, Ont. that assembles Crown Victoria large sedans will be cut to one shift, affecting about 1,200 of the 2,300 hourly workers. And Ford's aging engine-casting plant in Windsor, will be shut in late 2007, affecting about 500 jobs. Though losses are bad regardless of which side of the border they occur, it does say a lot that health care costs likely played a factor. Businesses don't pay health-care costs in Canada.

-- I confess I don't own a BlackBerry, and I'm not sure I completely understand the laws involved, but the U.S. Supreme Court decision has a U.S.-Canada angle. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Research In Motion (RIM) (based in Waterloo, Ontario), leaving intact a patent-infringement ruling that threatens to shut down BlackBerry e-mail service to as many as 3 million of the company's U.S. customers.

The justices, without comment in Washington, refused to consider RIM's arguments that a federal appeals court improperly extended U.S. patent law to cover the service, whose central computers are in Canada. RIM may get help from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

While private businesses would be greatly affected, U.S. government officials still would have access to the service, which is used by members of Congress among others.

-- Congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks on making it to the Super Bowl, the franchise's first trip. So what does this have to do with Canada? Though the NFL does not have any franchises in Canada, there are a huge number of NFL fans in Canada. I really was surprised to find how many Seahawk fans there were in Vancouver. So I guess the Seahawks are "Vancouver's team." I talked with one guy in particular who told me in August that Seattle was really good. I confess I didn't know much about how well Seattle was doing. He drove the 3 hours each way for every home game. I was impressed. So GO SEAHAWKS!!

-- Kobe Bryant's 81 points is significant in itself, the 2nd-highest scoring output in NBA history. But by doing it against Toronto helps it to make my blog. What was even more surprising about this output is that the Raptors had a 17-point lead at the half. But Bryant single-handedly outscored the Raptors 55-41 in the second half. I thought the NBA did well to expand in Canada, but have handled it poorly since then, depriving the Canadian teams of the top pick (done to no U.S. expansion teams) and all but chasing the Grizzlies out of Vancouver.