Morning Brew: December 19th

Credit Check: - 1 Watch out for 'budder' and 'cheese', the two newest drugs on the street. Also, watch out for anyone willing to do a drug called 'cheese'. They're probably also willing to do a thing called 'rape you'.

Blankets given to Vancouver homeless offer legal advice. "Starting Tuesday afternoon, activists began handing out 500 water-proof, high-tech blankets to people in the low-income Downtown Eastside. Printed inside every blanket is an explanation of the rights and protections homeless people have under the law in Vancouver." Whoa, whoa, wait a second. They have rights?

What to get for the person who has everything: Vancouver group Spare the Cold is donating backpacks full of essentials over the holiday season to the homeless in Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto. They're expanding rapidly, just like the homeless population in all three of the cities that they serve.

Vanoc tops their goals for 2007. So far only one lawsuit after they predicted a bunch, and way ahead of their goal of 2000 evictions from DTES SRO hotels.

'Am I in Canada?' asked man who lurked in bushes. That's odd, I look around here and ask that very same question day after day. (P.S. It's fun to imagine the guy asking that question is the gnome from those Travelocity commercials).

Canadian Blog Awards - Nominations Now Open til Jan 11. Hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?

Terasen says competition to blame for hike in B.C. natural gas rates. Um, that's sort of what we were saying when it changed from B.C. Gas to Teresen in the first place.

Is Harper Killing the Canadian Electric Car?. Probably.

Make Car Insurance Green and Fair. Harper will probably kill that too.

Even better than a hydrogen bus. Oh! Oh! I know! Not a hydrogen bus?

London's Heathrow Airport is set to install the world's first Personal Rapid Transport system. Which is probably pretty cool, but not as cool as listening to the crazy person on a packed bus while everybody squirms awkwardly trying to pretend nothing is wrong.

Beat Kids: "This weekend, the Vancouver Sun (yes I do occasionally read a newspaper) decided to put a nail in the coffin of our already dying "Hip Scene". They named off pretty much every place with a jukebox and a crack head. Anyone else as excited as I am for the new crew of losers showing up? Reading this article lead to a trip to McDicks and an 8 pack. Hope you enjoy it too".

image by Otto O'Brien from the artist's personal collection.