Canadian brewery selling pack of 1,461 beers to cope with Trump's presidency
​ Moosehead's Presidential Pack includes 1 can a day for the next 4 years
​A beer a day keeps the chaos at bay.
OK, maybe not. But a long-running Canadian brewer hopes a massive crate of beer will help customers deal with the exhausting news cycle under U.S. President Donald Trump.
Moosehead's Presidential Pack contains 1,461 beers, in 473-millilitre cans — marketed as "just enough Canadian lagers to get through a full presidential term."
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That works out to one can per day for the next four years, including the leap year.
Moosehead's marketing director Karen Grigg told CBC News Network the company wanted to tap into the Canadian pride it was seeing, and has received a flood of interest.
"We had no idea what would happen when we actually launched it, and the response has been overwhelming," she said.
Grigg said Moosehead initially made just five Presidential Packs, each priced at $3,490 plus tax and deposit.
The first one sold within 11 minutes on Friday, and all five sold within 24 hours. The company then made another five, which also sold out.
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By late Tuesday afternoon, more than 100 people were on a waiting list for more.
Based in Saint John, N.B., Moosehead was established in 1867 — the same year as Canada's confederation — and bills itself as the country's oldest independent brewery and the largest fully Canadian-owned brewer.
Grigg says the company has been getting positive messages from people across Canada and the U.S. in response to the Presidential Pack.
Many have expressed amusement on social media, as well, though some have joked that one beer a day is not enough to cope. Customers buying for Canada Day, other large events
Grigg says purchasers have so far indicated they plan to share the suds anyway, buying them for Canada Day celebrations and other big community events.
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"There's parades, there's campgrounds, each one has a unique story."
That might be a better plan than spreading them out over four years, as beer connoisseurs say the drinks would start to decline in quality before a year is up.
The patriotic marketing tactic has also highlighted some complications with attempts to boost the country's economy in light of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods.
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The Presidential Pack is currently only available to residents of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario. Grigg says that's because those are the only three provinces Moosehead can retail in, due to interprovincial trade restrictions.
"We would love to have done this Canada-wide," she said.
That could soon change, however. Ottawa reached a deal last week with all provinces, except for Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador, to remove obstacles preventing their alcohol from being sold in other jurisdictions.
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The provincial governments are expected to seal the agreement in a framework within weeks. Internal Trade Minister Anita Anand told CBC News the move was part of an "unprecedented action to reduce trade barriers in Canada."
Meanwhile, provinces have been ditching U.S. booze.
B.C. and Ontario have pulled all U.S. alcohol from the shelves at government stores in response to tariffs, while Alberta has halted imports of American alcohol products.
Moosehead's final obstacle is actually delivering the massive crates of beer to individual customers.
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Grigg says the company will make it happen one way or another.
"We are up to the task of getting this case of beer to every single location," she said. "It may be a different means each way, but we're going to get it there."
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I have a friend in Newfoundland that can 'take care' of him... -
Baby seal found on city streets is learning to eat fish so he can swim free The underweight pup was found far from the water in New Haven, Conn.
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​Animal rescuer Sarah Callan was surprised, to say the least, when she learned about a baby seal flopping around the busy streets of New Haven, Conn.
Callan is the manager of animal rescue at the Mystic Aquarium in Stonington, Conn., which runs a 24-hour hotline for reports of lost or injured marine life in the area.
It's not unusual, she says, to get a call about a grey seal turning up in a sleepy beachside community in the east coast state. But on Sunday, the New Haven Police Department called to report a tiny pup stranded on an intersection in the city.
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"[I] never, never would have imagined this," Callan told As It Happens guest host Helen Mann. "I've been in this field for well over a decade, and as soon as you think you've heard the craziest story … then we get another call."
The pup, she says, likely wandered inland in search of sand dunes and grass, which they sometimes use for protection from weather and predators. But instead, he ended up on a streets roughly half a kilometre from the water.
As more of the city's shoreline gets developed, she says, encounters with marine life become more common. 'Everyone's amazed at how small and tiny he is'
The pup, Callan says, is now recuperating at the aquarium, "doing great," and preparing for his eventual release.
Aquarium staff estimates he's about five or six weeks old. He was dehydrated when he arrived, but otherwise no worse for wear.
But before he can be released, Callan says, he needs to get his weight up. Right now, he weighs about 28 pounds (12.7 kilograms). But at his age, she says, he should be closer to 100 pounds (45.3 kilograms).
Seal pups, she says, usually wean from their mothers at three to four weeks old, at which point they fend for themselves.
"Everyone's amazed at how small and tiny he is," she said. "He hasn't had that experience on his own where he's learned how to hunt."
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So far, staff have mostly been feeding him a diluted fish formula. But they are teaching him to swallow fish whole on his own — and he's already making progress.
"He actually ate on his own for the first time today, a fish. So that was a huge milestone," Callan said. "Now we just have to get him to eat the whole fish. He ate half of the fish." Still waiting for his name
The Mystic Aquarium's policy is to let those who found a rescued animal bestow a name upon it. In this case, that means the police.
The department seems to have taken a liking to the pup, introducing him on social media as "the newest addition to the department."
"On site today, they told us a couple of the names that are in the running. I think the name that's in the lead right now is Chappy, because the seal was found on Chapel Street," Callan said. "I also heard Vinny was in the running, and maybe Tyler."
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Once Chappy, Vinny or maybe Tyler is bigger and better at eating, Callan says staff will release him with a tracker.
"That way we'll be able to make sure that we're monitoring his behaviour on a regular basis to make sure those movements are typical for his species," she said.
"And if we had any concerns, we would know his location and we could always send someone to go check on him."
​https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens...icut-1.7464127Leave a comment:
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Why would he eat his food in order to not eat food?Originally posted by Dinner View Post
We have one too and also love it. It has some issues with one of our rugs (insists on zigzagging right across the edge, and gets tangled, so I've fed up and just tell it to avoid cleaning it), but otherwise very happy.Leave a comment:
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Speaking of self cleaning I am loving my robot vacuum cleaner and mop. I still have to mop and vacuum once per month but the robot does a pretty good job. The one thing it doesn't seem to handle well is the hairballs my cat seems to regularly barf up. Usually right after he eats his food to fast.Originally posted by BeBMan View Posthttps://www.theguardian.com/science/...g-road-surface
Self-drivng cars need self-healing potholes
Next please: self-cleaning rooms and dishes
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Might be hard to do headshots on spiders, which is the only sure way to deal with zombies, as every non-zombie knows
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Fungus-infected 'zombie spiders' found in Irish caves
It's the stuff of nightmares - or even the hit TV show and video game The Last of Us: a novel fungus that turns its hosts into "zombies".
Thankfully, so far, it's only been found in spiders located in several cave systems across the island of Ireland, including the Whitefathers' Caves on the Fermanagh/Cavan border.
Named after Sir David Attenborough, Gibellula attenboroughii was first discovered in County Down during the filming of BBC Winterwatch in 2021.
The fungus changes the spider's behaviour, making it leave its concealed lair or web to die in an exposed position on the roof or walls of a cave.
​ It does this using dopamine, the brain's happy chemical, to make the spider favour the dispersal of the fungal spores over preserving its own life.
Scientists say the behaviour of the fungus mirrors that of ants infected by fungi of the genus Ophiocordyceps, previously reported from the Atlantic rainforest of Brazil.
The story of the "zombie ants" led to a number of zombie-fungus themed books, as well as the hugely popular The Last of Us video game.
The game, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by fungus-infected zombie humans, was later adapted into an award-winning TV show starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.
​ After finding the fungus on a spider in the gunpowder store at Castle Espie in County Down, a team of scientists led by Dr Harry Evans from the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), began to look for more specimens.
Dr Evans and his team used a speleologist - a cave explorer - to help their research.
That work led them to the conclusion that this was a native fungus specific to indigenous cave-dwelling spider species.
The fungus favours man-made habitats like culverts, tunnels and cellars.
​ It has been found on two species of spider occupying different types of environments in the cave systems.
Both Metellina merianae (Tetragnathidae: Araneae) and Meta menardi are reclusive, orb or circular web-weaving cave spiders that favour dark, damp places.
​ Dr Evans' team's work has been published in the journal Fungal Systematics and Evolution.
He said more research is needed to understand just how the fungus succeeds.
But human beings needn't worry - at least yet.
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Self-drivng cars need self-healing potholes
Next please: self-cleaning rooms and dishes
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Brutal. Glad you're OK. Presumably the Camaro is also fully recovered.
Take that, skynet!
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