China has finally, after 5 years of negotiations, recognized Canada as an approved tourism destination. This means you don’t have to be on business in order to leave China to visit Canada.

Last year, only 77,000 overnight visitors came to Canada from China. Published reports estimate that as many as a million Chinese tourists could now visit Canada, making approved status worth billions of dollars a year to Canada.

I find it somewhat comical that Canada is a tourism destination for the Chinese. I mean first of all, its Canada. And secondly, look around! It’s not like Canada is exactly void of Chinese people…hell, I am willing to bet that you, yes you reading this, are Chinese!

Read: CBC

What the crap?! All of a sudden we have $20 million a year to give to babies for post secondary? What about the students who need the money now? Ridiculous.

Read: CBC

It seems I am a little rusty after the break from podcasting, and didn’t do a proper check on one of the stories I covered in today’s Blogosphere News episode. Thanks to Jeremy Wright for pointing out that Six Apart did in fact acquire LiveJournal. I don’t think I have made a mistake like that in any of our previous shows, so I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.

I was just so excited to get you a new episode! In any case, I will be more careful 🙂

We finally posted a couple new shows today at BlogosphereRadio.com. The first is an interview with Wayne Hurlbert of Blog Business World. I meant to post it a long time ago, but you know how it goes – apologies Wayne! The second new show was recorded this afternoon and is a Blogosphere News episode, so check that out too.

Listen to Blogging With…Wayne Hurlbert
Listen to We’re Back!

Megan and I have looked at the details for our trip to Northern Voice in February and we want to get everything booked and confirmed relatively quickly. So if we have talked to you about making the trip with us, please let us know whether or not you are coming by Wednesday, January 26th.

And if you do decide to come, make sure you register for the conference. I should add a countdown script or something on here, I am getting excited!

An earthquake off Japan’s east coast has prompted a tsunami warning:

A tsunami warning was issued for a group of islands south of Tokyo after a strong earthquake off Japan’s eastern coast on Wednesday, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said. A magnitude 6.8 earthquake, the focus of which was about 6.2 miles below the seabed in the Pacific Ocean struck at around 3:11 p.m. (1:11 a.m. EST), the agency said.

Mother nature sure is upset lately!

Read: Reuters

And you thought the weather was warming up lately!

This is from a screenshot I took this afternoon of my website. On the left side I have a weather control from Weather Underground, and normally it is fairly accurate. Looks like some data was coming in funny from the Weather Underground service.

I found it rather amusing 🙂

The big news in Canadian hockey recently is that Sidney Crosby has decided not to attend the upcoming Top Prospects junior game, citing an injury and general fatigue. Lots of people are disappointed, but Crosby’s family, the head of the Canadian Hockey League, and the commissioner of the Quebec Junior League in which Crosby plays have all confirmed that Sidney is injured and disappointed that he cannot make the game.

Vancouver Giants owner Ron Toigo has been very vocal, calling Crosby’s move a “knock on the game”. He also felt that Crosby would play if the game were in Montreal or Toronto instead of Vancouver, and offered first class airfare and accomodations for Crosby and his family, which they declined. Toigo needs to relax. If Crosby and these other important people are saying he’s injured, he probably is. Would you want to play injured in a game where everyone else is going to be sizing you up and wanting to prove themselves against the number one prospect in North America? I don’t think so, the chances of making the injury worse are just too great.

Surprisingly, the correct comment on the situation comes from Don Cherry:

Don Cherry, who called Crosby a hotdog in his rookie season last winter, dismissed questions of the phenom’s absence. “You expect me to say a lot of things, but there are 40 guys here working their butts off to make it,” he said. “And I’d rather have the attention on those 40 guys. I don’t want to dwell on that one. I’m just going to talk about the kids who are here.”

Read: Vancouver Sun

I just finished watching the first episode of CBC’s new show, The Hour, hosted by George formerly of MuchMusic. I must say, I rather enjoyed it! George tells it like it is, and he covers the news that’s truly important, like how Canadian beer is better than American beer!

If you missed it tonight, check it out another night this week – The Hour runs every Monday through Thursday. I don’t watch that much TV, so I can’t say that I will become a faithful viewer, but I can see myself tuning in again…say tomorrow night! It also struck me while watching that George could really make this show unique for CBC – by podcasting it!

Zhao Ziyang, former leader of the Chinese Communist Party who was ousted for sympathizing with student activists at Tiananmen Square has died:

Zhao died today of “numerous respiratory and heart ailments,” China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said in a statement on its Web site. He had four sons and a daughter.

He was a rather important man, especially now that China is becoming more democratic (slowly but surely).

“Zhao was a symbol of China’s political change and transition from communism to democracy,” said Wu Guoguang, an associate professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, who wrote speeches for Zhao.

Interesting man if you read about him or if you’re interested in where China is headed.

Read: Bloomberg