A grisly beheading on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg, Manitoba may well have been committed by an immigrant admitted under a skilled-worker program in 2001. While riding the bus, a reportedly unprovoked Vince Weiguang Li stabbed carnie Tim McLean twelve times, beheaded him, and began eating parts of the corpse. A laptop which Li sold to teenager Darren Beatty had a letter which said "he felt guilty for leaving China, and that everything in Canada was not as he expected," according to a Google translation. Why are we subjecting you, dear reader, to this gory tale?Because this is the same skilled-worker immigration program that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates praised at the 50th anniversary hearing of Congress's science and technology committee:

This is what happens when you let the Canadians have technology more advanced than wood-burning stoves and beaver traps. A series of massive explosions rocked Toronto last night when the Sunrise Propane Depot went up in flames, sending fireballs and smoke soaring as high as 60 stories. There's a bunch of coverage on Rain Coaster's page. And a nifty video of the fiery hell after the jump. Update: "Police report at least two injuries involving people hit by broken glass and fiery debris that shot into the air after the initial blast, just before 4 a.m. ET. One man lost his balance and fell while running from the scene, where a huge fireball lit up the sky. Tony Testa said he suffered burns to his back from falling debris." [CBC]

Canadians. Just last week we learned that they are stealing our jobs, brownstones, and potential mates. But this is apparently all we know about them, if two recent news items are to be believed. First, a "comedian" on a "comedy" television show was forbidden by producers from making jokes about Canada or even mentioning that strange nation. Because to announce his Canadianness would confuse viewers. "Why does he speak American, then? He looks so American!" And then maybe they'd Google Canada and learn of its cheap beer and free health care and we'd have a crisis on our hands. No, it's best to keep Americans in the dark about "Canada." Even if it leads to embarrassing diplomatic incidents like the instructional handbook given to George W. Bush and his staff before a state visit to Canada in 2004. DID YOU KNOW: "Canadians, for the most part, place importance on education, skill, modesty and politeness." Canadians—they're nothing like us! More important advice for dealing with Bonnie Fuller below.

2,000 words on "Canadians who live in New York—sure, that's a trend" and yet the name "Sklar" does not appear once. You guys didn't do your homework. Still, we learned lots of other terrifying things about these foreigners and what they want from us: our jobs! Canadians, you see, are a mysterious and dangerous race of attractive young superbeings!

· Did we say we were done with earthquake stories? We lied. Shake it, Judge Judy! (And Judge Penny, whoever you are.) [Access Hollywood] · Were three dimensions not enough for you to enjoy the dead-eyed zombie children delights of The Polar Express? Well, all aboard! TOOT! TOOT! The Polar Express 4-D Experience is on its way. What does the additional D get you? "Upon your arrival at the North Pole...it actually begins to snow inside the 4-D Special FX Theater and when the conductor sings 'Hot Chocolate' and the dancing waiters begin to pour, the audience can smell the delightful aroma of every cocoa cup!'" [NY Post] · Despite a hospitalization, Elizabeth Taylor's flack insists she is nowhere near death: "Her hospital visit was precautionary. She will be returning home shortly. At present, she is surrounded by family, friends and fabulous jewels." And Pepperoni & Bacon Pizza Pops—her favorite. [ET Online] · All hail Siaosi Tupou V, Tonga's new king! [Yahoo/AFP] · Posters for The Canadian Filmmakers Festival feature some fine Canuckistanian send-ups of classic film images. [Super Punch]

And you thought Canadians were all nice. After whinging about not getting the first-generation iPhone in a timely way, Rogers Wireless customers shrieked about the rate plans for the latest handsets. Then a rumor quickly spread that mercurial gadget guru Steve Jobs's sensibilities were offended by the wireless company's price gouging and denied them the new phones at the last minute. First, since when has Jobs been against gouging customers? Second, the company sent out a release today promising our northern neighbors they will begin getting gouged on schedule. [Rogers Wireless]

Canadians! Did you know they get their own day? It's true! And it's today! We've been celebrating all day by ragging on Canadian Malcolm Gladwell for no good reason and also extending more publicity to creepy scumbag Canadian Dimitri the Lover! It turns out the FreeCreditReport.com guy is also Canadian! But French Canadian so he probably doesn't even want to be Canadian. Go celebrate the nation that oppresses his people by watching that video where not knowing his credit rating made him marry that total bitch and take on her stupid girl debt (probably incurred by shoe-buying and driving poorly). [HuffPo]

Dimitri the Lover may be an incredibly inept (if scary!) pickup artist, but it cannot be denied that he has an awesome website. One of the secrets of his awesome website is his expert use of Shockwave animation, mostly featuring big-breasted cartoon ladies. But because his site is on hiatus or something, you couldn't see all his great work. Until now!!! Because he left his "animation" directory open. Above, a still from one of his more mature works, "Dykes." (Link NSFW, probably?) [Dimitri the Lover]

The Canadian military's enthusiastic participation in Toronto Gay pride events provides yet more proof that they are winning at North American Democracy. Ten Canadian soldiers marched in this weekend's Toronto Pride Parade, and the Canadian Armed Forces set up an information booth to solicit recruits from the well-toned ranks of Canuck 'Mos. Between this, the ascendant Loonie, and the unstoppable appeal of Seth Rogen, it is now evident that Canada is destined to rule over us in glorious empire.[Metafilter]

Happy Canada Day in advance! (Fun fact: Canadians celebrate their day of independence on whatever day is convenient because no one knows the real date.) Did you know Nickelback is from Canada? (Thanks Canada!) But so are The New Pornographers, Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young. Of Montreal is from Georgia but they're named after a bad ex of the bandleader who lived in Canada so that counts. Below are the instructions for adding to this week's Friday Mixtape: Oh Canada (it's funny because it's their anthem).

Hey! Remember Dimitri, the guy who left the psychotic voicemails? Remember how much fun we had with that? Dimitri doesn't seem to be too upset that his incredibly creepy pickup strategy leaked onto the internet. He just relaunched his webstite! THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF DIMITRI THE LOVER, CANADA'S GREATEST LOVER AND SEDUCER is live! Just last night his site announced something major in the works. And here it is! He's working on a full-length documentary, apparently, as well as two reality shows. One is called "Doctor Dimitri, Malpractice Investigator," which actually sounds totally A+ would watch.

Bell Canada, which was accused of throttling peer-to-peer file sharing traffic, was order to release details of their bandwidth management procedure by Canadian officials. Did it work? Kinda. Backbone congestion improved, but local loop backups — the kind that more directly affect users — actually got worst. Bell argued that even after spending $110 million in unplanned capital improvements to the network, 790,000 users would have had congested connections by 2009. Who was responsible for vetting those expenditures? Likely incoming Google CFO Patrick Pichette. [Ars Technica]

Disembodied feet keep washing up on the shores of British Columbia—which, despite the name, is apparently in Canada?—and everyone is in a tizzy. Four right feet have been discovered since last August in the Strait of Georgia (once again, still Canada) near Vancouver, all of them in sneakers. A left foot was found earlier this week. Another right foot was found yesterday, but it was apparently a hilarious hoax. Canadians are such kidders! Anyway, no one knows where all these feet are coming from. But "Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an expert on ocean currents, told The Sun a foot wearing a buoyant athletic shoe could float as far as 1,000 miles." Which is good to know! As always, authorities advise that you avoid amputees and Canadians.

While most of you are no doubt well-acquainted with the Hollywood Walk of Fame—that urine-glazed tribute to some of the most beloved celebrities of the modern era, and Ryan Seacrest—you might not be aware that America's maple-shingled roof has a Walk of Fame of its very own. Established in Toronto a decade ago as a place where tourists and proud Canadians alike could gather to marvel at how tiny Rich Little's hands and feet are, Canada's Walk of Fame is, quite characteristically, much tidier and far less impressive than its inspiration. Still, none could deny that is has grown in the ensuing years into the definitive monument to Canadians Who Left Canada To Achieve Actual Success in the United States.

Canadian smartphone maker Research in Motion (RIM) announced a new $150 million Blackberry Partners Fund which includes private Canadian investors, RBC and Thomson Reuters. The fund will focus on companies building technology that works with RIM's popular BlackBerry mobile devices. And it raises the question: Why isn't the large installed base of BlackBerry devices motivation enough for developers? [PEHub]

Apple has settled a class-action suit in Canadian courts over first, second and third-generation iPod batteries that fell well short of claimed battery life. Up to 80,000 Canadians are eligible for CA$45 credits. I'd make a joke about worthless Canadian currency, except that it's now trading near parity with our own worthless currency. [Canada.com]

Canadian celebrity journalist Malcolm Gladwell got in a bit of trouble recently for telling an embellished story about sneaking a funny phrase into the Washington Post. Canadian less-famous journalist Clive Thompson recently received a minuscule amount of press for admitting that he's jealous of Gladwell. This, Clive, is not the healthiest way to work through those feelings: "These tools raise a fascinating, and queasy, new ethical question." [SilverJacket]

Bell Canada, the largest Internet service provider for our neighbors to the north, has admitted to using "deep packet sniffers" [Ed's note: Sounds intriguing, am assigning Melissa to look into these people] to throttle peer-to-peer protocol transfers such as BitTorrent downloads. Executives there obviously hadn't spoken to peers at national broadcaster CBC, which recently started legitimately distributing shows via P2P, as has American network NBC and musicians like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The company also throttled traffic from ISPs that buy bandwidth wholesale from the company. Net neutrality groups are lobbying Canadian officials to regulate Bell Canada into submission. But Minister of Industry Jim Prentice is opposed to any further regulation, and the Conservative Party-led government has been in favor or easing current regulations on telcos. Meanwhile, here in the states, Comcast has cozied up to BitTorrent and the FCC has proven more amenable to arguments in favor of net neutrality.

Remember the Howard Kurtz piece about how the New York Times and the Murdochifying Wall Street Journal have a little war going on, or something? As usual, Kurtz missed/buried the story. The Times refused to comment on bitchy things said by British-import Journal publisher Robert Thomson. But a "Timesman" apparently called up Toronto Life's Spectator blog to give his side. Huh. Maybe he thought his unauthorized comments wouldn't be noticed in a Canadian publication? "Whatever it says on the masthead, Thomson's the editor," Mystery Timesman reports. "He's moved his office next to the news floor." Murdoch will destory journalism!!! There's more off-the-record sniping and gloating, below.

Megan Fox showed her displeasure to an overzealous Canadian customs officer who questioned why would she ruin such 'a kickin bod' with such awful tattoos of that one lady from that one movie. The officer also said that it was a matter of Canadian national security that he'd get Fox's phone number.