D'oh, Canada!

Excerpt from 2/4 edition of Wall St. Journal, proving once again that Canadians make for funny stories...
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Reports that the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis underestimated fourth-quarter economic growth because of a trade-data error by its Canadian counterpart prompted fresh finger-pointing at the U.S.'s northern neighbor, which previously caught flak for such trangressions as allowing mad-cow disease to come south.

The news prompted Argus Research economist Richard Yamarone to e-mail Merrill Lynch's David Rosenberg, the firm's Canadian-born chief North American economist: "First you guys send us bad beef, now bad stats. C'mon. To poison our food supply is one thing. But our economic stats, now that's going a bit too far."

Mr. Rosenberg had a ready response: He blamed the stats screw-up on the National Hockey League lockout: "Everyone north of the border is still seeing purple spots from the withdrawal symptoms."
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