International News Desk – At Home: Radio-Canada says farewell to Bye Bye – In Foreign News: Hybrids not green enough to go solo in carpool lanes

International News Desk – At Home: Radio-Canada says farewell to Bye Bye – In Foreign News: Hybrids not green enough to go solo in carpool lanes

At Home: Radio-Canada says farewell to Bye Bye

Comedians are expected to push boundaries, but the satirical show Bye Bye took things over the edge last New Year’s Eve. And now, Radio-Canada has cut the traditional year-end comedy program.

The National Post reports that the French-language public broadcaster insists Bye Bye ?was not cut as a result of the controversy? generated by last year’s show. However, It’s the only program from last year’s lineup that won’t be returning.

One of the controversial skits revolved around the possible assassination of President Barack Obama. It included offensive comments about how the colour of his skin would make an assassination easier.

In other sketches, violence against women was used as comic fodder lampooning Patrick Roy, the former hockey goaltender. Nathalie Simard, a Quebecois singer and child-abuse survivor, was also the target of jokes.

More than 250 complaints flowed into the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) following the broadcast. The show’s host, as well as its producer, held a news conference to apologize. The matter was placed in the hands of the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council, which declared that Radio-Canada had breached Canadian broadcast standards.

Bye Bye first ran from 1968 to 1998, then hit the airwaves again beginning in 2007.

In Foreign News: Hybrids not green enough to go solo in carpool lanes

In California, 85,000 hybrid-car owners have permits that allow their fuel-saving vehicles in carpool lanes. But those permits will expire on January 1, 2011 and many of them won’t be renewed.

As the LA Times reports, the program was the result of a 2004 law that aimed to ?encourage the purchase of advanced-technology vehicles that delivered better fuel economy and produced lower emissions.? Vehicles such as the Honda Insight, Honda Civic hybrid, and the Toyota Prius were eligible for carpool access even if their owners were driving solo. A total of 85,000 yellow stickers were given out for cars with a ?combined city-highway mileage of 45 miles per gallon or better.?

Besides saving time commuting, the carpool-lane exemption gave hybrid owners the benefit of higher resale values on their cars; in some cases, as much as $2,000. That perk will probably disappear if the vehicles no longer qualify.

In some ways, the success of the original program has led to the changes. It worked so well in encouraging hybrid sales that legislators now want to raise the bar. One new bill would limit the program to electric cars and those fuelled by natural gas or other alternatives. Another proposed bill would include hybrids, but only those with a ?city-highway fuel economy of 65 mpg or better.?