Monday, February 27, 2006

Catching the giant muskey





















Be vewwy, vewwy quiet.
A giant muskey lives just below this hole.
Keep your baseball bat handy.
Did you bring the frozen peas?
Excellent.
I'll place a circle of peas around the hole.
Soon the muskey will come up to take a pea.
Hit him with the baseball bat.
But if you have to take a pee, give me the bat.

Tweedledumb and Tweedlesmartass

President George Bush on port security:
"It sends a terrible signal around the world that it's okay for a company from one country (Great Britain) to manage the ports but not a country that has a good track record from another part of the world (United Arab Emirates)... "

Comedian Bill Maher:
"What happened to everything changed after 9/11?
"What happened to they only have to be right once but we have to be right all the time?
"If this is such a good idea, how would Bush would feel if we said Okay--let's have your Secret Service detail be taken over by the United Arab Emirates?
"If it's okay for all the rest of us, lets have the Arabs protect you ... and just hope that ticking sound is Dick Cheney's pace maker.
"Who's kidding who?"

Mr. Maher for the prosecution

Back for another limited run on HBO Friday nights, the only TV show worth recording.... Bill Maher's Real Time... Bill?

"The President has arranged for al-qaeda to guard our ports.... this is his new plan to fight them here so we don't have to fight them there. Apparently, a complete turn around...

"And Bush is not backing down... he says if this deal doesn't go thru, it's gonna be a slap in the face to the Arabs. Which is ironic, because we have four guys in Guantanamo Bay whose specific job is to slap Arabs in the face...

"A civil war has broken out in Iraq and of course the Bush administration is furious. They said, how dare you start a war in the middle of our war...

"When Bush heard that sectarian militias had killed hundreds of Iraquis, he called for an immediate invasion of Sectaria...

"The news from Iraq is so bad that today, Bush asked Cheney to go hunting again."

Snowshoe shots...

Monday, February 20, 2006

Freedom of the yadda yadda yadda

That no mainstream Canadian newspaper dares publish the controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed is clear evidence publishers value their lobby plate glass windows more than freedom of the press.

Well, duh!

Grow up!

When has this not been the case?

Do you think any of the soul-less corporations that operate the dwindling number of newspapers gives a diddlydamn about anything other than how fast they can make them resemble supermarket flyers?

Replacing the lobby windows would cost thousands of dollars.

It is so bloody obvious nobody would even bring it up at a budget meeting.

You want to what? Sit down. Shut up. You're fired.

Why would you publish ANYTHING that might break the lobby windows?

And they don't.

This is why ...

(a) personalities dominate elections rather than anything anybody actually feels strongly about

(b) entire nations are taken over by religious loonies. No, not Iran: look south, to the Religion Liason Office in the White House.

(c) celebrity sightings, addictions and fartings are passed off as "news"

(d) less editors and staff are required to process the tsunami of publicity handouts that separate the ads, and

(e) things are not just unlikely, but UNABLE to change.

Cartoonists think the cartoons should have been published?

That's today's front page news?

Months after the cartoons first appeared?

Weeks after every publishing drone considered what the corporate tower suits would make of replacing the lobby windows?

What's the old expression about being a day late and a dollar short?

Months late. Decades short. No guts. No glory.

This was hardly the hill to die on.

That hill was bulldozed in the 1990s by bottom-line guys.

Maybe earlier.

By the way--do you remember yesterday's editorial cartoon in any newspaper?

No? Me neither.

You take my point?

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Space snowshoes

"It's all about me!"

How great to see financial beardo Garth Turner providing some much-needed comic relief to the Tories' opening week kick at the can.

MP Garth's barking is apparently designed to make him the easy call of choice when Lib-turned-Tory David Emerson is driven from cabinet kennel, yelping.

As fans of the noisy one-time Toronto Sun money guru and PC finance minister may remember, Turner's predictive powers can be a little iffy.

Hold your bets.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Power babes

"You heard it here first," reads a two-line e-mail from a politics-smart pal, wise beyond cynicism and time.

"Canada's next Liberal leader and Prime Minister ... Carole Taylor."

Taylor is currently BC's Minister of Finance.
The former chair of the CBC and TV journalist has the smarts and communications skills to be an attractive new face in the race. She has connects all thru the party, a power base.

Harper vs. Taylor. West vs. West.

And to hell with Ontario.

With Da Boys--soiled Chretien/Martin cabinet rats and worse--jumping the good ship Grit hourly, it's time for Da Girls to do what Da Boys can't or won't.

Steer.

And could chicks do any worse than Prime Minister Dithers' recent election face plant? Bummer, man.

1. A femme take-over of the party might finally give Ken "Give-Me-Daycare-Or-Give-Me-Death" Dryden his exit papers. And day care in the bargain.

2. Social issues would be front and centre, displacing tired white guys.

3. Scrums would be 42% more watchable.

4. Media weasels would celebrate a new candidate who Wasn't Crazy. At least they could include Ms. Taylor's name in that shrinking paragraph of Other Possible Contenders.

Hey, anything to make Scott Brison go away.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Mars landing in Ontario














Martian landing capsule and alien surface exploration vehicle

Martian doing weird experiment















Where do they come from?
What do they want of us?
Is theirs a waterless planet?
Are they mystified by liquid that is hard and soft at the same time?
Baffled. As always, scientists are baffled.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Town meeting

Shoot the smug off

How terrific to read that US troops are now shooting at speeding cars filled with Canadian diplomats. Way to go, I say. A little less smugness. Clear the decks.

Why are these high-paid suits pounding around Iraq anyway?

What good could smug SOBs from third tier nations conceivably do?

Next time, aim for their Filofaxes, not the car hood.

Yes, my tongue is a little in cheek.

But not much.

Second guessing

"Second guessing is not a strategy."
(Half smirk and eye squint)

To watch President Bush lumber thru a State of the Union speech he could not possibly have written--and indeed, can barely read--is to etch permanent scowl lines in your forehead.

To have the subliminal Cheshire cat TV smile of Dick Cheney over the big guy's shoulder for more than an hour is salt in the wound.

So what a relief to find Mark Morford--the only sane man in the cosmos-- delivering a few words of hope so sadly missing last night. By the time I got to his rap about "paranoid ferrets" I was rolling on the floor.

Morford is the dead-on columnist/libertine for the San Francisco Gate:

The Real State Of The Union
How to address a bitter, war-torn
but still somehow giddy and deeply horny nation

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2006/02/01/notes020106.DTL&nl=fix

Return of the Stern

In case there was some lunkhead who actually believed Sirius Canada would not quickly add Howard Stern to its maple syrup satellite line-up, heart-stopping news this morning...

Sirius Canada says it will add Howard Stern's talk radio show to its 100-channel line-up next Monday (Feb. 6) Stern's show debuted on Sirius in the U.S. on Jan. 9 but was not included on the Canadian network.

Stern's absence made a good excuse why the sales of Canuck satellite radio units over the Christmas season was so lame. We shall see.