Why the Hell Not? It's New Year's Eve, Goddammit!

So we'll add a wandering commenter to the list of blogs. He's a park ranger, and he likes gum...

Happy New Year!!

Oi! Thump! Election Guide: Part the Second.

Ladies and Gentlement, we give you:

The Bloc Quebecois

Ah, the first of the big boys. The pro-separatist mob have a virtual card on their website which portrays, apparently, a drunk violinist voting. Which tells you a lot right there. Anyway, still beating the drum for Quebec independence, this lot are looking to do fairly well in this election, because of Quebecois anger at the Liberals over the Gomery...zzzzzzsnortzzzzzzzhuh? What? Anyway, best they can hope for is Official Opposition, and even that seems unlikely this time. They may get a certain chunk of the balance of power again, though.

If this party were an animal, it would be: This guy, but with a gun (does that count as an animal? We neither know nor care).



Position on environmental concerns? Not really a priority...

Attitude towards our friends to the South? They're pissed over the secret CIA flights, but it's hard to say whether they're more pissed at the Americans or at the Liberals.

Percent likelihood that they'll try to repeal gay marriage? 0%. Socially restrictive legislation will not win you votes in Montreal, plus this is yet another issue which is not high on the BQ list of priorities.

Is Oi! Thump! voting for them? Once again, a moot point. However, even if we were in Quebec, the answer would still be "no." We like Canada.

Next up, it's the Canadian Action Party!

Late to the Dance, Again.

This has already been beaten to death, but just to reiterate: The Alberta separatists are getting a head start on election whining. Usually they wait until afterwards, then write mopy letters about "Eastern Commisars" to the Sun, but this Stamp (aka "Psycho") fellow has been getting his shots in early, full of sound and petulance, signifying nothing. Amusingly, the controversy seems to have actually destroyed Free Dominion, at least for the time being.

It's Time...

...for the latest edition of the Oi! Thump! Election guide! You can find last election's attempt here, here, and here. Anyhoo, mostly to bump up the ol' post count, we're going to give each party it's very own going-over. And, since we're being unbiased and going in alphabetical order (trust us, it's the only unbiased thing about this entire exercise), our first contestant is...

The Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada

Um, I think I know stuff about their platform already. The entrance to their website, oddly, bears a quote by famous Canadian environmentalist Dwight Eisenhower, but beyond that this is what one would expect of a one-issue environmentalist party. One-issue, and, indeed, one-candidate this time around. They are also (probably) the youngest political party running in this election, having been officially on December 10th of this year.

If this party were an animal, it would be: a harp seal. A baby harp seal, at that.



Position on environmental concerns? Read the party name and figure it out.

Attitude towards our friends to the South? Probably not huge Bush supporters, but they spend so much time hatin' on the Liberals that it's hard to tell.

Percent likelihood that they'll try to repeal gay marriage? 0.3%. The .3 is in case they're religiously whacky environmentalists (they do exist, you know), but I'm not seeing much sign of that.

Is Oi! Thump! voting for them? Oi! Thump! does not live in Toronto Centre, so it's kind of moot. However, if they were running a candidate in our area, they'd make the short list at least. We like animals.

Tune in tomorrow, when we "discuss" the Bloc Quebecois.

Funny

The beautiful and talented CathiefromCanada has drawn our attention to this gem:

Airbus pilot maroons drunken passenger on desert island
By Nigel Bunyan
(Filed: 30/12/2005)

A drunken holidaymaker has been dumped on a desert island after launching a foul-mouthed tirade at the crew of a passenger jet.

The unwilling Robinson Crusoe will only be able to leave Porto Santo, a tiny patch of land off the North African coast, if he books a two-and-a-half hour ferry trip to Madeira. He will then have to book a flight to his intended destination, Tenerife, or return to Britain.

Go, pilot!!

World O'Crap is, at this very moment, taking votes for "Wingnut of the Year." So go vote. No Canadians in the final five this year, sorry Joel, but worthy candidates nonetheless!

Nice One!

Canadian Cynic has done an excellent piece one the Intelligent Design "controversy." And, closer to home, this is our 200th post here at Oi! Thump!

RCMP admit failure in not responding to 911 call
Last Updated Thu, 29 Dec 2005 18:36:35 EST
CBC News

RCMP in Alberta admit they made a mistake when they failed to respond to a 911 call from a woman who was later stabbed to death in her home.

Brenda Moreside, 44, was killed in February in High Prairie, about 300 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. Her common-law husband, Stanley Willier, was arrested and has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

Ok, it was an absolutely stunning error in judgement not to respond to the call, and I think at least some heads have got to roll for it. However, it does illustrate, clearly, how the police need to deal with such errors. You acknowledge that you made a mistake, and get down to the hard work of taking concrete steps to make sure it never happens again, which is what the RCMP seems to be doing in this case. You do not, as a random example, stonewall, get huffily defensive, refuse to allow any public input into what you're doing, and hunt for reasons to arrest your critics (To be fair, those were sins of prior police administrations; the new guy hasn't done anything to earn public ire yet).

Half-Full or Half-Empty?

Man in Rome illegally excavated 9,000 ancient objects
Last Updated Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:25:54 EST
CBC Arts

Police in Rome say they've uncovered a massive trove of artifacts at the home of a 74-year-old man, who is accused of plundering the items from archeological sites in Italy.

Well, the good news is they got the artefacts back. The bad news is that there are now 9,000 fewer artefacts in archaeologically secure and useful contexts.

Another Tragic Victim of the Global Warming Myth

Permafrost melting, landscape changes forecast: study
Last Updated Wed, 28 Dec 2005 15:48:21 EST
CBC News

The North could experience collapsing buildings, washed-out roads and fallen trees as surface permafrost melts in the next 100 years, an American researcher warns.

Up to 90 per cent of the area of perennially frozen soil could disappear in the Yukon by 2100, according to Andrew Slater, a member of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado.

Yeesh. All this so-called "Andrew Slater" has got is "scientific evidence," "empirical data," "proof," and such-like. Craig Read says that global warming is junk science, and he hates Muslims, so he must be right.

Groundswell, um, swells...

From Molly's latest column:

This could scarcely be clearer. Either the president of the United States is going to have to understand and admit he has done something very wrong, or he will have to be impeached.

Well, choice #1 ain't gonna happen, not with Petulance Boy running the show. Anyway, wouldn't you feel sorry for Stephen Harper if he won power in Canada only to have the folks to the South shitcan his Lord and Master? Wouldn't that just be awful?

Harperius Minimus

Harper pledges to boost military presence in cities
Last Updated Wed, 28 Dec 2005 13:15:05 EST
CBC News

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was back on the campaign trail this week, promising to beef up military presence in major cities to respond to emergencies.

In other news, Harper announced that he will form a special "Praetorian Guard" unit for Ottawa. When asked why, he answered "Oh, no reason" and smirked.

"A large number of our cities have no military presence," Harper said while campaigning on Vancouver Island Tuesday.

Um, good?

If he's elected Jan. 23, Harper said, territorial battalions made up of 100 regular troops and 400 or more reservists would be stationed in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, the Toronto area and other major metropolitan areas.

"This is a full military presence," he added. "Obviously we would anticipate that its domestic need would be in case of disaster...

Oh come on. We're not (very) stupid over here. I would like to know under exactly what circumstances we would have tanks in the streets. Meteor strike? Escaped circus animals? Labour unrest?

but obviously they would be military forces that could be forward-deployed in the event of more serious military conflict elsewhere.

The Conservative leader said he would boost the military's presence in British Columbia and across Western Canada because the West Coast is vital to national sovereignty.

Dude, the main threat (and believe me it's not much of a threat at all) to Canada's sovereignty in the West is whiny Albertans. Not something that requires active urban military deployment.

Good Article

Interesting. This is written by an American, about American affairs, for a Canadian audience.

A U.S. view: So this is how democracy dies

This is the land of the free and the home of the brave? This is the “democracy” we're killing people to spread around the world?

>by Keith Gottschalk
December 27, 2005

Sorry to interrupt what has been a very entertaining election season in Canada this holiday period, but I regret to inform you that your neighbour's house is on fire.

As reported by Ron Hutcheson of the Knight Ridder new service on Tuesday: A defiant President Bush said he didn't need explicit permission from Congress or the courts to establish a secret domestic surveillance program to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists.

“We've got to be fast on our feet, quick to detect and prevent,” said Bush. “Do I have the legal authority to do so? The answer is, absolutely.”

What this means, I'm afraid, is that a dictatorship is being born on your southern border.

Nothing much to say about this. Go read it; it's good, if depressing. Or rather, read it, print it out, and the next time you encounter someone wringing their hands because they've mistaken Canadian dislike of George W. Bush for anti-Americanism, roll it up and paddle them with it until they stop. It's the only way they'll learn.

Lame Moments in Sports #14

A few weeks ago, we here at Oi! Thump! took some time out from our usual snarking to pick on Skip Bayless of ESPN for generally being a tool. Boy do we feel crappy about that now, especially after encountering this guy. Let's take a look at the sordid underbelly of fundamentalist Christian sports reporting:

Blind to Their Own Depravity
By Brad Locke
November 17, 2003

(AgapePress) - Homosexual activists have for years tried to convince us that their behavior is normal, that two men or two women can share just as deep a love as a man and woman, and that they aren’t promiscuous perverts at heart.

Funny how all it takes to unveil those lies is a single sports column.

Um, wha...?

Not this column. No, rather one written by Sports Illustrated’s esteemed Rick Reilly. His piece in SI’s Nov. 10 issue, titled “Queer Eye for the Sports Guy,” chronicles his efforts to make his column “gay enough for Nathan Lane to read.” It’s meant as a humorous bit, and there are a few mildly amusing zingers (most, however, are just disturbing).

Oh, to know which bits Brad found "disturbing." Anyhoo, the article goes on to mention how, according to Reilly's piece (which I tried to find a link for, but failed), gays and lesbians want to see pictures of underdressed members of their respective genders. This is espectially shocking, given that the venerable Sports Illustrated would never ever stoop to such lewd and disgraceful pandering.

But wait! Brad is aware that he is coming across as a hypocritical, homophobic twit, and he confronts the issue head-on:

Am I the only one seeing a correlation here to men who gawk over Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue? In both instances, there is nothing deeper than lust involved. At least with the skin mag, the models are willing participants and know why they’re being photographed. As for Carr and McCaffrey and Roddick, how do you think they would feel if they knew a homosexual was leering at them? These men, I would bet, do not want to be homosexual icons. But the homosexual’s appetite is apparently insatiable. And remember, you can’t spell homosexuality without mo sex (forgive my Ebonics).

And how he's a hypocritical, homophobic, racist twit!! Well done Brad (even though his main argument in this paragraph seems to be that homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to look at pictures). Now, that column was from awhile ago; let's see what Brad's been up to more recently:

Sexing Up Sports
By Brad Locke
August 20, 2004

(AgapePress) - As the media have obsessively reminded us, the original Olympians competed in the nude. Judging by recent trends, I'd say modern-day athletes are trying to turn back the clock a few hundred years.

No, turning back the clock is what fundie morons are trying to do.

I sometimes naïvely think that sports is a respite from the sex culture that bombards me daily. I know better, of course. After watching a few days of the Olympics -- where amateurism and a certain amount of innocence once reigned -- I'm reminded that sport is using sex to sell itself. American swimmer Amanda Beard, once known as the precocious teddy-bear toting teen of the 1996 Games, is now a certified sex symbol -- by choice. She's modeled for such soft-porn magazines as Maxim and FHM, and during a profile by NBC the other night, she pranced about and posed in a skimpy bikini. (This was a portion of the programming I was taping for my 7-year-old daughter, by the way. Have to be handy with the remote when she watches it. Thanks, Amanda!)

Yeah, 'cause the worst thing that could happen to your 7-year-old daughter is that she find out what a healthy athletic female body looks like. This guy could tell you that! Oh, and let us note how Brad blames Amanda Beard for the fact that he actually has to watch television with his daughter, instead of simply popping a tape in the VCR and wandering off. Nice parenting, asswipe!

We now arrive the "research" portion of this article:

The media is what ultimately drives this, or at least keeps up the momentum. ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com find any excuse to feature scantily clad women, athletes or otherwise. CBSSportsline has a "Sexiest Athlete Rating" for Olympians. Sports Illustrated, in its "Sports Beat" section, usually runs a picture of some cleavage-baring bombshell, no matter how remote her connection to the accompanying pseudo-sports story. A few years ago, Serena and Venus Williams posed for Sports Illustrated wearing nothing but the same American flag. How proud George Washington would be.

OK, but all that stuff is away from the arena, where we know sex won't invade the actual competition. Well, except for women's volleyball, where the players' bikinis are at least three sizes too small. I find it ironic that these women have taken offense at the cheerleaders who perform during breaks in Athens. They're wearing more than the volleyball players!

Oh, and women's tennis, where you'll have no problem finding pictures of certain players (Sharapova, Williams, et al.) reaching up their skirt to retrieve a tennis ball, revealing smooth, toned upper thighs. And speaking of Williams, her catsuits make Las Vegas prostitutes look like Mennonites. And as one reader recently pointed out, there is no shortage of pictures or video taken from the floor looking up at gymnasts and other athletes as they splay their legs in athletic maneuvering.

Brad, you and your readers are flat-out creepy... And to think that a year or so before this you were accusing gays of leering obsessively at athletes.

But Brad's still at it, and here he is from within the last month or two:

Getting the Straight Story
By Brad Locke
November 18, 2005

(AgapePress) - We sports writers can appear to be an insensitive lot. When a running back starts showing physical wear as he grows older, we write things like, "He's getting too old to beat those quick linebackers to the corner." When a coach can't make his team a winner, we write things like, "He hasn't been able to make the transition from assistant to head coach." When a high school kid throws to the wrong base, we write things like, "Smith's mental lapse allowed Jones to score from first base."

I once wrote something like that last one. Kid's mom didn't like it. I wrote nothing that wasn't true -- the kid had a mental lapse that cost his team. I did nothing wrong. I was simply reporting what I saw.

Ah, fundamentalist Christian compassion at work! "I'm going to slam your child for a mistake made in a high-school baseball game, and if you object I'll get all huffily defensive." What a loathesome human being. Although it is hilarious that Brad's big moment in cutting-edge sports journalism came while reporting on high-school baseball.

Christmas shopping beckons...

This will probably be it until after Christmas, when we'll be back to ranting. In the meantime, Happy Holidays Everyone!

O'Reilly wants cab drivers shot dead

And he actually ordered us to post that headline. We hear and obey, Oh Master of the Genital Falafel!! And, yeah, $300 to go to the airport is probably a little excessive, but so's advocating murder. I mean, it's not like the cabbie wished O'Reilly's daughter "Happy Holidays" or something. That would be really serious.

In other O'Reilly related news, the good people at Agitprop are trying to get onto the fucktard's hate list, which is a worthy endeavour if ever we saw one. And you can help! Pop on over and give the Agitprop folks a hand.

Somebody's Grumpy...

...about the rape of the ANWR being blocked, again, at least for now:

Days of Infamy

And you know, you just know, that this is gonna be good.

I’m an environmentalist – really – maybe not by your terms, but certainly by mine.

By my terms I'm an astronaut.

I am also a United States cheerleader and I abhor the words and actions of people such as former President Bill Clinton who publicly disparage the United States and its government to the rest of the world. I support the Nature Conservancy, my environmentalist clients, and the Michigan organizations that preserve our environment.

'Cause only the Michigan environment is worth protecting. Fuck you, Alaskans!

[snippage]

Now today, the Senate has blocked oil drilling in ANWR, thus determining for our future and for the future of our children that we will be eternally dependent on energy from other nations. And, energy from other nations determines the fate of the United States. As long as we have to have something that the rest of the world can barter to us, we leave our country open to the control of other nations. Limited drilling that is already occurring in Alaska has demonstrated no adverse affects on animals or the environment.

Try alternative energy sources, dumbass. That way, not only will your future and the future of your children not be dependent on other nations, but you and your children will not die coughing up lumps of black phlegm, vainly trying to suck one more breath through the scar tissue that used to be your and your children's lungs. Think of it as a wee bonus.


Why does this horrible woman from Michigan want us dead?"

10 Yards for Piling On!

They're beating on Tucker over at The Woodshed as well! Poor little guy, he's gonna end up with a complex...

Look Quick III

Tigers in India could be wiped out
New Delhi | December 19, 2005 12:01:13 AM IST

A survey of India's tiger population, also known as Royal Bengal tigers, could be as low as 1,500 and they could be wiped out in 10 years.

God fucking dammit. I've always, since I was a wee tot, been somewhat worried that the last tiger would die in my lifetime, but it's still depressing to see the news that it's relatively imminent, at least as far as the bengal tiger is concerned.

Oh No! Whatever Shall We Do?

So Tucker Carlson, single-handedly responsible for the unpopularity of bowties, and still apparently not recovered from his severe beat-down at the hands of Jon Stewart, has inveighed against us poor meek Canadians:

U.S. pundits unleash anti-Canada rhetoric
CTV.ca News Staff

Prime Minister Paul Martin may have been chastised for his blunt talk on U.S. relations, but his comments have sparked a spate of anti-Canada rhetoric south of the border.

Last week, MSNBC host Tucker Carlson told his audience Canada "is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving."

"He's nice, but you don't take him seriously."

The problem, of course, is that we are not, in fact, behaving like one's retarded cousin one sees at Thanksgiving, and that Carlson really wants us to start. Carlson, like most wingnuts, thinks that demented obsequiousness is the same as friendship.

"Anybody with any ambition at all, or intelligence, has left Canada and is now living in New York," he told his audience, insisting it was pointless to tell Canada not to criticize the United States.

Everything Carlson says is pointless, but yes, it is particularly pointless to tell people living with free speech not to exercise it. As a matter of fact, I think I'll indulge in a little criticizin' right now. "The U.S. is run by a moron!" Ooh, this is fun.

"It only eggs them on. Canada is essentially a stalker, stalking the United States, right? Canada has little pictures of us in its bedroom, right?"

Well, these guys certainly do, and Tucker, you really don't wanna know what they do with your picture. Or maybe you do.

"It's unrequited love between Canada and the United States. We, meanwhile, don't even know Canada's name. We pay no attention at all," he said.

Which is why Tucker's been going on for several paragraphs about how evil we are. Who's supposed to be the stalker here?

"So have the Canadians gotten a little too big for their britches?" Fox News host Neil Cavuto asked his viewers last week. "Could our neighbours to the north soon be our enemies?"

Well, we already are Neil Cavuto's enemies, as is everybody possessed of decency, intelligence, good personal hygiene, a healthy sex life, etc. However, Neil, we've really got no problem with most of your countrymen, so you're kind of off on your own here.

Even the press secretary to former Republican senator Bob Dole weighed in, charging in a Washington Times commentary that Canada is a haven for terrorists.

Not Bob Dole's press secretary!!! NOOOOOOOOOOooooOOOOOOOOOOO....OOOOOOOoooOOOOOOO!! Now we're fucked.

"Can Canada really be considered our friend anymore?" he wrote. "What other question can be asked when the Canadian government not only willingly allows Islamic terrorists into their country but does nothing to stop them from entering our nation?"

After reading that, I suddenly understood much better why Bush invaded Iraq, as opposed to a country that actually had something to do with 9/11. And that's all the time we're going to waste on this today!

Look Quick, Redux

Is Global Warming Killing the Polar Bears?
By JIM CARLTON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 14, 2005; Page B1

It may be the latest evidence of global warming: Polar bears are drowning.

Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The bears spend most of their time hunting and raising their young on ice floes.

Oh, but it couldn't possibly be global warming; after all, Craig assures us that the entire thing is "baloney," and if you can't believe a self-loathing racist, who can you believe?

Asked and Answered

Why can't I get arrested?
Written by Ann Coulter
Thursday, December 15, 2005

I’m getting a little insulted that no Democratic prosecutor has indicted me. Liberals bring trumped-up criminal charges against all the most dangerous conservatives. Why not me?

Because you're about as dangerous to liberalism as saying "Happy Holidays" is to Christmas.

Old Wounds Reopened...

Back in the waning years of the last century, an Elite Oi! Thump! Speech Annotation Team:



was sent out to annotate a speech by a then-unknown Stephen Harper, a speech delivered to the Council for National Policy. Which was pretty good work, if you ask me, since Oi! Thump! didn't begin until 2004. Nevertheless, contact was lost during the course of the mission, and the team was never heard from again. However, an Elite Oi! Thump! Speech Annotation Team Recovery Team:



managed to find their notes on Harper's speech. They tell a tragic tale, and when the speech resurfaced in the context of the current election campaign, I have to confess the Oi! Thump! staff hit the bottle pretty hard. Anyway, here is Harper's speech, with the notes of the doomed annotation team appended. Read it at your peril.

Text of Stephen Harper's speech to the Council for National Policy, June 1997

Ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by giving you a big welcome to Canada. Let's start up with a compliment. You're here from the second greatest nation on earth. But seriously, your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world.

Oh God, people. He's not even a paragraph into it, and already he has revealed himself to be the bitch, in the correctional services sense of the term, of a powerful group of American conservatives. Pray that this imbecile never decides to run for PM.

Now, having given you a compliment, let me also give you an insult. I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it's legendary that if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.

But in any case, my speech will make that assumption. I'll talk fairly basic stuff. If it seems pedestrian to some of you who do know a lot about Canada, I apologize.

At this point Smidgins formally requested permission to vomit. Permission was granted.

I'm going to look at three things. First of all, just some basic facts about Canada that are relevant to my talk, facts about the country and its political system, its civics. Second, I want to take a look at the party system that's developed in Canada from a conventional left/right, or liberal/conservative perspective. The third thing I'm going to do is look at the political system again, because it can't be looked at in this country simply from the conventional perspective.

What he means here is that he is going to look at one thing, three times. And not one of those three examinations will be based in reality. Just see if we're wrong.

First, facts about Canada. Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.

Alright, so he thinks Canada's in Europe, and he's happy that people don't have jobs. This is going to be a tough one people. We're going on half rations, as of now.

That is beginning to change. There have been some significant changes in our fiscal policies and our social welfare policies in the last three or four years. But nevertheless, they're still very generous compared to your country.

Now he thinks generosity sucks. Christmas around the Harper farmstead must be a real blast...

Let me just make a comment on language, which is so important in this country. I want to disabuse you of misimpressions you may have. If you've read any of the official propagandas, you've come over the border and entered a bilingual country. In this particular city, Montreal, you may well get that impression. But this city is extremely atypical of this country.

While it is a French-speaking city – largely – it has an enormous English-speaking minority and a large number of what are called ethnics: they who are largely immigrant communities, but who politically and culturally tend to identify with the English community.

I am beginning to worry about Smidgins; he just sits in the corner, shaking and whimpering. Browning-Hawkins, as well, is looking peaky. And, I have a feeling this isn't going to get any better any time soon...

This is unusual, because the rest of the province of Quebec is, by and large, almost entirely French-speaking. The English minority present here in Montreal is quite exceptional.

Furthermore, the fact that this province is largely French-speaking, except for Montreal, is quite exceptional with regard to the rest of the country. Outside of Quebec, the total population of francophones, depending on how you measure it, is only three to five per cent of the population. The rest of Canada is English speaking.

Except for those who speak Cree, or Gwich'in, or Chipewayan, or Chinese, or Vietnamese, or Korean, or Italian, or Arabic, or Bantu, or Punjabi, etc, and who gives a fuck about those groups anyway? Not this guy. Wait, did I actually write "fuck"? I did, to my shame. I pray that Oi! Thump! never descends into the hideous depths of such lewdness.

But the important point is that Canada is not a bilingual country. It is a country with two languages. And there is a big difference.

Um, no there isn't? One might as well say that this Mr. Harper is not a sychophantic fat-head, but rather a fat-headed sycophant. As you can see, there is not difference at all.

As you may know, historically and especially presently, there's been a lot of political tension between these two major language groups, and between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

Let me take a moment for a humorous story. Now, I tell this with some trepidation, knowing that this is a largely Christian organization.

Is he going to tell a dirty joke? This oughta be good...

The National Citizens Coalition, by the way, is not. We're on the sort of libertarian side of the conservative spectrum. So I tell this joke with a little bit of trepidation. But nevertheless, this joke works with Canadian audiences of any kind, anywhere in Canada, both official languages, any kind of audience.

Awright, so you're afraid to tell the goddamn joke already. Just fucking tell it already!! I begin to think that we are doomed.

It's about a constitutional lawyer who dies and goes to heaven. There, he meets God and gets his questions answered about life. One of his questions is, "God, will this problem between Quebec and the rest of Canada ever be resolved?" And God thinks very deeply about this, as God is wont to do. God replies, "Yes, but not in my lifetime."

That was it?? That was it?!?!?!??? That was the big laugh that you were so afraid to deliver to this august audience. I told that fucking joke better when I was in Grade 3!!!! This is all going horribly wrong; Smidgins has eaten his gun (and I mean that quite literally), Brown-Hawkins is catatonic with ennui, and our native guide is performing some sort of tribal pre-death ritual. Pray for us...

I'm glad to see you weren't offended by that. I've had the odd religious person who's been offended. I always tell them, "Don't be offended. The joke can't be taken seriously theologically. It is, after all, about a lawyer who goes to heaven."

Oh for fuck's sake, Harper, put your pants back on. They're going to roger you after the speech, not during it.

In any case. My apologies to Eugene Meyer of the Federalist Society.

What?

Second, the civics, Canada's civics.

On the surface, you can make a comparison between our political system and yours. We have an executive, we have two legislative houses, and we have a Supreme Court.

However, our executive is the Queen, who doesn't live here. Her representative is the Governor General, who is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister.

Yes, the Queen lives in big house in a place called England! Can you say "England," boys and girls? I thought you could. I am now the last one left. Miss Maperly has gone to try to find help, but I am not optimistic.

Of our two legislative houses, the Senate, our upper house, is appointed, also by the Prime Minister, where he puts buddies, fundraisers and the like. So the Senate also is not very important in our political system.

And we have a Supreme Court, like yours, which, since we put a charter of rights in our constitution in 1982, is becoming increasingly arbitrary and important. It is also appointed by the Prime Minister. Unlike your Supreme Court, we have no ratification process.

Yeah, because the problem of a country's leader stacking the Supreme Court with political fellow-travellers could never, ever, occur in the United States. It's unpossible!

So if you sort of remove three of the four elements, what you see is a system of checks and balances which quickly becomes a system that's described as unpaid checks and political imbalances.

What we have is the House of Commons. The House of Commons, the bastion of the Prime Minister's power, the body that selects the Prime Minister, is an elected body. I really emphasize this to you as an American group: It's not like your House of Representatives. Don't make that comparison.

Try and stop me Harper, I dare you! "The Canadian House of Commons is like the U.S. House of Representatives." See, you are powerless!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH-HAHA-ha. Tell my wife I love her.

What the House of Commons is really like is the United States electoral college. Imagine if the electoral college which selects your president once every four years were to continue sitting in Washington for the next four years. And imagine its having the same vote on every issue. That is how our political system operates.

Now he's just making shit up. No sign of help arriving.

In our election last Monday, the Liberal party won a majority of seats. The four opposition parties divided up the rest, with some very, very rough parity.

But the important thing to know is that this is how it will be until the Prime Minister calls the next election. The same majority vote on every issue. So if you ask me, "What's the vote going to be on gun control?" or on the budget, we know already.

Ph'nglui mglw 'nahf Cthulu r'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!! Ph'nglui mglw 'nahf Cthulu r'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!!

If any member of these political parties votes differently from his party on a particular issue, well, that will be national headline news. It's really hard to believe. If any one member votes differently, it will be national headline news. I voted differently at least once from my party, and it was national headline news. It's a very different system.

National headline news...national headline news...national headline news... This speech would fail as a first-year poli sci paper. Um, I mean Ph'nglui mglw 'nahf Cthulu r'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Our party system consists today of five parties. There was a remark made yesterday at your youth conference about the fact that parties come and go in Canada every year. This is rather deceptive. I've written considerably on this subject.

Ok, you get a gold star for having written considerably. Well done. Moving along...

We had a two-party system from the founding of our country, in 1867. That two-party system began to break up in the period from 1911 to 1935. Ever since then, five political elements have come and gone. We've always had at least three parties. But even when parties come back, they're not really new. They're just an older party re-appearing under a different name and different circumstances.

Strength...failing... Must...try...to last...one...more...paragraph. So cold...

Let me take a conventional look at these five parties. I'll describe them in terms that fit your own party system, the left/right kind of terms.

Let's take the New Democratic Party, the NDP, which won 21 seats. The NDP could be described as basically a party of liberal Democrats, but it's actually worse than that, I have to say. And forgive me jesting again, but the NDP is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men.

That's it, I'm outta here.

The rest of the team's report is, unfortunately, completely indecipherable. It appears that Mr. Harper's attempts to liken Canadian political parties to U.S. equivalents caused some sort of "stupidity vortex" that messily devoured the mission's last survivor. Phrases like "So you see the syndrome we're in" are believed to have been a major cause of this, but the evidence is not conclusive. Anyway, there you have it: the tragic tail of an annotation mission gone horribly wrong. We remember our fallen heroes, and pray for the souls of next group of people who have to listen to a Stephen Harper speech.

Kewl!

Hmm, busy day. Well, there's been action in the wake of the U.S. ambassador's threat to ground us (or was it to send us to bed without supper?) if we didn't play along with He-Who-Cannot-Safely-Eat-A-Pretzel's plans with suitable humility. From the CBC:

Martin rejects U.S. ambassador's rebuke
Last Updated Tue, 13 Dec 2005 20:37:52 EST
CBC News

Liberal Leader Paul Martin denied Tuesday he was making the U.S. a target in the federal election campaign after being rebuked by the U.S. ambassador to Canada for continually criticizing his southern neighbour.

Martin rejected criticisms by Ambassador David Wilkins, who suggested the Liberal leader had attacked some U.S. policies to score political points.


David Wilkins, U.S. ambassador to Canada at a Canadian Club luncheon speech in Ottawa, Tuesday, Dec 13. "I have not made the United States or any country a target in the campaign," Martin told reporters while campaigning in Surrey, B.C., for the Jan. 23 election.

Ok, that's all well and good, but the most interesting part comes at the end of the article:

Martin took the opportunity to slam Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, saying he would always give in to Washington.

"If the thesis of Mr. Harper is that the only way to have good relations with the United States is to concede everything to the United States, then I do not accept that at all.

"We do expect our partners to honour our agreements and I will defend Canada – period."

What the Hell? That sounded suspiciously like the PM actually standing up for Canada! And of course Harper would always give in to Washington, he's fucking trying to defend himself in the press down there. These are not the actions of somebody who gives a fuck what Canadians think. Anyway, Paul, good on you, but do you think you could try to keep that sort of thing going when we're not trundling through an election campaign? It would be fun if you did!

Anyway, the useless twerp who runs Can I Be An American Now, Please? and the drooling morons who follow him around were predictably all a-twitter about this, whining about how awfully oppressed they (and the U.S. ambassador) are:

U.S. Ambassador can also talk, no?
Or is that privilege restricted to liberals and the left generally, and only against conservative Republican administrations in the U.S.?

Yes, of course the U.S. ambassador can talk, you simpleton. And when he gets patronizing and stupid, people (for example the Prime Minister) can tell him so. It's called "freedom of speech," shiteyes, and it's your worst fucking enemy.

Look Quick

Found this story over here.

New legal bid to save spotted owl
Last updated Dec 6 2005 01:13 PM PST
CBC News

A coalition of B.C. environmental groups has launched legal action in a bid to get the federal government to step in and save the northern spotted owl from logging.

Ten years ago, there were 100 breeding pairs in southwestern B.C. Now there are just 23 owls left. And the environmentalists warn that if the logging isn't stopped, the birds will be extinct by 2010.

Of course, we must lay the blame for this at the feet of multinational timber concerns, globalization run amok, and so on, mustn't we? Actually:

The B.C. government, through its Timber Sales Program, is the largest logger in owl habitat.

And folks, that's what happens when you let right-wing governments do want they want: they shit the bed, absolutely 100% of the time (yes, I know the B.C. government is nominally the Liberals, but they're B.C.'s right-wing alternative to the NDP, under whom things would not have got to this stage). Anyway, I'm very sorry to have distracted all those folks out doing the vital work of protecting Christmas trees from atheists, but I felt this needed to be pointed out.

I Aten't Dead, with apologies to Granny Weatherwax and the many, many, people who have already used that line to introduce a return to regular blogging.

Anyway, what'd we miss?

Well, Paul Martin put the Shrub administration into a snit by daring, daring, to criticize them on climate change. And with what fiery, over-the-top, rhetoric did he do this thing? Well, he said this:

"To the reticent nations, including the United States, I'd say this: there is such a thing as a global conscience, and now is the time to listen to it. Now is the time to join with others in our global community."

Oooooh, burn, baby. Yeesh. And, this just in: Our latest Paul Cellucci clone has expressed patronizing outrage over the incident, which was to be expected. I was actually worried a little bit about David Wilkins; he was being a little too, you know, ambassadorial. Good to see that that's all cleared up now. Anyway, the usual suspects knuckled under right away, of course.

Furthermore, the war on Christmas opened a Northern front,and the Forces of Stupidity recruited an actual living dinosaur to represent them, However, this whole ridiculous situation has turned out the best, without a doubt the best, piece of rantage to come along in the last month or so (Still not as good as Molly's take on Texas manhood, thought). Anyway, go, read, enjoy.

And that's about all for now.

Just put the finishing touches on the last term paper of the semester, so there may be a chance to do actual blogging in the next couple of days (it takes awhile to power up the Oi! Thump! snarkomatic, dontcha know).

Won't that be nice, kids!!!

Whoops!

Ok, this actually happened a little over a week ago, but it's still damn funny (first spotted through the Oi! Thump! crystal ball here):

Hatch refers to Iraq as Vietnam

WASHINGTON - Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, flubbed Monday and referred to Iraq as Vietnam while commenting on Fox News against an immediate troop withdrawal.
"The Democratic Party seems to be taken over by the Michael Moore contingent in their attitude toward Vietnam, and they continually call for a withdrawal of troops at a time when we haven't finished the job," Hatch said on the network's morning show. Hatch's spokesman acknowledged the error, which was first reported on the American Prospect Web log.

BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!! Ahhh.... Well done, Orrin.

Spokesman Peter Carr said the Utah senator had been reading a magazine article that referred to analogies between the Iraq and Vietnam wars and misstated what he meant to say.

The new number 1 on the list of People Whose Jobs I Don't Envy: Peter Carr!!!! "Um yeah, my boss tends to get confused by the sight of words, and he's a little unclear re: what decade and century we're living in, and his picture is now in the dictionary next to the entry for "Freudian Slip", and, um, what was the question again?"



Main Entry: Freudian slip
Function: noun
: a slip of the tongue that is motivated by and reveals some unconscious aspect of the mind

Actually, it must be said that Orrin at least gets on the bad side of conservatives once in awhile, even if the less we say about his music career, the better...

They Think It's All Over... It Is Now...

Just a quick post to revel in the fact that I just walked of what will be, if all goes according to plan, the very last class I ever take as a student in my life. It was a Greek class, which is appropriate since my first ever class so many years ago was also Greek. Of course, there's still the wee matter of several years of research to do, but nonetheless... Bonus points if you can identify the post title.

Depressing Fact of the Day

...but an interesting article, overall:

...five Indian subcontinent languages were irretrievably wiped out during the tsunami that obliterated islands in the Bay of Bengal earlier this year.

Think about it for a second or two; five actual languages gone in pretty much the blink of an eye. We're used to thinking about the death of languages as sort of a long, drawn-out, process, giving everybody lots of time to put together grammars, collect archives, and so on, but not in this case. It's kind of an eerie thought, actually.

Ok, some of the pictures were a bit wide, but that's all been sorted out, and you see before you the new, improved, Oi! Thump!. And now, I really have to go and write this term paper. Maybe. Soon. After a coffee. Talk to y'all next week.

Ok, experiencing minor technical difficulties, should be writing term papers... Stay with us for a mo'.

Gonna try something out. Apologies if Oi! Thump! explodes and is never heard from again. Stand by...

Save Us! Oh Gods Above, Save Us!!

Ok, I should be working on my term papers right now, but this was too good to pass up. Apparently, there's somebody new movin' up the ol' food chain (condolences to the poor dog...).


"Raaaaaaahh!! TREMBLE, PUNY ONES!!!!!"


"What are you gaping at, slave? LOWER YOUR EYES!!!"


The last thing many a brave human warrior will ever see...


"I...AM....YOUR...GOD!!!!!!"

In the months and years to come, as we bow in homage and give up our first-born children to our cruel squirrel overlords, just remember that you read it on Oi! Thump! first.

Due to term papers etc., blogging will be sparse for the next few days. Forgiveness craved, and so on.