A Modest Proposal

How many Canadians had their ever-waning faith in the electoral process diminished even further following the most recent federal election, I wonder? After over a decade of the Liberal Party (called by some the Grits since voting for them is like chewing on sand) being the big boys in the playground, the Conservatives (AKA the Torys because they’ll tell you any (s)tory to win your vote) came along and pushed them off the swing so they could form a minority government. About time too, some thought. It’s all good.

Then the usual political shenanigans began. The new governmentette had not even been sworn in to office yet when one David Emerson, who had run as and been elected as a member of the Liberal party, ‘crossed the floor’ and joined up with the winning Conservative party. The story around town is that he had been offered a cabinet post and a big jar of candy to do what he did and as much as I just hate to start or spread rumours the fact is that a lot of people thought that Dave’s move had been in very poor taste.

Since those fateful days a lot of dirty water has passed dispiritedly under the bridge. A group from Dave Emerson’s riding tried to get an unelect David Emerson campaign going and a lot of letters were written to the local papers informing the general public at large about Dave’s lack of morals and his goofiness. Big Dave his own bad self finally weighed in on the situation and informed any and all who could be bothered to listen that he was now totally disillusioned with politics and would probably never run for political office again (this statement was voted the best use of irony in Canadian political history which is quite an honour when you think about it.) This may have been a funny thing for a politician to say, but on the other hand old Dave is a funny kind of guy.

So here we stand. Turmoil, grief, disillusioned politicians and big jars of candy littering the landscape. It’s no wonder that the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote is dropping. To quote my good friends in DOA , Something Better Change.

Currently we Canadians in a federal election vote for the politician of our choice who then goes way, way back east to Ottawa where they spend the next four or five years sucking up to the party leader and doing what they’re told while ignoring what the folks back home have to say so they don’t get banished to the back benches. My proposal is this: Federally we should have to choose two names, one would be the Prime Minister and the other would be our representative in the nation’s capital. This second person who would be our representative would have no party affiliation so that you would vote for the person you like best. The person who wins would head off to Ottawa and then they could choose what party they would like to belong to. If it’s the same as the Prime Minister, that’s fine. If it’s not the same party as the Prime Minister, that’s fine too.

Pros? The destiny of the politicians is no longer in the hands of the party leader but now in the hands of the voters where it belongs. The party leader had best listen to the members of Parliament, and the members who choose to belong to his (or her) party or that member could just stop supporting the leader. I admit that things might be a little rough at the beginning but I think they’ll work out in the long run.

Cons? The big party bosses will hate it. Good enough for me.

A big shout out to my pal Johnny Swift for not minding that I borrowed the title ‘A Modest Proposal’ off him. You da bomb, John.

Anyway… Humouroceros

The Hunter's Chant

Hoo bah roo bah slinky dink
Barada rabba hinky sink
These are the sounds of the male mink
When you remove his pelt

Too-billy too-billy sloopy bit
Harada hurada toodlie fit
Is what is said by a rabbit
When you remove his foot

Palaver palaver snooby snooze
Wobbily tobbily hoobilly ooze
Is what you’ll hear from a young moose
That you’ve begun to gut

Hibilly hibilly poo de ha
Umpiry lumpity saw de saw
Are sounds you will hear form a zebra
When you cut off his tail

Hoo bah roo bah slinky dink
Barada rabba hinky sink
These are the sounds of the male mink
When you remove his pelt

A Letter To Dave 2

Dave; I’ve been looking into this entire cancellation thing regarding Enterprise and frankly old boy, this situation is about as ugly as it possibly could be. At first glance it appeared to be just another example of the usual anti-science-fiction bias in the television industry. While I was doing my usual research on the Internet I came across some info that indicates that the prime authorisation for the cancellation originated in the highest levels of the corridors of power in the United States. Of course I’m not speaking of the White House (that’s laughable) but of the true power in the United States; the cigarette lobby.

It’s a well-known "episode" (so to speak) in Star Trek lore, which is worth repeating here. During the second season of the Original Series Desilu Studios was approached by representatives of the Big Seven in the cigarette industry who wanted to be advertised on the show. Their idea was to have Mister Spock smoking “space cigarettes” (this is a true fact and was documented in the first book ever written about Star Trek called The Making Of Star Trek by Stephen Whitfield). Gene Roddenberry said ‘no way’ and the stage was set. The initial reaction from the butt-boys was slack-jawed rage. Nobody ever refused them, as a quick look at 1960’s television will show since back then everybody on television smoked, even the kids! The butt-boys first thought was to immediately cancel Star Trek, but the ratings (such as they were calculated back then) were too good and so Desilu refused to play ball (Desilu was owned by Lucille Ball and nobody told that chick what to do).

However nobody has ever accused the cigarette industry of having morals or anything so they figured some way to fake the ratings and due to the NBC television networks total inability to understand what they had hold of, a year later Star Trek was cancelled. The cigarette industry, which collectively has the memory of an elephant and the personal hygiene of a diarrhoeic gorilla, rejoiced. What they saw as an essentially anti-smoking show was out of the way and they could now turn their attention to other things like hooking an entire new generation on their carcinogenic product (enter Joe Camel.)

In one way this was a good thing for Trekies everywhere because it meant that the butt-boys attention was taken off the ever-growing popularity of Star Trek which lead (eventually) to the Star Trek movies, then Next Generation, DS9, Voyager and even more movies, and in all that filmed action there was not even one scene of some poor Starfleet guy sitting down for a relaxing smoke after a tough day fighting Klingons or Romulans or something. Actually, there were a couple of notable exceptions: in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (1982) there is a ‘No Smoking’ sign on the bridge of the Enterprise. In the Next Generation episode Deja Q (Production No. 161, Feb. 5, 1990) Picard and Riker each have cigars in their mouths at the end of the show. There was also a lot of smoking in the DS9 episode Little Green Men (Production No. 480, Nov. 13, 1995) but that episode took place in Earth’s past when everybody smoked, so it doesn’t count (there are a few time travel episodes that also fit into this description). At any rate, the cigarette companies, when they finally caught on, were not pleased. Not pleased at all.

Then a brand new edition of Star Trek came out called Enterprise and that was the straw that broke that camel’s back (so to speak)(Camels being a brand of cigarette)(get it?) It was time to grab the bull by the unit and this bulls name was Enterprise. Thus began a campaign of threat and intimidation that would have done many Christian Fundamentalist organisations or even the NRA proud. In fact this campaign would have been immediately successful had it been aimed at some poor TV news anchor, or perhaps at some “reality TV” host, but as it was it merely looked silly. Imagine trying to intimidate crack members of Starfleet such at the members of the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise. Not friggin’ likely. For four long years threats bounced off the crew like new ideas off the Taliban until it became obvious to even a bunch of world class maroons such as cigarette company executives tend to be that these tactics weren’t getting them anywhere. Time to shift target.

Sights were set on the bulging behind of the President, CEO and big poop of the TV network that owned Enterprise, UPN. This was the five time winner of the ‘Biggest Dope In The Universe’ contest, one Mister Danforth Quayle, a chicken-hawk with the mental agility of a flattened dust bunny and the proud whipping-boy of a rich wife. The butt company threat-masters pointed out to Danforth that his network would pull in lots of more dollarses if they came up with another reality TV show or two (one based on the movie ‘Supersize Me’ is expected to do quite well) and got rid of that Star Trek thing. Danforth “thought” about it and decided in his own muddled way that your average United Station doesn’t want television that might challenge he or she to think. Rather they want to watch a show about people eating too much fast food then puffing up like mushrooms and popping like frogs under a Toyota. To be honest, for all I know he might be right. I’ve been wrong about this stuff before.

Like I said buddy, it’s an ugly situation and the only slight bit of brightness I can see at the end of this tunnel is that Enterprise will at least be available on DVD and that’s where we stand now.

Anyway… Humouroceros

Felching

It appears that in homosexual circles there is a sexual practice called ‘felching’. Felching is where one of the partners pushes a tube into the others butt, and then puts a gerbil in the tube, presumably to climb into the guys butt (yeah, like I’d make this up.) There are these two ‘fellows’ I heard about in Salt Lake City, USA. I didn’t catch one guys name, but the tube receiver was nicknamed ‘Kinky’. Kinky’s gig was to have the tube rammed home, with the gerbil, and when he had had enough he would say, “apocalypse” and his partner would pull the gerbil out. I don’t know or care what would happen after that. So one day they get hot and heavy into gerbil jammin’, or ‘felching’. Kinky figures that he has had enough and says “apocalypse” but the gerbil won’t come out. His partner peers down the tube and then figures that lighting a match will help, since as we all know gerbils are attracted to flames. So he lights a match, which ignites a bit of intestinal gas which fires up the tube and sets the partners hair on fire as well as giving him some second degree burns on his face. It also lights up the gerbil, and that little fire ignites another deeper bit of intestinal gas, firing out the gerbil as well as more flame. The now crispy gerbil as it fired out hit the partner in the nose, breaking the nose.

The end result of all these wild happenings? The partner: second degree burns to his face and no hair. Kinky: Second and third degree burns to his rectum and intestinal tract. The gerbil: well, he’s dead.

That must have been some trip to the Emergency Room though. One guy can’t see, has no hair, and has a still smoldering gerbil lodged in his nose. The other guy is unable to sit down, or even wear pants, and is nicknamed ‘Kinky’. I was looking at my Global Religion Positioning chart and I noted that there are more Mormons per square inch in Salt Lake City than anywhere else in the world. I wonder just how liberal the folks in Salt Lake City are. I wonder how tolerant that bunch are.

Anyway; Humouroceros