Jean and Steve

Word on the street is that you can’t keep a good man down. It would appear that you can’t keep the arrogant jerks down either, and here comes a word from our former Prime Minister, Jean Chretien. Apparently old Jean made the news recently when right after a speech he had made before a bunch of bottom feeders (known as the Canadian Bar Association) he was really feeling his oats so he had a couple of his “boys” round up a couple of reporters for an impromptu scrum. He then proceeded to lay into our current Prime Minister, the right honourable Stephen Harper. Jean figures that PM Harper should have gone to the opening ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 summer Olympics.

Full disclosure: I have always given props to Jean for keeping the Canadian military out of Iraq during this latest unpleasantness. I imagine that the telephone conversation between Jean and president Bush II was awkward at best, but he stuck to his guns and good on him (Stephen on the other hand figured that Canada should have sent troops to Iraq. He doesn’t talk about that much any more). Unfortunately back then Jean was also leading trade missions to China. Jean and a bunch of provincial premiers would jet off to China for ten days or so of high stakes negotiations and in every photo I say from those trips that bunch always looked like a crew of used car salesmen on a bender in Vegas. Terrible. Actually, what was terrible, and embarrassing, was that human rights and Tibet were not on the menu. Those boys were there in search of the almighty buck and nothing else mattered. It seems that Jean’s attitude in that regard has not changed.

Jean says that Canada will pay a high price for PM Harpers no-show at the Olympics, especially when you consider China’s economic and demographic power, not to mention the mentality of it’s leaders. Oh, so leave those silly old morals and scruples at home. I hear ya, Jean. The thing is, Jean, not everybody likes to kiss Chinese butt. Now if that’s your hairy gig there, then that’s fine, Jean. PM Harper chose not to go, and I’m glad he didn’t.

Anyway… Humouroceros

PS: it turns out that when Jean was PM he didn’t attend any of the Olympics that were on during that time. Too bad none of them had been in China because then he could have gone to all of them.

Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his golf ball

Current Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his snowball

The Westboro bastards

The Canadian government has long been very accepting of how other countries have treated Canadian citizens. Canadians arrested in other countries and tortured, Canadians essentially kidnapped and sent to other countries to be tortured, a Canadian child accused of war crimes and tortured, hey, it’s all good. Do whatever you have to do and the Canadian government will (maybe) shake its collective head disapprovingly, but that’s about it.

It took something pretty nasty to get our political leaders to pull their thumbs out, but experts agree, the Westboro Baptist Church is pretty nasty. For those who don’t follow this sort of thing, the Westboro Baptist Church is run out of Topeka, Kansas by the Pastor Fred Phelps, who is a homophobic loon from the old school (an old school run by Nazis and other drooling creeps). He and his congregation of like-minded, self-righteous jerks have decided to live by the old show business adage that says that there is no such thing as bad publicity, and so in a continuing effort to remain in the news they protest (noisily and obscenely) at the funerals of gay men and women. At least this is how they started. In their continuing efforts to show that they are ready, willing, and able to behave in a manner that would disgust even hardened scumbags, they have begun protesting at the funerals of US service men and women who have died serving their country.

Well it is true that usually this is merely and internal matter for our friends to the south (the United States) the Pastor Phelps recently decided to turn his gummy eyes north. It’s true that Fred and his cronies already hate Canada, along with so many other places, mainly because we Canadians are not a hate poisoned nation given to burning “fags” at the stake and stuff, but when a young playwright in Ontario named Alistair Newston, wrote and directed a cabaret production called, The Pastor Phelps Project: A Fundamentalist Cabaret. Pastor Fred Phelps will not be mocked, and those who do shall be smited, or smitten, or whatever. In any event, Fred and a bunch of his cronies were planning to show up and provide some free publicity. Mr. Newston was quite excited, saying, “They’ve increased my voice a million-fold… giving us publicity we would not have otherwise had.” Hardly a surprise though, really. An old publicity hound like Fred would have seen that coming a mile off.

And then a young man was brutally murdered on a bus in Manitoba, and Fred, his nose twitching at the scent of publicity with an international story, decided that the Westboro Baptist Church absolutely had to be at that funeral (remember, there is no bad publicity). So being at dim as a five-watt bulb the announcement was made and every human in Canada was disgusted and revolted by this new low by Fred and his pals. Revolted enough that even politicians noticed and it was pointed out that anybody trying to cross the border with signs such as those usually used by the Westboro bunch would be turned back. The church announced that they wouldn’t be traveling with their signs but would have them couriered across the border and by golly weren’t they clever and stuff. Then it turned out that there would be a counter-demonstration at the funeral to keep the Westboro bunch from making a bad situation worse for the grieving family, and the RCMP announced that they would be patrolling the area making sure that no laws were broken and nothing got out of hand. So that was the end of that, Fred and his dancing monkeys never made it to the funeral after all.

Fred’s daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, who is nearly as crazy as her old-man is (Fred, not being satisfied with messing up strangers, has also messed up his own children), moaned that if their protesters were going to be counter-protested and possibly arrested, then they just weren’t going to go. Our loss, I guess. One of the better comments to spew out of the Phelpspawn was, “that’s some crazy stuff when you’ve got your officials talking like they are in a back-alley brawl and not government officials who took an oath to obey the law and so forth.” I’ve got a newsflash for you there, Sparky. Canada (I am proud to say) has anti-hate legislation and as much as that may cramp your style something fierce, it is the law of the land. Oh, and that means that those officials you are blubbering about are in fact keeping their oaths of office, and so forth. They swore to enforce Canadian laws, not to protect a bunch of half-baked simpletons from down south who are here to spread some poison and break those laws. Tough break.

I understand that not being allowed to infringe on the private grief of a family for your own publicity may ruin your whole day, but personally I’m okay with that. I notice that the WBC claims that a group of their “loser youth” did make it to Manitoba (I’m surprised they could find it, being as they are idiots and all) and had themselves a private little protest in somebody’s basement, which is about where they belong, but really the less we see of Fred, his family or any of that grunting troop that follows him, the better.

Anyway… Humouroceros

Fred Phelps: crazy as a sh*t-house rat

Olympic shenanigans

Ara Abrahamian - a modern Olympian

I recall a few Olympics back (way back in the last millenium) a reporter (who scored a 32 on the 'dumb as a sack of hammers' scale) asked one of the athletes if he was disappointed that he had won a bronze medal rather than the gold. The athlete looked at the reporter and asked, (I'm paraphrasing here) 'and when was it that you made it into the Olympics?' Ooooo, burn! And a good point. For true athletes just making it to the Olympics showed that you were one of the best in your sport. Of course it would have been something special to win a medal, but coming in fourth, or sixth or tenth doesn't really matter, you were still one of the best in the world, and an Olympian.

Then came the "dream teams", professional athletes brought in to the Olympic fold just so there could be a "guarantee" of a gold medal win. Yep, screw amateur athletics and bring on the pros. That would be about the time that I lost interest in the Olympics. I don't care about a bunch of millionaires treating the Olympics as some sort of vanity project.

Now we have come to the next logical step in the modern Olympic vision. A greco-roman wrestler named Ara Abrahamian representing Sweden, upon receiving his bronze medal dropped it to the floor declaring, "I don't care about this medal. I wanted gold." (His coach, Leo Myllari, later said that Ara hadn't won the gold because, "It's all politics." Stupid politics.) Well I don't think that buddy deserves the gold, but maybe a king-size baby soother with an extra large nipple might do the trick. Yeah, that'd work.

Anyway... Humouroceros

PS: Of course an honourable mention should go out to the Spanish men's and women's Olympic basketball teams for their tasteful photo where they're all pulling back their eyes in imitation of their Chinese hosts. I don't know where everybody gets off calling that racist. Why fiddle-de-de, that's hardly racist at all!

Threat advertising

I got this in the mail the other day and personally I think it’s pretty sad. Advertising disguised as a threat. There is a CBC radio show I like called the Age Of Persuasion, which is about advertising. I wonder what the host would make of something like this.

Anyway… Humouroceros

This is the small print at the bottom. AKA: "the legal stuff".

Age Of Persuasion at: http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/index.html?copy-index

Speed Bump

Check out speedbump.com . Good stuff.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Ann, Ann, Ann

Ann Coulter is, as I understand it, the crown princess of the Raving Right for our friends to the south (the United States). She earns her living by saying and writing horrible things about people she disagrees with. There is no low to which she will not stoop and if there is mud to be thrown she is in there mouth first, ready and willing to get her hands dirty. I’ve read and heard some pretty terrible things about poor old Ann, but one thing I cannot remember ever having read or heard is that she is stupid.

I recently watched a clip of a CBC television show called the Fifth Estate (available online at the CBC website), which was about the right wing media in the United States. There was a short interview with Ann where she mentioned that Canada had sent troops to Viet Nam. The interviewer said that Canada had not sent troops to Viet Nam. Yes we had been in World Wars one and two, and Korea, but the Canadian military had not been involved in the Viet Nam war. Ann, being Ann, insisted she was right and then said she would look into it and get back to him. Which she never did. Later on when Ann was on C-Span (a US cable network) she mentioned the Canadian interview where she belted out, “Apparently he (the Canadian reporter) didn’t know that thousands of Canadians crossed the border to join the US military and fought in Viet Nam,” and she then went on to say just how dumb the Canadian reporter had been. Now, hold on a second there Ann. The reporter did not say that no Canadians had been in Viet Nam, he said that Canada did not send troops to Viet Nam, which it did not (and having said that; I have read that Canada did send peace-keepers to Viet Nam in 1973. I didn’t know this and I would bet that Ms Coulter didn’t either. Some have used this as proof that she knew what she was talking about and that is just silly. Watch the original interview. It’s obvious that she meant that Canadian troops fought along side the US troops in Viet Nam, and that never happened. Canadians were there as part of the US military, not as members of the Canadian military.) Obviously Ann was just confused.

Or perhaps Ms Coulter just isn’t all that bright after all. I believe that an intelligent person would have done a little bit of research and then once she had realized that she had made a mistake (heck, everybody does at one time or another) she would have admitted that she had been wrong and we all could have moved on. Instead she chose to lie about it and carry on as though she had been right all along. Isn’t that the sort of behavior we can expect from poorly raised children?

But that’s all right. She’s a right-wing nut and probably doesn’t know any better so here’s the deal, Ann. Canadians are aware that some Canadians joined the US military and fought and died in Viet Nam. Every Remembrance Day (that’s November 11th, Ann) there are Canadian Viet Nam war vets in attendance at the ceremonies across the country and they are treated with the same respect as the veterans of any wars that Canada was involved in as a nation. It’s unfortunate that after saying something that was wrong, as you did, you had to say something stupid to try to hide your ignorance. Well done, Ann. Well done. What’s it like to be a disgrace to thinking people everywhere?

Anyway… Humouroceros

PS: a great big hooting Arabic-style thanks to anncoulter.org for the photo. There’s lots of weird stuff there, check it out.