Failure to Re-Launch?

Okay, so this is my first post in a month or so. I'm running into unanticipated difficulties.

1) Work.
My current job demands that I awaken at four-thirty, or possibly five, or three-thirty, or sometimes one, a.m. Then I work eight, six, ten, or nine hours at work that is sometimes extraordinarily physical (i.e. lifting five hundred garbage cans weighing between five and twenty-five kilos) or stultifyingly not-so (sitting in the passenger seat of a dumpster truck, occasionally pulling a bin out).

This leaves me in the early afternoon with no desire or motivation higher than a beer in front of the tube and an early night. Yeah, I apparently have become one of those three-B guys. Beer, Boob Tube, and Bed.

2) Personal life.My personal life is complicated. Not in any serious way--Mme Metro and I just celebrated over a decade together. But in a way that requires planning and co-ordination between a number of people, mostly because of my:

3) Social life.
For the first time in many years, I have most of my evenings free. This is due to relocation. I used to occupy my time with jam sessions and acting both are on hiatus because see #1. It's hard to commit to a schedule of rehearsal when you might arrive home at eleven having to work at three the next morning. The days when I drank 'till four then went to work at seven are kind of behind me.

However, evening commitments are creeping under the door. You know the way of it. You meet people, you like them and are interested in them, you share an interest, and join a community, and next thing you know you're chairing the Thursday night meetings ...

4) How far do I wish to let you in, O Avid Fan?
I am not the same Metro who started this blog. I am no longer pseudonymous to a number of people out there, and that can constrain what I want to write publicly. In fact when I am having an experience I consider writing-worthy, I now seem to think of the experience in three categories:

• Open: Anyone could read this. Fit for consumption by the general public. Mind you, if Glenn Beck is still seen as fit for public consumption ...
• Semi-private: My friends and Avid Fans are unlikely to judge me too harshly for this. Not for sharing with strangers or co-workers.
• Private: I might mention this to Mme Metro. Other than that, forget it. I am a great fan of the quote "Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead." (B. Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack), and am equally sure the compulsion to "talk it out" is usually little more than an ego-driven vice that makes a virtue of hurting someone one should know well enough not to hurt in such fashion, or even have a reason to do so in the first place.

Part of the problem is deciding what filter I let things pass. Obviously most of my life is fairly public. If I were outed from the house-tops I doubt most of the people who know me even in passing would be astounded at the content here at the Ol' Metroblog. But I still dither about posting some of it.

But I will persevere. I believe the cure for the after-work flops is exercise. I'm taking up swimming. It's a good fit for my body type (Whales swim, right? Not many of them do a lot of weightlifting or aerobics), and it's relatively low-impact. I also find I have a bit more energy in the evening after a swim, and that I sleep very well too.

Likewise, I believe the cure for Writer's Rust is the same as the cure for most rusty things: Apply lubricant and exercise the moving parts. Alcohol is considered an excellent lubricant for most related purposes.

People say "Write what you know." I'd rather write things I know to be fiction. But I'm back to baby steps, clinging to the couch or coffee-table of certainty for support. But I expect it's like riding a bicycle.

Not the classic aphorism about never forgetting. Rather, think back to the time you first rode a bicycle.

And with that, I have an idea for my next post.

O Avid Fan, You Are Not Forgotten!

That goes for both of you.

I promised Sr. Strutts that I would revisit the comment he left me on my post about the all-too-predictable failure of the Copenhagen Conference, and that's part of what I'm doing today.

But I just cleared a major project and have some other stuff to do. So I'll content myself with posting this:



This seems to be a pirate video, so I'll refer you to the site where the original may be found: Weebls Stuff.

Out of the Memory Hole

I just reread The Jungle Book. It's one of my favourites from Kipling, who is indisputably one of the finest tubercular authors to dribble ink on the page.

And I was wondering, particulary what became of the video I once saw in about 1978 of the story of Kotik the White Seal.

When out of the blue I hit YouTube looking for a video of the Beatles' Rocky Raccoon for reasons that would take too long to explain, and discovered the video below. I also discovered that it was by Chuck Jones, one of Mme's indubitable favourites. And so how could I not present it here?



You'll find the rest at YouTube, natch.

It has been my observation that people of my advanced years simply don't think in terms of YouTube. We say "I once saw ..." something. Whereas a younger person of my acquiantance often says "Hey, I saw this great thing last night ... Hang on while I look it up!"

Nonetheless, here's the Chuch Jones version of Kotick, the White Seal:



Other bits also on YT.
The narrations are awesome: Orson Welles for the former and Roddy McDowell for the latter.

It's a Great, Great Day

I don't do Twitter. Seriously, d'you think I ever had anything to say in 140 characters or fewer?

However, I might just join now. Gene Ray, self-billed as "Wisest Human" and originator of TIMECUBE is on Twitter. So I noticed on Pharyngula.

To frame this properly, one needs to consider that Ray's been around pretty much as long as the internet has had the capacity for pixellated graphics and eye-searing, effect-smeared fonts, and has developed a following of people bemused and amazed by the foaming bat$#17 lunacy he spews.

In some of the places I hang out on the 'net, teh crazy is measured on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 Timecubes.

A selection of his tweets:

To worship a religious/academic defied Queer(God) as your progenitor, equates to spitting puke in your Mom and Dad's face - a beastly act.

Actually, infants and children do this all the time, dude.

You would be wiser if unschooled then be taught ONEness stupidity to worship Evil of ONEism, contradicted by Opposite Creation.

To quote Opus from the Bloom County strips: "And would I have monkeys pick my nose for me?"

THIS APPEARS TO CONTAIN ORANGE SHERBET WHICH IS NOT PART OF THE TIME CUBE

Sure, 'cos the TIME CUBE is all about Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey.

But unfortunately it's not all fun and games. Here's why I'm not linking to him:

Academic retards teaches worship of queer jew god, equates to adults eating their children.

SUN power will not allow any Black Skin power to rule over its Light Domain.

Queers killed my lil Brother. A Queer God induces AIDS.

WARNING TO EDUCATED STUPID, Black Skin equates imprisonment, white race had nothing to do making negros black.

It's a good lesson in why we can't afford to laugh at teh crazy, but also can't afford not to. And yes, perhaps it's mean to laugh at someone so clearly exhibiting the symptoms of mental illness.

My consolation is that a) he probably won't notice and b) he probably won't care if he does. I'm utterly certain he's used to it by now.

This is News?

The Aspers have apparently decided that their flagship, the National Post may be folded under an umbrella or something. It's all a bit complex to me, but has to do with the Global bankruptcy or something.


Mr. Asper heads out to pasture

Couldn't happen to a nicer paper. Really. Even if they never did get the spelling of "Nazional" quite right. The problem was that, although they tried to claim an audience, Canadians actually have a limited tolerance for right-wing, blindly-pro-Israel garbage on the editorial pages (The odd thing is that Izzy Asper, who eventually sent the paper to hell, was at one time president of a Liberal Party arm).

It cannot be co-incidence that this announcement comes immediately after this guy was killed the other night. Their sole remaining reader? We just editorialize, you decide.

Among it's dafter content, the paper published screeds defending Mark Steyn. They also publish the ramblings of a number of what are known as Blogging Tories. Such as one Mr. "Raphael Alexander" a.k.a. Adrian McNair. I honestly haven't the familiarity with Mr. Alexander that others have cultivated, but I know what I like, and most of his writing is garbage by that fickle and arbitrary standard. Although I place a caveat by his coverage of Vancouver's Great Boondoggle.

The paper's recent hagiographic coverage of the Stephen Harper New Conservative Government of Canada (for which it functions much the way that FOX Noise did for the Bush White House--as a PR organ) is unlikely to be missed. At least by a majority of Canadians.

Okay, so I'm not entirely unmoved. Whatever its manifest and grotesque failures of conscience and decency in its editorial pages, the Post was known at one time for good journalism. But the rot set in when the Aspers forbade the publication of editorials criticizing Israel. And what may die in the coming days is a shell of addled opinion and relentless conservative cheerleading that not only doesn't represent Candians, but in recent years seems to have broken with reality.

Though the paper claimed to be a free speech champion, it ended up proving that censorship for the wrong reasons rots political discourse. God rest whatever's left of its soul.

I will, however miss John Moore, the Post's token lib'rul.

Bad Thoughts on Religion

Catholic Metroboy: "Jesus died for your sins."

Atheist Metroman: "So what?"

CM: "So what? So what? I mean, the guy, right, the guy actually experienced an agonizing death in return for which your sins were forgiven."

AM: "But why'd he have to die?"

CM: "So that your sins were forgiven."

AM: "Who said they needed forgiving?"

CM: "God."

AM: "Okay, so lemme get this straight: The all-powerful Lord of the universe invents sin, gets mad at us for doing it, and then essentially sacrifices himself to himself to square the books?"

CM: "Well ... Yeah ... You're trivializing His agony on the cross, you know. Would YOU want to experience that?"

AM: "Sure. Why not?"

CM: "You would?"

AM: "Look, according to your philosphy, Jesus = God, right?"

CM: "Yes."

AM: "They're the same guy?"

CM: "Well, pretty much, yeah. It's a bit mystic."

AM: "So Jesus is immortal and omipotent and omniscient?"

CM: "He'd have to be."

AM: "Could have gotten down off the cross and showed everyone a thing or two at any time, right?"

CM: "But he wasn't using his powers."

AM: "Well he did use prophecy, right, seeing into the future?"

CM: "Okay, so ..."

AM: "So he's been alive since the beginning of everything ... billions of years ..."

CM: "Well, okay."

AM: "So to sum up: God pops down to earth for a quick thirty-year holiday whereupon he spends a few hours dying in agony to appease himself, after which he goes back to being immortal."

CM: "Uh ... If you put it that way ..."

AM: "Moreover, he knows he'll be up and around within a few days."

CM: "I really ..."

AM: "So Jesus had a long weekend for my sins?"

CM: "Well ... "

AM: "The dude spends, let's say eight hours dying in agony ..."

CM: "Uh ..."

AM:"I mean, eight hours out of six thousand years ... that's about 1/6,570,000th of his life, right?"

CM: "Well, yes, but I don't think ..."

AM:"And then he goes back to being alive ... If I were offered immortality in return for being crucified for one-six-millionth of my life*, I'd take that deal."

CM: "Uh ... You got any Aspirin? I think I'm developing a headache."

AM: "Not only that, but why'd he have to die in the first place? He makes the damn rules, couldn't he have just given himself a good spanking or something? And how the hell is anyone supposed to learn a lesson from an apocryphal tale six thousand years old? Couldn't he have left us at least a videocassette? Or perhaps he could have engraved it into a diamond the size of a mountain or something? Or created letters of fire a hundred feet high, visible from every place at once? Written it on the moon ... Instead he relies on semi-literate nomadic desert kids to scribble it down on goatskins and parchment. Make a lot of sense, doesn't it?"

And the wrangle, unevenly, continues.

*It'd work out to about 0.06 of an hour, which is three minutes and thirty-six seconds.

Harper Conservative Government (TM) Supports Criminals!

Remember that I told you a while back that the Harper Conservative Government(TM) was cutting funding for a program to keep sex offenders from becoming re-offenders? And remember how I couldn't find the link?

Yeah, well it turns out that the Harper Conservative Government(TM) did an about-face and re-funded the program, and their spokespeople are busily claiming that "no decision had been made." As usual their declaration flies in the face of the evidence.

I smell an election. The Harpercons (were they stupid enough to believe their own polls) are near 40%, suggesting majority territory, and they're going to do their "tough on crime" show--Which is actually performed to the tune of "Taking Care of Business"--to shore up support.

The object is not to actually be tough on crime (particularly when your own party may be vulnerable, or your ministers). Instead, the object is to do the dance, and then when someone says your're dancing too frenetically, and in the wrong direction, to point at the critic and scream "Soft on crime! Sooooft on Criiiiiiime!"

That said, I think it's good they got their heads out of their collectives for long enough to straighten this out. 'Cause society needs support for offenders, sex or no, and Conservatives are famously stingy with their support.

By the Way ...

Have I mentioned I won a thread?

If I win enough threads I could knit a a sock.

Canadian Cynic may be a little rough around the edges (I imagine the CC crew sitting around saying "What's it to ya, douchebag?") but they seem to have a good grip on news stories that dip below the radar but are still important politically.

They also expose, day after day, the incredible gap, nay, chasm, between Canada's conservatives and reality. It gets a little monotonous sometimes, to be honest. But if the Blogging Tories and the National Post continue to churn out the industrial-grade stupid, well someone's gotta call them on their rampant intellectual dishonesty (when it rises to the level of "intellectual").

Obesity Epidemic Hitting Close to Home (Renos)

From my Canadian Tire flier, which arrived as usual with the Friday paper:

Toilet seats 20% off: Wide selection.

Have a good weekend.

Stupid Liberal* Tricks

Premier Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals* (who are conservatives) have just announced that, for some reason, they've lost $2 bn in revenue that they projected we'd have since June. Extrapolated to the end of the year, that suggests that their financial projections--the ones they fought the election on (you remember--the election which included the promise of no new taxes?)--are off by about $6 billion.

Or in short, Gordo is a lying ©µת+. An utter bastard. A worthless political skin stuffed with $#!7, piss, and corruption.

Anyone who was watching the election (that is to say, roughly 12% of the people who actually bothered showing up) knew that both the BC Liberals(wac) and the NDP were using maximum-rose coloured glasses for their projections. Carole James and the NDP missed their big chance to say "I told you so" by accepting the government's goddam lies figures wholesale. Which was convienient, as the NDP promised a bundle of goodies they couldn't pay for in the first place, PLUS they promised to do away with our carbon tax on gasoline.

But the cynicism of outright lying on the major points of one's platform is breathtaking.

I'm sick to death of this cynicism and corruption. Voters need to goddam well engage. From now on, anyone who complains about taxes with receive a withering "And who did YOU vote for?" from me.

Persons answering that they didn't vote, or meant to but missed the bus, or had a podiatrist appointment, or similar, will be beaten vigorously about the head and neck with a bottle filled with slips of paper on which shall be written all the campaign promises made and broken by the Campbell government.

It'll probably have to be a gallon bottle. Never mind--I'm going to have to drink at least that much to ignore how badly these @$$#013s are screwing this province.

We were already swirling around the bowl before Gordo's Commandos gave the chain an extra yank. Here's to the next decade of defecit spending as we try to cover the shortcomings of another uselss pack of "greed-is-great" mongrels.


*The BC Liberals--Because when you behave like a pack of federal Conservatives, it's just a name, and means no more than their promises.

Oh, the Wildlife-ity!

Raincoaster has been following the threads of the Great Meerkat Conspiracy, which has explained so much in terms of the rarity of fairies, the reduction of fish stocks, and the shortage of four-leafed clovers (they got the leprechauns first, don'cha know).

However, now ominous news reaches our peepers of the newest soldiers in the Meerkat War With Fish and People.

It is truly the saddest of news, for once-respectable raptors have now been recruited into the ravaging ranks of the Meerkat Army.

Read it and weep:

Eagle smashes car windshield with fish

Two targets with one bird, eh?

This, as Rick Mercer used to say on "Made In Canada", is not good.

We urgently await a statement from G Eagle on whether this indicates a change of eagle allegiance in the Total War Against Terror, Intrigue, And Meerkats (TWATIAM).

Stay calm, be brave, watch for the signs.

A Thought Occurs

A friend posted a link wishing that "track pants were sexy, Mondays were fun, and guys were simple."

And I thought "Pardon?"

How many guys do you know who'll spend an hour getting ready for a night out, then collapse in tears because "I'm a mess!"?

How many guys do you know who own twelve pairs of shoes, and not one "walking" pair?

How many guys ever looked into the eyes of a woman they're in bed with and said "Honey--Are you sure this is a good idea?"

As a metaphor for trying to understand the nature of women, one should first acquire five jigsaw puzzles. Now remove ten percent of the pieces from each and throw the remainder through the laundry. Place all pices in a basket with large holes, shake it up. Now put on a blindfold and oven mitts and try to assemble a picture.

Guys are simple. It's dealing with the other half of humanity that makes us prime candidates for therapy.

Law With Tongues of Flame ... But No Teeth

As I sit here with the smoke of a local forest fire in my nostrils, I notice this from CTV:

Despite B.C. fire turmoil, people still taking risks

Updated Thu. Aug. 6 2009 1:51 PM ET

The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER -- Despite international attention to B.C.'s burning forests, some people are still lighting camp fires and discarding cigarettes in the woods.

Forests Minister Pat Bell had first-hand experience last weekend when he had to tell some Shuswap campers to put out a campfire they were burning in the woods.

Bell says if he had a ticket book, not only would the group have received a $345 fine, but an administrative penalty as well.

The minister says there is zero tolerance for fire in the woods and already more than 50 tickets have been issued to people breaking the rules.

Bell says fire activity in the province is at the highest level seen in his lifetime, with more than 2,300 started this season, 800 more than at the same time in the horrible fire season of 2003.

About 400 aircraft and 4,000 people are working on the fires which have cost the government more than double the original budget at $135 million.

Oooooh a $345 fine! I'm friggin' trembling.
Let's compare that with the damage from forest fires in BC this summer: Roughly $200 million in insurance claims alone, to say nothing of the cost of fighting the fires.

Wow--$345 in return for possibly contributing to millions in annual damages. Who the hell are we kidding?

Let's see what Australia does, shall we?

Looks like, depending on how you interpret it, you could go to jail for up to fourteen years in some states. Good damn idea! Here's New South Wales' rules for lighting fires under a ban:

Penalty for offences

For lighting or causing a fire during a Total Fire Ban
Up to $5,000 fine and / or up to 5 years in jail
Higher penalties can apply in certain circumstances.

Now there's a fine fine!

Makes $345 look pretty arbitrary and weak, doesn't it? Why couldn't it have been $567? Or 8,910? Or 212,223?

Personally, I want ramming a car off the road to be covered under self-defence when the idiot in said car is seen to have jettisoned a ciggie butt. And although I'm a big fan of gun control, I feel that shooting someone who ditches a butt improperly in a forest fire zone should be reduced to a misdemeanor. Call it "unsafe discharge of a firearm" or something.

I'm really a big law-and-order guy. Ask me about my plan for traffic control through random sniping sometime.

The Best Statement I've Yet Heard on Climate Change

"And the very same people who told you that weapons of mass destruction were real are telling you that climate change is not."

Indeed.

One should consider one's sources. They were wrong about the economy, about the Iraq misadventure, and about so many other things ... Why would anyone trust them on anything at all?

From this video, found on Pharyngula.

Like Shooting Gefilte Fish

From one of those rags I don't normally read comes this gem:

Three city mayors, two state politicians and five rabbis were among 44 people arrested across New Jersey today when federal agents cracked an alleged Sopranos-style crime ring accused of bribery, money laundering and trafficking body parts and counterfeit handbags.

I just knew I shouldn't have bought that handbag made of human skin, but it was so smooth and silky ... And oy such a deal!

From the CBC:

Much stricter controls are needed over the use of Taser stun guns by police in B.C., former judge Thomas Braidwood says in the first phase of findings from his inquiry into stun guns.

I would just like to say to Justice Braidwood: Bravo. And also WELL DUH

On CTV we learn that Canadian versions of internationally branded foods tend to be higher, sometimes much higher, in salt:

A serving of Burger King onion rings has 1,500 milligrams of sodium per serving -- more than 100 per cent of the daily recommended intake. A serving of BK onion rings in the UK has just 500 mg -- even though the serving size in the UK is about 30 per cent larger.
[...]
Canada, meanwhile, has some of the highest levels of sodium in our packaged and chain restaurant foods, which might explain why the country has such high rates of high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and kidney disease.

We're just trying to convince the cannibals to leave us alone. They hate salty food too.

There's a massive, beautiful thunder-and-lightning storm outside my window right now. The noise rumbles through the ground like an earthquake. My lights are flickering as the lightning flashes. I hope the rain does the firefighters some good. The big fire in Fintry got worse yesterday.

Ripping the Lid Off From Inside the Can

Understandably, Israel and many of the nations which stand in solidarity with her, such as Canada, have rejected outright accusations of using tactics which violate the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions.

Most of the time Israel has found it easier, and surely more convenient, to claim that such charges are propaganda, even in the face of photographic evidence and multiple sources of testimony.

The UN has long recorded a pattern of Israeli Defence Forces targetting its facilities, as well as civillian facilities whose co-ordinates it sends to the IDF for specifically the opposite purpose. Accidents, the IDF says. Although it's an odd accident that hits the same small observation post multiple times while the UN observers inside are on the phone to the IDF commanders.

But now the reports are coming from a source too close to home to ignore: Israeli veterans.

From the BBC:

"A Palestinian neighbour is brought in," he says. "It was procedure. The soldier places his gun barrel on the civilian's shoulder."

If true, that was a clear breach of the international laws of war - which say soldiers have a duty of care to non-combatants - and of Israeli law.

[. . .]

The common thread in the almost 30 testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence is that orders were given to prevent Israeli casualties, whatever the cost in Palestinian lives.

The IDF says it's investigating the claims. I'd be surprised if they don't find anything. But I wouldn't be surprised if they don't find anything.

As previous posts about Israel have tended to attract the ire of some people, let me scotch the first arguments here and now: I believe that the state of Israel has a right to exist, and a right to defend itself. I understand that they're fighting a long and difficult war with an enemy who willingly targets civillians. But making the enemy's tactics your own isn't going to win you hearts and minds. There is a strong argument for trying to exemplify your own declared morality in wartime.

As well, the outright and vehment denials that we're used to seeing from Israel and her supporters do no-one any credit. We all know $#17 happens in wartime. But in the IDF it happens, so it seems, to an extent difficult to believe. It's time for an honest and open admission, and a transparent investigation. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

More Conservative Economic Genius

Not content with having deliberately and with malicious, venial, stupidity aforethought spiked the Canadian nuclear medicine industry, increased wait times four-fold or so, and bankrupted the country unto at least 2014, my Conservative government decided to announce yet another delightful "What-the-₤µ©λ-are-you-playing-at-you-@$$#013s?" moment this week.

Because once you've done such a wonderful number on the economy already, why not top the $#17 sundae with a rancid cherry and kneecap the tourist industry?

Tourism is a huge part of Canada's economy. People like to come and see things like pristine lakes, airy mountains, and green trees, often because many of these people come from places where such are in short supply, often due to a history of short-sighted, near-criminal, cripplingly stupid and often conservative governments; Like ours.

So during a recession, when the industry has already taken a number of kicks to the collective crotch (new US passport requirements, "staycations", et al.), the smart thing to do is:

A) Demote a minister who funded a gay pride parade for $400K (in complete accordance with her mandate and economic sense) which contributes million$ to the Greater Toronto Area.

B) Introduce new, more stringent travel requirements such as, oh I dunno, how 'bout a visa requirment for Czechs and Mexicans? Preferably without prior notice, so that no-one can prepare for the new rules.

If you're an idiot, and a Conservative Party Minister (but I repeat myself), you do both.

The article says that Mexico was the number-one refugee claimant nation. But if Mr. Harper hadn't chosen to allow staffing levels to fall through attrition, or at least had hired replacement workers on a one-for-one basis, at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the backlog wouldn't have been a problem.

Besides, the Cons ₤µ©λed over ALL immigrants a year or two back by rewriting the rules so that if your claim simply doesn't make it off the pile, you have to go to the foot of the queue and start again.

(Unless you're a doctor. Then we'll poach you from some third-world hellhole that desperately needs you, and put you to work in the grossly understaffed world of public transportation at minimum wage, but hey--You'll be living in the greatest ... Well, the secon- ... Um ... Hang on a mo' ... the, ah yes, seventeeth greatest country in the world!)

The changes also made it possible to jump the queue. Whatever the faults of the old system, it was at least fair. But of course "fairness" is one of those words the Conservative party has to grab a dictionary on hearing, along with "compassion" and "empathy".

There is really nothing more to say than "When the hell are you going to pull the ₤µ©λing trigger Mr. Ignatieff? Would tomorrow work for you? 'Cos I'm busy today, but I could spare the time to vote these turkeys off while I wait for my local hospital to scrounge up some isotopes so I can rejoin the wait list for a test or two.

We are living under the single stupidest, single worst, uniquely damaging government of Canada in the history of the country. Only Mulroney could ever have claimed to have ₤µ©λed us over more and worse. And he was a Conservative too.

Co-incidence? I think not.

I hate these clowns and their bankrupt pathalogy of an ideology more every day. I hope Harper ends his days in a refrigerator box. Or possibly as a 230-lb Native inmate's prison bitch.

Is there one thing, a single thing, ANYthing, they've managed to do right?

Note for Conservative Party members and other humour-challenged persons. I don't REALLY want Harper to end his days in an appliance box, nor as a big-ass prison inmate's girlfriend (unless he wants to be--Prison can apparently do that to some guys, and I think there's a good chance he and Muldoon might end up there). A simple slow fade into the ignominy he deserves and the designation of "Worst. PM. Thus. Far" will suffice (I'd say "Worst. PM. Evar", but the unfortunate possibility that another Conservative government might get in before he dies still exists, however remote).

This is what Liberals and other thinking types call "hyperbole". Do feel free to look it up, won't you?

God Hates School Kids

It's the comments that get to me. Under this article on a bus rollover that trapped 33 kids inside the bus and injured four people including the driver we find the following rich, albeit gramatically painful, vein of pure asinine:

A higher power, was watching over these kids and the bus driver. Those who say that He does not exist, have just been proven wrong.

Where to begin.

Well first off, how about asking why that lousy higher power didn't miraculously lift the bus back onto its wheels? Why didn't said higher power prevent ALL the injuries? Why didn't this higher power decide to avoid the trauma and suffering of all involved and simply let the bus have an uneventful journey home, for the loving, living, lugubrious liver of Lucifer?

Remember: With great power comes great responsibility. With a "higher power" must come higher responsibility. What do you think comes with ultimate power?

Spider-man had it right. And I'd sooner count on Spider-man to save a bunch of kids trapped in a public transportation crisis. At least we've got HIM on video:



If there were a god, and he was the Ultimate Power, then only he can take responsibility for all that's stupid, wrong, ugly and just generally bad. So the commentor seems to be arguing that his or her "higher power" allowed a preventible accident to happen just for kicks.

Nice one, God and commentor both. Are there any more like you at home?

Walk, Man, Walk On

Thirty years ago next Christmas or so, my sister managed to get her grasping hooks on a Sony Walkman, courtesy of Father Christmas (known in these modern times as Non-Specified, Irreligious, Entirely Commercial Holiday Figure). NSIECHF had received word that the immature zygote considered it the ultimate in desiderata.

It was the hottest thing since Betamax (O Avid Fan children, ask your Avid Fan parents what Betamax was). It was going to be bigger than the laser disc player (O Avid Fan children, ask your Avid Fan parents what a laser disc player was), while being smaller than a boombox (O Avid Fan children, ask your Avid Fan parents what a boombox was).

To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Walkman, the BBC convinced a thirteen-year-old to use one for a week. His perceptions are astoundingly deep and sagacious, for such a young man, sprinkled with amusing generational misunderstandings:

From a practical point of view, the Walkman is rather cumbersome, and it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets. It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.

What the young man fails to understand, of course, is that pockets in trousers of the day were nonfunctional, as the pants they were sewn to were so tight as to prohibit the insertion of anything thicker than a quarter for bus fare (O Avid Fan children, ask your Avid Fan parents what a quarter was, and when it could have last been used for bus fare). That same tightness guaranteed that they could not be pulled down by a three-pound Walkman, or in many cases by a 230-pound centre-forward (That, O Avid Fans young and old, is the real reason for the rise in teen pregnancies--Pants you can remove in a Volkswagen).

However, the BBC seems to have locked on to one of the few thirteen-year-olds who can't cope with technology:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made.

Read about the rest of them here.

On the Great Infestation

Sigh. My house is not my own anymore. In a more enlightened society, Mme might be accused of harbouring a nuisance.

Some beasts are useful: The sturdy shetland pony, the sheepdog, the goat. Mankind has built a relationship of mutual trust and reliance with these.

Then, there's the sort that lounges about on your couch for hours on end before slouching off for a hurried six-hour nap, whilst scratching your furniture to splinters and doing abominable things in various dark corners, all the while gleefully consuming food in quantities to make Roman orgy-goers cry "Oi--steady on, mate!"

Such beasts shed hair like an over-forty rock band, and leave unspeakable trails of spittle trailing across the floor, to say nothing of the partially-digested items trailing in its wake. When not regurgitating your food, said creature is rubbing up against you demanding more of it, not to mention more of your valuable gin and beer.

Yes, having the damn thing in the house is something of a trial. But Mme Metro and I are happy to do it as respite care. This allows her regular attendants the chance they need to recover following the repeated hydrophobia shots, deworming, and delousing they must be put through from extended contact.

The cats are fine, and looking pretty healthy, by comparison.

I had a recent picture, but was reluctant to post it, for the health of the Avid Fans' brains. Let's just say I know just how this little dog feels:


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