In an unimpeachably impartial and fair newly released poll (of Canadians wearing “I hate Bush” t-shirts?), only 14 per cent of those surveyed said they believe George Bush understands or cares about Canada.
In a poll fabricated on the same day, George Bush unanimously affirmed that he doesn’t understand or give a crap about Canada.
Keep Yer Eyes Peeled
Last night, Saskatoon police chased a vehicle through the streets at speeds reaching 85 mph. The chase ended with the suspects wrapped around a pole. Both the driver and passenger were taken to hospital, where the passenger was treated and released. (wtf??) – and the driver treated and escaped.
So, everyone, be on the lookout for a male: 5 feet tall – 100 pounds, with strong limp, staples in his face and heavily tattooed arms.
Just blended into the crowd, as they say….
Bad Weekend For Anti-War Activists
Anti-war activist, author and former US Army Ranger. One of these things isn’t true.
Anti-war activist, avid cyclist and Vietnam veteran with the support of his former military colleagues. One of these things isn’t true.
Anti-war activist, former cartoonist for the NYT and waste of skin. All of these things are true.
Keep Your Spirits Up
Perhaps there’s another explanation for Bob Kerrey’s loose and expletive deleted performance on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.
When Bob Kerrey, one of the panel’s most outspoken members, left early for an appointment (as did commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton), Bush called out to him as he was leaving and told Kerrey, “Keep your spirits up.” Some thought Bush was alluding to Kerrey’s especially “spirited” recent appearance on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show…
Just Pick A Door, Already
Via Crescat Sententia this item about “gender neutral bathrooms”.
Harvard’s lack of gender non-specific bathrooms has caused transgender and gender- variant students to alter eating and drinking habits and suffer severe cases of dehydration, according to a report released yesterday by the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA).
Hey, you were the ones who signed up for the Naughty Bit Extreme Makeover. So, deal with it.
Update – James has similar thoughts.
You Don’t Say?
Pollster: “Were you aware presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry served in Vietnam?”
Respondant: “No….. You don’t say?”
Pollster: “Were you aware presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry served in Vietnam?”
Respondant: “No… I was under a rock for the past year.”
Pollster: “Were you aware presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry served in Vietnam?”
Respondant: “Does a bear shit in the Vatican?”
…
Pollster: “Is that a no?”
Adscam, Meet UNSCAM
John Ibbotson writes yesterday in the Globe And Mail;
With yesterday’s landmark speech, Paul Martin tacitly acknowledged what Canada’s foreign policy establishment has refused to accept for decades: that the United Nations is a failure, for which there is no solution.
[If this had been Stephen Harper, the press would have been falling all over themselves to condemn questioning the existance of the UN as “scary and extremist” ]
The Prime Minister’s proposed alternative is a new international body, the G-20 summit of world leaders, representative of North and South, developed and developing, rich and poor: a working group unfettered by the UN’s bureaucracy and its anachronistic Security Council.
It is a bold, though perhaps unworkable plan. But however it is ultimately greeted by the world community, Mr. Martin’s proposal at least recognizes and sets out to correct a fundamental flaw in Canadian foreign policy, one that has left us hostage to a dysfunctional world body whose interests are often irrelevant to Canada’s.
I think there may be another reason. With Adscam wearing down the Liberal fortunes, Martin may be worried about the looming UNSCAM investigation steamrolling into the media news cycle during a federal election, and is trying to distance himself from the multi-billion dollar financial scandal that parallels his own.
Prisoner Abuse
In the rightful condemnation of the abuse of former members of the Saddam Fedayeen Iraqi prisoners, let’s hope we Canadians have the good sense to choose our words carefully.
Catch 22. Then, Twist Hard.
Question:
How many men would do this if they thought it was the only way to get laid?
Answer:
All of them.
Before Conservative Was Cool
Inspired by a discussion at Tim Blair’s site, the Shotgun contributors are laying bare their souls and confessing to their leftist youth.
I didn’t have a leftist youth. Though, when I was 12, I had a friend who had to repeat grade 6, and I remember announcing that exams weren’t a good way to evaluate learning because failing made kids feel so badly and separated them from classmates.
Then I got distracted because school was out and I had an impatient .22 and 40 acres of gopher town whistling my name.
911 Comedy Commission
In the unlikely event that you are still under the impression that the 911 commission is comprised of representatives who are earnestly and soberly examining shortcomings in intelligence leading up to the attacks on New York and Washington… I direct your attention to commission panelist Bob Kerrey [D] and his appearance on the “Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” a couple of nights ago.
Michelle Malkin
Now, it would be one thing if Kerrey used his privileged position to inform Stewart’s younger audience of the gravity of the 9/11 panel’s task. But instead, Kerrey yukked it up. First, he dished with Stewart about President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney’s upcoming private meeting with the commission. When Stewart mocked the president’s “buddy system,” Kerrey guffawed: “He is bringing his buddy, that’s exactly right, for safety.” Emboldened by audience applause, Kerrey riffed that it was more like “Screw you, buddy.” Asked by Stewart whether people were really blaming each other over the terrorist attacks during closed hearings, Kerrey snorted: “Oh, Jee-zus, yeah.” More audience approval. (Taking the Lord’s name in vain is always good for a few cheap laughs.)
Next, echoing a profanity uttered earlier in the show, Kerrey blurted out with a clownish grin: “Life is [expletive bleeped].” When Stewart proposed that Kerrey ask the vice president, “What the [expletive bleeped] is wrong with you people?” Kerrey cracked up and promised to use the question. And when Stewart called Attorney General John Ashcroft a “big [expletive bleeped],” Kerrey chortled some more.
After nearly ten minutes of knee-slapping hilarity, it was time for Kerrey to wrap things up. Instead of paying lip service to those who died in the terrorist attacks, Kerrey used his last moments on the program to suck up to Stewart. The Daily Show, Kerrey cooed, was one of the few shows he TiVo’ed. The other, he joked, was [the PBS kids’ show] Boohbah. Ho-ho-ho.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R., Mo.) was spot on Tuesday in his reaction to Kerrey’s performance: “His appearance on a program designed to satirize current events proves that Kerrey lacks the seriousness of purpose that this Commission requires and the American people deserve. This is not a laughing matter.”
I saw the show. It was pretty disgraceful, all round. But Stewart stopped being funny a long time ago too. Somewhere in his rabid partisanship, Stewart has forgotten that satire based upon false premises or misinformation isn’t satire anymore – or funny.
In the episode last night, Stewart lobbed his jokes at Bush and Cheney’s interview with commission members yesterday. Yet, he didn’t mention that his guest of a few nights earlier had left before it was over. I wonder why – there’s ripe opportunity for satire there, don’t you think?
“Kerrey explained to reporters: “Yeah, it’s a little awkward to leave early. But the president certainly understood what we were doing.”
Globe & Mail: Hacked
Oh, and before I forget… would someone please alert the Globe And Mail’s sysadmin?
Their website has been hacked by giggling, drunken first year poli-sci students, writing under the identity of one “John Doyle”.
Slow Posting Zone
I’m going to be rather busy over the next 3 days, so blogging will be infrequent.
But there’s lots on the sidebar to keep you entertained. Check out our underappreciated Canadian bloggers, and don’t miss the Iraqis, either. Here’s a roundup at “Carnival Of The Liberated”.
Be sure to visit the auction, though. At time of writing, someone has a very good deal on a pet portrait. (Proceeds to Spirit Of America. )
Rest In Peace
Vote For Don Cherry
It has been decided.
Vote for Don Cherry for the Greatest Canadian Ever and watch the CBC squirm.
Now, go forth and spread the word. One vote per Canadian.
Unexpected Honesty
Damien Penny at the Shotgun has this:
…this British cartoonist tries to explain why the members of his association voted the “Sharon eating Palestinian babies” editorial cartoon the best of the year.
The interviewer asked him why no one draws the same sort of thing about Arafat.
“Because Jews don’t issue fatwas,” he says, sheepishly.
When You Buy A High School Raffle Ticket
and first prize is a side of Bison…
You might be in Saskatchewan.
Say What?
L. Ian MacDonald – Montreal Gazette, on Martin’s upcoming visit to the White House;
What Bush doesn’t need to hear from Martin is a lecture on why Canada stayed out of the war or hectoring over weapons of mass destruction that have never been found. If there’s one thing that drives Americans to distraction, it’s the insufferable Canadian sense of moral superiority. Nor does Bush need an offer of Canadian troops to help with the occupation in a time of murderous insurgency. Not that we have any soldiers to spare.
The insufferable Canadian press, reporting directly from BBC and CNN headlines and Ted Kennedy quotes, doesn’t help our credibility either.
What Bush could use is help from Canada in institution building, assuming the U.S. ever gets the insurrection under control and truepolitical and economic reconstruction underway. Martin will apparently offer such assistance, as did his predecessor, Jean Chretien, at last fall’s Madrid Donors’ Conference on Iraq.
Uh, yeah. Like the institutions Canada has built in other modern war-torn former dictatorships, liberated at the cost of American blood …. eh …. where was that again?
The Canadians talk about a smart border. They want trade crossing it. The Americans talk about a secure border. They don’t want terrorists crossing it.
The problem is that the Liberals keep forgetting where the smart border problems exist – at the shoreline of the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Fix that, Mr Martin, and the one to the south will take care of itself.
Both men face elections this year. Both are in more trouble than they expected to be a year ago when Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and announced the end of military engagement in Iraq. In this cruel month of April alone, more American soldiers have been killed there than during the war itself.
Hmmmm…
Both men face elections this year. Both are in more trouble than they expected to be a year ago when Martin was quietly serving as a regular MP, the Liberal party in a peaceful transition period, and before the auditor-general revealed explosive details of Liberal corruption with the “Adscam” Scandal, with tentacles reaching into his very office during his tenure as Finance Minister.
There, that’s better. And so much more Canadian content than MacDonald’s version.
What it does involve is land-based systems with a command at NORAD, North American Air Defence, in which Canada has been the junior partner since 1958. Since we’re already at this table, all Martin has to do is announce we’re staying there. And since the U.S. is going to build NMD with or without us, it’s in our national interest to be there
reading on….
But Martin really shouldn’t worry about being seen with Bush. The Oval Office visit, a day after Bush’s secret testimony to the 9/11 commission, will feature waves of photographers and reporters wanting to know what the president said there. The other guy in the shot will be lucky to get a question, unless it’s about the Khadrs, Canada’s first family of terror.
And, the headline for this piece?
“Martin can help Bush and defend Canada’s aovereignty”
Steal-A-Thon
Activists planning to shoplift ‘en masse’
Sean at Pol:Spy:
If there’s any good news to be found here, it’s that these “activists” are taking the initiative and stealing for themselves, rather than relying on the government to do it for them. I suppose that’s something.
Today’s Top Stories
And while the local and national news affiliates were giving us items on the new Kentucky Fried Chicken menu, another investigation into the world’s best known case of Death By Rich Playboy and the disappearance of world champion mule deer antlers….
SUDAN ORDERS SYRIAN WMD OUT OF COUNTRY
LONDON [MENL] — Sudan has ordered the removal of Syrian missiles and weapons of mass destruction out of the African country. Arab diplomatic and Sudanese government sources said the regime of Sudanese President Omar Bashir has ordered that Syria remove its Scud C and
Scud D medium-range ballistic missiles as well as components for chemical weapons stored in warehouses in Khartoum. The sources said the Sudanese demand was issued after the Defense Ministry and Interior Ministry confirmed a report published earlier this month that Syria has been secretly flying Scud-class missiles and WMD components to Khartoum. The sources said the Bashir regime has been alarmed over the prospect that the United States would discover the Syrian arsenal and conclude that Damascus and Khartoum were cooperating in the area of missiles and WMD. They said this would have delayed or dashed U.S. plans to lift sanctions from Sudan. A U.S. official confirmed the Syrian missile shipments to Sudan, saying they were meant for use against rebels in the south. But the official said the U.S. intelligence community has not determined that Syria sent WMD systems to Khartoum.
hat tip Instapundit
And, via Dr. Joyner this related article, on the ongoing and unreported discoveries of prohibited WMD and precursor weaponry in Iraq.
(Cross-posted at the Shotgun.)