This year’s Kinsmen Telemiracle is over, with over 3.5 million raised by the province’s residents.
Since its inception 27 years ago, the 20 hour province-wide telethon continues to hold a Guiness World Record, for raising more money per capita than any other fund raising event of its type. The funds are used to help residents with special needs.
Noisy, Empty Suits
Murray Wood hosts an afternoon phone in show on Saskatoon’s talk radio station, 650 CKOM (980 CJME in Regina). Today, he had a few choice words for some of our least favorite Liberals. I had been planning to dedicate a few words to Sheila Copps… saved me a lot of typing, Murray Wood did…
I emailed him to see if the piece was available online (it isn’t), but he sent me the raw text.
Heh. Nothing like a good rant to finish off a lazy Monday afternoon.
The Way I See It
If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, then self-righteous outrage is surely the final sanctuary for Liberal hacks and flacks facing their oh-so-deserved comeuppance.
I love the headline “Copps Cries Foul!!!” After losing the Liberal nomination in her Hamilton riding, the queen of the undeclared expense account suddenly wants a full accounting of the vote… and demands to know why some of her supporters were challenged.
Hey Sheila – here’s how the math breaks down; two plus two equals zero when it comes to you. That’s the number of positives you bring to any political party.
From the days of painfully shrill screeching on the opposition benches to her less than stellar time in cabinet, (remember free flags for all?) and unanswered questions about expense accounts, Sheila Copps has been a noisy, empty suit. No substance and not much style. Just sharp political claws and elbows.
Too bad for she doesn’t have better political instincts. Like a paunchy fighter who doesn’t know when to retire, Copps should have grabbed the patronage plum offered to her and ran. Of course, she could always run for the NDP.and aren’t the other parties all hoping she does?
And he was just getting started…
The Ultimate Jigsaw Puzzle
Build your own chicken using four simple ingredients.
Chicken genome assembled
BETHESDA, Md., Mon., March 1, 2004 – The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced that the first draft of the chicken genome sequence has been deposited into free public databases for use by biomedical and agricultural researchers around the globe.
Coming Soon: Steven Den Beste– How to build a Cocker Spaniel for the kids, altering only 27 base pairs!
Search Result: Asshats
Inspired by Drudge.
I swear to God, I did not “photoshop” this.
Kate Foxworthy Moments
If you head out for a weekend getaway, and the traffic looks something like this
You might be in Saskatchewan.
….
If longing to see something green means driving two hours north
You might be in Saskatchewan.
…
If you pull up to your motel room, and half the vehicles in the parking spaces have tracks
You might be in Saskatchewan.
Howard Stern, Whine Jock.
Is it just me, or is Howard Stern turning into a whiny tit?
Howard came back after the break and said he has some bad news. He said that the future of radio is coming to what he thought it would. He said he’s wanted to be on radio since he was 5 and knew that he would change the way people talk on radio. He said it was his stupid destiny. He said he finally got on the radio and got on in Philadelphia and Los Angeles and he’s even changed the way people talk on TV. He said that his tim has passed though and he’s become too much of a symbol in this country that is out of control to the religious right. He said they’ve been organizing for the past 15 years or so trying to get him off the air. He said that they’ve been targeting his advertisers and trying to censor him. He said he has made the big mistake of getting political.
He’s made a career for himself as a risk taker, and now he wants a risk free environment.
I actually like Stern well enough to listen to him when travelling in the US. But give it a rest, Howard. When you push the envelope, sometimes, the envelope pushes back.
If you were broadcasting in a country in which there were no rules or regulations, in which there were no possibility of enforcing decency norms, you’d be busting your ass in a real job. Without the envelope, there can be no “Howard Stern”.
Stern could always move here to Canada , where both he and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers are banned by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council and where watching Fox News is a criminal code offense.
update – Added to the Beltway Traffic Jam.
more – at Instapundit
Light Blogging Ahead
Dog show weekend, so activity here will be light. Go check out some of the folks on my blogroll.
Is Nader The Spoiler?
Via Drudge Report, the first post-nomination poll is out showing Kerry and Bush in a virtual dead heat.
The speculation is that Nader is the spoiler, bleeding off Democrat supporters.
Bush and the four-term Massachusetts senator, who emerged as the nominee Tuesday after a string of primary race wins over several rivals, have been running close or Kerry has been ahead in most recent polls that did not include Nader.
Since Nader entered the race Feb. 22, campaign strategists and political analysts have been trying to assess the impact of another presidential bid by the consumer activist whom Democrats blame for Al Gore’s loss in 2000.
Well, maybe. But if this proves to be a genuine signal that the enthusiasm for Kerry is already waning, it suspect it’s due to Edwards supporters moving to Bush. No doubt Nader may have skimmed off a few from Kerry’s left, but more likely he’d motivate the type who would refuse to commit to either Bush or a Kerry, the previously “undecided” who needs a third option to even want to vote.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen much of either on TV, and none of the debates. But it’s been my impression that hawkish Democrats were more comfortable with Edwards than with Kerry, and with Edwards out of the race, they can’t bring themselves to wobble over in his direction.
disclaimer: I reserve the right to be full of shit.
We Were Decieved!
The country is in shock, I tell you. Our own Poster Family for Multiculturalism has admitted
“we are an al-Qaeda family”.
Ahmed Said Khadr and his family first came to national attention in 1996, when then Prime Minister Jean Chretien intervened on his behalf to gain his release from Pakistan, where he was being held on suspicion of financing the bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad.
He and a son were killed, and a second paralyzed, in a raid on an Al Queda camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border last year. Another son is in US custody at Gitmo. The admission came by way of a fifth, Abdullah Khadr, who was recently released and made his way back to Canada. Of course.
CBC news interviewed the remaining family members for a documentary.
Now, could someone please shoot the mother, before she gets another chance to reproduce?
Tommy Douglas Is Still Dead
Today, the Saskatoon Health Region announced that they will be closing up shop the last few days of March. March is the end of their fiscal year, and they’re $7 million in debt. Cancelling the surgeries is expected to save an estimated $200,000. Well, not save, of course… defer.
Saskatoon Star Phoenix:
After waiting for four years for knee surgery, a Saskatoon woman has been told she’ll have to wait even longer because the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) can’t afford to do the procedure this month.
“I’ve waited for four years without too much complaining. I’ve been really patient because I realize there were people who needed it worse than me. But it’s got to the point where I need it as bad as anybody right now,” said Joyce Ratke, who learned this week she won’t have both knees replaced as scheduled on March 30.
One of 60 people being affected by the cancellations, her case is considered “elective”.
The annual budget of SHR is over a half billion dollars. $200,000 is a drop in their annual budget. The surgery moratorium has nothing to do about cost overruns, and everything to do with putting pressure on the politicians, and making a splash in the media. This time, though, the local media seems to be “on to them” and the decision is backfiring on the SHR.
I have a friend who works in the higher echelons of Sask Health, and she sometimes phones to vent her frustrations at the bloated unionized wages and threats to pull services whenever they need leverage for contract demands.
I told her the provincial government’s solution to reset the mindset of these “essential employees” could be summed up in 4 words.
Reagan. Air Traffic Controllers.
I had to explain what that meant.
The Dead Zone
Elena is a 25 year old who lives in Ukraine. She offers this motorcycle travelogue of the Chernobyl “Dead Zone” today.
The word CHERNOBYL scares holly bijesus out of people here. If I tell someone that I am heading in “dead zone”… you know, what I hear.. In best case- “are you nuts?” My dad used to say that people afraid of a things which they don’t know. Dad is nuclear physicist and he also says that of all dangerous things he can only think about one, which is riding on fifth or sixth gear on my bike.
Her site is on Angelfire – I suspect it’s going to get too much attention for her bandwidth allowance, but bookmark it for later, if you can’t get through.
hat tip = Politburo Diktat
Fun, Prizes, Trips
Wizbang has a new photoshop contest. It promises to be fun.
update: My entry
John Kerry: The first haughty French-looking heiress President
Question:
What was John Kerry’s name before he married Teresa Heinz Kerry?
update and reflection
I am not unaware of the fact that, as a Canadian, my commentary on American politicians is uninvited, and in some cases, unappreciated. Even uninformed.
But there’s something about gold-digging botoxed opportunists like Kerry, who marry into money, that evokes strong feelings in me.
Sure , one of them is jealousy. But, living next door to the US is like having Liz Taylor for a mother. Every few years she marries some new husband, and you’re the wretched stepchild who has to live with the choice. I didn’t like Clinton either, for somewhat similar “gut reaction” reasons – he reminded me of every married car salesman who ever hit on me.
Code Talkers
James Joyner remarks on another good reason to use linux the creativity of the recent email virus making the rounds. Hard to believe they’re written by these little pottie mouths
Inside Bagle.j, the eighth variant to debut since Friday, and which first showed Tuesday, is text taunting Netsky that reads “Hey,NetSky, f*** off you b****, don’t ruine our bussiness, wanna start a war?” (Not exactly Shakespeare, and the hacker’s spell-checker must not be working.)
Or maybe this is payback for the “whole-word learning” movement.
Within Bagle.k, a new variant that appeared Wednesday, is similar text, said Sophos: “Hey, NetSky, f*** off you b****!”
Netsky.f, another worm discovered Wednesday, sports a retort, according to analysis by F-Secure. Tucked inside its code is the line “Skynet AntiVirus –Bagle — you are a looser!!!”
Takes me back to the good old days in alt.hackers.malicious
Filling A Void
Well, now I know what to get the men on my Christmas list.
 |
Mr Benestad, a doctor and a well known transvestite, says the book will feature 80 to 100 photographs of penises. He hopes that most men will be able to find a penis similar to their own in the book. “Heterosexual men have no one to compare their penises with,” he said. |
Odd. Most of the heterosexual men I know seem more interested in comparing boobies.
Home DNA Extraction
No, not that kind of dna extraction – DNA extraction from wheat germ
Neat little science project for the kids. It’s probably not as dramatic as throwing oxyacetylene-filled balloons into a bonfire, though.
Mary Walsh, Still Not Funny
Jaeger skewers Mary Walsh, and it looks good on her.
Speaking of taxpayer-funded nonsense, what’s one to make of this interview with Mary Walsh? Mary Walsh is the warrior princess of the CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, who regularly subjects conservative politicians to haranguing monologues. Here she is taking a run at Alberta Premier Ralph Klein’s health care reforms:
Well, I already talked to Jean Chretien about it, but what is Ralph Klein up to? What does he want? I think he’s just drinking too much. I think he should just get off the liquor. Personally, Ralph Klein, cuz he really has that kind of, now, this is the fourth time he’s trying to drive through this private health care legislation; nobody wants it, not even the people of Alberta and he’s still doing it. He’s just like one of those drunks. He’s got a bad hangover. I don’t even know if he drinks, but just to me, it appears to me that I’m not making any kind of libelous statements about Mr. Klein and his relationship with a scotch bottle.
Now that’s the kind of classy, cerebral policy analysis we fund the CBC to do. Perhaps you’re not aware that Mary Walsh has a personal interest in health care. She is suffering from macular degeneration, which would have left her blind had she gotten the usual Canadian treatment of being stuck on a waiting list for several months. But instead she’s been rushed off for two urgent eye surgeries – in St. Louis.
She continues to read her leftist harangues off of a teleprompter albeit with large type. That she can see at all is thanks to surgery performed in private American clinics, yet she continues to rant against private health care. All the time funded by Canadian taxpayers, of course.
Another good Canadian blogger. Don’t let the “Trudeau” in “Trudeaupia” scare you off.
Pubic Hair and Ladybugs
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has announced the winners of the 6th Annual Teddy Awards.
Ottawa: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) held its sixth annual Teddies Waste Awards Ceremony to honour the best of the worst in government spending at a black tie news conference today on Parliament Hill. CTF Federal Director, John Williamson, acted as master of ceremonies.
The expected spending scandals are listed, of course. But there are some lesser known gems.
Worst Use of Props — Pizza 9-1-1: The Ontario city of Kawartha Lakes’ fire department has offered to deliver pizzas to residents as part of a fire safety promotion campaign. If Kawartha residents own a working smoke alarm the pizza will be free.
It reportedly didn’t take long before residents realized that there was no limit set on the number of “smoke detector inspections” you could order to your door.
Manitoba Arts Council put up $5,000 to fund Aliza Amihude’s jewelry made with her toenails, pubic hair, mouse droppings and dead ladybugs. We are told one necklace sold for $360. No word yet if the “art” proceeds will be repaid to the Arts Council or dedicated to psychologist bills.
The complete list of award winners can be found at the organization’s website.
Western Alienation, Pt III
A poll result obtained under access to information reveals that the feds really don’t like to have these types of polls made public;
Globe and Mail
Ottawa – The federal government was told Western alienation had reached disturbing levels just after Canada ratified the Kyoto protocol, with almost a quarter of one Prairie province saying it wouldn’t care if they joined the United States
…
Twenty-three per cent of Saskatchewan residents said they would not be too concerned if their province joined the United States, more than in either Alberta or Quebec, where 19 per cent expressed that view.
The poll may help explain why Prime Minister Paul Martin has made Western concerns a key priority while moving cautiously on the Kyoto file. Although he criticized his predecessor for lacking an implementation plan, Mr. Martin himself has not introduced one.
No suprise there. That’s the price of political expediency. Kyoto sells in the greater metropolitan Toronto area. When east-west interests are in conflict, the west is politically expendible. But things get trickier when energy and resources are on the table.
Unlike Quebec, if the western provinces did choose sovereignty, we exit with the bulk of Canada’s energy resources. Screw with our energy based economy at your peril – Peter Lougheed demonstrated that during the National Energy Program crisis of the early 1980’s.
The sense of belonging to Canada among Westerners has dropped sharply in the past decade, the Ekos study notes.
No shit, Sherlock. And in typical fed fashion, the Liberal government commissioned a poll. As if the the Reform-Alliance near sweep of the west in the past two federal elections weren’t a clue.
Nectar Of The Gods
Another best-kept-secret of Saskatchewan spilled in the media.
A series of Molson USA print and radio ads points out that the zinc in Saskatchewan barley is also common to oysters and truffles, known for their amorous properties.
“Here at Molson, we’re constantly asked if our Saskatchewan barley is an aphrodisiac,” one print ad states. “Those rumors are unfounded,” the ad concludes.
Well, all I can tell you is that I got friends – not naming names, mind you – but I got friends, who went out for a few brewski’s – and you know, woke up naked.
Not saying there’s a connection, mind you, but, I’m just saying is all.
G. Gordon Liddy
The same, from Watergate fame. Interviewed by the incomparable Frank J. of IMAO.
Frank: As everyone knows, men love firearms and attractive women; what gave you the idea to combine the two?
Liddy: When I was a boy, of course, you had girly calendars in every garage, factory, and everything else that you could think of. And, when I was a boy, you could walk right down the Main Street of town – you know, if you were 13-years-old or so – with your firearm on the way out to the woods to shoot squirrels and so forth. Then that became politically incorrect – both of those things became politically incorrect, and I wanted to make a statement against political correctness, so I combined the girly calendar and firearms.
Frank: That’s a nice way to make a statement, but has your calendar ever drawn controversy from people who dislike women or are against the objectification of firearms?