I have a monitor again, election reflection, watching Watchmen, and one will be revealed.

Dear Gods, I am a bad, lazy, infrequent blogger. I must be getting old. My lack of text is far from a lack of something to say. Rather, if my thought is accurate that Battlestar Galactica is truly an allegory to my life, lately nothing has been more true than this:

Months o­n the run, and what do we have to show for it? Casualties. Deteriorating conditions. This crew needs a rest. It’s finally hitting them, that’s all. Our old lives are gone. The o­nly thing we have to look forward to is this.

Commander William Adama, Flight of the Phoenix

Months of working too much for too little, with no leads on new jobs. First a back injury, then a three week stint with serious damage to my Achilles tendon. Engine block on the car fried. Need to work more to make payments on the new vehicle. LCD computer monitor goes on the fritz, so Dawn and I can fight over computer time. No end to the monotony in sight. All I have to look forward to is more work just to get by.

Well, last night was another small turn in the road. We have a library of sorts in our building, more like a small alcove in which people drop off and pick up old novels and such. Sometimes, however, other things appear there. Like a Samsung computer monitor.

Needless to say, the monitor issue is a non-issue. It is a CRT, but still, until the financial situation greatly improves, which is in process with the union contract being re-negotiated, along with a potential side business venture I’m undertaking, it will more than do. So long as someone doesn’t smash it up tomorrow (which seems to be my luck these days), we should be all good. Though in all honesty, I can’t imagine causing over $3000 in damage to a cheap computer monitor.

The car, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. Two days after driving off the lot with it, I got rear-ended. See a few posts back. The good is the deductible has been waived. The bad is that I’m worried shitless that some kind of vandalism will befall the loaner the body shop gave me. I really don’t need any more car problems in, oh, about forever.

Our lives have even been graced with elections (one to come in a week, and one early next year still to come, however), which in itself is allegory to the end of Season 2.

They don’t want to hear the truth. They’re tired. Exhausted. The idea of stopping, laying down their burdens and starting a new life right now is what is resonating with the voters.

Tory Foster, Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I

Not so much in Canada. We re-elected the king of personality, Stephen Harper, in an election that spent loads of tax dollars and changed next to nothing in the House of Commons. I guess one positive came out of it was that Stephane Dion stepped down as Liberal leader. I appreciate the honesty approach. When I lived in Onterrible, Dalton McGuinty got elected on a platform of ‘no tax cuts’, giving a ‘real’ plan as opposed to hollow empty promises. That’s one thing. Telling voters well before the election is even called you plan to tax us more is just plain suicide.

Still, it’s now only a matter of time before Justin takes the reigns. Probably one leader removed from another Trudeau Prime Minister dynasty.

Luckily, things are looking up down south. Congrats to Barack Obama for doing two things. First, being the first African-American voted in as President, but more importantly, having an ELECTION THAT ONLY LASTED ONE DAY. Actually, to think of it, most elections I can think of from down south really offered a result in only one day. Except two. Both elected that Dubya character. I can’t imagine that it’s only down to ballot counters having the same mathematical and academic capacity as the current puppet President. Co-incidence?

Say what you will about economic policy. I think this election might actually be a sign that the US is joining the rest of us in the 21^ST century, being able to rise from the past, go against the grain, and select a man who not even 50 years ago, wouldn’t have even been fathomed as the leader of the free world.

Yeah, I said it. Many in the world look to America as a beacon of hope. And Tuesday, this beacon of hope may have been re-lit. Through fiscal policy, budget, deficit, debt, and the like, we can easily lose sight of the social conscience that government must wield. We live in a much smaller world, thanks to many ingenious things such as the interweb. Different cultures, different gender orientations, different faiths are increasingly at ends, must either learn to co-exist or they will end up destroying one another.

I can only hope the election of Obama will forward the cause of co-existence.

It could be worse. We could have had five successive terms of Richard Nixon. Though for that to have happened, I think we might have needed an omnipotent blue dude with a diagram of a hydrogen atom on his forehead.

I’m really looking forward to the Watchmen film. I’ve only read the graphic novel a handful of times, as I’ve (until very recently) had to borrow it from friends, never finding a copy of my own. Until now.

I just hope that trailer isn’t the only thing to tide me over until the second half of season 4. Well aside from hockey. Tonight’s score: Winnipeg Jets 0, Kevin ‘Boom Boom’ Bieksa 1.

Interdum vos ut volvo ferrus six.

Much ado about nothing and the complete idiots that are in power

After near 40 days of unbridled political ranting and raving, Canada has decided to do nearly nothing to the balance of power. The Conservatives have missed their goal of a majority. The NDP missed overtaking the Liberals. The Liberals, frankly, missed the boat by making Stephane Dion as their leader. Meh. The real frakker is this election, latest in a string of minorities, not only changes so little, but costs us taxpayers a frakking fortune.

What’s really frightening is that we’ve let a leader like Dion stick around as the leader for so long. Whether his ideas are better or not is superceded by his lack of attention to a basic political fact. You have to play to the crowd. And to that, there can only be one choice for the new leader.

I guess there is solace. This is the best the Conservatives can ever be. The best Robot Boy will ever be. I wonder what the odds are there will be two new leaders the next time we spin the Wheel of Fortune that is Canadian Politics.

Interdum vos ut volvo ferrus six.

Doesn’t election time bring out the best in us all?

This post, however, will NOT be dedicated to the Gong Show south of the border, nor the Gong Show we’re going through up here. Rather, in my blog surfing, I have a spark that has bypassed both my writer’s block and badly messed up ankle enough to formulate a reasonable post.

As such, Peter put up this post yesterday. With the title From the Mailbag it would seem it was some sort of forwarded email. It tickles the funny bone, especially if your political systems sits right of center. Mine does not. So as a rebuttal, I give you this Master’s course in the history of humanity:

Many thousands of years ago, Cylons (Titans) and Humanity warred in the heavens. They eventually found their way to a nuclear wasteland called Earth. The few who remained became Lords of Kobol, or Olympian Gods, and remained in the heavens. The hybrid children, the only who were naturally resistant to Earth’s radiation, became the new evolution of humanity. The male children were told one statement which became the center of all their truths and beliefs. A male phallus must be at least six inches in length, or one is not truly a man.

As a result, man became divided into two factions. Phallically superior, or Liberals, and phallically challenged, or Conservatives. Confident in their manhood, Liberals were calm, relaxed, and sought a peaceful and meaningful co-existence with their environment and their brothers and sisters. Conservatives felt the need to prove they were just as much a man as their Liberal brothers. They waged many wars, built oversized spears solely for the purpose of resting the handle on their groin and dreaming, and spread the myth that this

is six inches. This perpetrated lie finally gets the Conservatives laid, and they learn that lies, misinformation, and academic resistance can give them power.

The Liberals realize this, but instead of challenging this myth, they go on to create democracy. Plato, a great Liberal, founds the governing system of the great classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. Rome eventually overtook Greece, and the Roman empire would be more than just a church today if not for the interference of three key figures. Gaivs Ivlivs Caesar (more commonly known as Julius Caesar), Jesus of Nazereth, and Constantine I all played their part in the dissection of democracy and the path to the dark ages.

Caesar, the first documented Conservative who was looking for a cure to impotency, took the credit for one of his soldiers impregnating Cleopatra with his supposed son, Caesarion. After being named dictator for life, he needed a successor, and since his half-Egyptian son would not be old enough to take over in the face of his impending doom, he had to adopt a brilliant Liberal, Gaivs Octavivs (more commonly known as Augustus). This liberal brilliantly created a system to have an Emperor disguised from the mob of Rome, as a measure to avert civil war. However, Augustus’s adoptive heir Tiberius was a eunuch, and the Conservative line of emperors had but one Liberal.

During the reign of Augustus, a brilliant black man named Jesus was born. Another gifted and potent Liberal, was able to commercialize the notion of peace. Outraged, Jewish and Roman Conservatives conspired to murder Jesus before he could have children to continue his line. Jesus was crucified, and his wife Mary was forced to escape and live in exile. The possibility of an ancestral line has been obscured through the Conservative fictionalization of history.

Three hundred years later, Constantine I, the ultimate bandwagoner, realized the Pagan cult was being threatened by misguided Christian followers. In true Roman tradition, he merged the two cults, giving the black Christ the face of Galactica’s CAG, Apollo. The message of peace was augmented to peace, so long as you believe what I believe, otherwise you’re a sinner and going straight to hell. The dark ages, a system based on class and money and power, was to begin. Christ’s message of peace was spread at the point of a sword through crusades, witch hunts, and the lovely relationship between England and Ireland.

Fast forward to recently. Christopher Columbus popularizes the well known notion that the earth is round. Europe colonizes America, and two dominant countries emerge. Canada (mostly Liberal) and the United States (phallically challenged Conservatives). The US fights for their freedom first, kicked off by pouring all their tea into the Boston harbour. Being now permanently without drinkable tea, they water their beer down to such a level that they can drink beer while they work. This has quite the negative effect as the highly conservative American’s alcohol tolerance drops so low they can still get drunk on 4 or less of these highly de-alcoholized beverages.

Canada, however, has a bunch of drunken riots in the streets of Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City. Getting fed up as the drunken Canadians can not feel pain when they are fought, Great Britain, realizing these drunken Liberals are the greatest fighting force known to man, stay heavily allied to us while giving us our freedom. We bail the Allies out of both WWI and WWII, invent the games of hockey and basketball, invent the telephone, develop insulin injections for diabetics, developed working universal healthcare, inspire grunge music, become the face of Star Trek, and most importantly, discovered the true Holy Grail.

Now if we could only find a better Liberal leader than Stephane Dion already?

Interdum vos ut volvo ferrus six.

A pound of flesh

You know, with the lot of bollocks I’ve been involved with trying to convince the mentally challenged that smoking is bad, along with waiting for Mr. Harper to drop the ball on his political career, I’ve lost touch with that ’special’ neighbour to the south. And, by channel surfing past one of America’s propaganda networks, I saw America’s ditz, Ann Coulter, defending a point (this was in fact archive footage for another debate about her stance), which fit something to the following:

Jews needed to convert to Christians in order to be “perfected.”

What the fuck? Of course, with this being Coulter, you have to weigh in the standard question as to whether or not she is doing this for effect, or is it in fact the voice of the extreme right, most of whom know to keep their mouth shut in order to effect their less than equitable agenda? A reasonable transcript may be found here.

I came up with a number of ideas to approach this personally. Re-iterate the complete Pagan nature of Christianity. The Shylock references (as per the title). Even attacking Ann. But none felt convincing to me. What I’d rather do, is in response to Ann’s belief that Christianity is the fast track to heaven, make this one point. On the fast track to heaven, Christians, whose central message is love, understanding, and respect, have gone about it in the last two millenia, using the following methods:

Holy Crusades
The Spanish Inquisition
Persectution of Scientists
Rejection of Darwinism
Forced conversion of others at the point of a sword
Northern Ireland
The slaughter of Roman Pagan Priests (to whom a great deal of a Christian’s faith is based)
Witch hunts

And I don’t think I need to really bring up what happened in the last 100 years in the name of their lord. Fast track to heaven my ass.

That is all.

A picture is worth…

Well, I hope readers can finish the above. Less Todd, who seems to miss my point continuously.

To wit…

No surprise, even here in the Conservative west.

That is all.

It’s not my shtick… or is it schtick?

I always thought it was the latter. Though CBC likes using the previous spelling. Either way… seems ol’ Stephen Harper (cos he can be considered Canada’s ‘new government’ anymore) snubbed Bono at the G8 summit. He claimed he was ‘too busy’, and as well, it ‘wasn’t his schtick’.

Of course, the latter ’schtick’ comment really appears to be a snub of former Prime Minister Paul Martin, which only goes to prove his entire political platform really wasn’t based on trying to ‘one up’ the Liberal. No new ideas, or do old habits just die really hard?

But yet, it seems Harper backtracks himself when he realizes Bono actually wants to talk about AIDS in Africa. Now it seems he’ll talk to Bono after the summit.

AFTER the summit? So is talking to ‘celebrities’ (and in this rare case, celebrities that actually engage in activities that benefit the world, not the profit lines of tabloids) your schtick or not Harper? Where’s your accountability Stephen? Seems you can’t even be accountable to your word these days (not that we were buying your ‘new’ environmental stance anyway). You even went on to say you’re a big U2 fan (though I’m sure you’d look blank if I mentioned songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday) to suck up to the press.

One thing is for certain. Stephen is full of shit yet again. This is speculative though… is Stephen trying to get a private concert at 24 Sussex in his ploy?

That is all.

Bowling For A Golden World

Or: How I learned to stop thinking and start worrying.

You know, there’s been a lot of difference of opinion here on this blahg lately. Most specifically, this post. I make mention that I disagree with the idea that “responsible” adults should be allowed to carry concealed handguns on school campuses, and it becomes a pro-gun issue.

The whole thing boils back down to a heated exchange of words I had with this fellow, many moons ago, over the film Bowling for Columbine. He too felt the movie was nothing more than an anti-gun rally by NRA lifetime member Michael Moore. Rather, when one actually watches the film (as opposed to listening to the sentiment of pro-gun people who feel slighted), the best point the film makes is actually what is said by Marilyn Manson.

Michael Moore: Do you know that on the day of the Columbine massacre, the US dropped more bombs on Kosovo than any other day?

Marilyn Manson: I do know that, and I think that’s really ironic, that nobody said ‘well maybe the President had an influence on this violent behavior’ Because that’s not the way the media wants to take it and spin it, and turn it into fear, because then you’re watching television, you’re watching the news, you’re being pumped full of fear, there’s floods, there’s AIDS, there’s murder, cut to commercial, buy the Acura, buy the Colgate, if you have bad breath they’re not going to talk to you, if you have pimples, the girl’s not going to fuck you, and it’s just this campaign of fear, and consumption, and that’s what I think it’s all based on, the whole idea of ‘keep everyone afraid, and they’ll consume.’

Much in the same way we look at shootings and say it revolves around gun control, how industrial emissions are only about greenhouse gases, how Iraq was about nukes, people have really lost focus of what is really going on. Myself, I find myself transported back 20 years into the past. The days of school dances, awkwardness around the opposite sex, reading loads of ‘classic’ literature in English class and studying the symbolism of a cornfield in Saskatchewan, overgrown young men playing rugby with the crutch of armour and deceptively trying to pass it off as football, hockey debates at lunch, getting your first car, and on, and on, and on. Yes, high school was such a wonderful, awkward, scary time.

But in thinking back, we never had gun problems. None in school. We were presented, however, with the sheer horror of what happened at École Polytechnique de Montréal. And in the wake of the shootings, I think if someone suggested having concealed weapons in schools as a discourse, we would ALL have thought that said individual needed to seriously re-think the idea. But yet, in today’s world, it is now an idea that is warranting serious discussion.

Why? I’m sure one who supports the idea of allowing concealed arms in schools will argue “it’s a different world”. And they are bang on the money. Having the opportunity to go back to school after a hiatus, I learned something rather disturbing. The quality of education has slid drastically. I went to film school with kids who could barely spell (save for spell check), who wrote essays by cut and paste from online articles, who did not know what a bibliography was, did not know what the word ibid meant, how to do footnotes (or endnotes, as I hated re-formatting when I made changes in my essays), how to structure an essay, how to divide or multiply by 100 without the aid of a calculator, understand basic additive and subtractive colour theory (bearing in mind they were in a visual program like film). When I was growing up, these kids wouldn’t have even been close to getting their high school diploma. We suffer from a high level of apathy in the way we (as a whole) approach the education of our own children.

So the idea is to put such neutral-geared minds behind the trigger of weapons to keep the peace? If this is the ultimate solution down south, I do have a suggestion to keep shootings to a minimum. Borrowed from Chris Rock, we should make each bullet cost $5,000. Why? Because people will have to think before they pull the trigger. Is this shot worth $5,000? Because frankly, unless money isn’t involved these days, most brains are now in permanent neutral gear.

Luckily, I live north of 49. That is all.

Why I’m glad that I live north of 49

Reason #1: Canadians don’t believe the solution to the epidemic of campus shootings is found through legalizing concealed weapons on campus.

People in South Carolina seem to have a different opinion on the matter. Frightening. South Carolina is suddenly becoming an example of Hanlon’s Razor:

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

That is all. Oh Canada!

It’s official: the Conservative mentality is officially derived from school playgrounds

But before we get to that, I would like to get a little personal for a moment. Two and a half years ago, I quit smoking. But easy breathing did not soon follow. For the following six months, I still coughed, felt chest tighness, and irritation. Something was up. But, for a completely different reason, Dawn and I packed our things, got in the car and drove 4,500 km west to Beautiful British Columbia. And something happened, actually, just outside of Revelstoke. We made one of the great many touristy stops through the Rockies, and I breathed in the naturally pine scented air. And for the first time since well before starting smoking, I breathed easily. I have never, ever had any issues with my breathing passages since, and enjoy a level of fitness unparalleled in my life.

Now obviously to ignore my smoker’s past to the effect on my lungs would be an act in the order of brain malfunction. I actually think Scott Adams would refer to this as inability to understand that some things have multiple causes. (Editor’s note: a list of brain malfunctions may be found here along with a form to submit to various colleagues/acquaintances/pundits to illustrate their deficiencies in thought). But alas, breathing very fresh air helped my lungs out greatly after quitting.

Now bearing in mind that Vancouver’s air quality index is substantially better than Toronto’s (my former prison), it becomes fairly easy to see alternate motivation toward reducing industrial and automotive pollution. And for the not so quick witted, it’s actually having clean air. All the arguing about whether or not the greenhouse effect is actually occurring or if it’s just a misinterpretation of data, one thing is true. It is far from just CO₂ coming out of those exhaust pipes. CO₂ is odourless. And if you sniff the exhaust from your tailpipe, I’m sure you’ll find quickly that ain’t odourless. So yes, I’m all for keeping air quality cleaner, and for eating naturally grown foods, and living in at least some form of balance.

Which brings us to today. Lately, our incompetent wonderful Conservative government is working on a plan to ‘try’ to meet Kyoto targets and make a real stance on climate change. Of course the key here is the word try. Try a google search. The best real steps outlined was the ban, in Ontario, of sale of incandescent light bulbs by 2012. Kinoflo must be rolling around in giddy fits of joy in response to this. Aside from this one major step in the province that thinks it’s the world, the best I could gauge from a Google search was surtaxes to Automotive and Refrigerator sales. The party’s own website was just as vague as all the press online. Just check this, this, and this. Obviously no real plan, just quoting the dogmatic ‘reduction by this date’ nonsense ALL politicians give us. But this just feels like a knee-jerk reaction to the pressure from the ever green feel of new Liberal leader, Stephane Dion.

You know what kills me about the whole lot of nonsense the Conservatives are still spewing? Read a few of those articles. They don’t intend to do anything until emissions stop rising! Nothing like talking right out of your ass, huh?

To take the cake, ‘Environment Minister’ John Baird took flak from David Suzuki and Al Gore (who was visiting Toronto promoting his Oscar winning film), to which both parties received the same rebuttal. “… This is more action than any government in Canadian history has ever taken.”

Well John, I know you are, but what am I? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me? Gawd, your rebuttal fits in just nicely with schoolyard nonsensary. How about admitting the truth? You and your government are going to hide behind the ‘not until emissions cease to increase’ clause of your environmental platform. So a childish argument that ‘we did it first’ is their whole justification for a bogus emissions reduction plan? Let’s face it, the Conservatives and their ‘government’ is a ship that is sinking fast, grasping at straws to try to stay afloat. I am thankful that enough of the Canadian electorate is smart enough to see through the smokescreen, a diametric opposite to our neighbours to the south.

Somebody call an election already. Okay, enough opposition MP’s vote against the tripe Harper is trying to pass in the House of Commons.

That is all.

Airing of Grievances

As many of you I’m sure remember, I wrote this post, this time last year, suggesting we celebrate a more secular holiday, Festivus. Okay, maybe some of you. Maybe one or two. I really can’t remember, as switching from Blogger to WordPress, and using Haloscan for comments, I lost a load of comments in the shift. Bollocks.

Anyhow, seeing as I have no Festivus Miracles to report, and the Feats of Strength are too hard to post via text, I shall just reserve this category for the Airing of Grievances.

First, to all the shitty drivers here in the lower mainland. And you know who you are. You suck. Big smelly rocks to boot. I swear, it seems as though you got your driver’s licence from a box of cracker jacks. You all give one thing Toronto actually bests Vancouver at. Traffic conditions. ICBC should make everyone retake their driving tests, and jack up the standards. We could use a good half of the cars off the road.

Second, to “Prime Minister” Stephen Harper. You are two-faced, lying, Conservative scum and you know it. Does any of this sound familiar?

I will lower taxes (by raising taxes for the lowest bracket… nothing like walking on the backs of the poor).

I will not tax income trusts (by taxing income trusts anyway).

I will defend ALL of Canada (by fueling Québec’s fire to separate).

I am Canadian (by trying to change Canada’s Parliamentary system to resemble American Congress. If you don’t like it here, move south).

But it shouldn’t be surprising. The idiot considers himself a part of the Leafs Nation. I can’t say there’s a good mind in that whole lot.

Third, Dubya. But what is there to say that hasn’t been said? You’re an ignoramus, illiterate, a lying piece of pond scum, and you and you’re cabinets private interests profited heavily during your side-war in Iraq. Kim Jong-Il was a bigger threat even in 2003. Somebody should really find all of your skeletons from your presidency already.

Lastly, the right wing mentality that science is wrong. And surprisingly, I’m not on about Christians rejection of the factual evidence in proof of Darwin, instead clinging to mystical belief. Rather, I’m on about Les Sayer. He actually argues that a diet of McDonalds is perfectly healthy, provided that it is accompanied by exercise. You can read about it here. And I actually know people who have read and seen his work who firmly believe McDonalds is healthy. For fuck sakes, when I was five, I knew it was bad for you. It is highly processed and highly filled with sugar to addict you. Why on earth would anyone try to addict you to things that are good for you? And for all you twats who seem to think otherwise, give your fucking head a shake. I’m just waiting for you lot to say smoking is good for you, like it’s candy for your lungs. Gits.

Other than that, happy [belated] Festivus.

That is all.