Friday, January 22, 2010

More credit, please!

Suppose you know someone whose many high-limit credit cards are maxed out. What would say if his solution to the problem is either to get another credit card, or beg for a limit increase?

If you're the United States Senate, this is exactly what you do:

Senate Democrats Propose $1.9T Increase in Debt Limit


I don't want to put the blame solely on the Democrats, because as I pointed out back on the day President Obama was elected, Republicans spent a lot of their time in control of Congress spending like a guy who had three days to live and who had somehow just convinced a loan shark to lend him ten million bucks. But I do quote the headline as it is written, because it takes me back to the 1990s, when the Republican Party shut down the government over an argument about the Debt Ceiling. And instead of looking principled and attracting attention to the national debt, President Clinton made them look like a bunch of fools and came out of the "debate", if there was one, smelling like a rose.

So what is going to happen this time? The Senate's rules require 60 votes to raise the Debt Ceiling. Is the government going to shut down again?

Memo to GOP: I don't know what you ought to do here, but it blew up in your face before, and it's likely to do so again. The problem is not that the Congress believes it has to raise the Debt Ceiling. The problem is that it can. If the evidence on file thus far is a fair indication of what can be expected in the near and medium term, then neither party can be counted on to do something about the massive public debt in the United States.

There is only one way to stop it. The people have to bring it to a halt. The beliefs that government can be all things to all people; or that it is a bottomless well of succor for whichever group is allotted the status of "victim" or even "deserving"; or that most people, once in power for a while, will hold fast to their principles and not be sucked into the machine that passes for representative government in Washington, are all off the mark. Congress is never, ever going to get America's finances in order as long as it is powerless against the federal bureaucracy, and composed of individuals who are seduced by their own power.

What would stop it is an amendment to the Constitution. Perhaps the proposed Federalism Amendment is the way to go. But the only solution is to cut the bastards off at their knees, and if the government is not going to initiate an amendment, the people have to do it themselves.

Better get started soon. The clock is ticking.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Thomas Jefferson and the public credit card

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds... [we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our mismanagers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for another, till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery. And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt." -- Thomas Jefferson

I liked this quotation so much I added it to the sidebar, along with a real time update of the United States national debt. And if you really want a good scare, check out this page. In particular, go to the bottom of the page and take a squint at Unfunded Liabilities.

For those of us in Canada, don't for a minute think this does not affect us. The United States is Canada's largest trading partner. And while I'd like to see the Canadian dollar stay strong, it is not going to be terribly funny if the US dollar falls into the tank and kills our manufacturing and tourism sectors. And we have our own debt problem anyway. It's not as high in per capita terms, and represents less of a structural problem in the federal budget than exists in the USA, but Canada makes up for it by having worse demographic prospects over the next forty years.

This is now (and has been for a very long time) way beyond an economic problem. It is also a moral problem of gargantuan proportions. What in heaven's name have we done to our children and their children? And when is it going to stop, or even slow down? What kind of people or nation justifies borrowing, consuming and spending to this extent? The American national debt is over $12,000,000,000,000 (that's twelve trillion). The Canadian federal debt is over $500,000,000,000 (that's five hundred billion). The national debt in Canada is even higher.

God help us all. This is late-in-the-Roman-Empire stuff.

Monday, January 11, 2010

BREAKING: Blago still as loopy as ever

Oh, Rod, Rod... really, dude. Stuff like this from the Associated Press, reporting on your recent interview with Esquire Magazine, makes it difficult for me to support you:

Blago!  Still with awesome hair.

Blagojevich: I’m ‘blacker than Barack Obama’


I know what Blago's trying to say, but I just don't think he ought to go here:
"I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived," Blagojevich said. "I saw it all growing up."

The White House refused to comment.

Yes, Blago and Bill Clinton. Two peas in a pod. At least he was right about President Obama's gift of eloquence:

"What the (expletive)? Everything he's saying's on the teleprompter," Blagojevich told the magazine for a story in its February issue, which hits newsstands Jan. 19.

Sorry.

All right, all of the former governor's nuttiness and bloviating aside, I still hope Patrick Fitzgerald loses on every count. Best of luck in court, Blago.

UPDATE (January 15th, 2010 9:00 a.m.): Rod Blagojevich has apologized for his comment: "What I said was stupid, stupid, stupid. I deeply apologize for the way that was said and having said it. Obviously, I am not blacker than President Obama."

Friday, January 08, 2010

La crèche de Noël, down on the farm

Woof.


[H/t: Deacon Greg Kandra.]

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

I can has math

My brother taught me how to do this a couple of years ago:

2010 is one more than 2009.

Happy New Year, everyone. Yes, I know, it's the Epiphany already, and I'm just getting around to wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

I'm one of those cautious people who doesn't like to speak unless he's absolutely sure of something.

And this year, I resolve to... euh... hey, where's my list? Guess I have to forget about all those self-improvement plans, since I can't find the paper on which I wrote them.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Science!

This song has been stuck in my head for a couple of weeks, the reason for which shall remain classified. But in order to clear my mind, I have to let the tune out somehow. The alternative is listening to Roch Voisine's Sleigh Bells one more time, to crowd the mind and cause the auto-replay subroutine to switch to something else. But another round of Sleigh Bells should cause unpredictable danger to others. So that strategem is right out.

Thomas Dolby may have been one of the ultimate One Hit Wonders, but the video is still awesome, after all these years.



I remember being in a dentist's chair, early in the 1980s, coked to the gills on novocaine as I got a couple of molars filled, with this song playing a little too loudly on a radio in the background. It still creeps me out fascinates me to remember it.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Existential Question

To stuff or not to stuff? That is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to jam a bunch of stuffing into one's holiday turkey, Which has indubitably suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to leave the sucker empty, And by opposing end the cooking time a little sooner?

Have a very Merry Christmas, everyone.

And whether you are Catholic or not, or were planning to or not, make sure you get your ass to Mass. My global campaign of forcible conversions shall follow very shortly anyway, so an early start will be helpful.

Monday, December 21, 2009

The Leafs Suck, Part 597

Vesa Toskala thinks goaltending is like hanging around in a sauna. He's wrong, but the geniuses running the Toronto Maple Leafs have yet to notice this problem.



Or maybe they have noticed, and they like it this way. I have said before that the Leafs' suckiness is deliberate, but thousands of Toronto fans continue to waste huge gobs of money to watch their team. Solve the latter, and you'll quickly solve the former, but lots of folks in Toronto are slow learners.

Forty-two years and counting...

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Et tu, Howard?

Howard Dean on Good Morning America this morning:

We've gotten to the stage... in Washington, where passing any bill is a victory. And that's the problem.

Ya think?

I know many are in favour of the principle, commonly found in self-help books and in the funny-but-not-on-purpose mission statements of some businesses, which I will call "A Bias For Action". And many are in favour of it in all circumstances. I'm certainly not one of them. There are times when you had better make good and dang sure that what you are doing is worthy, and almost every legislative process qualifies as one of those times. This is particularly true if the legislation in question is under deliberation by the United States Congress.

Read the whole transcript of the Dean interview.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Grits Plotting a Palace Coup?

Far be it for me to link to anything appearing in the Toronto Star, the very worst newspaper in Canada. But this chunk of gossip in last Sunday's edition was too good to pass up.

The title of the column by Angelo Persichilli: Liberal MP's plot early retirement for Ignatieff.

What? The Liberal Party of Canada is playing another instalment of Swallow the Leader? Oh dear. Have they learned nothing?

But never mind that. Let's look at a few clips of the column:

Last year at this time, the Liberals were trying to get rid of Stéphane Dion and put themselves in the hands of their saviour, Michael Ignatieff. After 12 months, they believe that Bob Rae, the former NDP premier of Ontario now turned Liberal, is the new saviour.

[snip]

Since last Tuesday's "special" caucus meeting called by the leader to tell MPs to support the controversial HST, doubts about Ignatieff's ability to lead the party are surfacing more frequently. Many MPs openly oppose the HST, and those who backed the party's stand, like Rae, express their support only in private. No one is defending the leader in public, in the caucus or with the media. Basically, Ignatieff is alone and the question of loyalty is becoming a huge obstacle to his leadership.

Contrary to the superficial unity Liberals show in the House, a revolt is brewing underneath.

Trudeau once said that MPs are nobodies 100 yards away from Parliament. Things, it would seem, are changing. In fact, it looks like the real politics are taking place away from the Hill, especially during after-hours meetings in Ottawa restaurants like Mamma Teresa, trendy Hy's or in the dimly lit corners of the Château Laurier. Lately, the topic has been the HST and Ignatieff's leadership. In fact, one of those after-hours meetings took place last Tuesday at the Château.

Chateau LaurierFrank magazine always said that Trudeau had it wrong: it is on Parliament Hill that MP's prove just how useless they are. But really, what could be a better venue for a backstabbing planning session over drinks than the Château Laurier? Especially when the object of the backstabbing is the Leader of the Opposition?

Well, you know, apart from the fact that the Château Laurier is right next door to Parliament Hill, where the Office of the Leader of the Opposition is located, I'm sure the venue was fine. But maybe Bob Rae and his hacks friends concocted a way to blend right in with the woodwork, and remain invisible to anyone from, say, Michael Ignatieff's office who happened to wander into the hotel. I'll bet that's it! I'm sure by now Bob Rae has shaken off the tendency he used to have, you know, to be as transparently obvious as the rotting corpse of an elephant in the middle of Bay Street in Toronto, the imagery of which ought to remind the reader of Rae's tenure as Premier of Ontario. After all these years, no doubt he has become much more subtle. Such a shame that muckraker from the Star didn't get the memo.

It all started after a gathering to mark the retirement of Liberal Senator Jerry Grafstein from the Hill. Among those present were Ignatieff and Rae.

After they had all feted the popular senator with great words of love and affection, some MPs – invited by Rae for a drink – moved "100 yards away from the Hill" into the Château Laurier. Here the façade of unity vanished, the true face of today's Liberal party materialized and the real work of politics, which no longer takes place on the Hill, was in full swing.

Glen Pearson, an MP from London and one of those present for the nightcap with Rae, said that in his opinion Ignatieff was losing the loyalty of the party and Rae was "the only one the party trusts." Carolyn Bennet, also present at the meeting, said that David McGuinty, Justin Trudeau and others are already planning their leadership runs and it was time for Rae to do something.

Uh, Ms. Bennet, your namesake Carolyn Parrish, the former MP from Mississauga, is supposed to be the Carolyn with the loose lips. But thanks for letting us know that little bit of trivia. Speaking of which, is Justin Trudeau really under the impression that he's up for the top job? Little early for that, innit?

Then the conversation shifted to some concrete proposals. In particular, they told Rae that many MPs believe he should become "the deputy leader with authority to manage all the files in the House of Commons," basically a kind of CEO. They also said that Ignatieff shouldn't be asking questions in the House but travelling throughout Canada "attending functions."

Yes, yes, put the poor guy on the road so he can have an even looser grip on his disloyal MP's. A fine idea.

Some also said that Ralph Goodale should be removed from his House responsibilities because, they said, he brings no added value to the party, no expertise, no financial wherewithal and doesn't deliver seats in his own province.

Guys, Ralph Goodale is not the problem for your party in Saskatchewan. He wins his own seat, for goodness sake, a feat for which you ought to be grateful. Without him, the Conservative Party would have a good shot at a Saskatchewan Sweep. As for the "no financial wherewithal" criticism, that's a joke. He was a fiscal conservative in Saskatchewan in the 1980s when no one else was; he had a good record as the Minister of Agriculture during Chrétien's first term, when the budget axe was swinging; and he was Paul Martin's Minister of Finance. If Goodale has "no financial wherewithal", neither does anyone else in the Liberal Party. Er... wait a minute...

Rae also was critical of the performance of the leader but said he was not interested in a coup d'état. However, he added that his loyalty is solely to the Liberal party.

"Nothing to see here, guys." Excuse me while I laugh, Bob.

Ruby Dhalla said that loyalty is a two-way street and accused the party of not doing enough to nurture the next generation of leaders. During the conversation, it was suggested that a group of MPs should meet with chief of staff Peter Donolo and present some of these proposals as soon as possible.

Yes, please run right over to Peter Donolo with all of these ideas. Tell him especially all about that two-way street laughable fluff theory. And I would remind you to display on your sleeves your transparent attempt to shove Ignatieff out the door and back to his professorship at Harvard, but I know you need no encouragement from me to do that. Donolo will chew you amateurs up and spit the pieces into the Rideau Canal, which shall be convenient as your favourite bar at the Château Laurier is just a few feet away, if you're somehow able to put yourselves back together and swim to safety. Peter Donolo worked for Jean Chrétien, for goodness sake. He knows a thing or two about crushing troublemakers like bugs.

But, hey! Why not Bob Rae for Liberal Party leader?

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

A Proper Automobile

Someday, maybe, I'll own my dream car: a 1965 Cadillac DeVille convertible. (Gas mileage? We don't need no stinkin' gas mileage!) This is the way an automobile should look:

Monday, November 30, 2009

Eggs, bacon, sausage and spam

With bonus Gumby Flower Arranging, and subtitles for the hard of hearing. This is truly one of the greatest sketches in the history of television:

Thursday, November 26, 2009

The Flat Earth Society

I am sad to report that a Wikipedia article states that the Flat Earth Society appears to have disbanded back in 2001, following the death of its president, Charles K. Johnson of California. (Well, where else?) This is unfortunate news, given that the Flat Earth Society appears to have the coolest motto ever:

Deprogramming the masses since 1547.

Happily, many websites live still which describe the Flat Earth Society's beliefs in great detail. For a great guffaw, I recommend this page. Excerpt:


In the Efimovich model, the planet Earth is supposed to be a large, spherical shaped ball of rock flying through space at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. But how could the Earth continue to move at the same speed for as long a time as the "round Earthers" say that it has existed for; namely, several billion years. If outer space were a vacuum, then there would be no problem. But space is not a vacuum, it is instead filled with ether. The earth would have to have been pushing its way through the ether for all those billions of years. Shouldn't it have slowed somewhere along the line? What would keep the Earth from grinding down to a stop at some point on the Efimovichian timeline?

When the ether in my yard gets a little too thick, it's really, really hard to push the lawn mower. And if I let go of the mower, it stops.

More:


A second critical piece to the Efimovich model is that the Earth is not the center of the solar system either. It is, according to "round Earth" theory, orbiting the sun at a radius of around five-hundred million kilometers. Were this the case, the Earth would be an accelerated object in circular motion around its sun. And thereby are the problems introduced. The Earth accelerating in circular motion would behave no differently than would a car taking a corner: loose objects (humans and animals would act like loose change or a cup of coffee on the dashboard) would slide around, or be thrown off completely. There would be an apparent centrifugal force on everything. During the day, when things would be facing the sun and therefore on the inside of the "orbit", buildings would be crushed and humans beings squashed like grasshoppers in a centrifuge. And at night, when everything would be at the outside, trees and buildings would be ripped from the ground and flung into outer space, and humans wouldn't stand a chance. Obviously, there is a flaw in Efimovich's "orbit" theory.

I know that around my neighbourhood, it's absolute chaos at night. The Flat Earthers ought not to be so quick to whine about flaws in the "orbit" theory.

"A car taking a corner"... hahahahahahaha!!! Say - didn't our high school physics teachers always say that centrifugal force does not exist?

But wait, there's more still:


Water. Regardless of which train of thought you follow, it covers over seventy-five percent of our planet's surface. And the atmosphere, also a fluid, covers the entire surface. The difference is why. While flat-Earthers know that the ocean is really just a large bowl, (with great sheets of ice around the edges to hold the ocean back), and the atmosphere is contained by a large dome, the backwards "round-Earth" way of thinking would have you believe that all those trillions of gallons of water and air just "stick" to the planet's surface.

Well, maybe these bastards can explain to me why when I wipe the countertop in the kitchen, it stays wet. It's as if the water just "sticks" to the counter's surface.

I must be missing something.

Seriously, folks: check out this site, especially if you're celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States and you're thankful for the gift of humour. The Flat Earth Society's site's page entitled "Why a Flat Earth?" is a mother lode of giggles.

P.S. It is not lost on me that the Flat Earth Society website may be an elaborate hoax. Even if it is, it's wickedly clever and still well worth the visit.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Yes, Genesis! How can you be deaf with ears like that?

At the behest of my friend Mr. Macrum of York County, Maine, I am going to do a favour for... well, just about everybody, and do my part to turn all the countries of the Western world into repressive theocracies by wrapping myself in Scripture. It is part of a wide-reaching conspiracy, anyway, so I'm more or less forced to do this.

Note: It is my sincere hope that Mr. Macrum sees the humour intended in the previous paragraph.

Yes, I am here today to tell a little about the Bible. Now, if the Bible interests you but you find the idea of starting at the very beginning too daunting, I would suggest instead that you start by reading the Gospel of John. But if the Old Testament triggers any kind of interest, I thought I might mention a number of cool things from the Book of Genesis. These are in no particular order, by the way.

1. Adam truly set the standard of weaseldom for all of humanity. When confronted by God after eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam explained, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." (Gen 3:12) Now, isn't that sweet? It's the woman's fault. You know, the woman you provided. In other words, Lord, it's all your fault.

Taking responsibility for our own actions has been a challenge ever since.

2. Despite setting this horrible example, Adam lived 930 years. (Some versions say 937 years.) (Gen 5:5)

3. Many generations later, there lived a guy named Noah, whom you may have heard about. One of Noah's sons had the name... wait for it... Ham. (Gen 5:32) Noah's grandfather was the celebrated Methuselah, who lived the longest of anyone mentioned in the Old Testament, expiring at the age of 969 years. (Gen 5:27) And the kicker? Methuselah died the same year as the flood. For a time I wondered if he died in the flood, because Scripture does not specify. Which lead to this imagined exchange:

HAM: "Hey Dad, what about your grandpa? Shouldn't we go get him? The rain has started."
NOAH: "Nah, leave him. He's too old to bother with."

If you search for it, there's actually all kinds of commentary online debating this question.

4. Abraham was promised children, but God made him wait. And wait. And wait. And after yet another promise from God, Abraham's tongue numbed to incredulity: "Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, 'Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?'" (Gen 17:17) Fortunately, Abraham and God had a good rapport, so there was no smiting after this scoffing. And indeed Isaac was born soon afterward. (Gen 21:1-5)

So if you pray for something, remember that the answer might be Yes, or No, or Maybe. Or Wait.

5. The great Jewish tradition of bargaining for a better price may have started with Abraham. Abraham's nephew Lot lived in a city which God wished to destroy due to the sinfulness of many who lived there. But Abraham went to bat for the place:

[23] Then Abraham drew near, and said, "Wilt thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? [24] Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou then destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? [25] Far be it from thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" [26] And the LORD said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake." [27] Abraham answered, "Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. [28] Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Wilt thou destroy the whole city for lack of five?" And he said, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there." [29] Again he spoke to him, and said, "Suppose forty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of forty I will not do it." [30] Then he said, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there." He answered, "I will not do it, if I find thirty there." [31] He said, "Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there." He answered, "For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it." [32] Then he said, "Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there." He answered, "For the sake of ten I will not destroy it."

See that? Abraham bargained God down to ten. Talk about bold. But apparently there were not ten righteous people found there, because after a brief investigation the Lord blew the place to smithereens. (Gen 19:24)

Still, you gotta be impressed.

6. Abraham got on well with the Hittites, even though God more or less told Abraham that he could take over all their land, no questions asked. (Gen 15:18-21) When his wife Sarah died, Abraham deferentially asked the Hittites for land to establish a place of burial. Abraham was offered at no cost the choicest of the sepulchres of the Hittites, but he insisted on making payment. Eventually, after being entreated by Ephron the Hittite to take a large parcel of land for nothing, Abraham convinced Ephron to accept money for it, and they settled on 400 shekels of silver. (Gen Ch. 23)

7. Not everyone got on so well with the Hittites. Abraham's son and daughter-in-law, Isaac and Rebekah, had twin sons, Esau and Jacob. "When Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the daughter of Be-e'ri the Hittite, and Bas'emath the daughter of Elon the Hittite; and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah." (Gen 26:34-35) Bitter! Bwahahahahahaha! I wish Genesis elaborated on this. It sounds funny. Rebekah later sends Isaac away to find a wife elsewhere: "Then Rebekah said to Isaac, 'I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?'" (Gen 27:46)

And that's just a start. The whole of Genesis is a rip-roaring good read, full of sex and violence examples of lives blessed by God and building the basis for the coming of the Saviour. I highly recommend it.

But if you've not cracked open the Bible before, start with the Gospel of John.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Making one's point clearly

What would you say about an organization that gets the same complaint over and over again from its clients, but does nothing about the issue that is generating the complaint?

If this same organization was told in clear, detailed, polite terms that it made an error in one of its invoices, and also received a precise explanation of what was required to correct the problem, but utterly misunderstood either the definition of the problem or the prescription for correction, and botched the account further, what would that lead a reasonable client to do? And if this latest comedy of catastrophe appeared not to be the exception, but rather just the latest instalment of carelessness and incompetence, what exactly would be the right move for the client?

The organization in question is the municipality in which I live, which has its own electrical utility. In the interest of maintaining my online anonymity and not revealing my location, the reasons for which are annoying but nevertheless must remain classified, I shall refer to the municipality as the Town of Biscuitville. And Biscuitville has an electrical department which has an annoying habit of making wildly inaccurate estimates, at unpredictable times of the year, resulting in invoices for electrical service and usage that are highly inaccurate. And take a wild guess as to whether the bills are too high, or too low. You'll never guess which one it is.

Oh, you did guess right. Yes, they're much too high.

This is not a problem for me when the Town of Biscuitville does this at my home. You see, they base their estimates on the electrical use at the same location during the same month of the previous year, plus some percentage "just to be safe", the exact amount of which appears to be random. But the estimates on my home bill are usually not so bad, and then they correct the month following anyway, when Biscuitville's crack corps of electrical meter readers hits the road and one of them actually deigns to enter my yard and take an actual reading from the counter. And I pay the Town of Biscuitville the exact same amount on my electrical account every month anyway, and I usually have the account overpaid in the vicinity of $100 to $150, depending on the time of year.

But it's a huge problem at work, where I manage rental properties. And the clients to whom we rent are the ones who pay the electrical bills, so when Biscuitville estimates a reading, the lessees experience more or less the same thing as I do at my home. But when the homes go vacant for a month or two, or longer if they have been destroyed by the previous occupants and require extensive cleaning and renovations, then the practice of the Town to estimate electrical usage based on the consumption of the previous occupant, who may have been an electricity glutton, is problematic.

Like last winter, when I received a bill for $1,350 for one month of use at an empty home. Oooops. The actual bill should have been about $45.

And like this past summer, when there were no snowbanks impeding the path of the meter readers to actually approach the homes and take an actual reading of the counter (the Town's favourite excuse in winter), and I received a bill for an empty house estimating usage at 760 kilowatt hours. The actual use was about 100 kWh. And two months later, when the new client moved in and took over the electricity service, our final bill showed the meter reading when we were "read out" and revealed that our total usage over the three months of vacancy was about 325 kWh, and the bill made no correction for the bad estimate. When I contacted the Town of Biscuitville to inform them as to what the amount should have been, they cheerfully sent out a correction deducting the amount I gave them over the telephone, instead of voiding the whole thing and billing us for the amount I gave them on the telephone. And now you see what I was referring to in the second paragraph of this windy post.

Which brings me to the point where I feel my point has not been made, even though I have made it a half dozen times. Therefore it is time to ramp up the communication, so to speak. I composed the following letter (I've changed some information, like street names, as will be obvious), which I did not send on the advice of my wife, whom I asked for feedback:

Monday, November 9, 2009

Town of Biscuitville
Department of Financial Services
1563 Walrus Street
Biscuitville

Dear sir / madam:

I am writing regarding your letter to [my employer] dated November 4th, 2009, referring to account number 1234567, and a cited overdue balance of $133.71. The service address of this account is 3095 Pizza Drive.

The reason this account is overdue is not due to a significant underpayment for electricity actually consumed. It is due to the inexplicable habit of the Town of Biscuitville to estimate a reading on the electrical meter of this property, a habit it exercises at other properties as well, that does not reflect a use of reason. Instead of an estimate that would reflect approximate use, or would at least put the reading in the vicinity of Earth, the estimate is compiled based on use by the previous occupants at a similar time of year, which sounds fine in theory but results in estimates not in the vicinity of Earth, but in the vicinity of the three radioactive moons of the planet Xoabor. And Xoabor doesn’t even exist.

All of this is meant to express my dismay at the following:
• The Town of Biscuitville's wildly inaccurate estimates of usage of electricity.
• The Town of Biscuitville's use of estimates at times of the year – namely, spring, summer and fall – when the electrical meter is accessible by anyone ambulant.
• The Town's inaccurate billing which results from the use of estimates (cf. my detailed voice message of approximately one month ago regarding an inaccurate bill at another address).
• The Town's apparently automatically-generated warnings of impending cessation of electrical service if I do not comply with its wildly inaccurate bills.

The use of estimates is especially problematic because these empty housing units become occupied before the electrical meter has reached the wildly inaccurate estimated reading, discussed earlier. In that case, as we have seen at our unit at 1027 Hamburger Avenue, the billing errors compound and would not be corrected unless I point out the error and remain vigilant in following for its correction.

Please, therefore, cancel any and all bills at all locations that have been generated by estimates, and send new bills based on actual readings of the meters. Then and only then will I pay the exact amount required by the invoice. Pending this type of correction by your billing system, I shall continue sending estimated amounts owing.

Hoping for continued friendship, I remain,

Your humble servant,

Lord Ignatius F. Pig, Esq.

My wife felt the letter was too heavy on the sarcasm, particularly the part about the three radioactive moons of the planet Xoabar. I think a reference to Xoabar is appropriate, given the continued foolishness. I try not to get sarcastic when dealing with others on a professional level, but my point needs to be made clearly.

So... what do you folks out there in Readerland think?

Monday, November 09, 2009

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Twenty years ago today:
The folks in this photo lived to tell about it. Millions of others did not.

I will let Solzhenitsyn tell a little about what a person might expect when arrested by the communists, who arrested citizens for no other reason than to terrorize the people:

Starvation has already been mentioned in combination with other methods. Nor was it an unusual method: to starve the prisoner into confession. Actually, the starvation technique, like interrogation at night, was an integral element in the entire system of coercion. The miserly prison bread ration, amounting to ten and a half ounces in the peacetime year of 1933, and to one pound in 1945 in the Lubyanka, and permitting or prohibiting food parcels from one's family and access to the commissary, were universally applied to everyone. But there was also the technique of intensified hunger: for example, Chulpenyev was kept for a month on three and a half ounces of bread, after which - when he had just been brought in from the pit - the interrogator Sokol placed in front of him a pot of thick borscht, and half a loaf of white bread sliced diagonally. (What does it matter, one might ask, how it was sliced? But Chulpenyev even today will insist that it was really sliced very attractively.) However, he was not given a thing to eat. How ancient it all is, how medieval, how primitive! The only thing new about it was that it was applied in a socialist society! Others, too, tell about such tricks. They were often tried. But we are going to cite another case involving Chebotaryev because it combined so many methods. They put him in the interrogator's office for seventy-two hours, and the only thing he was allowed was to be taken to the toilet. For the rest, they allowed him neither food nor drink even though there was water in a carafe right next to him. Nor was he permitted to sleep. Throughout there were three interrogators in the office, working in shifts. One kept writing something-silently, without disturbing the prisoner. The second slept on the sofa, and the third walked around the room, and as soon as Chebotaryev fell asleep, beat him instantly. Then they switched roles. (Maybe they themselves were being punished for failure to deliver.) And then, all of a sudden, they brought Chebotaryev a meal: fat Ukrainian borscht, a chop, fried potatoes, and red wine in a crystal carafe. But because Chebotaryev had had an aversion to alcohol all his life, he refused to drink the wine, and the interrogator couldn't go too far in forcing him to, because that would have spoiled the whole game. After he had eaten, they said to him: "Now here's what you have testified to in the presence of two witnesses. Sign here." In other words, he was to sign what had been silently composed by one interrogator in the presence of another, who had been asleep, and a third, who had been actively working. On the very first page Chebotaryev learned he had been on intimate terms with all the leading Japanese generals and that he had received espionage assignments from all of them. He began to cross out whole pages. They beat him up and threw him out. Blaginin, another Chinese Eastern Railroad man, arrested with him, was put through the same thing; but he drank the wine and, in a state of pleasant intoxication, signed the confession - and was shot. (Even one tiny glass can have an enormous effect on a famished man - and that was a whole carafe.)

That, folks, is communism. That is what the people of East Germany were escaping from. The fact that the Berlin Wall stood for nearly three decades is an affront to humanity. Thank God it stands no more.

Monday, November 02, 2009

The Awesome Toronto Maple Leafs

What do the Leafs and the Titanic have in common?
They both look good until they hit the ice.

What's the difference between the Toronto Maple Leafs and a cigarette vending machine?
The vending machine has Players.

What do the Toronto Maple Leafs and whales have in common?
They both get totally confused when surrounded by ice.

Why are the Toronto Maple Leafs like Canada Post?
They both wear uniforms and don't deliver.

Why doesn't Hamilton have an NHL team?
Because then Toronto would want one too.

What do the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Argonauts and the Toronto Blue Jays all have in common besides being based in Toronto?
None of them can play hockey.

What do you call 30 millionaires around a TV watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs?
The Toronto Maple Leafs.

How do you keep the Toronto Maple Leafs out of your yard?
Put up a goal net.

What do you call a Toronto Maple Leaf with a Stanley Cup ring?
A thief.

What do the Toronto Maple Leafs and possums have in common?
Both play dead at home and get killed on the road.

How many Toronto Maple Leafs does it take to win a Stanley Cup?
Nobody knows.

--------------------------

This guy says to the bartender, “Can my dog and I watch the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game here? My cable is out, and my dog and I always watch the game together.”

The bartender replies, “Normally, dogs wouldn't be allowed in my bar, but it’s not very busy right now, so you and the dog can have a seat at the end of the bar. But, if there’s any trouble with you or the dog, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

The guy agrees, and he and his dog start watching the game. Pretty soon, the Leafs manage to score a goal and the excited dog jumps up on the bar, barks loudly, does a back flip and runs over to the bartender and gives him a high-five.

The bartender says, “Wow, that’s pretty cool! What does he do when they win a game?”

The guys answers, “I have no idea.”

--------------------------

(Ig talking): My friends in Toronto, if this didn't rankle enough, stop and think about this little added bit to the story:

The Leafs suck and the Leafs' owners like it that way. It's intentional.

Have a great season!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

My friend, a great man

From my seat about halfway between the main doors and the altar, I wondered why the pastor was not presiding today. He is, after all, a gifted and inspiring speaker. One would think this would be the day we'd need him. But he was nowhere to be seen, and a priest from a neighbouring parish was here today.

The elderly deacon ambled away from the lectern after proclaiming the gospel. As he did so, the presiding priest confidently approached to deliver his homily.

"On November twenty-ninth, nineteen eighty-four," he opened, "we were all devastated when we heard the news of John's accident." Ah! That's what he's doing here today. He knows John. He was there. "...and I know that in the days and weeks that followed, we prayed, we all prayed so hard, for a miracle for John." I didn't know John back then, but I have no doubt that the prayers were flying. "And thanks be to God, every single one of those prayers was answered!"

What? Answered? John lived twenty-five years as a quadriplegic, Father. What does you mean, answered?

A voice inside my head calmly interjected. Shut up and listen. You know what he means. I took a deep breath. Did you know John over the last seven years, or did you not?

My friend John died suddenly in the early morning hours of Thursday, August 27th, around the time I was tossing and turning sleeplessly at my cottage in Quebec, thinking about our imminent departure and agonizing over the ten hours of driving time it would take to get home.

John had lived with near total paralysis following a bad collision during a hockey game when he was sixteen years old. He had very limited use of his right arm and hand only. His left hand and arm were strapped to his chair, and his immobile legs were set out straight to minimize circulatory problems. John’s respiratory capacity was reduced, as he was able to use only the upper portion of his lungs. With the help of technology, John was able to drive and control an electric-powered wheelchair. He lived in a half-duplex rented to him by my employer, and his near full-time caregiver – who recently became his fiancée – lived in the other half of the duplex. Every morning, one or two nurses visited John’s home to get him out of bed, clean him, dress him and help set him up in his chair.

John was subject to the usual health problems, and more, that plague every quadriplegic. He suffered from pressure sores, despite the advanced and expensive wheelchair and bed he used. A couple of years ago, he became diabetic, even though the disease appears not to run in his family. Chest colds usually developed into pneumonia. One onset of pneumonia, in the late winter of 2008, was particularly acute and nearly killed him. He spent six weeks in hospital and slowly recovered.

But the priest was right. Every single one of those prayers was answered.

The people praying for John in the weeks after his accident got only half of what they were praying for, in literal terms. They were praying for John to survive. They also prayed for a miracle for John, and by times during the last few years, I did too. The requested miracle was that John, through divine intervention or a breathtaking medical breakthrough, would regain the use of his arms and his legs.

But instead of that, John’s entire life became the miracle.

In the seven years I knew John, I never once heard him complain about anything. I have spoken about this with people that knew John, and have raised this topic both before and after his death. Many of them were acquainted with John since the time of his accident. And every single one of them reported the same thing. John never once complained about his situation.

“Two weeks after John’s accident,” the priest informed us from the pulpit, “I traveled to the hospital on the mainland where John was being treated. I expected to meet a despondent, depressed young man, his spirit crushed by his severed spinal cord, and his dreams shattered. Instead, I walked into the room and was met by a cheerful, smiling young man, lying on a hospital bed with wires and tubes all over him.”

It was almost as if John relished the challenges that lay before him. That was certainly the John I knew, but I thought he had to work hard at projecting this attitude. And maybe he did, but right from the beginning, he made it seem the most natural thing in the world.

John traveled all over town in his wheelchair when the weather permitted it. He would not always stop to talk, but would shout, as much as his weak lungs would allow, a greeting across the street to me (or anyone else) as he drove by. John did everything physically possible with the small physical ability he had left. He had a device that fitted under his upper palate with a rod attached to it, which he used to help drive his chair, or type at his computer, or punch the buttons on his cordless telephone. John’s good hand was sufficient to move and click a computer mouse, and with the use of his mouth rod, he transformed himself into a computer whiz. This led to some darker abilities, like those that led to the occasional appearance of a newly released movie in John’s house, playing on a homemade DVD on his computer. I used to joke that if there were a way to view bandwith use from space, there would be a huge vortex appearing on the map over John’s block.

Sharing what he had was important to John. He gave advice and tutorials on computer issues to anyone who asked. He counseled young people who had gone through life-changing events. He and his fiancée took in troubled teens whose parents needed a break from them, and provided a heavy dose of reality to many young people at critical stages in their lives. John loved to joke and laugh, and could be counted upon to provide a lift to the spirits of everyone he met. It was infectious, too. If I heard a good joke, I’d often try to remember to share it with John the next time I met him. My wit never came close to matching his, though.

John’s trademark was gratitude for what he had, and for the people in his life. He was polite and gracious to a fault to medical staff during his hospital stays. During a visit to John’s hospital room in the late summer of 2008, when he was in to treat a relapse of his pneumonia, he told me quietly that he had spoken a little impatiently to a hospital staff member who had come into his room in the middle of the night with a nurse to turn him in his bed. He said he would make a point to find the young lady again and offer an apology. Imagine that!

Many doctors and nurses found themselves in John’s company saying things they might not say to anyone else. In April 2008, I was visiting John in the hospital as he fought back from pneumonia when his respirologist came to check him over and clean his tracheotomy (which was made when he was rushed into the hospital). When the doctor was done, John recounted to him an exchange he had had with a nurse earlier in the day. The nurse wanted John to take an undissolved tablet of some kind, and John informed her he could not because of a problem in his throat, complicated by the tracheotomy. “Sorry,” he told the nurse, “I’m not able to swallow.”

“Don’t worry, John,” the nurse deadpanned. “I’ve never been able to swallow, either.”

There was a pause of about half a second, and then everyone in the room – the respirologist included – fell about the room, howling with laughter. I laughed so hard I cried. John just grinned proudly at having retold the story so well.

That was the way it was with John. You never knew what he was going to tell you, and more often than not you’d laugh yourself to tears.

After being rushed into the hospital the month previous, John hovered near death for a couple of days. When he was able to speak again, he informed his family and the medical staff that he had seen the other side. “What? What did you see, John?”

Only half conscious, John replied, “I saw God.”

“What? You saw God? What did He say?”

No reply. John was drifting in and out of sleep.

“What did He look like, John?”

No reply.

“Was He as good-looking as you, John?” asked one of the visitors who knew John’s sense of humour.

John’s eyes stayed closed, but he smiled. “No,” he giggled.

Over the last eighteen months, John faced challenge after challenge with his health. It should have been obvious to me that he was in a decline, but I suppose I was blind to it. I last saw him early in August before leaving for Quebec. He was outdoors, driving around in his chair, socializing on the street on a nice day. When I talked to him, he was in good humour but he was not happy with the anti-seizure drugs he was taking. They were making him drowsy and slurring his speech. Like every other problem I saw John face, I figured he would find a way to overcome it. I figured he should overcome it. Many assumed the same thing.

Not everyone saw it this way, though. A few months ago, as John was going through a series of surgeries to treat a deep infection caused by a bad pressure sore, his elderly father was overheard having a conversation with a local business owner. He said that by times he wondered if it wouldn’t have been better if John had died following his accident. The hardware store owner reacted with surprise, but John’s dad explained what he meant. “John has suffered terribly over the years. And he is suffering terribly now.”

The evening before his funeral on September first, hundreds and hundreds of people turned out to pay their respects at his wake. It seems everyone in town knew John. And everyone had the same story: they had learned so much about life from John. Do your best. Be generous. Do not dwell on your limitations. Be aware of your talents, and use them. And don’t complain about petty things. John had a lot to complain about, but he never did. So why on earth should I complain about a ten hour drive home from my cottage, for goodness sake? I have a home. I have a great family. I have a cottage. I can drive a car and walk on my own two feet. I’m an idiot to complain about anything.

Every prayer answered indeed, Father.

It’s funny how the great men in our midst teach us the most basic things. John only had 41 years on this earth, but he affected everyone he knew, and to an immensely greater and more positive degree than most who live twice as long. It was a privilege to know him, and it was likewise a privilege to wait two hours to get through the lineup at the funeral home to get the opportunity to say goodbye. I told John’s brother Gerry that at the moment he died, “John got everything back.” Gerry agreed.

I hope there is hockey in Heaven, and that he’s had a chance to lace on a pair of skates again.

Thank you, great friend.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Counting My Blessings

Thought this might make a good motivational poster, too. This photo was taken on August 21st, on our way north from Rivière-à-Pierre.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Chalet Numéro Trois

Actually, this is our numéro deux. But never mind the numbering - long story. Here's where I spent some time this past summer, in the company of my lovely wife and many a few bottles of beer.

Where on earth...?

Had some fun with AutoMotivator making this. And who can disagree with such a wise message?

Friday, October 09, 2009

BREAKING: President Obama wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

Everyone knows I am on record as disagreeing with President Obama on a lot of issues. Almost all of them, actually. But I honestly ask this question, with no disrespect intended, in response to the news that he has won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace:

Um.... for doing what, exactly?

I know the Nobel Peace Prize is never going to be awarded to anyone but a committed liberal, because that is the slant of the Nobel committee's worldview. But if Obama deserves it after just nine months in office, why not former President Clinton? Goodness knows the political capital he spent trying to get the Israelis and Palestinians together, and were it not for the career terrorist Yassir Arafat, the Wye River Accords may actually have produced a peace treaty. Given the concessions Clinton forced Ehud Barak to offer, how is that not "reaching out to the Muslim world"? Given his hesitancy to use military power to strike at terrorist regimes, even after terrorist attacks on American property and interests, why would the Nobel Peace Prize committee overlook President Clinton?

Speaking of Yassir Arafat, didn't he manage to hook a Nobel Peace Prize? Checking... uh, let's see. Why, yes! And if you were wondering, he won the prize in 1994, which was after his first intifadeh but before his second.

Message to the Nobel committee: your raison d'être ought to be something more than "Let's Poke George W. Bush in the Eye". Making a few speeches with soaring rhetorical flourishes should not be a basis for winning this prize.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Memorandum

To: Jim Leyland
      Field Manager, Detroit Tigers
      2100 Woodward Avenue
      Detroit, Mich.
From: Ignatius Pig, Esq.
      Armchair Quarterback and General Smartass
      1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
      Washington, D.C.
Date: October 7th, 2009
Re: Yesterday's Game vs. the Minnesota Twins
----------------------------------------------------------
Let me get a couple of things straight.

The entire season is on the line, and you bring in to pitch the ninth, tenth and subsequent innings... Fernando Rodney?? This clown never met a leadoff batter he didn't want to walk. Yes, I know, I know, he can throw in the high 90s, but his control is worse than Bill Clinton's. I have no idea how he converted 37 of 38 save opportunities this year, but I'd put that in the category of "the sun even shines on a dog's ass from time to time." He gave up 70 hits in 75 innings this year, along with 41 walks and 8 home runs. His lifetime winning percentage is .333 and his ERA, this year and over his career, is over 4.25.

This is the dude to whom you give the ball? And when he walks the first guy he sees in the ninth, and somehow gets away with it, you put him back in to pitch the 10th, when you have a lead? He walked the winning run on base in the tenth, allowed the tying run to score by giving up a single to a .232 hitter on an 0-2 count, and would have barfed up the game immediately afterward if it weren't for Ryan Raburn throwing the winning run out at the plate to end the inning. But Jim, you left him in for more, ensuring he would eventually barf up the game in the twelfth inning, when he gave up a leadoff single to a .229 hitter and then the winning hit to a .202 hitter.

What the hell does this guy have to do to get the gate?

Anyway, that's one thing. The other business is Gerald Laird, .220-something hitter, going 0 for 6 and leaving ten runners on base, including three in the top of the twelfth when he whiffed with the bases loaded. Choke, choke, choke, choke. I'm assuming, for purposes of affording you the credibility you deserve, that you didn't haul his useless ass out of the game earlier because he's blackmailing you. Failing that, there is no reason for Gerald Laird to be in the major leagues, let alone hitting with the season on the line. This is Bill Virdon territory. You can do better.

I just hope the "sun shining on a dog's ass" syndrome doesn't now apply to the Twins, although I fear it does, given their ridiculous New-York-Mets-'86-like good luck the last few days. So [cough], go [cough, cough] Twins [cough]; best of luck versus the New York Toad Excrements Yankees.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Go Tigers!

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a fan of a certain Boston baseball team. Today, though, I am a fan of the Detroit Tigers, who are playing a tiebreaker against the Minnesota Two Ply Kleenex Box Wavers Twins later this afternoon.

I have no particular grudge against the Twins (anymore), nor do I have a strong affinity for the Tigers. But today I am in their corner, hoping they win and advance to the playoffs, where they would be further encouraged to stomp all over the New York Yankees. But not even my animosity toward the Yankees is behind this.

It's something more than just baseball. I want the Tigers in the playoffs because I have a strange sympathy for the city of Detroit.

I have only been to Detroit twice in my life, more than 20 years ago, and I can only count those as visits if one is allowed to count "driving through the place" as a visit. So it's not like I know the place well, despite the fact that Jimmy Hoffa and I had unusual and uninvestigated ties to one another. No one I know even lives there, although I do have a few relatives in other areas of Michigan.

Detroit, like many other American cities, is in a horrible decline. A once-great, bustling, productive city has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. The American automobile industry, the backbone of the city's economy, is in tatters. The housing market collapse has hit Detroit extremely hard: in December 2008, the city's median home sale price was $7,500. That's seven thousand five hundred. The Detroit Board of Realtors reported that the average home price in January 2009 (one month later) was only $13,638.

In August 2009, the US unemployment rate was 9.7%. Michigan's rate was 15.2%. Detroit's was 17.3%. (So says the Michigan state government.) And those are seasonally adjusted rates - the raw unemployment rate in Detroit was closer to 28% during the summer.

In 2006,

  • Detroit's overall crime rate was more than twice the national average.

  • Detroit's violent crime rate was more than four times the national average.

  • Detroit's murder rate was more than six times the national average, and was higher than the murder rates in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland and Boston.

  • Burglaries in Detroit occurred at a rate more than three times the national average.

  • The rate of motor vehicle thefts in Detroit was more than five times the national average.

The good news is that the homicide rate has shown some decline, dropping in 2008 to the lowest level in many years. But due to a continued exodus from the city, even this good news prompted mayoral candidate Stanley Christmas to say, "I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but there just isn’t anyone left to kill."

Speaking of mayoral candidates, Detroit has recently had a little trouble with its mayor, a Mr. Kilpatrick, who appears to have got carried away with the trappings of his office.

So overall, one might describe Detroit as a place to avoid. While I don't plan to travel there any time soon myself, I have a soft spot for the place. This once-wonderful and exciting city is in the dumper, with few prospects for or reasonable expectations of improvement. It makes no good sense that cities should be in such bad shape, but they are, and Detroit is among the worst.

That's why I'm rooting for the Tigers today. Not just because the hanky-waving Twins fans are a bunch of wienies, and because the Metrodome sucks. The people of Detroit need something to cheer for, even if it's only for a few more days. So go get 'em, Rick Porcello and teammates. Chew these guys up in Minnesota, and then crush and humiliate the Yankees.

Do it for the great city of Detroit.

Friday, October 02, 2009

BREAKING: Chicago's Olympic bid in the water

Chicago has lost its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. The radio and the blogosphere are abuzz with this story, and the politics of it all, and how it involves and affects President Obama, etc.

Whatever. I'll leave that to others. I just have something to say to the disappointed people of Chicago: get down on your knees and give thanks to God, or your lucky stars, or to the deity of your choice. You cannot begin to understand your good luck. If you disagree with me, ask your buds in London how things are going over there as they prepare for the games in 2012.

And if that does not convince, I have one word for you: Montreal.

UPDATE (October 2, 2009 3:02 p.m.): Brush up on your Portuguese: the games are heading to Rio de Janeiro. Pray for these poor folks.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

My Award

Well, thank you, ladies and gentleman of the Academy, I'm honoured... and hey, what the-- ???

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Good Wife's Guide

For those ladies out there who have misplaced their Housekeeping Monthly issue from May 1955, I thought I would remind you of the most important part of the issue (click on image to enlarge):


And yes, I am aware that there is a rumour floating around that no one has been able to corroborate the appearance of this page in the May 1955 issue of Housekeeping Monthly, and that the whole think may be a hoax. But does that matter? What difference does it make, when we're dealing with advice as good as this?

Monday, September 28, 2009

How do you say "chicken-hearted, lily-livered, screeching coward" in Arabic?

Muammar Gaddafi has cancelled his planned visit to St. John's. Clearly he turned tail and ran when his people read of a plan in the works by my people in Newfoundland to drown entertain the despot with alcohol.

Happy trails, you daft yellow bastard.

UPDATE (September 28, 2009 11:15 a.m.): There was some chatter earlier that the reason for Gaddafi's visit to St. John's was to allow his plane to refuel. This is bunk. Airplanes today have no trouble flying across the Atlantic, and distances much greater than that, without refuelling. However, if Muammar insists on a full tank, I suggest he tell his pilot that there's a really good place to refuel at these coordinates: 47° 36' N, 52° W. It's just outside the city of St. John's. Don't worry about the lack of radio signals, air traffic control messages, lights, etc. from the landing site. Just set the plane down at this point as hard as possible.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Newfoundland, Muammar?

Hi, my name is Muammar, and I'd like to talk to you today about what the Hair Club For Men has done for my self-esteem.In more ways than one, Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi is not content with his allotted fifteen minutes on stage. But Wednesday's breathless, rambling speech at the United Nations is not the reason I post this today.

After a trip to New York, Muammar is just not content. I am sure he is disappointed that his attempts to camp in New York and New Jersey were scuttled, which may explain the news this morning that he's planning another one-day trip on his way back to the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. And it appears Muammar has listened to me: I have long held the belief that you haven't been anywhere until you've been to Newfoundland.

Yes, Muammar is planning a one-day trip to St. John's, Newfoundland. And while the National Post says it's for the purpose of receiving a voluntary bitch-slap from the Canadian government for celebrating the return of the Lockerbie terrorist/bomber (foolishly released by the British government) to Libya, I know that's not the real reason for his visit.

Anyone who has thought this over for more than a minute understands that Muammar wants to go gravel pit camping. I mean, what better way to uphold the Bedouin tradition of greeting visitors from a tent than by pitching one - apparently a really honking big one - in a gravel pit in Newfoundland? Now, if the gravel pits are full, perhaps he could set up in a real campground. Or - better still - if he doesn't want to leave the city of St. John's, Muammar could pitch his tent in Pippy Park. If he'd like to be closer to downtown, I would suggest Bannerman Park, which is across the street from where we used to live. And if the quivering, verbose despot has a few connections, perhaps the Lieutenant Governor would permit him to camp on his sprawling estate nearby. (This same sprawling estate was the site of an unfortunate incident involving, um, regurgitation back in the fall of 1995, and then another unfortunate incident involving unlawful entry early in 1996, but those are tales for another time.)

Late September is the best time of the year in Newfoundland. Unlike July and August, and particularly unlike May and June, one is apt to hit really nice weather. And Newfoundlanders are famous for their hospitality... what's to lose? He might be crazier than a coot, but Muammar knows a good time. And with the strange accent and crazy hair, he'll fit right in among the campers in Newfoundland.

So, Newfoundlanders: don't pass up this opportunity. Help the lunatic dictator set up his fine tent. Enjoy his hospitality, and offer yours. Ask Muammar what he thinks about cola drinks.*

And then pass around the beer, make sure Muammar gets roaring drunk, take him out for a ride on your boat, getting to the point where the bay meets the open ocean, and throw the bastard overboard.

* "Whenever I ask about Pepsi Cola or Coca Cola, people immediately say it is an American or European drink ... this is not true, the cola is African! They have taken the cheap raw material from us and produced it into a drink [that] they sell [back] for an exorbitant price! Why are Pepsi Cola and Coca Cola expensive? Because they have taken our cola and cheated us! We should produce it ourselves!" - Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, son of Mohammed Abdul Salam bin Hamed bin Mohammed Al-Kaddafi

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Jim Palmer's hair

The writer of this blog clearly has issues, but that's not the most important thing right now. Great heights of hilarity have been achieved. The question is, what would Krankor (known to write screechingly funny parodies about Jim Palmer) think about this?

Sample:

I told the barber I wanted Mr. Palmer’s exact hairstyle.

I was somewhat skeptical when the barber pulled out his clippers, and started to shave all the hair off the top of my head.

This doesn’t seem right… I thought. I definitely remembered Jim Palmer having hair in the picture I had provided. Beautiful, beautiful hair.

I was about to question the barber, when he stopped shaving. As he walked over to a box labeled “Fake Hair Box”, I finally understood the barber’s plan.

He tossed the rug on my bare scalp, nudging it until it was slightly askew. I looked in the mirror. Something wasn’t quite right. I looked kind of like a poor man’s Jim Palmer. I’m looking at you, Buck Martinez.

I was about to complain, when the barber pulled out a large black spray can. At this point, I knew the barber and I were on the same page.

Heck, maybe Krankor is behind the whole thing. It could be yet another conspiracy, and y'all know how I love conspiracies.

UPDATE (Sept. 15, 2009 10:25 a.m.): Link to this blog now added to the sidebar.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Eight years ago today

WTC New York 9/11/2001Please forgive my choice of photo, everyone. It is a truly awful picture, but of course it was a truly awful day.

I don't really have the words to commemorate this - I didn't last year, either - but Rod Dreher (currently of Dallas, formerly of Brooklyn) always seems to get it right. I recommend you read this first, though. It is Dreher's very personal account of the day of the attacks, written about three years ago, describing what happened when he was en route (on foot) to the Financial District to cover the event as a journalist/columnist, saw the South Tower collapse as he was arriving on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, and decided to turn around and go home to his wife.

I was a columnist for the New York Post that morning, and hustled from my waterfront apartment across the Brooklyn Bridge, notebook in hand, to cover the catastrophe. I made it as far as the Manhattan side of the bridge before I ran into a Post colleague. “Don’t go down there,” she said. “Those things are going to fall.”

“Oh come on, they’re not going to fall,” I said, genuinely disbelieving her. “That’s the World Trade Center.”

Moments later, down came the south tower. I staggered backward, and held on to her to keep my knees from buckling. I scrawled these words on my reporter’s notebook, which I still have: “the building isn’t there it’s gone.” A well-dressed woman grabbed the bridge railing and began dry-heaving. A short, stout black woman threw her arms up and her head back, bellowing, “And every knee shall bow and every tongue confess! It ain’t over people!”

And then I knew I had a choice to make.

The cloud of dust rampaged toward the bridge. I knew the cops would be closing it off to incoming foot traffic any moment. If I was going to cover the biggest story of my professional life – if I was going to be an eyewitness to history – I had better run toward the cloud. But then I thought about my wife and child behind me in Brooklyn. They had no way of knowing I was alive (I’d told Julie just before I rushed out the door, “I’m going to get as close as I can”). I had no way of knowing what was coming next. Would the other tower come down too? Would lower Manhattan go up in a fireball from gas explosions? What if there’s anarchy, and I can’t get back across the river to help my family?

Then read this, which Dreher wrote very early this morning as he looked back at it all. Excerpt:
I knew that the solidarity we all felt with each other in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 couldn't last and wouldn't last, beautiful as it was. But I found it impossible to imagine that we would so quickly absorb the trauma, and move right back to where we were before, unchanged. I really didn't see how we could forget. But we did. Here's the thing: I'm not saying that that's bad, or at least altogether bad. That's what healing is about -- getting on with life, not staying fixated on the trauma, doing what's necessary to live for the present, not letting the past dominate your psychological and emotional life.

This post is a more analytical look at the clash of tribalism and modernity. Excerpt:
Put another way, I really do fear the intoxication of the Crowd. After 9/11, I felt intensely tribal, and wanted our tribe to strike back hard at their tribe. I see now that I viewed events of that day as the Arab Muslim tribe raiding our encampment. I was ready to back our chief no matter what, and insisted that he strike back at their tribe, and damn the logic in it all. Iraq would do; make an example of them, and teach the rest of Their Tribe. We'll sort out the details later. Well, we see where that got us.

And if just want a few stories about the great works done on that day and during the days and weeks that followed, read this post.