On Neanderthals, Cannibalism, Nannies and Hope and Change

Hi all. I've been working on the road again and as such have missed a lot of the fun in the blogs lately. That being the case I thought I might put together a convoluted compendium of recent developments.

I should probably preface this bit by stating as a self identified knuckle dragging, mouth breathing, conservative supporting, Neanderthal I found this most disturbing.

One of science's most puzzling mysteries - the disappearance of the Neanderthals - may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert.

The controversial suggestion follows publication of a study in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences about a Neanderthal jawbone apparently butchered by modern humans. Now the leader of the research team says he believes the flesh had been eaten by humans, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.

It seems my ancestors may have been eaten by a more progressive hominid.....Which got me thinking about the kinds of social cannibalism that my Liberal hominid cousins partake in like this:


OTTAWA -- She is young, single and fond of stiletto heels and figure-hugging pencil skirts - not what you'd expect to see on someone who sits in the House of Commons.

At 35, Ruby Dhalla has represented Brampton-Springdale, a riding just west of Toronto, for the Liberals since 2004, and has been intelligent, articulate and aggressive in her questioning of the government.

But political Ottawa is cliquey and still very much an old boys' club, so like single and attractive MPs who have gone before her - from Belinda Stronach to, in her day, Sheila Copps - Ms. Dhalla (or Dr. Dhalla, as the chiropractor prefers to be called) has been a target of gossip and derision.

Now, of course, she is the target of something much more serious - allegations that she underpaid, overworked and mistreated women she had hired to care for her 62-year-old mother, Tavinder. This week, the women, immigrants from the Philippines, gave an emotional account of that treatment before a Commons committee, as did Ms. Dhalla.

She has put a brave face on her predicament, saying that support from her caucus leadership has been important. But party leader Michael Ignatieff has accepted her resignation as youth and multiculturalism critic, pending the outcome of the inquiry, and Ms. Dhalla - the first Sikh woman elected to the Commons - doesn't know if she will get the job back.

Extremely ambitious, she flirted with running for the leadership when Stéphane Dion resigned after the election last fall. But now there are whispers about her hazy future and suggestions that support from inside Mr. Ignatieff's office has not been as strong as it could be.

Insiders say some of her caucus colleagues don't like the fact that she has portrayed herself as a victim in the controversy, and even friends who are drawn to her warmth and chutzpah say she can suck the oxygen out of a room. It didn't help that, at the Liberal convention held in Vancouver two weeks ago, she was spotted looking like something out of a Bollywood movie as she was whisked away from her hotel in a white stretch limo.

The cannibalism of Jane, The MSM, Ruby, The LPC as a whole and of course the leader Hannibal Lectern is really something to behold. It all makes this Neanderthal nervous as hell and more than a little leery of fangy Liberals.

Which brings me to this:

OTTAWA — The Ignatieff Liberals are upping the ante, sniffing around for a campaign plane, making employment insurance the hot issue and sending letters encouraging Liberals and “decent Canadians everywhere” to get to work to fight the Harperites.

“We are headed into a fight,” new party president Alf Apps wrote to supporters yesterday. “As summer approaches, we need to be ready.”

He wants “decent Canadians” to talk to their friends on “blogs” and “over coffee” about “real hope” and “positive change.” He also referred to the Tory negative ads, saying “Stephen Harper has already begun his attack with some nasty and petty shots at our leader.”

The image of Liberals dropping their oven mitts and snuffling around for a "hot issue" over coffee and summer bar-b-ques, preparing to fight for "real hope and positive change" all sounds like a recipe this Neanderthal wants no part of.

I guess it could be worse...I could be a Neanderthal nanny.

Syncro

Simply Astonished and Confused...

S0....I'm watching CTV's Powerplay today and the show closes with "Craig"s Take", a Mercer style rant wherein Craig Oliver weighs in with pithy comment on all things politic.

Today's topic was the heinous treatment of one B. Mulrooney by the current incarnation of the only viable right wing party in this country. I was enthralled!

Craig waxes poetic on the retrospective virtues of said former Prime Minister BM and goes so far as to invoke the ghosts of both John A. and John Diefenbaker. Craig concludes that this generation of conservatives have shamefully abandonded a great leader in Muldoon. The irony is breathtaking.....really.

But the best is yet to come. Craig claims that Harper has moved to distance himself from Muldoon by claiming that Brian doesn't have a membership in the CPC. Muldoon claims that he's a Conservative forever.

Touching.

But here's the kicker.....Craig Oliver credits the "Pundits and the Illuminati" for getting to the bottom of this.

Illuminati?

Hmmmmm................

Craig wouldn't let slip that"professional journo's" play insider baseball? Would he?

Further to that.....Did you happen to notice the absence of audio on the Harper clip? Technical difficulties no doubt.

It almost makes one think that some sort of conspiracy was at hand.

Syncro

The Death of the Detroit Three in Canada

I think something needs to be pointed out regarding the bailout of the auto sector in Canada.

As I understand it General Motors Canada and the CAW reached an agreement over the weekend that has since been ratified by the union members. The major points of the deal are as follows:

The contract freezes wages until 2012 and suspends cost-of-living adjustments for both wages and pensions. It also reduces paid time off by 40 hours a year, scraps an annual $1,700 bonus and cuts company contributions to union-sponsored programs by a third.

Under the agreement, active workers and retired members under 65 will also contribute $30 a month to their health and other non-wage benefits, while retired members over 65 will contribute $15.

Analysts have variously described the deal as "trivial" and a "wet noodle," and many say it fails to address GM Canada's pension issues.

GM has warned the cost of its pension plan will balloon as the ratio of active to retired workers is expected to grow to five to one by next year once its previously announced plant closures are completed.

However Lewenza challenged the union's critics to provide credible economic evidence that even deeper labour concessions would make any meaningful difference to the future of the auto industry.

So let me critique the finer points...A wage and pension freeze...One week less holidays...no bonus from a dying company...dying members pony up 15-30 bucks a month towards pension costs....Wow!

That should do it! But wait...Chrysler begs to differ:

Mr. LaSorda said Chrysler's Canadian labour costs are $75 (Canadian) an hour per worker – including wages and benefits for both active workers and retirees – and need to be cut by $20 an hour to be competitive with American and foreign car makers in the United States.

He said a cost-cutting agreement that the CAW struck with General Motors of Canada Ltd. – which GM's workers approved last night with 87 per cent in favour – is not sufficient for Chrysler.

The CAW typically negotiates a deal with one of the Detroit-based companies, and then reaches similar agreements with the others, a process known as pattern bargaining.

“The current agreement with GM is unacceptable to us, and we have to break the pattern.” Mr. LaSorda said.

There seems to be a notable dissonance betwixt GM, Chrysler and the CAW
I wondered about this and the obvious answer is that this is a set up.

Pattern bargaining is apparently dead and I suggest the easy peasy GM-CAW deal is a precursor to the Detroit three ceasing operations in Canada.

I hope it turns out differently, but I doubt it.

Syncro

My New BFF

Hi all. The forces and demands of life have dictated that I had no time for frivolous blogging bullshit. That said...I have time now.

I would like to take this time to introduce my BFF, whom I only met in cyberspace this very night.The instant I read The Highwayman I was enthralled.

With righteous quotes like this:

Are these assholes batshit crazy, or what? And, yet, we have every conservative and religious element in North America just panting after these scum! Wake the fuck up, people! You're just trash to these elitists!

They invade our country, and then try and tell us how we should think and talk and act...

I don't fucking think so!


And intellectual discourse like this:


i'd be inclined to agree, the way the world's going! However, I know that this is only a temporary state, while the Lord completes His intercessory duties in the heavenly sanctuary... a rite typified by the ancient high priest of Old Testament times.

Anyway, how in the bloody hell could one ever contemplate enjoying like in THIS world? When you have brain-dead servants of Satan running things? Pseudo-Christian people that think that violence is the only way to solve things are running society into the ground, and they seem to forget (conveniently) that the religion of the man they PRETEND to serve does not condone violence!

Just a small example of what racist bigotry and gross hate-mongering exists in the world, can be found here. These sites are becoming more and more proliferate as time goes on, under the leadership of warmongering presidents and prime ministers. The reason being that most people are too fucking lazy to examine the issues with any kind of diligence, and prefer to let the elitists tell them what is right and wrong. A nation of back-slidden slaves and self-serving twits are the progeny of hard-working, tough imigrants that formed and shaped this land.

Sure... go ahead and live your life to it's fullest... and trample over everyone and anyone that gets in the way of your grasping, self-satisfying quest for satiation. Mow down minorities and anyone else that dares to think differently than yourself, because YOURS is the only TRUE way!

Start up a blog, and preach your hate-mongering to the lower class of society that ever seeks to find some excuse to practice their belligerent ways, and to do what comes naturally for them and the lower species.

Rest assured, though, that I and my ilk will ALWAYS be there to greet you.

Now I know I've been off the satire circuit for a bit but with pro's like this out there......My future don't look so good.

Syncro

Bye Bye Canadian Pride....

With all due respect to Don Mclean... In light of the recent devoplement regarding the Canadian parliament I thought a Canadian version of American pie was in order.


This is it:



A long long time ago
I can still remeber
How the pollies used to make me smile...
and if I knew I had a chance
to make those sleazy weasels dance
and maybe they'd be silent for awhile

and global warming made me shiver
with every paper I deliver
bad news on the dorstep
I couldnt take one more step
I can't rember if I cried
when I read about the apartiad
but something grabed me deep inside
"The Day the Union Died".

Bye bye Canadian Pride
Got the lefties pull'in shifties cause the money run dry
The good ol boys were behind the lie
Singin' this will be the day of Progri
This will be the day of Progri...

Did you write the book of pro?
And do you have faith in hippie love
Did Barak Obama tell you so?
Now did you believe The Daily Show
Can Gilles Duceppe run the show?
And can you screw me real slow

Well I know you're a whore for power things
cause I heard you yapping in the wings
Ya both kicked out you're clues
Man I dig the loser cues
I was a lonely right wing out of luck
But I knew I was really fuckked
The day the union died.
I STARTED SINGING

( chorus)

Syncro

Obamalot and other Fantasies

Pollsters and headline writers piss me off. The former have become a force for shaping opinion rather than measuring it and the latter are totally devoid of any sense of irony. Case in point this piece of crap from Angus Reid, Environics and the Vancouver Sun.

Canada swooned over president-elect Obama

Nation was intellectually, emotionally engaged in Tuesday's U.S. election, pollster says

I call bullshit. If the nation was intellectually engaged in the US election some questions would have been raised about "Hope" as a policy statement.

I hope to marry a rich supermodel who will bring me beers and BLT's on demand while I watch NASCAR races but I don't think it's gonna happen. You see, the emotional or aspirational part of myself wishes this would happen but the intellectual bits clue me into the fact that the above scenario is highly unlikely.

Having accepted reality in my personal life, I seek the same in the greater world. Then I run across piffle like this:

"Canadians were not only intellectually engaged by the U.S. election but also emotionally engaged," Michael Adams, president of the polling and social research firm Environics, said.

And most of us, according to polls, got the ending we wanted Tuesday night: victory for the cerebral and cool Obama whose centrist, socially-liberal policies are closer to the attitudes that define Canada's political culture.

"Here we are a multicultural country with cities like Vancouver and Toronto which will soon have a majority of minorities -- and so Obama kind of looks like the direction in which we are going," Adams said.

"But the major thing is that he's not George W. Bush."

Bush derangement syndrome aside, did Environics not poll in the Canadian election three weeks ago? Are they not aware that the natural governing party were wiped out in all but the decayed centers of our largest cities and Newfoundland. Danny Millions did his best on the rock and was aided and abbetted by the fact that most of the Newfs worth their weight in salt are out west working. As far as the cores of our crapulent cities go...it appears the leftards have created ethnic, cultural and moral ghetto's with the sole purpose of hanging on to power. Guess what, it isn't working. Canada, if anything, moved slightly to the right in this last election despite the best efforts of the MSM to portray Harper as a Bush lackey. As a matter of fact the Conservative Party of Canada made inroads in the very ethnic communities that the Liberals have cultivated. Instead of hearing the story of incremental conservatism we get this garbage:

And this year we swooned over Obama despite warnings from conservative Canadian pundits about his protectionist tendencies.

Simon Fraser University historian Michael Fellman said that he doesn't expect that the Obama administration will reopen free trade with Canada.

And, in any event, Canada's interest in American politics goes far beyond the minutiae of bilateral trade provisions, he said.

The minutia of bilateral trade provisions? Are you fucking kidding me? Almost 80% of Canada's GDP is Dependant on trade with the U.S. and this qualifies as minutia. Oh yea...the hope and change meme is really the important bit isn't it?

Obama's win has given Canadians -- as much as Americans -- a reason to be optimistic about the future, he said.

"Circumstances have given meaning to what he means by change," Fellman said.

"The economic crisis has made everybody realize that there has to be more regulation, that wildfire capitalism is dreadful. The argument that government is the problem is as dead as a doornail."

Pollster Marzolini said that Canadians have also felt closer to the Democrats than the Republicans because of the party's social conservatism.

"Religion doesn't play the same role here that it does south of the border," Marzolini said. He recalled how fears that Stockwell Day believed in creationism undermined his appeal as leader of the Canadian Alliance during the 2000 election.

What? No mention of the Clinton administration's role in the sub-prime meltdown? The pressure applied to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to front loans to people who in all likelihood could not make the payments? Granted the masters of the universe (see The Vanity of the Bonfires) packaged these mortgages into financial 'instruments" for the sole purpose of padding their wallets and pulled it off by promising fat returns to greedy baby boomer investors. The end result was a whole shitload of imaginary money disappearing. Go figure.

More interesting is pollster Marzolini, If I remember correctly this is the man who recently polled for the LPC and failed to get Stephane Dionne off the Green Shaft platform. Good for Canada and bad for Steffy. But I digress, Marziolini postulates that religion is not a factor north of the 49th and then cites Warren Kinsella's hatchet job on Stockwell Day as an example? In case you don't remember, WK went on Canada AM with a Barney the Purple Dinasour to mock Day's religious beliefs, a faith Stockwell apparently shares with the Big O. Go figure once again.

So what did Barry really accomplish? Back to the pollsters:

He managed to take a platform that would suit Canadians, as well as Americans, and give it a lot of excitement and hope and optimism.

Bullshit, that's what Barry accomplished, pure unadulterated bullshit. Excitement , hope and optimism.......no discernible policy, no actual goals...just a cagey appeal to sentiment and emotion.

The pollsters are now trying to shape the post election opinion and the headline writers pretend intellect was part of the process.

Good grief.

Syncro

Tip of The Hat to Warren Kinsella:

For proving my point I doff my Dale Earndheart Jr. #88 cap in respect.

Heather Mallick..... Self Satirist Extrodonairre

I'm sure many of you've seen the Billy Crystal/Robert De Nero movie Analyse This. You know the one where Crystal plays the unwilling shrink to De Nero's psychopathic mob boss. In the movie De Nero is brilliant as he satirizes every mob character he ever played, he hams it up as an insecure killer who becomes reliant on Crystal to deal with his anxieties and maintain his grip on his underworld empire. In the cinematic world De Nero's performance was a tour de force of self satire. I loved it.

I think I may have found the journalistic equivalent of De Nero's self satire in a recent piece by our very own Heather Mallick.

You may recall that Heather gained international notoriety for a hate filled screed directed at Sarah Palin, her family and republicans in general entitled A Mighty Wind Blows Through Republican Convention. Right wing bloggers reacted with disdain and soon the MSM in the US were on her case. Fox News took up the cause with the corresponding backlash causing the CBC to eventually issue an apology and Heather to decry the viscousness of the reaction to her musings. Rumor has it Heather was called on the carpet and told to reform her ways. Hence the new, self satirical Heather Mallick.

To illustrate how far Heather has come on her artistic journey to the confidence required for self satire I thought a little compare and contrast might be in order. Heather's most recent piece is entitled "Obamaland vs. McCainworld: The Decision".

For the purposes of clarity I'll refer to Heather's journalistic bit as "A Wind Blows" and her satire bit as "Obamaland".

In no particular order here are some of the funnier bits: Oh!!!!...Try to read Heather's italicized nuggets with an affected English accent.....it's much more authentic that way.


A Wind Blows:

Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade's woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression.

Obamaland:

Primed as I am to find marriage intrinsically funny, I still didn't find the charade of the McCain marriage amusing at all. Cindy McCain was a pretty, happy young woman when she made the decision to marry a starchy rage-filled man making up for lost time; she seems to have had a subsequent hellish life that money has done nothing to improve.

She was a thin, peeled white nerve placed precariously behind her stubby husband. I don't know what helped her survive the campaign but I hope her doctors were compassionate with prescriptions.

A Wind Blows:

Bristol has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the "pramface." Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting. What normal father would want Levi "I'm a fuckin' redneck" Johnson prodding his daughter?

Obamaland:

The campaign was marked by the presence of the young.

College students were mad for Obama. And even babies liked him; they respond to calmness and quiet assurance in adults and they sat placidly in his arms.

It was good to see a candidate who has young children. For that's when an adult is most impatient for improvement in the world, when it's a fixer-upper he might eventually be able to show off to his kids.

A Wind Blows:

I assume John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential partner in a fit of pique because the Republican money men refused to let him have the stuffed male shirt he really wanted. She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right.

Obamaland:

The word that stayed in my mind as the campaign dragged on through the collapse of the world's economic structure was "hobo." We're all going to be hobos.

I would imagine myself packing up my bindle and setting out on the road in overalls and a pair of Roots boots. Train whistles, boxcars, hot soup, sleeping under a bridge, misery, fear, scrawny children with bite marks on their faces. A heartless Annie Leibovitz would be our Dorothea Lange.

It didn't matter how secure or insecure we really were during the fall of '08; we watched McCain and Obama fight it out and figured we'd all be Tom Joads pretty soon.

If McCain wins, sooner than that, I bet, and there'll be riots too.

A Wind Blows:

Palin has it all, along with being vicious and profoundly dishonest.

Obamaland:

But I'm glad it's over. It has been a degrading, unedifying spectacle. Besides, voting day means Obama won't again be speaking to tens of thousands of people in Minneapolis or Denver . He'll be home, safer from the one bullet that has so often served to bring an already violent nation to its knees.

It has taken Americans decades to drag themselves back up to a standing position since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. died and there are no words for how heartbreaking it would be if the bullet were used again.

This is how beaten down we have become, that we're grateful when a politician physically survives the campaign. And I'll be grateful not to have to watch John McCain make a fool of himself anymore.

That's classic satirical shit there Heather......I'm impressed and in awe.

Syncro