Good evening.
Our top story tonight: citing insufficient funds, god has decided not to challenge Paul Martin for leadership of the federal Liberal Party. "This will not be a coronation," Martin responded, then left for a fitting of robes and a crown.
In other news: lots of - oww! - thousands of - oww! Quit it! I said, quit it! - over a hundred thousand people marched on Washington and...and - no, don't! I'm getting to it! - hundreds of thousands marched in cities in Canada and around the world to oppose...to oppose...to - do I really hafta - OWW! Let go of my ear! - WAR IN IRAQ! Stop twist - STOP TWISTING - OWW! A new poll shows that less than half of Americans - 48 per cent - are willing to have the country go to war without UN sanction. There. I said it. If you ever go near my ear again, I...I...I'll never read another war story again!
I haven't been treated like this since Miss Zwolinski's kindergarten fingerpainting class!
Toronto Sun columnist Bob MacDonald called the protestors "useful idiots." Hmm...MacDonald borrowed the phrase from Lenin - I guess unionization at the Sun has progressed further than the newspaper is letting on. Oh, and, Bob, since you seem to like the whole ad hominem thing, I'd rather be a useful idiot than a useless one.
In the event of a war with Iraq, the United States is rumoured to have a plan to protect the country's oil fields. According to the White House, this doesn't mean that the main reason for the war is oil, since selling oil is good for the Iraqi people. That is, it would be if most of the revenue from oil sales didn't stay in the US to pay reparations to American companies for losses sustained during the first Gulf War. Hey, a little of the money does enter Iraq. Of course, thanks to American-led sanctions, basic foods and medicine are not available for most people to buy, anyway. But, if Saddam Hussein is ousted, sanctions that we have put in place can be lifted, so the people will be able to benefit from the sale of oil -
Is my head spinning madly, or is it just the White House?
With elections only a year and a half away, the Republican Party has decided to nominate Saruman as their presidential candidate. "He's strong. He's not afraid to make tough decisions. He has a plan. And, he doesn't tolerate dissent." One Republican insider stated. "He's the perfect candidate!" The Democratic Party, on the other hand, is considering nominating Gollum. Nobody in the Party could explain why.
I can't wait for the campaign to start.
Predictably, the provincial premiers have rejected a federal proposal to increase funding for health care, claiming that the strings it comes with infringes on provincial jurisdiction. "If we want to spend federal health care dollars on tax cuts," one western premier commented, "that's our prerogative. We believe that we have the opportunity to cut down on the number of heart attacks wealthy people suffer when they see their tax bills - a serious health risk in this province - and we would be less than compassionate if we didn't take it." Priorities, priorities.
On the local scene, the Toronto Police Association is suing The Toronto Star, claiming a series the newspaper ran on racial profiling maligned all police officers. However, the same day, a Crown Prosecutor told the Ontario Court of Appeals that research clearly shows that the police do engage in racial profiling.
Oops.
In business news: the Canadian economy declined slightly last quarter, to a large extent because the American economy declined substantially. When it was suggested that this was a natural consequence of the fact that 85 per cent of Canada's trade is with the US, and maybe our companies should put more effort into expanding other markets, Canadian CEOs dove back into their rabbit holes and refused to come out until The Irrational Post published a feature telling them what a great job they were doing.
Jeff Taylor, chairman of Monster.com, an online service featuring millions of resumes, was caught being less than honest with his own. Eyebrows were first raised when Taylor asserted that he had walked Albert Einstein through some of the hairier bits of general relativity, but alarm bells went off when Taylor claimed he had led the bombing sorties that laid waste to Berlin in 1944. I know competition in the workplace is fierce, but anybody considering emulating Taylor should remember the first rule of resume padding: references to Nazi Germany are a dead giveaway.
On the entertainment scene: Skeet Ulrich did nothing of note this week. I just like saying Skeet.
Some people have suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin was the inspiration for Dobby, the house elf in the film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Not to be outdone, some Canadians have claimed that the model for Dobby was actually hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. I don't think we're being ambitious enough. He's short. He's bald. He's got big round eyes. Could Dobby be anybody other than former Newfoundland Premier and Father of Confederation Joey Smallwood. I know, I know - symbolically, it doesn't say much about Newfoundland's relationship with Canada. Still, if they play their cards right, the Dobby/Smallwood connection could bring a lot of revenue to the Maritimes...
Skeet. Skeeeeeeeeet. Skeet. Skeet. Skeet. Skeet. Skeet.
Thank you for your indulgence.
The Cheeky Girls have a pop-disco hit with the song "Touch My Bum." Sniff. And, I was just beginning to get into Las Ketchup's "The Ketchup Song." Guess they used up their 15 seconds of fame...
And, now, a Deadline News editorial: with a leadership convention looming and the Party languishing in the polls, it's about time the federal Progressive Conservatives realized that it should drop its outdated policies because it's clearly out of step with the Canadian people. The Party needs to abandon its rightist ideology and embrace a pragmatic set of policies that, umm, look like every other Party's policies. Being like everybody else is how you can, uhh, distinguish yourself from everybody else so that you can win more seats...more seats in...is anybody buying this?
Well, that's my opinion, anyway.
And, finally: Robert Pelton, author of The World's Most Dangerous Places, was kidnapped in Colombia. You have to admire his dedication.
Good night.