The Daily Me – Lo-Hung Pekar

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The Daily Me Staff

Shooting Fishy Politicians In A Barrel 2

“A new government is needed to ensure that important public appointments are filled on the basis of merit and not simply as favours to friends and political supporters.”
- Conservative Web site before (and, apparently, after) the election

“I pledge to appoint any Senator elected by any province, and would support a constitutional amendment for an elected Senate put before the people of Canada in referendum.”
- Tony Clement before the election

“I do think it's important for Montreal to have a minister in cabinet, and I think it's important to have a minister in cabinet who can answer questions in Parliament and, of course, I think we have found a flexible way of keeping the principle of representing Montreal and still proceeding with an election in future.”
- Stephen Harper after the election on the appointment of Michael Fortier to the Senate to allow him to serve in the Conservative cabinet

“I didn’t run in the election because I didn't want to run in the election.” - Michael Fortier, explaining the obvious to reporters

SOURCE: No Comment Quotes

They Distort, I Deride

American Vice President Dick Cheney has finally broken his silence on the Quail shooting incident, telling Fox News: “I’m the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry.” The problem with this statement is that there is nothing new in it, nothing that everybody didn’t already know. In linguistics, this is known as “phatic” communication. In communications theory, it is known as “noise.”

If Cheney had wanted to make a statement containing actual information about the shooting, he should have said, “Gee, next time I go hunting, I’ll only have two beers instead of six.” Or, even, “I’m sorry.”

If Cheney had wanted to make a statement containing factual information about something that actually affects Americans, he should have said, “I’m the guy who insisted on fixing the facts around the policy that misled the public that led to the war in Iraq.” Or, he could have said, “I’m the guy who authorized the smear that outed the CIA operative that jeopardized the lives of all of her contacts.”

SOURCE: Michelle’s Obscure Pedantry Page

I Could Say He Took A Shallecking, But That Would Be Insensitive

Allan Shalleck, co-author of the Curious George stories, was found dead under a pile of bloody garbage bags in the driveway of his home a day before the Curious George movie came out. And, this is unusual, because writers usually want to die after adaptations of their books have come out.

SOURCE: Late Tonight with David Lenoman

Incurious George

Linguists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have determined that President George W. Bush speaks English as a second language. Good news! They’ve just been awarded a million dollar grant to figure out what his first language is.

SOURCE: The Day To Day Show, with Jon Tudor

The Optimistic Dismal Science

The US ledger shows a foreign debt of $4.5 trillion. This, however, overlooks some fundamental numbers.

Wishful thinking among conservative American economists, for example, is worth at least $1.7 trillion, bringing the debt down to $2.8 trillion. Fanciful assumptions (for example, that the Internet-based “information economy” is finally going to make available a job for every American over the age of seven) are worth another whopping $2.1 trillion, bringing the debt down to $700 billion. Then, there’s simple bad math, which, being worth $1.5 trillion, would actually push the American trade balance into a surplus of $1.2 trillion.

Of course, while you’re buying American treasury bonds, we’re buying Japanse yen. But, the so-called foreign debt has nothing to do with it. Trust us.

SOURCE: The Financial Riposte

The Army’s Rapid Response Team Springs Into Action

“Close Gitmo, Annan tells U.S.”
- Toronto Star, February 17, 2006

“Shut mouth, US tells Annan”
- Glob and Maul, February 18, 2006

SOURCE: Billy-Bob’s International House O’ Headlines

When You Have An Advanced Degree In Economics, My Son, You Will Understand

IAN MANOMANSING: What do you think of the recent figures from Statistics Canada that show that 42,000 factory jobs were lost in January?

DOUGLASS PORTERHOUSE: It just raises the issue of how much you can believe any of these numbers. I always treat every number in the labour report with a great deal of caution.

MANOMANSING: I suppose that’s – oh, wait. Statistics Canada has just released a correction – apparently, the report should have read that 42,000 factory jobs were created in January.

PORTERHOUSE: Well, that just goes to show how strong the fundamentals of the Canadian economy are.

MANOMANSING: But, you just said that StatsCan labour report numbers cannot be trusted.

PORTERHOUSE: Of course they can be trusted.

MANOMANSING: Even when they show job losses?

PORTERHOUSE: Of course not.

MANOMANSING: I don’t –

PORTERHOUSE: It’s okay. I do.

SOURCE: The Irrational

The Missing Link Byfield

Last month, we republished the cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed that have caused such a fuss in Europe and the Middle East. It’s not that we were unaware of the controversy over them, it’s just that we had what we believed to be a higher moral purpose: if the reaction of Canadian Muslims was sufficiently violent, we could argue to stop immigration from Muslim countries and, in a best case scenario, have all of the Muslims currently in Canada kicked out.

Well. What happened? Nothing. No fires burning across major cities. No escalating death tolls. No attacks on Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? CANADIAN KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN FRANCHISES NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU TO ATTACK? Instead of murder and mayhem, we got dialogue and reason.

Frankly, we’re disappointed in the Canadian Muslim community. You could respond better to this crisis. A lot better.

SOURCE: Festerin’ Report