The Joke’s On Them: American troops in Iraq put up posters of Saddam Hussein’s head on the bodies of actresses like Zsa Zsa Gabor and Rita Hayworth, hoping that they would so enrage Hussein loyalists that they would, in their consternation, give themselves away. The plan backfired, though, when the posters enraged the majority of Iraqi men, who are devout Muslims. Another sterling example of American cultural sensitivity.
Or, The Joke’s On Them: Fox News Network is suing satirist Al Franken for using its tag line – “fair and balanced” – in the title of his new book. And, rightly so. A more accurate satirical reference to Rupert Murdoch’s journalistic bastard child would have been “biased and deranged.”
No Joke: Premier Ernie Eves’ last minute conversion to energy conservationism in the wake of the power outage that affected the eastern seaboard has rankled the heads of the corporations who were expecting huge profits from selling electricity to power hungry Ontarians. As one CEO put it: “I thought we had a separation of church and state in this country!”
“From the back row of the soon to be demolished Eglinton theatre, this is The Irrational with Joe Anchor.”
Actually, this is, uhh Eloise Tendentious substituting for Ian Hawdogoatsing, who is on assignment in the CRTC’s commissary, substituting for Joe Anchor, who, rumour has it, is getting new hair plugs at a clinic just outside of Calgary.
Ooh, I’m having fun already.
That silly old goat Jean Chretien has really stirred things up with this same sex marriage hoo ha. For the latest on this, we go to Rahul Festrunk in Ottawa.
“A recent Liberal Party caucus meeting degenerated into a barroom brawl soon after the subject of same sex marriages was introduced. Backbencher John Nunziata is reported to have had Prime Minister Jean Chretien in a headlock while Clifford Lincoln repeatedly punched Liberal leadership hopeful Paul Martin in the kidneys. After the meeting, Martin told reporters, ‘I think the debate is now fully engaged.’ For The Irrational, this is Rahul Festrunk.”
Conrad Black is a dumpy little man with a Napoleon complex, but he does have exquisite taste in suits. For the latest on what he’s up to, we go to Jason Petersburgovitz in London, Ontario.
“Lord Black of the Inflated Ego has been criticized for using eight million Hollinger dollars to buy papers of Franklin Delano Roosevelt while writing a biography of the former American President. ‘These papers provided two footnotes out of over 2,000 in the book I am about to publish and had no relevance to it at all,” Black stated. So, he appears to have used company funds for a private purchase, and we’re supposed to overlook it because he didn’t even get value for his money? There is no word on whether Black will be selling some of the signed documents on eBay to pay for the acquisition. From London, England, this is Jason Petersburgovitz reporting.”
We can afford to send people to England? I thought money at the Ceeb was tight. I mean, they wouldn’t approve payment for my last chin tuck, and lord knows I had the receipts to prove it was a legitimate business expense!
Strange priorities this corporation’s got, if you ask me.
Well, anyway, here’s Anson Bergecheck reporting on…something…
“An 18 month police investigation has resulted in a mother and daughter being charged with 115 counts of defrauding government agencies of more than $450,000. Wow. Can you imagine the magnitude of the thefts that could be uncovered if they put that kind of effort into catching corporate criminals? Heck – we might even have a reliable energy supply. For The Irrational, this is Anson Bergecheck reporting from Toronto.”
Electricity grid failures. Computer viruses. Roseanne Barr reality shows. Is the old crisis becoming the new normal? Social trends and moose droppings reporter Vivienne Tso-Wa gives us the word on the street.
“Yes. This is Vivienne Tso-Wa for The Irrational.”
Pithy, yet succinct. This is what watching too much television does to us.
Researchers are always saying things that other researchers come along and contradict. It’s better than having them roaming the streets, conducting their experiments on innocent passersby, I suppose. Indigo Skye has the latest on what researchers are saying.
“Put away that Sex Pistols album, parents. A 50 foot mobile with 1,000 moving parts may be just as stimulating to your infant. Ten years ago, research reported in The Journal of Angioplastic Misanthropy indicated that playing ‘Anarchy in the UK’ and other punk classics to small children while they were sleeping stimulated areas of their cerebral cortexes, potentially aiding their early intellectual growth. Known as “The Rotten Effect,” this was not replicated in experiments using Kate Bush, Duran Duran or early Madonna. However, new research shows that the same level of brain activity can be stimulated by repeatedly poking a child in the ear with a mushy carrot. (The lead researchers on this report are currently being throttled by their institutions’ ethics committees.) ‘We sure put one over on them, didn’t we?” asked Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the Sex Pistols, taking time out from hawking t-shirts for the band’s latest ‘Putting One Over on the World’ tour. This is Indigo Skye in the waves off Manitoulin Island.”
I remember when playing Wagner’s “The Flight of the Valkyries” at top volume was considered child abuse. How times change.
“American Secretary of State Colin Powell pled with the United Nations to pass a motion encouraging countries to send soldiers to Iraq, claiming that it would ‘make the men of participating countries stronger, and the women more beautiful.’ Opponents of the war on Iraq claim that these assertions are based on a highly selective reading of the intelligence. When questioned about why the United States would control Iraq even if international troops were involved, Powell argued that, “It’s our intelligence, and we’re not sharing.” He added that the additional soldiers would not be needed for long because their presence would help speed up the rebuilding of the country and its domestic political reform. By this point, journalists had stopped asking how Powell knew this. From Washington, this is Subaru Debutante.”
Oh, that Colin Powell! He just oozes authority even when he’s lying through his teeth, doesn’t he? If you ask me, the wrong Republican stole the presidency! Oh, and, hey, that’s not all that happened in Washington today, as war and water balloons reporter Germaine Tims-Stimson tells us.
“A month ago, the Pentagon announced that it was suspending the space-based intercept component of the National Missile Defence programme (formerly known as the Space Defence Initiative, aka Star Wars, aka The Big Boondoggle in the Sky) because every test and research study over the past 20 years showed that it would not work. Now, the Pentagon intends to replace this component with a plan to send thousands of teenagers into geostationary orbits above North America to shoot spitballs at incoming ICBMs. The Chacking Loogies Defense Initiative (CLDI) makes no scientific sense, so Congress has only committed $20 billion to its research and development.”
I feel safer, don’t you?
Later in the broadcast we’ll have a review of Adam Bellow’s new book In Praise of Nepotism. Oh, really? I can refute that thesis in two words: George W. Bush. But, uhh, maybe the reviewer will have a different take…