Happy Canada Day...and all that jive

Well, it's Canada Day and among the things unique to this country - or at least here in Ontario - is that we find ourselves in possession - as of today - of something called the HST. Yes kids, it's the Harmonized Sales Tax. I have to say that it sounds terrific - as if we are being a levied yet another tax, but this time from the dulcet voices of Simon and Garfunkel.

When it comes to things of a financial nature, I have to admit that I know less than nuttin', honey. People who seem to know what they're talking about are saying that the HST will be good for us in the long run. I'm going to accept that for two reasons: I) My aforementioned ignorance of money matters, and 2) There ain't nothing I can do about it anyway.

However - upon reading this week's installment of The Regional News, I noticed a news item detailing how Native Canadians in Ontario will be exempt from this newly-arrived tax. I'm not exactly shocked by this, but I was interested in a comment offered by Chief William Montour on the exemption. To quote -

"I'm sure this activity will provide great relief to a lot of First Nations people who are on fixed incomes or low incomes because, without this exemption, every purchase after July 1 would have cost them 13 cents on the dollar."

Um...I have a slight problem with the Chief's logic here. Let's get this straight - the Indians are not being excused from the HST because they may or may not be at a certain income level. They are being excused because they are Indians. End of story. To suggest otherwise means that Chief Montour will be campaigning for all other citizens of "fixed incomes or low incomes" to be exempt as well. I have a feeling that the good Chief will not be doing so.

So let's call a spade a spade. The fact of the matter is that the Indians are exempt from a lot of taxes in this country. I have always wondered - does this not bother the Indians on some level? To me, it seems that they are being treated like second class citizens. Our government is saying that we all recognize that Indians in general are not able to hold up their end, and so we will excuse them from certain activities that the rest of us so thoroughly enjoy - like paying taxes. Are the Indians okay with this? Don't they want to be treated as equals?

I don't know the answer to that question. But I can tell you I wouldn't stand for that shit. I'd like to see Dalton McGuinty try to exempt me from paying taxes.

Actually, Dalton, I might be willing to discuss it. Give me a call.

A Tale Of Two Idiots

Those among us who know a little of Ernest Hemingway know him to have been a good - and sometimes great - novelist, and a literary stylist whose prose changed the way people write. He was also a hunter and a fisherman, a boxer and a braggart and a boozer. But until quite recently, I never knew Papa to be a prophet. Yet he was. I know - because he predicted Tiger Woods and Sarah Palin. In his novel For Whom The Bell Tolls we find this passage -

There are two kinds of fools. First there is the winter fool. The winter fool comes to the door of your house and he knocks loudly. He is an impressive sight. He is a very big man and he has on high boots and a fur coat and a fur hat and he is all covered with snow. First he stamps his boots and snow falls from them. Then he takes off his fur hat and knocks it against the door. More snow falls from his fur hat. Then he stamps his boots again and advances into the room. Then you look at him and you see he is a fool. That is the winter fool. Now in the summer you see a fool going down the street and he is waving his arms and jerking his head from side to side and everybody from two hundred yards away can tell he is a fool. That is the summer fool.

Fast forward to the waning days of 2009. And here we find our winter fool - Tiger Woods. It has taken a lot of years for that snow to fall from him, but it has happened, and it’s been an avalanche. We see now that the guy is basically a joke. His image is as phony as Canada’s commitment to cut greenhouse gases. Not only that, but he appears to be operating on as many brain cells as your average rock. Did he really think that he would get away with all these dalliances in this age of texting, cell phones, paparazzi, etc? Not likely, Eldrick. Add in the fact that he was cavorting with a bunch of skanks who couldn’t spell the word discretion, let alone exercise it, and this is what you get. Or maybe Tiger was just determined to prove true the Robin Williams adage - “God gave man a brain and a penis and just enough blood to run one of them at a time.”

And what of our summer fool? Well, Ms. Palin sure fits the bill. There is nothing covert here. She is such an idiot she might as well be wearing her clothes inside out and have snot flying from her nose. Who would want this woman around?

Hamilton, that’s who.

Well, at least a certain ill-advised segment of Hamilton. It was recently announced - with much fanfare - that she had been hired to make a speech at some restaurant in that city. Attendees will be required to pay to listen to her (which is roughly akin to being charged to watch me, in a tutu, performing Swan Lake) and the money raised would then go to local hospitals. Oops. It was quickly noted that Ms. Palin thinks our health care system is pretty much a communist plot, one that will in due time collapse society as we know it and land us all on a commune in the frozen tundra, eating raw potatoes and making our own vodka in a steel drum. (I like that making our own vodka part) Of course, general outrage ensued. The clear-thinking folks of Hamilton wanted nothing to do with this dimwit. And so a different beneficiary was quickly found, one that supports a local children’s charity. Apparently Sarah has no problem with children, even those who might be the spawn of left-leaning losers. This is understandable, as she herself has the deductive skills of your average two-year-old.

Both fools will carry on. Tiger will get divorced - or not - and then he’ll be back playing golf, something he does better than anyone alive, and maybe better than anyone ever. He’ll learn the wisdom of discretion. At the very least, he’s about to discover the price tag of indiscretion.

Sarah Palin will not become president. Nor will she become the Republican candidate for that office in 2012. The GOP has a lot of problems these days but it is smart enough to know that this harpy is not the solution to any of them. However, she might very well end up with her own TV show. Of course, it would have to be on Fox.

Because Fox has no policy against morons hosting talk shows. In fact, they pretty much insist upon it.

WE NEED A SECOND REMEMBRANCE DAY

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

The British soldier/poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote these words nearly a hundred years ago but I find myself thinking about them quite often of late. Every year around the 11th of November I am inundated with e-mail tributes to our fallen soldiers - poems, songs, pictorials - with notes urging me to remember, and demands that I pass these sentiments along.

And that is fine with me. We should remember our war dead. But I’m beginning to think that we’ve got the wrong day. You want a day to show that you care about the men and women who serve our country? Try election day.

There’s something wrong about setting aside one day a year to commemorate our soldiers, and then ignoring the decisions that have landed them in harm’s way for the other 364. I’m talking about the decisions brought down by our federal government and specifically I’m talking about Afghanistan. It is time to get the hell out. We have more than honored our commitment to NATO, but more importantly - we’re on a fool’s errand there. We don’t have an identifiable goal, we’re fighting an enemy we can’t see, and we’re falling deeper into a quagmire of Viet Nam-like disaster. You can not win there. The enemy is tribal, and it is brutal, and it is cowardly. And every week more young Canadians - 132 to date - come home in a box.

And yet the people who make our foreign policy go unquestioned. I live in an area that votes largely Conservative. (the completely useless Diane Finley is our MP - we might as well have elected a fence post) And come election day, all these people who were sending out dewey-eyed Remembrance Day tributes yesterday will strap on their blinders and vote for Harper again. This is the same Harper who stated (and later lied about it) that he would have sent Canadian troops to Iraq. What qualifications has he to make these decisions? Who is advising him? Our Minister of Defense is Peter McKay. I wouldn’t trust this idiot to inflate the tires on my truck and yet he decides where and when our soldiers fight...and die. How stupid is Peter McKay? He wanted to marry Belinda Stronach. I rest my case.

Keep in mind that there are countries where the citizenship doesn’t get a say in these matters. Canada isn’t one of them. If you want to demonstrate that you care about our men and women in the forces, then I suggest you do it two days a year. The first day is November 11.

The second is election day.

Jailhouse Rock

I haven't blogged in a while but I think I'd better take the opportunity to do so now because I might be losing computer access.

I think I'm going to jail.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should state that it won't be the first time (although it will be the first time in a while). I might also add that the previous arrests were for minor infractions - acts of youthful exuberance mostly - although I did serve a couple months once as a result of rassling match with a fat cop who was determined to prevent me from attending a summer soiree at Beaver Ullman's place.

But this time is different. This time I think I've landed in really big shit. You see - I have a Canadian flag flying on my front porch. That's right. A Canadian flag. Right here in the middle of - well, in the middle of Canada - but never mind that. The fact is I'm a criminal. A desperado. I am not fit to live among proper human beings.

I know this because just a few short days ago, a couple dozen OPP officers arrested a man trying to erect a Canadian flag in Caledonia. Which is also in the middle of Canada - but never mind that. I'm not sure under which specific section of the criminal code the man was charged but I'm guessing it reads something like this -

"Under the laws of the Dominion, no man shall erect a Canadian flag whereby such erection shall result in the pissing-off of Indians"

Yeah - that's probably how it reads. Don't get me wrong - the Indians should be pissed off. But not about this. They should be pissed off that the federal government refuses to rule on the many land claims they have across this country. It's been decades and decades and nothing has happened. I'd be pissed off too. Undoubtedly some of the claims are legitimate, and undoubtedly some are not. Why won't the feds address this? Puddn'Head Harper - not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed - won't even discuss the matter. Diane Finley - so dim she makes Puddn'Head look like a fucking laser - is not interested either. Will Michael Ignatieff - if he survives those moronic attack ads and becomes PM - do anything? It seems doubtful.

The solution? I don't know - but making the people in Caledonia suffer for the impasse is not working and worse than that - it's not right. If the Indians want action, I have a suggestion. There's a street in Ottawa named Sussex Drive. Blockade that street and I guarantee you'll get some attention. Maybe even somebody will start to listen. Right now Harper is very good at pretending that you don't exist. He won't be able to do that if you're sitting on his front lawn every morning when he wakes up.

Because I have a feeling that preventing Canadians from flying Canadian flags - anywhere in our nation - is not the answer. I'm gonna keep flying mine. If the cops come and get me, so be it. I just hope that Beaver isn't planning another shindig this weekend. Broke my heart to miss the last one.

Mother's Little Helper

As the biggest Yankee fan in the dominion, I feel obligated to comment on the shocking (!) news that Alex Rodriguez used steroids a few years back. I think we should take a shortcut in the future and try to identify the players who HAVEN'T used roids. Because it looks as if most of the league was juicing at one time. As for A-Rod - there are many reasons to feel sorry for this over-paid superstar (I know - how to you feel sorry for a guy knocking down $27 million a year?) First of all - it appears that the guy is so insecure that one wonders how he gets out of bed in the morning. Secondly - he had to date Madonna. Enuff said about that. But the real reason I feel sorry for him? He got ripped off. A-Rod is a much better ballplayer than Sammy (I no speak English)Sosa and Mark (um, I don't want to talk about the past) McGwire, and he's at least as good as SwollenHead Barry Bonds. However - when these three bozos started doing steroids, they jumped from 40 homers a year to 65, 70 and more. Poor A-Rod - he must've gotten the inferior juice because he never made it to 60. He should find that dealer and beat a refund out of him. Then go home and frost his hair.

While A-Rod was composing his insecure apology, Michael Phelps was getting over the news that Kellogg was no longer his endorsement homey. This because of a photo of the Olympic swimmer surfaced - a cellphone pic of him apparently trying to suck the bottom out of a bong. (by the way, somebody should shove a box of corn flakes up the photographer's nose - what a weasel). Now I really don't think that marijuana has ever been considered a performance enhancing drug, but I guess its use is a bad example for the youth of today. Strange how just Olympic athletes are held to this standard. If the owners of the various NFL teams learned that the ONLY vice their players had was a propensity for smoking a little boo, they'd fall to their knees and thank the ghost of Vince Lombardi. Besides, who says that pot is bad for athletic performance? I recall the 1960 Olympics, when Cheech and Chong took home 27 medals between them.

One more item. A few days ago, a chimpanzee in Connecticut attacked a woman, seriously injuring her. The chimp's owner later admitted to giving the animal the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. The chimp was shot and killed after the attack. There's something not right about that. These other guys took the drugs willingly. The poor chimp was nothing but a pawn in the game.

At least he didn't have to date Madonna.

The Afghan Question

As we move into a new year - one that promises to be extremely interesting on the Canadian political front - it's time we ask some serious questions about this country's goals with regards to the conflict in Afghanistan. If our goal is to offer up the lives of brave Canadian soldiers while not affecting the situation there in the least - then I say we're doing a hell of a job.

Hopefully that's not our goal.

If a country takes the extreme step of going to war, then that country has to know just what the hell it is trying to accomplish. Canada knew what the goal was in WW11, they knew what the goal was in WW1. They were turf wars - you win the ground, eventually you win the war. No such situation exists in Afghanistan. Turf doesn't exist. In fact, our troops rarely get to fight at all. They move around the country, chasing an invisible and cowardly enemy, and hope to hell they don't drive over an IED. This isn't about turf, it isn't about changing a political regime. It's guerrilla warfare, and the guerrillas hold all the cards. The British couldn't beat the Afghans in the 19th century, the Russians couldn't beat them in the 20th. Nothing has changed in the 21st.

To make matters worse, we're trying to prop up a government that's so corrupt it would look right at home in Illinois. Dexter Filkins of the New York Times recently described the current regime thusly -

“Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.”

And our soldiers are fighting for this? Isn't it time for posturing jackasses like Peter McKay and Puddn'head Harper to either identify our goals there OR bring the troops home? Or maybe they have decided that the Canadian casualty rate is "acceptable". If George W. Bush had concentrated on the Afghan situation after 9/11 - instead of spending hundreds of billions in Iraq - then Canada would not have to be there today. Dubya, of course, will be heading back to his pretend ranch in Texas in a couple weeks.

Our troops will still be in Afghanistan. And nothing about that situation is pretend.

A Dog's Breakfast, Ottawa Style

I was home last night, thinking I was viewing a hilarious new episode of Monty Python, when I suddenly realized that I was in fact watching the shenanigans of our elected leaders on Parliament Hill. What a bunch of kooks. Apparently it was discovered that the Conservatives, under Prime Minister Stephen "Puddn'head" Harper, have been acting like a bunch of sneaky sons-of-bitches. The Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc, upon learning of this outrage, have responded by acting like a bunch of sneaky sons-of-bitches. And today poor Michaelle Jean - who surely didn't sign up for this shit - has the unfortunate task of sorting it all out. Rumour has it she's seeking an easier gig - like running GM or Chrysler, for instance.

I have to say that this three party coalition has got everybody's shorts in a knot. Petitions are flying around like bullets at Plaxico Burress' birthday party. I think everybody should relax. This mighty coalition - if successful - will remain intact for about 12 minutes. As soon as Jack Layton spots another shiny object to chase - and keep in mind it was Smiling Jack who put Harper in power to begin with - that will be the end of it. Maybe he'll decide that Brian Burke or Celine Dion should get a shot at being PM. Or perhaps even his wife - Olivia Newton Chow.

Even more panic surrounds the involvement of the separtists(!) Surely they are, at long last, planning to disassemble the country. Let's get this straight - the separtist movement in Quebec is like the brain tissue in Julian Fantino's head - it might exist but it's dormant and it's gonna stay that way. The average citizen of La Belle Province doesn't want out. And they particularly don't want out at a time when the world's economy is plummeting like a skydiver without a chute.

As for the Liberals, why are they doing this to Dion? He thought he had escaped and now they pull this on him? Those sneaky sons-of...okay, we already established that. If this thing goes through, Stephane will have to suck it up, be PM for a few months and then vanish into the wilderness. Where he might just find Mr. Harper stumbling around.

You have to wonder where this concept came from. Let's see - a devious, duplicitous, right wing leader who has led the country into a recession while fighting an unwinnable war is sent into exile? Nope, drawing a blank. But gee - maybe Dubya has a spare room for Puddn'head down in Crawford.

There is one thing missing in all this though. As the GOP flamed out last month south of the border, they brought in Sarah Palin to throw gasoline on the fire. We need our own version of this. Someone just like Sarah - sassy, flashy, all mavericky, with an expensive wardrobe and the intelligence of a Haldimand County fencepost.

Come on home, Belinda Stronach. Your country needs you.