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Another one bites the dust, as the Broncos dump head coach Mike Shanahan. That makes four coaches on the unemployment line, and the playoffs haven't even started. You can bet there will be more.

Shanahan's firing seems to come as a surprise to his players and some football analysts, most of whom are using the word "shocking."

Since when? The Broncos have only won one playoff game since Elway called it quits after winning the Super Bowl in '99.

This season's collapse down the stretch only confirmed that losing is becoming part of the Denver Broncos' culture. A three game lead, and they blow three in a row to end the year? No team has done that since divisional play began in '67.

The Mile High hangover is finally finished. Time for a change.

Photo: All Sport

Food Shots

I was surfing Facebook a few minutes ago and saw that one of my friends put a picture of food on her photo page. I guess the practice of women taking pictures of their food (and everyone else's) in restaurants will never end.

It reminded me of a piece from over a year ago. She'll forgive me.

Ready For Your Close Up?
March 3, 2007

I was out in Punta Arenas, Chile the other day. It is one of the southern-most big cities in the world. This sounds like they're reaching for something to brag about. They are, but they shouldn't. It's a lovely town. I should know, because I've seen people take a thousand pictures of it, then turn and show me the LCD screen even though I'm standing right beside them.

I spent the afternoon checking out the penguin sanctuary, about an hour out of Punta Arenas. As always, the way to go was by taxi. If you're not hip to the tourist scene, my advice is never to take an official tour. If the vehicle has more than four wheels, forget it. Official tours require you riding in a bus full of old people that are in competition to see who should have dibs for the front seat. By the time the poor driver has loaded on all the walkers, the tour is half over.

The penguins were small, not like the Emperors that march to Morgan Freeman's voice. They walked funny, people took pictures, and the place smelled like penguin crap. Girls cooed and giggled whenever a penguin shook his head. It was interesting to see that penguins spend a lot of time looking straight up at the sky, as if eyeing the other birds and wondering, "Why can't I do that?"

I snapped a lot of pictures for other people. It hit me again that the worst thing to happen to modern humans is the digital camera. Sure, it saves a lot on development costs, but digital photography does nothing to protect someone like me from the old, "Hey, can you take a picture of us?"

Like a proper, polite fool, I always say yes. And the dance begins:

"I want the mountain in the background...yes...okay, hold it vertical, like, tall-wise....okay, just hit the silver button on the right....oh, sorry, it had red-eye on, I wasn't ready for the five flashes in a row, can you do it again?...Let me see it....oh, I wasn't smiling ha-ha-ha, here, let's do it again, okay?...Hold it flat-wise this time, like, horizontal...okay, let me see....oh, Jen, you dummy, you blinked! Let's do it again...."

And after all of that, you know what happens next. The girl's friend pulls out her camera. And then the other friend pulls out another camera. And on and on, until all eight girls have the exact same shot of the exact same group in front of the exact same background. Three times each.

A note to the ladies. Digital cameras are fun, but they do not come with an LCD screen just so you can examine each picture as if you are the photo editor of National Geographic. You do not need to subject strangers to taking your picture eighteen times. It's the digital age. Take one photo and then, amazing as it may sound, you can email it to everyone in the group. You're all grown-ups. You don't need your own original photo of the same hungover ladies in front of the same seal aquarium.

Cameras have gone crazy, and they have completely destroyed my oldest prank. I used to love it when strangers asked me to take a picture. This was back in the day when film was the norm. These people were always so serious, acting like Alfred Hitchcock, telling me what angle to shoot at, how big they wanted the background, how long to hold the button down to get a good focus. I would just nod solemnly and pretend like I gave a damn. After taking the shot, they'd thank me and go on their way, not knowing that I had just cut off their heads. I used to take great delight in knowing that some wanna-be Mapplethorpe was sitting back home in Ohio with his freshly developed prints saying, "That jerk."

The LCD screen killed all of that. But that wasn't enough for the camera companies. In order to make every guy with a spare $300 in his pocket feel like an artist, they added all kinds of bells and whistles to these contraptions. Orange laser beams so you can bother your friends in a dark pub, five to ten flashes for the red-eye which shows up anyway, ring-tones that tell the world and the timid bird you're shooting that you just turned on your camera.

A whole new language has developed, and it is in danger of making stupid people sound smart. Megapixels, memory cards, exposure settings, environment settings (sand/snow, beach, nightvision). Doesn't anybody just point and shoot anymore?

Women latched onto digital cameras like tigers onto a fresh kill. This was only natural. Before, women with film cameras were a minor irritant. They would take pictures when you didn't want them to, but you knew they couldn't take that many. The little number in the window told them that they had to be careful, or they'd run out of film before the picnic was over. Not anymore. Now they can shoot upwards of 500 pictures in one afternoon. What's worse, they don't feel guilty about it, because it doesn't cost any money.

I once watched a girl shoot fifty pictures in one hour. When the memory card filled up, she went back and started deleting the pictures she had just taken. One at a time. We'd be walking, she'd see something she liked, go back through the photos, delete one she now realized was useless (probably a picture of me), and then snap a new photo. She did this all day. I wanted to kill myself. Back in the good old days, it would have been tough luck: "Gee, honey, it's too bad that you took 36 pictures of the same sun-dappled pond." Now, she can do it indefinitely.

Can we eat now?
Women are in love with the digital camera (so are men, but women own purses, so they take their cameras everywhere). This next example is a spreading disease, and it worries me greatly. Has anybody else out there noticed that you are not allowed to eat food in a restaurant until a woman takes a picture of it?

There you are, in a restaurant. As with all restaurants today, the service is lousy, so by the time the meal arrives, you're starving. The waitress puts the plates down. Whoops. She forgot one. So she disappears, and you're looking at your steak, slobber dripping down your chin. Back comes the waitress, and she drops the last order in front of somebody. You say, "Bon appetit," and make a move to dig in.

Not so fast. One of the ladies breaks out a camera and she tells everyone to hold on. She wants a picture. Apparently the people at the table weren't good enough subjects, otherwise she would have taken the picture back when the waitress handed out menus. Everyone drops their forks. The men deflate. They look to their women-folk for confirmation of how stupid this all is, and then their heads hit the table as they realize that every woman seated around them is reaching for her purse. Out come five cameras, the waitress is called back, ten pictures get clicked, the cameras get passed around so everyone can have a look at something that just happened, and your steak tastes like a cold tire. What a wonderful evening.

I know one woman who takes a picture of every plate of food that's put in front of her. No lie. I have broken bread with her a number of times. When we all get our food, she takes out her camera and snaps a picture of the plate. Every time she does it, she tells us that her boyfriend is a chef and that she wants to show him all of these exotic dishes.

I don't have the heart to tell her, but somebody should: he doesn't give a shit. The poor guy works his tail off in a fancy restaurant all night. Little does he know that his girlfriend is going to return from her tour of South America and show him three hundred plates of food. Welcome home, honey.

There is no chance that we are going to return to the days of the film camera. Ah, those halcyon days, when cameras ran out of film and one-hour photo finishing seemed an eternity.

I need to come up with a new prank. Something that will irritate the hell out of the people that irritate me every time I step into a restaurant, a zoo, a night club, a car wash. With digital cameras, it's difficult to come up with a new one, but there's got to be something. Wait. I've got it. Delete All.

Not that I'd ever try it.

A Sore Loser Mocks A Winner

I notice that Steyn is calling out Timothy Egan, one of the hacks over at the New York Times. Egan, through Steyn:

The unlicensed pipe fitter known as Joe the Plumber is out with a book this month, just as the last seconds on his 15 minutes are slipping away. I have a question for Joe: Do you want me to fix your leaky toilet? I didn't think so.

In other words, writing is Tim's game. Joe shouldn't be playing with his toys.

Steyn says Egan is pompous, which is fairly obvious. Look at the rag he write for. But is Egan right? Are Joe the Plumber's last minutes of fame slipping away?

I wouldn't count on that. Though Egan would never believe it, Joe the Plumber is a far more popular writer than Timothy Egan is, though Tiny Tim has been pounding the keyboard for years and Joe's just published his first book (a thought: who says Joe hasn't been writing for years, but simply hasn't been published? Do you think Egan called him to ask?)

Steyn's been picked on before for not being a "real writer," so it's not a surprise to see him stand up for Joe the Plumber. Most of the attacks on Steyn's writing credentials come from jealous bloggers that, like Timothy Egan, wish they had the fame of a Joe the Plumber or a Mark Steyn.

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: I don't know what people think writers do before they become fulltime writers, but I can assure them it isn't writing. Writers don't make jack until they publish a bestseller or get syndicated in dozens of newspapers. Until then, plumbing is as good a job as any.

So what makes a good writer? A J-school degree, or a monkey wrench? Plumbers live. College kids learn. For interesting stories I'll put my money on living over learning. When I hear about a writer going straight from the college quad to the newsroom, I know I've got a butthead on my hands. A writer straight from college is a parrot, not a writer. Unless their writing is solely about the babes at last year's sorority party, I couldn't give a damn what they have to say about anything.

I don't care what most 18 to 21-year-olds think, nor am I inclined to lay down 40 dollars on a hardcover to find out. Hand me a college grad and I'll hand you an array of morons I went to school with. Looking back on the Humanities guys I ran into at the weekly keggers, I can't think of anything they could say today that I would find remotely interesting unless they went out and lived for a while - you know, amongst the Great Unwashed. I'm far more interested to hear what a day-to-day plumber thinks about current events than any jackass whose life experience comes from English Lit 101.

In that vein, here's a list of people that never went to college but somehow managed have an impact, anyway. Sorry, Tim.

Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe (went to Virginia, but got booted out), Mark Twain (elementary school dropout), Herman Melville, Sammy Cahn, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Peter Bogdanovich, Luc Besson, Andrew Carnegie (elementary school dropout), Charlie Chaplin (same), Agatha Christie (home schooled), Joseph Conrad, Noel Coward (elementary school dropout), Thomas Edison (same), Benjamin Franklin (virtually no formal schooling, founded a country and co-wrote something called the Declaration of Independence), George Gershwin, Woody Guthrie, Louie L'Amour, John Major (former British PM), Thomas "These are the times that try men's souls" Paine, Jon Peters (elementary school dropout, produced The Color Purple, Rain Man, Batman).

How about a few presidents like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry Truman?

I cherry picked the names from this list. Read it, Tim, and let your snob's eyes weep.

The Parade Begins

The chopping block is just heating up one day after the end of the NFL regular season.

First up: Jets head coach Eric Mangini. No matter how many interceptions Favre threw, Mangini was always going to take the hit if the Jets didn't make the post-season.

On deck: Lions head coach Rod Marinelli. No surprise, as his team just set a record by going 0-16.

Right behind them: Browns head coach Romeo Crennel. Cool name, but didn't stack up against a 4-12 season.

Big Dud

Depressing days in Big D, as the Cowboys blow it big time.

An all-or-nothing game and they lose 44-6 in Philly? I can do that by paying a team fifty bucks. Dallas owner Jerry Jones did it by throwing over a hundred million dollars at the team last spring. What does he get in return when the playoffs are on the line? The worst loss to the Eagles in Cowboys history.

Frost/Nixon - Review

Director: Ron Howard
Writer: Peter Morgan
Starring: Frank Langella/Michael Sheen
Runtime: 2 hours 2 minutes

I had to be careful when watching this movie. I knew going in that I probably wouldn't like it very much because I don't like journalists. If you've read any of my blogs on Big Media, then you know that I see them as hypocritical, arrogant asses.

Frost/Nixon confirmed my view of journalists, and reaffirmed that Hollywood believes that journalists are moral saints. In Hollywood, a journalist is the ultimate hero, as long as they are covering a story about a right wing politician. If the hero-journalist is blitzing a left-wing politician...wait. Sorry. There's never been a movie like that.

Frost/Nixon (notice which name comes first) is about British talk show host David Frost and his interviews with Richard Nixon. After Nixon resigns in August, 1974, Frost gets it in his head that interviewing Nixon will be good for his career, and will generate a lot of money. During preparation for the interviews, he hires a couple of researchers whose goal it is to get Nixon to admit criminal culpability for Watergate, and give an apology to the nation. Both of the researchers despise Nixon, and one of them believes the man is evil incarnate.

The conflict in the film comes not so much from the debate between Frost and Nixon, as it does Frost's pursuit of money to get the thing on the air. None of the networks wanted the interviews, and Frost had to pony up over half-a-million dollars for Nixon to take part. The first two hundred grand come from Frost's own pocket. Reality tells us that Frost would eventually get the interviews aired, and they would propel Frost to the heights of fame.

Or did they?

I say that because to my mind, the Frost/Nixon interviews are not well remembered. I don't have any proof of this beyond talking to a few old timers, but it did take a lot of prodding for them to a) remember who David Frost was (they thought he was the guy that hosted Masterpiece Theatre) and b) that he interviewed Nixon. So yes, I suppose the Nixon interviews made Frost famous in his day, but those hours of talking to Tricky Dick do not measure up posterity-wise to Walter Cronkite's one statement that the US could not win the Vietnam War.

But that's Hollywood. If a "journalist" grills a corrupt politician, the results must have been terribly important. Right?

Except Frost doesn't "grill" Nixon. In the film, as in life, you're treated to an expose of how utterly boring the interviews were. On Vietnam, on foreign policy, on protesters in the street, it's a lot of blah-blah-blah from Nixon, and a lot of short, general questions from Frost. In the movie, we watch as Frost's handlers berate him for being soft on Nixon, then witness him march into the living room and continue to be soft on Nixon. This goes round and round until the climactic moment when Nixon kinda-sorta says he's sorry, but never says the word "sorry" or "apologize." The protagonists take this as a stunning victory.

Though my outlook on the film may be slightly tainted by my view of journalists and their conceit, let me defend myself by saying that this is a pretty tepid film from a storyteller's point of view. After watching the film, I asked someone if they now knew what Watergate was all about. They said no. They had to. The film does not explain Watergate, or Nixon's involvement in it. There is no backstory. Anyone under the age of 50 will come away from the film not knowing what happened at the Watergate Hotel, or why Nixon resigned over it. They will only know that Nixon had to apologize for...something.

The political bent of the filmmakers is pretty apparent here. Nixon's character is very one-dimensional. He is evil, and that's that. Director Ron Howard depicts him as a pervert, a warmonger, a racist, a sexist, a senile drunk, a congenital liar, a megalomaniac, and a buffoon. Howard's Nixon is a pathetic person, paranoid and decrepit. There is no other side to him, and certainly no redemption. Howard and the characters in the film do not believe Nixon deserves any. It is Good Guys vs. Demented Creep.

Okay, fine, but only if the film allows that Nixon was a human being with a story of his own. We never get to see it, and so there is no drama. This film was made as a hatchet job on Nixon, and a glorification of Frost's boring interviews. The "abuse of power" theme is probably a jab at George W. Bush (Howard admitted as much in an interview, and it's probably the main reason this film got made), and the film revels in Nixon's personal and political demise. In its way, Frost/Nixon is a vindictive, arrogant piece of work. One image that struck me in the film was Nixon walking away from the last interview, beaten, while champagne corks pop in the background and Frost looks at him like...what? I don't know, but it isn't pity or even joy. It's just, "Job done."

For the record, I think Nixon lied and lost the White House through his own actions. I think he deserved his fate. Yet Nixon was responsible for a lot of good in the United States, at a time when the country seemed to be falling apart. The film glosses over Kennedy and Johnson's responsibility for the Vietnam War, and pins it all on Nixon. He is again depicted as the warmonger and the liar, sending US boys off to the meat grinder, bombing Vietnamese civilians with impunity. I have a problem with that. One image I have of Nixon comes from one of his biographies. He's standing at a window at a presidential retreat. He's alone. The Vietnam War drones on. One of his aides hears him talking to himself. He's saying, "Damn you, Johnson. Damn you for doing this to me."

There's humanity and backstory there. Frost/Nixon ignores it completely. You could easily leave this film saying, "Nixon caused Vietnam, bombed civilians, then committed some sort of crime at a place called Watergate. I think. Anyway, he was bad. Sweats a lot, too."

That's the way Ron Howard remembers it, and that's all right, as long as he doesn't expect people to see this film as anything other than an didactic filmmaker playing with himself.

One last note: a thought that occurred to me many times throughout the film was that the whole exercise was a waste of time. All of the Frost/Nixon interviews can be found on YouTube for free, anytime you want to see them.

Gran Torino - Review

Director: Clint Eastwood
Writer: Nick Schenk
Starring: Clint Eastwood
Runtime: 1 hr 56 minutes

In the first twenty minutes of Gran Torino, the same thought kept going through my head: Eastwood is a legend.

With Gran Torino, Eastwood has proved that he has reached mythic status. Not because Gran Tornino is a masterpiece (it isn't), but because Eastwood will be forgiven for not making a masterpiece.

Take the set-up for Gran Torino. The first twenty minutes are not very good. The writing is on-the-nose, and the acting borders on cheesiness. But it's Clint Eastwood, so you watch. As the movie rolls along, you accept what you're seeing because Clint Eastwood is in it, and because Clint Eastwood directed it. You allow the script to treat you like a bit of a dummy and, later in the film, you begin to enjoy it. Finally, at the end of the movie, you like the story and applaud the effort.

Only Clint Eastwood can get away with this. No one else has been able to hop from action movie, to drama, to bad comedy, to action movie, to good comedy, to drama, to melodrama without skipping a beat. Though he has two Academy Awards under his belt, he is never expected to blow you away with his next movie. His movies do not receive the preview fanfare of a Spielberg, and his name isn't mentioned in the hushed tones that people use for Kubrick or Scorsese. Larry King never drops Clint Eastwood's name. Eastwood is a legend, but he isn't worshipped as one.

He is what he is: Clint Eastwood. Sometimes you get Dirty Harry, sometimes The Bridges of Madison County.

I can't think of another Hollywood star that has ever had such an incredibly good career. As an actor/director, he has never been put out to pasture. His movies are simple, effective, and workmanlike. A light here, a light there, roll camera. No big frills. The man is almost 80 and he hasn't missed a beat, so maybe he's on to something.

Anyway, there I am watching Gran Torino, and the dialogue isn't bad, but it isn't great. It's just on-the-nose and obvious: Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski, is a racist, and he proves it with every second line he delivers. There is no subtlety or subtext here. Walt's getting old, so his yuppie kids buy him a phone with an extra large number pad. Walt fought in Korea, so he doesn't like the Asian people that move in next door.

On-the-nose writing is bad writing because it treats the audience like a dummy. That's fine, if they're dummies, but if they're not, they won't dig it. There's an old saying in the writing game that if the scene's about what the scene's about, you're in deep shit. Gran Torino never heard of that rule.

If you're like me, this might bother you for the first twenty minutes of the film. Then you remember that it's a Clint Eastwood movie, and you just sit back and take it in. You forgive him for stuff that would get Spielberg creamed.

Gran Torino is as old a story as you can find: a prejudiced man learns to shelve his bigotry by befriending the people whom he despised. I thought this movie did a better job of it than Crash, a pretentious movie about race in America. Gran Torino felt more real: it takes a lot for me to watch a movie about America being racist instead of Walt Kowalski being racist. In a sense, Crash was far more on the nose than Gran Torino, because Crash was constantly pointing an accusatory finger at the audience and saying, "Shame on you." Crash was a message film. Gran Torino might be, but the message isn't shoved in your face.

When I say that Kowalski proves his racism with every line he delivers, I'm not kidding around. I'll bet some people will hate this movie for its "insensitivity." Me, I just thought Eastwood had some guts in not changing the script. Walt Kowalski uses racist language because he is a racist. What do you expect?

As with most Eastwood pictures, the production value is stripped down. I admire him for this. Eastwood continues to prove that to make a movie you need a camera, some lights, and a sound guy. A script helps, and this one could have been better, but the movie is not a dud.

The cast is good, mainly composed of no-namers. It's better for it. There's a couple of very good scenes in the barber shop and in the living room of Eastwood's neighbours. You'll have fun watching Eastwood punch someone in the face and grumble out one of his warnings, but don't make the mistake of thinking this is a typical action picture. It isn't.

During the closing credits, listen to the song. The first verse is sung by Eastwood himself, and he sings terribly. I like that. Eastwood's been doing music for his films for a while now, but I haven't heard him croon one out. He is still enjoying the movie-making process, and I still enjoy watching him get the job done.

Photos: Yahoo Movies, Rotten Tomatoes

Merry Christmas

Here's a couple of blogs from Christmas past.

Some Things Don't Mix

I was thinking a few minutes ago that some things don't go together, no matter how great they are individually.

For instance, I love AC/DC. They're my favorite rock band of all time. I also happen to think that Shania Twain's one of the most gorgeous women to ever grace the stage.

But this should never have happened.

She was married to Mutt Lange, one of AC/DC's most successful producers. I don't know if this was a symbolic way of kicking him in the groin after a spat, but it's still no excuse.

Fun With Snow

It took me 3 hours to drive 50 miles tonight, compliments of Mother Nature. Sometimes she finds it fun to dump a foot of snow in 8 hours, then watch the games begin.

It got me thinking about how much fun snow is, especially for the Olympic skiers and such. You know, the graceful people that fly through the air, displaying their talents for all the world to see, then picking up hot babes at the chalet bar. The Olympic guys love snow as much as my skier friends, who think 5 months of misery for me is a small price to pay so they can spend thousands to go up and down a hill over and over again.

I admire them all, but let's face it: most of us like it more when they wreck at 50 mph. When that happens, snow really is fun.

School's In

The Iraqi ambassador to the US delivers a smackdown to Code Pink losers that hold up cardboard for a living.

The Kingsim

Another good one from The Onion.

Best line: "Uh-oh. This isn't good. Jim just mentioned Marlon Brando. Larry King is going to spin into an out of control name-dropping vortex."


NASA Simulator Prepares Astronauts For Rigors Of An Interview With Larry King

Dire Warning

The UN always gives me a good laugh. Here comes another one via Reuters. Boldface mine:

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday authorized countries fighting piracy off the Somali coast to take action also on Somalia's territory and in its airspace, subject to consent by the country's government.

I love these guys. Love. These. Guys. They're the funniest clowns on the planet.

More from the same story, as poor old Condi Rice forgets that the UN is full of wimps and nitwits:

Rice told the council Washington would set up a contact group to promote anti-piracy efforts, including through sharing intelligence.

But, like other speakers, she said the piracy crisis was inseparable from the turmoil in Somalia. The United States "does believe that the time has come for the United Nations to consider and authorize a peacekeeping operation," she said.

"We believe that by the end of the year we should try and have such a Security Council resolution," Rice told reporters later. African countries favor such a force and South African envoy Dumisani Kumalo said, "It's what we've always wanted."

But U.N. officials fear a blue-helmet force would fail unless the situation in Somalia calms down.

Same old story. Put your money on the pirates until the US does something - gasp - unilaterally.

Always Beware The Word "Innovative"

Hang Glider Faceplants On Takeoff - Watch more Free Videos

The Girly Shoe Man

All right, I guess I'll bite.

Some Arabic reporter threw his shoes at the President of the United States. The president proved to be the better man by using good reflexes to dodge the first shoe. The president didn't have to worry about the second shoe because the guy throws like a girl and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Ten feet away and he couldn't hit his target with two throws? Leave him off the softball team.

It's now a Really Big Deal. People are marching in the streets of countries that hated America before Bush, and will hate America after Bush (yes, yes, even with The One in charge). Anderson Cooper is wetting his pants. Nobody is talking much about the fact that someone attempted to assault the president of the United States. Instead, it's a riveting story about protest, started by a reporter and now driven by an anti-Bush media.

Around the "Arab world" people are calling the Girly Shoe Man a hero. Libya has awarded the man a medal of of courage (in abstentia; the Girly Shoe Man is still in an Iraqi jail). Libya would know a lot about courage. They're a former terrorist regime, killer of women and children, but after Bush told terrorist countries that he would start bombing them, Libya said to hell with nukes and began playing Girly Libya. Tough guys.

The Herald Tribune says, "Throughout much of the Arab world Monday, the shoe-throwing incident generated front-page headlines and continuing television news coverage. A thinly veiled glee could be discerned in much of the reporting, especially in the places where anti-American sentiment runs deepest."

I guess that means New York and San Francisco.

Well, good for them, but I don't get it. A guy threw a shoe. In the words of Austin Powers, "Who throws a shoe?" Throwing a shoe is lame. Lame. Especially when a man in his 60's can dodge it with no trouble at all and you completely miss with the next one.

The papers are saying that throwing a shoe is the ultimate insult in Arabic countries. The bottom of a man's shoe is very provocative. So is the word "dog," which is what the man called Bush.

Again, lame. Oooooh. He threw a shoe! He said "dog!"

I love this anthropology-through-media stuff, where they explain how insulting it is to be called a dog, or that a shoe signifies that I am not worth the dust beneath someone's feet and blah blah blah. After all of that Blago stuff, I wonder if any Syrian reporters picked up the story and said, "The Governor of Illinois called Obama an...um...ah...M-F'er. I'd tell you the whole word, but it's just so insulting that I'm afraid you'll cry. In America, saying that someone has sex with their mother is very insulting. It is a strange term, but carries a great deal of meaning in that far away land. We're lucky we can even understand the true subtext of the word, since the American culture is quite nuanced."

Dog is insulting? Gee, how hurtful. How insensitive. How lame.

I loved Bush's reaction to the Girly Shoe Man. His secret service man stepped towards him to take him off the podium. Bush waved him away and finished the news conference. He didn't break a sweat and didn't look nervous. Now that the Girly Shoe Man has had time to cool down, that must really infuriate him: first, that he sucks at throwing shoes. Second, that the president didn't give a damn.

If anyone called me a dog, I'd think he was a 17th century pirate or a total butthead. If he threw his shoe at me, I'd giggle. If he threw two and missed both times, I'd laugh.

Which is what Bush did. And good on him, too.

Enjoy The Show

From the AP:

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.

This fairy tale has two things which interest me: screenwriting, and history.

First, screenwriting. It is a basic tenet of movies that you must announce a time limit somewhere in the story. The next time you watch a movie, listen for the time limit. Sometimes it is explicit: "If we don't deactivate the nuclear device before 5 o'clock, we're all going to die." Other times, the time limit is implicit, but no less important: "When the sun goes down, the vampires will come out to kill us." The sun could go down at six, seven, or eight o'clock, but it doesn't matter: the sun has to go down sometime, and the clock is ticking. Pressure.

If you watch 100 films, 99 will tell you the time limit flat out, and others will hide it, yet just barely. You'll always be able to figure it out if you listen for it. Take Schindler's List: though no time limit is specifically stated, it is implied in the film that the characters must survive until the end of the war...whenever that is. That, too, can be the pressure point: not knowing when the end will come.

You can exert pressure on your characters in a few different ways, like other characters (the bad guy, the deranged husband, the mean boss), external forces (the stock market, the weather, the law), and personal strife (conscience, emotional disturbance, disability). The other big (and easy) way to exert pressure is to put your hero on the clock. It's an old trick, but it's an old trick because it works. Writers are always taught that they need to compress their stories and add the pressure of time.

The time limit doesn't have to appear in the first ten minutes of the story. Sometimes the story meanders along, and the writer gets nervous: the story's second act is boring and he doesn't know how to get to the big finish. How do we speed it up? Easy. "If we don't get to the church by 5 o'clock, the priest will die." Instant drama, cue car chase.

One of my favorite time limit devices can be found in Apocalypto. Since the characters had no watches or clocks, what to do? Mel Gibson came up with a good one. He trapped the hero's wife and child at the bottom of a dry well. When the hero is kidnapped and taken away, he looks to the sky and says, "Don't rain."

Why would he say that?

Good question. Later in the film, it begins to rain. Cut to the woman and child at the bottom of the well, ankle-deep in water. Cut to the hero, racing through the jungle to save them. As the film goes on, it rains harder. The well fills with water, and the woman and child are now waist-deep. Cut to the hero, sprinting, fighting off his attackers, and sprinting some more. Cut to the woman and child, neck-deep in water. Just as it looks like they're going to drown, there's the hero. He arrives just in time to rescue them.

The water in the well could easily have been the clock on a nuclear bomb, the rising water replacing the countdown of digital numbers. Same-same.

Time limits put pressure on the hero and they turn the screws on the audience. It's a necessary device, and if you look closely enough, you'll find one in every story.

Now, go back and read those two paragraphs from the AP and see if you recognize the time limit, the hero, and you.

Why you? Simple. You're the audience for this little movie they've cooked up.

Oh, and as for the history thing, I get quite a chuckle reading this global warming stuff. I was forced to study the ice ages and continental drift in school. I should have saved my time. Had I known we could elect politicians to put Pangea back together again, I would have voted for the Green Party a long time ago.

The Day The Earth Got Panned

Hollywood's latest installment of global warming gloom and doom is going up in smoke at the cinema. The Day The Earth Stood Still is getting the response I thought it would.

Best line I've seen so far: "It doesn't seem right that a film with a story line about ecological disaster would be a piece of cinematic garbage." -- Michael Smith.

I don't like to look at reviews before seeing a movie, but I knew there would be no chance I'd waste my money and see this flick.

Click for more on the massacre.

Would They Bail Me Out?

The latest bid for an automaker bailout failed:

A bailout-weary Congress killed a $14 billion package to aid struggling U.S. automakers Thursday night after a partisan dispute over union wage cuts derailed a last-ditch effort to revive the emergency aid before year's end.

Republicans, breaking sharply with President George W. Bush as his term draws to a close, refused to back federal aid for Detroit's beleaguered Big Three without a guarantee that the United Auto Workers would agree by the end of next year to wage cuts to bring their pay into line with Japanese carmakers. The UAW refused to do so before its current contract with the automakers expires in 2011.

I've been hearing from supposedly conservative friends and family, many of whom believe that the bailout should have passed, or that some of the $700 billion from the TARP bailout should now be used for the auto industry.

See how easy it is? Once you start throwing around money, it gets easier and easier to throw around money. Canadians have been watching all of this with great interest, as they too decide if they should throw a few billion bones to their own auto sector. I'm glad some Republican senators in the US said no thanks.

I find it very, very telling that workers' wages is what derailed the auto bailout. Republicans wanted workers to take a pay and/or benefits cut. Their union said forget it. The UAW made no concessions while begging for $14 billion. None. Their president said that they had a contract through 2011, and that was that. Gimme.

That's called greed, arrogance, and stupidity (here's a good piece from Dan Calabrese about these UAW bigshots). I hope the whole works collapses around their ears. It would not bother me one bit if the Big 3 went bye-bye and Honda and Toyota picked up the slack.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the "little guy." I just don't know how many "little guys" are producing cars these days. The UAW says their workers only make an average of $29/hour. GM says, sure, but when you total up all of the benefits workers receive, that figure is actually $69/hour. That doesn't sound so little to me.

I have one employee: me. When times are tough, I have to scale back my own wage to satisfy skittish customers. If my rate is too high, people won't pay it. If my rate is too low, they'll think I'm an amateur and won't hire me. In this economy, you have to be flexible and ready to adjust. Constantly.

I cannot have pity for a worker or an industry that says, "My product isn't selling enough, but I deserve every penny I make."

No, you don't. Your costs are too high, you aren't selling enough product to cover them, and now you're broke. Tough luck.

The sad irony is that the people who do adjust, and produce a good product, are being asked to fork over their money to bail out people that shouldn't even be in business. That grates. Grates hard.

Let's say me or a few of my sole proprietor brethren take a hit. If we go down to the Ford plant, stand at the door, and ask some workers for a handout, what do you think they'll do? I'm willing to bet they'll tell me to take a hike, then call security and have me thrown off the lot.

Want a bailout? Buy a bucket.

Heeere's Iggy!

You gotta love these Liberal party guys.

Failed election? Failed coalition? Failed leader? New temporary leader? Polls say Canada isn't in the mood for a coalition? Economy's the most important thing? We need a stable government, where everyone works together?

To hell with that. Charge!

Michael Ignatieff began his tenure as Liberal leader with a blunt challenge to Stephen Harper: change your divisive, ruthlessly partisan ways or we'll bring you down.

Just an hour after being named interim party leader Wednesday, Ignatieff declared he's prepared to topple the minority Conservatives and try to form a coalition government if he's not satisfied with the coming federal budget.

Incidentally, what is it with this guy's name? I'm not making fun of his handle, but I've noticed a subtle shift in the last couple of months. When I first heard of him a few years back, people were pronouncing his named like it's spelled: IG-NAH-TEEF. Lately it's being pronounced IG-NATCH-EFF.

I guess they polled it and found it more hip. Or something.

Here They Come...

By "they," I mean the usual Canadian bureaucrats that lie awake at night worrying about a citizenry that might think and speak for itself.

From the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission website:

The Commission hereby initiates a public proceeding to consider the issues addressed in this notice pertaining to Canadian broadcasting in new media.

As part of the public proceeding, the Commission will hold an oral public hearing commencing on 17 February 2009 at 9:00 a.m. at the Conference Centre, Phase IV, 140 Promenade du Portage, Gatineau, Quebec.

The first time I sent an email was a pretty seminal moment in my life. I remember thinking, "There goes the post office." I thought it was incredible that someone on the other side of the globe (my first email was sent to a person in Israel) was going to read what I had written only a few seconds before.

Then "websites" came around. Cool. Now I could get my news without laying down a dollar or leaving my house. Then "blogs" showed up. The word "blog" sounded lame and stupid until I started reading them and, eventually, writing one of my own.

YouTube showed up, and suddenly we could see friends that we hadn't laid eyes on in years. This was especially handy for me because most of my friends were scattered all over the Earth. It was great hearing their voices again, seeing their laugh, taking a look at the living room over their shoulder, seeing them chug a beer at an all-nighter. They were people again, not just words on a screen.

I always knew the day would come when the government would get involved in all of this. I think the internet caught them by surprise. Like me, they saw the advent of email as something convenient and harmless. 9/11 hadn't happened yet, so email was more or less a pen pal deal amongst friends.

Then came blogs, and people did something weird: they started to talk to strangers. They gave themselves funny names, put up funny pictures, and began to talk about anything and everything. No longer was the internet about inviting friends to a party or bugging your employee while he was on vacation. Now people were booting up and saying "this government sucks," or "let's write a petition," or "they should change that law, it's crazy."

Newspapers reporters hated it. Who were these amateurs butting in on their business?

Trouble was, blogs started to become real news sources. It was The Drudge Report that broke the Lewinsky story, and Drudge has never looked back. According to one media guy, the Drudge Report is on the homepage of most newspaper editors in the country. If Drudge runs a story, you are almost certain to see it on CNN that evening.

Bloggers can thank Drudge for making them something worth reading. Sure, some blogs are lame, and others downright nutty, but there are several that have become the primary source for people to get their news.

Magazines and newspapers finally capitulated by offering their own blog sections on their websites. Some of them suck, but others are pretty good: when Maclean's and Steyn were put through the ringer by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, Andrew Coyne "live blogged" from the BCHRT's room on his Blackberry. Thanks to him and his Maclean's blog, I read the hearing in real time. In fact, the reason the Canadian Human Rights Commission might lose its grip on power is because of bloggers. Big Media didn't pick up the story until way late in the game. It was bloggers that applied the pressure.

When video hit the web world, bureaucrats must have become very nervous. Now people weren't just writing, they were talking. All the time. About anything. To anybody. The public.

Contrary to their election-year propaganda, almost no politician or bureaucrat feels that they work for you. No bureaucrat or government employee sees themselves as a "public servant." They see their job as one of control. When a bureaucrat tells you that you filled in the wrong form, go to the back of the line, pay an extra surcharge, sign here, now get out of my office, NEXT!, they don't feel they're your servant. They believe they're your master. And they're correct, more or less.

The internet changed this. Ten years ago, you had to belong to a special club or blow 4 years in college to get your face on TV. Now anyone can do it, and you don't need a bureaucrat's permission (that's what a broadcasting license means, by the way: permission to speak to people). Even better, you don't have to pay for it. YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, none of them charge any fees and - the important factor - you don't get taxed for doing it.

So here comes the CRTC. Letting the people broadcast their own views and opinions, without being regulated by a government watchdog? It just won't do. It took the CRTC longer than I thought it would, but they've decided to have a look at this crazy thing called "new media." After having a look at it, do you honestly think they'll walk away and do nothing? Not a chance. This is their opportunity to make money, increase their power, and grow their bureaucracy.

The questions they wish to consider during their meeting in February:

I. Defining broadcasting in new media
II. The significance of broadcasting in new media and its impact on the Canadian broadcasting system
III. Are incentives or regulatory measures necessary or desirable for the creation and promotion of Canadian broadcasting content in new media?
IV. Are there issues concerning access to broadcasting content in new media?
V. Other broadcasting or public policy objectives
VI. The appropriateness of the new media exemption orders

Number 5 is the biggee. It's a bureaucrat's catch-all. "Other." Meaning: "Anything."

Freedom of speech is winning a battle against the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Canada. Next up: the CRTC.

These people work for us. They are not our bosses, we are theirs. But only if we can say so.

Sweet Home, Chicago

When corrupt Illinois politicians go, they go big.

From CBS:

A 76-page FBI affidavit alleges that [Illinois Governor] Blagojevich was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps during the last month conspiring to sell or trade Illinois' U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama for financial and other personal benefits for himself and his wife. At various times, in exchange for the Senate appointment, Blagojevich discussed obtaining:

A substantial salary for himself at a either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;

Placing his wife on paid corporate boards where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;

Promises of campaign funds – including cash up front; and

A cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.

Among other things.

Blagojevich has been under investigation for years on various charges. The Obama Senate seat merely came along as a bonus. Still, what an idiot. Chicago politicians might think they're untouchable (pardon the pun), but Blagojevich already knew he was under investigation before putting the Senate seat up for sale. And he did it anyway.

Figuring out all of the twists and turns in Illinois' political corruption is a headache, but it essentially boils down to what a Chicago reporter on CNN called, "Pay to play." That is, using your office for personal and financial gain. The reporter phrased it as, "In Illinois, we call it pay to play," which shows that it isn't exactly rare.

One fun fact to remember: Blagojevich's predecessor, former Governor George Ryan, is already in prison on a corruption rap. If convicted, Blagojevich will make it two in a row.

The Chicago way, baby.

The Wrestler - Preview

The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, is getting a lot of early buzz.

In the trailer, you'll notice that the critics are saying this is a comeback for Rouke. It isn't very often that a trailer has "this guy sucked, but now he's good" written all over it. Interesting ploy, trying to tie the main character into the lead actor and attract a fan base that may have written Rourke off long ago.

I'm probably the only person on Earth that thought Mickey Rourke was always a good actor. He was in some dud films, but I never saw him as a talentless hack. It was his off-screen stuff that got him into trouble, and he knows it.

If people want to talk about a comeback for Rourke, I would say Sin City in 2005 more than covered that.

Doodling on the Cave Wall

It took a while, but I found the funniest column of the year. Scary thing is, it might come true. A taste:

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible....

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”....

The MGI report argues for the creation of a UN high commissioner for counter-terrorist activity, a legally binding climate-change agreement negotiated under the auspices of the UN and the creation of a 50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force. Once countries had pledged troops to this reserve army, the UN would have first call upon them...

So, it seems, everything is in place. For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government.

Why do people continue to roll their eyes when I quote Orwell?

My favorite part of the article is when the guy quotes The One. From Mr. Obama:

“When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following.”

This joker never ceases to tickle my funny bone. That's the President the world's whackos have been waiting for, all right. A man who believes the superpower under his charge should restrain its power so thug states and killers can step up the pace on bombing civilians, starving women and children, hanging gays, shooting up hotels, cutting off heads on the internet, selling weapons to terrorists, hijacking ships, and developing nuclear missiles. Turns out, these guys aren't thugs and killers, they're just lonely and in need of a role model. I guess Sweden doesn't cut it.

Still, Obama's right. A nice guy attitude would certainly send a message. It reads something like this: Have fun.

Global government, meet your Leader.

What A Difference a Week Makes

Fantasizes of being PM one week, steps down the week after.

Smooth move on that coalition deal, buddy:

"There is a sense in the party, and certainly in the caucus, that given these new circumstances the new leader needs to be in place before the House resumes," Dion said in press release Monday.

"I agree ... So I have decided to step aside as leader of the Liberal party effective as soon as my successor is duly chosen."

Photo: AFP

Teaching Newspeak

I've always marvelled at George Orwell's prescient warnings. His idea that when you remove words from the language you remove the very means of thought was a theory that I found especially frightening. Orwell:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.

From the Telegraph:

Oxford University Press has removed words like "aisle", "bishop", "chapel", "empire" and "monarch" from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like "blog", "broadband" and "celebrity". Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.

The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.

Let this be absolute proof that the politically correct, socialist, anti-Christian intellectuals that run Western education have a clear agenda: like Orwell's leaders of Oceania and writers of the Newspeak dictionary, these intellectual thugs wish to destroy our history and shape thought to match theirs. This has nothing to do with a "multifaith society." If that were the case, "mullah," "rabbi," and "bishop" would find a home in their books. Instead, "bishop" must go.

The thug that runs the children's dictionaries is named Vineeta Gupta. Her bogus reason for removing words like aisle, minister, and saint is that kids have little hands and not every word in the language can be included in the dictionaries. True enough. But look at some of the words finding a home in her children's dictionaries: celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, citizenship, childhood, conflict, common sense, debate, EU, drought, brainy, boisterous, cautionary tale, bilingual, bungee jumping, committee, compulsory, cope, democratic, allergic, biodegradable, emotion, dyslexic, donate, endangered, Euro.

Nice selection. Get 'em while they're young and teach the kiddies to start thinking interdependently about cautionary tales involving a bilingual dyslexic hoping to gain citizenship in the EU while bungee jumping over an endangered owl farm donated by a creep from Oxford University Press who avoided conflict by consulting a compulsory committee.

Yes, that is better than teaching words like ferret, gerbil, goldfish, guinea pig, hamster, heron, herring, kingfisher, lark, leopard, and lobster, all of which are creatures that have disappeared from the pages of the children's dictionary. And who needs them, anyway, when the big city is the place to be? Those weird creatures from a bygone era and distant planet are joined by insensitive words like sin, nun, devil, monarch, and decade.

"Decade" sticks out like a sore thumb, dovetailing nicely with the newly added word "chronological." Removing the specific "decade" but replacing it with the abstract "chronological" is interesting. I wonder what that's about? If I were to get heavy-duty-Orwell on you, I might theorize that the PC crowd is going to start playing with time as well as words. Orwell: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

I have a phrase for Ms. Gupta. It might not belong in a children's dictionary, but she can find it between her recently deleted words "fern" and "fungus."

The Big Flop

I don't know what it's going to take for these clowns to realize that talk of "force" isn't doing the trick.

The NDP/Liberal/Bloc coalition utterly failed in its attempt to gain power. They learned a painful lesson of politics: real power means something. Wanna-be power doesn't. (By the way, please don't bother me with Canadian political propaganda; only in Canada-speak can a Bloc party "support" a coalition, sign papers saying so, and then not be considered part of the coalition).

Harper proved himself to be the real power in Ottawa by taking the big PM stick, walking into the Governor-General's office and saying, "Suspend it."

She did. No letter required, no need for handshakes and backroom deals. He already had what he needed: the biggest bully pulpit in the country.

Immediately after the announcement that Parliament was closed for the season, the phony coalition of losers went before the cameras and said that Harper still had to go. When asked if anything could change their minds, Stephane Dion said it would take "monumental changes" in Harper's budget plans for Harper to keep his job. When a French reporter said, "What do you mean by monumental changes, no one knows what that means?" Dion could only repeat, "Monumental changes." In other words, even if Harper does whatever Dion wants, it won't be good enough.

Sigh. Dude, you're the one who should be monumentally worried about his job. Your party lost an election 7 weeks ago, and your most recent power play just flopped. When are you going to understand that to voters, transparent power grabs are ugly? Duceppe, the Bloc leader, said this was now about Stephen Harper, and that he should be booted out of office no matter what concessions he made to the "coalition." Harper, you see, called the Bloc "separatists," which is highly insulting even though it's exactly what the Bloc are. Well. So much for doing this coalition deal for the good of all Canadians. Now it's a personal vendetta by three party bosses against the PM. They actually said so. As if we didn't know it before.

The day after the announcement, polls show that the Conservative party would win an outright majority if an election were held today. I don't place too much faith in polls, but I know that politicos love them. This line should freak out the phony coalition:

A Strategic Counsel poll in Friday's Globe and Mail newspaper put the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals 45 to 24 percent, with the New Democrats trailing at 14 percent.

This compares with the October 14 electoral result of 37.6 percent for the Conservatives, 26.2 percent for the Liberals and 18.2 percent for the New Democrats.

Yet numbers like these still can't convince some people that threats and extortion aren't the way to go. From the CP: The [Canadian Auto Workers] union leader says there's a "battle to wage" and that he's "damned pissed off."

"The only way that we can force this government to change direction is to build a coalition."

What does the man mean by "change direction?" Why, money, of course. He wants a "stimulus package," which is a fancy way for saying "Gimme." How's he going to get it? By force.

Nobody learned anything out of this mess except the Canadian people. They now know that the Liberal and NDP parties do not have a platform outside of their desire for power and their hatred for Stephen Harper. Oh, and their contempt for the ballot box.

Because Hollywood Is Full of Fresh Ideas

When's the last time you saw a great, new, fresh horror flick?

All right, stop thinking so hard or you'll pass out.

Anyway, this trailer sums up the absolute vacuum that is the horror genre in Hollywood. The trailer below shows just how shameless producers are these days: four kids...in a car...go to a cabin in the woods...they're laughing and happy...the place is deserted...and they're going to die.

You'll never guess who the bad guy is. Never.

I told someone they were releasing this movie, and their first question was a matter-of-fact, "Why?"

The Calm, Cool Tellers of Truth

You know those Christmas shows that the news programs do, where all of the reporters and anchors sit around being nice to each other and yucking it up? Then they cut to the control room, where the people are wearing Santa hats and smiling with holiday cheer?

This isn't one of them.

Warning: more foul language from excited media-types. This time it's a director in the control room, who needs to switch to decaf. I love the "I believed you last time!" line. I'm not sure the location reporter will dig the epithet aimed her way, but I'm sure she's glad to know what the guy really thinks.

The Sky Is Falling. So Let's Hold It Up

You have every right in the world to be scared: the media and the government are telling you every day that the Depression is right around the corner.

Lately it's the auto sector that's screaming for cash. I don't get it. Cash for what? If people aren't buying a lot of cars right now, then the industry is going to have to cut back. It's just the way the world works. Or used to.

I know, I know, a lot of people might be put out of work, but I don't understand what good it does to give billions of dollars to a failing industry. It seems odd to me that the way keep auto jobs going is to lend companies money so they can build a lot of unwanted cars, drop them in Lake Ontario, and build more unwanted cars.

I don't know any women that have a whale bone corset. Then again, I haven't met any Canadian whalers, either. Why? Because the Canadian whaling business is dead. Has been for a long time. But no one is going around saying we need to bail out whalers. The lesson: whaling died and whalers went on to do other things.

I've been listening to the news stories saying that there aren't any jobs out there, and the ones that are around are disappearing fast. So today I went on craiglist.org and workopolis.com and I saw all kinds of jobs in the Toronto area alone. Hundred and hundreds of them. A taste:

Looking for professional security officers for a high profile client in the Mississauga Area. Compensation to start at $15.43/hour.

Firefighters wanted across GTA, starting salary of $45,500 rising to $49,950 after 6 months. You must be 18 years of age or older and physically fit.

The Toronto People Bank Office is currently recruiting for our client in the banking industry who is seeking Machine Operators. $10.43.

Production Line Worker. Compensation: $12.35.

Now Hiring, Bakery Mixers Wanted! Wage: $10.80-$11.88/hr.

Wrapping homes in plastic on new construction sites. Must be comfortable working out side in cold weather. $15.00.

Manpower Banking is currently looking for Settlements Officers to work with Fixed Income accounts in one of Canada's largest banks. $19 - $21 per hour.

How about Vancouver:

Entry Level Market Research Analyst Position. $35,000 - $45,000.

Cooks. For Health care kitchen.Good pay & benefits.F/t and P/T day shifts. $16-$20p.h.

We are in search of hosts, servers and baristas. Willing to train those with the right attitude. Compensation: Extended Health and Dental Benefits.

Busy Itallian restaurant needs to hire one part time dishwasher. $10 / hr + tips daily + free meals.

We're looking for a carpenter helper immediately, for residential construction. Will pay $15pr/hr cash.

What's wrong with any of those jobs? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Besides, if they suck, you can quit and do something else because there's lots more where they came from.

Maybe now you'll begin to see why I hate the idea of taxing people more and handing that money out in the form of cheques and bailouts. Here's the thing: if you tax the construction company more, the first thing they are going to do is cut back on those "need carpenter helper" ads. Poof. There goes a job, and here comes another welfare request.

Raising taxes also takes money out of people's pockets, money that could have been spent on new houses, which lead to even more "need carpenter helper" ads. The carpenter helper gets paid, eats at an Italian restaurant, where the server picks up the plates and hands them to the dishwasher. Round and round we go, and not a bureaucrat in sight. The more the government becomes involved in fixing an economy they didn't know was broken in the first place, the faster the economy will tank.

If it's even tanking. Berry's Common Sense Economics Guide tells me to always believe what is in front of my face before buying anything the TV says. The news guys can quote numbers and the government creeps can try to scare me, but the want ads tell a different story: if you're willing to try something new and step out of your comfort zone, there is a job out there for you. It just depends if you think the job's "beneath you," or "not up your alley."

If it's pride holding you back, then there's nothing anyone will ever be able to do for you. If it's geography holding you back, then you have to remember what you are: a Canadian. Two hundred years ago, your house was a forest and your street was a creek. People had to come here, tear the forest down, and drain the swamp where your Ford plant now stands. The people who did these things came here because they needed work. They went where the money was. If they'd sat in a London alley waiting for a handout, they'd have starved to death.

Welfare and bailouts can wear you down and turn you into less than you were. Getting off your butt, taking a risk, learning something new, and going where you need to go can give you your life back.

There is now no excuse whatsoever for not being able to find work. The internet has made job searches a literal joke. You can send out 100 resumes to 100 different companies in under an hour. If you write a decent cover letter and send your resume to 50 places, I'll bet you will land something. You just have to do it.

If you want to.

Anonyma - Preview

"Better a Russkie on the belly than a bullet in the brain."

That was a cynical line that made the rounds in Germany during the closing days of WWII. German women learned quickly: rape or death.

Antony Beevor is one of the only historians I have read who looks closely into the mass-rape of Eastern European and German women by vengeful Russian soldiers. Most historians mention the rapes in passing, if at all, and then skip to the part where Hitler shoots himself.

The fall of Germany is mainly pitched as a race to the finish line, the Russians coming from the east, the US and British forces from the west. In most books, there is a great big gaping hole: the torture, abuse, and war crimes committed against the German citizenry by Russian forces.

In these days of great emotion for over 4000 troops lost in Iraq, it is simply staggering to recall the Total War that was WWII. The Russians appreciated the Total War concept with gusto. The battle for Germany resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in the space of months. The Battle of Berlin saw the deaths of tens of thousands in only days.

Seiburg, 1945
Stalin demanded that Russia be the first to conquer Berlin. He saw the end-game of WWII as an opportunity to secure as much geography as the Russians could get their hands on before the British and Americans showed up. Berlin was the prize of the war. It did not matter how many Russian soldiers died in this effort, nor did it matter how many German civilians were slaughtered. The Russian soldier had a free pass to commit the most heinous of war crimes, and they did, especially against women.

Why doesn't this receive much press in the history books? For one thing, the Russians won. That absolves a lot of guilt. Winners write history. Another reason is that shortly after WWII, Eastern Europe was cut off from the rest of the world. Many of these women did not and could not tell their stories. Certainly the Russians weren't going to tell them for them. And finally, a touch of payback: feeling sorry for German women seems somehow anathema since the Germans themselves were the perpetrators of so much misery and murder.

There's a new film being released about the mass rape of German women. It's called Anonyma - Eine Frau In Berlin [A Woman in Berlin]. It's a story that needs to be told, and frankly I'm pleasantly surprised to find it being put on film so it can reach a wide audience. One cautionary note, though: I saw a preview for it, and it looks like a Hollywood love story has been added to the film. This always makes me nervous. Love stories can add something, or they can completely tank a film. We'll see how it goes.

The 3 Big Pigs Find a Groupie

The 3 Big Pigs apparently think it isn't enough to steal power for themselves. It looks like they believe a woman who didn't even win her own seat in the October election should get some power, too.

Oh. You thought this was about what's good for the public? Silly you.

From CTV:

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May confirmed Tuesday that she has had discussions with Liberal Leader Stephane Dion about playing a role in a potential coalition government, which her party supports.

At a press conference in Ottawa, she suggested she would be open to the possibility of becoming a senator or cabinet minister, but the discussions with Dion were not specific.

That's nice, isn't it? A leftist sees all of the other leftists preparing to divide Canada amongst themselves, so she drops in for a slice. A cabinet minister, a senator, whatever: just make it a decent job paid for by the Canadian taxpayers. The CTV post goes on to note that May says a senate seat will help her party shape the direction of Canada. Maybe it will, Lizzie, but that's why you're supposed to win your election first.

May gets this coup better than most Canadians and any of the media: it's power-grab time. If she can get a government job by skipping pesky things like voters, all the better for her.

Stephane Dion (the guy who was stepping down as Liberal leader until he and the other 3 Big Pigs decided he should become Prime Minister) has confirmed that he held talks with Elizabeth May. When these political con artists stick together, they really stick together.

For the record, the Green Party did not win a single seat in the last election. May, as their leader, is a complete failure. I'd feel sorry for her, except she's now turned into a shameless groupie, begging for a job from these people only because they didn't fail quite as spectacularly as she did.

But hey, it's all about non-partisanship (unless you're trying to tear down the Conservative Party). So why not give the guys from the Radical Marijuana Party a shot? They won a few votes in the past election, and they really put the word 'party' into politics. While we're at it, give a job to a couple of guys from the Marxist-Leninist Party. They won 8753 votes. That has to be worth something to the 3 Non-Partisan Pigs. And why not a person from the Christian Heritage Par...oops. That would be taking it just a tad too far, wouldn't it?

Canada. Wake up.

Canada (and Quebec)

I took a spin around some websites to see how the Liberal/NDP/Bloc coup is going down. Quite well, depending where you look.

Here's a howler from a lefty guy (he calls himself BCer in Toronto), but it exposes what a scam this all is.

What an amazing press conference yesterday with Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe. Three political leaders that disagree on a lot setting it all aside to work for Canada (and Quebecers), agreeing to form a coalition government that could well change the face of Canadian politics forever.

Dude: Quebec is in Canada.

Man On Wire - Review

Director: James Marsh
Starring: Philippe Petit
Runtime: 1 hr 42 minutes

In 1974, the World Trade Center's Twin Towers had just been erected. Across the Atlantic, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit watched with eager anticipation. He picked August 7th of that year to string a wire from the top of both towers and stroll across it.

When you see him in action, it really does look that easy.

This documentary takes a look at what went into the stunt. Petit had already been arrested (and quickly released) for walking above the bridge in Sydney Harbour, and strolling across a wire atop Notre Dame Cathedral. But when he saw the twin towers in the news, he knew he had to walk between them. It became a dream and an obsession.

It's a great story. A few young friends, a tightrope artist, and some cash for plane tickets and steel cable. That's it. No engineers, no publicity, no celebrity. That would come later. Before August 7th, 1974, Petit was a virtual nobody and besides, he couldn't ask to walk from tower to tower. There wasn't a chance anyone would let him. He just did it.

The film uses old stock footage, some recreations, and a lot of interviews. Petit's interviews are very compelling and you can easily see how he could talk his friends into helping him with what must have looked like suicide. He's an older man in the interviews, but his passion and energy are still alive in his eyes and his voice. He loves the tightrope, and he loves talking about it.

I don't want to spoil the story by giving away the plan. It's not the stuff that secret agent books are made of, but it's a better story for it. There's some cloak-and-dagger involved in getting to the top of the towers in order to string Petit's tightrope, but mostly it's a story of boldness and balls.

The stock footage is good, but it's rare. He performed his feat before 24 hour news, camcorders, and YouTube. Mostly the film uses old photographs that a friend of Petit's took while he was on the wire. Petit ended up walking back and forth about eight times, while the cops waited for him to cool it. He spent 45 minutes up there, walking, kneeling, lying down, and walking some more, all on a wire as thick as your thumb. Incredible. There's one great photograph with Petit standing on the wire, 442 meters above the ground, while over his shoulder the cops are leaning against a post, safe and sound, waiting.

The cops were no dummies. I liked one old interview, where the cop said he realized that he was watching history in the making and seeing something no one else would probably see in their lifetime. The movie owes its title to a New York cop, too. Being cops, they wrote Petit's infraction down as simply "Man on wire" in the police report. That's a great title, and it is a great movie.


One thing did bother me about the film. There is no mention of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which destroyed the towers in hardly more time than it took Petit to walk between them. Though I hesitate to look at other reviewers before I write my bit, I did this time. As I figured, all of them said it was best that the film left 9/11 out of it. To which I ask: then why are you bringing up its absence in your review? Answer: they thought it was conspicuous by its absence, too.

9/11 screams out as a question for Petit, who I'm sure would have a response. Not for political reasons, but for personal ones. Surely a man who obsessed about the WTC for years, and risked his life to realize a dream, must have had some interesting thoughts about how he felt when he watched the towers crumble. The film spends a lot of time on how he felt when watching them being built. Why nothing when they were destroyed? But then, maybe that's just me. I prefer answers instead of hearing things draped in artsy-talk like "the towers are still alive in our dreams," or some such.

I think most reviewers, Roger Ebert most of all, are very uncomfortable with films (if you can find any) that deal with 9/11. That date is a hole in history for most mediums, whether film, television, or art. Movie reviewers like it that way. Filmmakers seem to share their feelings.

Photos: Yahoo Movies & NY Times

Smackdown, Carleton Style

From the National Post, vis a vis that vote last week where Carleton wanted to stop raising money for cystic fibrosis because it isn't "inclusive" enough:

Public outcry against the decision, both on campus and around the country, pressured the student association to reconsider its previous decision and convene an emergency meeting.

Two of the councillors involved in drawing up and approving the motion resigned their seats at the boisterous meeting Monday.

Petitions calling for the impeachment of council president Brittany Smyth and other council members were tabled.

They ended up rescinding last week's vote. Now that's what I call standing up for your convictions.

Note: how did I know their council president would be named Brittany?

Kneel Before the Queen of Canada

The Three Big Pigs of Canadian politics have finally cast the dice.

From the Globe and Mail:

The three opposition leaders are drafting a letter to Governor-General Michaëlle Jean in which they formally call on her to allow the formation of a coalition government if the Conservatives are defeated in the House of Commons next week.

Opposition sources said Monday the drafting of the letter is at an advanced stage, and will be made public with the agreement of the leadership of the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois.

So the pigs have proved what they are. Who needs democracy when you can simply rule by fiat?

You may be asking how they can do this. Perhaps you didn't read my post from a few days back. You see, to seize power in Canada, you do not have to hold an election. You can simply write a letter to the Governor General and let her decide who should be running the country. She can tell them to take a hike if she wants to, or she can wave her magic wand and proclaim their coalition the new boffo leadership party of Canada. Just like that.

Her Royal Highness
Michaëlle Jean is Canada's Governor General. She's never been elected to anything in her life. Like her predecessor, she's a former CBC TV reporter, making her more than able to decide the fate of Canada's leadership and call herself Canada's Commander-in-Chief (lemme guess: you didn't know that one either. But yes, the Governor General is called the Commander-in-Chief. Discuss amongst yourselves). She was appointed by Paul Martin, the former Liberal PM.

She has been accused of being a past Quebec separatist sympathizer, having attended a party with separatists at which she toasted, "Yes, one doesn't give independence, one takes it." She later said she was referring to Haiti, though the person who initiated the toast was referring to Martinique and Quebec. When asked which way she voted on the Quebec referendum of 1995, she punted the questions to the Paul Martin PM's office and kept her mouth shut. Strange, huh? Asking how someone voted can only be met with one of three answers: yes, no, or didn't. Jean refused to say.

She renounced her French citizenship (she was born in Haiti, but married a French guy) upon becoming Governor General in 2005. Her doc-filmmaker husband has been friends with Quebec separatists for years. In one book he wrote, "So, a sovereign Quebec? An independent Quebec. Yes, I applaud with both hands and I promise to attend all the St-Jean Baptiste Day parades." CTV says this appears to show his support for Quebec independence. Yes, and Niagara Falls appears wet.

So we have a group of people writing a letter to the Governor General, asking her to give them Canada's halls of power. One of the people writing the letter is a member of the party that gave her the cushy Governor General post, and another is a guy from a party with whom she may have political sympathies.

The response from Canada's press? More of the same: "Ho-hum. Nothing to see here."

People that lost an election are now trying to achieve power by seeking it from an unelected news reporter. Perhaps I'm the only one that sees this as a big deal. If that's the case, we're in big trouble.