July's Morons of the Month

There were some big winners this month, but let's start with a fairly local pest...

• Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Councillor/Deputy Mayor Doug Ford, for not only being exposed as totally out of it when they claimed there was a lot of wasteful spending at the City of Toronto (turns out there isn't), but being so bound and determined to balance the books that they are cutting services and increasing taxes, despite promising not to in last year's election. Of particular stupidity here -- besides an incident where the Mayor flipped off a mother and child, when they pointed out he shouldn't be driving while using a cell phone -- are proposed user fees for walking through parks (I'm totally serious), and closing several of Toronto's libraries despite them signing out millions of items in the last year alone. Those supporting the latter, claim that they no longer serve a purpose that can't be met by the private sector, evidently unaware that there are a lot of poor people in Toronto!


• The Democratic and Republican Parties, for continuing to bash their heads against the wall, instead of doing ANYTHING about the fact that the American government is about to owe more than its allowed amount of money. This particularly goes to various conservatives who are totally against the super-rich paying their fair share of taxes (despite the obvious need to generate income... and the fact that even companies that pay no income taxes at all, are moving American jobs overseas), and to the Tea Party lunatics who actually insist that defaulting on debt IS A MYTH. Um... how about they ask the MANY unemployed Americans that they claim to represent?


• Sun Media, for backing out of the Ontario Press Council, because they think that the regulatory board is "too politically correct". Since a recent smear attack/interview on little-watched Sun News has set a record for the number of complaints lodged with Canada's version of the FCC, I can only guess that "politically correct" is now being used to describe "telling the truth" and "not kicking someone below the belt".

Now, onto the meat and potatoes.

• Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, and News Corporation, for their part in the now-infamous British phone hacking scandal. Not only have the far-right tabloid wranglers been accused of (and often charged with) hacking the voice mails of celebrities, but they've apparently tampered with the voice mails of several British politicians (and leaking whatever they hear about, like what then-PM Gordon Brown's son was sick with), eavesdropped on the Royal Family, hacked the phones of dead soldiers and terrorist victims, and erased voice mails belonging to at least one murdered schoolgirl, whose killer remains at large. In other words, they have been accused of MAJOR felonies -- often with the assistance of British leaders and policemen, incidentally (the scandal has cost at least two top cops their jobs, and shaken the Prime Minister's Office). Not only that, but Murdoch's staff and their supporters claim that this has been MADE UP, and they did nothing wrong!


• The (hopefully few) supporters of Norway terrorist Anders Brevik, for openly praising the actions of a man who killed MANY children, but often trying to blame it on Brevik's victims. I personally have seen countless far-right pundits blame the mass murder on Muslims and liberals (who were the intended targets), which is akin to blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. Particularly disgusting was Glenn Beck stating on his radio show, that the children at the camp run by Norway's Labour Party -- a party founded to fight the Nazis, incidentally -- IS JUST LIKE THE HITLER YOUTH. Real classy, asshole.

Autopsy on the First PM debate

The Canadian federal election, had its English-language leaders' debate, last night. According to those who actually WATCHED the thing, Harper was calm but also visibly irritated at even being there (plus making some other remarks I will destroy in a minute), Ignatieff said the right things but was quite bland, Duceppe took up space, and Layton seemed more focused on attacking Ignatieff than Harper (even if he did make some good zingers at Harper's expense too).

I'm going to comment more on Layton in the next Bored on the Corner episode, but what was the point of using a MADE UP statistic about Ignatieff's attendance in Parliament? First of all, Ignatieff -- while still more absent than the other leaders, which is a big problem -- is there quite a bit more than the 30% that Layton is claiming. Second, why was Layton even attacking Ignatieff in the first place? I apologize in advance, for making my next video redundant, but ISN'T LAYTON TRYING TO BE THE PRIME MINISTER? What's the point of going after THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION? Not only is this a total waste of time, but you can make a really good argument that Layton just stole enough votes from the Liberals, to put Harper back in power on May 2nd!

Which leads me to Harper's continued asshattery... During the debate, he had the nerve to flat out DEMAND that Canadians give the Conservatives, a majority government.

Um, why?

After five years of messing up Canada's finances, doing nothing about the economy, of disrespecting Canada's institutions, of vilifying even common Canadian voters if they give a thought to the "wrong" party, lying to the public, obstructing the public, wasting BILLIONS of our dollars on totally useless projects, and quite literally breaking the law on several occasions... you have the SHEER GALL to point a gun to our heads and order us to give you even more power??

By the way, if you're wondering, the consequence that Harper is threatening, is yet another election, in a short amount of time. Leaving aside for a minute, that this is coming from a guy who's been in CONSTANT election mode, since becoming the Leader of the Opposition (and is single-handedly to blame for the constant elections, due to his corrupt behaviour)... Harper's threat won't necessarily come true. In a Parliamentary democracy, if a freshly-elected government, doesn't have the confidence of the house, the Governor General can and very often will just ask the opposition to form the new government instead. And while it's true that our current GG (David Johnson) was appointed by Harper, he is also a constitutional expert who has already refuted Harper's claims that coalitions are illegal and undemocratic.

So in conclusion... if Stephen Harper wants a majority from Canadians, he needs to earn it; Michael Ignatieff needs to learn how to think on his feet and be engaging on live television; and Jack Layton needs to remember what the hell is most important to Canadians (and what side he's really supposed to be on).

Stephen Harper is a Tool

I know that's not my wittiest title -- or description of Stephen Harper -- but in this case I think it's very apt.

Yesterday, Stephen Harper decided to schmaltz up his pathetic election campaign, by singing "Imagine" with the girl who went viral for singing "Born This Way" (and got Tweeted by Lady Gaga, etc.). As if it wasn't already lame -- and hypocritical -- that a lifeless, pro-corporate, war-mongering Christian fundamentalist, is claiming to be a fan of innovative, non-materialist, peace-promoting non-Christians like The Beatles... Harper also claims to be a fan of Lady Gaga.

Now, at best this already looks like a very cheap and blatant ploy to con young voters -- ironically, one of the only things that Harper IS transparent about. But Harper's statements make it clear that he's -- once again -- lying through his teeth. For example...

" I hear Mrs. Gaga’s words – ‘Just dance, gonna be okay/da-da, doo-doo/Dance, dance, dance, just dance’"

LADY GAGA'S NOT MARRIED. I'm not a fan of hers, but even I know that. Why? BECAUSE I FUCKING PAY ATTENTION TO CURRENT EVENTS!

*sigh*

"“Bad Romance”: “Makes me think of the spectre of a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition. Have I mentioned lately how bad that romance would be for Canada? Because it would be a bad romance for Canada. FYI.”

Oh for fuck's sake he's STILL on about that? Even after that blew up in his face? And the far-right says LIBERALS are stupid!

"Don’t really understand the meaning of this song, but the wonderful refrain — ‘Can’t read my/Can’t read my/No, he can’t read my poker face’ — speaks to me, deeply."

Ummm... I'm being Punk'd here, aren't I? Seriously??

Ok, Tiny Stephen, if you're reading this... the song is about being bisexual. I'm not kidding around -- Gaga herself has said that this is about trying to hide that she's attracted to women. So not only does this show that Harper has NO IDEA what he's talking about, but the irony is that he and his party are notorious homophobes, and Harper claims to love a song that is celebrating being anything BUT straight.

PRETENTIOUSNESS FAIL

Airport Security (again)

We all know by now that, in the wake of the failed airline bombing on Christmas Day, the American and Canadian governments are once again playing "Security Theatre" (ie. pretending to take the issue very seriously, by creating rules that do nothing to address the actual problem). I'll admit that I have a bit of self-interest in this annoyance, given that my parents and I each have trips planned in the next two months, but please bear with me on this.

U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman (known in some Democratic circles as "The Turncoat"), is calling for more of those enhanced body scanners to be used in American airports -- claiming that that would have stopped the Christmas Day incident. There's just a tiny problem with that, Joe: that flight originated in The Netherlands! Unless you plan on twisting the arms of foreign powers -- again -- to do your bidding, then security measures at home aren't going to mean very much.

Additional pissing up a rope comes in the rule that passengers will no longer be allowed to walk around the cabin, during the last hour of a flight.

...

...

...What difference is that supposed to make?

Let me break down the problem here, on two paths. First of all, we are -- by definition -- talking about criminals. If they're willing to break laws about mass murder, what exactly makes you think that they'll give a shit about when you're allowed to stand up inside a plane?

Second of all, since the general idea of a terrorist attack is simply to kill a lot of people in the most shocking and unexpected way possible, has it ever occurred to the government that a bomber could simply rig his/her device during that time that you ARE allowed to move around?

Now look, terrorists are generally very good at adapting to setbacks anyway, so I'm skeptical about how much difference any security measure will really make, but the chest-thumpers could at least try to come up with stuff that makes even basic sense.

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