The CBC locked out its employees in a labour dispute and replaced their news broadcasts with the BBC World News prompting Canadian viewers to realize the world is not just comprised of North America, the Middle East and a ragtag crew of other American foreign policy – a.k.a. oil interests. It might have also set back the covert assimilation of Canada into the U.S.A. by as much as a decade.
Tag Archive: Awards
Jan 01
My “Political Backbone of the Year”award goes to… Premier Dalton McGuinty.
The Ontario Premier announced that religious laws will no longer be recognized in Ontario. Muslims cry foul. Jews claim anti-Semitism. Catholics kiss dream of reinstating inquisitions, torture and good ole burnings at the stake goodbye.
In a related story: French Muslims celebrate the 100th anniversary of “secularism”, a law that barred the state from officially recognizing, funding or endorsing religious groups in France, by burning over 10,000 cars.
Jan 01
My “Guilty of being (like) Innocent*” award goes to… the Catholic Church:
Catholic bishops meeting in Vatican City at the first synod led by Pope Benedict XVI are expected to consider refusing communion to politicians who pass laws that violate church doctrine.
* For those of you who are not up on your Puntiffs, my headline (and perhaps their synod) is inspired by Pope Innocent III who excommunicated just about every Christian Monarch on the planet at one time (early 1200s) or another.
Jan 01
My “Foot in the Mouth” award goes to… the Fido Cellular Phone Company
Fido rolled out a national ad campaign that sports a sheepdog herding all the coolest (?) people together with the tagline, “Fido brings people together.”
(Hurting) Headitors note: Sheepdogs are cool, but I think this one let the cat out of the bag in its effort to fleece the masses into following those other sheep who believe it is absolutely un-cool to not be able to be found and/or bugged by someone wherever you go.
Jan 01
My “Oxymoron” award goes to… the Land of the Free.
Although free to pursue life, liberty and happiness, Americans discover that said freedoms (or what remains of them) does not extend to death. After winning a long court battle for the right to disconnect her breathing tube, the husband of a Florida woman fends off some last ditch attempts to intervene by both the U.S. President and Congress and allows her to die with dignity after 15 years in a “persistent vegetative state.” Still earlier in the year, a Canadian man organizes and attends his own wake, before returning home and quietly ending his life behind closed doors. I am not sure what the outcome of the ensuing police investigation into the potential for criminal charges was.
Jan 01
My “The Devil Made Me Do It” (or “Why the Devil did God bury all of our Oil under their Country”) award goes to… Christian TV Evangelist Pat Robertson.
During his 700 Club telecast, the founder of the powerful Christian Coalition of America lobby group and one time U.S. presidential candidate, ranted (on the subject of Venezuelan President Chavez), “You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.” “It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war … and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”
Chavez responded by suggesting that his government might ask Washington to extradite Robertson to Venezuela for suggesting U.S. agents kill him. “Calling for the assassination of a head of state is a terrorist act,” said Chavez, who has regularly accused the U.S. government and its allies of plotting to overthrow him. The U.S. State Department said Monday that Venezuela does not appear to have a sound legal basis for extradition.
Jan 01
My “Do as we say, not as we do” award goes to… Sony.
In an attempt to prevent the masses from illegally downloading all their great music, Sony encrypts their music CD’s with spyware that installs itself on the “purchasers’” microcomputers and secretly transmits personal information about their owners back to Sony (while at the same time providing a conduit for other not so honest businessmen to slip through that same back door). Microsoft orders them to “buzz off” and take their noise with them.
Jan 01
Visionary Quote of the Year award
While on the subject of what they say versus what they mean, we have all heard the dire warnings that energy conservation is all about saving something for our children and grandchildren. That’s the message we want to hear, that’s the one that makes sense, and that’s the one the Corporate PR spin doctors are ensuring will be ingrained in our collective psyche. Fortunately, for us every now and then we elect political representatives who are not as astute or eloquent in their dispensation of the company line as in the following quote from a leading federal official:
“A senior federal official said the government hopes Canada will be able to increase supply [for export to U.S.] because higher gasoline prices will encourage Canadians to conserve.”
— Ottawa Citizen ‘Martin offers more oil, but there is none’ Sept. 3, 2005
Jan 01
Story of the Year 2004
Great South-East Asian Tsunami kills over 140,000.
An otherwise uneventful year in the realm of natural disasters, is capped with the mother of all disasters when, on the day after Christmas, a level 9 earthquake sparks tsunamis that will take an estimated 120,000 lives across the islands and coastal areas of the Indian Ocean. In the wake of this tragedy, an unprecedented global tidal wave of charity and compassion proves that, despite a lack of peace on earth, we are taking a step in the right direction with some goodwill toward man.
“At 7:59 a.m. local time, about 150 kilometres off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, two tectonic plates heaved under the sea along a 1,000 kilometre-long fault line. The result: a magnitude 9 earthquake – the most powerful the world had seen in 40 years. Parts of the sea floor rose by about 10 metres, displacing hundreds of cubic kilometres of seawater. That generated a tsunami – a series of huge waves that quickly fanned out across the Indian Ocean.”
— excerpt from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Website
Jan 01
Most Ridiculous (or at least the gooniest) Headline of the Year 2004:
“I didn’t intend to hurt him”
A frustrated Vancouver Canuck cries as he awaits league sanctions for his part in accidentally chasing up behind and sucker punching an opponent (from behind) and then piling onto his back to ride him head first into the ice thus knocking him unconscious and breaking his neck. Only partially convinced of his sincerity, the NHL gets tough and suspends the player for the balance of the season. He will later receive what constitutes a slap on the wrist from criminal court proceedings.