So I stumbled upon this stupid ad for Conan’s show today. No idea what it has to do with that red headed schumck, but its typical of his sophmoric thought processes and typical of the male oriented advertising period.

Here’s a link. http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2010/09/conan-stripper-promo-a-special-dance-request.html

 Still no idea what it means. Can’t wait for Nov so we can see just how good his fans claim him to be.

I bid adieu,

This is also for those who think Canada is the 51^st state or on another continent altogether. 

So how does one describe life in Canada? 

Typically I’ve observed life there pretty much as a shadow of being in America. As a kid I always wanted what we couldn’t get in the U.S., mostly toys and junk food. To protect Canadian culture we were deprived many good things. 

Politicians in Canada fall into two categories:

1. Ambitious American wannabes (typically Conservatives) who feel jealous that we aren’t a super power and will happily align us with America to reap the benefits from a “world stage” perspective. Sort of like the relationship between Sylvester and Frank Stallone. With Sylvester as America and Canada as little brother Frank.

2. Or defiant nationals who want the benefits of being America’s neighbor but still be independent and will not tolerate “big brother” America telling them what to do. So in a way they are similar to Quebec’s politicians. (I’ll get to that province and her people later.)

All in all, Canadian politics are rarely interesting and the scandals are more often lame and silly. Most politicians will run from a scandal without putting up a fight. In the past, name calling has been reason enough to resign, so very sad. No hookers, no drugs, no “pay to play,” no Blago. I’m not a fan of the governor, but I’m enjoying the spectacle of watching him put up a fight. 

Our political system (which follows England’s type) exists as a constitutional monarchy with a federal system of parliamentary government in a democratic mode. Simply put; we vote for an entire party and philosophy rather than an individual person. Yet we will show our support for a party by electing for a specific politician in our riding. 

A riding is; 

1. Any of the three administrative divisions into which Yorkshire, England is divided, namely North Riding, East Riding and West Riding.

2. Any similar administrative division elsewhere.

In America you either join one of the two parties and vote accordingly, or remain independent and vote for the politician you think will do the better job (at the time) despite party lines. Even though they’re smaller third parties in America, they really accomplish little. America’s Ruling Class have rigged the game against new parties, which of course is why the Tea Party should become independent and why those in power are so afraid. In Canada we have a multi-party system and power fluctuates with each election. 

We have two bodies of power, the Senate and House of Commons. 

The Senate consists of 105 seats with Senators appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the prime minister. Seats are assigned on a regional basis, with each of the four major regions receiving 24 seats, and the remainder of the available seats being assigned to smaller regions. 

The four major regions are: ONTARIO, QUEBEC, the MARITIME PROVINCES, and the WESTERN PROVINCES. 

The smaller regions are NEWFOUNDLAND and LABRADOR, the NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, YUKON, and NUNAVUT. 

The House of Commons consists of 308 seats and all Members of Parliament, or MPs are voted in democratically. Here’s where most of the work gets done. The size of the House and apportionment of seats to each province is revised after every census, conducted every five years, and is based on population changes and approximately on representation-by-population. 

An election can be called at any time, but it must be within a five year term limit. So whatever happens, after five years we vote again. 

Our head of state is called Prime Minister and the one selected to be Prime Minister is the current leader of the party which wins the most seats. STEPHEN HARPER is our current PM and he got that by arranging a no-confidence vote against the Liberals who had been involved in a corruption scandal. 

The history of that; A few years back the scandal broke (not sure the details, mostly involved mis-uses of money) the Liberal PM pledged to get to the bottom of it and delayed a forced election by making deals with the NDP [New Democratic Party] and the Bloc Quebecois. The Conservatives were outvoted and lost their 1^st attempt at a no-confidence vote. 

But not unlike their American counterparts the Liberals turned on their new “allies” by not making good on their back room deals, and also the full extent of the corruption was revealed, the Liberals were finally forced into an election and lost power. Depending on how many seats a winning party has (meaning if they can pass laws with or without help) a majority or minority government. 

Personally I think the system works far better in comparison to the U.S. two-party system. May not be as interesting as elections can be called within a moment’s notice and end in 30 days, there’s no build up and MSNBC won’t get enough time to send lawyers up to Alaska. 

Here in America, after some 200 years the Ruling Class slowly formed and now have a stranglehold on your government. Which I think has created a culture of absolute corruption and zero accountability. None. When you have two choices, all you can do is punish the current criminal.

True, an individual politician might get voted out, (a scapegoat for the common good) but as a party there’s no accountability so they keep on giving bailouts. So they’ll always remain in power despite who you vote for. One side or the other. 

In Canada if a party has failed to live up to their promises they can be voted out of power (or existence) with a vengeance. In 1991 then current PM Brian Mulroney used dirty tactics to earn 8 additional senate seats to pass his GST [Goods & Services Tax] and the public hated it so much that his party was voted out of power and eventually being. A political party which doesn’t have a place in the playoff, doesn’t play. 

Another thing about Canadian politics, parties with similar ideologies sometimes merge together to survive. Mulroney (actually he had resigned by then) had 151 seats but lost all but two in the 1993 election, so say what you will about Canadians, you piss us off and we will crush you. Ha, ha, ha, ha!! 

Because of Mulroney’s f**k-up, his former PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE PARTY merged with the CANADIAN ALLIANCE in 2003 to become the CONSERVATIVE PARTY OF CANADA. Can you imagine Barack Obama ruining his party and forcing them to join forces with the Green Party or Ross Perot? An interesting thought. 

In many respects there is a certain degree of socialism within our country, but not to our detriment. The arts are sponsored by the government and we are inundated with American influences due to the fact that some dumb ass politician sold the rights for theatre owners to American interests in the 1930’s. 

We have 3 main networks that I can name CBC, CTV and Global. More networks exist in French Quebec, but we English don’t watch them. They aren’t exactly controlled by the government; instead the Gov. gives them money for projects so there’s little profit to be made 

Despite what you may think I do believe there is very little censorship, if any. I do know that Canada protects us from your dastardly culture by changing any American network or concept into a Canadian equivalent. MTV became MuchMusic in Canuckville. HBO became some sort of pay TV move channel whose name I forget. If there’s not an American broadcast station in close proximity to Canada we may not get the signal for our networks to assume control. 

That means we see commercials for a local audience and that we had no FOX in Montreal for 10 years because FOX was not close enough in New York. That must have changed with digital technology and the internet and whatever. 

Alcohol is regulated by the government and there are several government controlled stores that sell alcohol throughout the provinces. Though beer and other alcohol related products can be bought at other retail chains and corner stores. Drinking ages vary within the provinces, for Quebec I know its 18 years of age. 

Fast-food chains are licensees like in America and our government controls no aspect of them, save for Quebec which requires them to be bilingual due to their xenophobic, racist tendencies. 

Despite what that idiot and propagandist Michael Moore says or thinks, healthcare is not free,   however I still think socialized medicine is the better alternative. How it works from my vaguest recollections, we pay taxes, money goes into big pot, and government pays doctors and reimburses us later for payment. 

Canada does have insurance, I assume at least some private, because my dentist didn’t take my dentaide insurance for a time. But I do believe that all emergency staff is paid a set rate which I think is why the capitalists (not to mention the doctors) are so opposed to socialized health care.  

Put simply;  

Capatalists + Doctors = Money. Money = Power. Power = Security. Security = A belief in controlling one’s destiny. A belief in controlling one’s destiny = a delusion. 

Case in point my wife visits the emergency room in Canada and pays $600.00 for the entire treatment. Every technician, nurse, doctor, IV, needle and whatever is covered for that amount.  

In the U.S., she pays for virtually everything. Ambulance, doctors, technicians and use of equipment, needles and the medicine which is administered. One time she told me a single trip in the U.S. cost over $2000.00. 

Doctors need to get out of the “getting paid” business and remember they are in the “healing” business. 

But now I’m blogging from my sense of moral outrage and this is supposed to be a lesson in Canadian life, so I stop. I guess that’s all I can think of for now. If you want to know WTF is going on in Quebec that will be another blog. 

That’s the end, thank you for paying attention.  

I bid adieu,

When the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, 2009, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) hopes you’ll be ringing in “the Year of the Bible.”  

It’s probably just wishful thinking.  

Broun’s simple congressional resolution aimed at honoring the Good Book has produced a push-back of biblical proportion in the blogosphere, with critics dismissing it as either unconstitutional or a waste of time. Jews in Congress and atheist activists are dismissing the resolution, while none of the many Democrats in Congress who are Christian have bothered to sign on as co-sponsors.  

According to GovTrak.us, the resolution is among the most-blogged-about pieces of legislation, with most posts less than complimentary in nature.  

“Does that mean 2009 is not the year of the Bible?” mocked Rep. Barney Frank ­(D-Mass.), who is Jewish. “What is 2012 the year of? The Quran?”  

“That’s an endorsement of religion by the federal government, and we shouldn’t be doing that,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), even though he has introduced his own legislation dealing with religion.  

“Republican lawmakers with apparently too much time on their hands and no solutions to offer the country are pushing a resolution that will not address the nation’s problems or advance prosperity or even untangle their previous governing mistakes,” blogged the Progressive Puppy. Broun rejects the critiques leveled at this effort.  

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity,” he said in an interview with POLITICO. Rather, he says, it seeks to recognize that the Bible played an integral role in the building of the United States, including providing the basis for our freedom of religion that allows Muslims, Hindus and even atheists to vocalize their own beliefs.
And even as Nadler criticized Broun, he has done his own share of mixing religion and legislation.  

Last year, he introduced a bill that would overturn a federal appeals court ruling — an “idiot” decision, he says — that a condominium board in Chicago had the right to ban Jews from installing mezuzahs, which consist of a piece of parchment inscribed with a specific religious text put inside a case and hung on a door frame.  

Condo boards shouldn’t be able to interfere in an individual’s right to practice his or her religion, Nadler said.  

But he himself declined to install a mezuzah on his congressional office door when asked by a rabbi, even though he does so at home. 

“That’s my religious symbol, and the office does not belong to me; it belongs to the people of the congressional district, and no one should feel uncomfortable walking into the office if it’s not their religion,” Nadler said, describing his feelings on religion and Congress. 

“Same thing with the Bible. … It’s not everybody’s religion. And the federal government should not be imposing religious viewpoints.”

All I’m going to say is; And these people are the Ruling Class in America? When, where, how and why did this happen? None of these people should be in charge of the night shift at the local grocery store, let alone all of our fates. 

I bid adieu,

So it seems that after the mad dash and so much in fighting amongst the networks, Conan O’Brien has settled on a network I barely knew existed until now.

Just hours before the start of his “I’m not funny and a lame ass, I’ll go away soon” tour O’Brien announced that his long awaited show (by the media only) will be on cable station TBS beginning in November 2010. No specific date Mr. Coco? That seems a little odd.

The unnamed show (I assume it will be something brilliant like: Conan, The Conan Show, or The Conan O’Brien Show) will be on Mondays through Thursdays beginning at 11:00 pm ET. So he gets Fridays off ‘cuz he’s lazy, or the network is so cheap, they can only afford 4 days a week.

O’Brien added to the schedule means that TBS will move Lopez Tonight with George Lopez back an hour to midnight.  Supposedly O’Brien refused at first to do to Lopez what had happened to him at NBC, but accepted only after Lopez begged Conan to sign up with the network.

It seems the legacy of Lopez Tonight is not as important as The Tonight Show. Not much of a hypocrite there. And come on, Lopez is doing well in the ratings and he’s stepping aside so Conan can take his spot. I seriously doubt that. But all the CoCo pundits will say nothing of this.

Anyway I’ll guess we’ll all have to wait until (an undetermined date) November to see the big showdown. I predict that Conan will do a good job, get good ratings ‘cuz people will want to see how he does. And then eventually his ratings will drop and he’ll be third with Jimmy Kimmel dropping off the face of the Earth.

I bid adieu,

So it seems that all has finally come to pass. It is the end of, as the press has dubbed it, the Great Late Night Wars of 2010. 

I am happy for it, war is never pretty. But the only reason I’m glad that this whole ridiculous mess is done with, because we have causalities. A lone casualty actually. 

Here’s my take on the whole thing: 

NBC fired, then bought off Conan the Barbarian and gave back Leno the job they wrongfully took from him last year.  

Some think that NBC is the one true villain in this: They would be correct. 

NBC f**ked a nice guy in 2004 when he was riding high and making them money for fear of their planned successor jumping ship. So the talent was sacrificed for the talentless hack who had the execs over a barrel.  

To appease the talent (keep him from jumping ship as well), and save themselves a couple bucks, they gave him their 10pm slot for his new late show, which is not when a late show should be on. It was a plan that backfired. They messed up their nighttime lineup, lost ratings and well affiliates not happy. 

Conan is not a noble martyr, Leno is not a Machiavellian mastermind, but NBC boss Jeff Zucker is a f**king idiot. Though silent for a long time, Leno finally broke his silence on the controversy rocking late-night TV, recounting for the world how he was a** raped by brutish NBC executives, then when their plan went to hell, pushed him back into returning to the Tonight Show gig he was yanked from, letting him to take the heat in the process. Conan started on his “satirical” tour with the ever so clever name, which I don’t want to waste time writing out. Andy Richter, his lovable, uh I mean failure of an entertainer, pal is joining him, since he will be returning to the sidekick position, since his dreams of stardom have not met expectations. 

Leno’s return to the Tonight Show was a success and Letterman is again number two. Must be sad to always come up short, but that’s Letterman for you. Maybe his new job as political pundit will work out. 

Jimmy Kimmel who? 

NBC is crashing and burning so badly. They went and cancelled Law & Order, and Must See TV is getting worse and worse. The scheduling debacle of the Jay Leno Show will be rippling throughout the industry for decades to come to be sure. 

And I guess that’s it. 

Who is the casualty in this? 

Well it’s the public forced to watch, listen and see this crap and wonder why do we care about two millionaires fighting over a f’ing desk. 

I bid adieu,

Noticed this little article on Yahoo today;

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the official version of the Sept. 11 attacks a “big lie” used by the U.S. as an excuse for the war on terror, state media reported.

Ahmadinejad’s comments, made during an address to Intelligence Ministry staff, come amid escalating tensions between the West and Tehran over its disputed nuclear program. They show that Iran has no intention of toning itself down even with tighter sanctions looming because of its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. 

“September 11 was a big lie and a pretext for the war on terror and a prelude to invading Afghanistan,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by state TV. He called the attacks a “complicated intelligence scenario and act.” 

The Iranian president has questioned the official U.S. version of the Sept. 11 attacks before, but this is the first time he ventured to label it a “big lie.” 

In 2007, New York officials rejected Ahmadinejad’s request to visit the World Trade Center site while he was in the city for a U.N. meeting. The president also sparked an uproar when he said during a lecture in New York that the causes and conditions that led to the attacks, as well as who orchestrated them, still need to be examined. 

At the time, he also told Iranian state TV the attacks were “a result of mismanaging and inhumane managing of the world by the U.S,” and that Washington was using Sept. 11 as an excuse to attack others. 

He has also questioned the Sept. 11 death toll of around 3,000, claiming the Americans never published the victims’ names. 

On the 2007 anniversary of the attacks, the names of 2,750 victims killed in New York were read aloud at a memorial ceremony.

I would like to give my rebuttal to this a**wipe. Can we f’ing nuke this mother already?

I bid adieu,

LOS ANGELES – Three Los Angeles elementary school teachers accused of giving children portraits of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul to carry in a Black History Month parade have been removed from their classrooms, a school district spokeswoman said Wednesday.

How long until we are told the color or ethnicity of these teachers, is what I’m thinking.

Children from other classes at the school displayed photos of more appropriate black role models, such as Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman and President Barack Obama, Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said.

Obama so should not be amongst those people to be sure.

The incident occurred Friday at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles, where the student body is more than 90 percent Latino. 

District Superintendent Ramon Cortines placed the teachers — all white men who teach first, second and fourth grades — on administrative leave on Tuesday while an investigation is conducted, Pollard-Terry said.

YES!! THEY WERE WHITE!! IT WAS A CONSPIRACY!! The proof is below. 

“The superintendent will not let anyone make a mockery out of Black History Month,” she said. The issue was brought to district officials’ attention by the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP after the organization received a complaint early Monday, chapter President Leon Jenkins said. 

Jenkins said he felt the teachers acted in concert to mock black heroes and children’s innocence.

I’m thinking perhaps the teachers were being idiots, maybe they were racist KKK undercover agents, or perhaps they were simply putting a couple things in perspective. All members of an ethnic group are not the sum of their a**holes. 

“These are not the people we want our young people to emulate or believe these people represent the best of the African-American community,” Jenkins said. “It’s hard for the NAACP to believe this was a mistake.”

And let’s look at the people the NAACP are offended by:

Simpson, a former NFL star, is serving a nine-year prison sentence for robbery and kidnapping. He was famously acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife and her friend.

He’s there as a joke to be sure. The Juice’s fall from grace was epic and I’m still waiting for the movie.

RuPaul is a drag queen performer.

So gay people are not heroes by the NAACP’s standard? Has GLAAD heard about this? That would be an epic fight, wouldn’t it? NAACP vs. GLAAD!? 

Rodman, a former NBA star, has gained notoriety for bad boy behavior on and off the basketball court.

It’s not like he killed anyone. He’s just got poor common sense. But this is where the reality of the situation comes to light. 

Some parents at the school on Wednesday said the issue was overblown. 

Sharon Tinson, who has two daughters at the school and attended Friday’s celebration, said she had been surprised to see Simpson displayed in the parade. But she noted that Simpson, like Rodman, was a great athlete before falling from grace. RuPaul simply has an alternative lifestyle, she added. 

She noted the event also included a tribute to pop singer Michael Jackson, who has also had a checkered career. 

I’m more offended by an (alleged) child molesting mental case than a bad boy basketball player. 

“I kind of laughed at it,” Tinson said. “I wasn’t offended.” 

Gabriel Blackson, whose son attends the school, said he also took a larger view of the ruckus. 

“These guys were heroes before. People make mistakes,” he said. “I think they show kids they can be somebody, to push them to be somebody.” 

Jenkins said he is calling for the teachers to be fired.

And maybe they will, maybe they won’t. I don’t really care, I just enjoy seeing the politicians make an issue out of nothing for their own benefit. Something the NAACP has (sadly) become a master at. 

I bid adieu,

Time to dust off that resume, Spider-Man. You’re fired!

Poor bastard!

Don’t fret, the web-slinger will still be keeping New York City safe from Venom and Carnage and any number of other dastardly villains he’s tangled with over the years. But beginning Wednesday, he’s going to have to do it between trips to the unemployment line.

That’s the day Peter Parker, Spider-Man’s nice guy alter-ego, hears the words, “You’re fired” from his cranky, long-suffering boss, Mayor J. Jonah Jameson. Worse still, Jameson not only sacks Parker, who makes his living as a photojournalist, he blacklists him with every news organization in town.

I always knew that Jameson was a total p***k.

This of course raises all kinds of interesting questions:

• How will Parker maintain his Spider-Man costumes? Dry-cleaning bills alone must run to several hundred dollars a year.

• How will he keep buying the stuff he uses to spin those industrial-strength webs needed to hop from building to building? Surely he doesn’t pick that up at the 99 Cents Store.

• Where is his next meal coming from? Would he be reduced to spinning webs outside supermarkets and trapping shopping carts in them?

The real question is, with all due respect, who cares? Spider-Man is a fictional character who’s seen himself cloned, his Aunt May killed and subsequently resurrected, his wife Mary Jane is no longer his wife due to godly celestial manipulation and of course the Civil War saw his identity revealed and a retcon erased all memory of it.

From an artistic point of view, sure the realism of the problem is novel. But at the same time I’m sure the 10% who are currently unemployed in this country don’t really care.

“Because we still want to sell comic books, I can’t answer those questions,” laughs Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, which reveals the web spinner’s latest crisis in Issue No. 623.

But while hard times may lie ahead, Spider-Man has gotten through hard times before. Just two years ago his marriage to beautiful Mary Jane came to an end when the villain Mephisto erased everyone’s memory of it.

That must of suck. Mary Jane was cute.

He landed on the unemployment line this time not because of the recession or even a downsizing news industry. You probably guessed it already; it was because of an evil villain.

Spider-Man got wind of a plot to frame Jameson and exposed it by digitally manipulating photos he’d taken as Peter Parker. Of course to do that he had to violate journalism ethics by misrepresenting the images. Jameson, longtime publisher of the Daily Bugle, could never tolerate that.

And just why would Peter Parker/aka Spider-Man do such a thing anyway?

“Just because he has super powers doesn’t mean he’s perfect,” says Quesada.

It seems this is merely a story with a little social commentary added in. I suppose that ain’t so bad. Go Marvel!

I bid adieu,

So the results are in, and Letterman had it right. In between holding a bacchanalia, his show was crushed under the weight of Jay Leno’s return and of course all the “I hate Sarah Palin” jokes. Just as he predicted from his constant attacks and sleepless nights. 

Viewers tuned in to see Jay Leno’s return to The Tonight Show last night: Leno led the time period over Late Show with David Letterman and ABC’s combination of Nightline and Jimmy Kimmel Live by 80 percent, according to NBC.  

Looks like Jimmy Kimmel is back to being third again. 

Leno scored a 5.4 rating/14 share in 56 metered markets last night while Letterman earned a 3.0/8, Nightline, a 3.4/8 and Live, a 1.8/6. In the 25 markets with People Meters, Leno was No. 1 in the time period. 

At 12:35 a.m, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon also beat CBS’s Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson by a margin of 40 percent.  To conclude Jay Leno attracted 6.6 million viewers on his first night back, while Letterman lured 3.8 million. 

Sure those numbers will drop in the coming weeks, after the brouhaha dies down. But two final thoughts, could Letterman or Conan get those numbers? I doubt it, but we’ll see. 

And could Jimmy Kimmel get those numbers either? Damn, Kimmel couldn’t even do that good in his dreams. 

I bid adieu,

So Jay Leno has gone home. Leno’s not heralded and triumphant return as the host of “The Tonight Show,” is ignored for the most part unless he had bombed horribly. Leno going to his usual style of humour, shook off the stench of his quirkier sophomoric predecessor, Conan O’Brien. 

As one would expect from a class act like Leno, he made no effort to joke about the late night wars of the past few weeks.  No he made a Wizard of Oz reference and joked about forgetting to go to work. 

A cameo by Betty White included and it was like the good ol’ days on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” 

Let’s check for the ratings tomorrow. 

I bid adieu,