Clement: "Ignore anyone who says I have porked!"

Tony C. Repeatedly busted for inane utterances in defense of a whole string of dodgy, ideology-driven government doofinesses, and porking on the public dime. Again, today, from the looks of it. Yet still fighting a valiant rearguard action against anything resembling reality. Ya gotta admire his sheer, pigheaded tenacity. It's as if he's trying to hypnotize an entire country into not seeing what's as plain as the nose on your face...

Ode to beavers

Who could ever forget the Elgin Street Irregulars' historic, heady foray into the (very likely lucrative, if we'd ever actually winched our notoriously incoherent act together...) BeaverBalls™ biz?

Yup, we've long reserved a warm spot for Castor canadensis and his charming, if strange, habits. Such as (allegedly) eating his own testicles when threatened.

So, it is with a certain, ummm, proprietorial disdain that we tee off to trash conservatory senator Nicole Eaton's (ev)ill-conceived proposal to replace Our Illustrious National Rodent with some polar bear.

If beavers were ever to actually chew off their own business to spit at somebody, they might wish to begin with Ms. Eaton.

Her cover story is that the Beav is a "dentally defective rat". We need barely slow down to point out that slagging rats places her in the position of badmouthing many sitting members of her party, before hitting the gas to note that the more plausible reason for her libel of our furry pal is that, while he's claimed squatters' rights to the national identity for centuries, he was only officially installed in 1975. Under, you guessed it, Pierre Trudeau's Liberals.

It takes no genius to see that the focus of the Harper Government™®© since gaining its coveted strong stable majority™®© ain't so much the stupid economy as tearing down, stomping, burning, shooting and pissing on any and all things liberal. And calling it nation building. ™®©.

So despite the senator's cutesy persiflage, we can, ummm, probably agree that this is one more case of these guys' systematic scorched-liberal policy, as they try to replace all those inconvenient decades of collective national memory with (yet more) crap, artfully spin-doctored from the whole cloth.

Do I have to stoop to quoting literary classics, like some intellectually-bankrupt Ottawa Citizen columnist? Yes? Crap. Okay:

"If all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

You already know the book. Oh, never mind. I digress

Base image: Wikimedia Commons

When in doubt, mumble. Again.

Canada's minister for international co-operation ain't nicknamed "Bev Yoda" for nuthin'.

Whenever she wades deep into (another) ministerial bafflement about exactly what "international co-operation" might mean, she's a verbal Jedi. As she spouts the political equivalent of "I'm not the droid you want", her characteristic circular confusion fogs everything around her, all the way up to the already-tortured ozone layer.

Now, there's a theory out there that she's really a genius, hamstrung by her prime minister. He doesn't know tweet (or Tweet©) about international development yet micromanages it on the fly, pulling partisan pseudo-policy out of his ass ummm, thin air. Then he kicks her onto the public gym mat, to flip-flop gracelessly in defense of the indefensible.

But the evidence suggests the incompetence is her own. Under her, the Canadian International Development Agency is so knotted up by contradictory ministerial directives that it doesn't do much anymore. This may be what she wants. Or what her boss wants. That way he can declare CIDA, and/or her, redundant.

Bev Oda's latest misadventure involves somebody who, after all the relevant high-level civil servants signed a funding approval for an aid group called Kairos, scrawled a big, crude "NOT" into the official typed document to reverse its intent at the last minute. And incidentally, the labours of CIDA's own approval process. After which the minister signed it. Ummm, maybe. She's called it a routine decision ever since, up to and including the point where the parliamentary speaker said yesterday that he probably should censure her for lying about it. Except that he was so damn confused he couldn't. See what I mean? Yoda.

Why would a semi-mythical coyote in a paw-sucking midwinter funk rouse himself to rail about the deeds a lousy second-tier minister, when bigger battles loom? Because of what it shows. Her party's, and her leader's partisan manipulation of every area of government policy, and its arrogant disdain for due process is something previous governments took decades to get to. It ain't doing much for Canada's shredding international rep. Or for that matter, us at home. These guys want an election? A majority?

Thank you for listening, InterTubes. I shall now subside back into my Slough of Despond, until only my wrinkled, seasonally affective nose is visible. Other, bigger, battles later...

Mister Sloppy's hard drive hygiene hints

Of a recycling eve, I often meet a guy we'll call "Mister Sloppy", due to the perpetual cloud of kitty litter crumbs surrounding him. And because evil geniuses need snappy pseudonyms. And because he refuses to be called the traditional "Doctor Sloppy". Go figure.

Mister Sloppy often carries a computer or two rescued from recycling, because he's wiring together some kind of junkyard supercomputer with which to take over the world. The mounds of grubby beige boxes crammed into his place would confound Michael Dell. I avoid asking exactly what 'ol Slop plans, because the thought of any world run by him horrifies me. He, discretely, eschews details.

But he does tell what he sees on these castoffs when he fires 'em up to wipe off Windows and load his personal homemade Mister Sloppy World Domination Operating System (MS-WDOS). The latest find was exemplary: right on the desktop, two PDFs, each a filled-in loan application form. Birthday, income details, mother's maiden name -- bog-standard identity-theft stuff, really. Not very well hidden in the directories were about a quarter of a sizable hard-drive's worth of pirated MP3s, mostly bad thug rap and Britney's and Christina's (and Bananarama's) sappier stuff. Another quarter-drive was, ummm, educational literature and videos. Or possibly pornography. The rest comprised a truly astounding variety of worms, viruses, trojans, keyloggers, scamware, scumware, pestware and the like. Guess that's what ya get for piratin' dodgy MP3s and porn.

Oh, and a mess of Internet chat logs. Didja know MSN automatically archives a plain-text transcript of every personal text conversation for just any old evil genius to read? Not hard to find, either. The guy who owned this computer apparently had five or seven girlfriends on the hop, judging by the logs. And the photos. He left a startling number of JPEGs of himself, getting slitty-eyed drunk with buddies and appearing to behave somewhat better with young women. I say "appearing" because also in there was a 120-page PDF file disclosing full techniques for boffing one's companion for the evening on the first date, whether she wanted to or not.

Now, Mr. Sloppy has no interest in following any of this up for purposes of penny-ante evil. He has, ummm, far bigger fish to fry.

But I just have to give an advisory shout out to this guy (whom we'll call Pete): PETE! Although the personal information you left hangin' out in the digital wind ironically suggests that you work in a supervisory capacity in a security-related field, I do believe you're insecure (in many senses of the phrase). Don't you know that there's both information and all sorts of free program downloads on that same Internet you so enthusiastically trolled for movies of [redacted] sex and incredibly bad music? That, like, wipe files and hard drives in such a way that interested (or disinterested) snoopers can't read them? Mister Sloppy tells me they're easily available at download sites like this. And this.

Now, certain schools think industrial shredders, shotguns or explosives are the only certain ways to ensure that personal data on hard drives are erased beyond redemption. But I disapprove of firearms, and have better uses for explosives. So, Pete. Next time ya kick a computer to the curb, do yourself a favour, search out one more tiny little download from Bit Torrent, and cover your ass in all senses of the phrase. Because right now, Mr. Sloppy and I know way more about you than is good for any of us. And while he has deleted it to get on with his own thing - you don't know that, do you...?

Not just another tawdry burlesque...

What a richness of embarrassments! This is a day when I could be blogging about how frigid Ottawatamies finally experienced the Big O - with Beaver Tails instead of ESI BeaverBalls™, no less - or the utterly, indefensibly brain dead and lame reasoning (Paragraph seven is the howler) offered up by the Ottawa Transit Committee, for disallowing some gently quizzical atheist bus ads. Which, whether you personally hold with atheists' views or not, they should be reasonably be able to do. Even the Christians say so. And which, if you take an already insane argument to its even more illogically insane extreme, could be grounds for charging every proselytizer for every religion on the planet, past and present, with hate speech crimes. But I, unusually, digress.

We Irregulars know where our valuable core constituency lies. And so I just want to make very, very clear that this is not a kitty blog post. Oh, no. It isn't. Uh uh.

This is partly because the Independent Observer has quite rightly voiced severe doubts about that particular slippery slope to hell, and partly because we, like our current PM, hold exceedingly high - in fact inviolate - principles. We would never stoop to some kind of sleazy compromise, in a cheap and transparent attempt to jack up our public approval numbers. Oh, wait...

Still! Nope, this photograph is not of a kitty. No way. It is in fact a museum-quality image of an exceedingly rare, devastatingly cutesy, and therefore totally hit-grabbing and web-sticky specimen of a Bhutanese Pander Bear. There. I said it. I'm not ashamed.

Thank you for dropping by to see it. Come back often. Bring all your friends. Before I eat it.

Sic (Ottawa) Transit (in)Gloria Mundi...

Huh. On Day 51, call the Ottawa transit strike "officially done". Stick a fork in it. And one apiece into Mayor Larry O'Brien, and union leader Andre Cornellier, for utter disgrace under pressure. Oh, hell! Bring out all the place settings and start forkin' everybody over! There's plenty of responsibility to go 'round.

The city and the union last evening agreed to binding arbitration - as much as any two parties with a big honkin' federal gun to their heads can be said to "agree". Seems it was pretty much the solution proposed within the first two days, before the Mayor and the leader of the union local turned the whole city into an arena for an epic personal pissin' match, the like of which even coyotes rarely witness. And we know from pissin' matches.

Now, we semimythical coyotes are never bitter, cynical and obsessive, or anything. Even as we lick chafed and frozen appendages. However, we suspect it will be highly instructive to observe (and carefully note) the order and speed with which this sorry affair's numerous flawed leads and over-confident second bananas trot out their individual attempts to publicly grab credit and apply their over-torqued spins, pre-fab self-justifications, and weaselly personal self aggrandizations. Oh, wait... it's already begun!

Less than 30 minutes after the announcement, unless the cheesy dollar-store digital clock I picked out of the trash one long-ago recycling night was even more bafflingly inaccurate than usual...

Now, excuse me. I'm going to go suck my frostbitten paws. But I'm not bitter. Or anything...

It Could Have Been Worse for the Liberals...

Take 1

Take 2

Take 3

Take 4

Death, taxes and, oh yeah, annoying phone calls

You might think Canada's tax collectors would be a sharp bunch. Competent, educated, shrewd, with sharpened pencils at the ready. And the latest electronic tools at their disposal to flag overdue accounts, zero in on debtors and efficiently scoop up cash that's rightly owed to Canadians.

You would also be wrong.

At least, if my recent experience is anything close to typical.

Here is a verbatim transcript, with only minor identity-protecting edits, of a message left on my home answering machine:

"Hi Indochinese Obstetrician, this is Peso Cohlecta from the Canada Revenue Agency. I'm calling in regard to your old numbered corporation X87X97PD. Currently there's a lot of overdue GST returns. And I think we've been having ongoing conversations -- or you have -- with different people at the organization. I just want to get this account cleared up in terms of file-up-to-date and closed. Would you please give me a call and I can help you with that in any way I can. Currently with the notional assessment that's been done, we think you owe $7,500, which is no doubt wrong, but it's the debt that currently stands until this gets corrected, so please call me."

Things I told Mr. Cohlecta upon calling him back:
1. I have never had, nor been involved in, a numbered corporation of any kind.
2. I have not had ongoing conversations with people at the Canada Revenue Agency, just one previous conversation six months ago with him, Mr. Cohlecta.
3. In this previous conversation, I told him my name is Independent Observer, not Indochinese Obstetrician, and that I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about.

Mr. Cohlecta then said, "Oh, we must be looking for a different Indochinese Obstetrician."

"OK," I replied, "what does that have to do with me?"

"Well, your names are very similar."

"Actually, no, they are not even close."

"Are you calling me back from a 905 area code number?"

"No, it's a 613 number. I live in Ottawa."

"Oh," said Mr. Cohlecta, "that's the problem. I'm going to scratch your phone number from the database."

"I'm still totally confused," I asked. "How could this happen?"

"Well, when we are seeking a debtor, sometimes we cast a wide net and go after people with names that might match."

"This is the second call I've received from you. How do I know there won't be more? Could you kindly send me something in writing to assure me this was a mistake?"

"Well, your number has been scratched from the database. You have my personal assurance I won't call you again. And I'm going to be here for years."

We are all doomed.

RNDP 13: Avatars

This week's adventure in the quest for an RNDP takes us to Omnidate.com, where an enterprising Toronto couple have created a virtual world where people looking for love can send their avatars on virtual dates. Vidya Rao of Columbia News Service explains how it works:

Through OmniDate, users choose avatars, or animated images, that will represent them on their dates. They are given the option to choose from six male or six female avatars, with each wearing a different outfit and hairstyle. For both genders, the avatars have one option each that clearly represents a person of color.

Virtual dates can include touring a museum gallery, going to a bar, listening to the user's choice of music in a lounge or even going to the beach. The avatars can interact with each other to express emotion. Type in “LOL,” for example, and users can make their avatars giggle. They can also direct them to blow kisses, hold hands, yawn and even roll their eyes to let the person on the other side of the screen know exactly how much they are or aren’t enjoying the date. [Full Article]

Omnidate's blogger tells us "an average virtual date lasts over half an hour" and predicts that in a couple of years, "dating sites without a virtual dating component will be considered lame and will experience a major decline."

4D Analysis: In Omnidate's world, you can "blow kisses", but you can't try out your moves. Major drawback. On the other hand, you'll be able to tell how fast the other person can type and that may tell you something about their manual dexterity. Possibly important to you.

Although new, and maybe even paradigmatic, I'm not going to think about endorsing it as a new dating paradigm until they incorporate smell effects technology.

We've yet to have any of our fieldworkers report back on an Omnidate virtual date, but you can click on the image below to watch to see how a date that lasts less than half an hour might go.