Official Positions of the Elgin Street Irregulars

1. Year-Month-Day is the ideal format for dates. [Adopted - Emergency Meeting 2010-01-11]
2. We are opposed to coyote hunts. [Adopted - Emergency Meeting 2010-01-11]

[This page contains all official positions of the Elgin Street Irregulars.]

Parsing Coyote's negative press

Today's Petfinder story about a hapless Osgoode snowmobiler attacked by an allegedly insane coyote makes for interesting reading. But not necessarily because it justifies the recurring hate-on for my kin, by city councillor Doug Thompson and the local Fish and Game Association.

See, when you tune out the story's chest-thumping quotes, the bald facts of the matter are these: a guy driving a snowmobile used it to mow down a coyote, breaking its legs. Then he finished the job by climbing off and kicking it to death.

Sadly, the coyote, like many of us, may just have been enraged by a hellaciously noisy machine racketing through his turf. Or what was left of it. Possibly the last, literal, straw after getting squeezed out by suburban developers.

Even disregarding for a moment that -

• The snowmobile in the accompanying photo looks like it ought to be able to outrun pretty much any coyote, even one that's rabid - or mainlining meth - and;
• The driver seems awfully chuffed about entering his novelty kill in the current "Kack a Koyote for Konservation Kontest™"

- ya might ruminate upon who the real predators are. We coyotes do. Often.

Yawn. Lessee here....

A coyote assassination contest, you say? With shotguns as prizes? Provided you present evidence confirming your murderous success?

Obviously, Ottawa Councillor "Rabid" Doug Thompson is betting this will be a winning civic election issue in his ward again this fall...

I wonder if he wants heads? Or tails? Nyuk nyuk.

Image: Freeclipartnow.com

Hoot, Hoot Tiana

Dear Tiana,

We should have tea sometime. I have the tea pot (made by hand by the Erratic Genius), and you have the cup.

Cheers,

Woodsy

Can't help it...

Y'know, for my New Year's resolution, I swore that I was going to go cold (leftover, Christmas) turkey on tiresome political rants. I really did. Sadly, the road to hell is paved with velleities. Or, as my wise, but (thankfully) rather indecorous, Uncle Harry Coyote once said over a bowl of high-test Scotch, "The things we pretend to intend to do." I, ummm, digress. Musta been the Scotch...

But I have been provoked. Sometime over the holiday, the PM gambled that the Canadian body politic has become ADD enough to be distracted by by Olympic bread and circuses while he tries (for the eleventy-third time since his minority government began business) to game our democratic system like a cheap pinball machine. Until he's busted it.

The media, pundits, Facebook, and some of our favourite bloggers et. al. are hitting parliamentary prorogation in depth. Keep piling it deeper, deeper, I say!

But what I return to is the fact that, while we all may not quite get the niceties of prorogation - hell, some us can't even pronounce it without our tongues wrapping sloppily around our pointy noses - we know morally bankrupt cynicism when we smell it. Even with our tongues wrapped around our noses.

If I was a betting coyote, I'd bet he wants a spring election. The guy actually granted "real" journalists some interviews this week. Including the CBC. And he tried to smile while he greased Peter Mansbridge heavily enough to clog arteries. He only ever does these things when he thinks he has to. And he only thinks he has to when he's shooting for that elusive majority. Too bad the public ain't exactly down with that plan.

I've said before that the PM is an unreconstructed strategy board gamer. Like too many half-smart gamers, he considers himself an unassailable whiz kid. Trouble is, also in common with too many half-smart gamers, he's more into slightly sociopathic tactics than, you know, actual strategies for decent governance. And he's so fixated on his own whizzing that he fails to see when it sprays on other people's feet.