We paws for technical difficulties...

The as-yet-unnamed critter is outta the bag. Mere femtoseconds after the Stately Glob disclosed former Harper media thingy Kory Teneycke's lengthy obsession with firing up a hard-right Foxic News North - now bankrolled by Stun news chain owner Quebecor Media - the chattering classes leapt on it. The principals maintain an annoyed tightlippedness at their premature outing. Damn them left-wing media, anyway!

We coyotes were never ones to resist a good (heh...) dogpile, so leave us hasten to leap.

Teneycke is one of the smallish subspecies of over-partisan neoCons who opine ("Rightly" as opposed to correctly) that Canada can only benefit from the import any truly lousy political developments from the (pre-Obama) US.

Actually, his former boss is another. So we could do worse than to ask - pointedly - just how much fatherly blessing the PM is giving Teneycke on this.

The PM has shown a hard-line, hard-right hate-on for the media in this country since getting elected. He's tried, not without success, to control the message by excluding them wherever he can and substituting a flurry of PMO spin. But still he keeps getting shafted by them media bastards at odd, inconvenient moments. Imagine that. So having a "real" TV network to tell self-serving lies about ummmm, fawningly propagandize his every move, would probably look like a winner.

I've noted before that this particular variety of neoconservative feels constantly aggrieved about the way the media portray 'em. It's an article of faith. Which means it ain't backed by facts. They don't seem to get that: 1) they're not really a representative majority in Canada; 2) that while they're "Right" all of the time, they're not right all of the time, and; 3) that there might conceivably be any legitimate criticisms of what they do.

Lacking such basic self-awareness, they resort to any tactics they think will help 'em change all that, however ill-advised for the country. They assume Canadians would love 'em if they could just control the message tightly enough.

If this thing goes strictly to the Republican, ummm Tory, ummm Kory plan, the proposed network eventually would tilt the country's already quite conservative (actually, thank you) media even further off that desirable centre bubble.

Us coyotes guess that the PM and his ummm, brain trust don't think they've trashed what lately passes for public discourse in this country quite enough yet. Apparently they envy what's happening down there... Jesus wept!

So I guess it finally comes to this: us against them, lie for lie. Down and dog-dirty. And speakin' of truly lousy ideas, we're up to it, and already up and running. We are also open to investment funding. The Coyote News branding is already sewed up, but I'll give that Teneycke kid a hot tip from the left paw anyway: Beaver News. The Google hits on your website'll be massive...!

The real reason for Lake Fake

O, hai! I imagine you've heard by now that the PM's Billion Dollar Baby includes a $2 million fake indoor Muskoka-type lake - which it pleases many Canadians to dub Harper's Folly - for TV guys reporting on the G20 to stand in front of whilst they report. All without, you know, having to deal with the actual pesky outdoors.

I will not waste time pointing out the multiple layers of irony inherent in the attitudes of, ummm, democratically elected leaders who think the main perk of being such leaders is the ability to officially fence out the hoi polloi - with the dirty rabble's own money. How sweet is that? I digress.

No, we coyotes are more interested in why the PM, so notoriously disdainful and dismissive of media et al, would want to make this kind gesture. He claims marketing. We coyotes respectfully suggest that it might be because Lake Fake will afford a fine spot for the PM's evil henchthingies to corral the media and keep a covert eye on the entire sodding bunch of 'em from an underwater command post. Say, with all the high-tech stealth observation gear on one of them bargain-basement used Royal Navy submarines we haven't been hearing so much about, lately... heh. Ahoy, polloi!

***Update***Update***Update***

About the time we posted this yesterday, a clearly pissed PM was lecturing, as if to idiot schoolchildren, that Lake Fake is not a fake lake at all but a "water feature" and that it only cost $57,000, as part of a larger $2M marketing pavilion.

For our part, we 6000-year-old, semi-mythical, totemic, animistic coyotes reserve the right to play as fast and loose with truth and the facts as do ministers of the current government.* Especially the minister that is the biological host of John Baird's hair.

We stand by our version. As loudly as possible.

(*We know full well what a dangerously slippery ethical slope this is. And that we're prob'ly goin' to some seriously semi-mythical, totemic, animistic version of Hell for it. We signed a waiver...)

O'Brien's brain

Anybody heard much from Mayor Larry lately? I mean, aside from innocuous grip and grin snaps in throwaway tabloids, and the usual public pabulum? No? Thought not. Us coyotes, neither.

We may have to thank the mayor's latest handlers for this. It's the kinda brain trust that epitomizes a simple rule: if ya don't have a brain yourself, buy one. Although I note that in this case there's a whole team of, ummm, expert henchthingies to stitch up the ol' intellectual fabric. Possibly from the whole cloth.

While we can imagine it, coyotes are not party to the (no doubt) Hunter-Thompson-esque blend of medieval restraint devices, modern psycho-pharmacology and space age adhesives that it might take to keep some kinda lid on hizzoner's natural, ummm, exuberance. Whatever it is, it works like a damn. The result has been (mostly) blessed quiet for the citizenry. We needed it after all that came before.

Enquiring coyotes everywhere suppose that the reason His Nibs is actually paying heed to his high-powered advisors for a change is because he might still be eyeing that second term in the big chair, and hoping a short stint of relative decorum will do the trick.

Fortunately for those of us who are sensitive, the new strategy so far has merely reinforced the esteem with which we hold our beloved mayor. One hopes the electorate's famously lousy long term memory holds on just a teensy bit longer, so we can all support him right out of office in fall elections. In the style which he deserves.

Ottawa Police Identify Glebe Firebombing Suspects

Bunk. And double bunk.

We coyotes note with (uncompounded) interest that G8 and G20 leaders visiting Toronto for next month's world summit - mostly a grand (standing) photo-op for the Prime Minister - are now projected to cost Canadians, according to one estimate, something approaching $1.1 billion. With a "B". As in "Bunk".

It's more than three times - closing on four times - the cost of any previous "most expensive G20 summit". The record until now was a paltry $300 million. With an "M".

The billion buck boondoggle arises, says Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, and I quote, probably pretty accurately: "Because since 9/11... mutter spread fear mutter ... terrorism... mutter non sequitur mutter... high tech security!!!!" Huh. Even the lately-habitual conservative defender Rex Murphy couldn't buy that.

Mr. T. is also the government's designated faux-hardass in charge of cluelessly punitive prison policy. As in, "If we build lots more jails and lock up everybody for everything no matter how trivial, crime will drop."

Apparently Tories haven't been reading Statistics Canada analysis showing that, ummm, crime has been dropping steadily for a couple of decades already in the absence of such ideologically-driven programs. Damn statistics, anyway! Never let 'em get in the way of a good media line!

Lately, confronted with, you know, actual costs for building all them penitential buildings that ain't revivalist churches, Mr. T had to do some quick media spin. He now alleges his government's policies won't cost much. Because, hey, having thought deeply about it - possibly for the first time, although what passes for deep in this case would barely cover my doggy toenails if I stepped in it - he'll just double bunk all the new prisoners in existing hoosegows. No problemo!

In the spirit of liberté, fraternité et egalité, we coyotes suggest that if double bunkin' is gonna save so damn much in incarceration costs, howzabout double-bunking G20 leaders? And all of their high-tech security? By Mr. Toews', ummm, logic, if it saves proportionately as much for the G20 bunfest as he thinks it'll save the corrections system - I admit you're free to argue that's complete bunk - us coyotes figure we're back down to only equalling the previous most expensive G20 summit. Bargoon!