5.0 on the Richter scale, 1:41 P.M.

A noise like the cliché freight train, a lot of office towers doing The Log Drivers' Waltz, a few busted chimneys, one or two possible cracked foundations. No major injuries in Ottawa, except to our egos after the West Coast started collectively hooting at us for even noticing 5.0.

Although a guy fishing off of a bridge near the epicentre in Quebec, about 50 kilometres north of here, did have to drive himself to the ER after the bridge sorta dropped out from underneath him...

Whaaaaaat?

I just figured that, since Sun TV is gonna go all Foxic News North on us, it should have a classy new logo. The old one is as boring and dull as, ummm, the existing media that the new Putative Stun Channel hopes to thrash.

So, you know. Something restrained. Classy. Understated yet evocative. And with all the wit and public charm of its new, formerly pasty and now oddly-tanned executive guy, Kory Teneycke. Former Stephen Harper spokesthingy. Former Mike Harris backroom braintrust kid. Y'know?

But it wasn't easy. Endless concepts. Days of consultation with the Research Director. Multiple versions. Accusations of overthinking everything.

And locating a cuddly new mascot. You have no idea how hard it is to find a one-winged turkey vulture that can still, actually, you know, aviate in the solar wind...

Please...

...make the angry wasps go away! For days, they've followed me everywhere I go, drivin' me crazy and causing me to beg complete strangers to stand ready with EpiPens®!!

Listen to me when I say my Google Poem

* Put the donut down and listen to me when I say, introducing and adopting new habits doesn't happen overnight.

* Listen to me when I say you don't have to listen to me.

* alright buddy listen to me when i say that this man has spent his entire life researching things like this so dont tell people he has no credibility.

* Please listen to me when I say that even waterproof cameras cannot withstand underwater photography.

* please listen to me when I say this…he will NEVER change.

* Shut your piehole and listen to me when I say that I am FINISHED with the checking-of-the-bags CONVERSATION.

* Ok, listen to me when I say I've been in this situation, and I can tell you really want her back, so there's only one thing to do, ask her to meet you somewhere, don't buy flowers or anything, just do simply this, when you see her tell ...

* Please; as a scientist, and a geologist, listen to me; when I say that you should do your research more into this, before either failing to act, or acting improperly;

* Listen to me when I say, as long as you are happy with you, as long as you are healthy, as long as you are breathing, living, as long as you are YOU, you are beautiful.

* I am sorry but if you guys want me to listen to your life, how about listen to me when I say mine.

* Listen to me when I say that you've bought into an idea that DEFIES intelligence. You're happy, and we're all glad for that, but I am so sad and disappointed that your happiness has come at the cost of common sense.

* Sometimes I really wish you would listen to me when i say I need help.

* Secondly, please listen to me when I say that this boyfriend of yours doesn't sound like good news.

* But please listen to me when I say this, it's not all about how much we earn in our websites

* i wish someone would listen to me when i say stem cells.

* Listen to me when I say the laundry doesn't matter!

* I know that so many girls think drugs like this are an easy quick fix, and if you were one of them I really hope you will listen to me when I say how stupid they are.

* Listen to me when I say Nocando is the world's new hope for rap music

* listen to me when I say this — There are a couple of situations in which honesty is NOT the best policy.

* So listen to me when I say that mistakes and cheating are dangerous, in many, many ways.

[source search]

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...!