RNDP: The President's Choice for Valentines Day

I thought I'd finished with the Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm, but no, here's something new and revolutionary.

The President says:

Surprise your sweetie with an extra-charming Valentine’s Day - at home! Our PC® Dine-In Tonight™ soups, pastas, entrees and desserts are quick and easy, so you can spend less time prepping and more time with your dearest!

We would love to hear from any men who followed this advice. Please give us details of how well it went over.

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...

So, love...?

The Elgin Street Irregulars once had a thing or six to say about the psychology of relationships. It was a forte. We semimythical coyotes haven't gone there in quite awhile. Lately we've preferred a surreal playground of our own making.

But hey. It's the black depths of January and even my splendiferous new Coyotie Blankie is a few R-values short of adequate. As Winnipeggers say whenever the frost is this bitter: "Cold enough to freeze the balls off the Golden Boy." Ottawa, at this moment, is probably freezing the balls off the Famous Five...

I digress. How inappropriate. Probably brain-freeze.

Anyway, this weekend, with Valentine's Day on the horizon, and likely an election also, the PM, in an intimate heart-to-heart with about 600 hand-picked clapping seals party faithful, told the country that no one loves it more than his government. Well, except, maybe, him.

He loves the country so much, in fact, he can't bear to think of it going out with anyone else. He loves it so much, he wants a parliamentary majority so he can change it completely, to suit himself. I imagine that he believes with every fibre of his fibreglass hair that Canada would love him right back if only it would do exactly what he says.

Canada, can we talk? Now is a good time for you to checklist, honestly, how many of the warning signs of an emotionally abusive relationship the guy has displayed in the last five years. I'm just sayin'...

The worst part for the Stevester...

...about manipulating the country into another unwanted election, no matter how badly he wanted it, no matter how much he thought that maybe he could pull off a majority this time, was having to retool his usual, grim, authoritarian public persona.

He had to overcome deep personal distaste. To pretend to be warm and fuzzy, to con (heh...) the all-important female vote.

As Ottawa's chattering gaggles twittered themselves into a pre-electoral tizzy, Stevie-baby knew that the old quick fixes - like the much-lampooned blue sweater vest - were stale toast.

It'd have to be something bold enough to change minds without forcing him to change any of his deeply held, yet deeply unpopular, political stands. Yet something that spoke to his inner rockstar. So he hired rafts full of image consultants. Wrangled. Bit the bullet. Called in the fiberglas supplier that had done his hair for years. All the while, he feared that the gargantuan cost of retooling the factory dies completely would show him up as a hypocrite - or worse, a laughingstock - when the inevitable Access To Information Act requests uncovered it.

(Steverino's note to self: Kill that lousy act! Deader!)

Then, miraculously, the sales rep slyly suggested another fiberglas hair model already on the assembly line! It fit the bill perfectly...

Original photo: Remy Steinegger, Wikimedia Commons. You know where the hair came from...

Coffee with Mister Sloppy

When I dropped by Mister Sloppy's Centretown lair the other day to wish him a belated happy new year - or whatever passes for "happy" among elite-level evil geniuses - he was frenetically stuffing mailer boxes with gift coffee mugs. Given the guy's "It is Better to Swipe Outright than to Give or Receive" schema, it seemed out of character.

"No, no. Not really," he grinned, blue eyes bright with merriment and the usual insanity. "Didja read that news item the other day? The one about the transatlantic flight making an emergency landing because the pilot spilled coffee?"

Suddenly wary, I eyed the stacks of mugs sporting myriad famous high tech logos, and reached for the Rolaids. Sloppy was up to no good again.

"You, ummm, had something to do with that?" I asked.

"Not a thing! But it gave me a great idea! Every major lab in the world is fueled with caffeine. Heck, I've even been known to abuse the stuff slightly myself, on my own projects! So I just figured, you know, anonymously send all the researchers gift coffee cups with their company logos on 'em."

"Aaaaannnnddd?" I asked. When Mister Sloppy is happy, there's always an "Aaaaannnnddd?"

"Of course there is," he said impatiently, apparently reading my thoughts.

"Creepy," I thought. "I might need to check into that."

"No. You don't," Mister Sloppy said out loud. "It's a whole other thing. Nothing to do with this. Lookit, I'm proud of these. Every science guy in the world takes their coffee cup everywhere. These mugs are my new memory-enhanced nanoceramic. They're programmed at the atomic level to scan nearby computers or test equipment, then transmit a quantum-burst packet of all their data to my stealth server farm. Oh. Then they spill hot coffee on everything and short it out."

"So you're actually stealing...?"

"The sum total of the world's latest research. It's all good!

Maybe for evil geniuses. I declined a complimentary gift mug on the way out. And behind me, Mister Sloppy's laughter echoed like cats fighting in an alley...