“Common People” (feat. Joe Jackson, Ben Fold); ‘Has Been‘ (2004)
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CSN:AFU Week Twenty-Two
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A Negative Canadian? For Shame!
I was looking through my last few posts… and realized they’ve been pretty negative, or at least not fun — native people being mistreated, the politics of homosexuality, women’s continuing role of having no roles in movies — then I also managed to write, once here and once on The Other Blog, aboot throwing up twice. I really should have called it “de-fooding”. Then there were a couple of questionsaboot Canada’s “underbelly” that required some explanations which could be seen as negative — apparently, in India, Canada is known as ‘Land of The Dead Hookers’. So next week it’s back to sex (the good kind), hockey and beavers.
I did manage to update my “Aboot” Page, now with twice the explanation of “Aboot“, and there’s an added photo feature to this page… just ’cause I like you so damn much.
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The Lists:
Five Strangest Search Terms Used To Find CSN:AFU
5) ankle blog “wahm” 4) fuck humanity 3) Bizarre stabbing sense toilet youtube 2) wind power, commercial, manic depressive 1) age of consent in tonga
Honourable Mention: “Jacqui Smith Cleavage Watch”
BTW: This Weeks Jacqui Smith Cleavage Watch: 89 Two Week Total: 347
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Top Five CSN:AFU Posts Since Last Friday:
1) CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 02/07 2) Six Canadian Movies You Need To See That Don’t Suck
— Part Four: Ginger Snaps 3) CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 09/07 4) Canada: Offering A Safe-Sex Environment Where Humanity Can Fuck Itself Back Together Again 5) Six Canadian Movies You Need To See That Don’t Suck
— Part Three: Heavy Metal
Honourable Mention: Canada: Where Abortion Is So Legal It’s Retroactive OR Why You Never Piss Off Your Canadian Mom
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The Five Blogs I Visited Most This Week
1) Nita: A Wide Angle View Of India 2) Irregular Bones 3)Kamangir (Archer) (real news from inside Iran) 4) …What Was I Looking For? 5)101 people who are screwing up Canada
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This Week In General:
It has been a really, really quiet… week. I spent the first few days recovering from being ill, then the last few days recovering from my recovery. I’m pretty sure I’ve put the weight I lost back on, which is just a reminder that I really should lose it for good and stop jerking around. I don’t think I’ve walked more than a half-mile a day in a couple of months.
I wrote two pieces for my other blog that didn’t threaten anyone in my family, so that was probably a good week. Over Here I only wrote aboot news, which is more than I probably should have but a lot less than I wanted. I’ve got three pieces nearly completed so there should be a flurry of activity this week. Yay, flurries! I miss winter.
Oh, right, I almost forgot… I found my ‘Rocktober 2004’ copy of Maxim, the one with Avril Lavigne on the cover. So that was pretty cool.
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This Weeks New Posts:
CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 09/07 In general last Monday was actually a really interesting news day… as most Monday’s actually are, which — if you were wondering — would be the reason I chose Monday’s to concentrate this little feature on. Yesterday’s News Tomorrow: The Surge; Convictions In 2005 Near-Bombings; IAEA Back Into North Korea; 13-Year Old Girl Convicted Of Murder; Two Charged In RCMP Killings; Fuck Off, The North Pole Is Ours, and; Minister Tells RCMP To Fuck Off.
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Next Week:
A Movie, An Invention And Smiley Faces For Everyone
Maybe I’ll finally get that Global Warming thing done…
Yesterday’s News Tomorrow: I promised myself I’d start doing these again, then I get really, really ill. We’ll see how far I can get tonight before my inevitable collapse. There are no source links… I’m not well.
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Page Jump: BBC World; CBC The National; CTV National News
1) The Surge Questioned Again: The American general in charge of pacifying insurgents in Iraq, General David Petraeus (insert Goliath joke here) recently told reporters it takes, on average, ten years to get the job done. This, of course, translates into Reporter Speak as “decades” — as in: “American general says fighting the insurgency could take decades.” There was one really interesting military tidbit in this story… it never occurred to me before, or at least I never thought of it in these terms before, but the Americans have had total air supremacy since the beginning of this clusterfuck, but have never controlled the ground. As an amateur historian that’s amazing to me… the only other example I can think of where this has occurred — you know… since planes were invented — was the French and American Adventure in Vietnam. Meanwhile, even the BBC reporter was admitting that “The Surge” is the right strategy and is working. Patraeus isn’t fighting Sunni or Shiite, he’s fighting “al Qaeda”, that’s the important difference. It’s like Gordon Brown not using the “Muslim” word during the Scottish/London thing. Winning hearts and minds isn’t aboot chocolate and soccer balls, it’s aboot convincing the Locals that they share a common enemy with You. And now the local Sunni’s are helping the Americans, which is what they wanted to do five years ago. But all of this is meaningless because it’s two years too late and “The Surge” will never be given the proper time… Iraq’s future is entirely in the hands of Washington Election Politics.
2) Convictions In 2005 Near-Bombings: Four men who set out on July 21, 2005, to destroy another chunk of Britain were convicted of “conspiracy to murder” and sentenced to life in prison today. Judgments against two more men are expected soon. Two weeks after suicide bombers killed fifty-two people in London, six recent immigrants — from “the Horn of Africa”, according to the reporter — picked up their hydrogen peroxide and back-packs and headed out into the London transit system to slaughter some more innocents. None of their explosive devices worked, although each one was detonated. All six of the men claim the devices were not meant to explode, but were meant to be a “hoax” as a protest against the Iraq War… which has to be the most retarded defence in the history of jurisprudence. Between “The Shoe Bomber”, the 2005 July 21 non-attack attack, the breakup of the plane attack last year, and last week’s non-attack attack… well, holy shit. Did you know the only country on “The List” bin Laden put together not to be hit with some kind of attack has been Canada? Did you even know we were on “The List”? At least someone thinks we matter.
3) IAEA Back Into North Korea: In exchange for cash, a couple of planeloads of food and the last three years of “Hustler”, “Barely Legal” and “Cracked Magazine” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been allowed back into North Korea to examine whatever nuclear plants they’re allowed to look at… does anyone remember where this “North Korea” is?
1) 13-Year Old Girl Convicted Of Murder: She’s the youngest person to ever be convicted of first degree murder in Canada. When she was twelve she and her 23-year old boyfriend (allegedly, he hasn’t had a trial yet) slaughtered her family, including her 8-year old brother. Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act her name cannot be released (I could, but don’t want to) and the maximum sentence she can receive for all three counts is ten years, but only six “in custody”. It took the jury in Medicine Hat, Alberta three hours to deliberate. In 2006 she helped (allegedly, he still hasn’t blah blah) a Creepy Older Fuck (COF) to stab her mother and father, then she strangled her little brother and stabbed him a few times. She claims she was “under the influence” of COF, and was a virtual “zombie during” the attacks. The jury didn’t believe her… plus under Canadian law “the accused can be found guilty of a crime if they intentionally aid, abet or counsel another person to commit the crime”. Her official sentencing will be in August, COF hasn’t entered a plea yet and is expected to go on trial later this year.
2) Two Charged In RCMP Killings: Four RCMP officers were killed by a single gunman near Mayerthorpe, Alberta back in 2005. The lunatic, wounded, then turned the gun on himself. Since then there have been a lot of questions aboot how the incident went down… it started with the four officers being assigned to look after a “Quonset hut” overnight on a property owned by an ex-con Nut Sack who hated the police — the RCMP believed the hut was full of drugs and guns and stuff. But the RCMP officers weren’t told that James Roszko was a freaking lunatic, they weren’t told to be “on guard”, they didn’t have the right body armour and basically the RCMP left the kids out there on their own. Meanwhile, Nut Sack — basically a survivalist-type — sneaks back onto his property, grabs some of his military weaponry and starts shooting. The RCMP, from the time of the killing, believed Nut Sack had help so they went “undercover” to find them… this is the result: “Dennis Cheesman, 23, and Shawn William Hennesey, 28, both from nearby Barrhead, Alberta” were arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder. From the report the evidence seems… flimsy, and their involvement doesn’t sound too deep.
Aside: The RCMP has been in serious trouble for aboot two years now — scandals including millions of dollars going missing and a young man getting shot in the back of the head while in custody. The RCMP is not a “true police force” like the NYPD, it’s structured like a military organization… it’s something we haven’t gotten around to fixing yet, which is something I think I’m going to write more aboot later.
3) Fuck Off, The North Pole Is Ours: As much as Canadians think we “own” the North, at least three other countries would like to make counter claims. If you look at a map you’ll see all these islands in the North… just to the left of Greenland. That’s Canada. Or is it? Most of those islands are uninhabited and loaded with oil and diamonds, then there’s the actual Arctic Ocean itself, which is another mother-lode of oil, and a soon-to-be shipping route thanks to Al Gore. So Canada believes that the nautical limitations should apply, which means a 200-mile ring around Canadian islands. But America, Russia and Denmark think the waters are open to all and our claims on some of those islands don’t exist. America and Russia like to send giant nuclear powered ships and submarines up there just to piss us off, because right now Canada ain’t got dick that can make the trip… except a couple of old “light” ice breakers. We tried to have a “war games” up there a couple of years ago and the soldiers almost needed rescuing. It’s remote and fucking cold Up There. So today Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada is building six new, and armed, medium-sized patrol ships capable of carrying a significant number of troops (apparently Norway has similar boats), plus a “deep water port” will be built somewhere Up There within the next few years. Sovereignty, as PM Harper put it, works like this: “we use it or we lose it.” The ships, while improving our capacity in enormous ways, won’t be able to sail Up There during the winter months… which sounds funny, but there are only aboot four ships in The World that can sail Up There in the winter and they’re all nuclear powered behemoths. Plus, as Al Gore taught us, everyday will be a summer day soon.
1) Suspects Charged In RCMP Killings: More on the two men arrested and charged being accessories in killing four RCMP officers in 2005. According to police “suspects have been targeted since day one”. The cops cited phone records and the fact that Nut Sack had a rifle on his property that was registered to the grandfather of one of the suspects. There was more information from the suspects side than there was in the CBC report…
2) 13-Year Old Girl Convicted: First of all, Sarah Galashan — the CTV reporter — has a stunning headshot. The point was made in this report that the young girl has no immediate family left (having repeatedly stuck a knife into them), and there was no visible support from extended family inside the court room… basically this little girl was entirely on her own when the jury convicted her of three counts of first degree murder. Sarah (call me) made the point that the young girl has already spent 15 months in jail, so if she is given the full six years in custody it could be reduced… I think it works out to being two months off for every month already served.
3) Minister Tells RCMP To Fuck Off: This, by far, was the most interesting story of the day, and I knew it was coming, I just didn’t think it’d be this soon or done over email… Canada has never been able to define exactly what the RCMP actually ‘are’. Until aboot 1985 the RCMP were Canada’s ATF, FBI, Secret Service, “National Police Force” for Provinces without their own, they were our anti-terrorism “SWAT Team” and they had internal spying authority (with files on 1 in 15 Canadians). Plus they were a tourist attraction. For the British, picture all the “MI-Numbers” rolled into one, add in your local police force and the Beefeaters and you’ve got an idea as to what the RCMP did here. In (aboot) 1985, the domestic spying parts of the RCMP were spun off into the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), later on (aboot 1993) the anti-terror section was melded with the then-recently disbanded Canadian Airborne (Special Forces), which become JTF-2, one of the most elite and secretive military special forces in the world (it’s a criminal offence for you, me and any MP to know where they are). There were other things… so, slowly, the RCMP has been changing into something more manageable. Over the past couple of years the RCMP have been going through a number of scandals, so to get things back on track the Government has fired the Top Cop and last week they replaced him with a bureaucrat, who will be the very first non-RCMP Officer to lead the force. There have already been some mutiny rumblings so Stockwell Day, the Public Safety Minister, sent out a letter reminding the officers that they serve The Government first, not the “Traditions” of the RCMP. Actually, I’m going to make this into a post, so go back to the last item then stop reading otherwise you’ll ruin the surprise.
If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
“If You Love Her, Buy Her A Gun”; ‘Clobbering Time!’ (2000)
(this kind of thing happens all the time in Ottawa…)
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CSN:AFU Week Twenty-One
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How To Lose 10lbs In Two Days, Plus: Boobies!
Two-Hundred and Fifty-Eight sex-starved… Britons (I’m assuming) found my site this week by searching for some variation of “Home Secretary Jacqui Smith Cleavage”. After the non-explosions in London and Glasgow last week, British HS Smith gave a “we’re all in this together” speech in Parliament. Totally new on the job, HS Smith, on that day, decided to wear something a little low cut in the front. I’m sure she didn’t realize that the only camera in Parliament which films these occasions was across and slightly above her. All this to say, and I hate quoting myself, but… “she looked like she had someone’s ass tucked into her shirt”.
Now, at least one other blog decided that this observation was sexist. That, surprise, HS Smith has breasts and they shouldn’t be noticed. But it’s all aboot decorum. If Gordon Brown, the newly appointed Prime Minister, had stood up wearing an open shirt and flashed a bit of his Scots-Man Boobs, that would have been silly as well. Anyway. I’m pretty sure the two incidents are not connected but every hour on the hour from 3am until 1pm on Friday, and several times thereafter, I was insanely and violently ill. I lost almost ten pounds in two days, my voice is shot and it feels like someone’s been kicking my ribs for two days. As far as I can tell I never had a fever… anyway, scroll down for my “Vomiting Tips”.
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The Lists:
Five Strangest Search Terms Used To Find CSN:AFU
5) gay short cut offs 4) looking for a suicide pact 3) hard to breathe lithium 2) jacqui smiths breasts statement 1) “jacqui smith” cleavage OR boobs OR brea
Honourable Mention: children fuck togather with photo
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Top Five CSN:AFU Posts Since Last Friday:
1) CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories — July 02/07 2) Six Canadian Movies You Need To See That Don’t Suck — Part Four: Ginger Snaps 3) CSN:AFU Week 20 In Review 4) Canada: Where Only The Natives Drink The Brown Water OR After 73,000 Days Of Being Ignored They Finally Take One Of Their Own 5) Six Canadian Movies You Need To See That Don’t Suck — Part Three: Heavy Metal
Honourable Mention: The Five Things You Need To KnowAboot The Canadian Movie Industry
The last thing you want to be doing… while throwing up is staring at a pubic hair and wondering if it’s yours and if it really matters. I’ve never understood why people throw up into toilets. When was the last time you cleaned your toilet? Now, when was the last time you used your toilet? Now, suddenly you have to vomit, is there time to clean the toilet before you use it as a receptacle for your breakfast, lunch and dinner? Probably not. So where? You can’t use the sink, the drain is too narrow for the chunks and it’s too shallow so there’s all kinds of “blowback”. How aboot a bucket? No, you have to clean a bucket when you’re done being sick. And that sucks.
I don’t understand why people don’t blow their chunks into the bathtub. It’s self-cleaning if you turn on the tap as you’re dropping to your knees in porcelain prayer, the drain is large enough for the pizza crusts from three hours ago — plus, and this is cool, if you turn the shower on the cold water on your hands and head really makes things better in a way I can’t even describe… and it’s all clean. No pubic hair, no aroma of urine to contend with, no closeup examinations of the underside of the lip of the bowl, no wondering aboot the stains… just a wide open, pristine, gigantic bowl to aim at and cool, refreshing and cleansing water pouring over the back of your head.
Honestly, why limit yourself to such a small target as a toilet? The last thing you should be thinking aboot at that point is aiming… especially aiming into something men only occasionally hit. Think aboot it… I believe, in the long run, you’ll thank me.
Tits and vomit… I can actually feel the credibility bleeding away.
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This Weeks New Posts:
CSN:AFU Monday’s Top Three News Stories
— July 02/07 Scooter Libby kind of set free, the arrest of suspects in the near-misses in Glasgow and London and a report confirming another Canadian soldier was killed by an American in Afghanistan… Jesus Christ, we’re wearing the same fucking uniforms, what does that make… something like, out of 66 total dead, aboot 20 Canucks have been killed by American “Friendly Fire”. I think the most interesting story from last Monday was the impromptu meeting between Putin and Bush. That was very weird.
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Six Canadian Movies You Need To See That Don’t Suck — Part Four: Ginger Snaps Easily the best teen-horror movie ever made, and definitely the only one I can think of marketed straight at young girls. And there’s lots of blood… buckets of blood, which is fine, there being buckets of blood in the human body and all…
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Next Week:
When I Can Stand Again I’ll Think Of Something.
Maybe I’ll finally get that Global Warming thing done…
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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
Bif Naked: Canadian “I Love Myself Today”; ‘Purge‘ (2001)
NonSucking Canadian Movies You Need To See…
Ginger Snaps (Horror — 2000)…
the most realistic movie ever made aboot two suicidal-emo girls and a werewolf.
There’s a very distinct hierarchy in Hollywood… when it comes to allowing casting people to star in their movies, and it goes something like this: 1) White male; 2) White Female; 3) Black male; 4) Animals; 5) Black female; 6) Openly gay men, and so on… of course there are also several sub-groups like 2-1a) Hot white women or 3-1a) Funny black men, but this is more aboot the general list.
If you need proof, look at Joan Allen’s career. She is easily one of the great actors of the past thirty years, but her last two lead roles were in 2000 — as the title character in “The Contender”, where she’s listed after Gary Oldman on the bill, and; “The Upside Of Anger”, a 2005 movie aboot trying to revive Kevin Costner’s career. Now she has been relegated to alternating her intense stare between a phone and a computer screen in the Matt Damon “Jason Bourne” franchise.
In Hollywood women do not have characters, in the majority of movies their only role is to provide an excuse for the lead male to act heroically. Halle Barry won an Oscar for allowing Billy Bob Thornton a chance at redemption. Reese Witherspoon won for standing near Joaquim Pheonix as he pretended to be some random dude with the same name as Johnny Cash. If you’re a woman in Hollywood, and you want to act or have a career like Reese, Halle, Hillary Swank, Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman or Julia Roberts, you’ve got to do nudity… and usually completely unnecessary nudity because, of that list, only Julia Roberts has always kept her clothes on in all of her films.
Actually, the only Best Actress Oscar winner since 1990 never to have done a nude scene is Julia Roberts, she won for Erin Brockovich in 2000. The only movie in which she’s been allowed to use her acting ability since then was in 2004 in the Natalie Portman, Clive Owen vehicle “Closer”. Jessica Tandy won in 1989. So of the sixteen possible winners, fifteen did nudity at least once in their careers. On the men’s side there were three winners who did “full frontal” and another two — Jamie Foxx’s and Denzel Washington — who exposed their ass in at least one film.
It’s been the rule for a hundred years: no movie has ever needed to hinge its plot on nudity, but if a young woman wants to act in a serious Hollywood movie she has to take her clothes off, flash the camera and — later on at the press junket — tell everyone how integral their tits were to the plot. Ask Nicole Kidman, Helen Hunt, Holly Hunter and Helen Mirren. Or you can ask Angela Bassett how impossible it is for black women to find real acting roles. All of which is why Ginger Snaps was such an important and interesting film.
“Ginger Snaps” most definitely does not… suck. They broke The Rule by having two, young, female leads in an aggressive werewolf horror movie based on a screenplay written by a woman, produced by two women and a woman as executive producer. Not only that, but the movie broke the Primary Rule of Horror Films… it was marketed directly at young women: “They Don’t Call It The Curse For Nothing”. There is no nudity in Ginger Snaps. They decided to make the movie interesting instead.
The primary characters are high school age sisters — title character, Ginger, and her younger sister Brigitte — living with their suburban parents. The girls are outsider suicide-emo chicks — they take photos of each other in various death poses including hanging, stabbing and being run over with a lawn mower… I had a friend who did stuff like that, last time I heard she was doing movie makeup in Toronto. Anyway. They also have a suicide pact with each other, if they’re not dead by sixteen from “other causes” they’d do it by the suicide route.
As much as that might sound like a parody — the level of photographic and makeup talent is a little much — it plays very true. There is the right level of animosity at school, the home life is recognizable, the parents don’t disappear from the script just “because”. And people die. There are buckets of blood in this movie, which is fine, there being buckets of blood in the human body and all. Blood is actually an important plot tool in Ginger Snaps. As much as puberty in boys being aboot growth and urges, blood is the primary sign of puberty in girls so it makes sense that Ginger should be bitten by a werewolf on the same night she gets her first period.
For the budget of this ‘kind-of-independent’ movie, a half decent CDN$5Million, the special effects are a little… off, as a result the actual “werewolf” part of the movie is kept to a minimum, but I don’t remember many werewolf movies where the beast was onscreen for large periods of time. Horror films are a genre that haven’t really been accepted or used by Canadian filmmakers, David Cronenberg notwithstanding. While this movie was being made What’s His Name and the Other Guy shot up Columbine High School, so there were editorials written demanding Telefilm Canada — an arms length government agency — stop funding a “teen slasher” film. Thankfully not as many people read the Toronto Star as they’d like to think.
Ginger Snaps was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, in 2000, where it won the Special Jury Citation Award. It went on to be one of the rare Canadian movies to actually make money here, in Europe and in America. But then people got greedy and quickly put out two more “Ginger” movies, a sequel and prequel, which both sucked horribly — although both lead actors consistently got excellent reviews. Emily Perkins, who played Brigitte, has mostly done television work since “Ginger”, although she did have a small part in “Prozac Nation”, 2001 movie which owes its entire existence to Christina Ricci’s willingness to have her breasts gratuitously filmed. Katharine Isabelle, who played Ginger, has also spent most of her acting career since “Ginger Snaps” playing smallish roles on television. She has said several times she refuses to do nude scenes in movies.
Ginger Snaps: Canadian Movie
Ginger Snaps Trailer (2000)
Directed by John Fawcett
Starring Emily Perkins, Katharine Isabelle, Kris Lemche
and Mimi Rogers
Yesterday’s News Tomorrow: This is something I used to do, but stopped because it became way too time intensive. Basically my cable package gives me access to the public broadcasters of Britain, America and Canada — BBC World, PBS: The News Hour and CBC — as well as all of the American and Canadian National and several Local American Newscasts, and two Canadian Cable News Channels so I thought it’d be interesting to see what priority news stories got from the three countries… unfortunately the transmission tower for the American PBS station I was using collapsed in an ice storm back in April, and they’re pretty much dead until the fall. But “The News Hour” does rebroadcast their newscast online so I’ll be using that starting next week. The problem was the time involved became insane… taking notes from three to six newscasts every Monday evening, then finding my own sources, rewriting the whole thing then getting it up on the blog… it was usually a six hour post. But I think I’ve figured out how to make it manageable, so starting next week the Monday News Threesome is something I’m bringing back… basically this is aboot me trying to get back into the schedule I dropped aboot six weeks ago. Until then, this is a little quickie…
These are the first three stories from the three Canadian National Newscasts: the CBC — our “public” broadcaster, and our two private channels, CTV and Global. We’ve got aboot a hundred or so “specialty” cable channels but those cost extra and I like my apartment with electricity.
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Page Jump: Global National; CBC The National; CTV National News
1) Security Sweep: Global is now claiming to be “Canada’s Most Watched Newscast”… maybe, probably, but it’s definitely the most American in terms of production and reporting style. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, American newscasts aren’t nearly as vacant as some believe. The non-bomb situation in the UK seems to be rapidly winding up, suspects have been picked up in Australia, Glasgow, Liverpool and on a highway near Cheshire. There really wasn’t anything new to this particular report, but reporter Stuart Greer definitely wanted to make sure the gravity of the situation was understood by everyone. As he was summing up he mentioned that “people” “believed” “there was an al Qaeda link”, he then threw us a clip of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and Her Cleavage telling us “everything’s going to be alright”, but nothing aboot al Qaeda. Then we’re back to Stuart for the wrap up and he tells us “it’s unclear if there are any links to al Qaeda.” The only people mentioning al Qaeda in all of this seem to be the reporters…
2) Improving Relations: While he was in the general region Russian President Vlad Putin requested an unexpected meeting with President GW Bush. A lot has been made aboot this meeting apparently having very little focus, and the stuff they’re releasing to the media pretty much shows that there has been no apparent focus… “common ground over Iran”, “thawing relations”… but this is one of the strangest political and/or diplomatic meetings I’ve ever heard of, these types of meetings take months to prepare for. The protocol involves encyclopedias, they have whole departments dedicated to this sort of thing, Russian Presidents don’t just “pop over” for a quick meeting with the President of the United States. It is interesting that the next story occurred just after the meeting…
3) Americans Have Proof Of Iran Proxy In Iraq: Surprise! Iran is using Hezbollah as their proxy in Iraq. According to the American Military, Lebanese and Iraqis are being trained in Lebanon and sent into Iraq to make IED’s and basically fuck shit up. At their — really weird — meeting Russia changed its tone aboot Iran’s nuclear program, not entirely embracing the American position, but making it pretty clear Russia won’t automatically veto a stronger Security Council resolution.
1) Aftermath From Attempted Bombings: CBC was really late to this whole story. By the time CBC’s cable news channel — CBC Newsworld — finally started talking aboot the Glasgow Airport incident, the other cable news channel — CTV Newsnet — had the story for aboot half an hour. The CBC never really seemed interested in the story for the first few hours, in fact the first real report came when BBC World’s 6pm broadcast took over the station. Anyway. Reporters, for some reason, seem perplexed that “professionals” like “doctors” would conceive of doing something like blowing up a thousand people. As if the World Trade Center has been destroyed by illiterate street people — two of the suspects so far are “doctors”, but not really as one was a medical student. The really interesting part of this will be how America reacts to CCTV being instrumental, once again, in finding the people responsible.
2) Suicide Car Bomb In Yemen: A whole lot of Spanish tourists got killed when a suicide bomber jammed his car into a convoy of buses and pulled his trigger. He must not have gotten the memo that Spanish soldiers weren’t in Iraq anymore.
3) Putin And Bush Meet: There were really convincing reports out of Russia not too long ago aboot Putin’s sexual proclivities… remember that bizarre moment a few months ago when Putin grabbed that random kid and, basically, molested his stomach? Yeah. Anyway. Putin does have a point aboot the Missile Defense System the Americans are pushing… if he was Chinese his point would be more convincing. The Shield can be considered a First Strike Weapon… picture this: the Americans get their Shield working properly. That means America can rain nuclear weapons down on China, taking out 99% of China’s nuclear weapons. Those Chinese weapons, normally, could be fired all at once, overwhelming the American Shield. But with only 1% of their arsenal left the Chinese response is taken care of by The Shield. Hence the Americans can blow the shit out of the Chinese whenever they want with total impunity. So Putin doesn’t want Shield Missles in Poland or the Czech Republic because he loses face at home… every time America or NATO gets a little closer to Russia, Russians get a little more disgraced. So Putin is offering Southern Russia as a compromise, but the Americans — I think — will add Poland and the CR to their increasing arsenal of “stuff” to bring Russia onside against Iran… none of this was in the CBC report, which really didn’t offer much.
1) Bombing Arrests In Britain And Australia: The British police have cordoned off nineteen houses in Britain, as their search “intensified”. One of the most impressive things to come out of all this — beyond the whole CCTV issue — has been British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s cleavage. The suspects can be held without charge for 48 hours, after that the police can ask a judge for another 48 hours up to a maximum of a month. I’ve seen British, American and Canadian reporters talking aboot how the suspects aren’t talking… but it looks as though they’re all using the same anonymous source. The camera angle used to get the clip of Jacqui Smith making her official statement, which came from a static camera inside Parliament, looks down at the person who is speaking… honestly, it looked like she had someone’s ass in her shirt.
2) Canadian Soldier Killed By American Fire: As expected, an American Army report has concluded that Canadian Private Robert Costall and an American soldier were killed by “friendly fire” from US Special Forces during an insurgent attack against Forward Operating Base Robinson in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The battle occurred in the early morning of March 29, 2006. At the time Private Costall was the 16th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan. To date there have been 60 Canadian soldiers killed while fighting for the new Afghan government.
3) Scooter Libby Sentence Commuted: Scooter wasn’t pardoned, his sentence was commuted, which means he’s still a criminal and he still has to pay a fine of $250,000. No one, let alone the Democratic political headhunters vying for the mans job, should be shocked that President Bush did this. One report I saw summed it up pretty nicely: a Federal Court decided that Scooter was going to have to wait in prison while his appeals were worked out. That meant Scooter was going to a Federal Prison in a couple of days. Article Two, Section Two of the American Constitution says the President gets to pardon or commute the sentence of anyone he wants to… except someone who has been impeached, which was why Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon so quickly. So, like it or not, the President can do this — which, when you think aboot it, is actually a good thing because it proves his administration still has a copy of the Constitution hanging around somewhere.
If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
It seems to me that this Web 2.0 movement… which seems to have cooled off in the past few months, is all aboot stealing other people’s content, putting a twist on it and hoping to Hell that no one notices the blank space where you’ve PhotoShopped the copyright notice from. YouTube is a perfect example… someone grabs a video off of MuchMusic, uploads it and draws traffic to their YouTube account where they have links to MySpace or Wherever.org where they have a thousand photos they’ve grabbed off of Flickr or PhotoBucket of Random People and their families. Meanwhile YouTube makes billions off that free content for Google through advertising. I was going somewhere with this… Oh Yeah…
I remade my “Music Page“, and by “my” I mean not my music. At the top of each post I leave a YouTube of a Canadian musical artist. So they don’t get lost in the shuffle I created a Page to store them on, but I never updated it because I’m a lazy bastard. So now, if you’ll notice at the top of the page, I have a “New Music Page” where I’ve set up a system based on the easiest archival method I know: Punk, Punkish and Not Punk. Under each video you’ll find links to the artists homepage and someplace you can buy the album. As time goes on I’ll start leaving some Bio’s as well… there are a few up there now. So, sit back and enjoy the work others have created so that I can fill up space on my Blog.
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The Lists:
Five Strangest Search Terms Used To Find CSN:AFU
5) blackmen who like to spread there seed t 4) why canadians sex movie 3) neked and kids sex 2) what an alien need to know in the world 1) “canadians rule the world”
Honourable Mention: fuck canadian natives
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Top Five CSN:AFU Posts Since Last Friday:
1) CSN:AFU Week 19 In Review 2) Canada: Where Only The Natives Drink The Brown Water OR After 73,000 Days Of Being Ignored They Finally Take One Of Their Own 3) Short Cuts: Canada’s Gay Anglicans Were Sacrificed For Politics Not Religion… Just Like Jesus And Marc Hall 4) The Five Things You Need To KnowAboot The Canadian Movie Industry 5) Canadians Invented Hollywood: What You Need To Know Aboot Canada’s Movie Industry — Part Two: A New Hope
Honourable Mention: Six Canadian Movies You Need To See That Don’t Suck — Part One: FUBAR
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The Five Blogs I Visited Most This Week
1) A Wide Angle View Of India 2) Second Thoughts 3)Kamangir.net (real news from inside Iran) 4) Sticky Note Theatre 5) I didn’t do a lot of surfing this week… but I did go here a lot.
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This Week In General:
The week ended with me having… a giant hole surgically implanted into my mouth cavity. This was accomplished by a dentist with really, comically funny, tiny hands pulling a massive molar out of my face. The things they can do with science these days, I think that dentist was part of some kind of tiny-hand breeding program. Anyway… there is now a huge gap in my head. Best joke to come out of that sentence gets an honorary mention in next weeks CSN:AFU Week In Review.
I also got my hair cut so I’m like totally a new human being now. And I managed to get out of the house long enough to buy a new printer / scanner / copier — the last one died after having proved that printer / scanner / copiers don’t fly. Interesting piece of trivia… did you know that when the 3-in-1 machines were first introduced back in 1999 they were originally called “Mopiers”? I think it was Xerox who first tried to use the brand. Also, from what I can remember of those halcyon days of Tech Reporting, the little USB wire that hooks your iPod to your Computer was originally going to be called a “Dongle”. I never reported on Products, my beat was Internet Privacy Stuff, but I just Googled both and I’m close enough.
I got tagged with another “Thinking Bloggers Award” by the person who runs the Sticky Note Theatre Blog, which is cool because I really enjoy his Blog. It was for my Music Page, or at least the idea of my Music Page. Which gave me the impetus to upgrade the whole thing.
I think next week I’m going to try and get back into my original routine of writing aboot Monday’s News again… problem is I’ve lost my PBS station due to some transmission tower accident. I need to get back into the routine again, I’ve been too sporadic over the past six weeks. That’s it… Happy Canada Day.
Oh… wait, there was that thing where I really pissed off my youngest sister because of something I wrote on my Other Blog. I had to shut it down, at least that particular post, for a few days until everything got worked out. Which, I think, is now. I also wrote a post aboot my dental surgery… I took a photo of the offending tooth just seconds after Dr. Tiny Digits pulled it out of head. If you want to see it, here it is [too late, its gone]. Happy Canada Day.
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This Weeks New Posts:
Short Cuts: Canada’s Gay Anglicans Were Sacrificed For Politics Not Religion… Just Like Jesus And Marc Hall Gay Marriage, as a political issue within the political framework of Canada is a dead issue. We have it, it’s legal, it’s never going away. Within the religious framework, however, I highly doubt it will ever be allowed except through some kind of schism. It isn’t that Canadian Anglicans or Catholics or Muslims or Sikh’s or Whatever won’t allow it, Canadian membership in all of those religions is just too small to have a political voice within those religions. The average Anglican is not White, nor are they European. The Average Anglican is a Black Man living in Africa.
Today 80% of Anglicans are either SE Asian or African and they’re Fundamentalist. Think of that voting power. Think of the Politics of having 80% of the membership of your group ten times more Fundamental than the other 20%. Now think of the actual, physical parts of a Church — the bank accounts, the buildings, the vestments, the land. Think aboot what happens if The 80% Church Majority bans the 20% from using all Anglican Church property and assets in Canada and America and Britain because they don’t like what the 20% have done. Anyway. Read the post, I did a pretty good job on it.
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Next Week:
Global Warming, A Movie And Maybe One Short Cut.
I’ve got nothing going on this week so maybe I can get some Blogging done.
cultural sn:afu 