Yeah, yeah, there are tons of other major News Stories this past year. All kinds of them. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, soon-to-be Iran, Sudan, or which ever one you’d like to pick. There’s the Economic ‘Meltdown’; like screwed up world economics was ever anything new. How about Obama’s election? Well, that’s something TIME will probably do.

There were many other items besides food that was recalled, but we’ve picked ‘Food Recalls’ as the NFP’s news story of the year because we’ll probably be the only ones to mention the fact that for virtually everyday, a ‘recall’ of mostly food items, including the killer dog and cat food, was presented on the Canadian news channels during 2008.

We also picked the ‘food recall’ category because food is of course, a necessity. Other than two year olds, we don’t normally eat the lead toys we get.

And this year we’ve had it all. E. coli, salmonella, listeria monocytogenes, melamine, botulism, arsenic, staphylococcus bacteria, pathogenic bacteria as well as undeclared sulphites, nuts, egg, wheat, soy, milk proteins and other allergens all stuffed into your favourite munchies. Again, this is just Canada*.
 

If the definition of ‘Politics’ is ‘He who lies best, wins’, then Conservative must mean ‘We lie the best’. Liberal must mean, ‘We don’t lie well’, the NDP, ‘We lie for the good of the ‘working family’, the Bloc Quebecois, ‘Vive le Quebec libre’, and the Green Party means ‘We don’t how to lie…yet’.

The Canadian Conservative government, headed by its very callous and shrewd leader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and his band of 38 Cabinet Minister Thieves will have taken the prize of ‘Greatest Liars in Canadian Political History’. The Conservatives have taken lying to a whole new level and as usual, we Canadians sit on our proverbial asses and watch while these elected (paid by us) leaders wreak havoc upon our persons.

  Oh no, sayeth the weak of political mind, Mr. Harper no lie! Really? Today those who watched Question Period and the news will have seen Mr. Harper plainly say in the House in front of all, “When the three Coalition members signed their agreement, there was NO Canadian flag behind them”. See, now this is where it gets oddly strange. For those who watched the signing of the Coalition agreement, they will have seen not one Canadian Flag but two! Two flags. Can you say two flags Mr. Harper? How ya getting’ outta this one dude? Yer screwed.

During the last recent elections, and right up until just a few days ago, our leader reassured everyone a thousand times over, that “there will be no ‘recession’ and we will not go into a ‘deficit’.” I see. Except that everybody and their financial uncle has said otherwise. Perhaps the Conservatives should switch TV channels from CTV to CBC, they may learn what is really going on. Oh, and guess what? We’re going to have a recession and end up with a deficit. Duuuhh.
 

The most heard phrase after Barack Obama won the Presidential race was, “I didn’t think I would ever see an African-American as the US President”.

This soon-to-be-overused statement has now been muttered by everyone from Jesse Jackson and Oprah when they were in the Chicago crowd last night to cheer on Obama, all the way along to your average schmuck on the street.

Yes, there are those who can genuinely say this statement. There are also those who will say this without knowing what the hell they’re actually talking about. Frankly, there are categories to which one must put oneself in, in order to say this statement.

For example, anyone who’s not of African descent in any way, shape, or form can only say this statement as a “matter of fact”; providing you’re over 50 years of age, and have any clue about the past history of the American forefathers who thought they had a good idea at the time to have slaves and all that really mind-boggling stuff that happened afterwards. (Please visit your local library or visit Wikipedia.org for more about this part of American history)
 

Depending On Where You’re Standing

The American Elections are well under way – well, after what seemed to be an eternity of Primary’s and the like.

Here in the Great White North, our Prime Minister, who, in a state of being left out, and who is terribly worried about who will be running our neighbour’s country, decided to dissolve parliament and call an Election for October 14th, 2008.

This of course is after the Conservative government recently created a permanent Election Date (much like our American cousins), with the first official Election date set in October – 2009. Mr Harper is a year out of whack.

Much like Mr. Bush, our Mr. Harper does pretty much whatever he wants – without any real regard to standard political protocol. Or government protocol for that matter.
 

Free Tibet! Free Tibet!

Yeah for sure, free Tibet, free Kosovo, free Burma, free Quebec, free North Korea, and what the hell, free China too! There, now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s the shit.

It’s Monday, April the 7th, all over the news are the protests in France as the Olympic Torch is carried along its journey to China. Ordinary people, some past Olympians, are given the dubious honour of carrying the Torch through their respective towns. They are thrilled to do this.

Today, in France, a Torch bearer in a freaking wheelchair was stopped and in turn had to deal with the protesters, yes, a freaking wheelchair, and 5 times the Torch relay was stopped until finally it was completely called off due to the many assholes who interrupted the relay. Well done, you sorry excuse for humans.

The Olympics are a moment on the planet when countries – good, bad and ugly, get together for one hell of a party! The Olympics do not exist for political gain, or abuse, it is for the athletes of the world to show their stuff. Is this hard to understand?
 

Been weirdly busy with the new site for the past few months and as a result, I haven’t had a chance to do any recent scribbling about the state of mankind’s mind. Since the new site is basically under control (I keep telling myself that), the recent Taser bullshit was too much for me to watch this go by without muttering something about it.

For some time now I’ve had a hankering to talk about Canada - my true north strong and free. If I can crap on my fellow brethren’s government and ideologies then so it shall be said that I will spit my last spit at the country which I fondly and dearly call - home. In a democratic society, I get to say what I would like to without fear of being thrown into Guantanamo Bay (I keep telling myself that too).

However after the Taser incident at the Vancouver Airport, I’m not sure if we still ‘look good’ to the rest of the planet. In fact, with the help of our endless supply of audacious political leaders, Canada has begun to look more out of whack than what we are generally supposed to.

Between the Arar case and countless others still being held in prisons - in places we don’t know about, and silly foreign policy moves by silly foreign affair ministers regarding particular countries which we don’t normally stick our noses into - to having a pathetic, overall Human Rights record with the United Nations, that says Canada still has t deal with inequalities encountered by aboriginal peoples with unresolved aboriginal land claims issues and the number of aboriginals who die in police custody. No shit!