Tag Archives: Stephen Harper

THE NUTSHELL: Harper And Ford In A New Boy Band? Clinton Cashes, Indy Crashes And “Owling” Takes Over From “Planking”

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A weekly feature, with a collection of random thoughts on random things.

I rarely ride my bike. Should do it more often. So, this week, I pedaled it over to a friend’s place. In order to offset the possibly harmful effects of the exercise, on the way back, I pulled into KFC. Because I saw a sign for the “Double Down.” Bill Hayes and I had talked a wee bit about it on this week’s podcast (hear it here).  We also discussed the pulled pork parfait. Which is a real thing. And sounds like a good idea to me. The Double Down ought to be called the Double Back. Because it felt like my stomach was going to insist on a u-turn. I’m not saying there’s too much salt in that thing, but, if you tossed a Double Down into Lake Ontario, pretty sure you could then float on your back all the way to Rochester. Look. I like KFC. I’ve fond memories of being a kid and my parents ordering up the do it yourself buffet. Chicken, fries, gravy, macaroni salad and Grecian bread. Still have the old jingle rolling around in my noggin. But the Double Down (another name might be the “We Double Dare You To Try And Keep It Down”) is an experience I won’t have again. Put it this way: Woodstock was great and all, but you needed to stay away from the brown acid. Speaking of acid, I need to stop writing for a second so I can go pop another Zantac.

SPORTS

  • The Blue Jays traded Juan Rivera to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a player to be named later or cash considerations. Uh, cash considerations? From the bankruptcy-protected Dodgers? I think it’ll unfold this way: The Dodgers will consider giving the Jays cash. Their lawyers will consider that hilarious and tell them they don’t have any.

    The player to be named later? Maybe he'd offer Bautista a little protection in the batting order.

  • Plaxico Burress is targeting the Jets,Texans and Eagles as teams he’d like to play with. Of course, with his aim, he could wind up anywhere, really.
  • The Honda Indy, run through the streets of Toronto last weekend, was filled with crash after crash after crash. Dan Aykroyd was the Grand Marshal, so I guess it’s only fitting that everybody drove like it was dark and they were wearing sunglasses.
  • Why do punters run around in the end zone when conceding a safety even when their team is BEHIND? Isn’t that like detouring into a construction zone when you’re already late picking up your kid at daycare?

 

POLITICS

 

  • While playing cowboy at the Calgary Stampede, Prime Minister Harper also found time to pal around with Hollywood’s traditional cowboy foe. While visiting the Blood Tribe Of Alberta (I’d originally thought this was a nickname for the Conservative Party) he was made an honourary chief. His name: “Chief Speaker.”  No politician should be named anything other than “Chief Talking Point.” I don’t know about you, but seeing the Prime Minister in a head dress and knowing full well his prodigious musical chops, I think he’d be an excellent member of a Canadian version of The Village People.

    "Am I delighted to be here? And how."

    Where Rob Ford might fit in, I haven’t quite figured out yet. Can he sing? We know he can dance. Proved it at the launch for the festival formerly known as Caribana. (Scroll down the page in that link a bit to see the video) The mayor danced with some fully costumed flamboyant revellers. Kinda like the Pride Parade. Bet he’s sorry he missed that now. At any rate, if he joins the Canadian version of Village People, we can rewrite the lyrics to their signature hit “YMCA” for him. “It’s fun to REE-move the Jaaaar-vis bike lanes, it’s fun to REE-move the – uh, Jaaarvis bike lay-anes….” I grant you, forming a letter “B” with your body wouldn’t be easy.

  • Apparently, Bill Clinton has made just under 76 million dollars, in speaking fees alone, since leaving the White House 10 years ago. Maybe he ought to be named Chief Speaker. Clinton charges an average of $181,000.00 per speech. More, I’m told, if you want him to do his dead-on impression of Hillary. The magic tricks he does for free because, you know, chicks dig it.

POP CULTURE

  • Tom Hanks met the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge earlier this week. Hope that, when he shook his hand, Hanks bellowed: “WILLIAAAAAAAM!”
  • Conrad Black has been ordered back to prison by September 6th. Well, at least he’ll still be able to march in the Labour Day Parade.
  • They ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, again. Kids’ play. Because, in Denia, Spain, they have a little thing known as diving with the bulls. Yes. When you run with bulls, they can merely trample or gore you to death. Diving bulls can trample, gore OR drown you. That’s a man’s game.

    "Owling." Where's a rampaging bull when you really need one?

  • Apparently, “planking” is over. It’s so 2011. Or, so earlier 2011. It’s being replaced with – wait for it – “owling.” People crouch on things, or perch, like an owl. then snap a picture and send it to everybody and hilarity ensues. No thanks. No planking, no owling. I’ll wait for something really cool, like “raccooning,” where people take pictures of their buddies eating out of somebody’s green bin at 3 in the morning.
  • A guy tried to sue the CBC and Dragons’ Den because some of the Dragons were mean to him.  They didn’t like his idea and spurned him gruffly, with one of the Dragons, Jim Treliving (Boston Pizza) telling him he was “blowing air up a dead horse’s ass.” (Another possible photo alternative to planking) I love how, in the Globe and Mail story I’ve linked to, that line is followed by “He did not receive the investment he sought.” Right. Because Jim sells pizza. But if he ever does get into the business of blowing air up dead horses’ asses, I like the guy’s chances of a triumphant return to The Den.

FINAL THOUGHT

Headline: “Toronto Overtakes Vancouver As Canada’s Most Expensive City.” I think Vancouver was slowed by bridge traffic.

[box border=”full”]To see a previous THE NUTSHELL, click here.[/box]

 

[box border=”full”]To hear this week’s podcast, “THE GIST OF IT,” click here. [/box]

 

 

 

Harper Cabinet Shuffle: Swedish for Common Sense Revolution

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The Prime Minister’s cabinet retooling is complete. Funny how the loss of a key member or three (Lawrence Cannon, Josee Verner, Jean-Pierre Blackburn) can set up a really high stakes version of musical chairs. Sources say that’s EXACTLY how it happened, by the way, with Tory MPs gathered in a room with 39 chairs. They all circled them nervously, while the Prime Minister played Nick Lowe’s “Cruel To Be Kind” on the piano. When he stopped — Yahtzee! Maxime Bernier had successfully knocked Rob Moore to the ground, and taken his seat as Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism.

Maxime Bernier: “Hon, you haven’t seen the Allen key, have you?

It was Bernier who’d made musical chairs necessary in the first place. He’d bought the Prime Minister’s new cabinet at the IKEA outlet in Nepean last night, but forgot the instructions at his girlfriend’s house when he left in haste this morning. By the way, IKEA  has an excellent selection of parliamentary cabinets, including the popular “Sinterblok,” as well as the twin-cabinets, the “Deef” and “Bakker.” Prime Minister Harper was hoping for the high-end, well-appointed “Sennit,” but Tony Clement, who’d had a premonition he was going to be seated in the “President of the Treasury Board” chair, asked that the Prime Minister relent and settle for the cheapest cabinet available, the finely trimmed “Budjitt.”

But, back to musical chairs. Bev Oda never did get up from her seat and remains Minister For Term Paper Grading International Co-operation Minister. John Baird flexed his considerable muscles of diplomacy and convinced a harried Julian Fantino to “get the hell out of my seat, you glorified mall cop!” Fantino shifted his buns one seat over, to become Assistant Minister of Defence. Uh, Assistant to the Minister of Defence.

Among others to find chairs they’d already been seated in were Jim Flaherty (Finance) and Peter MacKay (Defence). They both hovered over the Finance Minister’s chair, but Flaherty’s newly re-soled budget shoes gave him the agility of Hines Ward to MacKay’s Ralph Macchio. (Proud to say, I had to look that last reference up)

Magnanimously, the PM glanced up from the piano and waited for a couple of Toronto-area MPs to hover over vacant seats, proving that, while he won’t dance to Toronto’s tune, Toronto can damn well stop dancing and sit when he commands.

All in all, a nice, big shiny cabinet. Apparently, it ties the record shared by Brian Mulroney and Paul Martin. Maybe on the next trip to IKEA, they can set the stage for a record membership, by buying the Deluxe “Kokkis.”

Election 2011: Let The Chips Fall Where They Elizabeth May

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“Dude. That’s My Brador In The Fridge.”

Last night, I dreamed of Stephen Harper. No lie, no joke. I actually had a dream with the PM front and centre (er, centre block?). No, it wasn’t a nightmare, per se, but it didn’t end well, with a group of Conservative children chasing me down a street. The really odd thing about it was that former U.S. Republican Chair, Michael Steele, was leading them. What the first part means, I have my theory. The second part just probably means that I watch a lot of The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. I recall thinking, in the dream, that I sure wish Jack Layton would do his job and officially oppose the rampaging Tory gang. He didn’t, and my dream was denied a Layton-inspired happy ending. Suppose I should be grateful for that.

After some reflection (and a few glasses of Dubonnet), I believe I may have cracked the code of this particular subconscious theatre.

The rampaging Tory kids most likely represent my fear that our new government is about to embark on a 5 year mission of tracking down moderates and giving them super-wedgie after super-wedgie, politically speaking. Despite the conciliatory words of the Prime Minister in the wake of his big majority win, I don’t believe him. He barely was made to share the toys in the sandbox when he was forced to. Now that he holds sway over the entire playground, I fully expect him to be about as magnanimous as was Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York.

Jack Layton. May Or May Not Be An Accurate Depiction.

Hoping the NDP would show up to roll-block the Tory kids, but being disappointed…that’s an easy one, I think. It’s a nice feather in Jack Layton’s cap to become the Leader of the Official Opposition. However, he’s really powerless to do anything about, well, anything. When facing a determined majority on the other side of the aisle, the Leader of the Opposition is much like an NHL Goal Judge. Sure, he can get some attention by turning on his little red light, but it’s just symbolic, really. At least he gets a swell seat to watch all the action.

One more thing I should mention about this dream. At the outset, I got all up in The Prime Minister’s face when he interrupted a Michael Ignatieff speech. After I quickly admonished the PM I turned and Ignatieff was gone. Vanished. He’d had merely a cameo in this whole thing.

Not hard to interpret that.

What’s That Orange Blur?

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“I am NOT amused”

 

I used to say that the NDP might as well change its name to the SOL, for all the hope it had of ever accomplishing anything at the federal level. But, the latest poll from EKOS is astounding. Really? 100 seats possible? Who’d have thought that, at this late stage of the race, the guy with the bum hip would be the one with the late kick?

Michael Ignatieff must be apoplectic. He’s been ambling along in second, mud flying in his face, trying to keep Stephen Harper’s haunches firmly in sight. (He’d probably have mixed emotions about that, as would we all.)

What’s he get for it? A wicked rap in the shins from Jack’s cane as Layton blows by him.

Now, this poll may be the fabled 20th out of 20 poll. You know, the one that AIN’T the “plus or minus 5 per cent, 19 times out of 20” poll. But if it foretells something incredible and historic, it’s very bad, indeed, for Michael Ignatieff. I won’t say that his leadership of the Liberals will have jumped the shark, necessarily. But I’d be damn sure that, somewhere, Henry Winkler was putting on his water skis.