No, it’s not a porn site!
In addition to my continuing duties at iLaugh.com I’ve been tapped by CoEd Communications to participate in the redesign of EcoVoyageurs.ca, the environmental impact site for kids that’s part of the middle school curriculum in many provinces across Canada.
It’s a noble endeavour that will hopefully keep me from reneging on my promise to be carbon neutral in my air travels this year…
Well, at least we’ve saved the planet from Luba Goy…
Today’s National Post—a newspaper that nobody even in Canada reads—has some telling statistics about Canadian culture as perceived by the rest of the world:
When asked the cultural products and services most often associated with Canada, the top six responses were: sports (22.2%), films (18.2%), museums (17.1%), pop videos (16.3%), classical sculpture (8.7%) and the circus (6.5%).
It’s too bad that such bad news was included in an otherwise positive report on our Great White North being the third most popular destination for international tourists. I guess they really do come for the maple syrup, eh?
I’ll say right up front that I was already a bit fired up from last night’s viewing of Why We Fight when I took to this morning’s news. And yet I still can’t believe that nobody’s making a bigger deal about this…
Buried deep in this CTV Story following up on Ontario’s worst-ever mass murder is the bombshell that after tailing the eight soon-to-be-victims to the farm where they were later executed, Durham Regional Police officers simply up and left.
Once again, after previously targeting this group as having ties to the Bandidos biker gang, and suspecting that a major drug deal was about to take place, the Durham Regional Police decided to leave.
The explanation given was that the cops assumed the bikers were attending a party; the only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that they were paid off to look the other way. Of course that’s pure speculation, but if I were covering this story I don’t think I would accept such a lame excuse by law enforcement without at least a follow-up question or two!
Chalk it up to our trademark Canadian apathy, I guess… We’ll bitch and moan about anything, but when it comes time for action or accountability we fall inexplicably silent.
Hiya Phil,
The DVD of “Why We Fight” will be officially released on June 20th—as for how I got to see it, well… That’s between me and the internet, I guess.
AC:
As a former Oshawanian, I have to defend the fine officers of the Durham Regional Police. I doubt the Durham cops took a payoff from the bikers. The surveillance team, likely looking like a couple of soccer dad types in a minivan or two, tailed their target to another known biker’s house. They established a link between their target and the other bikers, and they probably called it a day. After all, they’d only have proof enough to arrest anyone if a crime took place within sight of the road. Plus they were way out of town (no relief or backup unless they called in the OPP), and their focus was on seeing who their boy was seeing.
Besides, there may have been other police forces running surveillance on the farm that night with all the company rolling in, but we may never hear about that.
Ed,
I commend you standing up for your former police service; do you have any firsthand experience with them to back that up?
My only run-in with them is documented here:
AC:
I spent the summer after high school as a security guard for a new subdivision going up across from what the locals call “the ghetto” (really just Ontario Housing townhouses similar to Regent Park), and I had to call the Durhams on a regular basis to help keep the yahoos away from the lumber and open basements. Everyone one of the officers I dealt with were friendly and supportive, even though they were patrolling the south end of the Shwa at night during a really hot summer! I have to admit I haven’t had a negative experience with the Durhams or any other Canadian police. My worst, and indirect, experience was in Niagara Falls, NY, where bouncers threw some goof out of a bar onto the sidewalk where 4 officers “subdued” him with their billy clubs. Nasty. And I will never visit Mexico after a coworker had an adventure with the police down there, but it’s a long and disturbing story…..
Ed
A quote from Taliban spokesman Qari Yuosaf on Canada’s military presence in Afghanistan, courtesy of the CBC:
We think that when we kill enough Canadians, they will quit.
… Works for me!
I started thinking about this on my flight back from Bermuda. Part of the on-board “entertainment” was tech-head Dave Chalk (above-left), blathering on about the latest product from Telus—funny how most of the gear he features on his show is from Telus. Anyhoo…
When it comes to reading a teleprompter this guy is a machine. The only distressing thing about watching him is that he barely stops to take a breath, making me wonder if one day he’s just going to forget to breathe altogether and explode on-air.
I get a similar reaction watching Global Weather-guy Michael Kuss (above-right). He’s not bad-looking as far as weather-type people go and he apparently does up his own meteorological reports, which is impressive.
But the deep furrows in his brow belie his calm on-air demeanor. Through his forecast his brain seems to be elsewhere: “You people just don’t get it, do you? The fools at the Weather Academy didn’t believe me… Nobody believes me… But I tell you, global warming will kill us all!”
Maybe so but dude, relax!
Phil Maker and 
Where’s you see “Why We Fight”. It’s not on the radar in Vancouver. I’d have to drive to Seattle.