One More Thing...

A Tesco store has asked customers not to shop in their pyjamas or barefoot.

Is this the insidious, creeping hand of Big Brother Corporation?

Notices have been put up in the chain's supermarket in St Mellons in Cardiff saying: "Footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted."

A spokesman said Tesco did not have a strict dress code but it does not want people shopping in their nightwear in case it offends other customers.

Elaine Carmody, 24, a full-time mother of two young boys, described the ban as "ridiculous" and "pathetic".

She said she had regularly gone shopping at the store in her pyjamas until about a week ago when she was turned away when she went to buy cigarettes.

What is pathetic is the complete lack of dignity and decorum when going out in public. I mean- how hard is it to put on a proper pair of pants, even jeans, when buying cigarettes in front of your impressionable kids? Lazy in the body and lazy in the mind.

Aahhhh, Canada.....

It is rumoured that Obama's catastrophic "Buy American" policy might not affect Canadians after all.

But it seems those fears have been misplaced. Sources within the Obama administration say that an agreement to fix Buy American is close to being concluded and could be announced within days. The President is said to be resolved that future economic growth can only be achieved by boosting exports and keeping markets open, rather than by raising tariff walls.

Because Mr. Obama cannot rely on Congress to pass legislation exempting Canada from Buy American provisions, the complicated deal will rely on the President using his executive power to treat sectors of the Canadian economy as American, by claiming supply chains are so integrated they cannot be separated.

First of all, I don't believe him. However, let us step into this imagination land of "free trade" for a moment. Mr. Obama, who campaigned on cutting off America's most important trade partner, now realises he needs us. Damn right. Given the dire straits he finds himself in, a strong partnership with the second largest and least mad country in the world might pull his political fat out of the fire and make America's toque a littler stronger. Of course, he will have to stick it to another guy but that has been the president's forte for quite some time.

Do you remember when Scott Brown won the Senate seat in Massachusetts? Sure you do. And who helped make that possible? A Canadian did.

Was a Canadian complicit? Republican Scott Brown's stunning victory last week in heavily Democratic Massachusetts rocked the American political landscape, derailing President Obama's health-care agenda and sending the prospect of reform spiralling into uncertainty. But Scott Brown didn't do it alone -- the person behind Brown's upset win is a Canadian named Rob Willington.

Interesting. Mouse skin cells can be turned into neurons.

Signifying Nothing

The speech last night was just another speech.

Yet he talks and talks and talks. There is no problem for which the solution is not another speech, another interview, another campaign appearance. The sheer omnipresence leads to another problem which undermines his oratorical skills. Someone who talks so much invariably falls back on the subject which he knows best. For Obama that is himself.

What he said.

Mid-week Post

Wow. When you fall, you really fall.

Prorogation of parliament is the ending of a session of Parliament. If MacKenzie King, Trudeau, Mulroney and Chretien can prorogue Parliament, why can't Harper? If people don't like it, demand reform when the next session sits.

While those unsung heroes- Hollywood celebrities- patted themselves on the back- I mean- raised money for Haiti, tens of thousands of people marched in Washington. No biggie, apparently.

In South Korea, skywalkers cross Han solo. I'm not making this up.

And now for something mellow...

Please Say These People Won't Leave Canadian Airspace....

...and embarrass the rest of us.

(courtesy of PTBC)

Here’s a small sampling of some of the hateful comments on one of the most divisive, hateful web sites in all of North America, the state-owned, taxpayer-funded CBC, which represents all of us to the world.

Mostly, the CBC fans reason, if a left-wing candidate didn’t win as in Massachusetts, it’s simply because all Americans are stupid, beyond, in some cases, even being valid as human beings. And (related) possibly worse, they’re also Christians. Most of the comments from these far-left extremists are moronic, and all contain multiple spelling and grammar mistakes. almost as if the folks who wrote them were educated by the CBC and/or state-run public schools. All these comments were approved by the taxpayer-funded CBC moderators.

All of the above-mentioned irony flies quickly over the heads of the CBC and its commenting fans.

yoggii wrote: “I can’t believe the absolute stupidity of the Americans.”

proudcanuckmutt wrote: “...the Republicans are uniformly right wing extremists and Christian fundementalists.”

Never again do I want to hear the term, "Ugly American". From these thoroughly absurd comments here, we have both "sour grapes" and "idiocy so obvious that this person has to be hidden in the basement until the guests leave" covered.

But it doesn't end there.

An article by Michael Coren (emphasis mine):

A recent survey commissioned by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and conducted by the Innovative Research Group has revealed that Canadians believe climate change is a greater threat to the country than international terrorism. Which leads us to a quite startling conclusion. Canadians are dumb.

Really- at what other conclusion can we arrive? If the very real threat of wealthy Islamist terrorists is a lesser concern than the alleged melting of icebergs, then they must also have no problem with long and pointless body searches before boarding planes to Cuba, Mexico or some other Third World hot-spot. At least they won't be able to read magazines which might challenge their notions of a greater global danger as nothing is to be on a passenger's lap during the last hour of flight.

Mid-week Post

The people have Massachusetts have sent a message to gaffe-prone Martha Coakley and the morally decrepit Kennedy dynasty by electing Scott Brown to the Senate. The arrogance possessed by both Mrs. Coakley and the Kennedys just galling. This Divine Right of Kings nonsense went out centuries ago. Did they not know that?

For a smackdown, please see here.

A major aftershock has struck the already ruined Haiti.

The ringleader of the notorious Toronto 18 has been sentenced to life in prison, which doesn't mean a heck of a lot in Canada but is an infinite improve over the Air India debacle. Meanwhile, a fellow rat leaves the sinking ship.

What? The NDP were caught cheating? I'm surprised!

(SIDEBAR: not really)

An example of a wonderful human being.

Should bad taste be taxpayer funded? Many would say "no!" in tones so emphatic that snow would melt. It's bad enough that some pro-abortion would-be "intellectual" makes some blather about how she feels abortion is so amazing (don't even attempt to claim impartiality on the issue) but is it publicly-funded? That's all I want to know. If you want an example of paranoia, please this.

A little over a year to the day, Mr. Barack Obama assumed office and then proceeded to ruin the US. How the pundits make excuses for him. "He inherited Bush's mistakes." Oh? Did not Harry Truman inherit the Second World War from FDR? Would someone care to tell this "community organiser" to man up and do right by his country?

(Many thanks, Mr. B)

Apparently, the glaciers in the Himalayas aren't going to melt the way we think they are. That was speculation, not fact, just like much of climate science.

English and German experts believe they may have found the remains of Princess Eadgyth (Edith), a popular noblewoman from the tenth century. Interesting.

And now, your mellow moment.

Mid-week Post

So many things to blog about.

It is believed that 100,000 people were killed in an earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday afternoon. If you can help, please do (like this organisation here. Hat-tip to Sgt. Lejaune).

Even more sad news: Miep Gies, who helped Anne Frank and her family hide, as passed away.

The ongoing trial of the "Toronto 18" is not so much an example of hare-brained gangsterhood in so much as it is a study in cold remove and deceit. We are seeing the usual white-washing and duping we generally see from Islamist apologists. If the planned attack- as the accused declare- was merely to make a point, then a blog would have done just as well. I don't believe mass casualties were never the intention.

In some sort of lame attempt at equality, Berkley High School is considering scrapping its labs and five science teachers in order to address a race gap. Oh dear. Instead of assessing the actual factors in students' apparent inabilities in this academic arena, it is better to just can dedicated teachers and squash an entire subject. Lovely. Set the bar for mediocrity and ignorance a little lower.

The shocking death of a mother who apparently pushed her infant son out of harm's way serves as a reminder that anyone can be irresponsible behind the wheel of car.

A Vietnamese immigrant is slated to be Canada's first Asian bishop. Fantastic.

Google threatens to pull out of China. The company threatened to shut down their operations in the communist country when they discovered that cyber-attacks were launched against human rights activists. And I should believe this bold threat why?

A rather heart-wrenching article concerning a North Korean teenager's attempts to assimilate in South Korea. I am disgusted that many South Koreans would consider xenophobia as a perfectly valid response to North Koreans' plight. If compassion and general decency won't come naturally to them, then perhaps they should consider what happens when North Korea's totalitarian state collapses and there is a great influx of North Koreans looking for work in Seoul (if not asking why their cousins to the south aren't helping them resurrect their decrepit country). One would hope the South Koreans who behave atrociously to North Koreans will have developed some manners by then. Feeling raw about the Kim dynasty's militarism is one thing; picking on a teenager is quite another.

Sarah Palin has signed on as a contributor for the Fox News channel. If I were Sarah Palin, I would end my segments by putting my feet up on the news desk, lighting a cigar with a one hundred dollar bill I made from selling my book and then muttering something about how damn good this cigar is. Joking aside, whatever pads her resume. I really believe she is deliberately underestimated as a political force by a media virtually unapologetic of its favouritism to a single group or person.

In closing, mellow out with a crazy cat picture.

Stupid People: the International Edition

K-Pop singer Shin Hae-Chul has entered into the political fray with- I must say- predictably stupid results. I say this because any celebrity who possesses the audacity to claim he or she has a handle on any socio-political issue because of the amount of soy lattes they drink is a fool and is seriously deluding themselves if not the public. We've seen it before.

Back to Mr. Shin:

"I, as one of the Korean people, congratulate the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on its legal launch of a rocket," the singer wrote on his webpage last April.

One could exhaust oneself with various reasons why Mr. Shin's congratulations are incredibly short-sighted but instead let the focus of this pig crap be the response to Mr. Shin's web post.

From the article:

Conservative civic groups charged Shin with openly praising the North Korean regime and thus breaching the National Security Law.

"Shin, being an influential public figure, should be held responsible for confusing people by posting his arbitrary political opinions on cyber space," said a civic group official.

I hold the opinion that Shin Hae-Chul is fortunate to live in South Korea, a sovereign nation with universal suffrage, where he should be free to express his unbelievably ignorant (and arrogant- as if someone asked him to speak for them) views. Let Mr. Shin's words hang him. Let him praise the morally and politically corrupt Kim dynasty on live television while pictures of starving North Korean children are shown in the background. Let him defend this arguably treasonous tripe to relatives of kidnapped and/or murdered Korean and Japanese nationals. After, let the consumers decide if his music is worth buying.

Don't make a Dixie Chicks martyr out of him. For what he said, it's totally not worth it.

Mid-week Mellow

(first of the year)

Alas, the unicorns forgot, as well.

(sniff)

Global Warming Strikes South Korea

Record snowfall hit Seoul and central Korea on Monday, the first work day of New Year, causing traffic congestion and paralyzing parts of the city. It was the highest snowfall since the country's modern meteorological observations started in 1937. The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said 25.8 cm of snow was recorded in Seoul as of 2 p.m. Monday. The previous record had been 25.6 cm in January 1969. A weatherman said more snow will fall in Gangwon Province and the northern part of Gyeonggi Province by Tuesday morning as a large mass of snow clouds moves east.

When I was there, the snow wasn't that bad. People in Seoul must be freaking out. They mustn't worry, though. We've gone through the same thing over and over again.

In the New Year

In the new year, the world was assailed by unseasonable warmth and by unseasonable warmth I mean lots of snow and frigid temperatures.

Prior to the new year, the son of a wealthy Nigerian banker tried to take his anger out on 288 people by igniting explosives in his underpants (I daresay he wasn't smart to begin with) but was thwarted. Instead of doing something smart, officials are blaming poverty and creating even longer lines at the airport. The system of idiocy triumphs again.

Embassies are closing down in Yemen because of the Lutherans.

(SIDEBAR: the Lutherans aren't really to blame.)

Yet another attempt on a Danish cartoonist's life is made.

Dogs prove once again that they are awesome.

A great start to a new decade.