Why must we resort to fighting? Can't we just... dance our differences away?

Georges Laraque is a man born with such God-given badassery that he says “Good luck, man” before casually deciding to enter into a bare-knuckle face-punching contest with a loose acquaintance.

He’s also a vegan who, in semi-retirement, is putting his heft behind the Green Party.

BGL will probably be using his star power in Quebec, where he’s still enough of a big name to star in softcore porn-influenced commercials for alcoholic high-caffeine heart-attacks-in-a-can (here’s the link, in case you enjoy watching videos of sweaty French girls in bikinis play ball hockey, but are afraid to enter those terms into Google on the same computer your girlfriend uses.) Laraque has recently been associated with a shabby, disreputable gang of thugs operating out of Montreal calling themselves the Canadiens, but luckily he’s severed ties with this gang of lowly, widely-reviled trash. (Save the snarky comment, you’ve got nothing on me – my Leafs suck, and at least I know it.) He’ll now be focusing his talents (face-punching, etc.) towards a loosely-associated group of environment-nuts, rebellious teenagers and social Conservatives called the Green Party. It’s debatable whether Conservative Westerners should hold more contempt for him as a Montreal Canadien, as a Green Party spokesman, or as a black guy.

Now, let’s untangle the political connotations. Laraque’s a hockey goon, which is something of an anachronism in the field of modern sports: a man whose entire job is to commit common assault in exchange for millions of dollars, something akin to a mafia hit-man. The hockey goon appeals to the kind of knuckle-dragging, dart-hacking, beef-jerky-chewin’ good ol’ boy whose entire wardrobe consists of t-shirts they’ve gotten from 24-packs of Labatt Blue. And then you’ve got the Green Party, who love animals, the environment, and general topics that our aforementioned good ol’ boy would consider “some kinda queer stuff.” All of this, including a possible run for office by Georges in the future, will be playing itself out in Quebec – an already politically confused climate where the Bloc fights for the good-ol’-habitant vote, pockets of Grits and Tories aim for the masses, the NDP awkwardly fits itself into the fray, and the Greens have a motley crew of lefties and righties telling people to try vegan poutine.

OVERALL CONSEQUENCES: Nothing. You’ll never hear from this story again, Georges probably won’t run for office, but for 15 minutes during a prorogued parliament it was fun for political beat-writers to crank out articles about how a tough hockey guy was joining a bunch of wimpy hippies. Oh, the humourous juxtaposition!

[Source: G&M]

With the relevation that Homer was the real terrorist, the FBI called off the wiretapping of Apu

First, read this CP piece with a straight face. Alright, alright, get all the chuckles out. There we go.

To recap, Fisheries Minister Gail Shea got pied by the notorious terrorist group Al-Pieda, a group with possible ties to the Talibanana-cream. Honestly, I could just sit here all day and think of puns involving pie and terrorism. But then, the pie-terrorists would have won.

Wait, one more. Tamil Piegers. No? Hezbollemon-meringue? Too much? Alright, just watch the video:

Liberal MP Gerry Byrne (bipartisanship!) wants to know if this brazen act of piessault by PETA constitutes an act of terrorism. Now, on the surface this seems ridiculous, because TV has taught us that getting a pie in the face is an act of light-hearted clownish pranking, while TV also taught us that only brown people can be terrorists.

Alright, let’s figure it out: IS PIEING A POLITICIAN AN ACT OF TERRORISM?

CRITERIA #1: Terrorism is a show of force meant to intimidate and humiliate. It relies on shock appeal and sudden violence to bring about a political message of bullying and fear. Match: Well, yeah, that’s a match. Maclean’s even agrees. And they take pies seriously. TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #2: Terrorism is serious. Match: Eh, not so much. I mean, I wouldn’t enjoy getting a pie in the face, but it’s something of a tradition in Canadian politics. You really haven’t made it as a politician in this country unless you’ve appeared on your local news wiping whipped cream out of your eyes in a confused daze. See also: the Entartistes. NOT TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #3: Terrorism involves horrible cruelty. Match: It was a tofu pie. Eeewwww, good Lord. Give me seal flipper any day, pushing tofu into someone’s open mouth should be defined as cruel and unusual under the Geneva Conventions. TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #4: Terrorists are dicks. Match: Oh, here we go. PETA’s currently $100-million in debt, the only thing that keeps them alive is attention. They’re like real-world internet trolls. PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk, quoted in the CP piece up top, is batshit crazy. She claims that chicken farming is a worse crime than the Holocaust. They had a campaign where they advocated that college students binge-drink beer rather than milk, claiming beer’s healthier. They’ve distributed pamphlets to kids about fishing called “Your Daddy Kills Animals.” They proposed renaming fish to seakittens, so they’d seem cuter. They’re also massive hypocrites: they end up putting down over 90% of the animals they’ve taken in. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have killed over 20,000 pets as of 2008. They liken the very act of pet ownership to slavery. Honestly, am I done? Can I stop now? Yes, PETA are huge dicks. TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #5: It’s generally inappropriate to make puns about terrorism. Match: Even the real news outlets can’t resist a good pie pun. The Maclean’s article was called “No mere question of taste”. I mean, it’s no Al-Pieda, but it’s not the kind of wordplay you’d generally invoke for “30 dead in car bombing.” NOT TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #6: And this is perhaps the most important criteria of all, the real litmus test of whether or not terrorism is involved: Terrorism generally does not involve pie. Match: Pieing generally involves pie. NOT TERRORISM!

So, the panel’s split. Will we ever find out if some starving hippie squishing creamy tofu into a Member of Parliament’s face constitutes an act of terrorism against our nation?

(SPOILER ALERT: Yes we will, it’s not terrorism, what are you an idiot?)

Next time if they come with quiches to the face, I’m ready with a Hamas-and-cheese quip.