Parliament’s on summer vacation and all of the MPs are away at politician summer camp, roasting marshmallows, having inter-party water-balloon fights and telling spooky ghost stories about the Reform Party coming back from the dead. That means no real national political news is happening these days (unless you’re Australian, what in the name of vegemite’s going on down there?) So today we’ll be focusing on dumb articles (and one non-dumb article with an embarrassing addendum!) that have appeared over the past couple of days in Canada’s most distinguished birdcage-lining newspapers.

• > EMBARRASSMENT #1: Did you know that racism existed a hundred years ago? A hundred Pulitzers to the Ottawa Citizen’s Don Butler, who spent the weekend holed up in the National Archives, smoking a pipe and flipping through dusty stacks of historical documents to bring you this earth-shattering revelation: many great Canadian historical figures would be deemed racially intolerant based on modern standards! The context of the story is whether or not Charlotte Whitton, Ottawa’s first female mayor, should be recognized as an important historical Canadian in light of her being a class-A Jew-hater. That controversy aside, I just love the way the Citizen eagerly “reports” that, indeed, historical Canadians from a hundred years ago would be deemed downright intolerant today. Of course the entire Earth back then would probably also be deemed racially intolerant by today’s standards, not to mention sexist, homophobic and xenophobic, because it was a hundred fucking years ago. These old-timey historical people also believed that drilling a hole in your skull was a valid medical procedure and that diseases were caused by an imbalance of yellow bile. Did you know that moral standards change over time, and historical people lived a LONG TIME AGO, when people believed a whole bunch of wacky wrong-headed shit about each other, and “people” includes “people who appeared in your Grade 8 Canadian History textbook”? Thanks a heap for the history lesson, Don!

• > EMBARRASSMENT #2: Durrrr, dem muslins gon’ build da mosque at da 9/11, HURF DURF RAGE: Can you remember the last time a story so minor, so petty, so downright weapons-grade retarded, managed to fill so many endless days of braindead cable-news coverage and self-righteous editorial columns? (Probably some other bullshit about a month ago, right?) A mosque is being built in New York City, alongside hundreds of other mosques in a massive, multicultural city, including one existing mosque a block away from the proposed one. Even though pretty much nobody in New York gives a shit, this has become a ridiculous cause celebre among the type of angry idiots in Cousinfuck, Arkansas who hear the numbers “9″ and “11″ and get a rage-boner. Somehow the memo has been passed from metropolitan Cousinfuck to the dusty typewriter of Sun Media moron Peter Worthington, so he could shit out a horrible, horrible column about this Tea Party-invented, bullshit, fake-controversy. Apparently there’s some Muslim in Canada who has the BRAVERY to stand up and say that this mosque is an affront to American liberty, and, ugh, Worthington has such a crush on this Muslim chick who’s clearly aiming to be the next Fox News Special Islam Correspondent. If you’re bulimic and looking to drop some of that poundage from your big lunch, save the toothbrush-gag and repeatedly read the part of this column where Worthington claims that all Muslims in Canada secretly stand behind terrorism. Ugggh God, I-, I’m gonn-BLLEERRGGGCCHHHH.

This is Woody's face upon hearing more Rob Ford crap on this blog.

• > EMBARRASSMENT#3: National D’oh!st: Chris Selley – who, despite looking like a Geico caveman, isn’t dumb, and is actually pretty good in his smart-ass headline-combing gig at the Post – got stung by the horrible bite of Rob Ford over the weekend, a bite all too familiar to anything edible in Rob Ford’s fridge. Selley was talking about how dirt-ass bankrupt the City of Toronto was (no arguments here) and then half-defending Rob Ford’s frontrunner status in the mayoralty race, arguing that as much of a greasy clown Rob Ford “F-150″ is, at least he’d be willing to cut the pork – if not from his diet, then from the budget. As an example, Selley points out the $600,000 the city is willing to spend to keep the humps of lightly-slush-coated compressed garbage it calls ski hills open. That’s right, BC readers, Toronto’s got ski hills – eat your heart out at those majestic slopes and weep in envy! You see, at least Rob Ford would never vote to fund some – I’m sorry, what? Fiscal boy-scout Rob Ford voted to fund the ski hills? Hah! Check the meek withdrawal at the bottom of the story, and then the complete turnaround, as Selley goes from cautiously optimistic about Ford in the story itself to downright vengeful in the addendum. I’m pretty sure this goes to show that Rob Ford is not only undefendable, he goes out of his way to make his optimists look foolish, like the ominous clap of thunder that sounds after a forelorn cartoon character says “Well, we’re trapped out here, but at least it’s not raining…”?

Happy Cinco De Mayo (Spanish for “a fifth of Mayonnaise”), a Mexican holiday celebrating the, uh… some sort of revolution, or war, or… historical thing… hey look, Coronas are half price at the bar today! Here’s what’s going on in the country of Canada, which joins Mexico as America’s other bookend:

• > Did you hear about the new Conservative dinosaur, Pte-REDACT-yl?: “Canadian Journalists for Free Expression”, a made-up sounding group, has launched their inaugural Free Expression Review - and they’ve given Harper’s Conservatives the fair and balanced grade of “F” when it comes to releasing information. Look, I’m all for exaggeration – I exaggerate about 7.3 billion times per millisecond, no word of a lie – but if the Canadian government gets an “F”, what the fuck does North Korea get, F minus? The catchy “CJfFE” say Harper overuses national defense as an excuse to not divulge information. That’s a good thing, because otherwise we might all find out about the secret plan to █████████  the ███  ███  █████ without ███  ██  ██████ massive ███  ██  ██████  circus ██████  ███  ███  ███  ███ Denmark ███  ██████  ███  plastic bits on the end of shoelaces ██████  ███ [Note: This last sentence censored by federal government officials]

• > Chretien says nothing, columnist somehow says less: Let’s say you’re a columnist for a popular line of parrot-cage lining called “The National Post”, and luckily enough, you get an impromptu sit-down interview with Jean Chretien, one of the most powerful figures in Canadian politics in our lifetime and a man who ruled the country for a decade. Now, let’s say you don’t really give a shit what Jean Chretien has to say, but you’ve got an aching rage deep within your heart for Michael Ignatieff that you need to let out. What would you do? Introduce the topic of meeting Jean Chretien, and then right as the reader is suspecting an interesting, in-depth interview, become increasingly outraged about Michael Ignatieff’s current Liberals. Just start throwing shit out there and see if it sticks. Refer to some imaginary conversation with unnamed “senior party officials” and use it as the basis for your claim that the Liberals, a party that have dominated Canadian politics since 1867, will be reduced to ashes in the near future. Try to reach such a pinnacle of blustery, off-topic rage that your last sentence implies Michael Ignatieff be lynched. Whoa, is that 1000 words already, send that shit to the editor and call it a day!

• > By “beating up a sick puppy”, did you mean “unnecessary” or “easy”?: John Doyle, the Globe’s resident couch-potato who gets paid to watch reality television in his underwear, has been weighing in on the CULTURE WAR brewing on Canadian television sets. What, you didn’t notice there was a CULTURE WAR? You were watching hockey? Well, there’s a CULTURE WAR, and you’re going to sit down and shut up and read all of our articles about it, damnit. The Conservative party are getting in on the CULTURE WAR by picking a fight with those liberal propagandists at the CBC, which is like… well, let’s say we liken the CULTURE WAR to an actual war, such as Star Wars. It would be like if, in the war between the Dark Side and the Rebellion, Darth Vader were picking fights with R2D2. Doyle argues that the CBC, rather than being the super-Liberal propaganda-pieces the Conservatives claim, bend over backwards to be bland, neutral populists. I’m all for any plan that gets “Being Erica” cancelled, though.

• > If you’re from Bay Roberts, Newfoundland, stop reading now: MoneySense came out with their annual ranking of the best places to live in Canada. Go ahead, find out where your craphole city ranked, and then be outraged that you got beat by Oshawa.

#1: Same fascist s**t as usual. What’s next? Emergency services only in French?

#2: We are at war, so we are no longer Peacekeepers. Canada is becoming fertile breeding ground for terrorists, so we can no longer claim the moral high ground in that respect.  Ethnic conflict are rampant in the large urban centres, as various immigrant groups bring their violence and hatred to this country.  Urban ethnic ghettoization is common- the end result of our great cultural diversity experiment.

#3: I haven’t seen the ad but the truth of the matter is blacks simply will never gravitate towards hockey no matter how much the NHL wishes they did (ie: cool factor).

#4: It looks very much like she is part of a larger agenda, something about moslems trying to soften up Canadian officials to get easier treatment in the future.

#5: What can we expect from immigrants from countries that promote genocide, extremism, and aggressive behaviour?

#6: “Canadian” used to mean more than hanging around long enough to get a piece of paper and learning how to sue the government

#7: That’s the thing with the Canadian media, a story is here today and gone tomorrow. And, they never report the race of a suspect either which really bothers me.

#8: You can’t speak English or French? Well too bad loser and don’t think for one minute I support translators being supplied. This is Canada son, so speak the lingo or crawl back to the cess pit you came from.

#9: Does marrying first or 2nd cousins which some Muslims do, bring about a mental illness called terrorism?  Just asking.

#10: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….Canada refuses to learn the hard lessons…….Multiculturalism Does NOT Work!!!!  Just ask the UK and Netherlands!  What in God’s name do we think makes us different in that respect?  I’m a senior citizen, born in this country, proud of Canada’s heritage and would like to see us keep it!  If we keep up with this silliness we’ll have no heritage!!  WAKE UP CANADA!!!

Alright, get yer answers in, read on for the results:

#1: National Post, by Gone South

#2: National Post, by sealy

#3: Stormfront, by European Pride

#4: National Post, by welldoneson

#5: Stormfront, by RELENTLESSWOLF

#6: National Post, by Fred_001

#7: Stormfront, by TemperAlles

#8: Stormfront, by Evil One

#9: National Post, by commentaddict

#10: National Post, by alpha_1

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