The internet is really, really great. For porn.

Your Government advertises on porn sites. The Liberals are outraged. Also, there are naked ladies on the computer-machines, and you should be outraged.

That’s the storyline, but let’s break it down.

First of all, by “Government”, we mean the two saddest little lumps of apathetic-shrugs that make up your tax dollars this side of the CBC: Canada Post and the National Film Board. The former was used in the 1950s for grandmothers to send birthday cards, and the latter made that Log Driver’s Waltz cartoon several decades ago and is still being paid for it. Both institutions, clearly, are in need of some wisely-targeted advertising. What do Canada Post customers and NFB customers (old people without e-mail addresses, and weird jobless film-studies graduates, respectively) have in common?

They must fucking love porn.

Second of all, what do we mean by “porn sites”? (Because I have no idea what these things are.) Well, let’s go to the breathlessly offended Liberal press release on the topic, which is pretty infuriating when you read through it.

For starters, the headline of the press release – citing “Natalie Portman’s perfect little booty” – is pretty fucking lewd for a press release that goes on a strong anti-porn bend. The only supposed porn site mentioned in the Libs press release, HollywoodTuna.com, is blatantly NOT a porn site if you actually visit it: just a blog with, well, a bunch of fully clothes actresses, being hot. The sites mentioned in the Sun article linked up top are photography sites which happen to have a handful of artistic nude shots. So we’ve established that “Government” means “Two public corporations and not the government itself”, and “Porn sites” means “Not porn sites”. Anything else wrong with the sentence “Government advertises itself on porn sites”?

Well, how about the notion that anyone actually hand-picked these sites to advertise on. If you know how Google AdWords/AdSense work – Lord knows I do, CHECK OUT THE FINELY TARGETED PRODUCT TO YOUR RIGHT – you know that you don’t choose sites to advertise on, you choose keywords to advertise with.

This isn’t 1987. Eaton’s doesn’t call up a billboard owner to put up an ad for their new Betamax decks on a certain billboard for a certain timeframe at a fixed price. If you’re an advertiser, you pick keywords related to your business – for Canada Post, let’s say, “deliver +Vancouver +night”. If you’re a red-blooded male on the internet and the site you’re looking at has the text “Watch this Vancouver hottie, she’ll deliver her goods all night long” – then Google will classify it as relevant, and will throw a Canada Post banner ad across the header. It’s Google’s job to make sure they don’t advertise on porn sites, though.

And they do that job well, because – as mentioned – the sites above aren’t porn.

Look, I’m no Conservative cheerleader, but this is a non-story on every possible level. Would any Liberals who don’t understand how web advertising works like to step up and piss me off more? The floor recognizes Ruby Dhalla:

“The Conservatives are also paying for Google Adwords, so that whenever someone searches for the sexy female leads in the James Bond movies, for example, a government ad pops up,” said Ms. Dhalla

Hey, maybe the National Film Board was advertising using the name of Hollywood actresses because THEY’RE A FILM STUDIO, THEY MAKE FILMS, ACTRESSES ARE 100% RELATED TO THE FILM INDUSTRY.

JESUS CHRIST.

ANYONE OFFENDED BY THIS STORY IS SO DUMB. THEY ARE REALLY DUMB.

Honestly Angelo, I give your plot a B+ for believability but a D for creativity

First, read the article written by this no-name, editorial-page space-filler, Angelo Persichilli, a man who makes up for his silly name with a God-given knack for juicy gossip! And by “juicy gossip”, I mean “making up shit”.

The premise of this world-exclusive scoop is that Bob Rae, Ruby Dhalla, Carolyn Bennett (who FOLLOWS MAPLERAG ON TWITTER, so, no rude things to say) and Glen Pearson met at the chic Chateau Laurier and plotted treason against their leader over cocktails. This would sure be big news, if it were true at all! Problem is, both Rae and Bennett have come out as basically saying “everything this Angelo guy says is one gigantic lie”.

Here’s Carolyn’s letter that she sent directly to the Star!

‘I was a participant in the conversation Mr. Persichilli’s [sic] cites in his Dec. 6 column. He was not. I participated in a conversation about ensuring that Michael Ignatieff becomes the next Prime Minister of Canada. The column is a fiction of the columnist’s own device. He has done himself serious damage as a political commentator.’

Yeah, good luck getting that printed, the Star letters-to-the-editor page has a pretty strict policy that filters out anything that isn’t 83-year-old hippies complaining about potholes on their suburban cul-de-sac/kids these days/the shame that Stephen Harper brings them.

Now, look back at Angelo’s column – and I’m calling him Angelo from now on, I’m not gonna be arsed to copy and paste his vowel-filled surname again – and you’ll notice that it’s oddly specific for a conversation that he wasn’t part of, and that wasn’t overheard by any reporters, and that probably didn’t exist. Angelo has concocted a thrilling narrative of direct quotes, actions, emotions and characters, given that he’s describing something that happened purely within his realm of imagination.

Here’s our own 100% true editorial response! Everything I’m about to say is as verifiable and factual as anything written in Angelo’s column:

On the morning of Sunday, December 6th, a man named Angelo needed to think of something to fill space in his important, widely-respected Toronto Star column. Angelo Persichilli was a horrible gremlin of a man, standing a mere three feet tall, living inside a dank, foul-smelling cavern within the labyrinthine basement of the Toronto Star building. As he chewed his fingernails, he came across an idea: what if a coup was being staged within the Liberal party ranks? O, what a spectacular story that would make! Angelo set to work: he looked into his desk drawer and came across four musty sweatsocks. He fashioned the socks with crude googly-eyes and smiles, and as he crouched behind his desk, he created an elaborate puppet show. He imagined that he was in a world of mystical fantasy, where four Liberal MPs had gathered to pound Jagermeister shots and stage an act of treason against their leader, setting the stage for a full-scale Liberal party revolt. Angelo cackled with glee at the spectacle, as he forced the puppets to recite dire-sounding quotes about Michael Ignatieff’s leadership qualities. He quickly transcribed the sock puppet conversation into his notepad, then sent the hastily-scribbled article to his editor. “I have a scoop! I hear Ruby Dhalla, and Bob Rae, and they were talking, oh, the things they said, I hear them all!” he croaked with glee, as he pranced merrily through the halls, sock puppets still on his hands.

CAN I HAVE ANGELO PERSICHILLI’S PULITZER IF HE DOESN’T WANT IT?