If you're a poor African country, this is the teller's window for aid from Canada - closed. Firmly. Same deal if you're looking for Canada's intellectual, policy, and financial commitments to countering global warming. Gotta love the nitwits in the Conservative party.

For all you folks not citizens of the Great White North, this is our current Big Story. We have, at the moment, a Prime Minister who is an incompetent Bush-wannabe (Sorry. I realize I'm being redundant, and that the terms are synonymous - "Bush", "incompetent", but...) and unfit to govern. He seems to have forgotten that less than 35% of Canadians actually want him to lead the country, that the remaining 65% wanted someone else, and insists that he has "the power". That he would use that term - "power" - rather than "privilege" - instantly demonstrates his lack of understanding of the democratic process. The power lies with the voters, the citizens of the country, not the person they elect. We give people the responsibility, the honour, the privilege of governing. We also have the power to revoke that privilege. Smirkin' Steve has proven that he doesn't deserve it.

The good thing in this story is Ms. Jean's actions. Much as I would love to see The Smirk booted back to the Lone Prairie from which he comes, where he'd be forced to indulge in daily rounds of self-flagellation, she's actually done the right thing. Her job (or the job of whoever is Governor General at any given time) is to act as a buffer, someone who will prevent extreme swings in the governance of the country, someone who will act in such a way as to allow time for reflection on the part of those who (supposedly) govern.

And then, come January, we can send Smirk packin', 'cause you can bet he won't learn a thing from what anyone with an ounce of intelligence would take as a huge self-inflicted humiliation.

How can that kid run in those heels?

Maybe she feels Smirkin' Steve and his Cretinous Party breathing down her neck. I'm sooooooooo depressed. Not to mention embarrassed. This is the guy who wants to put 14-year-olds in jail for life, tax the poor and give to the rich, privatise healthcare, make abortion illegal...and yet, my fellow Canadians are re-electing him! Granted, in typical Canadian fashion, the cause for celebration is, um, dubious. But still...

Please America! Elect Obama! Please don't force me to turn to heavy drinking and Prozac!

Say...speaking of heavy drinking...I was in my local wine emporium this evening, picking up a couple of bottles, and overheard a woman grilling one of the clerks on which beers had preservatives in them. Now, I could be wrong, but I'm guessing that she was worried about the potential health effects of said nasty preservatives. It was all I could do not to wander up to her and point out that a) alcohol, a key ingredient in beer, is a preservative, b) it's also a sterilizing agent, and c) it's a poison! What could anyone possibly add to that? God, I love stupid people!

We're baa-aa-ck.

So, the file name for this shot is "wake up". Darned appropriate in this election season, wouldn't you say? To begin...

Americans - any of you thinking even slightly of voting for John McBush - wake the fuck up! Your country, thanks to Bush and his fellow Republican cretins, is in the toilet. Monetarily, morally, and any other way you want to look at it. These creeps have gotten as close to destroying your country as it's possible to get without actually doing it. And, trust me, the data's not all in yet on that - it's just possible that they have, in fact, destroyed America. Worried about Osama? Get a grip. He's got nothing on these weasels.

Meanwhile, here in Canada, my home and native land, the situation's almost as dire. People are actually thinking about voting Ref......er.....Canadian Allia......damn!....Conservative. Talk about cretins! These doofuses can't even come up with a creepy plan of their own - they have to imitate Republicans. Life sentences for 14 year olds! Who's dimwit idea was that? Global warming isn't real! Yep, they've got the finest "scientific" minds available working for them. And I particularly love this! The party has realized that their own leader is such a vile slug that they're advising him to shut up totally between now and the election. Yep, that's what you want in a nation's leader - a guy too stupid, or slimey, or whatever it is his own party thinks is his problem, to allow him to speak in public.

Golly, I feel much better being back at this.

O.K., America, time to save Canada. Well, one Canadian, at least. Now, you may think this odd, but our Prime Minister called an election this past Sunday, and it's going to happen before your Presidential election (Yep. One of the strengths of our system is that we don't have to listen to a year or more of crap from politicians before we're forced to vote for one of them.). The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure my fellow Canadians will elect the Smirk-Who-Would-Be-Bush and his odious Ref....er...Canadian Allia.....um, er,....Conservative party to a majority. When that happens, I'm going to go out and buy a crate of the finest scotch I can afford and drink myself senseless. How, you ask, can America help? Please - oh, have mercy! - please don't elect John McBush president when you finally, after months of agony, get to vote. I'm begging you.

Here in Canada it seems we're still facing the question - what, oh lord, did we do to deserve a moron like this as our Minister of Health? And why, oh why, is it only the good that die young? Couldn't the criminally stupid get culled sooner, too?

Lordy, I hope the saying, "Only the good die young" isn't true. The signs, I have to admit, aren't looking good. How old is Henry Kissinger? How old was Augusto Pinochet when he died? Dick Cheney seems to be hanging in pretty nicely. Nevertheless, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Tony Clement - our very own Health Mangler - will be the exception. Yep, science isn't good enough for him; the law isn't good enough for him - nope. Only God's will that these hideous addicts burn in hell is good enough for a staunch representative of the Refor...er....Canadian Allian.....er, um.......Cons.....no, um, er, um.......Christian Cretin Party.

On the other hand, his continued existence, and that of his compatriots in cretinism, is at least proof of the non-existence of god. Any god worth his/her/its salt would have "called" these pinheads "home" a long, long time ago.

Charming spring flowers. Flowers, as I'm sure you know, are all about sex. Something that, luckily the Harper government is unaware of. I'm sure that if they knew, Agent Orange would be falling from the sky, rather than spring showers.

Another proud day for Canada under the leadership of Smirkin' Steve and the fabulously intellectually-challenged Stockwell Dumb.

Don't get me started on the idiotic tax cuts. Just don't.

Ah, at last I can stop relying on Dumbya for stupidity and get my supply locally. Well, from Ottawa, at least. Not exactly "local" for someone who lives on the west coast, but... Yep, Smirkin' Steve and His Sons of the Stupid have decided to persecute the already persecuted. To pick on the lowest of the low, the junkies. Canada is about to "get tough on drugs". Oh, boy. And, on the off chance that you missed this little extra bit of moronic irony, who's announcing our new national intent to pick on the sick? Our justice minister, Bouncing Bob Nicholson? Nope. How about our minister for foreign affairs, the ever-popular Pusillanimous Pete Mackay, who might at least have the excuse of kow-towing to Dumbya? Nope. Come on, think. This is the Ref..., er, Canadian Al....., oops, the Conservative party, remember? So, who would you least expect to announce a crackdown on some of Canada's most unfortunate, least healthy citizens? Yep - our health minister, Tony (The Enforcer) Clement. "How dare these people be sick on my watch?!? How dare these people pick an addiction not sanctioned by billions of dollars of advertising (and kickbacks to, um....well, you know who) from the alcohol and tobacco industries? I'll show these swine!" Go, Tony, go. I mean it. As far away from here as you can possibly get. Please. I'll buy your ticket. Just name a destination and promise never to come back.

It's just so humiliating to think that this guy is helping ru(i)n my country.