Why couldn’t he have said this to someone with more credibility than utter nutbag pat Robertson?

The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, “We’re not going to have any casualties.”

From CNN, by way of This Modern World.

This is kind of sad. I haven’t so much as thought about Doug & The Slugs in 10 years. Too bad this is how I’m reminded of them.

from the Bastards

If I were still a drummer, I’d probably be feeling real, palpable fear just about now. Granted, it can’t possibly provide nuanced playing, but stilll…how long before that’s programmable too? That said, if you can build a robot like this, how hard can it really be to have one that holds a bass/guitar and plucks strings while pressing & bending certain combinations of frets?

And to think…they named it after a god of drumming. It’d be like a guy named Jesus trying to bring down the Catholic church…

Sigh…reminds me of the old joke: “How many drummers does it take to screw in a light bulb? None! They have machines for that now!”

I’m having a hard time choosing who to vote for in the contest of Greatest Canadians. I’ve split the top ten list into 3 groups: “contenders”, “almost contenders” and “no fucking way”.

Contenders: Frederick Banting, Tommy Douglas, Terry Fox, Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Almost contenders: Alexander Graham Bell, Sir John A. Macdonald, David Suzuki and Wayne Gretzky
No fucking way: Don Cherry.

Two things: 1) I’m having a very hard time picking between my top five; 2) Don Cherry…really? You guys? Seriously?

Honestly…does anyone take either the Conservative Party or organized religion seriously anymore?

The more I listen to Ted Leo the more I think he’s going to save rock and roll. I’ll have to go pick up Shake The Streets tomorrow.

Watched a movie yesterday that I’ve been wanting to see since it was at last year’s Film Festival: Baadasssss! (imdb | metacritic). Back then it was called How To Get The Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass, a title I liked much better. Anyhoo…

It was really, really good. Mario Van Peebles played his father Melvin, and another actor played the part of young Mario. It must be weird as an actor doing lines with someone who’s playing you. The story just hammers you over the head with how hard it was to make an indie film in those days (really, indie films didn’t exist), and with the toll it took on Melvin.

Oh, it introduced me to the hottest actress I’ve seen in a long time. My goodness.

One step forward, one step back. Nova Scotia, fresh from legalizing gay marriage, went and voted to continue the ban on Sunday shopping. The premier said he won’t be revisiting this issue for some time.

So let me get this straight: grocery stores, drug stores, convenience stores and movie theatres can open on Sunday. Some stores in Halifax (in the historic properties, a heavy tourist zone) are allowed to open on Sunday. All stores are allowed to open on the 6 Sundays immediately before Christmas. And the Casino Nova Scotia can stay open all year round, even on Christmas Day. Add to this the fact that Nova Scotia’s economy — specifically in the rural areas, who voted “no” — is perpetually in the tank, you’d think people would *want* a chance to earn 16% more income. Furthermore, a good portion of the economy is based on tourism, and tourists are routinely confused by not being allowed to spend their money on certain days of the week.

I don’t understand my people sometimes. Oh well, the MBA prevents me from moving back for at least 6 years anyway. Maybe by then they’ll have woken up.

So, as we’re waiting for friends to show up tonight at the Rebel House we see none other than Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty slide up to the bar (with what appeared to be his family). He and his party were eyeing our mostly vacant table for six, but we gave him a dirty look. If I’m paying a health tax, I’m keeping my table, mofo!

Nellie discovered a new beer tonight — Neustadt 10W30 (yes, it’s named after oil) — which seems to be fairly tricky to find. I guess we need to take a trip down to Queen’s Quay now.

We recently finished watching season 1 of Michael Moore’s old show The Awful Truth. I’d never seen it before, though I’d seen clips (Moore leading the voice-box quior in christmas carols outside of Philip Morris, for example) here and there. It would’ve been a good series to watch, but it was a little too much to take in all at once. I don’t think I’ll bother with season 2.

Around the same time we got the South Park episode “Passion Of The Jew” from Zip. The episode itself wasn’t that great, though it did skewer all the hype around the movie. The real horribly disgusting and wonderful gem on the disc was “Red Hot Catholic Love”. It involves religious hyprocrisy, systemic corruption and defecating from the mouth. It was sick and brilliant and made me laugh my ass off. The last episode where Cartman becomes a Christian pop star was funny too, but just couldn’t compete.

I kick myself for not watching South Park the last few years. I’ll have to rent the DVDs. I’ll also have to watch them myself. My wife? Not really a fan. I can’t imagine why…