Riccochets

It is here by popular demand, and by popular, I got one e-mail asking to see this video online.

There is a video out there on the internet that is very famous as being the sickest goddamn thing you can ever see. I'm going to spell it out, because I don't really want the traffic that would bring.... let's call it

T-W-O G-I-R-L-S O-N-E C-U-P

Yes, that video. I've seen it. It is gross. Very gross. So gross that it inspired a response, followed by many.

That is the riccochet. This video was originally posted to promote a pornographic movie. After going through the mass filter of the interweb, a popular trend emerged.

Show the sick video to friends and loved ones, and tape their response. It is safe to watch at work, and doesn't show any sick stuff. Just people being grossed out, which is good clean fun for all.

You have to love a medium that can reform a concept like that into something like this.

My favourite hip-hop group, the one and one and one and only hip-hop band The Roots gathered around the computer to watch the video. Kermit the Frog has a famous response up there as well, but Kermit, well, Kermit has strange tastes.

So, me being a bit of a sadist, showed that infamous video to my lovely partner, taped her response, and put it up here for us all to enjoy. She does say a few bad words though, but you would too:

Give a hoot, or get hurt

More PEI goodness.

This from www.cbc.ca/pei

A 21-year-old Summerside man landed in the hospital early Wednesday morning after he fell out of a moving vehicle.

RCMP said the man was a passenger in a van coming home from a beach party in Chelton, between Summerside and Borden. Police said he opened the van door to throw away a beer bottle and fell onto the road.

He suffered major injuries to his feet and head and remains in hospital. RCMP said he wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

The incident is under investigation and charges may be laid.

Send in the public relations department

Thank goodness for the good PR people at my employer. They put out a press release detailing something I think is a big deal.

If you live in Manitoba or west of there, and use Shaw Cable to get your TV, your listings for APTN are three hours off. We give them a western feed, they refuse to use it.

This is where I would start a nasty rant, but seeing as I am employed by said broadcaster, and work in news, it isn't very professional for me to go off like nuts.

Our PR department put out a press release, and as they are the one paid to speak for the network, here is what they had to say:

APTN ADVISORY:
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THE APTN BROADCAST
SIGNAL AND SCHEDULING IN THE WESTERN PROVINCES

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) would like to alert its viewers in the
western provinces to recent changes in service delivery which may be causing
discrepancies with posted scheduling information.

On October 2, 2006, APTN launched a third dedicated broadcast feed to better
accommodate its viewers in the western provinces. The new time-delayed west feed
(based on Pacific Time rather than Eastern Time) was implemented by APTN to ensure
that its programming is seen at appropriate times across the country. This enhancement also facilitated the planned addition of unique programming, more relevant to viewers in the western region.

APTN has made every reasonable effort to inform cable and satellite providers serving
the western provinces of these enhancements and has made numerous requests that
they discontinue use of the APTN East signal and instead provide the more appropriate
APTN West signal to viewers situated west of the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border.

Although some cable providers have accommodated this request, unfortunately, Shaw
Communications, the company that is accountable to APTN’s principal western viewers
stated that as of April, 2008 it would switch all of its systems to the APTN East Feed,effectively discontinuing the West Feed service that it had started to carry in some of its markets.

Because the APTN West feed is the appropriate feed for the western provinces,
scheduling information is distributed to service providers, on-line and print publications BASED ON THE WEST FEED. This has resulted in a three-hour discrepancy in
scheduling information for viewers in the west who are currently receiving the incorrect East broadcast signal.

APTN regrets any inconvenience to affected viewers and encourages them to contact
their cable/satellite provider directly if they are currently experiencing these scheduling issues. Viewers are also encouraged to obtain updated scheduling information directly from the APTN website.

A political endorsement

Although no one will care, and it will not make a difference as I am

1 - Canadian
2 - As far away from America as you can get and still be in Canada
3 - Not a voter



I am officially endorsing Barack Obama in his bid to become President of our neighbours to the far south. What did Senator Obama have to do to become the officially endorsed candidate of yours truly....

Wasn't much really, he just had to not be the other guy...



Do not let his kindly old man schtick fool you. This man is the Devil. Not like in the Satan kind of way, but in the way that The Waterboy's Mom called everyone the Devil.... Dick Clark for example.



I was frightened enough by his belief that the war in Iraq could go on 100 years, but this is what really made me think. Move On.org (hardly unbiased, but they do have John Cusack) put out this list. Click here for footnotes.

Here are 10 things you likely didn't know about John McCain (with footnotes):



1 - John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1

Why do we never see photos of Dr. King smiling by the way.... I bet he did a lot.



2 -According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."2

Buchanan worked for Nixon.... he would know.



His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3

You'd think that getting beaten half to death and suffering in Vietnam would give a guy some empathy...



McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."4

Here is a hint... NEVER search Roe Vs Wade on Google Images.



The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.5

Kids with guns, another Google Image no no no.



He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.6



Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."7

These people who sit with Ted Kennedy, day after day, getting a chill over someone's temper.



McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8



McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."9



He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.10

There you go. Vote for Barack Obama my American friends, he isn't the other guy.

I also endorse Arrowroot Cookies, Battlestar Galactica and Grover of the Muppets.

New Music

Andrew Scott may be the most underrated drummer in Canada, but don't you just want to wipe the smirk off of Murphy's face... the hard way.

Two quick ones for yas. Weezer and Sloan both have new albums, check out some quick clips I ripped off from the Globe and Mail:

OK, I can't link to the clips, due to their Adobe player and my utter futility at doing anything on the internet that I hadn't perfect before 2003.



But go here and see for yourself.

I'm liking the Sloan one, seems they have scaled back their sound a little.

"I don't want no po-lice
I don't want no po-lice"

In music related news, Alianait has Dave Bidini... cool.

To celebrate my 101st post

I thought I would combine two of the geekiest things I can think of, LOLCats and Battlestar Galactica... courtesy of the obsessed at www.scifi.com/battlestar

When bad things happen to bad people

Bridgette Bardot was the first wrongheaded celebrity to oppose the seal hunt....

What goes around comes around... from the Associated Press:

PARIS, France (AP) -- A Paris court on Tuesday convicted Brigitte Bardot of provoking discrimination and racial hatred for writing that Muslims are destroying France.

The court also handed down a $23,325 fine against the former screen siren and animal rights campaigner.

A leading French anti-racism group known as MRAP filed a lawsuit last year over a letter she sent to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The remarks were published in her foundation's quarterly journal.

In the December 2006 letter to Sarkozy, now the president, Bardot said France is "tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts."

She was referring to the Muslim feast of Aid el-Kebir, celebrated by slaughtering sheep.

French anti-racism laws prevent inciting hatred and discrimination on racial or religious or racial grounds. Bardot had been convicted four times previously for inciting racial hatred.

Keep your head down

For the other Northern reporters on the blogs, here is a face you may recognize (if it wasn't for the pixelation which makes her look like she is in witness protection):



Katherine O'Neill (nee Harding... always wanted to use a nee) handles much of the northern coverage for the Globe and Mail, and she is blogging now...

from Afghanistan.

You can read her gifted prose over here:

Stay safe Katherine, I haven't lost a Facebook friend to war yet and I don't plan on starting with you... besides, without you I would again be the most hated reporter in a small hamlet that shall remain nameless.

Mea Culpa

This is a great case of reporter correcting a mistake in as big a font they made it in, regardless if the error is their fault or the fault of bad information.

The Charlottetown Guardian reported on the axe weilding incident I posted about earlier. Following the publication of that story, their comments section was filled, including one well written post from a young woman who was on the bus. She told a different version than the one provided by the police.

Now the police are changing their story, and the reporter has to wear it... and she does, while pointing out that the mistake wasn't just hers. The mighty fire axe scandal continues to fill up a news vacuum on PEI.

And watch the police blame the school board... behind political patronage and 100 per cent hindsight, finger pointing may be the third strongest PEIism.

Here is the story:

Police start from scratch in axe probe
TERESA WRIGHT
The Guardian

City police are “starting from scratch’’ in their investigation of last week’s incident on a P.E.I. school bus in which one student tried to strike another with the emergency fire axe, after some information initially reported publicly has been challenged.

Deputy Chief Richard Collins told The Guardian Monday some of the details originally released by the Eastern School District last week have since been contradicted by parents of children on board the bus at the time — as well as some of the students themselves.

This led to Collins giving the media reports last week on the incident that may not have been exactly as they occurred, he said Monday.

“The information that we were given on Friday was information that was afforded us by a representative of the Eastern School District,’’ Collins said.

“That information was very cryptic, very sparse. But it was information we felt was part of their investigation of this whole incident and what they were doing internally as a school district involving these kids.’’

Since then, parents of one of the students have contacted police with another take on the events that occurred on the Eastern School District bus last Wednesday.
It all started when a 17-year-old male student was hit by styrofoam Nerf darts thrown by some other students.

On Friday, Collins told The Guardian he believed this student felt he was being bullied by two students throwing the darts.

Then one of them stood up to collect their darts.

“He apparently went back and threw that student to the floor of the bus. Another student intervened and allegedly punched him,’’ Collins said in an interview last Friday.

That’s when he went to the front of the bus, grabbed the axe and started toward the back of the bus.

But parents of one of the two implicated as the dart throwers have since come forward, telling police their son was an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire.

“What the parents are saying is — ‘No, what happened is the dart was shot, my son had picked up the dart and was bringing it back to the rear of the bus when for some reason the guy with the axe saw him . . . grabbed him and threw him to the floor,’’ Collins told The Guardian Monday.

“There is an assumption that their son was a bully or one of the bullies that started this whole thing unfolding.’’

It was also initially reported by the Eastern School District that the student with the axe walked toward the back of the bus and lifted the weapon in preparation to hit the boy with the axe’s wooden handle.

Now, a number of eyewitnesses are saying he was actually holding the axe as someone would when going to chop wood.

Collins said police are now going back and revisiting all details before making any decisions on charges.

“I’m not totally happy with the way this unfolded from our perspective. We were afforded very sketchy information on Friday.’’

Police were not formally involved until Friday morning, and were given very little information to go on, Collins said. They were given only the name of one person involved — the student who had the axe.

“We never even had the names of the other students involved in this altercation on the bus. We didn't know about it until well after it happened. I’m not trying to be critical here, but I really think any information that was given by them should have been exact, should have been detailed and should have been substantiated. Because today we find ourselves starting from scratch because we had nothing.’’

When contacted for comment on the issue, Eastern School District superintendent Sandy MacDonald said he is not handling this file.

It’s in the hands of Eastern School District’s director of student services Adrian Smith, who was out of his office Monday. MacDonald was surprised police would be upset by the process followed in this incident.

Listed'ed

Nailed.... my ability to rant about PEI politics without the glare of fellow Islanders is over.

I've been listed at www.peiblogs.com

Shit, I even went and voted, giving myself 10 stars.... after reading that Clinton article, I thought I was entitled to a little hubris.

Now that I am recognized, I want a column in The Guardian... if Todd MacLean can have one... (I kid, Todd is the man).

The part that is driving me nuts is that you can read every word of my blog on their site.. it captures this here and puts it up there.

HEY LAZY PEIBLOG.COM READING JERKS, CLICK ON OVER HERE AND LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL FORMAT AND COOL ASS HEADER PHOTO.

The Comeback Id

“I don’t think I should take any shit from anybody on that, do you?”
-- Former President William Jefferson Clinton

Great article in Vanity Fair (click above for the link)on Bill Clinton's post-presidential career, and how do you control a force of nature prone to hubris and lapses of judgement.

They get into how his temper fuels Hillary, his association with Belinda Stronach, and Canadian mining firms.

For Democratic self abuse, take this quote:

“The ills of the Democratic Party can be seen perfectly in the willingness of fellow Democrats to say bad things about President Clinton. If you ask any Republican about Reagan they will say he still makes the sun rise in the morning, but if you ask Democrats about their only two-term president in 80 years, a man who took the party from the wilderness of loserdom to the White House and created the strongest economy in American history, they’d rather be quoted saying what a reporter wants to hear than protect a strong brand for the party. Republicans look at this behavior and laugh at us.”

Lots of allegations of womanizing as well.. a good read from beginning to end.