Miracles

I love miracles. They happen all the time. They're awesome. When a plane crashes safely in a frozen river, it's a miracle. However, to paraphrase a line from Saved!, seems to me that the miracle they could have used was not having the fucking birds fly into the engine.

The contradiction is obvious, it seems, to everyone but the faithful. There are miracles all the time, but they're rather shitty miracles. Here are some examples:

• A boy is not hit by a stray bullet because a watermelon stopped it. The bible his brother was holding, however, failed to stop same, and his brother was shot. Nevertheless, a miracle.


• A plane crashes and no one dies, because of some kickass flying by the pilot. It was not the pilot who saved them, it was god. Were I the pilot, I'd be pissed.


• Jesus appears in a wet screen door, a pita, a tortilla, a chip, or whatever.

So what happened to burning bushes, fingers of fire, pillars of salt, crowds being struck blind, the death of the first born, various & sundry plagues, parting of seas, staves to snakes, surviving a furnace (and what the hell is with this god and fire?), and walking on water? If god still performs miracles, seems to me he's just phoning it in these days.

God gets credit for all kinds of shit, but it seems to me that people always have to do the heavy lifting.

It's not the band that I hate...

It's a line from an old Sloan song: "It's not the band that I hate, it's their fans..."

This is how I feel about the CPC. It's not the party, it's the conbots. The CPC does what the CPC does, which is anything it thinks it can get away with. I expect most governing parties are the same to some degree. But these guys are good. They can get away with almost anything.

Transparency? I didn't mean US. Jeez!

Accountability? That's for pussies.

Fiscal responsibility? WTF? In this economy? Madness!

Senate reform? Well, I meant more conservatives...

Fixed election dates? Obviously, that only applies to majority governments, not ones that are able to pass legislation with near impunity. Don't be silly.

But the burr in my saddle, the onion in my oinment, the black fly in my chardonnay is the goddamn conbots. The ones that thing the CPC is cool, no matter what it does, how it disagrees with their promises, plans or stated intent, and no matter how detached from reality it might be.

• See? They cut the GST, not like those tax & spend Liberals with their balanced budgets and social programs. Those guys were crazy. But cutting the GST is good for the economy. It increases spending...


• Recession? What recession? That's crazy talk. The fundamentals of the Canadian economy are sound.


• Budget deficits are cool, because we need to keep the economy moving.


• The government should stay out of business. That's why deregulation is a good idea.


• Well of course business can't be trusted to eep their noses clean. That's why there's going to be an inquiry. Someday. Maybe.


• Coalition with the separatists? Treason. In 2003? That was COMPLETELY different. The Liberals were in charge then, and Adscam!

This is called cognitive dissonance. It's not quite a mental illness, but it's close. It's separating your ideology from reality, and it's most evident when dealing with religion. I'd argue that the two are pretty closely related.

Charlie and Lucy

It's been a month. I know. Sue me. It's amazing what an ridiculous personal schedule, a debilitating illness and existential angst can do to a person's get up and go. I spent most of the last four weeks coping. So you can, too.

I saw something funny on the news the other day. I mean besides the no-good-guys carnage in the middle east, the idea that we are prosecuting a Canadian soldier for killing an unarmed Afghan civilian when hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians have died because we invaded, and the continuing faux-sheepishness of Dubya. This was also aside from the continuing media presence of Palin and her "you guys screwed me" tour, and Coren's constant bitching about the liberal media. On the media. On four different media.

It was this:

Harper pushes for co-operation on upcoming budget

And why not? He's such a nice guy.

THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL – Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered his political rivals an olive branch today as he dialed down last month's heated parliamentary rhetoric and promised a conciliatory approach to a coming federal budget aimed at helping the ailing economy.

The friendly, co-operative tone came as a new poll suggested a resurgent Liberal party under new leader Michael Ignatieff, who was himself pledging to hold the governing Conservatives to account with a pre-budget wish list of his own.

"Now is the time for everybody...to try and reach consensus if that's possible, but especially to try and work together – federally, provincially, internationally, across party lines – to deal with the problems that everybody knows are urgent and large," Harper said.

I laughed out loud, because I thought I heard heard that before.

Harper's promises to be nice and play well with others remind me of Lucy's football stunt with Charlie Brown. Everyone knows she's gonna yank that ball away, and everyone knows that Harper's gonna pull some asshole stunt at the first opportunity, because that's just the way he is.

January 27. Mark my words. Watch the hilarity ensue.