Friday, May 6, 2011

Week in Review - Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut

I've been very America-centric in this weekly round-up thus far, which I loathe in the news in general, so taking a cue from my foreign readers, I'm going global:

Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party won handily in Monday's election in Canada.  Evidently, the Liberal party imploded, leaving the New Democrat Party to surge into the opposition position for the first time.  And the Quebecoise just fell apart.  Duh.  Be separatist and hateful on your own time, buddies.  In more positive news, Elizabeth May was elected Canada's first ever Green Party MP.  Awesome!

Pope Uncle Fester beatified Pope John Paul II.  Fine and dandy, whatever, fastest path to sainthood.  My thing is, how is Mother Theresa not a saint yet? SHE CLEANED LEPERS.  Hands down, most saintly thing ever.

Investigators finally found both black boxes from Air France Flight 447 that crashed into the ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris two years ago.  The flight's systems evidently failed before it fell, in one piece, into the ocean.  Finding the boxes will help investigators figure out what, exactly, happened.  Horrible, but hopefully this will offer some closure.

In  Complete Opposite Land from the US, both geographically and in intent, Australia's budget is taking $200 million and creating a windfall for education and teachers, specifically for children with disabilities. Unlike America, where we are STILL CUTTING school budgets,
"This is an important new investment; $200 million is a lot of money,'' said the Prime Minister.
"And we are investing it in a tight Budget because we recognise that there is nothing more important for the nation's future than what happens in schools today.  And we want to make sure that every child in every school gets a great education.''
 Huh.  Wouldn't that be nice?

In Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden was killed by a US attack. I was surprised when the husband told me, mostly because I was asleep and he woke me up, and for the first few minutes I thought he was telling me that Saddam Hussein was dead [because like Dick Cheney & George Bush, I think they're the same], which duh, I knew, and then for some reason I was thinking about Arrested Development, and then I finally put it together.  And then I turned on the tv and was . . . weirded out to see all the college kids cheering in the streets. Did they think we won a National Championship? I found it unseemly.  Celebrate, but not like you're at Mardi Gras.

Remember Libya? And how stuff is going on there? Bloody, violent stuff?  Even Qaddafi's erstwhile regional compatriot the Prime Minister of Turkey has said that he needs to step down. Dude, JUST GO. This is not going to end well for you.  

And finally, evidently Obama kicked ass at the White House Correspondents Dinner [You Tube Link]. I didn't actually watch, but did follow along on Twitter, which is where I get most of my information.  Shut up, so do you.  Anyway, he took aim at Fox, Birthers, Trump, all manners of idiocy.  Refreshing.  Particularly the Kenyan Muslin birth video. 


What did I miss? 

19 comments:

  1. Oh sorry, I'll come back later.

    xxx

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  2. You know, I"m with you.

    That chest bumping in front of the white house....all kinds of wrong.

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  3. Where is the news about Justin Beiber cutting his hair and the media is worried he may lose fans?!

    Love reading your blog :)

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  4. I agree, way too much celebrating going on. A guy walked up to my mom the morning after and said "Ahhh, it's a good day to be an American, isn't it?". My mom was like "Um...yeah?"

    Meanwhile, I also agree about Mother Theresa. People for realz need to start praying harder to her so she can get a miracle or two under her belt.

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  5. Aw, the canadian election. I hardly cared, but you mentioning it warmed my cockles just the same. Separatist jerks can SUCK IT! Why, why, why don't people like Obama? In Canada we all freaked out when the hillbilly left the white house, and STILL nobody can be satisfied? But there are a lot of people with, erm, poor judgement on things, like my ding dong Aunt who thinks it's good the rich don't get taxed as much (as they ought, in the US), because they're the ones who are fueling the economy. Isn't that SUPER DUPER? She also makes an atrocious cheesecake. And randomly prays over peoples heads.

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  6. So everyone on the planet is now BFFs right? Oh wait, you mean the death of Bin Laden DIDN'T bring about sudden, total world peace? We aren't living in Utopia? I'm so over the saturation of the media and how they pick apart every. little. thing.

    Ugh.

    Um...you didn't mention Mimi gave birth after two years of being pregnant. Kidding. It's kind of funny that she had babies but the event was usurped by the news of OBL.

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  7. You pretty much covered it all. I think Obama made fun of Trump too and he wasn't too amused. I heard it was classic.

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  8. no shame in getting news from Twitter. I do to, then I confirm it by watching Jon Stewart. Dying to watch the Obama corresp. speech, but will have to be another day.

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  9. as i said all over when the OBL thing went down, i didn't really mind the in-the-moment pep rally thing. a lot of those kids had just, for lack of a better description, seen their boogeyman killed.

    but the next morning? the boo-rah stuff from serious adults? all kinds of distasteful, to say the least.

    the boyfriend had a great line about the liberal party: "wow. now we know where all the US democratic strategists from the 2008 election ended up: working for the canadian liberals. and they had the same smashing success."

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  10. in southern portions of the country it was declared that it's okay to wear white before memorial day.

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  11. "be separatist and hateful on your own time" - TELL me about it. Although the NDP university student who got elected in Quebec and doesn't speak French? It's like people went to the election centres and closed their eyes before voting. It's enough to make you throw up your hands and go watch The Vampire Diaries.

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  12. Who needs the 6 o'clock news when we've got you! I'm with you: it's hightime the Separatists got what was coming!

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  13. I think celebrating the way we did was out of hand. Anyone who watched those towers go down is aware of what a good day it was to know that evil and hate is gone from. The world, but we also know that evil still exists and more work to do as human beings.

    Happy Saturday sweets!!!!!!!

    Oh those quips from the cor dinner.....I laughed and giggled and wanted to elbow the Donald ....gosh I really don't like him! ;)

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  14. My husband was so offended about the overt celebrating.

    And the correspondent's dinner? I wish I was there. Isn't it funny that Obama had this whole Special Ops thing going on with Bin Laden and is all, ha! ha! Mahalo everyone! I'm going to play golf tomorrow! Mr. President has his poker face down pat. I'd be sweating and pacing like a mad woman.

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  15. Okay, I'm *so* glad you were weirded out by the cheering in the streets following Bin Laden's death. I'm not feeling the Mardi Gras/Parade element to that particular news item.

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  16. Yeah, the education bit. Wouldn't that be nice. I would love to see some of our priorities in this here country to shift.

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  17. You had me at "Pope Uncle Fester."

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  18. I totally agree that Mother Theresa should be a saint before another man gets in the club.

    The military should hold a bake sale to buy a bomber and the schools should get all they need.

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  19. The Osama thing wasn't convenient for me. We had to totally redo the next day's newspaper. I hope the next despot is taken out earlier - like in the last morning or early afternoon, preferably when I'm not working.

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Every time you comment, I get a lady boner.