Ottawa (The Skwib) — Canadian voters yearning for intelligent debates of serious issues are going to be sadly disappointed this election.

But Canadian television viewers are in for a treat, as the four major parties and five television networks have agreed to new formats for four televised debates.

The first debate will be modeled after the inexplicably popular reality TV show, Fear Factor, and will be moderated by the host of Fear Factor, Joe Rogan. The only major departure from that show is there will be no water-based stunts for the leaders to engage in.

When asked why, the producers of the first debate said, “Dude, nobody wants to see Paul Martin in a Speedo.” Instead of money, the winner of the first debate is allowed to keep one other leader out of the second debate.

That will be a real disadvantage for that leader, as the second and third debates will have the same format, and not getting a chance to learn the ropes in the second will doubtless hinder his performance in the third.

These debates will be more traditional in that the leaders will have to answer questions about their party platforms — the difference? The moderator and a select group of Canadian voters will get to pelt the contestants leaders with wet sponges, cream pies and in the third debate, live hamsters.

The fourth debate will be moderated by William Shatner, and is modeled after the episode of Star Trek (the original series) where Kirk and Spock were forced to fight four of the most evil humanoids of all time, with only the help of Surek and Abe Lincoln. The networks have not yet announced who will be playing Kirk, Spock, Surek and Lincoln.

The Green Party has already announced that they will NOT be filing a law suit on this one.

Inspired by:
Format changed for election debates

Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

• English establishment = Yahoos

On Religion

• enough religion to make us hate
• not enough to make us love one another.

A Modest Proposal (1729)

• too many poor Irish
• sell poor babies to rich
• yes, as food.

On Human Nature

• Men are content to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.
• Man is not rational – merely capable of it.

On Government

• without the Consent of the Governed, Government is the very Definition of Slavery
• in Fact, Eleven Men well armed, will certainly subdue one single man in his Shirt.

On Law

• Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

On Satire

• mankind’s virtues –> counted upon a few fingers
• his follies and vices are innumerable –> time adds hourly to the heap.

“SATIRE is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”

Inspired by:
Jonathan Swift’s Birthday (Nov. 30, 1667)

Yesterday the Bonfire of the Vanities, hosted by Sean Gleeson, picked up one of our Beijing Olympic mascot bits, amongst other posts that should have been torched. (Sort of — it’s always amusing to read people with a self-depricating sense of humor.)

Today we’ve got the Tangled Bank, which is a collection of science-related posts and well worth a visit. Also, the Carnival of the Campaigns and later today, the Carnival of the Vanities.

The Irony Police charged Martin with an ‘unintional irony misdemeanor’ after a speech at the National Congress of Chinese Canadians

Now that Dr. Tundra has gotten his wish for a Schadenfreude-y Christmas, the rest of us at The Skwib have decided to expand our normal offerings to include a more in-depth look at the Federal election campaign. Naturally, we thought it only fair that Dr. Tundra should provide the coverage. He begins this onerous task by examining some of the opening words of the campaign.

Metaphor as mixed as my ‘medication’ file

The Conservative leader Stephen Carper set forth on the high road, saying that the Liberals would run a negative campaign: “by spreading fear, by spreading lies” but in the end, he predicted, his party will win because: “hope beats fear 90 percent of the time.”

Unless, of course, hope is out having dinner:

“It’s like a thief who cries ‘Fire!’ in a crowded restaurant so that when no one is looking, he can clean out the cash register.”

“Ambition has overwhelmed common sense.”

Has Mr. Dithers hit the nail on the head with this pithy gem? Replace the word “ambition” with “greed”, and we have a fair description of the Liberal Party, n’est pas?

More information than we need file

“I think it’s very clear that the Liberals have not earned people’s votes. It’s the New Democrats who, with a small caucus, have shown what can be done.”

Yes, it IS clear that Mr. Layabout has a serious case of member (of parliament) envy. However, he believes that he has proved the old maxim, it’s not the size, it’s what you do with it. To paraphrase the confused Mr. Carper, in this issue, I believe hope denies reality 90 percent of the time.

Happy campaign trails! I’m off to follow the Carper campaign tomorrow.
Dr. Tundra

You don’t know what out of order is! I’d show you, but I’m too old, I’m too tired, I’m too freakin’ insane. If I were half the primate I was five years ago, I’d take a flamethrower to the place! Out of order? Who the hell do you think you’re talkin’ to? I’ve been around, you know–

Scent of a woman, right?

Yeah. Like my Pacino? Whoo-ah. Hah!

Seriously though, flamethrower IS one option. If you’ve got a problem with a whole system, fixing it is often harder than razing it to the ground and starting again.

Still, you may have some attachment to your quaint parliamentary “democracy”, and wish to update it for the new millennium. Have you thought about abolishing political parties and forcing the unaffiliated delegates (MPs, in your case) to vote in a Prime Minister and ruling cabinet?

Or you could go the route of Planet Maxicon, where the elected delegates fight it out with whiffle bats in the House of Pain, and the Last Politician Standing becomes First Minister. Do you know how long it takes to beat someone into unconsciousness with a whiffle bat? Planet Maxicon is famous for governments with serious political will. They get things done!

Then again, perhaps you could have some kind of referendum or plebiscite or something that convenes a new kind of government, but I think you should go with the whiffle bats.

Either that or invite me to become Canada’s new ruling chimp.

I mean, it’s not like you could do better.

Next time: What is your policy on the subject of shaving?

We’ve particpated in a number of carnivals recently, including the Carnival of Insanity, the Carnival of the Godless and today’s Best of Me Symphony and funny stuff.

Before we get to the blogroll, my apologies if you tried to drop by The Skwib yesterday and saw the Zid (my web host) login panel instead. I still don’t know how it happened. The scary thing is that they don’t either. I suspect my roundup of the Beijing Olympic mascots has rubbed someone in China the wrong way.

Joe Mahoney is the writer of a new addition to the blogroll, Assorted Nonsense. He’s another one of those poor fools who write SF, and he’s also a producer at the CBC, and he occasionally gets to combine the two. In the Problem with Tribbles SF, he explains what’s plaguing SF. Personally, I think it could all be fixed with more General Kang. Over at Blog D’Ellison, Ellison proves this point in his review of the Revenge of the Sith. Though not as bad as the first two, he still gave it a “hot piss” ranking. And yes, I know that technically speaking Star Wars is science fantasy, not SF. A pox on all definitions!

But just imagine how much cooler the whole thing would have been if General Kang had been dispensing advice instead of Yoda!

On a serious note — really — I totally agree with James in his post, It’s Time for a Change. I too long to see Green Party MPs and NOT having the Liberals in power for a while. On the other hand there is the Harper factor. Case at Taseful Future has blown the lid off the margarine tub!

Sebastian had an ample rump and an equally large supply of phobias.

He was afraid of spiders, enclosed spaces, open spaces, crowds, the color puce and more than all those (reasonable) fears, he was terrified that someone might touch his ass.

That was why he was so thrilled to hear about the shark suit. When he saw that they’d invented a neoprene suit that created an electric field while you swam to keep sharks away, he thought immediately, “hey, that might help keep unwanted mitts off my ample booty.”

So he contacted the inventor of the suit, and after some haggling, the inventor agreed to make Sebastian a prototype pair of pants based on the shark suit.

The bad news was that meant Sebastian’s new ass-grab protection pants would be made of neoprene. Not the most comfortable thing to wear out of water, but such was Sebastian’s phobia that he was willing to endure the discomfort.

They worked like a charm. As soon as he walked down the street in his neoprene and ceramic pants, sparks flying, nobody came within ass-grabbing distance.

Nobody ever came near him again.

Inspired by:
Shark suit

This is a team event that asks the question: how far can you fling a religious person? Though many of the “fling team” members will be from Falun Gong, don’t let the event fool you — the Chinese government will fling other religious people too, including Tibetan Buddhists, Muslim Uighurs, and underground Protestants and Catholics. According to the Beijing Olympic committee’s write-up, the Falun Gong seem to have the best aerodynamic properties. Still, they used Tibetan Buddhist Yingying in this illustration. (You will notice the trebuchet in the bottom right corner of the illustration — originally they tried to fling Falun Gong with massive cords of surgical tubing, but they could not get enough lift, and there was no splat factor, which is an important part of the scoring.)

Original inspiration:
China’s Human Rights Record and Falun Gong

More demonstration sports with the Beijing Olympic Mascots:
Tibetan Dissident Biathlon | Organ Relay | Hu Flung Falongong | Forced Sterilization Footy | Press Clubbing | 50-Meter Land Requisition Event

Welcome to the Carnival of Satire at The Skwib. Wow, what a turnaround. After #8, we thought that maybe there wasn’t enough satire to sustain a carnival. As usual, we were wrong. We hope this robust COS makes it an extra-happy Thanksgiving to all of you south of the 49th!

Where the hell is John Stossel when you need him? We’re going to sick him on Obi-Wan at Forward Biased who has reported a Strange meteorological phenomenon disrupts life in Upstate SC.

Scary. Playah Grrl at Little Green Colloquium warns of a spreading plague: OSM/PJM Derangement Syndrome

Product funnels? Pink spoons? Whew, after reading presents Scientology’s Marketing Lessons from Andy Wibbels at Andy Wibbels, Thag needed to do some more meditation.

Hoodlumman at File it Under presents News channel at a loss for controversy explanation

Despite having the execrable neologism “moonbat” in the title, Remulak MoxArgon at The MoxArgon Group had General Kang laughing so hard he coughed up a hairball (don’t ask) with Leave My Michelle Alone You Nasty Little Moonbats! Remulak MoxArgon also submitted a second post with the aforementioned neologism. You get one, you cranky alien!

The Man at GOP and the City taught us that Dick Cheney can be funny in X Blocks O.

Steve Pavlina at Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog has discovered something about his readers and pokes gentle fun in My Favorite Feedback.

Bob at either orr presents the lyrics for “Druggie from Vancouver” in Your Hit Parade. Dr. Tundra is pretty sure he’s heard this tune covered by one of his favourite punk bands, Johnny Smegma and the Abrasive Neets. Continue reading…