Friday, December 21, 2007

Merry Christmas From Soviet Russia!

In Russia, you only get Vodka and Santa takes your gifts.



If you haven't sent out your holiday cards yet (HURRY! Time's almost up) then please use this link to print your own Soviet era Russian Christmas greetings.




Happy non-denominational festive season


Dear reader,

Some of the authors of Ottawa Beige are leaving the city for a while over the festive season. I'll be taking a break (to which you're probably saying "Break!?!? You never freaking write, Umar!") to small town Eastern Ontario, myself, and will not be doing much of anything until I get back.

Leaving the city for a few days will remind us that in spite of having a Mayor who's been charged with a very serious crime (and knowing that 47% of our neighbours voted for the guy), being surrounded by silly servants, and being covered in over 1.5 m of snow in the past month, Ottawa's not too bad.

That said, I'll be keeping my eye on the beigery through 2008. I think my fellow beige correspondents will be doing the same.

Wishing you an excellent holiday season.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely Predict Future for Ottawa's Mayor

This is for all of you that think the Mayor looks like Lex Luthor, what with the baldness and generally giving off vague waves of spitefulness and evil.

Read All-Star Superman. It really is quite excellent.




Once Again With the Crazy

I really wish I lived in whichever reality Mayor Larry O'Brien has chosen to create for himself. After convincing himself and council that having a lawyer telling them "For the love of god and all that is holy shut the fuck up about this or you could get sued!" is a open consultation with Council and the public, he's somehow interpreted that as a resounding endorsement to continue unimpeded. He's also claiming to have resounding support from the public, you know, except for anyone interviewed for any media or asked about it in general.

And your bus fees will be going up to $5.25. Merry Christmas and happy zero percent.*

This is a tough situation, yes, it's unprecedented but do the right thing for once and step aside until it's cleared up. The citizens that elected you want you to step aside, try doing right by them for once. And Councillors need to be shaken awake on this as well and not defer responsibility to representing the citizens that elected them back to the citizenry itself. There is a massive void of people I have any respect for in local politics at the moment, I'm basically disgusted by the lot of them and will now use them as examples to any children I know of what they don't want to turn into when they become adults. Self-importance, Self-delusions an plain old selfishness are not qualities we require in elected officials.

The only thing I feel bad about for the Mayor is that this Kilray guy is a special brand of nutjob all his own. Then again, the OPP wouldn't lay charges if there wasn't any questions of innocence. Me, I'm totally innocent of bribery charges and I know this because I've never ever had to go to court to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I never tried to bribe anyone. It's a simple system really. So, yeah, he deserves the benefit of the doubt, especially when looking at the accusor, but c'mon, there was enough evidence present to cast that innocence into doubt in the first place.

*Offer not valid in Ottawa city limits.



Monday, December 10, 2007

I'm not going to write much on this, but...

Here's hoping that the charges against Larry O'Brien stick. And that Ottawa gets a mayor that, you know, doesn't "break" the "law" (allegedly - innocent until proven guilty) to get into City Hall.

This member of the public says STEP DOWN! Well, I'd say that regardless of the charges, but this should be a last straw for Mayor O'Brien's reign of beigery.


Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Okay This Whale Might get Bullied, but he'll at Least Have a Bright Future

I was going to post some rules for proper sidewalk usage today when I came across this and had to show it to all four of you reading this blog.

Lesson learned: If you ask the internet to name a whale, get ready for geek sarcasm to win out every single time.

I'm not sure why I love this so much. It's either the actual name, that it's a bunch of geeks being way more charismatic than Greenpeace activists or for the fact that it proves my theory that people really into the green movement aren't ready to deal with reality. Seriously, you know there was a bunch of people sitting around trying to come up with some kind of airy fairy name for their whale like Iko or somekind of name that means something like "dream" in another language they don't actually speak.

Today, I love humanity because of this.



Tuesday, December 4, 2007

He's not Conservative Blue, just plain old Yellow

After the reams of concerned questions posted to their website the CBC Radio show Search Engine was informed that Industry Minister Jim Prentice would not be appearing on their show in order to publicly defend Canada's New Government's™ draconian copyright proposal.

Funny, how these gents are hell bent on proposing business friendly legislation as all costs, especially to Canadian consumers. But this legislation is also a wolf in sheep's clothing for any businesses concerned. When similar legislation went through in the States many companies either went bankrupt or are now on the verge of bankruptcy because of the exorbitant amount of lawsuits they’ve enacted on tens of thousands of their own customers, all while forgoing such rights as fair use and please don’t ask any musicians or artists whose works they pretend this protects if they’ve received any extra funds from this activity.*

This is weak posturing that ensures Canada's New Government is selling your rights and your culture to American Companies.**

* They haven't.

** Although, if they remove our rights to satirise anything this may be the long overdue death of The Royal Canadian Air Farce, which I will heartily embrace. Same with the post-Mercer/Walsh This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The only thing they contribute to Canadian culture is our ridiculous insistence to air comedy that isn't actually funny in the least.