Canadian Apocalypse.

Canada is a mysterious place with bags of milk, an inexplicable fondness for the fluids that drip from trees and an amusing game of three-down football that clearly belongs on the short bus of professional sports. However, what is at issue today is the unprecedented political situation in which the nation now finds itself; a non-boring political event has occurred in Canada. That last phrase bears repeating, with a bigger font and in purple.

A non-boring political event has occurred in Canada.

If it seems that this is unusual for a nation that issues commemorative stamps in honor of the civil service, consider this: Canadians are hard drinkers.

On 14 October 2008, Canada went to the polls after Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared that Parliament has ceased to function and that an election was necessary. The nation, knowing full well that Parliament had only experienced “function” three times since Confederation nodded in mute dismay. In this election, the Conservatives (in true Canadian style) nearly destroyed the Liberal Party of Canada but still did not manage to get a majority of the seats in Parliament.

Everyone, we were told, was expecting a more cooperative Parliament *snort* that would be more *chuckle* open to compromise.

Please take a moment to giggle in disbelief.

On 27 November 2008, the Conservative government – strengthened but not actually effective – submitted an economic “statement” that was meant to act as prologue to their budget and to assuage the worries of Canadians forced to eat old tin cans and their classic collection of Glass Tiger records.

In a flurry of activity for the politically challenged the following then occurred:

1. The Opposition Parties (the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois) threatened to form a Mighty Coalition to bring the government down if they did not change their ways. This would, presumably, be similar to how those robot tigers turn into Voltron.

Jack Layton would be near the groin.

2. The Government told the Opposition to please have carnal relations with a mollusk.

3. In a bold move of defiance, the Liberal Party decided to ouster their already ouster-is-nigh leader more quickly. They did this, in adherence with the finest traditions of democracy, by having all the other leadership candidates quit the race and proclaiming one guy the new leader by acclamation without a political convention. Given the success that the Liberals have had with large votes recently, this was probably a good choice.

4. The Government, with a head full of steam and the bloated indignation of the Right, asked very politely if the Governor General could write the Prime Minister a note, telling him that he did not need to even let Parliament assemble until the 26th of January.

The noise that you are hearing now is your irony alarm ringing of off the hook. The Prime Minister who called an early election because the Parliament was not functioning has now shut it down because it was functioning too much, but in a way that made him feel sad.

The other option is that Prime Minister Harper was just hoping to get some quality face time with the Governor General. The current occupant of that office is Michaëlle Jean. Among her credentials, Governor General Jean is as cute as button and maybe Harper was hoping that the spiraling emotions of the current crisis would propel their relationship to the next level;

Michaëlle Jean: Mister Prime Minister, I understand that you’d like me to prorogue Parliament?

Stephen Harper: And my pants, please prorogue my pants.

Michaëlle Jean: What?

Stephen Harper: Can I call you Mickey Jee?

Michaëlle Jean: Get out.

Canada now has a distinct privation of government, but has nonetheless managed to appoint 18 new Senators while everything is on hold. When the new budget (which is real meat compared to the economic statement) is released, government may well gridlock again when Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff (his nickname is Iggy) threatens to swing the club of an Opposition party coalition if his needs (#3; waffles!) are not met.

Why is all this being done? To avoid an election; both sides claim the other is being undemocratic, but neither will consider taking the matter to the polls. This sounds like the guy who cut you selling you the band-aids.

Their fear of the electorate is well placed.

* * *

Election Season is NOT Over.

While the trivial election of the American President has come and gone with little or no coverage in the press a far more important matter is now before the citizens of the world.

The blogging overlord of this space and many other spaces, the Mighty, Terrifying and Mostly Agreeable Diesel has gotten his blog Mattress Police in the finals in the humor category in the 2008 Weblog Awards.

That’s right, Jim. The frikkin’ finals….

I don’t know any of the other finalists personally, but I’m guessing that they are probably very bad people who would steal from you if they got the chance. Diesel on the other hand can cure your bronchial congestion with just the touch of his calming, magical half-beard.

Who else could do that? Only one man and he died for us a long, long time ago. But that doesn’t matter because Wilt Chamberlain never even wrote a blog.

But Diesel wrote a blog, and still does — and it is good.

You can vote for Diesel here, and obviously you should vote for Diesel here. He writes a tremendous amount of really high grade material. There are three blogs that make me laugh – Mattress Police is one of them and the other two aren’t.

Change You Can Laugh At. Diesel ’08.

If you think that this didn’t suck, please go to Humor-Blogs.com and rate this post.