Conservative Party of Canada: intellectual property thieves?

Take a look at the logo on the bus photographed above and compare it to the logo on the NASCAR photo in my previous posting. Notice any thing peculiar? I did.

Whilst taking the air along the promenade at Queen's Quay yesterday, a couple of buses from Coach Canada whizzed by me.

At first glance, I thought that the knuckle-draggers were in town, so similar to Coach Canada's logo is the logo for the Conservative party. You be the judge. Are the Conservatives copyright infringers?

Coach Canada:


Conservative Party of Canada:


It seems to me that Coach Canada has the basis for legal action. Their logo has been around a lot longer than that of the CPC!

If I didn't know better, I would avoid Coach Canada and go elsewhere with my intra-city travel business, making the assumption that Coach Canada is some sort of 'Young Conservative' travel service.

Take a good look at that bus photo. Would *you* seriously approach it and ask the driver where he is headed, knowing the Conservative attitude to public transport? No.

I did chat with the driver of the photographed bus. He was very genial but stated that no one at work and the like, AFAHK, had noticed the similarities between the two logos.

The result of this shameless theft of intellectual property? Lost revenue. I am thinking of alerting their management to this threat to stockholder value, and I encourage others to do so as well.

The Conservatives burnish their Global Warming credentials

I am sure everyone remembers how, after the Liberals selected Dion as their leader, the Conservatives were all aflutter, claiming that 'green' issues have always been top priority for them.

How have they decided to keep this claim of green-friendliness fresh for the public? Sponsor a NASCAR team, of course.

From the Edmonton Journal:

First, they took aim at Canadians who can't live without their Tim Hortons "double-doubles."

Now the federal Conservatives are going after the segment of the population that loves the smell of burning rubber.

The Conservative party has shifted its advertising strategy into a new gear and slapped the party logo on a NASCAR stock-racing car.


The big blue Conservative "C" made its debut Sunday on the hood and front side panels of car 29 of the Canadian Tire NASCAR series, the Canadian offshoot of the popular U.S. stock-racing circuit.

"This is just part of the ongoing process of reaching out to potential Conservative voters," said a senior party official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ah yes, that elusive "moron" demographic. But I thought that the Conservatives had the moron vote already. Isn't it kind of like preaching to the choir?

"Get this fruit out of the sun!"

The above quote is from Ed "Al Bundy" O'Neill in John From Cincinnati, a new drama on HBO created by David Milch.

A tiny minority of us are familiar with Milch by way of his creation Deadwood, the best TV show ever in this or any other human-conceivable universe (or at least those human-conceivable universes that understand english).

It looks like Deadwood is not going to be given some sort of wrap-up, as HBO promised. Not even the pathetic three final episodes they had announced.

So why would anyone trust that HBO won't screw the fans of John From Cincinnati, just like they did the fans of Deadwood?

The answer is: there is no guarantee.


I guess if David Milch trusts HBO enough to go with them again, we should too.


All we can do, as loyal viewers (albeit non-paying loyal viewers) is enjoy the moment. (Which may, in fact, be the biggest philosophical message behind this new series...)

In the show, when he yells "Get this fruit out of the sun!", Al Bundy has just prevented Barry ("the fairy") from killing himself in the parking lot of a run-down motel, and is presumably requesting some help in removing Barry, sprawled and weepy, from the middle of the lot.

It was appalling, at the time, but today at work, thinking it over, connecting the previous bits of dialogue, I came to the conclusion that it was over-the-top hilarious.

But I had to work for it. Now that is comedy!

This episode, the pilot, basically, is viewable online at the HBO site. (UPDATE (07/06/14): the link to the entire show has been removed, and the only videos available now are the trailers. Boo! That's the HBO I know.)

Added bonus: "Johnny Appleseed" by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros appears to be the theme song for John From Cincinnati. When I started playing the episode, and "Johnny Appleseed" came on, I thought I had made a mistake and fired up my playlist since I had been listening to that very tune directly before!

After 7-11, I don't believe in coincidences. Therefore, I posit that SpaceGodJehovah2000 was giving me a message by making Milch choose that particular song for that particular TV show, so that I would hear it at the particular time I did.

This experience has made me call into question my atheism.

I can hardly wait til next week's episode! SpaceGodJehovah2000 might have more messages for me.

Is that a Flag lapel pin?

Why yes, yes it is.

What was 'Spock' thinking? Was he trying to make sure that Sarkozy remembered which country his visitor was from? If so, it was a very thoughtful gesture.

Still, I imagine Russell Smith would say something sartorially judgemental like: 'A well dressed man should avoid wearing lapel jewellery during the day unless, of course, he is dressed in formal military attire'.

I have not watched Question Period for a while, so I was unaware that Spock has taken to wearing Flag-inspired jewellery next to his heart, à la George W. Bush.

It is just another example of how this Prime Minister seems to be slavishly aping some of the most hilarious pretensions of the Bush administration. Other examples that I can think of, off the top of my head: hostility to the main stream media, no photos of coffins arriving from Afghanistan, no flags at half-mast, no off-the-cuff comments from Conservative MPs, requiring people to stand when the Great Leader enters a room, and the belief that a lie, told often enough, will be accepted as fact.

I really don't understand what the pin is supposed to accomplish, aside from making him look like a Republican ball-cupper. Is it an appeal to the "Tim Hortons demographic"?

I just don't get it.

Furthermore!

Take a close look at Harper's left hand. Its sausage-fingered, clammy-looking, fishbelly-whiteness (no makeup there) makes me think that Harper might in fact be a revenant. Wouldn't that be a rich one!

And it would explain A LOT! Steven Harper, Prime Minister and one of the undead...

The fact that Sarkozy is so (apparently) enthusiastically shaking Spock's other clammy, sweaty, corpse-like piece of meat is proof to me that Sarkozy has the makings of a truly effective politician.

Finally, Spock's ambivalent expression seems to express to me that he does not, in fact, like being touched. (But, then again, who really does when the sun is still "under the yardarm"?)

Ghosts

By the Jam.

When I first got on Napster, many years ago, one of the first songs I searched for was Ghosts (mp3, 5 MB), one of the Jam's un-noted classics, with no result.

"Jam" as a search term invariably turned up 1000+ hits for Pearl Jam, and "Ghosts" would generate hundreds of hits for that movie that was just out about Cube fighting aliens on Mars.

Don't even get me started on the 'opportunities' I was faced with when I tried to locate songs by "the the". Luckily, I was younger then, and stronger.

"Ghosts" is emblematic, for me, of my early university years. My room-mate was a musician, and this was one of the two songs (the other was drums for "Pretty Vacant") that I could play an acceptable accompaniment to (on bass).

Good times, good times.