Stephen Harper, pussy lover?

That is apparently what the smart-alecks that run the Prime Minister's homepage would have us believe.

Scroll down the page, and there is a graphic in the left column entitled "Foster Pet Programs". This is it in the context of the page:



Fair enough, one might think. Good cause and all that.

But take a closer look at the photo:

Here, one kitty is sound asleep nestled atop the comforting expanse of the PM's gut, while the PM pauses from reading a book (to it?).

Another very similar looking kitty appears uninterested in the story and is gazing fixedly into the middle distance (a popular motif in Prime Ministerial photos, it seems).

Now that I have stared at this (a photoshop creation, surely!) for a while, I have decided that the graphic designer is having a bit of fun.

You know, like having a politician famous for his lack of basic human qualities depicted reading a storybook to some little kitties.

Those kitties urgently needed some lovin', and the PM stepped up to the plate, be damned the consequences!

Cat hair all over his suit or an interruption to his busy schedule is unimportant when rogue, unadopted kitties might run wild.

Priceless. Enjoy it now, because I suspect it won't be around for long.

Targetting the fatso demographic?

First it was the Tim Horton's demographic, then the NASCAR demographic. Now this?

The last time I 'liberated' an outdoorsy photo off the PM's official website, it showed Stephen Harper standing in a bush somewhere while a skinny local guy pointed out a good location for some clear-cutting.

This time around, Harper's image people have placed him between 2 other fatsoes, perhaps in the hope that he will look less awkward and rotund in comparison.

Besides that, it is basically the same shot. This time, however, it is Harper who is pointing into the middle distance in an unconvincing manner.

While John Baird (to starboard) is at least pretending to peer in the direction indicated by Spock's corpse-like sausage finger, the third (unidentified) member of this teletubby troika appears, shall we say, less enthusiastic about the whole thing.

Maybe he is afraid the dock is going to collapse, especially if John Baird decides to start jumping up and down?

Je me souviens

Another good one from GABLE.

Dogan? Dougan? Doghan?

Who knows how to spell this word, which I have never seen on paper, only heard spoken. And I have no idea where I picked it up. Childhood acquaintances? My dad or grandfather (northern Ontario Presbyterians)?

I think it means "Catholic", but it might mean "Irish Catholic".

I have tried it out in my multicultural corporate work environment and a couple of the small-town Ontario types looked up sharply, but that was it.

I asked them about it later (one a 25 year old girl, the other a grizzled 50-year old ex-paratrooper) and while neither could explain how they knew this 'epithet', they both professed to some surprise when this word from Ontario's cold, intolerant Orange past popped up in the middle of a meeting. (Or at least that was how I interpreted what they were saying.)

It is little social experiments like this that make corporate life bearable. The problem is I still can't find anything on the origins/usage of the word 'dogan'.

Enquiring minds need to know!

UPDATE
It occurs to me that this sort of thing has happened to me before, when, as a dinner guest, I referred to the pointy fat-and-gristle part at the rear-end of the roast chicken as "the Pope's Nose".

Doesn't everyone call it that?

Negroes need not apply

An interesting graphic appeared above the fold on the front page of the print edition of the Globe and Mail today, accompanying the article "Tories target specific ethnic voters".

Since the Globe is run by a bunch of cheapskates, no online version of the graphic (a photo of a slide lifted from a Conservative party campaign document entitled Building Bridges with Ethnic Communities and New Canadians) is available. So, instead, I have used my encyclopaedic knowledge of html to reproduce the slide as best I can:

A Sample Outreach Strategy - Thornhill

• Total population - 116,640
  
• Visible minorities - 33,675 (29 %)
  
  • Chinese 12,610
    
  • South Asian 6,595
    
  • Black 2,665
    
  • Filipino 2,530
    
  • West Asian 2,355
    
  • Korean 2,660
    
  
  
• 79% of visible minorities are viewed as CPC accessible communities
  

Interesting, n'est-ce pas?

All the minorities listed in this breakdown were bolded, except the black community. They seem to be the only community that isn't viewed as 'CPC accessible communities'.

Good for them! My problem is with the other minorities. Will they understand that the CPC's grand old traditions of intolerance and xenophobia run deep, way back to their Reform roots, and that these 'accessible communities' are only being wooed on tactical grounds?

I have met John Tory, Mr. Harper, and you are no John Tory.

If the Conservative Party of Canada does achieve a majority in parliament, these accessible minorities will soon see the true colours of the flat-earthers they helped elect.

Allah help those accessible minorities then! (I see 'West Asians' are one of the targeted groups, presumably because of their reputed intolerance for homosexuals and other deviants.)