Update...

THIS sucks... I'll be in Rome in a few days. This kinda thing reminds me of how quickly fun times can turn tragic.

Oh, yeah! I've found my new playoff headquarters to keep abreast of things while away from my home and native land. With a site called CANOE, ya gotta figure they have the Canadian content covered.

At the risk of angering some, and alienating others permanently... now that the Sens have tanked...

GO LEAFS GO

It has only been a couple of days, and I already miss talking to some of you people... and the one I miss talking to most of all, well, you know who you are... :-)

The swompdonkey chronicles... uk edition.

I'm sitting in an internet cafe somewhere deep within the bowels of Heathrow airport, reflecting on how lucky we are to still be able to move with such ease from one side of the globe to the other in spite of all the crap that has happened in recent years... A few hours ago, I was celebrating my brother Joe's birthday with him and his friends in Mississauga. Now I'm about to hop on a bus to go see my Grandma in Devon. Some had warned me that security in airports was becoming tougher again, after an incomprehensible little lapse somewhere between 9-11 and 3-11 (the Madrid bombings). Well, if it has been tightened, it isn't that noticeable... which I suppose is a good thing. Nobody wants to feel like they live in a police state. No heavily-armed guards at Pearson and I breezed through customs on my EU passport. Almost enough to make you think that we are back to business as usual in this twisted little world of ours...

The question is bound to come up sooner or later: What the heck is a SWOMPDONKEY ?

Well, for starters, it is a corruption of two different words

SWAMP

and

DONKEY

I checked another online dictionary to find the definition of "Swamp donkey", and was pretty surprised that out of 28 different definitions, only one got it right...

Anyone who grew up in Northern Ontario can tell you that "swamp donkey" is slang for Alces Canadensis, a.k.a. the Canadian Moose!

The term is generally used in a mildly pejorative way. For example "Holy jeez, you shoulda been there! I spilled my beer when I almost hit a friggin' swamp donkey with my four-by-four!"

The majestic moose, proud denizen of the Canadian hinterland! A fitting symbol for my blog.

Just out of curiosity, I did a little google search today.... I think that the "RATE MY" craze is getting a bit out of hand. There are certain things that should never ever be submitted for evaluation under any circumstances. Like, for instance, THIS, THIS, and THIS. Then there is THIS site, which must have irritated alot of pimps and mysogynists who visited expecting something else entirely.

Surf on over to Andrew Coyne's Blog and read his opinion on the Kadhrs... I gotta admit, I've of two minds on this one... however, I love the following post by Birdgunner in the comments section!:

Andrew's comment about charging the Khadrs with a crime is germane. Sections 46 and 47 of the Criminal Code of Canada state that:

46. (1) Every one commits high treason who, in Canada...

(c) assists an enemy at war with Canada, or any armed forces against whom Canadian Forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between Canada and the country whose forces they are...

3) Notwithstanding subsection (1) or (2), a Canadian citizen or a person who owes allegiance to Her Majesty in right of Canada,

(a) commits high treason if, while in or out of Canada, he does anything mentioned in subsection (1); or

47. (1) Every one who commits high treason is guilty of an indictable offence and shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life.

---

All of this seems pretty clear to me. Whether or not Canada is at war with al Qaeda (or other Islamic nihilists) is immaterial; they are at war with us, and have told us so. On prima facie evidence alone there appears to be grounds for charges of treason, perhaps even high treason, against select members of the Khadr family.

I don't mind if the Khadrs retain their citizenship and enjoy Canadian standards of living and free medical care. I just think that they should be doing it from behind the bars of a federal penitentiary

BULLSHIT!

Edith, i have only one thing to say about this:Shit or get off the pot!

Am I the only one who sees a gross conflict of interest? Here we have a woman dedicating her free time to breaking up the coutry as the new president of the separatist organization "Quebec, un pays".... What does Mme Gendron do as a day job? why she happens to be a Senior Program Officer at Canadian Heritage. Canadian Heritage? Yeah, the department dedicated to promoting "a More Cohesive and Creative Canada". If the government had any balls, it would throw this seperatist out on her ass.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Bachelor update 3...this update is given under duress.

OK, so I start watching the Bachelor ten minutes into the show. Jenny S.,the mole- wait, wrong show -the spy is practically in tears about Trish. The ladies are playing that drinking game where you take a drink every time someone mentions something you have done... the game has already turned sexual, if it didn't start that way (I missed the beginning). Trish is tossing back the the plonk like nobody's business. As far as I can tell, she has done everything there is to do of a sexual nature in every possible location, seemingly with half the adult male population of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Oh yeah, she also has "cheating with a married man" on her resume... and she's still single? What is it about Trish that Jenny S. doesn't like? Hmmm... I wonder.

Back from the break, the boy-genius lets us in on the fact that things may get awkward between
Mandy-Jaye, the sassy Texan and Trish, everyone's favourite, on their double date. If by awkward, you mean "hostile staring-daggers-at-each-other awkward", Jesse, you are indeed a very perceptive young man. M-J isn't alone in her hostility towards the Florida floozy. Trish sees herself as "the craziest woman in the house".... whereas other girls call her a "Gold-digging skank"... but who's to say what the truth is?

Following the break, Jenny tells us that Tara is perfect for Jesse. What this means is that our clueless suitor will no doubt kick her through the uprights and right out of the mansion at the next rose ceremony. Meanwhile back at the house, Trish is offending people with her lewd revelations again. This show should just be renamed "The Gold-digging skank", in honour of its true star. Jesse kisses Tara during the date, in spite of her objections... way to push through that defense, Jess. Just don't spike the ball and do a touchdown dance in the endzone, OK?

The next day, "the shame of Ottawa" as I am begining to think of him, and a bunch of the girls go off on a date to build a house for habitat for humanity. At the group date, Jenny S. gives Jesse the goods on Trish, including this line "You hate divorce... she may have caused one!" OUCH! His response "there are some things I have to confront Trish about" Huh? What the hell is the point of confronting her on anything? She has admitted who she is to everyone else.... it isn't like she is ashamed of her past behaviour. I'm not even sure that someone like that has the capacity for shame.

Back at the loveshack, during a BBQ and hot tub party, charmingly insecure Jessie H. becomes creepily weird Jessie H. in the space of about 10 seconds (I just realized... there are too many damn Jesses on this damn show). Even Jesse realizes he is creeped out... and this is a guy that I'm not sure realizes he is awake half the time. Is this our future stalker?

Before the rose ceremony, Jesse is confused, probably not for the first time that day. Jesse S. does not want a rose, she wants to rid herself of the burden of being the spy... no kidding, your boy is really clueless. You have done everything short of beating him over the head with your shoe to get him to clue in... give it up. Spygirl tells her boy that he should follow his heart.

Rose ceremony... it ain't no longer about first impressions, that's fo sho! Mandy-J gets a rose, adorable Suzy with her wrinkly nose does too, as do coy Tara (well what do you know!), Jessica B-the so-cal hottie, Karen -the weird-looking pageant queen, and Trish... wait-just-a-g-damn-minute... TRISH? Are you kidding me? Jesse needs to wear his helmet during practice more often.

Julie the pro cheerleader is upset that she was overlooked for someone like Trish... our spy says she is "worried"... Jenny, you may be worried.... frankly, I'm terrified!

On the next show... things get more insipid... Hmm looks like Jessie H. who gets the boot in this one, is not our stalker. Could the stalker end up being Trish? That would be too cool!

My brain hurts...

Tonight the dream died...

Until tonight, I didn't believe in curses. But somewhere on that big pond in the sky, as Terry Sawchuk kicks out a wristshot that the Rocket just let loose from the hash marks, the players pause for a minute, cast a glance down at the Air Canada Centre, turn towards the grinning little defenceman and someone says "Jeez,
King, when you gonna let bygones be bygones?"

I believe in curses.

I wanted to pull my eyeballs out of my head after foolishly visiting this site: GAAAAAAAH!

Never been a fan of the babes with the pneumatic chests, and I can't understand why someone would inject a toxic substance into their heads to get rid of wrinkles or get blubber sucked out of their asses or bellies when the stakes are so high.

A friend of mine says that changing one's looks can improve self-esteem and be the catalyst for major positive change in other areas. She points out the success stories from this show.

Conversely, plastic surgery can have tragic results. To wit, the sad case of Micheline Charest.

If there is a more pointless and ignominious end to a life, I can't think of it.

DEFIANT to the last,

hostage "died like a hero."

A Former Baker Shows Terrorist Scum the Meaning of Bravery

Here's hoping I meet my end as well as Fabrizio did.

From Today's National Post:

PM salutes those who stormed Norway's beaches

Anne Dawson

CFB GAGETOWN, N.B. - Paul Martin rewrote Canadian military history yesterday when he said twice that the liberation of Europe began in 1944 with the invasion of Norway. He meant to say the invasion of Normandy.
"Sixty years ago, Canadians were working alongside their British and American allies planning for the invasion of Norway and the liberation of Europe," Mr. Martin said in a speech to 350 soldiers at this training base outside Fredericton.
A few minutes later he repeated the gaffe.
"Today, it is every bit as important that Canada step forward - just as we did during the invasion of Norway," he said before announcing a series of military spending plans.
Norway is roughly 1,300 kilometres northeast of Normandy, where on June 6, 1944, soldiers from across Canada stormed Juno Beach.
No one in the audience acknowledged the mistake, though Mr. Martin's aides whispered among themselves when they picked up on it.
The blunder is reminiscent of the time former defence minister John McCallum confused the site of Canada's First World War victory at Vimy Ridge with the city of Vichy, capital of the Nazi puppet regime in occupied France during the Second World War.
At the time, Mr. McCallum brushed off the error as a "typing mistake."
When Mr. Martin took power last December, he demoted Mr. McCallum to Minister of Veteran Affairs.

...In Paul Martin's head, this makes sense! He thinks Scandinavians are invading our coastline NOW because 60 years ago we invaded theirs!

Bachelor Update: Episode 2

This Jesse guy is already starting to piss me off. I was watching Ottawa lay a pasting on the Leafs, so I missed the first 20 minutes of the show. What do I see when I finally tune in? Jesse and Trish the leggy model, eating on some stage, apparently after some play or something. Trish stares at Jesse with her dull cow eyes, furrows her brow, and says something about not wanting kids. Jesse, tell me that this girl was not your choice your first date. Dude, you are killing me.

Cut to a montage of Trish saying some incredibly obnoxious and borderline offensive things to the other girls ("My mother taught me to be a golddigger"), cut to trish eating Jesse's face in the back of the limo, cut to me losing my lunch. This truly is a woman of little substance. I loathe her already. I need to recover. Back to the hockey game for a bit.

After the break, Jesse goes on a group date...one of the ladies, Suzie, catches a pass. Good for her! Following the pickup game, Jesse sits down for supper and inserts his foot into his mouth as an appetizer. Sometimes, too much truth is a bad thing. Jesse, the ladies don't want to hear about your countless one-night stands, "tired of waking up next to a stranger, eh?" Some raised eyebrows around the table. Yeah, they get it QB boy, you are a stud.

Every guy should have a devious female friend to spy on potential mates for him... Aha! The spy was the championship swimmer girl!!! I knew it! She speaks to our hero about Trish... clueless boy has a look of shock on his face. Trish - high maintenance? Say it aint so! Now I'm the one furrowing my brow.

Back at the house, one of the girls, Tara, calls him on his player ways... Jesse spouts some rubbish... Tara apparently buys it, for now. My favourtie girl of the bunch, Kristy the med student from Michigan drops a bomb on our boy and asks Jesse not to give her a rose. What a classy woman! Jesse tells us he is upset... pal, you have no idea. You just lost an A-lister, my man.

Meanwhile, Ottawa beats Toronto, and all is right with the world.

The rose ceremony: Blah blah blah... some crap about trust and challenge from our guy. Let the bloodletting begin: Katie, the girl who nearly got the boot last week but got through on a technicality, gets the first rose this time. Confirming my suspicion that he is too stupid to listen to his best friend, Jesse gives Trish a rose... and crazy-eyed Karen too? This guy just doesn't seem to have a clue. My brow is now permanently furrowed. Jean Marie looks like she is ready to eat tinfoil and shit bullets.

Next week Jesse is captivated by Trish's charms so his lady friend bitch slaps some sense into him... or something like that... and this show started off looking so promising....

Let the downward spiral continue.

I was reading some of the vitriol spewed over Alfonso Gagliano's testimony in the adscam controversy. The guy may be a crook, but reading some of the posts where people speculate over his possible ties to organized crime HERE, I wanted to laugh out loud.... I mean, COME ON. Do you honestly think that someone like Vito Rizzuto would have anything to do with a mezzo-fanook like Gagliano? Does THIS look like the face of a wiseguy?

MEMO TO HABS FANS:

IT WAS IN.

DEAL WITH IT.

Apparently, the Department of Foreign Affairs is hiring former adult film stars as ambassadors to Middle Eastern States. This story on Fadi Fadel reveals the ugly truth! Dirk Diggler's real life counterpart is attempting to secure hostage Fadi Fadel's release. Mr. Fadel is an unlucky Syrian-born Canadian Aid worker who had the temerity to go to Iraq to help kids and was found guilty of looking like an Israeli by the Mujahedeen Brigades, who are this season's Saddam Fedayeen (Just like Sadr may end up being this week's Ahmed Yassin, if he doesnt keep his eyes peeled).

But back to the stunning revelation!... can we really be surprised that Foreign Affairs has a former seventies porn legend working for them? This wouldn't be the first time a LOWLIFE worked for Foreign Affairs, right?

First pre-emptive answer to an obvious question: Vis Comica is latin for "sense of humour", which is something I hope that anyone visiting this blog will have...

Today, the blog goes public. I realize this opens me up to the scrutiny of both friends and random visitors, but I'm ready for it. Feel free to mock my lousy syntax and ham-handed writing style... send blog-related hate mail and plaudits to

swompdonkey@hotmail.com

Those of you who know me, know where else to reach me. Friends, welcome. Critics, do your worst! I look forward to the backlash.

Tomorrow is Easter.
Have a happy one!

I read this great article on the significance of Easter

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes are we healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53, 2-6

And the angel answered and said unto the women,
Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead.

Matthew 28, 5-6

I am hooked! I watched the first episode of the latest edition of that insipid and wildly successful show, the Bachelor. The Epic begins with our intro to Jesse Palmer, who I understand is from Barrhaven, near Ottawa. We find out he is one of those all-american types, except for the fact that he is canajan. U of Miami grad, backup QB for the Giants, big hunk of clean-cut manhood, etc... on to the women... nearly all hotties, but AH! There's a twist! One of the babes is actually Jesse's best friend (not a dude in drag, she actually is a girl) deep undercover! She is posing as a contestant and will be reporting to Jesse throughout the proceedings. How machiavellian! The audience doesnt get to see her or hear her real voice, so we are left guessing about her identity too... she is blonde, but so are 13 other women in the house.

We get the usual drive up in the limo and the assortment of bachelorettes trickle out. Some are incredibly dynamic, others nervous and shy. Jesse is poised and charming throughout. This guy is the shit... all the girls think so, because you see their hilarious reactions to him as they enter the house and
play to the camera. Some of them are already acting like nasty bitches and they have been on the show for all of two minutes.

Next, we get the "cocktail", where Jesse chats with each of the ladies, one after another. One of the girls is from Quebec City (naturally, she is a stone cold fox) and Jesse busts out some pretty decent french on her --subtitled for our yankee brethren. He exclaims with delight when he first meets her "you're
from Quebec City? I'm from Ottawa!" Jeah, Jesse. Representin'!

Next twisterino, that obnoxious host guy tells Jesse he has to give a long-stemed rose to the girl who made the best first impression... she will be exempt from the selection process that night. So Jesse proceeds to chose the girl with the longest stems. Some dopey fucking model. James begins to question
Jesse's judgment. "I'm ready for marriage and kids" talk aside, our boy has chosen a pretty obnoxious broad. (cut to shots of her being catty, ungracious, flaunting her rose) Some of the women are appalled. One of the women, the med student, I think, with whom I am already in love, says "who cares who gets the first rose, as long as I get the last one" Testify, sister!!!

There is definitely marriage material in this bunch, but will our hero triumph over wits dulled by years of head trauma on the grid-iron and come alive to this fact? Stay tuned.

Highlight of the night, or maybe lowlight (they build toward this crescendo for the better part of one-and-a-half hours) is Jesse's big fumble... the worst gaffe in the history of the show. It is third and goal... the QB has marshalled his forces for a 70 yard drive down field. The goal ligne seems inches away. He
lines up behind the centre... He calls an audible... Snap! It's the wrong audible! (end of football analogies).

Basically, he says the wrong name for the last girl he is selecting for a rose! The girl springs forward, delighted to take the rose, Jesse stammers, gives it to her, and looks about nervously.. finally calls the host outside, leaving the women perplexed... He explains his mistake (in all fairness, they are similar
names --katie and karen, or something)... the host looks like he is thinking "Is this guy for real"... Jesse is in agony, he feels terrible about the mistake and is sweating under the hot lights. Will the show take a giant shit all over one of the girls as her dreams are crushed and her rose is snatched from her little
hands? The host leaves it up to Jesse what to do.

Then Jesse does something that earns my respect. He owns up: This is serious, we're talking potential marriage here... I made a mistake, now I have to go out there and fix it -- or words to that effect. He marches out and explains what happened to the assembled women, apologizing to them. Class act! The host interjects, telling Katie that even though the rose was not intended for her, she has the option of staying. Tears in her cute little eyes, she elects to do that and "see what happens". A sixteeth rose is produced and awarded to the "right" girl (I use the term loosely, because she is an annoying beauty pageant winner, but anyway)

The jilted suiterettes (suiteresses?) say their goodbyes, and we close with a montage of what the season has in store --so tasty, you could eat it on a bun! I will spare you any more details, but it involves a shocking revelation and a stalker! Gasp!

Needless to say, I'll be tuning in next week... I'm so ashamed.

A psychopath can be described as a person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse. Psychopaths tend to lack normal human emotions such as guilt. They are also often highly intelligent and skilled at manipulating others. Also, psychopaths seem to appear normal. You would probably never guess there was something wrong with them. Maybe the burly thug who slapped his son across the mouth with such force as to draw blood and grinned maliciously at the ticket agent at Logan, daring her to say or do anything was not a psychopath. But the man who gazed blankly at the passengers boarding American Airlines Flight 11, was. Maybe, as the last of the passengers shuffled down the gangway, he bought a coffee and newspaper, checked his watch, and strolled calmly behind the people he was going to murder, feeling NOTHING. That, to me, is a very scary thought.

Less than two hours later, shortly before 9 a.m this flight, carrying 81 passengers and 11 crew members, slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. About 15 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles, with 56 passengers and nine crew members on board, crashed into the south tower.

A half-hour after the second crash, American Flight 77 took off from Washington, D.C.'s Dulles Airport en route to Los Angeles, California, carrying 58 passengers and six crew members -- but crashed into the Pentagon instead. Less than an hour after the third crash, United Flight 93 en route from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, with 38 passengers and seven crew aboard. Those were the people who fought back. Just a few of the many people who became heroes that day. In this age of moral relativism, where everything seems to have an excuse or a root cause, I think it is useful to simply look at some facts. In the wake of the Madrid attacks and subsequent developments I find myself thinking back to the actions of the people who "kicked things off" as it were, just over two-and-a-half years ago. Were they psychopaths? How can we know? But we know what they did. The facts can be laid out in stark terms, as I have done below. I don't care what the "root causes" were, I don't care whether or not the young men who did this were being "manipulated", and I don't care why they hated the U.S. To me, these people, and all those of their ilk, have forfeited their humanity, and as I told a friend today, in the wake of the "martyrdom" of the "Tunisian" and his accomplices --on the bright side, that is five less pieces of shit to worry about.

THE FLIGHTS

American Airlines Flight 11
From: Boston, Massachusetts (Logan Airport)
To: Los Angeles, California
Lives: 92 people on board
Crashed into North Tower of World Trade Center at 8:45 AM

United Airlines Flight 175
From: Boston, Massachusetts (Logan Airport)
To: Los Angeles, California
Lives: 65 people on board
Crashed into South Tower of World Trade Center at 9:03 AM

American Airlines Flight 77
From: Washington, D.C. (Dulles Airport)
To: Los Angeles, CA
Lives: 64 people on board
Crashed into the Pentagon at 9:43 AM

United Airlines Flight 93
From: Newark, New Jersey
To: San Francisco, California
Lives: 45 people on board
Crashed into rural Pennsylvania (southeast of Pittsburgh)

VICTIMS

Victims came from more than 90 countries around the world.
The following are the number of people who died at each site:

World Trade Center: 2,823 presumed confirmed dead (includes airline passengers)
Pentagon 125 (not including plane victims)
Flight 11 92 people on board
Flight 175 65 people on board
Flight 77 64 people on board
Flight 93 44 people on board

I'll NEVER forget. Not in another 2 years, not in another 20. how could I... there are sure to be more attacks.