Anyways fortunately enough this election has been really bizarre in the sense that not a whole lot of noteworthy events have really been constantly happening but the things that have made the news are just short of scriptedly-absurd. I mean, we haven't quite reached the "Dick Cheney shoots a man in the face" level of just-add-water political satire but my God we can't be far off. Personally I was
So, since I have been unfortunately absent from the internet for too long so far I'm going to attempt and cover my bases by providing the Reader's Digest Condensed NL Election Campaign 2007 Lexicon And Run-On Sentence Extravaganza! I hope you like rehashed 2-week old jokes because that is what you're all in for!
And so, without further ado:
1. Leader's Debate 2007 or How Fred Hutton learned to stop trying to keep order and just kind of roll with it
I am not even able to exaggerate when I write the following sentence: that was the worst hour of television I have ever experienced in my life. It was painful. But it wasn't painful in any sort of partisan sense - every leader's performance was cringe-worthy in its own special way. Lorraine Michaels looked like she was doped up full of Vicodin or something, and in between trying to feign excitement for possibly running 37 whole candidates in the election and uttering the phrase "well, I don't really know if we'd do a better job than the Liberals" I kind of hope she was really high or something, because if not then that party is in much harder shape than originally thought.
Meanwhile, poor Gerry Reid sounded like he was jonesing something awful the whole time, and while he managed to drop a few ice burns on Danny Williams ("You haven't done anything for rural Newfoundland and you know it!" and "Well, I'd like to comment on the MOU but that would require the Premier to have released some details about it to the public" were some of the more memorable ones) they were lost when he and the Premier engaged in a shouting match reminiscent of a bad divorce.
Speaking of the Premier, I really hope someone sent him a memo regarding posture. I mean, I understand that his slouching in over the podium was probably meant to send the message that Danny Williams is a pretty cool guy you could just go grab a beer with and it would be all casual-like but instead he just looked incredibly smug. Like, the kind of smug that you only get from your six-year-old nephew who willfully destroys your old and incredibly valuable baseball cards but you're the only one who sees him and so his mother yells at you for being some kind of monster for daring to suggest that her little angel could do something and while she's busy hauling him away muttering about how this is why you will die friendless and alone he gives you this look like he knows that he can get away with whatever he wants without suffering any negative consequences - that was the attitude the Premier had throughout that entire debate.
To make a long story short, I guess, I'd rather read a Dan Brown novel than sit through that debate again. Yes, it really was that bad.
2. Danny Williams is such a nice guy he'll give you a thousand dollars to have unprotected sex!
This has been beaten to death but really it is worth mentioning again as it is one of the worst ideas ever. I mean this is a terrible idea on tons of levels, but even if you skip over the fact that this is only appealing to people in situations of endemic poverty who are all out of options, or the fact that these birth bribes as a method of population growth didn't even work for the Nazis, you're still left with the fundamental problem of not having enough jobs for their parents or even the children whenever they grow up. The best way to keep people in the province is probably to create jobs or something like that but hey we got that MOU so construction on the eighty thousand oil rigs are going to start in the fall, right?
All this aside, if there are any attractive ladies out there in internetland feel free to drop me a line and go halfs on a baby or something, because I could totally go for 500 free dollars.
3. "What health care crisis? ...oh, shi-"
As someone all too familiar with Grand Falls I probably found it a lot funnier than I should have that it would be the site of one of Williams' more amusing moments of the election, but the image of Danny saying "You can't be serious" when told just how bad the hospital situation will forever be etched in my mind. It leaves almost a little hope that maybe Danny really is up there doing his best and his ministers are actually hiding this stuff from him so he doesn't look bad, but then you remember that even if that was the case instead of the Punch-and-Judy puppetshow that is the Williams administration then its still pretty sad that the premier would be so clueless as to the state of the healthcare system to be pretty shocked by actually going to a hospital beyond the overpass. What was it he said about St. John's being neglected? Also, saying that the hospital will be standing in line with deteriorating schools and roads was a nice touch too. That's cool, I'd rather die from lupus while being treated for the flu than hit a pothole, too.
Of course, there is a lot left to the election (read: 8 days) and ideally I will be able to cover things as they develop rather than assault the English language and break your scroll button every other week so we will see how it goes. Things you can expect to be on the agenda of business which could be considered serious:
- Election Predictions 2007: The Roland Butler Appreciation Station and I am going to hope, for the sake of the future of political comedy in this province, that the Natural Resources Minister is beaten by a 20 year old political science major
- An in-depth analysis of why this election is quickly turning into a contest to see which party is made up of the least people from St. John's
- And other hard-hitting reporting on Election 2007 as it develops, etc.
Remember, folks: if it happens in the election season, you'll hear it at Serious Business
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