A Few Things

Tucker Carlson

"Anybody with any ambition at all, or intelligence, has left Canada and is now living in New York."

"Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada."

-Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson is a conservative "pundit" in the states with frequently inflamatory views. I had heard of him before, but only because Jon Stewart was a guest on a show he co-hosted called Crossfire. He's obviously some kind of bozo, but he's become kind of the 'voice of the right' in the states. It goes without saying that as a Canadian I had a strong reaction when I heard these comments, and at first thought I figured Americans would probably have a similar reaction to these as when anyone makes a bigoted statement. Perhaps not. More from the right in the states (these are from Ann Coulter):

"[Canadians] better hope the United States does not roll over one night and crush them. They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent."

"It's always the worst Americans who go there."

"We could have taken them over so easy. But I only want the western part, with the ski areas, the cowboys, and the right wingers. They're the only good parts of Canada."

Commence eye-rolling. But seriously, how do these people get on TV? I guess it has to be that it makes good television, but these people are... respected in their areas. I mean what the hell.


Secondhand Lions


A movie I only saw the second half of. It is "a coming-of-age story about a shy, young boy sent by his irresponsible mother to spend the summer with his wealthy, eccentric uncles in Texas." The uncles own a lion, spin tall tales about hijinks with an arab named 'The Sheik", and get into barfights. SPOILER ETC.

Ok, so at the end the uncles die, and when the kid comes back to the property to see what he's inherited, a helicopter appears and lands. Out steps a young petroleum company executive, and he explains that he is the grandson of "The Shiek" and that he heard the uncles died on the news. His grandfather always told stories of them, he says, and so the audience finds out that the tall tales weren't so tall after all.

Ok.

My point here is that this proves no such thing. The uncles had a lot of money, what's stopping them from paying someone and saying 'when we die fly in on a helicopter and claim to be the grandson...' etc.

It proves NO SUCH THING.

Merry Christmas