If these guys took acid in a hall of mirrors it would make the best reality tv show on earth

"Eat me? I'd like to see a mutherfucker try." ~ Mrs. Peel

Debate should be grounded in objective reality. Argument is fine — productive, even — when it's premised in facts. Instead, we're only getting absurd quarrels born of febrile imaginings (immigrants eat cats! nazis are socialist!); poppycock which, in the long run, helps nobody.

I joke, but only because there are depressingly Barnum-esque realities driving hapless schmucks to give up everything for a chance at belonging, for a moment of fellowship. It ain't brainiacs and mentalists blocking highways; they attract those least able to defend themselves.

"But it's entirely fabricated and everybody knows. Why would he keep lying when the lie's been exposed?" It's a game, a sort of jousting for them. When the hateful banter is tested against reality it bores the hell out of 'em; when it's just goofy racist make-'em-ups, it's fun.

I was heading out to canvass today and discovered a freshly hatched turtle on our driveway. I used a canvass card to give the little one a lift to the river shore nearby. When I got back, there were nine more. So I employed a bowl for mass transit. I expect there will be more

"Most Canadians want-" "Nope." "Uh... more than half of those polled-" "Nuh-uh." "Well, uh... howzabout 'a little' over half-" "No. We need to make it seem way smaller." "You want I should jam this fact into a tiny clown car-" "And park it in Dr. Who's phone booth, yes."

"Honey, I shrunk the majority!"

"How daaaaaaaare you question my imaginary figures!" Dude's a one man marching band tooting righteous indignation in the key of high dudgeon — which the reporter recieves like the cry of a colicky wee'un. Did Stephen Miller ever a stow away on a flying saucer?

"Perhaps love is preferable to anger, hope tops fear and optimism *is* better than despair, but ain't nothing beats blowing smoke up the electorate with my buddy Jeff Poilievre."

"Tell us of the Beforetime grampa!" "Well, half of USA voted for a rapey old nutter, the leader of the NDP thought workers didn't deserve a tax rebate, and billionaires mooned all of us from orbit. What a time to be alive!" "Is that why everything's... like this?" "Eat your rat."

"Hey! You got your lofty impractical idealism all over my practiced indifference to the suffering of others!" "Yeah? Well your calloused sociopathic cantankery is all up in my unrealizable utopic imaginings!" [in unison] "They taste great together!"

Don't worry, everybody. No matter what happens next, Mr. Singh will be fine.

"But Crick, please! Be reasonable, man!" "Damn it, Watson, I *am* being reasonable! And I insist!" "This discovery of ours is too important for squab-" "Either we call it Deoxyribonucleic Crickola, or I walk."

Vulcan playing Four D chess, or sh!tfaced Irishman locked in the engine room with the dilithium set to overload? Only time will tell.

It's kind of weird fun to try to reverse-engineer what that might look like. "Are you ready to order?" "Yes please. May I have the salmon with wild rice?" "I'm sorry, we ran out of the salmon. May I recommend a shoebox full of broken glass and cobra venom?" "Ok. That'll be fine."

IF POILIEVRE & SINGH HAD LEAD THEIR PARTIES IN 1988 "Ozone-y baloney! Has anybody ever even *seen* an 'ozone'? Have they? Have they? Have they? Have th-" "[drifting by languidly on skateboard while drinking a can of soda] nooooOOOT MEEEeeeeeee-e-e-e...."

C'mon, people! Get that reactor set up chop-chop! We're fourteen years late already — that moon ain't gonna knock itself out of orbit.

Pshaw, #FridayThe13th! Instead, I wish a happy #Space1999 Day to all who celebrate! I know I'll be raising a glass to the waxing gibbous satellite tonight — or maybe more than one!

In many ways (especially their attitude toward the environment), today's Conservatives resemble Mulroney's the way Ernest Borgnine's misunderstood everyman character, Marty (1955) resembles his performance as sadistic railroad dick, Shack (1973). Same party, but *very* different.