Gord in Australian newspaper 12Aug2010

[Dave, Melbourne,Australia]

This article from Melbourne newspaper The Age is firmly tongue-in-cheek and refers to the immigration issues facing Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in the lead-up to Australia's Aug21 federal election.

Keep the boats coming, but please, future PMs, keep the Canadians out
- By Danny Katz
Tony and Julia want to turn this country into an insular, isolated, boat-rejecting, immigration-slashing, closed-bordered, closed-minded bastion of fortified rackkoffff-ness, and I think that's an excellent thing. I'm fully behind them, if only to keep out the Canadians. I've got no problem with refugees coming here from Pakistan, Afghanistan or Kiwistan, but something must be done to curb the influx of Canadastanis flowing across our borders like thick, insidious maple syrup smothering a helpless, little butterball atop a compassionate pancake short-stack. Those Canadians, they're desperate to come here. They look at Australia and go "Oooo, it's so much like home - same laidback lifestyle, same laconic humour, same geopolitical global insignificance. I want to live there, eh." But when they get here, they make no effort to assimilate like other refugees or immerse themselves into Australian society. You see them walking our city streets in small, intimidating Caribou-packs, offending everyone with their culturally insensitive Roots-brand Beaver-Canoe sweatshirts. You see them working out in our suburban gymnasiums, flashing their repulsively overdeveloped moose-pecs and humming Nickelback songs, unironically. You see them in our pancake eateries, throwing forks across the table in disgust and whining to waitresses: "The amberness of this maple syrup does not appear to be of an acceptable 60.5-74.9% translucency! If I'm not very much mistaken, this is mock-maple! Bring me genuine syrup IMMEDIATELY in a proper glass bottle with an impractically tiny handle for my impossibly brawny Canadian fingers!" Yeah, yeah, here we go, all the lefties and greenies and Julian Burnside-ees are going to start prattling about how we should accept asylum-seekers of EVERY nationality, that Canadians have fled lives of great hardship, suffering under the French-Canadian fundamentalists who brutally force supermarkets to have both English and French labelling on all their merchandise, so "ketchup" is also called "ketchuppe". That Canadians have escaped the barbaric Cirque du Soleil regime which indoctrinates innocent, young people and teaches them to balance on tightropes with their teeth while dressed as freaky, ladyboy whore-clowns - it's so degrading. But how are we supposed to be compassionate when newly arrived Canadians insist on keeping their ethnic culture, language, religion? When they refuse to stop speaking in their native accents? They sound like a drunken American chewing on a Mintie that's caught in the back of their retainer. Deport the Canadians. Send them back to T'rono. And before you call me a hateful Canuckist, let me confess that I'm a Canadian refugee! My family fled in the early '70s and crossed the seas on a decrepit, old ship - that is, a Qantas airship with no movies and my window-shutter wouldn't go all the way down. I was smuggled into Australia under my father's lumberjack jacket, hidden in his burly Canadian chest hair, my sister hidden in my mother's. We began a new life of freedom here, but my parents refused to abandon their Canadianness. They made me walk to school in snow-shoes, huge tennis-racket-shaped ones tied to each foot. They wouldn't let me sing the Australian national anthem; it always had to be the Canadian anthem, Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind. So now as an adult, even though I love this country deeply, I can only speak fluent Canadian, only drink Canadian Club whiskey and only rock out to head-bangin' Canadian acts like Shania Twain and the Crash Test Dummies. So Tony and Julia are right - immigration numbers should be slashed. But let the genuine refugees in and just stop the Canadians. And Tony and Julia, whichever of you vows to send me off to a detention centre in Nauru or East Timor - me and the only other Canadian-Australian that comes to mind, crime-writing supermodel Tara Moss, detained in a tiny isolation cell with one set of clothes and a single-bed mattress - whoever can promise that, you shall have my vote.

[charlene]

LOL!
But I love my little glass bottle of PURE maple syrup with the tiny handle!!...And I'm all for ANY Lightfoot tune as the national anthem...
gotta go shave my chest, i'm going oot and aboot in Trawnna soon.
au revoir.

[johnfowles]

Originally Posted by charlene

LOL!
gotta go shave my chest, i'm going oot and aboot in Trawnna soon.
au revoir.

This is Susan's absolute favourite television infomercial of the moment... not

YouTube- DepilSilk

Spray-on and Wipe-off Body Hair removal system for legs, arms, chest, back, face. Plus hair growth slower, robe & head wrap. The 40-year old virgin would not have had to wax...but where's the fun in watching painless hair removal?
So Char don't just shave your chest use depilsilk and as you are so good at making videos
film yourself using depilsilk before hairy and after with your hairless chest and then upload the video to youtube for us all to enjoy!!
But wait!!
I just googled for "depilslk scam" and found an amazon run website page headed
"Anyone tried Depilsilk or Depil Silk hair remover? I saw the infomercial and can't find any info on it."
A typical and relevant comment was:-
Kamanda said:
This product sucks. First of all it took over 3 weeks to get here, sure you pay only 10 dollars, but the damn shipping was 13 dollars. It didnt work at all for me. It didnt remove any hair at all. Just left me walking around naked with my skin burning. I do not recommend this product to anyone

Anyway as a former resident of Quebec (Kaybeck) who endured the peak of the "language police" activity in the 60's I especially enjoyed
"French-Canadian fundamentalists "
T'rono? Trawnna? Now i'm confused I always thought it was Tronno

[charlene]

Trawnna/Tronno/or TDot as the 'kids' say..lol
.. I was in Trawnna the other night to see Lyle Lovett at The Church of Gord. I love being in Trawnna in the summer..rode the train home with dejected Jays fans and happy Michael Buble fans.

[johnfowles]

Originally Posted by Dave, Melbourne,Australia

This article from Melbourne newspaper The Age is firmly tongue-in-cheek and refers to the immigration issues facing Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in the lead-up to Australia's Aug21 federal election.

There is an interesting article about Julia in today's UK (NOT Sydney) Daily Telegraph at:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...est-reign.html
Will Australia's first woman prime minister Julia Gillard have the briefest reign?
She is the Welsh-born Australian prime minister who is fighting in a neck and neck race for every last vote, including those cast by Australians in Britain.

[joveski]

tony abbott is an idiot. plus, every female will vote for Julia on saturday. even me, and last time i checked, i wasnt a female

[johnfowles]

Originally Posted by johnfowles

This is Susan's absolute favourite television infomercial of the moment... not

YouTube- DepilSilk

OK I pinpointed Susan's most unfavo(U)rite television commercial. For myself, like I suspect most television watchers in the USA. I am growing a trifle weary of the barage of adverts for Geico car insurance For those less priveieged these revolve mainly around fhe theme of a Gekko (geddit i.e. a small lizard) and his discussions with his boss about the company's advertising campaign etc

YouTube- Ringtone

The cartoon gekko speeks with a pronounced and very common sounding British accent.
Funny that: when I was in the UK television commercials to try to make an impact often feaured American accented sound and of course in the States the in thing is to have a British accent correction British people of course do not as a rule have an accent at all unlss they come from somewhere like Sunderland!! See how much of fhe Geordie accent you can understand here:-

YouTube- Auf wiedersehen pet - OZ

An alternative series of adverts features an American actor snarling to me very gratingly the words of a series of jokes along the lines of was Abe Lincoln Honest? Normally I cannot stand him but a recent addition has got me highly amused as it takes the urine out of the valuations on the Antiques Roadshow

YouTube- New GEICO Commercial - Bird in Hand

[Jesse Joe]

I've seen this last one over here as well.

[Jesse Joe]

This one here seems to be a new one.

YouTube- New GEICO Commercial - Piggy