Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays.



March 2005
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    
Feb   Apr


leafMADE IN CANADA

leaf trust your instincts



< £ Salon Bloggers & >





Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.

 


 

  March 26, 2005


The Idea: I couldn't resist after reading this. I'm kidding. Really.

The snow and ice of Canada is set to turn red with blood once again as hunters prepare to embark on an operation to club or shoot up to 320,000 conservatives. The government quota has been increased tenfold for the next three years as populations of conservatives in some of Canada's most isolated areas have spiked, following the demise of their natural predators, and as unemployment of hunters and fishermen has soared due to overexploitation of Canada's natural resources.

Pointing to the appointment of disgraced Canadian conservative businessman Conrad Black to the British House of Lords, British and European trade critics have accused Canada of "dumping" their excess unwanted conservatives there. "We have enough of our own to deal with", said Germany's trade minister, "We don't need Canada sending us their bloated conservative carcasses. There is absolutely no use for them."

Political rights campaigners have begun a boycott of Canadian bacon, maple sugar and other products and this year's hunt is set to be as controversial as before. The controversy is inextricably linked to the visceral images of hapless, slow-moving conservatives being clubbed to death and the ice floes turning red with their blood and brains. Hunters say that using a spiked club or hakapik is a humane method but opponents say the conservatives are often skinned alive and left to die, pointing out as an example the treatment of former conservative leader and now deputy leader Peter MacKay at a recent conservative gathering.

"I think it comes down to being a values issue," said Ralph Wingnut, a spokeswoman for the International Fund for Conservative Welfare (IFCW) which is opposed to the hunt. Despite the efforts of activists, hunting of Canadian conservatives has long been a way of life for some. "There is really nothing new about this year's hunt," said Roger Wilco, a Liberal government spokesman.

"They're really responsible for their own demise", Wilco added. "They breed like flies, and they're constantly attacking each other. We're actually doing them a favour by putting them out of their misery before they starve or kill each other. And they eat like pigs -- we think they're responsible for the decline of our fisheries, and maybe even for Mad Cow". Many conservatives are found in Alberta and British Columbia, where two cases of Mad Cow disease have recently been uncovered. In the US, large cattle herds and conservatives are also known to frequent the same areas.

The conservative-hunters insist that their actions are not cruel. "These doddering beasts are not intelligent, they don't even know what's happening to them", said local conservative-hunter Jack Hoff. "They have very tiny brains, and they have repeatedly shown that they are incapable of feeling pain, or anything else".

Canadian conservative leader Stephen Harper compounded conservatives' misfortunes this week, praising George Bush as a great leader, and saying Canada made a mistake to refuse to participate in the US Missile Defence program and the Iraq War. "I would have sent all five members of Canada's armed forced to Iraq", he insisted. He also opposed Canada's approval of the Kyoto Accord, and is threatening to force the minority Liberal government into an election over that issue. Critics pounced on Harper's statements as further evidence that conservatives are incapable of sentient thought or feeling.

The government insists that the conservative hunt protects against overpopulation of the species and provides jobs in economically depressed parts of the country. "With the demise of the fisheries industry in Canada [due to overfishing], we needed to find something else for the people in the industry to kill", said former fisheries minister (now minister without portfolio) Wilbur Wackjob. "These are very proud people. They have a great history of indiscriminately overharvesting Canada's natural resources, and that's something this government supports."

The government is also investigating a West Coast conservative hunt to provide much needed jobs for BC's loggers, since aggressive clear-cutting of Canada's old growth forests has decimated the province's natural beauty and forestry employment is suffering. "The use of chain saws will be much more effective than the clubs used in the East Coast hunt", a spokesman said. He defended the proposal, pointing out that Canada's mismanaged forestry industry is predominantly owned by conservative American conglomerates. "That just shows how brainless they are", the spokesman added. "They won't feel a thing."


2:54:50 PM  trackback []  comment []


Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website. © Copyright 2005 Dave Pollard.
Last update: 01/04/2005; 7:11:24 AM.



SEARCH SITE
How to Save the World

SEARCH SALON
Search All Salon Blogs


leaf THINKING OF MOVING TO CANADA?
(immigration info blog)


Technorati Cosmos


Click to see the XML version of this web page.

Enter your email address below to subscribe to How to Save the World


powered by Bloglet

Add to My Yahoo!

.
.
.
.
.


Subscribe to "How to Save the World" in Radio UserLand.

Click to see the XML version of this web page.





WHAT THE BLOGOSPHERE WANTS MORE OF

Blog readers want to see more:
  1. original research, surveys etc.
  2. original, well-crafted fiction
  3. great finds: resources, blogs, essays, artistic works
  4. news not found anywhere else
  5. category killers: aggregators that capture the best of many blogs/feeds, so they need not be read individually
  6. clever, concise political opinion (most readers prefer these consistent with their own views)
  7. benchmarks, quantitative analysis
  8. personal stories, experiences, lessons learned
  9. first-hand accounts
  10. live reports from events
  11. insight: leading-edge thinking & novel perspectives
  12. short educational pieces
  13. relevant "aha" graphics
  14. great photos
  15. useful tools and checklists
  16. précis, summaries, reviews and other time-savers
  17. fun stuff: quizzes, self-evaluations, other interactive content

Blog writers want to see more:
  1. constructive criticism, reaction, feedback
  2. 'thank you' comments, and why readers liked their post
  3. requests for future posts on specific subjects
  4. foundation articles: posts that writers can build on, on their own blogs
  5. reading lists/aggregations of material on specific, leading-edge subjects that writers can use as resource material
  6. wonderful examples of writing of a particular genre, that they can learn from
  7. comments that engender lively discussion
  8. guidance on how to write in the strange world of weblogs


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.