Cher Horowitz and God in an indie road trip movie?! How can you not watch this?!?! 
the ultimate feminist road trip
the invasion has begun
Remember in the movie Canadian Bacon when the Americans were all freaked out because they thought that Canada was preparing to invade? Dude, it’s totally started!
Over the weekend, 12 Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn underwent a transformation, emerging Monday morning as the first New York City locations of Tim Hortons, a Canadian chain that sells coffee and baked goods.
[...]Tim Hortons has more than 3,400 locations, including more than 500 in the United States, but until Monday morning the closest stores to New York City were in Meriden, Conn., and Cortland, N.Y.
Most customers on Monday seemed to prefer coffee over doughnuts, and a few ordered bagels, sandwiches or other baked goods. As they filed out of the 34th Street store, reactions were mixed.
“Well, mine’s good!” Ms. Elkaim said after taking a sip of coffee. “I love it.”
“Dunkin’ Donuts used to have larger cups,” Ms. Gerard complained to the clerk as she left, a small iced coffee in hand.
We started out small, moving hockey franchises south of the border and demonstrating the benefits of allowing gays and other minorities to have rights that are equal to that of white, heterosexual men. Then we got to work on the whole global warming thing, changing weather patterns so that the US experienced winter just like we do, nine months of the year with never an end in sight. Now, we slowly introducing the staples of the Canadian diet — the double-double and Timbits. I give it another year, maybe two, and we’ll have every American bowing to the Maple Leaf and pledging allegiance to Don Cherry.
Roe v. Sotomayor
There was an anti-abortion protest held outside of Sonia Sotomayor‘s Supreme Court confirmation hearing yesterday. During the kerfuffle, a woman named Norma McCorvey was arrested after she and others in her group forced their way into the chamber and began yelling during the hearing’s opening remarks.
So why is Norma McCorvey so special? You mean, besides the fact that she is a major supporter of anti-abortion groups and she’s been involved in fundraising and protests that are against abortion for the better part of the last ten years? How about that she is the reason that abortion is legal to begin with? Norma McCorvey is Jane Roe, as in Roe v. Wade.
The woman known as “Jane Roe” in the landmark Supreme Court abortion case Roe v. Wade was reportedly arrested today at Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation hearing.
Norma McCorvey is best known for her role in the 1973 court ruling that secured a woman’s right to an abortion. Years after the pivotal case, McCorvey recanted her support for abortion rights and became an active anti-abortion demonstrator.
[...]“I’m here to overturn Roe and defeat Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court,” McCorvey said earlier, according to the Sentinel. “She’s unworthy of the position. She’s Catholic. She’s even unworthy of taking communion because of her pro-abortion stance.”
In 1970, Norma McCorvey was a lesbian living in Texas who somehow became pregnant with her third child. She joined up with Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, two lawyers who were looking for a pregnant woman willing to challenge the laws against abortion. Because the court case actually lasted longer than nine months, McCorvey ended up giving birth to a little girl which she gave up for adoption rather than having an abortion, which continued to be illegal in the United States until Roe v. Wade went before the Supreme Court in 1973.
In 1994, McCorvey was befriended by pro-life activists and proceeded to convert to Catholicism, abandon her lover and declare herself straight, and has since spent her life railing against the evils of abortion and those who support it.
On one hand, I fully support McCorvey’s right to change her mind and support whatever views she holds near and dear to her heart. On the other hand, I find it convenient that she became vocal in her opposition to abortion after she was old enough that unplanned pregnancy was no longer an issue for her. I wonder if she would be anti-abortion if she suddenly found herself pregnant again. Then there is the fundamental problem that I have with anti-abortion activists. They tend to forget that “pro-choice” means giving someone the right to choose. It doesn’t necessarily mean “pro-abortion”. But that’s just my opinion.
not so funny when you’re the one being mocked and shamed, is it?
I’m not normally a fan of anything produced by Fox News, but when I saw this clip I just about stood up and cheered.
Stuart Varney had “anti-obesity advocate” MeMe Roth on today to talk about Northwest Airlines’ flight attendants’ fight to get uniforms larger than a size 18. And then he did what every sane person longs to do: he publicly shamed her.
Ms Roth’s argument against the larger-sized uniforms is that obese people shouldn’t be allowed to work for an airline anyway so why should we worry about making uniforms for them. She actually went on national television and stated that it was a safety hazard for an obese person to be a flight attendant — because wouldn’t you rather have a skinny and/or fit person helping you in an emergency? — and that airlines would save money by not hiring obese people because of the amount of extra money it costs to have them on the plane — the heavier the flight attendants, the heavier the plane and the more money that needs to be spent on fuel.
The man interviewing her — Stuart Varney — has become my hero. He was after her from the second the interview started about how she was contributing to emotional abuse of women and how she should be ashamed of herself for laughing at people simply because they were different. I think that MeMe Roth should get her ass kicked hard, and Stuart Varney deserves some sort of a medal.
Edited at 1:50pm to add: Here’s some info on the original complaint that MeMe Roth was on Fox News to discuss. Richard Tyler is the designer responsible for the new Delta Airlines uniforms, and while everyone agrees that they are nice to look at the Northwest chapter of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA is filing a complaint with Delta over the fact that the largest size available in the uniforms is 18. In other words, if you wear anything over a size 18, you have to wear a different uniform than the rest of your colleagues.
a thirteen letter word for “falling short”
You know the newspaper industry is hitting new lows when they are getting rid of the only good section in the paper. How will people ever keep up with their education and vocabularies if the crossword puzzle disappears!
The Atlantic’s Puzzler, which will take its final bow in September, and The New York Sun’s crossword are among the most notable recent casualties, in part because of their Ivy League street cred. (Let’s face it: the crosswords in TV Guide and People magazine seldom generate heat at Hamptons dinner parties.) But The Washington Post, The New York Times and countless local newspapers have also trimmed their puzzle space for financial reasons.
[...]“Crosswords are not going to die, because they are popular in book and magazine form, and they’re very profitable in print,” said Will Shortz, the crossword editor for The New York Times. “But I think crossword and pencil puzzles in general are ideally suited for newspapers because they become a part of your daily routine. You don’t get that in a book.”
I find it sad that in today’s age of obnoxious reality TV and shortened attention spans, I think it really sucks that the one part of the paper that editors feel comfortable getting rid of is the crossword puzzle. Maybe we should be spending less column inches worrying about what Angelina Jolie is wearing to the grocery store. That would probably free up some cash.
Okay, so it’s not like the crossword puzzle is going to become extinct altogether. You’ll still be able to do it online and those little books that you can get at the supermarket with all the puzzles will probably still be printed. But there’s just something about curling up in bed on Sunday morning with a coffee and some pastries and the Sunday morning paper and the weekend crossword puzzle. It’s so….cozy.
By the way, a thirteen letter word for “falling short”: disappointing.
the best day of my life — in pictures
My pics from the Paul McCartney concert have been put up on Facebook. I changed my album settings so that anyone can access the album, so you should be able to see them even if you’re not friends with me on Facebook.
come together
50,000 people were at the Halifax Commons yesterday for the opportunity of a lifetime — to see Sir Paul McCartney live in concert in his only Canadian tour stop. And I was one of those people 
I took my place in the lineup at the gate at 10:30am. The gates opened at 3:30 and the first performer took to the stage at 4pm. She was actually pretty good — I’d never heard of her before but she kicked some ass. Wintersong was next and was completely forgettable. Joel Plasket was pretty good but I’ve heard them in concert before.
Paul McCartney took to the stage at 9:15 and didn’t leave it until after midnight. He sang my three favourite songs of all time — Eleanor Rigby, Hey Jude and Yesterday. He was funny and charming and he interacted with the crowd with the confidence and comfort of a man who has been on stage for decades.
I didn’t get home until almost 1am. I’m badly sunburned, I was dehydrated and exhausted, and I can’t talk today because of all of the screaming and hollering and singing at the top of my lungs that I did. And I would do it all again in a heartbeat. This is going to go down as one of the top five experiences of my life.
My ticket to the Paul McCartney concert
Paul McCartney is the guy in the white shirt in the middle of the picture. Hard to see, but trust me -- it's him!
Sir Paul on the video screen
free speech in transit
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled today that having access to freedom of speech for everyone means that sometimes people are going to have to be exposed to ideas that they just don’t agree with.
In an 8-0 ruling this morning, the court said two B.C. mass transit agencies were wrong to refuse political ads the Canadian Federation of Students and a teachers union attempted to purchase in 2004.
The agencies – the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority (TransLink) and British Columbia Transit (BC Transit) – rejected the ads based on internal policies that focused on making riders feel comfortable with their surroundings.
[...]“It is difficult to see how an advertisement on the side of a bus that constitutes political speech might create a safety risk or an unwelcoming environment for transit users,” Madam Justice Marie Deschamps wrote today for the Court.
I honestly didn’t see the problem with these ads from the start. They did not disparage any individual political group or leader (unlike a few TV ads that have been running lately and are really getting old) and they did not contain any hurtful or degrading messages to any particular race or religion or gender. One was an ad encouraging students to vote in an election, and the other was an ad from the teachers’ union encouraging parents to become involved in learning about changes to the school system. Both ads were informative and yet mundane. This was clearly a case of political correctness gone insane — we don’t want to risk insulting anyone so we just won’t say anything at all. In our effort to keep everyone happy and unoffended, we (and be “we” I mean society as a whole) tend to forget that healthy dialogue can be a good thing, so long as all parties are encouraged and allowed to express their opinions.
Here in Halifax, Metro Transit has been waiting on the outcome of this case before deciding whether to allow a series of pro-atheism bus ads on the sides of their buses. I was pleased to read that the group responsible for the ads will be submitting them to MT on Monday. Again, there is nothing wrong with creating dialogue and awareness among different groups and communities. Sometimes people need to stop thinking up things to be insulted by and spend some time actually listening to and learning from each other.
talking dirty with an octogenarian
I just listened to Gloria Vanderbilt read an excerpt from her new novel and I have to say that I was slightly disturbed by it. Not by the content, because I’m more than happy to read a dirty book and there are no words in that particular clip that I haven’t said to someone in the past. But I can’t get it out of my head that she’s 85 years old and some of the most erotic words in the English language just came out of her mouth. It feels just a little bit…wrong.
I just can’t stop thinking that this woman is old enough to be my grandmother and she said words that I could never imagine my grandmother saying. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not one of those people who believes that my grandparents never had sex. They probably got a little nasty on more than one occasion and to be honest I’m a little comforted to think of them as human beings with needs just like mine. But that doesn’t mean that I would want to hear my nana talking about sucking on Grandpa’s cock while her throbbing pussy waited to be filled. It’s ageist of me, and slightly sexist, and I should probably be ashamed of myself. But it’s one of those boundaries in life that just shouldn’t be crossed.
With all of this said, I’m still totally buying the book. I just don’t think I’ll be able to handle the audio version.
Help Wanted: Witch with hat, must love cats
Looking for a career change? Like the idea of living in a cave? How do you look in a pointy hat? This just might be the job for you:
Fancy 80,000 dollars a year on a stress-free job with flexible working hours and no need to wear a suit?
Well, grab your black pointy hat, take out that rusty black hessian drape from the back of the wardrobe and refresh your memory on how to turn your grumpy neighbor into a mouse. Somerset tourist attraction Wookey Hole caves is advertising for a “witch” and has already received 100 applicants since the beginning of the week.
Legend has it that the caves, near Wells, were home to the Wookey Witch who was turned to stone by the medieval Abbott of Glastonbury to rid villagers of her curse.
[...]The successful candidate, who will be living in a “spacious” cave, has to cackle, not be allergic to cats and will be asked to perform “a range of tasks” including magic at an open audition scheduled for July 28.
I could totally do this! I know magic tricks, and I wouldn’t mind living in a cave, and I look fucking hot in a pointy hat! I’m all over this, man.
