Please Mr Prime Minister…

Please Mr Prime Minister

That is a letter from a nine-year-old Canadian boy named Kevin, who is being held without bail and without charges in the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center in central Texas.

The Globe and Mail has the report (via Fark):

…“My biggest wish is to go to Canada and be free, to go to my school, go for my books,” Kevin said, his father’s voice audible in the background.

“I want to be safe with me and my parents, and see my teachers and my friends again…”

Majid and Masomeh — they prefer their last name not be used — initially fled Iran for Canada in January, 1995, to seek political asylum. Majid did odd jobs, eventually becoming manager of an east Toronto pizza parlour, paying the rent for their one-bedroom apartment.

In 1997, their only son, Kevin, was born. “For the first time, I was happy,” Majid said from the Hutto detention facility.

“I had my family with me — it’s the only family I have — we didn’t have any problems and we lived happy in Toronto.”

That changed when their refugee claim was denied, after ten years in Canada; deported back to Iran, Majid was beaten, tortured and imprisoned (which you’d think would make convincing enough evidence that, in Iran, he’d be subject to beatings, torture and imprisonment, but that’s another matter entirely…moving on…). Escaping again through the help of people smugglers, the family was on their way back to Toronto bearing false Greek passports when a fellow passenger suffered a heart attack and the plane was forced to land in Puerto Rico.

Because Greek passport-bearers need a visa to enter the US, the family was shipped off to imprisonment in Texas. Even had the passports been legitimate, this would have been their fate, according to US officials, although really one has to wonder if they’ve detained many blond, blue-eyed people lacking the proper visas…

Next time you get on a plane, make sure to amuse yourself and your fellow passengers by giving out free ECG tests in the waiting area. Don’t take chances.

More of Kevin‘s letters are in this Globe and Mail slideshow.

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Special Edition Barbies: Vancouver and the Lower Mainland

I couldn’t be more excited. Not only has Mattel taken the Bratz by the headlights and launched the extra-superglamorous MAC Barbie (read her Vanity Fair interview if you’ve got five minutes and some brain cells to kill), but now they’re micro-marketing, with niche Barbies catering to every geographical demographic in the Lower Mainland. With their inevitable Eastward move, I can hardly wait to see what Hogtown Barbie looks like.

My friend Cassandra passed the following along to me but I have no idea who wrote it, so if you know the source please pass that along and I’ll credit them.

Yaletown Barbie‘Yaletown Barbie’

This princess Barbie is sold only at the Yaletown Choices Market.

She comes with an assortment of Kate Spade Handbags, a Lexus SUV, a long-haired foreign dog named Honey and a designer kitchen.

Available with or without tummy tuck and face-lift. Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with the augmented version.

Coquitlam BarbieCoquitlam Barbie’

The modern day homemaker Barbie is available with Ford Wind star Minivan and matching gym outfit.

She gets lost easily and has no full-time occupation.

Traffic jamming cell phone sold separately.

East Van Barbie‘East Van Barbie ‘

This recently paroled Barbie comes with a 9mm handgun, a Ray Lewis knife, a Chevy with dark tinted windows, and a Meth Lab Kit.

This model is only available after dark and must be paid for in cash (preferably small, untraceable bills)

…unless you are a cop, then we don’t know what you are talking about.

West Van Barbie‘West Van Barbie’

This yuppie Barbie comes with your choice of BMW convertible or Hummer H2.

Included are her own Starbucks cup, credit card and country club membership.

Also available for this set are Shallow Ken and Private School Skipper.

You won’t be able to afford any of them.

Chilliwack Barbie‘Chilliwack Barbie’

This pale model comes dressed in her own Wrangler jeans two sizes too small, a NASCAR t-shirt and tweety bird tattoo on her shoulder.

She has a six-pack of Bud light and a Hank Williams Jr. CD set.

She can spit over 5 feet and kick mullet-haired Ken’s butt when she is drunk.

Purchase her pickup truck separately and get a confederate flag bumper sticker absolutely free.

loft Barbie‘Loft Barbie’

This collagen injected, rhino plastic Barbie wears a leopard print outfit and drinks cosmopolitans while entertaining friends.

Percocet prescription available as well as warehouse conversion condo.

Maple Ridge Barbie‘Maple Ridge Barbie’

This tobacco-chewing, brassy-haired Barbie has a pair of her own high-heeled sandals with one broken heel from the time she chased beer-gutted Ken out of Butler Barbie’s house.

Her ensemble includes low-rise acid-washed jeans, fake fingernails, and a see-through halter-top.

Also available with a mobile home.

kits barbie‘Kitsilano Barbie’

This doll is made of actual tofu.

She has long straight brown hair, arch-less feet, hairy armpits, no makeup and Birkenstocks with white socks.

She prefers that you call her Willow.

She does not want or need a Ken doll, but if you purchase two Point Breeze Barbies and the optional Subaru wagon, you get a rainbow flag bumper sticker for free.

Surrey Barbie‘Surrey Barbie’

This Barbie now comes with a stroller and infant doll.

Optional accessories include a GED and bus pass.

Gangsta Ken and his 1979 Caddy were available, but are now very difficult to find since the addition of the infant.

Whistler Barbie‘Whistler Barbie’

She’s perfect in every way.

We don’t know where Ken is.

Ken is always out a-‘huntin’.

West End BarbieKen‘West End Barbie/Ken’

This versatile doll can be easily converted from Barbie to Ken by simply adding or subtracting the multiple snap-on body parts.

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a little restraint

Homer Strangling Bart, yo. Doesn't happen often enough!As I’m waaaaay over on the West End lately, taking a course, I’m often stuck using public computers during the daytime, as it is too far for me to walk home and back on my lunch hour and between appointments where the government dicks me around, and yea verily, I am very tired of taking the limo.

There is a problem with public computers, however.

The public. 

If they could just use the computer without poking the monitor with a greasy finger, presumably to stabilize themselves, while making “huh-huh” Beavis and Butthead noises, perhaps I could continue to use the computers which the government has, after all, put there for the citizenry such as myself to use.

Seriously, though: the next time someone repeatedly mutters to himself while seated next to me at a public computer station, I will rip out his tongue, tie it around his neck, pull his eyes out and tuck his dangling optic nerves under the tongue/cravat which I have fashioned, I will pop the eyeballs one by one into my mouth and swallow them whole, praying that they are still somehow transmitting messages to his brain as they slowly dissolve in the cauldron of sulphuric acid to which I have sent them, and then I will suggest that he request that the Ministry provide him with a specially-equipped custom laptop for his own personal use, as he qualifies for one now that he is disabled.

He’ll thank me later. And so will you, if you ever have to surf these terminals of despair. Just keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you.

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Mooseball!!!

See, North Americans love soccer too! We just play it differently.

The funniest thing about this video is the way the moose gets so pissed off when the ball gets caught in a shrub. You just know that as he stomped away he was cursing that shrub and muttering moorosely.
via Defamer, the Hollywood Gossip site. And no, I don’t know why they went with this when they could have posted Helen Mirren reading lines from Borat, but oh well.

Webjunk, from whence Defamer stole it, has helpfully provided a translation of the anguished dog’s commentary.

“You are ruining my life. Stop it stop it!!! Why? This is all I have. Oh sh*t, dude you are stepping on my tail. Oh – that’s better. Hey Moose, stop. Please, that has my scent on it. Make him stop, I will never leave it outside again. Kill me. Kill me. Why?”

That said, we are huge dog lovers (no, we are not Korean) and we find this hilarious. Is it because the pain is so real?

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booze nooze yooze can use

how much cider could a woodchuck upchuck cider...Why pay big bucks for your chick beer when you can now make your very own ciders and perry? A tenth of the cost of Smirnoff Ice, and far more pretention-worthy than anything out of a can or a plastic bottle, plus full of nutritious vitamins and minerals. Also, phytochemicals. That’s right; we’re here to help you get shitfaced responsibly. Your liver may not thank me but research (and my luck in singles bars) indicates your colon will.

The best way to thank me is to invite me over to sample a batch and send me home in a limo with a couple of cases.

From The Real Cider and Perry Page. Give it a go and let me know when you’ve got GrowersMerridale, and Strongbow on the run.

…The juice was collected in a 30 gallon plastic bin that was once used to carry Strawberries around. We added 5 LB’s of Raisons and let it ferment outside for 3 months. After 3 months we racked it off into 5 gallon barrels and started drinking it a few months later. Next time I’ll wash the hessian more thoroughly since the cider had a distinct hessianny taste! – this lead to some wag christening it as “Sacks’N’Socks Cider” (Anglo pun intended!). The cider also matures much better in the barrels than it did in bottles – it keeps so well it doesn’t seem worth the effort to bottle.

So all in all very successful – and sooooo easy compared with beermaking!

Snakebite! Cider and lager and hangoversand here, for ease of use even when drunk, is the recipe index.

Cider Recipes

Perry Recipes

Yup: play along at home as Gillian busts her Perry Cherry.

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