Caribou Barbie (Palin) gets OWNED in Canada

From AP:
TORONTO - Sarah Palin unwittingly took a prank call Saturday from a Canadian comedian posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and telling her she would make a good president someday.

"Maybe in eight years," replies a laughing Palin.

The Republican vice presidential nominee discusses politics, the perils of hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney, and Sarkozy's "beautiful wife," in a recording of the six-minute call released Saturday and set to air Monday on a Quebec radio station.

Palin campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt confirmed she had received the prank call.

"Governor Palin was mildly amused to learn that she had joined the ranks of heads of state, including President Sarkozy and other celebrities, in being targeted by these pranksters. C'est la vie," she said.

The call was made by a well-known Montreal comedy duo Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel. Known as the Masked Avengers, the two are notorious for prank calls to celebrities and heads of state.

Audette, posing as Sarkozy, speaks in an exaggerated French accent and drops ample hints that the conversation is a joke. But Palin seemingly does not pick up on them.

He tells Palin one of his favorite pastimes is hunting, also a passion of the 44-year-old Alaska governor.

"I just love killing those animals. Mmm, mmm, take away life, that is so fun," the fake Sarkozy says.

He proposes they go hunting together by helicopter, something he says he has never done.

"Well, I think we could have a lot of fun together while we're getting work done," Palin counters. "We can kill two birds with one stone that way."

The comedian jokes that they shouldn't bring Cheney along on the hunt, referring to the 2006 incident in which the vice-president shot and injured a friend while hunting quail.

"I'll be a careful shot," responds Palin.

Playing off the governor's much-mocked comment in an early television interview that she had insights into foreign policy because "you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska," the caller tells her: "You know we have a lot in common also, because ... from my house I can see Belgium."

She replies: "Well, see, we're right next door to different countries that we all need to be working with, yes."

When Audette refers to Canadian singer Steph Carse as Canada's prime minister, Palin replies: "Well, he's doing fine and yeah, when you come into a position underestimated it gives you an opportunity to prove the pundits and the critics wrong. You work that much harder." Canada's prime minister is Stephen Harper.

Palin praises Sarkozy throughout the call and also mentions his wife Carla Bruni, a model-turned-songwriter.

"You know, I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally and your beautiful wife," Palin says. "Oh my goodness, you've added a lot of energy to your country with that beautiful family of yours."

The Sarkozy impersonator tells Palin his wife is "so hot in bed" and then informs her that Bruni has written a song for her about Joe the Plumber entitled "Du rouge a levres sur une cochonne" — which translates as "Lipstick on a Pig."

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama derided his Republican challenger John McCain's call for change in Washington as "lipstick on a pig," days after Palin made a lipstick joke at the Republican convention. The McCain-Palin campaign then released an ad implying Obama was calling Palin a pig with that remark.

The caller asks Palin if Joe the Plumber is her husband and adds: "We have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France. It's called Marcel, the guy with bread under his armpit."

He also tells the Alaska governor that he loved the "documentary" made about her and referred to a pornographic film with a Palin look-alike made by Hustler founder Larry Flynt.

She answers tentatively, "Ohh, good, thank you, yes."

The callers then reveal the prank and identify themselves and their radio station.

"Ohhh, have we been pranked?" Palin asks before handing the phone to an aide who ends the call.

Obama's campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs, commenting on the prank, said: "I'm glad we check out our calls before we hand the phone to Barack Obama."

Wal-Mart Canada offers super-extra-strength feminine products

Wal-Mart Canada's website is offering a unique new feminine hygiene product. I really don't think they are singling out Canadians - this product should be available in Chicago as well to make the public transport experience a little better.

Rogers GSM - crap service even downtown Toronto

I was trying to carry on a phone conversation with a friend in Toronto tonight. Both of his phones, two different accounts with Rogers, kept dropping the calls. No single call would stay up for more than 2 1/2 minutes!

It's bad enough that Rogers is a GSM monopoly with every monthly bill being an exercise in price-gouging (assuming its accurate) - but to have to redial 20 times in an hour when the guy's got 4 bars of service showing on his phone? Bleah.

We'd have switched to Skype but their cable-modem throughput at this time of night plus traffic shaping makes VOIP unintelligible. Can't win. Rogers sucks.

jesus freak funeral protestors turned away at the Canadian border - but supposedly not all of them :( ...

I won't mention the website name that these idiots from Topeka run. I hope the second group get their asses kicked, then charged, then deported. This is a sad footnote to a gruesome story that got little press in the USA.

In short, an innocent "nice guy" was beheaded by a crazy guy on a Greyhound bus in the province of Manitoba. For the geographically challenged, Manitoba is above northwest Minnesota and North Dakota.

Google it for more details - it's too disgusting and depressing.

Beheading victim protesters stopped
Winnipeggers urge action against U.S. sect planning McLean funeral picket
By SIMON FULLER, SUN MEDIA
The Winnipeg Sun

Members of a controversial U.S.-based church hoping to picket the funeral of beheading victim Tim McLean Jr. were turned away at the Canadian border by officials yesterday.

The Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kan., announced Wednesday it planned to protest the funeral, to be held tomorrow afternoon at Westwood Community Church. But church spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of church pastor Fred Phelps, confirmed last night one "team" of pickets were turned away at the Canadian border yesterday.

However, she said a second team was "on course" to arrive in Winnipeg in time for tomorrow's funeral.

"The only way they won't get through is if they are strip-searched and they find Westboro Baptist Church tattoos on their butts," said Phelps-Roper, who previously told the Winnipeg Sun McLean's "filthy ways" brought wrath upon his head.

If they do make it across the border, angry Winnipeggers are ready to confront them. Several Winnipeggers outraged by news the funeral for McLean, who was beheaded and partially eaten on a Greyhound bus west of Portage la Prairie last week, are planning to block the group from getting anywhere close to funeral-goers.

By early last night, a Facebook group devoted to the idea had swelled to almost 200 people.

"Everything they say is bizarre and off the wall and it's totally disrespectful to invade a funeral," said Winnipeg student Amalia Slobogian, 26, who joined the group after reading about the church's plans.

"When I first heard this, I was very angry. Freedom of speech is one thing, but imposing this at a funeral is totally inappropriate."

Pat Martin, the NDP MP for Winnipeg Centre, agreed.

"These guys are lunatics," said Martin.

"They're not baptists -- Tommy Douglas was a baptist."

Martin said there could be an "absolute melee at the church" if the picket goes ahead. If so, the folks from Kansas should be prepared for some "northern hospitality," he said.

Speaking from Ottawa, Martin said yesterday afternoon he had urged Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Immigration Minister Diane Finley to block the church's passage into Canada.

"They treated my concerns with absolute decency and respect," he said. "This is not a partisan issue and it goes beyond political stripes -- it's about common decency."

Slobogian said the controversial church -- whose members believe God is punishing people and nations who accept homosexuality -- is just trying to get publicity.

"They're just a tiny sect looking for attention and notoriety. It would torture them if people didn't hit their website," she said.

Slobogian said the anticipated protesters will not be met with violence or placards, just a human barricade to separate them from funeral guests.

A Winnipeg police spokeswoman said the protest would not violate any hate laws, but officers have the ability to lay charges depending on what happens tomorrow.

She said charges can be laid under the provincial Cemeteries Act if anyone wilfully and unlawfully disturbs people assembled "for the purpose of burying a body."

Vince Weiguang Li has been charged with second-degree murder in McLean's death. He is currently undergoing a psychiatric assessment to determine if he is fit to stand trial and is scheduled to appear in court again on Sept. 8.

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WHAT IS WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH?

WHO: Westboro Baptist Church

WHAT: Headed by disbarred lawyer Fred Phelps, the church has 71 members, 60 of whom are reportedly related to Phelps through blood, marriage or both. It is not associated with any known Baptist conventions or associations.

WHERE: Based in Topeka, Kan.

WHEN: First public service was held on Nov. 27, 1955.

WHY: Followers believe God views homosexuality as the ultimate sin. As a result, any community or nation accepting of the "homosexual agenda" is hated by God, and bad things that happen to its citizens are signs of His work.

LOWLIGHTS: Members have picketed funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and the memorial for victims of the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia ... Members have praised such things as AIDS and the 9/11 terror attacks ... Made several racial and anti-Semitic statements.

GSM in Canada - Robbers Communications (er, Rogers)

I visited a friend in Canada this past weekend. GSM in Canada is like a large percentage of the supermarket business in Uruguay - the "appearance" that there are competitors but they are all the same company.

Cellular service - especially anything having to do with data - was absolute RAPE! It was actually cheaper for me to send a text message ROAMING than it was for my friend and the per-kilobyte data charge ROAMING was less than what the locals pay UNDER CONTRACT. Canadian media is a mafia tightly controlled out of Ottawa and there are really only... five companies and the government in the media business. Your GSM phone showed two networks "Fido" and "Rogers" - except about five years ago Rogers (referred to universally by the locals as Robbers) - bought Fido. Fido had been reasonably priced but they were not in the good graces of Ottawa - and the market is so small in terms of users and the territory so large its hard for a smaller company to make a profit. Most of the cellular plans will sell you 150 minutes for the same price Americans pay for 1000. But that's not really the final price...

Robbers charges a CDN$6.50 "system access fee" which is not included in the plan price either. They also CHARGE EXTRA for "features" like caller ID and voicemail. Oh, and the concept of "long distance" still applies although they will hit you with a charge for "unlimited Canadian long distance." Robbers' coverage is OK, I didn't use GSM very much because I was "on vacation." It'll be interesting to see what I get charged for a couple of uses of Exchange push email and a random MMS message I received.

It's also very strange that they do business under a family name. There actually is a Ted Robbers, er, Rogers that owns the whole thing. I don't know of any other nation where the GSM carrier is so obviously family owned and so obviously politically connected.

Monday was a government holiday in Canada so most people had the day off. A Robbers telemarketer called my friend since he shares an account with his roommate. The telemarketer got SO shouted at when first of all he kept calling my friend "Catherine" even though DUH it was obviously a male voice on the line.... my friend just SNAPPED when he used a pushy sales tactic of ignoring the customer saying NO and trying to close the sale by saying "So can I ship you that new Nokia phone? We'll even waive the activation and shipping charges!" Such a deal. Activation and shipping charges on top of all the other nickels and dimes they ding their customers with. Besides, "Catherine" signed a contract a year ago - accepting the phone would add on two more years which is the goal. (There's talk in the Canadian press of another GSM carrier getting into the market and strangely enough it'll be Egyptian-held Orascom who might be backing it. I'll believe it when I see it....) The telemarketer stuck to his script and offered "Catherine" a "free analysis" of how she could "reduce" her bill. Want to know what it was? Reduce the number of minutes contracted. Duh. Of course the bill goes down - maybe. Might go way up when she goes over that tiny little pittance of minutes she changed to from the other tiny little pittance of minutes.

The other carriers smell blood in the water. One of them is running an ad campaign that says "Ditch that system access fee."

They're also in the cable TV business. The cable TV mafia in Canada is the same as the wired/wireless phone mafia. Robbers is not as bad as Shaw - at least they let you lease that soon-to-be-obsolete cable box. Shaw charges CDN$800 for the same Scientific Atlanta Explorer.

TiVo is the gold standard of personal video recorders. However, the only TiVo available in Canada is analog because.... it's the exact same platform and headend as in the USA, and there are "some" sets with cablecard/QAM tuning that make it into the CDN market - but no CDN cable company has implemented cablecard. That nifty dual cablecard TiVo available in the USA *could* work in Canada if the media mafia there decided to give their customers the option.

TD Canada Trust - a/k/a Tittybank

I spent the weekend in Toronto. I have lots more to write about it but too tired now. This (or rather, these) had to see the light of day.

My friend banks at TD Canada Trust. After I saw their marketing material - they should change their name to Tittybank.

So we're standing in front of a teller and she's doing the transaction - and this marketing piece literally POPPED out at me. For shit's sake you can see the nipples!

I said to my friend, "Holy shit look at this, what bad taste! You know that these float in the hot tub or someone got bored with photoshop or something."

"I think its photoshop," he said.

"Mmmmm - I'm not so sure... whoever photoshopped it would have had to have left such definite nipples."

She asked if I was American. I admitted it ;) which I don't often do abroad. She said, I'm glad you think its gross - here, take the whole lot back to the states and get 'em out of my sight.

My friend was quite shocked when I giggled and put the whole STACK (hahah) 23 of them in my pocket. 21 made it back to Phoenix because he asked for two of 'em when we walked out of the bank.

Remember, you can click on the picture to make it (cough) larger.