Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The world has gone mad, Part CXXII

According to USA Today, Boston Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez is apparently auctioning his barbecue grill on eBay. It's a JENN-AIR grill, and it cost Manny $4000. According to the article, the highest bid is over $20,000. Bidding was scheduled to close on March 28th.

I just checked, and eBay has removed the grill from their web site - possibly because the bidding was getting too frenzied. But, fear not, Manny fans: other enterprising capitalists are offering a photo of Manny beside his ex-grill (personally signed by the seller!) and an I Bought Manny Ramirez's Grill T-shirt.

If anyone is looking for me, I'll be hiding quietly in the corner, whimpering.


I was in a cranky mood today when heading home on the subway, and I was thinking: if Stephen Harper was given the chance to redesign the Canadian flag, what would it be? My first thought:
  • He'd replace that horrible Liberal red with safe, reassuring Conservative blue. A deep blue, representing the many appealing lakes and rivers that abound in our great nation.
  • And the maple leaf would be replaced by a silhouette of a happy family next to their suburban home, providing a pictorial rendition of the Tories' ideal swing voter.
Some political commentators, more cynical than I am, believe that the Tories' new budget is part of an election ploy. This plot goes something like this:
  1. Produce reasonable budget. (Okay, it's a bit too heavily skewed towards working-class families, but what the heck: they deserve the break.)
  2. Find excuse to call election: a vote on the Clean Air Act would do it.
  3. Use planned budget as talking point in election platform.
  4. Obtain majority government.
  5. Implement the real budget, whatever it is.
I don't believe this conspiracy theory, as I think that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty really wants to help out working-class families (since his riding, Whitby, contains a lot of them). But the problem with too much of an emphasis on tactics is that everything starts to appear tactical - even honest attempts to actually govern the country.

Bah. I think it's time for me to go take my brain for a wash. I'm altogether too grumpy today.