The Almighty Dollar

Hello again, greetings from the Lair...
Flying in the face of convention I have decided to post again in the same month, prompting widespread angst among the Worldwide Circle of Evil.
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So I know you're all expecting me to lay the metaphorical beating to our lovable premier Dalton McGuinty. You would be right to expect this. A year or two ago Dalton warned us that we "may" fall into a deficit in the neighbourhood of a few hundred million dollars... in those short months he has upgraded that possibility of a minor deficit to ABSOLUTELY, CERTAINLY, THE BIGGEST DEFICIT ONTARIO HAS EVER SEEN. This is quite something considering the heady days of the Bob Rae NDP, who single handedly brought Ontario to the brink of bankruptcy. Well folks, McGuinty's possible little deficit is DOUBLE the size of Bob Rae's biggest shortfall. The important thing to remember, stammers McGuinty, is that this is NOT HIS FAULT. A great comfort to us all no doubt. Of course spending money like a crack-addicted lottery winner has nothing to do with it... the $4.8 billion in program spending? Not an issue. Spending $650 million on the goofy Swine Flu paranoia? Not an issue. Handing billions over to auto companies to facilitate their moving jobs to Mexico? Also not an issue. In fact, despite the world economy being down by 12% (which accounts for maybe half of the problem) and Mike Harris, who has been out of office for more than half a decade, what is the problem, Mr. McGuinty?

"Er... well... harmonizing the sales taxes is the most important move we can make for Ontario's economy."

"Errrr... Okay Mr. McGuinty... not that that answered my question, but what do you mean? How is this so big and important a step? What will it do to help business?"

"Er... Uhhhmmmm... harmonizing the sales taxes is the most important step we can take for Ontario's economy."

"Yeah but how? This just sounds like another enormous tax grab. It sounds like it'll terribly maim businesses to save them two lines of paperwork. How's this gonna dig us out of our financial hole?"

"Errrrrrmmmmm... harmonizing the sales taxes is the biggest and best thing we can do for Ontario's economy."

"Ooooooookay... thanks, Weiner Boy."
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Also on the Weenie's agenda: increasing the minimum distance between a power windmill and residential space to 2 kilometers. This is to reduce noise and vibrations, which apparently are not caused by traffic, subways, trains, air conditioners, heating systems, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, stereos, weather, playing the drums, naturally flowing bodies of water, wind chimes, and people living in the area in general. And of course we can't get engineers to minimize these problems. No, much better to subject our population to unscrubbed coal pollution and toxic waste. Much less of a hazard.
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Also apparently on the Education Premier's table is an ongoing campaign to remove the Elder Smurf from Autism therapy. Apparently despite his rapidly advancing speech and social skills he is not progressing in any manner and should be removed in a few months as keeping him there would be unethical.
Despite the Circle of Evil's assertions to the contrary, the Elder Smurf is advancing rapidly- he is mostly toilet trained, can dress himself with minimal assistance (he needs fasteners and socks done for him, and a little help with his arms and shoes). The Younger Smurf is also advancing rapidly, although there have been many issues with dumping whole pitchers of milk on the floor that have been giving me a slight psychotic break. No biggie.
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Welllll... I'd like to complain a bit more but the loonies who run our utopia have given me far too much to work with, so I'm gonna go watch zombie movies and eat spaghetti in bed. Ahhh, luxury.
Talk atcha soon,
The Rancorous Lexiphage.

My longest sabbatical yet

Hello everyone... seems people have been looking at my leavings even when I wasn't, prompting me back to the director's seat for another episode... Sorry about the little vacation I took; I assure you that although it was a blogging vacation my time was full of other death-defying challenges so I didn't get lazy (quite).
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So, to bring you up to speed, in the past year the smurfs have exceeded the racial average of three apples tall... The elder smurf is mostly toilet trained and dresses himself with minimal assistance, the younger smurf has been pushing the toilet training but is still a creature of diaperial habit. However she has been learning to fix herself snacks- and can pour herself a drink of milk or butter a slice of bread with a modicum of supervision and mess. Both have been talking much more; the elder using sentences in excess of four words when in the right mood, and two words together whenever he likes. The younger is still using single and double words, but can recite the alphabet or the numbers up to 30.
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I am still single but no longer chronically; I get out upon occasion with persons of the female persuasion despite the efforts of the Neighbour Lady, perhaps once a month or so... I still telecommunicate on a pretty regular basis with my P.A.L., who has recently shed her female companion to some extent or other and is therefore in more or less the same scenario as I... with a similar Neighbour Lady (P.A.N.L. for short)... perhaps we can work out an exit strategy we can share with anyone who happens to find themselves in the Middle East.
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Recently had another battle with the Cable Company; not sure why they insist on these regular duels on bridges over lava (oops, magma)... but perhaps instead of vanquishing them in this method I should buy some form of repellant. Speaking of evil cable company schemes, you have probably heard of the recent bid by the CRTC and the cable companies to raise tax money for the purpose of supporting local TV despite the fact that they already squander a similar levy... Of course when I give someone money for a specific purpose and they squander it on buying themselves a new stereo, my solution is to immediately give them more money... we can trust them with this one, folks... (ahem)... Of course this has nothing to do with the fact the TV system has been switching over to digital... analog antennas being the most obvious competition for local TV, now that that is more or less eliminated they have time on their hands they need spending money for.
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Speaking of evil idiots, Dalton McGuinty has fallen in line with the tradition of Jean Cretien by losing a billion dollars on a pointless and incomplete project strangely remeniscent of the HRDC "What's a billion" era and their big-brother computer. Apparently Ontario has been working on a province-wide OHIP database which will contain all of our medical information... to construct this they handed out a billion worth of untendered and unsupervised contracts to various parties with no effective obligations attached to it, and assumed that a functioning system would magically result. Of course handing our our private information to hundreds of people without that level of supervision couldn't possibly be a bad thing, especially seeing as how we all will still have trouble accessing out own health records but captains of industry have their own copies now available for a light read on the toilet if they wish. Let's hope they occasionally supervise their employees with our information, Weiner Boy won't do it.
Of course the thing to remember here is that whatever happens, however this stuff is misused or lost, it isn't McGuinty's fault. That's why Joe Voter should keep him on deck for re-election- throwing our money and private information out to whoever feels like having it is much better than allowing anyone to build a Muslim school. Ahem.
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Well that's a fairly solid recap after nearly a year on hold... I'll try to keep up a somewhat faster rate of posting in the impending future... Ciao for now, The Abstruse and Loquacious Lexiphage. :)

A Smattering of General BS

Hi everyone. I know it's been a long time, and you've all been wrapping rubber around your arms waiting for that Lexiphage fix, well, sorry for the wait- I spent a few months fighting the sociopolitical consumerist machine and their thuggish minons during Christmas and the following aftershocks, thanks for asking, I think I'm over it.
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On the politics side of things: McGuinty has really stepped up to the plate with his powerful leadership, taking an admirable stand against ethnic segregation when asked about the proposed 'African Centred' school. Something along the lines of ' I don't think that's a positive step in the right direction for us... It's not my job to make any decisions, though, ask your trustee... someone hand me a poll to tell me what I think'. I'm glad we don't elect leaders to make decisions. That would be wrong. Maybe even more wrong than herding black people into a segregated school. I'm not sure. Ask your trustee.
On the subject of trustees, one from the local Roman Catholic board has recently been caught putting carribean vacations and her wedding on her expense account, but when caught suddenly became overwhelmed with stress and checked into a loonybin, so her lawyer says we should be sympathetic and leave her alone. This is the decision making ability we need to trust on those complicated moral issues.
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On the home front, the smurfs are doing well, absorbing knowledge at a frightening rate. The larger smurf lately is interested in taking his dishes into the kitchen, vacuuming, and complaining, so I guess he's after my job. The smaller smurf is branching out a little on the food front, attempting yoghurt and different flavoured doughnuts (instead of the traditional chocolate glazed) recently.
A couple of weeks ago the Neighbour Lady and I decided we really couldn't stand each other as much as we thought we could and had a relatively peacable breakup with a minimum of ammunition expended. I know it's not my style to leave a woman with her mental health intact, but I guess I am in growth.
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I recently inherited a gaggle of books from a freind of mine and have been reading heavily- I have access to at least 30 novels I haven't read yet, so I'll be powering through them until probably April sometime, and therefore have an excuse to take in more caffeine. This is always a good thing.
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My writing appears to be hitting another peak, as without the Neighbour Lady phoning me every 38 seconds I now have enough time to work on proposals for agents and publishers on a more regular basis, when I can squeeze that in between outrageous levels of flirting and drinking. If I can keep the momentum up I'll have a proposal ready sometime this week, although trust a literary agent to demand all submissions in rtf format with specific headers when rtf doesn't do headers. (For those of you without typing experience, that's the little line at the top that has the page number, chapter, phone number and turn-ons of the author.)
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I have uncovered a swath of new conspiracy theories that I'm attempting to cram into drafts for my second book; Discover! magazine has an article on chemical modification of long-term memory that is just too juicy to miss, the states are programming clones for their elections, I had a firsthand account from soemone who spent time with Toronto's mole people, and I found out how to mask an infrared signature from sattelite serveillance. On the whole a productive month or two.
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Well, that's all you get for now. I need to restock my canned food and shotgun shells, and check on the investment sealed into the concrete in my basement. Until next time,
Live long and prosecute,
The Wassailing Lexiphage.

Child Processing Plants

Good evening, fellow... er... fellows...
Okay, that was a weak start.
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Have you ever noticed you can't get your loose change looking like new?
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No... that sucks...
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A long time a go, in a galaxy far, f- oh, yeah. That's taken.
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Hi.
That's better.
At long last, the Lexiphage has crawled up out of the primordial ooze to regale all of you with his rich, creamy wisdom and sweet, crunchy humour. You may breathe a sigh of collective relief.
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Down to business:
McGuinty is up to his old tricks again with his goofy plan for all-day kindergarten. The following flaws immediately began to flop around on my floor upon my perusal of his manifesto:
1) As is traditional these days, the $500 million the plan will cost is delayed considerably, however, McGuinty expects the accolades and respect today.
2) McGuinty and his cronies are fully aware that the $200 million allocated for the first year will not be enough to properly implement the program, the $300 million may or may not be enough to finish it up prior to the next election, and the guy who is supposed to organize it for Weiner Boy is being paid an 'undisclosed amount'... Hmmm.... I'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt and assume the guy isn't taking the whole half-billion himself to blow on cocaine and expensive cuff links.
3) The first year of the program will be the second last year of McGuinty's mandate, which as mentioned above is acknowledged as not being workable; the second year of the program will be in full swing as the election begins, ensuring that we will not have any statistics as to how well the program is working, assuming it works at all... if the project is entirely screwed up so monumentally that we need no statistics to notice, McGuinty can say "Well, the program is only just starting... no one could organize it this fast...", but if it seems to be working well, then it'll be because they organized it so fast. If they get re-elected, they have another four years to slack off, so it doesn't matter if it works well or not. If they do not get re-elected, then the stats for how they screwed up won't come out until the next government is in power, and Weiner Boy can point the finger at them for screwing up his bright idea.
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It warms my heart to know that our children, as soon as they begin their immensely valuable education to shape the world of tomorrow, will have their welfares entirely ignored in favour of extending the career of an incompetent boob.
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It is interesting to note that through the whole recent election, McGuinty was chanting hippie love slogans about togetherness for our kids, and how dividing our children by religion was evil. Now, scant months later, Toronto is apparently getting a black-only school. Jewish school bad, black school good. Interesting...
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On the home front, despite McGuinty's best efforts the Smurfs are doing well, the Elder Smurf's IBI therapy seems to be cranking up the thinkometer well, and the Younger Smurf is using many short phrases and single words since she got into Autistic Junior Kindergarten... The Neighbour Lady is still lurking in the background somewhere, and the Insane Ex is busily weaving baskets with her toes due to the interference of the straightjacket.
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Lastly, the Lair is once again online, and the Lexiphage is at large and in charge therein; I have a lot of mischeif and complaining to make up for during my sabbatical, but luckily the Hydro Thugs and Men in Black seem reluctant to reveal their machinations on my home turf... Rogers had a great deal to say regarding my cyber-resurrection, and I was forced into many golden handshakes and shady deals to win them over. Even still, my cell phone and internet accounts apparently may not be amalgamated without me duelling the regional manager to the death on a narrow bridge over a pit of lava, so I have to make sure I have an EMP device to interfere with the video cameras and hob-nails in my boots. Two men enter, one man leaves should be evidence enough... also, I should sharpen my epee and hook my homemade stungun into a tin breastplate in case he gets a lucky hit.
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Lots to do, and little time, so I'll see you later and keep you informed.
Asta la vista,
The Vituperative Lexiphage.

Ontario wins the lottery

Hi again, Lexiphans... I have startling news.
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I was reading the paper a few days ago and came upon something which has never happened before...

Dalton McGuinty had an idea which wasn't entirely stupid!!!

I know what you're thinking: "am I on the right web site?", and ordinarily, you would be corrwct in asking that. No I am not being coerced at gunpoint by Men in Black, nor am I being blackmailed, nor has Mr. McGuinty finally found my price and paid it (incidentally, Dalton, something in the five digit range will make me at least pretend to think you're not an idiot). No, it's this:
McGuinty has decided to start a "Solar Farm", a 400 hectare area jam-packed with solar panels, to supplement the grid. ( For Mr. Gryper and other non-metric types, a Hectare is a square 100 metres a side, about the size of my ego) istead of flicking the switch for the coal plants on and off, instead of pouring more money into nuclear plants which spend 30 years in renovations for every 38 seconds of successful operation, he's decided to fire up a small solar plant.
Don't get me wrong, there are problems with the specifics: the main one is that it is being built on farmland, and Ontario has some of the best farmland in the world already being wasted supporting condos instead of human life, and admittedly a power plant isn't an effective use of this when we've got about a zillion free hectares of hills and forest about 200 miles in any northerly direction. Secondly that Solar power isn't an especially powerful power source, although the fuel is free and there's few moving parts involved so it's easy to maintain once you fork out the dough to build it... But it seems to go against Liberal party policy to:
1) Decide to do something environmentally freindly
2) Decide to do something environmentally freindly which will actually solve another problem we've been having
3) Decide to do these things in a way that makes some level of sense
4) Allocate the money to a program that can actually spend it and
5) Decide that the construction and labour should not necessarily take place in Quebec.
The real trial, of course, will be to see if they actually take any steps towards implementing this good idea when they could be sending all the money to Zimbabwe to support Mugabe's reign of terror with a nice Hallmark which reads "Dear Evil Dictator, please spend this money on something which won't kill anybody, unless us making a demand like that upon you offends you in some way, in which case buy nukes and we're sorry. xoxoxo :)"
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Another breakthrough came yesterday, when trying to make Daughter Smurf walk around outside and she surprised me by walking down the block to the grocery store for a Danish, walking back, and climbing into the house and down the stairs by herself. This from a girl who two days ago refused to take even one step in pretty much the same circumstance, and who's mortally afraid of stairs. Cool, eh?
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Well, I gotta go and give money to the Hydro people again before they send their Hydro-thugs after me, not to mention every other multinational billionaire company who needs my money more than me. Until next time,
the Lackadaisical Lexiphage.