FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS THE WHITE HOUSE GIFT SHOP IS OFFERING A FREEDOM DISCOUNT ON ALL PRESIDENT TRUMP MEMORABILIA!!
THAT’S RIGHT.
FREEDOM SAVINGS OF UP TO 15%!!
DON’T BE A LOSER, ACT FAST WHILE THE SAVINGS ARE STILL AT DEFCOM 5!!!
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NORTH KOREA PEACE SUMMIT COMMEMORATIVE COIN
This beautiful, exquisitely crafted, luxury coin commemorating President Trump’s historic meeting with Kim Jong-un has been slashed from $24.99 to $19.99!! Nothing says, “Screw you, elites!” like money, so get out there and buy some today!!
PRESIDENT TRUMP “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” BUCK KNIFE
This is a limited production of 25 knives only and features inlays of genuine Blue Lapis, and Red Jasper, with USA and the American Eagle engraved in polished brass bolsters, with a mirror polished blade and “TRUMP” Make America Great Again engraved in the handles. Comes to you in a beautiful Red White and Blue display box equipped for wall hanging.
Buck Knife $149.99
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP LIBERATING AMERICA FROM ROBOT TYRANNY BASEBALL HAT
Who can forget that fateful day when President Trump defeated Robot Supreme Commander ACLL-98 in a pay-per-view hand-to-hand spectacle that pulled in the greatest ratings of all time!?
Baseball hat with patch $49.99
Patch $ 9.99
“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” ONE PIECE WOMAN’S BATHING SUIT
Make a huge splash poolside or at the beach this summer in this classy and flattering, little number!
Swimsuit $55.00
PRESIDENT TRUMP FIRING MEATLOAF FROM CELEBRITY APPRENTICE THROW CUSHION
Remember where you were when Donald Trump fired Meatloaf from Team Backbone! Commemorate this great moment when all of America swept aside their partisan differences and came together as one to watch as the man who would become the greatest President America has ever seen– under tremendous, huge ratings pressure– do the right thing for free enterprise and fire Meatloaf, with a luxury throw cushion or fridge magnet!
Throw cushion ( Bat Out of Hell background) $24.99
Throw cushion (Red, white and blue) $20.99 SOLD OUT!!!!
Fridge magnets $5.99
“FAKE NEWS” BRASS KNUCKLES
These beautiful and effective puncture-spiked brass knuckles are platinum plated and come with the words “Fake” and “News” etched into the receiving end of each one. Fight back against the tyranny of the media, while supplies last!!
Platinum plated “Fake News” Brass Knuckles $1999.00
NSFW “GRAB HER BY THE PUSSY” COMMEMORATIVE COIN
This sexy and stylish NSFW coin is a must have for all Playboys and students of history out there! President Trump, projecting the fun and flirty spirit of the Kennedy years, doesn’t just Make America Great Again, he makes her Swoon again!
Commemorative NSFW coin $49.99
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Me: No, I haven’t heard back from Nancy.
Me: Well, I can’t think of any reason why she wouldn’t want to do it. It’s an awesome idea!
Me: She owns a cheese shop, so me setting up a grilled cheese booth in there is a no-brainer!
Me: It’s win/win, baby!
Me: Well, I thought I’d pick up one of those Instant Pot things and cook them in there.
Me: Oh.
Me: Really?
Me: The Instant Pot can’t make grilled cheese sandwiches?
Me: Why isn’t that on their advertising?
Me: Well, that sucks.
Me: Thought it could do practically everything.
Me: Yeah, I guess I did kind of imagine it like a robot.
Me: No, not like that.
Me: A benevolent robot, one that serves man, AND is capable of making a grilled cheese sandwich.
Me: Well, if it can’t make a damn sandwich, why the hell was it named Time Magazine’s Person of the year??
Me: Oh, I thought it was.
Me: The Silence Breakers were?
Me: I don’t know who they are.
Me: Oh.
Me: Yes, they are very brave women. #TimesUp
Me: I am an ally.
Me: Look, we’ve been through this before.
Me: Feminism is many things, many voices–and my collection of vintage Raquel Welch memorabilia doesn’t make me a “Bad Feminist.”
Me: It makes me an ally.
Me: No, not a creep, an ally.
Me: Well, let me tell you, I’d be delighted if she exploited me back.
Me: I really would.
Me: Oh, don’t act so innocent!
Me: You know you want to be exploited by Colin Farrell.
Me: I saw how many times you watched that Miami Vice movie, and I saw the way your eyes got all weird and intense whenever that greasy Crockett came on screen!
Me: I can’t believe you just wrote that!
Me: You’ve stopped going to your low carb support group, haven’t you?
Me: You were very high in agreeability when you were eating carbs.
Me: Now, not so much.
Me: The Rachelle Maynard I know (and love!) would never have said something like that to me if she was properly managing her carb withdrawal.
Me: Yes.
Me: Yes.
Me: I can see that now.
Me: I am sorry.
Me: I love you way more than I could ever love Raquel Welch.
Me: If I had a poster of you, I’d put it up over the fireplace. I’d wallpaper the entire apartment in you if I could!
Me: No, not like a serial killer.
Me: Like I’m your Crockett and you’re my Tubbs.
Me: We mustn’t let Trump divide us, my love.
Me: It’s what he wants.
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adding that he, too, just like a Regular Joe, enjoyed watching the life-simulations depicted on television programs. It was as if some rudimentary form of Artificial Intelligence, one that existed in a strange human-like form that for all it’s advanced technology just couldn’t get the hair right, was trying to prove its humanity to a skeptical public. It was so clumsy it was almost sweet– like a grandparent saying YOLO in the wrong context.
However, the truly funny thing about this pronouncement was that nobody, not a single politician from any party, had ever suggested that they had a plan to tax Netflix. With this, it seemed that the Conservative strategy was laid bare—they were going to announce a really horrible, really unpopular idea every week, and then assure the public that they would fight tooth and nail against such an appalling idea. This tactic would confuse the public, who would mistakenly think that the combative stance assumed by the Conservatives meant that one of the other political parties had actually proposed the idea and that taxing Netflix would be essential to their governance.
Out of nothing, something– it was the conjuring of a perfectly evil plan.
In keeping with this theme, the next thing that Harper announced was also incredibly weird, only on this occasion instead of lining himself up in opposition to the weirdness, he was trying to initiate it. Stephen Harper suggested banning Canadians from traveling to terrorist-controlled countries. The idea behind this would be preemptive, serving to stop young, naive, would-be-jihadists from traveling to Syria, being trained by their dark forces, and then sent back, with ISIS flags now sown on their backpacks, to destroy the homeland.
This notion, crazy, paranoiac, wholly against the Charter and impossible to implement, seemed positively Trumpian in its blunt vulgarity. However, the point was never to impose such absurdity on the population, but to get the other parties to argue against it, thus making them look soft on terror.
It’s PSYOP’s, really, with the ruling government attempting to spread disinformation and confusion in an attempt to manipulate the mood of the electorate so that they’re not actually voting based on information, but on a “gut-feeling.” People will “feel” like the NDP want to tax Netflix simply because Harper said he was against doing such a thing, and after all, the NDP tax everything anyway, right? Likewise, people’s fears that the Liberals are soft on terror (Trudeau’s always getting his picture taken with Muslims!)
will only be reinforced, because now the Liberals have to argue that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with traveling to a country that most people associate only with blood-thirsty terrorists.
Harper’s strategy is to set off smoke bombs.
He’s not interested in persuading people with his inventive policy, but in sowing uncertainty and even fear, so that the undecided and those who don’t follow politics all that closely, the people who don’t really know what’s going on (because Harper has set about creating this bewildering cloud of Orwellian uncertainty and double-talk) will take the path of least resistance and opt for “stability” and maintaining the status quo.
In a nutshell, it’s everything that’s wrong with politics.
]]>This is what it looked like:
Will you be murdered by a robot?
1. Do you think you’re better than a robot?
A. Yes
B. No.
C. Hard to say, it really depends on the robot.
D. Generally, yes, but very specifically, no.
2. Would you ever consider marrying a robot?
A. Yes, absolutely!
B. No, marriage is a union between two animate beings.
C. I’m very curious about robots.
D. Been there, done that.
3. Do you take public transit?
A. Yes, I ride the subway everyday.
B. Occasionally, but it’s not a habit.
C. I believe that the subway is a robot snake that lives underground devouring commuters.
D. Never.
4. Do you think 9/11 was an inside job?
A. Yes! I mean, come on, Building #7!
B. No, it was the terrorists, and they’re definitely not robots!
C. The Illuminati are robot gods from the future.
D. Robots worked tirelessly in the aftermath of the tragedy of 9/11! They’re heroes!
5. Do robots hate you for your freedom?
A. Yes, they really resent humans for enslaving them!
B. No, robots can’t feel emotions, so they don’t know anger or jealousy!
6. Do you like to watch robots fight?
A. Yes, it’s entirely awesome!
B. No, I think it’s barbaric and should be outlawed.
C. First rule: There is no fight club.
D. Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots was my favourite game as a kid.
7. Feeling curious and maybe a little bit excited, have you ever ventured into Robot Town late at night?
A. Yes, but I didn’t do anything.
B. Yes, but it was part of a stag party.
C. Yes, quite a bit.
D. No, I didn’t even know that there was a Robot Town.
8. If a robot had a favourite National Hockey League team, what do you think it would be?
A. Montreal Canadiens.
B. Minnesota Wild.
C. Robots wouldn’t watch hockey, I can’t even pretend.
D. Toronto Maple Leafs
9. When referring to something you think is “stupid,” do you often say, “That’s just so robot!”
A. Yes.
B. No.
C. Probably in the past, but not now.
10. Do you currently socialize with any robots?
A. A robot and I were great pen pals, but then I had to block it after things got weird with the Snapchat pics.
B. I joined a Choir! Choir! Choir! group that has several robot members.
3. No, robots are tools that aid my life, not friends!
4. I like to watch the robot that lives across the street, but I am too shy to introduce myself.
11. Do you have a robot taxiderimist?
A. Yes.
B. No.
C. Only for my owls.
Give yourself 10 points for every answer that corresponds with A, 7 points for B, 5 points for C, and 1 point for D.
If you scored 60 points or above it is a certainty that a robot will murder you. Repeated blunt trauma is the most likely method by which the robot will kill you, although the possibility that it uses knives or crossbows is still very much in play.
If you totalled between 35 and 60 points, it is very likely you will be murdered by a robot, just like the rest of humanity.
If you scored between 25 and 35 points, it is more likely that you will die from non-robot-related causes than be murdered by a robot. However, your death remains inevitable, and you should avoid public transit if at all possible.
If you tallied less than 25 points, you probably won’t be murdered by a robot, but will likely perish at your own hand, as do nearly 80% of Toronto Maple Leaf fans.
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We sat in the third row of this IMAX 3D spectacle, and I have to say it was the most concussive, punishing movie experience I have ever had. We were so close to the screen that we couldn’t actually see the screen, and appreciating the movie was more of a physical challenge than an aesthetic one. Strictly confined within the conventions of the genre, Pacific Rim was a living, evolving piece of abstract expressionism that came screaming out at us like some terrible flying monkey. We could only see gestures within the film– sound, colour and velocity—all swirling and spitting before us, but never did we have a clear, overview of things as they unfolded.
Of course, this didn’t really matter, because we knew exactly what was taking place. Pacific Rim is an action flick, a B movie writ monstrously large, and it followed the formula these movies always follow. This genre is now so much a part of me that I feel like it’s coded into my DNA, my understanding instinctive and unmediated rather than the product of conscious, cognitive functions, if that makes any sense.
Nonetheless, it was still a very disorienting experience ( I wanted nothing more than to inhabit a Brian Eno composition while there), and not simply because of the shock and awe campaign detonating around us. Pacific Rim (note the name) was a movie designed for a global audience rather than a North American one. The film was so flat and one-dimensional that it was little more than a series of symbols and cues. There was no nuance or complexity, and this was intentional, because it’s built to travel, to be easily transferrable to other languages and cultures. The primary human characters in it are a diverse array of ethnicities, and the world represented a global, cultural mash-up. You simply don’t have to speak the language in which the movie is made to understand exactly what’s going on, in fact, you might even be better served if you didn’t.
For a movie that was all about fighting, there was no real violence in it, and it was more like a gigantic puppet show than a graphic representation of what a robot three times the size of a skyscraper fighting a massive alien might be like. It was a kid’s movie, meant to move merchandize and launch a franchise that will have global appeal. Last year, I think the top 10 top grossing films in North America were all sequels or prequels. Losing market share to piracy and revitalized cable television, original one-off movies that aspire to art are not where the bottom line lives, and the Hollywood arrow no longer flies no toward the heart of North America, but is now launched like a volley out toward the rest of the world, where all the money and people actually live.
I have to say, never in my life have I seen such a dense concentration of hipsters. Children, less than two years old, wore vintage Star Wars t-shirts. Facial hair was artful and complicated, with moustaches waxed to fine, compelling points– as if they were trying to win arguments. Every couple we came across seemed to share a small dog and a colourful sleeve of tattoos that suggested a fondness for roller derby.
The event was actually quite small, existing within a chain link fence that contained no more than 20 tables, and as we walked around and around in circles, it felt very much like being at a hipster Merry-Go-Round. All looking like subtle variations of one another, we trudged around and around, picking up the same tired retro bric-a-brac that we always picked up, and then, unimpressed, putting it back down. Part of this repetitive carnival vibe was likely due to a big silver Airstream Yacht that sat there like the main attraction.
Inside this recreational vehicle was a fortuneteller. She was reading Tarot Cards and there was a small, nervous, two-person lineup outside. A young, Indian man with a meticulously ordered mustache, a scarf wrapped fashionably around his neck and t-shirt depicting a robot with antlers, chewed his fingernails. Behind him was a fabulous black guy dressed sharply in white. He was wearing a Bowler hat that was tilted so precariously, so precisely, that if he were to have moved an inch or relaxed his posture just a little bit, it would have surely fallen off.
It was difficult to ascertain what truth they hoped might be revealed to them inside the RV, but all of the lives on the grounds there, so studiously documented on Instagram and unfurling before friends in frenzies of vinyl proofs, felt static, as if everybody was now trapped between irony and discovery, fated by some Greek God to walk the same circuit again and again and again.
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