From Norweigian comedy duo Øystein og Meg (Øystein and Me), a medieval monk learns how to use his brand new piece of technology, a “book”.

Canada’s ruling minority Conservative party is starting rumours that it may or may not be wanting to hold an election this year because they’re worried about Quebec (what a shock) and barbecues or something. Broken yesterday, the story has died a quick and painless death because everyone knows that if an election were held anytime soon, Canadians – almost all of whom now equate politicians with traffic cops, tax auditors, and that substitute teacher you had in elementary school who you could make cry within 10 minutes – would vote for Rick Mercer or #6 from Battlestar Galactica rather than deal with another middle aged, self-important ex-businessman with boring hair.

Canadian elections are boring. Why? Because they focus on such tedious minutia as “issues” and “topics the mean something to Canadians” and stuff like that. It’s nothing like the rollercoaster of American elections where everyone from your campaign manager’s best friend’s wife’s boss’ daughter to your kindergarten teacher is thrust forward as a character reference while icky stuff like issues are given snappy titles and bullet points. Hurray for making things palatable!

Read what will happen when I rule the country after the jump!

Of course, Canada’s Conservative party makes it a big, verbosely expressed point to take a page (made from Canadian timber, of course!) from our southern cousins’ playbook and launch all sorts of personal attacks on opposing candidates (who, admittedly, probably deserve a little razzing). But they do this despite the fact that most Canadians view personalised politics with distaste and, in poll after poll, state that they pay no attention to them, except maybe to decide to vote for the ads’ target instead of against.

But the other parties are no better in their own particular ways. Quebec has a regional separatist party that play hypocritical federal mind games. The NDP – supposedly leftist – is run by an egomaniac married to another self-righteous egomaniacal politician (some kind of dream power couple, they would have the media have us believe) who has no qualms making bizarre deals with the rightwing in order to maintain his tenuous grasp on what little power his party has. And then there are the Liberals, beige and about as thrilling as a day-old bowl of oatmeal, and with as many innovative ideas too.

So as you about to see, I have fantastic ideas and should be made Benevolent Ruler of the Hyphenated -Canadian and -Quebecois People for All Eternity immediately. When this occurs, I will:

• Rename the country Jessica (I like the name’s all) sand move the capital to Dildo, Newfoundland and Labrador (Yeah, it’s really called that! Cool!) – except that I will stay in Toronto, or maybe Montreal;
• Exile all smokers to the French principality of St-Pierre and Miquelon. Let the French government deal with them;
• Saskatoon and Regina will be renamed Little Edmonton and Little Winnipeg respectively
• Resettle all vegans in their natural homeland of Vancouver Island, whose regional flower will be the brussels sprout, so that the rest of us can get on with our lives in peace;
• Enact a law enforcing the use of French and only French in the workplace in Alberta;
• To add linguistic balance, I will enact a law enforcing the use of Inuktitut and only Inuktitut in the workplace in Quebec;
• 20 lashes in public for Toronto wanna-be hipsters caught calling the city T-dot (please please please begin enforcing this even before my reign of benevolence commences!);
• Force Maritimers to watch over and over again every single heart-warming family drama that takes place in a small, cheery, CBC, 19th Century Nova Scotia town, where people are good people and neighbours look out for each other and all that stuff, that has ever been inflicted upon Canada ever since it was discovered that Scottish settlers were way cooler than anyone else ever;
• Make Northerners do something – anything! – so that we know who the hell they are and what they hell they do (besides drink);
• Enact a winter anti-tax for Manitobans whereby the government will pay them to live through the months of November through April, inclusively and a similar giant, blood-sucking, vampire mosquito anti-tax for the months of June through September. Why else would anyone stay there? (I admit it; I grew up in Winnipeg, which is a fine city with ballet and orchestras and art galleries and cafes and running water and electricity and stuff)

So as you can see, my rule will be wise and people-centric, because I know what Canadians really care about. Vote for me, or pay the consequences later.

From the benevolent guys on Wall Street comes this fantastic piece of news:

Why is Wall Street so infatuated with cigarettes? Cigarettes have certain advantages over other consumer products, not the least of which is that they are addictive. They are inexpensive to make, require almost no innovation, there is a global market for them, and cigarette makers can raise prices without seeing much of a drop in business.

In other words, the have a captive market for a product that has no foreseeable replacement other than years of decline and horrible suffering followed by death. Everyone would want to get onboard this a speeding train. Not content with wearing the sweat of poverty-stricken 3rd world workers to get your daily quota of 1st world self-righteousness? Well then invest in the hostage-taking of millions of stupid, stupid people.

And the good news keeps on coming. Hurray!

The future prospects are particularly attractive in developing countries, where smoking has not yet declined as it has in more developed parts of the world like the United States and Europe.

Now you can break their backs in sweatshops and ruin their health while making tons of dough to buy that set of silk sheets you’ve always wanted. Ain’t life grand!

But remember, global warming is totally a myth!

Bloggers across the world were stunned and horrified at the news that a 47-year-old woman from Ottumwa, Iowa killed her gerbil and an entire bowl of goldfish simply because her ranking on a popular link exchange site had slipped.

“So yeah. I spent all this time on this post on finally finding a brand of ketchup I can use in cool recipes and just on hot dog’s when I feel like just hotdog’s, wrote the blogger only identified by police as Rootin Tootin Rita on her blog Radical Ramblings of Rootin Tootin Ritas Roarin Roundup on her blog this morning after killing the animals, “and I spend all this time finding a cute blinking little image that reminds of Hello Kitty and I finally figure out how to make my blog play music as soon as you click on it (I chose Rhythm of the Nite by Debarge because it like totally rox and everyone really loves it!) and some total @-hole comes and gives me a bad rating so instead of being 7.5 im 7.2??!!! No Thank You!”

“What’s the matter @-hole, dont ya like ketchup! Hootie and the Blowfish must die.”

Although she was referring to the gerbil (Hootie) and the goldfish, police were summoned to the scene when another vigilant blogger who actually knows Rootin Tootin Rita – a rarity among bloggers – read this morning’s post and alerted them to a possible death threat against a soft pop band popular during mid-1990s known for their songs about golf.

“I though it was a little strange,” said the second blogger who would only identify himself as the Sybarite Skinflint, “because I thought Hootie and the Blowfish were already dead.”

The reaction across the blogosphere, renowned for its measured, considered responses, has been swift. Noted rightwing blogger Michelle Malkin praised Ms Tootin Rita as a “true patriot” for her love of ketchup and for killing the animals since many pets enter the United States illegally through foreign pet store networks, she claims. “What kind of sicko doesn’t want to kill foreign animals?” she asked.

Ms Malkin then published the blogger’s home address and phone number for “anyone who wanted to let this true red-as-ketchup-blooded American know what we think of her”.

On the left, Ariana Huffington wrote a scathing critique of the Bush Administration’s inability to enhance the free speech of bloggers by stifling the practice of blog rating. “How many dead gerbils, how many uprooted daisies, how many lawn sets smashed to smithereens before Dubya rides his mountain bike up the steep mountain slope of responsible regulation of this scourge on the face of blissful and free blogging?” wrote Ms Huffington, on her popular blog The Huffinton Post this morning.

The most unexpected reaction was from PETA who, in light of the killings, have labelled blogging as harmful to animals and are rumoured to be working on a virus that will be spread through various link exchange sites and blog search engines, in their spare time when they’re not throwing crap on Beyonce fans.

But whatever the reaction, the little gerbil wheel isn’t spinning anymore. And no one is swimming through the gates of the little plastic castle on a lonely and desolate fishbowl. And only the ketchup bottle knows why.

(Pillaged, as a test run, from my old blog)