Sarah Palin puttin' her hayands in da ayair.

Sarah Palin appeared on SNL last night. The skits were funny without her really doing anything to help them along. She rode the wave of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey (genius - despite the fact that Alec Baldwin couldn't even read lines from a teleprompter). However, I don't think she did anything to help herself. She's being attacked for not being capable of leading the country. She came off as hip and having a good sense of humour about herself, but she did nothing to advance the idea that she is capable.




Sarah Palin delivering some lines with Seth Meyers.

I think if she went on a proper news or investigative show like 20/20 or even something like The View and stood her ground, she would have done much more to help herself. The show openly mocked her yet again and she stood by and smile and waved. The SNL appearance marks the end of the McCain/Palin campaign in my opinion.

Twinkle Twinkle Toronto Star; How I wonder when you are

Lately we've been intermittently receiving the Toronto Star. What's particularly odd about this random delivery is that we never actually subscribed to the ruddy thing.

Some Kind of Mistake?
So at first, I thought, well, this must be a mistake. I'm getting my neighbour's paper. As it turns out, though, it's been happening for two weeks. I live on a small court with neighbours who are reasonably comfortable with approaching each other. I think if I were receiving their paper, they would have noticed and either called the Toronto Star to have it corrected, or told me that I was getting their paper and to give it back.

Promotional Delivery?
So, then I thought, "Well, maybe it's one of those promotional things - they give you the newspaper for a couple of weeks and then they try to hook you on a subscription." That might be, but if that is the case, they're not doing a particularly good job of selling me on their subscription service. The paper, for some reason, doesn't come every single day - or rather it comes, but not on the day it was meant to be delivered. Sometimes they skip a day and then, after two or three days, they all appear at once on my veranda. I get three papers in one shot! Now how is THAT going to win me over? What a brilliant pitch:

"Join the Toronto Star where you'll get the newspaper intermittently throughout the week. Why inconvenience yourself with collecting the paper from your porch every single day? With the Toronto Star, just come outside every three days and we'll scatter the newspapers from the last three days across your door step!"

Genius.

Security Feature
Maybe it's a security feature that the Toronto Star subscription service offers. They don't want papers to come every day because somebody may be casing your house for a robbery. Instead, they deliver no paper for three days, and then you get a big stack all at once. The criminals are baffled. They think, "What the hell is going on with that house? I can't rob that place! It's a scheduling nightmare!"

Again. Genius.

What do you think?
Give me your thoughts on what this random paper delivery may be all about. If your explanation is good enough, maybe I'll actually subscribe to the Toronto Star. Probably not, but maybe.

A photo taken from the Hubble Telescope of a strange object that appeared, brightened for 21 days, dimmed for the same time frame and then disappeared. The photo was taken from a paper accepted to the "Astrophysical Journal"

A Transietn of a New Class
OK. This is unbelievably cool. An unidentified object was discovered with the Hubble Telescope. It matches nothing they've ever seen before. It came and went over a period of 42 days. The research paper doesn't speculate on what it is, but they "...suggest that the transient may be one of a new class."

I aspire to one day be a Transient of Another Class.

I must say, when it comes to calling an election, the Canadian political system has its head up its arse.

The rules for calling a Federal Election in Canada are a joke. The ruling party can call an election pretty much any time the urge strikes them. They dissolve parliament and we're off to the polls. Case in point, Stephen Harper had a little chat with the Governor General over the weekend and we're now having an election in just over a month. In what world does that make sense?

First of all, in what other job do you get to determine when you have your own job evaluation? Just imagine how that might work in your own job. "Welcome aboard. Here's how our job evaluation system works: You have 5 years to pick a time for your own job review and you can pick any time you'd like - just let us know when you're ready." And your response might be: "Right, I know I've only just started, but I think most folks here seem to like me and I think they'd like me better than anyone else who's just joined, so, how about we do this right now?" Perfect.

Second, in what other country would you give the competitive parties and the country 5 WEEKS TO PREPARE FOR A NATIONAL ELECTION!? Seriously! And you know that the Tories were ready to go. I live in Whitby, home of the esteemed Finance Minister for the government of Canada. They dissolved parliament on Sunday and I saw election signs this morning on the way to work. Hmmmm ... do you think maybe they had this worked out? Ridiculous.

I think a regularly scheduled election with a longer lead time than 5 weeks should be a standing law. Of course, no elected party will ever change the law because, once they're in, they get to call the election time, so why would you want to change that? Absurd.

What's worse is that the short turn around time means that the parties typically stay with the leaders they have. So, despite the fact that Stephan Dion is looking feeble as a leader and contender against Harper, they're going to go ahead and run with him. What choice do they have? Elecction is in 5 weeks. It's a travesty!

Vote for Pedro!

I think it's great that CNN claims it has the Best Political Team on television. They always say "Reporting and Analysis from the Best Political Team on Television." Cool. They haven't really won an award or been assigned that title by any independent body, but they reckon it's true.

I reckon I am the Most Mediocre Hiker on the Internet. So I'm laying claim to that title. While I'm at it, here are a few more claims from me:

The Best Nail Clipper in the Greater Toronto Area
The Worst Lip Syncher on the Don Valley Parkway
The Best Parallel Parker in Northern Whitby

Jeffrey Toobin is a Senior Analyst on CNN. He's a former prosecutor and a former New York Columnist. I'm not sure how that makes him a member of the Best Political Team on Television, but apparently it does. So I figure, as the Most Mediocre Hiker on the Internet, I am comparably qualified, so I'm going to give my two cents on Sarah Palin's Vice Presidential Speech today.


I agree with Peggy Noonan. A prominant Republican woman who, when she thought the microphone was off, called the Palin pick "BS", "gimicky" and said the McCain campaign "is over". See the video for yourself



We'll see how she does tonight, but from where I'm sitting she's going to have to pull a miracle out tonight.