Wearing speedos at the beach is wrong, right?  But they crazy Canadians are showing off their speedos in sub-zero weather…that is wrong, very wrong!!  But it was all for a Sick Kids Foundation fundraiser, so that is ok, eh?

Those crazy, nutty Canadians sure have good hearts, check these guys out, they have no shame!

Talk about a party platform.  The Rhinos are back and they’re hoping to lure voters with the tantalizing promise of weekly orgasms - and marijuana in every pot. The Neorhino party promises to declare Spanish as Canada’s official language and pass legislation forcing Prime Minister Stephen Harper to go on a diet.

They’re proud of smoking pot, they draw their political inspiration from cigar-chomping comics and rock legends, and they want to get elected so they can stick it to “The Man.”  The new party - officially called neorhino.ca - is one of at least two groups claiming to be a reincarnation of the defunct Rhinocerous party that specialized in political satire.

Like the old Rhinos, the party has no clear political ideology except for two deep beliefs: something’s seriously wrong with the state of modern politics, and Canadian public discourse could use a lot more fun.  “We are a Marxist-Lennonist party - based on the philosophy of Groucho Marx and John Lennon,” said party president Francois Gourd.

He calls himself “Yo” Gourd, which in French sounds just like “yogurt.” He strode to the podium in the news-conference room near the House of Commons on Thursday sporting a cloth rhinoceros horn on his head.  The original Rhinos were founded in 1963 by Quebec author Jacques Ferron, and reached the pinnacle of their success in the 1980 election where they received 110,000 votes - or 1.01 per cent of the popular vote.

They never won a seat and stopped running election candidates in 1993 after an election reform law that stripped the party of its registered party status.  Gourd recently ran in Quebec’s Outremont byelection and finished sixth with just 145 votes.  The party claims to have 600 members in 30 ridings - 20 of them in Quebec.  Among its other campaign planks: Replace soldiers’ weapons with paintball guns; Create a national gas-barbecue registry; and replace the Defence Department with a Ministry of Laughter.

Beneath the thick veneer of gags, the party raises a serious point: people are so disenchanted with politics that almost 40 per cent of Canadians no longer bother voting in federal elections.  That, for the Neorhinos, produces a tantalizing bit of electoral math. If every single one of those non-voters were to cast a ballot for them, they could statistically hope to win a majority government.

The Neorhinos admit some respect for the established political parties - including the NDP and the Greens. They say it’s hard to like Liberals, and dismiss Conservatives as proponents of the politics of fear.  For example, they are no fan of the Tories’ war on drugs.  “We are for the Marijuana party of Canada - and we inhale. And we enjoy it,” Gourd said. “I am an illegal person. I have been smoking dope for 30 years.”

They poked fun at the prime minister for saying recently that he struggles to explain the drug references in Beatles lyrics to his son, Ben. To them, it offers further proof of how dull politicians are.  “We’re just joining the herd of the stupid, the idiots and the nuts,” Gourd said. “When you have to explain Beatles songs to your children, something is strange.”  I am not a big fan of politics but these folks seem to be heading in the right direction.

So everyone always thinks of Canadians as those too nice, docile folks to the North, but what they don’t know is that under the facade of sweetness lies the cold heart of a cheater. According to a Sun Media-Leger Marketing sex poll, though, almost 30% of Canadians admit to illicit trysts and cheating on their partner.

While Atlantic Canada boasted the most faithful partners, with only 16% admitting to cheating, that number doubles in the Prairie provinces, where 35% say they’ve been unfaithful. Gender differences are marginal among the 1,524 poll respondents, with 30% of men cheating, compared to 25% of women.

“Cheaters follow the same patterns,” Gruschynski, a private investigator said, and signs of infidelity are predictable. But sometimes the victims of betrayal can also fall into dangerous patterns, he added, and call back to bust subsequent unfaithful partners.

The bust-a-cheat business has been brisk in Edmonton, growing proportionally to the population boom. Summer is particularly busy, he said, when long summer days and more exposed skin heat up dormant libidos. Though it’s said it takes two to tango, most couples counsellors agreed that cheaters who do the horizontal mambo are ultimately accountable for their actions.

“The victim of betrayal should never be blamed,” said Montreal psychotherapist Jason Phelps. But infidelity is often the result of growing distance in the relationship, he said. When Sun Media dangled a carrot in front of respondents in the form of secret sex, three-quarters of Canadians said they would never cheat even if no one could ever find out. But a gender breakdown reveals that double the percentage of men — 26% — would cheat if given the chance. Meanwhile, the refrain “look but don’t touch” may apply to casual glances of admiration on the street, but intimacy at any level — including online — is considered a betrayal among the majority of Canadians.

Is kissing cheating? While 67% of Canadians consider kissing cheating, online intimacy is close behind at 63%, followed by “loving someone else but no sex” at 56%. “Many partners will feel betrayed by online chatting,” Phelps said. “They’re sharing their inner-most thoughts, feelings and fantasies with someone outside the relationship; the partner will feel betrayed.”

But while online intimacy is seen as emotional betrayal among 72% of women, only 54% of men consider cybersex and online chats cheating. “When one’s doing it secretively, it doesn’t involve the other person and it becomes an ongoing thing, it’s going to cause problems,” Phelps said. Having been the victim of a cheating wife I can tell you something you don’t always see in the above statistics and that is the broken homes and kids that have to grow up without an intact family. It seems wedding vows don’t mean much these days….

I just graduated last month and am now looking for a job. The idea of working is very appealing after being locked away in school for so many years but I am a little depressed about the state of my student loans. The interest is high and I have to make multiple payments each mont. My grandfather is a bit of a financial wiz and he recommended I search for a student loan company that specializes in student loan consolidation planning.

It was absolutely the best move I ever made. I have all my payments wrapped into one and my interest rate is much lower and the ease of payments have relieved a ton of stress.

My daughters birthday is just around the corner and I want to surprise her with something a little different this year. She loves jewlery so I have decided to get her a set consisting of one or two pearl necklaces and a pearl bracelets.

I never realized there were so many different types of pearls but they have a very wide selection and I was able to find a whole bunch of beautiful ones. It looks like I will let the wife make the final selection thoug, I don’t want to mess up this special day.

When Bert Cooper surveyed the backyard of his Manitoulin Island property a few months ago, he was stumped: Someone had stripped the bark off his birch trees.

At first, it looked as though the culprit hit only a handful of trunks. But as the 78-year-old walked along his property, on the island that borders Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, he saw that the bark bandit was efficient and methodical — about 120 birch trees had the same two-to-three-foot section uniformly cut out.

“It was so disgusting,” he told the CBC.   Cooper isn’t the only victim of this curious caper. His neighbours have since had their trees stripped, too.   Bud Hebner of Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources says these thefts are becoming more commonplace. He believes the burglars are using the birch bark for crafts, as the unique texture of the bark is increasingly in demand.

This type of crime sure is a lot different from the news casts I watched during my trip to NYC last year.

NATO has been under intense pressure to beef up its military presence.  But for those member nations bearing the brunt of the fighting, there is also intense debate about whether or not to extend the mission for their own troops.  How is Canada dealing with the issue?  I think Canadians in general are doing a good job of looking at this mission with an honest open attitude.  We really want to help and make a difference and have proven we are willing to risk our lives helping.  But considering some of the recent developments with the government of Afghanistan offering the Taliban reconciliation without first having them denounce violence is a little bit of a slap in the face for all those that are risking their life to help Afghanistan.
 
We are also now having a healthy debate about renaming the 401 highway that cuts through Toronto and is the major transportation corridor between Toronto and Montreal, Canada’s busiest thoroughfare. It’s about as far from Afghanistan and the fighting there, that can be imagined. But recently the 401 was designated the Highway of Heroes to honour Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan now numbering more than 70.

The fallen soldiers are flown from Kandahar to Canadian Forces Base Trenton, on the north shore of Lake Ontario. From there a funeral procession leaves the base and heads to Toronto where the bodies are taken to Centre for Forensic Sciences and along this Heroes Highway many people come to stand on the overpasses and show their support by waving Canadian flags and signs.

I would like to see a little more support from NATO and also some hard decisions by the Afghanistan government in further condemning the Taliban unless they stop the violence and seek peaceful negotiations.

Thanks for stopping by our new blog.  We are Canadian owned and operated, which means we will spell stuff different around here, eh?  So don’t panic when you see that are favourite thing is to make fun of fellow Canadians and our special neighbours to the South, the US of A, eh?