I promised to publish this political cartoon of Rush Limbaugh if he ever said something that was so stupid and vile that it made it to my ears up here in Canada to a person that doesn’t seek out right wing slants.
He called the novel coronavirus a plot and that it’s just the common cold. So wrong and so vile just like the last time, Rush.
Let’s start locally with this one. Mike Lazaridis of Blackberry fame is still a billionaire. He started and named the Perimeter Institute which is the premiere physics institute in Canada. He used the name Perimeter because he expected that the science to be done there would be on the edge of known science. It’s acronym is PI which brings fond memories of the first constant we were likely to know. To me this sounds like a Dad joke but it is a joke nevertheless.
Mike Bloomberg is at a very high risk of being the joke Democratic candidate. Even if he pulls himself up by the bootstraps, he has already made a joke out of most of the rules that candidates have to live by. It’s surprising how much a few millions can actually buy in politics.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame made the same joke politicians have been making for the last few decades. Instead of delivering quality jobs, he had virtually every large metropolitan area vying to be the second Amazon headquarters with about 50 000 new jobs on tap. This would be wonderful if Amazon was known for creating only good jobs. But they are not. Some jobs might indeed pay well but I heard the majority of the jobs would be poor paying.
The quantity of the jobs appealed to the politicians of almost every large city in North America. After all they’ve been promoting jobs, jobs, jobs for decades even if they end up being temporary or part time. Politicians know the quantity not quality joke, too.
Elon Musk’s recent joke is calling the spaceship part of his rocket/spaceship, Starship. Even with some improvements in longevity, we won’t be alive to see Starship reach the closest star. Indeed all the plans for Starship currently involve the Sun and its environs – not other stars. His name overreaches quite a lot.
To my mind the funniest joke of any billionaire is the one that Bill Gates made when he said he was now going to give most of his wealth to charity. Ha! Why does Bill Gates’ wealth continue to grow then? Granted he’s let other billionaires surpass his wealth but he aims to be super rich for the rest of his lifetime and I’ll bet that his kids will inherit billions of dollars if he ever dies. Not the 10 million dollars he alluded to leaving them some years ago.
But the biggest joke of a billionaire is, no surprise, Donald Trump. That is of course if he even is a billionaire.
Iran regularly holds protest days in the year so the business is quite steady and not the angry against the US one day and then back to business as usual the next day.
I say sweet. How are we going to get in on the action of hate and make a profit while making our carbon footprint bigger?
First of all I thought we should do this with the flag of Iran. A natural reaction, some might say, and a bit of retaliation for how they view the west. But when we burn the Iranian flags, how are our fellow patriots going to know we are burning the flag of Iran?
I am fairly literate in countries and flags of the world. But despite being able to point out Iran on a map of the world, I’m not sure what their flag looks like. I have this vague idea that Muslim countries have moons on their flags so I might guess that. Except I know most Muslim countries are Sunni Muslims and I know this is not true of Iran. So what do they have on their flag? I don’t know.
I just looked up the flag of Iran. It is a horizontally laid out tricolour flag of green, white and red. In the middle of the white is a red symbol and there is Iranian writing on the borders of the green and white and the red and white, also. I would never have recognized this as the flag of Iran.
Oh we could burn Iranian flags alright it’s just that we would have to explain to everyone old and young that it is the Iranian flag we are burning.
“What flag?!”
“The Iranian flag!”
“WHAT?!”
“THE IRANIAN FLAG! IRAN! IRAN!”
“I DON”T CARE IF YOU RAN! WHAT COUNTRY’S FLAG IS THIS?”
But we don’t have to just burn the flags of countries we are currently on the outs with. As a flag making enterprise, we could just make up reasons to be angry with any country.
But some burnings might cause confusion. While burning the Liberian flag some might ask, “Isn’t that the flag of a US state?” It sure does look like it could be with its solitary, white star in a blue square on a red and white striped background.
Still hate is easy. And now that I know it can be a moneymaker, I don’t think anyone could deter me from making a buck off of burning flags.
“Alright, Modern Ninja, you have shown me your martial arts skills and your use of a couple weapons. But those are just traditional ninja stuff. Explain to me why you call yourself modern,” said the image of Mother Earth that was on a screen with various cameras pointed around the empty warehouse that the testing was taking place in.
“Okay,” said Modern Ninja, dropping the sword she had been using and reaching in her clothing for something. “Traditional ninjas eschew modern improvements like guns.” She pulled a handgun out with a silencer. “Even when they’re ninja friendly like this gun with this silencer. Stealth is a priority for the ninja. I am modern because I use guns with silencers.
“The second reason I am modern is because I use point invisibility. That’s where a sensor detects what my eyes are looking at. My clothing is made up of video pixels controlled by a tiny computer enmeshed in the clothes. Cameras see behind me and extrapolate what my clothes should look like from the point I am looking at. The computer then makes me look like the background I am up against. It’s invisibility except for my eyes. Do you wish me to demonstrate?”
“I would love to see that,” said an eager Mother Earth.
“Which camera should I become invisible to?”
“The one above my image.”
Modern Ninja did something and suddenly only her eyes and the skin between them were visible to that camera.
The eyes approached the camera quickly and Mother Earth ordered, “Don’t touch the buttons! I can see you in the other cameras!”
Modern Ninja appeared again to all cameras. “I’m showing you one of my greatest powers. Is it not right that you reveal more about yourself?”
“I think I will shortly. I just don’t want to skip steps. Are there any other reasons that you are modern?”
“I’m a modern ninja because I’m a woman,” she said, arms akimbo.
“Well I just have to ask. If you are a modern ninja can’t you take the assassin thing down a notch and say you are going to detain the criminal element and not kill them outright.”
“I think I could do that. But at the start you promised that you could add to my powers. I’m curious as to how.”
“I’m a cracker who has broken into the Chinese government’s most top secret security systems. There I found an exoskeleton designed to increase the strength and power of the wearer. I was surprised because I had seen similar ones from other countries and they were not the same. The Chinese one would be superior for those who had mastered martial arts because it gave the wearer more range of motion and agility.
“Are you prepared to spend a few more months practicing with this before you are let on the streets as a new superhero?”
“I have trained my whole life. A few more months should not bother me.”
“Then we will have five reasons why you are a modern ninja.”
“But mostly because I’m a woman!”
“I am Mother Earth and I call myself a cracker. I can get into any computer system in less than a second and I will help you in any adventures you might have – if you are accepted.”
“So I’ll only see this image of you on a computer while you hide safely wherever you are?”
“That’s it, but half the reason I am doing tryouts is to try to ensure that you are capable enough to handle the criminal element without too much danger to your person.
“You go by the name of The Fire Tosser. I must question the lethalness of your power. I assume you somehow throw fire. How can you subdue a criminal without killing or almost killing him?”
“Well I could surround him with a ring of fire-”
“You’d have to get all around him to do that. Or fly above him but you don’t fly. Do you?”
“No, but I could weld the doors shut of the building he’s trying to rob-”
“He’ll break through the window.”
“It might be a windowless vault. Or I could weld shut his getaway vehicle’s doors.”
“Perhaps you might be of some use. Your name says tosser. Does that mean you throw fire by your hands in some way? How would fire be generated?”
“Toss doesn’t have to mean you throw by hand. That would be more complex.”
“I hope you mean you are a fire breather. Tell me it is your mouth that generates the fire.”
“Why of course the mouth generates it. I have to eat a full pail of beans before I am capable of generating my fire!”
“Does that mean-”
“Yes. There is a reason that my costume doesn’t have a cape. That would be dangerous.”
“So how do you ignite your farts?”
“I have a sparker.”
“And there’s a smell.”
“Of course there is but you wouldn’t ever smell it in your video form.”
“I have others that I might work with. I hope that they would work with me more than once. Next!”
“I should have known that a female superhero would be too prissy,” Fire Tosser grumbled as he went out the door.
Police Chief Summers watched as some kind of member slid open the 2nd floor window to his office. The chief knew not to go to it. The strange member came in further and then flexed and in a second the masked vigilante, Tail, was in the office.
“I see that the broadcasters alerted you to my wish to see you.”
“Yes,” said Tail, grabbing a seat.
“We can’t have vigilantes in town.” Tail looked more than skeptical. “I am going to show you from just your first patrol example.”
“Everyone was obviously guilty!” protested Tail.
“Those first two women that you apprehended were not drunk and disorderly.”
“But I saw them both puke for no reason.”
“They claim it was a reaction to-” Summers almost puked a little just thinking about it – “your tail.”
“That’s just wrong and biased!”
“My officers did due diligence. We made them both take a breathalyzer and take impaired tests. They both passed and were not impaired in any way. I would trust them to drive immediately after we released them.”
Tail slammed his fist against the desk. “Such a reaction is not possible because of someone’s appear-”
A much louder sound from outside the office reached the pair’s ears, “SUUUUUUUU WEEE! WEEE! WEEE! WEEE!”
“Don’t look!” warned Police Chief Summers. But Tail opened the door just enough so both could see.
A man who was being held by a very shocked and surprised cop let out another, “SUUUUUUU WEEE! HERE PIGGY, PIGGY, PIGGY!”
As one, every spare cop in the whole station charged the hog caller. The shock wore off for the attendant cop and she attempted to throw the man to the ground. This almost worked and the first couple extra cops got him down and pinned him to the floor. But his mouth was free and out came, “SUUUUUU WEEE! WEEE! WEEE! WEEE!”
Fists started flying and the man stopped making the offending sounds.
“It was an honest mistake,” said Tail looking away from the scene.
“Yes, yes,” said the police chief still staring in shock.
“I mean my detention of the two women.”
“Oh.”
“An officer can make a mistake just as easily. Do we have an understanding?”
“Uh, I guess.”
Tail easily disappeared from the presence of the distracted police chief.
