kimmy

Her name is Rebecca Black. Last week she was an anonymous 13 year old kid. This week, she's an international phenomenon. The story, as I understand it, is that Rebecca's parents purchased a song and music video for her. Like, they spent $2000 to hire a company to make a music video starring Rebecca. The result is what some people consider to be possibly the worst song and the worst music video of all time. The badness is has become so legendary that in just a week, over 26 million people have flocked to Youtube to see the carnage for themselves. It has taken the internet by storm. It is spreading like wildfire. People are getting on Facebook and Twitter and telling their friends "OMG, you have to watch this hilarious video I just saw." People are creating animated GIF images and screen-captures from the the video, with hilarious captions. In the same way that "Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada. We did not make this up." spawned a new form of Canadian haiku, making fun of Rebecca Black's terrible video has become a social activity in its own right, a group project for the internet community. It's hard to feel too bad for Rebecca, however, because her horrible song is now a top-20 seller on Itunes. Given that we now live in a world were being a talentless moron can make you a large sum of money in just a few days, I have decided to spend more time thinking about how to cash in on the popularity of idiocy. -k

Of course a big component of American muscle was involved. It might have been a global party, but George HW Bush was the DJ. The objectives of the UN mission happened to coincide nicely with western energy security objectives. I would expect American muscle to be a big part of whatever UN action happens in the Middle East, for the same reason. However, if the US decided to sit out the next "coalition of the willing", I would think that Britain, France, and Germany could provide significant "teeth" to an operation. Canada could help, if our military resources weren't already committed to the ongoing mission to assist our American friends in Afghanistan. -k

Yeah. Not surprising that in this one, like the Rahim Jaffer story, the "busty hookers" aspect has been hyped to the hilt. The substance of the charges-- the actual part that was against the law-- is so minor and so boring that there's virtually no story without topless photos of "Leanna VIP" under the headline. -k

If people are only supposed to talk about policies, then Ignatieff shouldn't have been trying to portray himself as the child of hardscrabble immigrants in the first place. If he wants to play that card, then checking his story is fair game. -k

O'Bama? Like he's Irish?! Also, you spelled "Chief" wrong... Nonetheless, I agree with the premise. It is reminiscent of the global community that George H.W. Bush advocated for when Iraq invaded Kuwait. -k

Yikes. I didn't realize how ridiculous the size advantage was until they were in the ring together. Jones has a longer reach then Stefan Struve. Plus he's fast, plus he's powerful, plus he's a strong wrestler who's going to be almost impossible to take off his feet. Rashad Evans is in for a curb-stomping. The only hope for anybody else in the LHW division is that as he grows up, he fills out and can't make weight at 205 anymore. I enjoyed the Jim Miller fight and the Uriah Faber fight. -k

...says the guy trying to make the topic about Harper instead of Ignatieff. On what planet is a guy who wrote bad cheques 30 years ago remotely like Clifford Olson? Are you drinking William Ashley's kool-aid? -k

I'll be helping out the Single Party of Canada (SEN). I really like their platform. -k

Which companies are "liberal leaning" and which are "conservative leaning"? Should there be questionnaires before government contracts are awarded? Do you have any evidence to support the (probably libelous) claim that the Conservative party is receiving kickbacks in exchange for contracts? -k

Many times I have wondered if Mr C is a sock-puppet created by some clever satirist as a hilarious and cutting parody of the far right. -k

My recollection, and I could be mistaken so feel free to correct me, is that the grand sum of "meetings" Jaffer had with government officials consisted of attending the same Christmas party as somebody with the environment ministry. There's no doubt that Jaffer tried to use his history with the Conservative Party to try to dupe prospective clients into thinking he had influence with the government, but there's no evidence that he actually had any. It doesn't appear that anybody with the Conservatives would have even crossed the street to meet Rahim unless it were to kick him in the nuts. In short, I'm of the belief that the version Shakey is offering doesn't actually coincide with the facts. As for Bruce Carson, we shall see. He's had meetings with people from DIA, so we'll have to see what comes of that, and whether that's in violation of the rules. In the meantime, however, there's clearly some misconceptions going around. We had people on this forum screaming that Kory Teneyke was breaking lobbying regulations by working for a company that was applying for a license from the CRTC, for example. -k

What meetings did Jaffer garner? -k

"will pretty much forced to..." doesn't mean mandatory. Read my earlier comment on why big porn sites might be "pretty much forced to" buy the new domain names. Hint: it's the same reason why major Canadian businesses buy both the ".com" and ".ca" versions of their domain names. -k

Did Jaffer break lobbying rules? -k

If someone on your Ignore list posts a message in a thread you are viewing, the forum informs you of it, and gives you a button that you can click to view the message anyway. So if you were missing messages because of your ignore list, you would know about it. -k

Of course not. There's just a question of how much money they took with them when they fled. The claim that they were able to access substantial assets after they left Russia is cited to Ignatieff's own book, although I don't have a copy of that handy to verify it. Regardless, presenting the graphic on its own makes the impression that Ignatieff's heritage was under attack, which I think you know is misleading. -k

I'd made up a different hypothetical site, then discovered that it was actually a real site with some pretty startling content. I sure didn't want to link to something like that on this family-friendly forum! Maybe hotkimmy.com could sell homemade toques and mitts and leg warmers or something. -k

Well, that looks pretty shocking, and I had to find out what the story behind that image was. Having now read the article, I understand why you present the graphic out of context, Nicky. Looking at the graphic on its own, one might get the impression that Ignatieff is being attacked for his Russian ancestry. In fact, he's being mocked for trying to present himself as a guy whose family lived a hardscrabble immigrant life, when they were actually an elite family who left Russia with loads of money and lived a privileged existence in the UK before coming to Canada. -k

I support the death of militant Talibanoids. Hopefully word gets around to the civilians that hanging out with the Taliban is a dangerous place to be. -k

"Iggy" is a commonly used nickname for the Liberal leader. Unless you're a critic of the Liberals, in which case "Iggy" is a derogatory attack which will get you reported and earn you a brief vacation from Charles. It's a little complicated... but the short version is, spell the whole thing because a card-carrying Liberal on the forum has an itchy trigger finger for the report button. -k

I didn't see anything about it being mandatory to switch. The suggestion that an adult website "will pretty much be forced to buy its .xxx version" is probably a matter of practicality, not a legal requirement. The owner of some wildly popular website, say hotkimmy.com, might need to buy the new hotkimmy.xxx domain name as well, to avoid having somebody else buy the name to leech unsuspecting customers away. -k

Good point about the injury and the layoff... he looked really dynamic against Lyoto, though. -k

Yes, those French, notorious for always supporting the Americans in everything they do. Freedom fries for all! We should get our news on this story from an unbiased source... like Iran's state-controlled news agency. This Nasir Jaffry who wrote that article is probably a real Muslim-hater. I box... yet you're the one who seems to be punch-drunk. -k

That's not actually relevant to lobbying regulations restricting Mr Carson's interaction with the government. It's not prohibited for him to sell water filters to Indian reservations any more than it's prohibited for him to sell hot-dogs to a welfare recipient. However, it appears that Mr Carson has indeed met with DIA officials a number of times, so there's definitely a strong appearance that lobbying rules have been broken. -k