The original.  The 2010 version.  Don’t try this at home, kids, without adult supervision.

“As the assembled Conservatives watched, horrified – and as the many more Liberals present looked on, delighted – Chretien slapped the fabled “Shawinigan Handshake” on Harris.

The devilish move, from which few ever recover, traces its origins back to February 1996, when Chretien was wading his way through a crowd in Hull, Que., and a group of anti-poverty protesters mobbed him.

One of the protesters, Bill Clennett, tried to block the prime ministerial path.

Big mistake.”

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To ensure my picks are better understood, I start yelling like a madman. Peggy, meanwhile, reacts to her eardrum being damaged.

At about the 1:43 mark, or something like that.

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The guy who was punished for opposing intolerance has been reinstated.

And the guy who was actually intolerant, and wasn’t punished, has apologized.

Sanity is restored, and before Christmas too.

I’m still cranky after the insurance-less buffoon demo’d the rear end of my car, however.

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Pulling into the Canadian Tire near my office this morning, and a guy slams into my rear bumper and quarter panel. Interestingly, he doesn’t have his insurance information on him. I am now at one of the three “Accident Support Service” offices in the City of Toronto.

Three. For a city of five million people.

Whatever Christmas spirit I possessed is now fully gone.

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“…it’s all being done in secret, without even a 10-minute chit-chat in Parliament. And it’s going to be announced next month by the prime minister and U.S. President Barack Obama when, coincidentally, the House of Commons is not sitting.

In effect, Mr. Harper is erasing the border between Canada and the United States.

And, to get little, he is trading away too much.”

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So there we were at Charlie and Tenio’s annual Gentlemen’s Lunch, having a festive time, and all of a sudden – what to our astonished eyes should appear, etc. – a nasty political scrap over by the bar!

I am reliably informed the fellow from Northern Ontario was not victorious.

photo © WK

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…dogs are going after the cat vote, apples and oranges are the same thing, and oil and water have been miraculously made one.

Thank you. That is all.

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Sounds like we’re going to get one!

What do you think, folks?  Participate in our highly-scientific poll!  Vote once,  vote often!

poll by twiigs.com

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…and, as with Messrs. Klein and Eves, below, all of us at the wk.com empire wish a speedy recovery, and best of the season, to Mr. Rae.

I may be “a stupid blogger,” quote unquote, but I’m a charitable stupid blogger!

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The magazine says Canadian universities are “Too Asian.” Previously, it called all of Quebec “corrupt.”

This is turning into a pattern.

In both cases, politicians called for the magazine to apologize. (In respect of the Quebec mess, its parent company did apologize; in respect of the “Too Asian” headline, it has deleted that intolerant headline, and expressed hope that it caused “no offence.”)

Are you convinced?  (See that?  That’s a Maclean’s trick.  Say something really offensive, but follow it with a question mark.  That way, you get to say it, still, but you can hide behind the question mark if things get too hot.  To wit: IS MACLEAN’S RUN BY TOTAL IDIOTS?)

Anyway, getting politicians involved just turns it into a big free press thing, with predictable results.  Much shrieking and braying, etc. etc., nothing really achieved.

But if average citizens and community groups are upset – and with the “Too Asian” edition, they truly are – that’s something Maclean’s can’t so easily dismiss.  They need to carefully consider what is being said to and about them.  If nothing else, they need to think about what they are doing to their credibility.

Will they change course?  Who knows.  Rush Limbaugh is quite popular, I suppose, but I doubt there’s a soul alive who still considers him a journalist.

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