One of the participants – the one who regularly declares himself a champion of free speech, and decries libel lawsuits – is, wait for it, suing me for libel.

Guess which one? You get three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

Yawn.

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There are many things which differentiate Canadians from our American friends: our politics. Our beer. Our health care system. Our gun control laws. And, theoretically, our hockey.

On that last one, however, maybe not so much, eh? And, Sunday night, we received a timely reminder of that.

I’ve lived in the United States, and I can still recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I love America and Americans. But one of the uniquely American character traits – their must-win ethos, which sometimes manifests itself in arrogance and overweening pride – is one of the traits that we Canadians have never shared. We Canadians have always tended to be a bit less boastful, a bit less cocky. And we have been proud, you might say, about not being American proud.

I started to sense that a perceptible shift was underway a few weeks ago, when I was in a movie theatre with my kids and I saw this: Coca Cola’s Olympics hockey ad. Take a look at it again.

So there you go: an American-headquartered multinational reminding us in a glossy, focus-grouped spot – a spot that, I admit, is beautifully-shot and shrewdly-constructed, with about a half-dozen product placements – that hockey is our game, and let’s remind everyone that it is. It’s manipulative, like all advertising, but it’s a manipulation that can only ever work if the intended targets (ie., us) have signaled their willingness to be manipulated.

We did that earlier on, I think, with this “own the podium” onanism. At the time, I dismissed it as a bit of jingoistic fluff – some ad exec’s flight of fancy. But, eventually, it became apparent that some Canadians – a lot of Canadians – had bought into it. We’d become American-ish, you know? Medals, medals, medals! We’re the best! We will crush you! Grrrr!

We are the best country in the world. We are, we are. But one of the ways we have gotten a lot of Canadians (and non-Canadians) to agree with that is to not say it. Undersell and overperform, Chretien used to tell those of us privileged enough to work for him: in politics, as in life, it’s a workable premise.

We are well on our way to being taught a valuable lesson in these Olympics, I think. I hope it’s a lesson that, four years hence, we heed.

Rah, rah.

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You know what they’re doing, but you are powerless to stop them. Personally, I surrendered when I saw Ezra (VW’s, not the emotionally challenged one) leaping onto stage with Toronto’s F**ked Up and throwing it down.

The chorus is both irritating and catchy as catchy can be. Weird. Here they be, on MTV:

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That’s what I had waiting for me on my main office PC this morning.

You know you are in big trouble when you call Geek Squad, or whomever, and they say: “Uh-oh.”

Hopefully we can do a data recovery long enough for me to extract files. Then it’s possibly off to Mac Land a lot sooner than I expected. There’s only so much Dell/Windows crap you can endure, before the cost benefit becomes nil.

Also, anyone know if it’s still impossible to sync a Blackberry with a Mac?

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And, tonight, SFH will continue to carefully, methodically prepare for its historic performance – an entertaining mélange of poetry-reading, barnyard animaux and free Ovaltine gift packs. Come one, come all!

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Ann Coulter, the execrable trailer park vox, is coming to three Canadian campuses.

More about Ms. Coulter is seen here and here and here.

Be sure to tell her what you think of her, folks. She’s already told us what she thinks about us:

“[Canadians] better hope the United States doesn’t roll over one night and crush them. They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent.”

It sure would be interesting if an enterprising reporter put that quote, or one of the others, to Stephen Harper or one of his Reform Conservative caucus – given that her readership is interchangeable with his voter base.

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Toronto’s own ska-reggae geniuses, The Arsenals, doing the tune that was inspired by this past Summer’s municipal strike – Rat A Get Fat. Brilliant.

Click on the picture to listen! Make them famous! Web site here!

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Doug Fieger, the driving force behind the Knack, died of cancer on the weekend.

Back in Calgary in our high school daze, when their signature tune – My Sharona – topped the charts for week after week, Alan made up a version about one of the jocks in our school, Mike Siroska (sp?) that was very funny. I forget the words.

Here they are again, with a song that was, and remains, catchier than a drawer full of fish hooks:

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February 15, 1932: we miss you.

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Warren marvels at Kory’s ability to claim to be de-politicizing the Games, while simultaneously politicizing the Games.

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