From the title, you might think I’m about to talk about a batman episode from the60′s and while I may indeed blog about the bat some day, I’m not going to today!  No, I will speak about something so much more explosive and mesmerizing than the caped crusader.  I speak of course…about fireworks!

Enjoy these low quality pictures from the Saskatoon Fireworks Festival.  I think I have to buy a better camera.

And my personal all time favourite picture taken on our dinky little camera:

The fireworks show was short (about 13 minutes) but sweet.  All in time with a wonderful musical score, the show was a feast for the eyes.  Despite it being incredibly crowded on river landing where some of the choicest spots could be found for viewing, (We ended up sitting among some bushes in a cement planter) it was all a wonderful experience.  Feelings of cramped seating were made irrelevant by the eye opening display of what felt like larger than life flashes of light and colour.

And since I was still “coming down” from the show, I decided to stare at a fountain down by the Delta Bessborough hotel on our way back to the car.

It understandably says caution of course.  This is after all a picture of my behind.

Kinda bored this morning so I figured I would go ahead and show you what I saw on the CTV news website today.

An election ad and a hopeless lie too.  Strong leadership?  This from the guy who claims parliament isn’t working because all the other party leaders are being mean nasties?

Harper’s taking his ball and going home.  Maybe we can actually send him packing this time rather than sending him to 24 Sussex drive.  I just am fearful of what might replace him.

Some basic fact checking might be in order for people in the main stream media…either that or I myself am missing something big time.

According to several media reports in the mainstream press, the green party received 1.5 million votes in the 39th (2006) Canadian federal general election.  This is a major problem I have with syndicated media.  No one does any investigative journalism anymore…well not many people anyway.  “Reporters” are performing their duties in such a manner as though their job title and description has been lifted from a dictionary.

Read the newsreader and then reprint what is said…just add, subtract or alter a few words to make it a distinct globe and mail story.  Now go collect a paycheque and drink your misery away knowing that you didn’t do anything creative or useful.  Yaaayyy.

If just one reporter working for a syndicated media outlet would have bothered to check the Election’s Canada website they would see that the Green Party in fact received 664,068 votes in the 2006 election, not 1.5 million.  not a very sexy information table but a reporter could have checked it out couldn’t they have?  That larger number most likely comes from an approximation of the amount of public dollars they get for their vote share.

Really, this is not a tough fact to check.  It’s even right there on Wikipedia for all to see if they trust political nerds with blackberries.

Come on mainstream media, stop feeding us news feeds and do some real journalism for a change,  Wouldn’t that be nice?  I’ll give you an ince cream treat if you do.

One person died of listeriosis in Canada as Alberta confirmed its first cases (and that death) of the illness in billions of years.

Meanwhile, the number of people who died from other things today:

• Cancer: 161
• Heart Disease: 157
• Suicide: 10

So if you’re not about to commit suicide any time soon, I would probably ignore that recent news item.

Before I blog about something every blogger is probably blogging about, (I don’t know because I only read a few blogs) I’ll offer up condolences.  I don’t like apologizing to people I don’t know.  I offer my condolences to you as you will not be privy to my incredible singing voice.  I would loved to have done a parody of “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” for you, but since I can’t find a music track for download on the web without the lyrics, I can’t use the music to do so and frankly, my acapella skills could use a lot of work.

I can’t imitate a marching band easily.  Kind of odd that I would, at any point in my life think that I could some how have done so.

So anyhow, on with the mundane political comment.  What do you get when you mix red, blue, orange and green?  I’m not completely sure but I think it’s some kind of purplish deal.  If I’m right, I can say that parliament got a little less purple today as an independent MP decided to don some Birkenstocks and go green.  Blair Wilson, formerly of the Liberal party, decided to become the first green MP and consequently, may set a record for the shortest ever sitting party affiliated member of parliament if you don’t count David Emerson who crossed the floor right after he was elected.

I think you can still see some egg shells on the windows of his constituency office.

Anyhoo, basically, all this does is get Green Party leader Elizabeth May into the televised debates.  Probably.  As Canada’s first green MP with an election coming up in perhaps a week or less, he won’t actually be sitting in the house.  Actually, Canada’s first Green MP won’t be in parliament at all, he’ll just be hanging around in the parliament buildings.  Goody for him.

Elizabeth May claims that this adds legitimacy to the Green Party as a political entity, but I’m not so sure of that.  If the best you can cough up is some guy who’s probably not even going to be a green MP for a full week, I think you still have a lot of work to do.  It certainly will be interesting to see if he can be elected by his constituents without the Liberal Party’s banner behind him though.  I can’t figure out where this puts the Green Party for sure though.  Will a one week old floor crosser be seen as legitimate or just another quirky paragraph in the green party story?

As an added side note that interests me, Canada’s first green MP will be running against a pot activist who will be running for the NDP.  Dana Larson is a fellow I had a chance to meet when he was visiting Saskatchewan.  Though slightly aloof and suffering some sort of very minor superiority complex, he was frankly brilliant.  A race between him and a Green Party parliamentarian will be exciting if they are both allowed some Independence from the party line.  I just have to wonder if they won’t end up inadvertently electing a conservative by splitting the “holy cow these guys are so cool I wish I had a vote for each of them” crowd into two.

[18:39 CST EDIT]

You know I just realized that a lot like a certain frustrated sex organ on men, parliament is purple because nothing of any use is getting done there.  The title for this post was even more apt and dirty than I thought it was.