BRIAN: Politics is a fun thing to wallow in.This is the worst trip I've ever been on....
--"Sloop John B."
NEXT:
BRIAN: The duckies are coming home.
BOB: The duckies?
BRIAN: The duckies.
BOB: What duckies?
BRIAN: Ten years ago there was a spill of toys somewhere around
the 45th parallel. I think they were going from China to Seattle,
or something like that.
BOB: Oh yeah. I remember that.
BRIAN: Rugrats heads and rubber duckies. And other
toys. And now the duckies have circled the globe.
BOB: They've somehow stayed clumped together. That's amazing.
stayed clumped together.
BRIAN: And they've actually helped scientists get an idea of
how global currents operate, too.
BOB: They were useful duckies.
BRIAN: Yep. And now they are coming home. They're
heading to New England.
BOB: Welcome the duckies with open arms. They're invading
Updike territory.
NEXT:
BOB: Looks like Canada is approving same-sex marriages.
BRIAN: Good. It's about damn time.
BOB: Yeah. On June 10 in Ontario the definition of marriage
was broadened to include homosexual couples.
BRIAN: Most other provinces are expected to follow suit, too.
BOB: By 2004 gay / lesbian marriages will be legal in Canada.
BRIAN: And of course people are bitching.
BOB: Mostly, the people who're complaining are religious conservatives
and undereducated rustic folk.
BRIAN: They should just get over it. It's not like anyone's
forcing them to marry homosexuals. And, frankly, marriage is just
a meaningless legal contract-- when you get right down to it. It's
not a union in front of God or anybody, or even, over half the time, a
statement of two people's "love" for one another. It's a formality,
a piece of paper people sign to get tax breaks and convince themselves
their lives have entered some kind of "meaningful" stage.
BOB: Uh, well. I know you're bitter, but it's not just
those things. Sometimes it can be more. And why shouldn't homosexuals
be able to express their love for each other?
BRIAN: Or get a tax break. Straights are just bitter because
fags and dykes are taking away their tax breaks. Speaking of course
as a nihilistic breeder who doesn't give a rats ass who marries who and
who can't even fathom the primitive, pea-brained, narrow, bigoted, archaic
mindsets of those who do.
BOB: And, also, this has the bonus effect of pissing off the
current US administration because they're all a bunch of right-wing "family
men" with ties to the "moral majority" and the "religious right."
BRIAN: Old dying men with old dying ideals dragging down an entire
country with their primative backwater ignorance.
NEXT:
BOB: Well.
BRIAN: Well.
BOB: Well, it looks like Canada is about to legalize small quantities
of marijuana for personal use.
BRIAN: While I personally don't care for marijuana, I will acknowledge
that what people ingest in the privacy of their own homes is their business.
And as long as what they ingest is done in a way that doesn't influence
or hurt other people it shouldn't be regulated by the state.
BOB: People have a right to do whatever they want to to themselves.
BRIAN: Also, once again, this has the bonus effect of pissing
off the current US administration.
BOB: Because now all their citizens will come up here and get
stoned, and then go back down to the States and lobby for looser pot laws.
NEXT:
BRIAN: Well, well, it looks like that mad cow that was discovered
in Alberta caught the disease in the USA.
BOB: Or, well, at least that's a "theory."
BRIAN: The truth is, where the cow caught the disease cannot
be proven.
BOB: And no one from the USA will admit to even the slightest
possibility that the cow could have gotten the disease behind their borders.
BRIAN: And this, again, fuels the conspiracy nuts: "Of
course they won't admit to it, because they gave it the disease on purpose
to screw us over."
BOB: But, of course in order to do that the CIA (or Freemasons,
or whatever X-Files-style "They" is currently him-- yet shadowy--
and infinitely threatening) would have had to know, about 4 years ago,
that george Bush Jr. would be president on the USA, that the World Trade
Center would be destroyed, that this would lead to a "War On Terrorism,"
and then another war in the Gulf (this time directly focusing on Iraq),
and that Canada would not send any troops to Iraq to fight, thus requiring
immediate political punishment.
BRIAN: But, then again, "They" are in control, and thus "They"
can do anything, right?
BOB: "They" are always in control. I saw it in a movie.
BRIAN: Nostalgia never goes out of style.
NEXT:
BRIAN: It's starting to publicly come out that maybe some of
the information the USA relied upon to declare war on Iraq was incorrect.
BOB: Now Bush and the current administration is struggling to
save face when what's really happening is they're looking dumber and dumber
and dumber.
NEXT:
BRIAN: It offends the hell out of me that anyone over the age
of about 28 is referred to, on the internet, as a "senior citizen."
But then again, it makes me howl with laughter that all the little teenaged
and early-20-something fuckers who've made this distinction are just compensating
because they're already over the hill because the only people who are really
cool now are the "tweens."
NEXT:
BOB: Jessica Lynch.
BRIAN: Jessica Lynch is the American private who was a POW in
Iraq.
BOB: She's the woman who was captured and tortured by Iraqi interrogators
only to be rescued in a sensational firelight by American troops and returned
safely home to US soil. A brave little trooper.
BRIAN: Well it's turned out that the whole thing was probably
staged.
BOB: Turns out she might've just fell off a truck.
BRIAN: And then she was found by a bunch of Iraqis who took her
in and tended to her wounds.
BOB: The Iraqi doctors looked after her and, later when they
went to return her to her company they were fired upon and had to retreat.
BRIAN: Then Lynch stayed with the Iraqis--
BOB: Until the Americans could stage a rescue and broadcast it
on tv in order to create a war hero.
BRIAN: And of course boost viewer ratings.
BOB: Fascinating story.
BRIAN: The American media stopped broadcasting it within a couple
of days, though.
BOB: Yeah. The Canadian media didn't, though.
BRIAN: And people say Jean Baudrillard is full of shit when he
says things like "the gulf war did not take place."
BOB: She's gonna be writing a book, or there's gonna be a movie,
or something.
NEXT:
BOB: There is a price on Saddam Hussein's head.
BRIAN: This means the USA is getting desperate.
BOB: They're losing.
NEXT:
BOB: And how about that wacky ol' 21-day prayer vigil?
BRIAN: Pat Robertson, that shitheel?
BOB: Yeah.
BRIAN: Oh well.
BOB: What do you mean "Oh well?"
BRIAN: It's no big deal. Him getting people to pray for,
what, three Supreme Court justices to be killed-- or sorry, "retired" by
God because they struck down a "sodomy" law? I think it's a good
thing.
BOB: Okay. How can that be a good thing?
BRIAN: It gets all the nutcases and useless people doing something
pointless, and so while they're praying like mindless drones for God to
kill their enemies they're not actually getting in the way of sane people.
BOB: I get it. It keeps the mentally infirm occupied.
BRIAN: Precisely. If anything, this immaculate mutual masturbation
session should be extended as long as possible. Preferably till after
the US election. Keep the retards off the street and out of
the voting booths, keep them locked away praying and maybe a halfway sane
government will be elected this time.
NEXT:
BRIAN: When did Jon Stewart get good?
BOB: What do you mean?
BRIAN: I used to hate him. I used to think he was a smug,
smarmy, and hollow comedian, just too cloying and cute and fakely angry
for his own good.
BOB: Okay.
BRIAN: And I hated his show. it seemed so forced.
Like he was trying so hard to be clever all the time.
BOB: The Late Show With Jon Stewart, right?
BRIAN: Yeah. But now it's brilliant.
BOB: Yeah?
BRIAN: It's amazing. Maybe one of the best things on tv.
What happened?
BOB: I dunno.
BRIAN: I tune in, now to get a quick burst of honest perspective
on the US political scene. During the time everybody was kissing
Bush's ass, Stewart was one of the only people that stated-- publicly--
that the Patriot Act technically makes voting against the current administration
illegal.
BOB: It does?
BRIAN: It's an if you ain't with us you're against us kind of
thing. In the USA, anyone that opposes the current administration,
by the letter of this law, is a terrorist and thus a criminal. The
act is ill-defined and had no real borders so even people who run against
Bush in the upcoming election can be seen as going against the current
administration, and thus as terrorists.
BOB: Holy crap.
BRIAN: Yeah, and during all the furor after 9-11 and the bombing
of Afghanistan, Stewart was one of the only people who dared to suggest
this. And also, he crucifies Bush every chance he gets. He
picks apart Bush's speeches and so forth. And he mocks everyone,
all the time, even himself. It's amazing.
BOB: Who'd'a thunk it.
BRIAN: No kidding. Jon Stewart's insane hyperbole is one
of the only voices of reason on tv these days.
NEXT:
BRIAN: The world Trade Center collapsed and nothing changed.
BOB: The American economy collapsed and nothing has changed.
BRIAN: Japan fell apart and nothing changed.
BOB: Canada is in terminal recession and nothing has changed.
BRIAN: If the USA wins its war in Iraq nothing will change.
BOB: If they lose nothing will change.
BRIAN: It's tha livin' end, bay-bee.
Next: Enossification 2....