Sweet mother of pearl. Pro-war ice cream was amusing in a wacky way. The whole “Freedom Fries” thing is incredibly goofy, and instead of inspiring some anti-French uprising just makes people who use the term look poorly educated. But now, my friends, now that MTV Europe has revised their playlist in the face of war, they can no longer play “Love Shack” by the B-52s. Love Shack, baby. Love Shack. What — are we a world of people who are liable to crack and sob like tiny children if that catchy Southern party ditty on the radio is performed by a band with a name like a piece of military hardware? I don’t care if you’re for or against the war, this is just stupid.

While I’m here, is anyone else being driven insane by CNN’s Aaron Brown? “Hi, I’m Aaron Brown.. and I’m thoughtful.. about America.” It’s almost enough to make me turn off the television news, but not quite.

I was watching CNN last night (along with everyone else, I assume), and it was obvious that they were pulling out all the stops for the war, like new graphics, theme music, Anderson Cooper (Anderson Cooper?! Host of Celebrity Mole?! That’s their front man for war coverage?), fancy videophones, yadda, yadda, yadda. All that was nothing, though, compared to one filler segment they featured: a huge, flat map of Iraq and the surrounding area with stickers representing U.S. aircraft carriers and planes, upon which the news anchor placed detailed 3D models (at least a foot long) of the different types of planes used. Then they cut to computer generated graphics of both what the planes would look like dropping bombs, and — and this is my favourite — a goofy CG representation of some poor schlep looking at a radar screen and suddenly seeing lots of stealth bombers appear out of nowhere.

CNN had better watch it, or their coverage is going to peak too early. Save some rampant sensationalizing for the follow-through, boys!

Well, crap.

Perhaps you’ve heard of this before, but this weekend was my first introduction to the concepts behind Celebration, Florida: a town named by a focus group, and run by Disney. Apparently Celebration was to be the prototype for Disney towns all over the U.S., but it turned out to be an uncontrollable social experiment and magnet for bad press.

I am absolutely fascinated by this town: the return to “community values”, the strict rules on everything from lawncare to window treatments, the fact that Disney is responsible for your child’s school curriculum.. it’s just bizarre. It’s like Hobbes’ Social Contract theory with a goofy modern capitalist twist. In any case, someone has nicely preserved a very interesting 1997 New York Magazine article on Celebration, new urbanism, and what happens when people have different “community values”.

Are you a national brand that needs a new marketing idea? Sit back, relax, and listen to the sweet dulcet tones of Rod Roddy talkin’ up the charms of your product on television! Sure, at saveontv.com you could get product placement on Judge Judy, or have your product given to losers by Alex on Jeopardy, but everyone knows the pinnacle of daytime advertising is to be part of a pricing game on Price is Right. (Of course, the pinnacle if you’re a contestant is to play Plinko, but that’s another entry for another day.)

Drugs, Sports, Body Image, and GI Joe. Everyone at this point knows that if Barbie were a real woman she would be horribly malformed, and that some people believe playing with war toys can encourage agression, but what influence do traditionally boy-oriented toys have on male body image and psyche? It’s one of those things I’ve never though of before, I’m somewhat ashamed to say, being much more focused on the physical messages girls are given in their youth, but it makes sense that the same would hold true for young boys.

I’ve seen this around a few places, and I think it’s incorrectly attributed to Rick Mercer (the best known Canadian political satirist) and should list Colin Mochrie as the author, but it’s amusing nonetheless: A Canadian Apology, by those good folks at This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

I need fiction book recommendations, y’all! I realized this weekend that all I seem to read anymore are computer books and news/current events websites, and I really do miss the occasional ripping yarn in my life. The last three fiction books I read were The Adventures of Kavelier and Clay, which I quite enjoyed on the whole, but seemed to peter out a little at the end; American Gods, which was quite interesting, if not a little fluffy in parts; and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was incredibly goofy, poorly written, and teriffic fun to read. I’m not really big on pure fantasy or sci-fi novels, although books with fantasy elements are usually quite good (ie. Snow Crash or Peter Hoeg’s Borderliners). So, can you recommend some reading?

The sunset seen from space. While there was some debate over the authenticity of this on MetaFilter it was concluded that the photo was probably retouched but essentially genuine, and absolutely stunning either way.

Here’s a complete financial report of all the Specialty, Pay, and Pay-Per-View channels in Canada. (See the .pdf and .xls links at the end of the article.) Now, while I am a sad media junkie who loves to spend her weekends poring over someone else’s financial reports, I’ll summarize it for y’all who may not be so lucky: almost all the new digital cable channels lost a small amount of money but still look solid, Teletoon and Showcase made a pretty respectable profit, and sports channel The Score lost cash in a big way.

(The above link was found off Digital Home Canada Forums, the location of choice for complaining bitterly about your cable/satellite provider’s lack of channels, reception, customer service, or a combination of the three.)

Recall them all! The current policital leaders in British Columbia, the Liberal Party, were elected in 2001 in a huge, huge sweep, despite what (ahem) some people thought about their financial promises. Almost two years later, schools and hospitals are being closed, post-secondary tuition has tripled, and all those people who voted Liberal in 2001 are starting to talk about massive recall campaigns.

Now, seriously, I like seeing shady politicos booted out of office in shame as much as the next heartless lefty, but I’m actually not sure if I’d support a recall campaign in my area. If a representative has been found to a) break a political law, b) use undue influence, or c) make big fat lies, I’m all for signing the petition and holding a new election. But to recall just because you don’t like your local politician anymore.. well, even in the shiny happy lockstep Reagan era you could always find someone in a crowd who didn’t like the government. The People (as opposed to The Man, of course) are a fickle bunch, and I think we’d be holding elections every second Tuesday if we all got to vote again every time we changed our minds.

That being said, if some grand recall movement really takes hold, I’m certainly not above pointing and laughing at the evening news while sad ex-Liberals get put out to pasture. In the immortal words of Nelson: Ha ha!