Saturday Morning Cartoon

After running across the strange and bizarre Pac-Man cartoon, I discovered that while the first season of Pac-Man played in the The Pac-Man/Little Rascals/Richie Rich Show. Season two was The Pac-Man/Rubik the Amazing Cube Hour. That's right - they made a cartoon out of puzzle toy.

The plot featured a Rubik's Cube that came to life when the puzzle was solved. Unlike the Lament Configuration puzzle from Hellraiser - instead of hooks and chains, it grew legs and a head and flew around helping people.

It's name was Rubik and it all sorts of magic powers. It had escaped from an evil magician and it spent most of its time being solved and saving the three Hispanic kids who had found it.

I think it's the weirdest product placement I've seen in awhile. And after watching this, I can't help but wonder when the IPod cartoon is coming.

Friday Afternoon Various-Animals

I'm sitting on a Greyhound bus somewhere between Virden and Brandon, Manitoba right now using my amazing powers to remotely post this week's Friday Pet Thing.

I am doing this even though 1.) I have no computer 2.) I have no Internet access 3.) I'm asleep with Ghost Bees' Tasseomancy playing quietly on my awesome purple iPod Nano, which (in case I didn't say) is purple.

Enjoy this video, which I post without any consideration whatsoever for credit or copyright. There's an annoying song too, so maybe turn it up.




(Okay yeah, so I wrote this Wednesday night and post-dated it for Friday. You know what? You'd never know if I hadn't told you.)

Right... like that's going to work...

Doubling down always works. Just ask anyone down at the casino...

So can anyone tell me exactly when everyone running something in the western world -- from our governments to our corporations to our pension plans -- became a complete friggin' idiot?

Business to Planet: Survival First, We'll Go Green Later

We are so screwed. Today's Business Incubator on the Globe and Mail website considers the question of how important the environment should be to your business. Considering this is being taped and put on the web for anyone to see, you have to assume this group of business owners and consultants are putting their best face forward. And as it turns out, the consensus Canada's business people want the world to see is that the public doesn't really care about the environment so why should they? Moreover, as we're in a recession, business people have to worry about their own survival before concerning themselves about anything as abstract as the planet's.

In other words, if you and I, as consumers, don't stop buying over-packaged, toxic products shipped from the four corners of the globe (because we have sooooo many options), companies won't stop making them. In fact, they'll make more.

Sounds like yet more evidence that the only way to get anything accomplished for the environment is through strong federal legislation. But, hey, that's just me.

That's gonna leave a mark on the ol' endowment fund

When you start eating your seed corn, you're screwed, or so the old story goes.

So, in a high-tech, information-age, knowledge economy, what happens when your elite universities are slipping into an economic death-spiral and refuse to face up to the fact?

This is a major, if understated, new development in the slow unwinding of America. If they don't figure it out, but quick, there is no good end to this story.

North America has, frankly, been suffering from a lack of investment in knowledge for quite some time, and this is only going to exacerbate it.

If it's not addressed, it's only going to be a matter of time before the exciting new breakthroughs begin emanating from China and India, not Europe and North America.

Six In The Morning

1 HAIL TO THE CHIEF Shawn Atleo is the new head of the Assembly of First Nations after a long, long, long vote that started yesterday and just ended shortly after eight this morning. The 42-year-old Atleo, who comes from Vancouver Island, defeated second-place candidate Perry Bellgarde of Saskatchewan by capturing 58 per cent of the vote, which was held in Calgary. Would-be leaders need 60 per cent support from the AFN, but Bellgarde conceded after Atleo captured 58 per cent of the vote onn the ninth ballot. Here's the story in the Globe and Mail.

2 WORKING CLASS Saskatchewan teens get the legislation they've been lobbying for and now they can start working at age 14 (some restrictions apply). Our teens deserve the right to work five three-hour shifts in the service industry every weekday (they can work extra shifts on the weekend, presumably). I'm just relieved that the bullies in Saskatchewan's business community--who I assume opposed the Sask Party government's changes because conservatives like traditional values, like saving your hard work for school--aren't trying to block this forward-looking legislation. (StarPhoenix)

3 TAZE TRUTH A report on Tasers and policing comes out today. The CBC has a brief report here. I suspect the report will report that tasers are insanely dangerous. Dog Blog will report back on this later.

4 COME ON, YOU GUYS! U.S. President Barack Obama held a high-profile news conference yesterday that observers say was an attempt to sell health care reform directly to Americans. But it's a hard sell because while Americans overwhelmingly (72 per cent in one poll) support a public option in health care, they also overwhelmingly vote for politicians--Democrats AND Republicans--who oppose such so-called socialism. Glad I live in Canada. If I get cancer I won't need my insurance agent's permission to have treatment. (New York Times)

"5 THERE WOULD BE NO UNITED STATES IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR GOD" The Guardian's journalists can write all the well-written, impartially-reported stories they want. I say it's time for Texas' school-sabotaging fundamentalist Christians to fuck off. I have no doubt Texas' many smart, sane citizens agree.

6 DAILY MOON: THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE Here's an amazing documentary by director William Karel on how the moon landing was faked. I post it for all you die-hard conspiracy cats. (Stanley Kubrick filmed it? Really?) I saw Dark Side Of The Moon (Opération Lune in the original French) on CBC's The Passionate Eye a few years ago and vouch for its excellence but I haven't watched this particular file to the end so if there are any weird problems please zap us an e-mail at feedback@prairiedogmag.com. UPDATE: well, here's one weird problem...the ending is clipped short and the credits are only partly visable. Which destroys the entire point of the doc, since (spoiler!) there's actually a twist ending. So I'm yanking this video. But if you ever get a chance to see Dark Side Of The Moon, check it out.

Hey Nerds:

Here's some news for you. There's going to be a World of Warcraft movie. And Spider-Man/Drag Me To Hell/Evil Dead director Sam Raimi is in charge. So it's probably going to have a gigantic budget. (Dark Horizons)

There you go--now you can fight for Azeroth with a fresh sense of purpose.

UPDATE: Here's the story in the Guardian (yes, I go to the Guardian for everything, I know, I know. But it's soooooooo good). Also, I've added an image from the game courtesy Friend O' Dog Blog Peakay. It's a gnome warlock named Fidgit. Fidgit rawks.

RPL Update

Things have been kind of quiet with respect to the central library expansion since the initiative was first announced this spring. Until July 31, the RPL has this on-line survey operating to gather further input.

Urge to kill... rising...

What a douchebag. Nothing like being an apologist for your clients, I suppose.

Memo to Wall Street: We hate you because you're double-standard promoting pricks. You spent the past generation telling the rest of us we're the problem because of our insistence on things like basic labour standards, living wages, and so forth. So wear it, assholes, now that you've so totally screwed the pooch that people have started to wake up a bit.

Poor l'il rich boys. Sell a few fucking apples on the street corner, then we'll talk. Or better yet, jump out of your fucking office windows. It's like the congressman said. Do the right thing and kill yourselves.

Oh, and a personal message to Dough Hirschhorn: Coach this, you bald prick.

Six in the Morning

1. SMELLS LIKE MORE TORY HOMOPHOBIA: Word came out yesterday that Canada's Conservative government rejected a funding request from Montreal's gay and lesbian arts festival, Divers-Cite. This despite the fact that the festival met the criteria laid out in the new tourism funding program. And it looks like all was well with the application right up until it was sent to Minister Tony Clement's office for final approval. This all comes on the heels of Conservative MP Brad Trost's claims that the majority of Conservative caucus members don't support funding gay events, claims which contributed to MP Diane Ablonczy losing her job for funding the Toronto Pride Festival, but oh no, the Conservatives aren't homophobes, look at all the senior cabinet ministers leaping to her defense, and see, the organizer of Montreal's gay and lesbian arts festival says they've been funded just fine under the Conservatives.... Gosh. Well, if Divers-Cite is leaping to the Conservatives defense, they can't be homophobes, now can they? I imagine part of what inspired them to defend the Conservatives is they didn't want to put their funding request in jeopardy. How'd that work out for you? Oh yeah, it got rejected. (Globe and Mail)

2. HARPER GOVERNMENT INDIFFERENT TO ABDELRAZIK'S PLIGHT: Apparently, Harper's Conservatives were apprised of the fact that Sudan was planning to "dissapear" Abousfian Abdelrazik, but instead of protesting, they sent a non-committal response. (Globe and Mail)

3. HANG ON, I THOUGHT WE ALREADY HAD A WALMART: Oh bloody joy, Saskatchewan is soon to be home to two Walmart supercentres. One of which will be part of the slab of retail in the Grasslands commercial development in Regina's south west. In other news, the soon-to-be-Wallmartless Southland Mall is gearing up to become an empty shell of its former self a la the Golden Mile. (Leader Post)

4. SASK GOVT TO MAKE CHANGES TO MIMINUM AGE OF EMPLOYMENT: The announcement will come later today. Any guesses on how low it'll go? (Leader Post)

5. GOVERNMENT TO LAUNCH COPYRIGHT CONSULTATION: The Conservatives are launching a national consultation on copyright in the digital age. Bad news is the Conservatives have shown themselves to be leaning towards more draconian copyright measures along the lines of what they have in the United States and this could all be prelude to them putting out something to that effect and claiming it's what the public wants. The good news is that presumably with this consultation coming up, they won't try to drive through their draconian copyright legislation from last year any time soon. (rabble.ca)

6. RCMP CONSIDERING ARCTIC INTELLIGENCE NETWORK: In an effort to thwart organized crime in Canada's northern territories, the RCMP is looking into ways to expand their criminal intelligence network northward. (CBC)