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Over at his excellent Jerry Aldini weblog, Matt Fenwick makes a vigorous argument against a salary cap, and in favour of better business management, to help resolve the longstanding NHL business failure. I started to write a comment in reply, but it got so long-winded that I thought I ought to post it here instead…

Dear Jerry/Matt:

I appreciate the force and clarity of your argument, Matt. I’d like to offer my perspective on only one aspect of what you’ve said.

You speak of the free market, and how that ought to define the relationship between players and owners. Ultimately I agree. However, I think this misses at least two points.

What can anyone say? How about this:

*^*&*&((*&&^$$#@!@$$#&^ing idiots.

TSN’s website contains this plaintive notice:

Programming Note
Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show

With the cancellation of the 2004/05 NHL season, TSN’s programming lineup for the remainder of the day will be devoted to this topic.

Ha freaking ha.

Reminds me of an old joke. Let me paraphrase:

Satan is giving a visiting demon a tour of hell. They visit the Sports Hell of Fame, and the visitor is puzzled. He says: “Look, there’s Pete Rose up to his neck in feces, there’s George Steinbrenner up to his neck in feces… I don’t understand. Why is Gary Bettman only buried up to his waist?”
Satan replies, “He’s standing on Bob Goodenow’s shoulders.”

Now let’s see:

I could read this column by David Suzuki, which contains praise for Cuban organic agriculture powered by “human muscles”, and hails the wonders of Soviet science (I swear I’m not kidding)…

or

I could stick my tongue in a blender.

sigh

I’m weawwy goinng o miff my ‘ung, bu’, come ohn, yike I’m goinng to wead shum piece of crap from Avi’ Shushuki!!

(shanks to “Back Off Govami’” fo’ makinng me brendeh my ‘ung)

So Sunday night I gently hint that the NHLPA must be the one to budge in the salary-cap impasse. Lo and behold, by Monday night this has come to pass.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. I mean, if it’s good enough for “vaccines cause autism!!!!!” then it’s good enough for Merlin Monger.

Two further comments:

(1) If I can magically influence the NHL season, perhaps I could use my powers for other Good Causes too. How about:

(i) The Conservative Party must not allow its most socially conservative members to define the image of the CPC for the voters. The Tories must be modestly and respectfully conservative, with a modern face.
(ii) Andrew Coyne must not let his blog sink once again into Nothingness. I expect at least one good post per week, buddy.
(iii) A certain wife who shall not be named will graciously accept a more modest laundry-room renovation than what she had originally suggested.

The patient, Mr. R. O. Canada, brought suit against his physician, Dr. J. Chretien.

The patient had suffered severe rejection complications following a constitution transplant in the early 1980s. Starting in 1995 he had been prescribed numerous painkillers by Dr. Chretien.

In 2004, shortly after Dr. Chretien retired from practice, Mr. Canada brought his personal medical chart to a friend, Ms. Fraser, for review. Ms. Fraser discovered a variety of errors and oversights in the care of the patient, but one fact became glaringly obvious from the chart review: Dr. Chretien’s team of physicians had been stealing Mr. Canada’s painkillers, and selling them to other patients. The whole fraud had been hidden under layers of referrals and consultations, so that Mr. Canada had never known, until Ms. Fraser’s review, that he had been victimized.

From the Jan/Feb 2005 edition of the B.C. Medical Journal, p. 4, “Editorial: Doctors and sex”.

“…the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC (CPSBC) and their affiliates around the country have made it clear that there is no wiggle room for physicians who enter into a sexual relationship with a past or present patient.”

Emphasis, as they say, is added.

I’m sooooo immature…

I almost swore I would never read his site again, let alone link to it, but this is too funny.

In Saturday’s NatPost, Andrew Coyne writes a typically scathing indictment of the Chretien administration’s corrupt handling of the sponsorship file. In passing, he fingers Warren Kinsella as a party to this corruption.

Later that day, Kinsella declares Coyne to be a “liar”, and his piece to be “at best, false–and, at worst, malevolent and deliberate.” (Ed note: Warren: learn how to use an M-dash. I have cleaned up your sophomoric error for use in my blog. Moreover, learn how to employ permalinks. It’s not like you don’t have enough free time!)

It’s entirely possible this post will be overtaken by events. Maybe by the time this is read by most people, i.e. Monday sometime, the whole thing will be settled one way or the other.

As of late Sunday night, it is looking like the season is well and truly dead. Perhaps, for once, the rumours of the season’s death have not been exaggerated.

I have been optimistic the whole time. In my opinion, it is the players’ union which must give ground in this negotiation, seeing as it is the owners who are (in a few centres) literally facing bankruptcy without some form of cost-certainty agreement. Bankruptcy. As in, sell the Zamboni. I was optimistic, because I thought the NHLPA had a fraction of a morsel of a spicule of a brain in their collective heads…

According to the Moral Matrix (courtesy of Taylor and Company) I am a mass murdering psycho.

Kidding! Actually my results were:

Your Score

Your scored 0.5 on the Moral Order axis and -6.5 on the Moral Rules axis.

Matches

The following items best match your score:

System: Conservatism
Variation: Economic Conservatism
Ideologies: Conservative NeoLiberalism
US Parties: Republican Party
Presidents: Ronald Reagan (93.01%)
2004 Election Candidates: George W. Bush (79.04%), John Kerry (74.81%), Ralph Nader (56.14%)

Those lying b*st*rds. Calling me a “conservative neoliberal”. Ha! Don’t they know I’m a liberal neoconservative? (Voice From Off-screen: “Splinter!”)

He’s turned up again.

After a long absence, Andrew Coyne has returned to the blogosphere (as an aside: is anyone else married to someone who laughs her head off whenever he uses the word “blogosphere”?). It is a true pleasure to read his blog again, especially because his last few Post columns have been especially worthy.

Today’s latest post is a brilliant evisceration of that mosquito of Liberalism, Warren “hey! look at me!” Kinsella.

Mr. Kinsella is exercised over Coyne’s reference to him in today’s Post column, and once again plays his one note tune: I’ll sue! I’ll sue! So Coyne gently and politely takes Kinsella’s head and shoves it so far up Warren’s own posterior that if he ever wants to get out again he’d better start chewing fast.