Other Awards 2021

My “Too Many Crooks in the Kitchen” award goes to Fossil Fuel Lobbyists

With 503 representatives, the fossil fuel lobby accounted for the largest contingent in attendance at this year’s COPS climate summit.  Small wonder then, that all the other old fossils in the world of politics that converged in Glasgow failed to cook up any kind of tangible solutions (unless more vague promises of what they will do by 2050 when they are well into their retirement if not their graves was their objective).

My “Least Woke Democrat” award goes to President Joe Biden

After delivering a rousing call to action against global warming at a United Nations COPS climate conference, the most powerful man in the free world… dozed off on the most awkward power nap in the free world.

My “Travel Ruse” award goes to Belarus

At a time where countries all over the world are struggling to deal with lost tourism,  Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko rolls out the “red” carpet (replete with military fighter escort) to encourage a planeload of travelers bound for Lithuania to land in Belarus. Even though he was one of the dictators’ most vehement detractors, one passenger was provided free (well, as free as anything can be in an authoritarian dictatorship) accommodation for the rest of his life.  The dictator counters the international community’s charges of hijacking and state terrorism by claiming he was just unveiling his countries new “open door policy” on tourism that offers adventure (fake bomb scares) and, for some lucky travelers, unlimited access to one of the toughest Escape Room experiences on the planet.

My “Hog-troughical Greed” award goes to Canadian Banks

Despite reporting billion-dollar profits during a pandemic when so many of their customers have lost so much, Canada’s big “piggy” banks take another hog-troughical bite out of their clients’ lost savings, by increasing both their monthly user fees, and the minimum balance a customer must maintain to avoid those fees.

My “Shit Magnet” award goes to the Suez Canal

All the lockdowns, job losses and travel bans in the world failed to curb the material world’s ever ready demand for stuff to just keep going and going.  And it did, until the Ever Given, one of the Orient’s largest container ships stuffed with stuff, stuffed up the Suez Canal for six days. Oh well, at least the problem was: 1) contained; and, 2) although the world was losing it’s shit over not getting it’s shit, this colossal case of constipation didn’t spark another run on toilet paper.

My “Pissed off Bottleneck” award goes to Amazon

While on the subject of bottlenecks in our supply chain, the genie is out of the bottle (and a good thing too), when Amazon’s shipping policies spring a leak after whistle blowers leak images of the bottles drivers are required to leak into in order to make quotas. Yes, everyone (including the genie) was pissed off over that.

My “StripHer” award goes to Mrs Sri Lanka 2019

Her Royal Cattiness 2019 attempts to stage an insurrection when sheyanksa crown of the head of the paegant’s 2021 winner and gives it to the runner up.  Her attempt to publically strip her successor not only failed, but also put an end to her own global domination of married women everywhere after she was herself stripped of her current Mrs World title.

My “Itching Crabs” award goes to Australia

Australia was crawling with crabs, just itching to get out of the bush as a result of their heightened sexual proclivity during the month of November.

My “I’ll Take the Low Road” award goes to Russia

One week before NASA targets an asteroid to test defenses against galactic threats to humanity, Russia targets a satellite orbiting Earth to test their ability to instigate a more homegrown threat to humanity In Russia’s defense, one could argue that triggering a war of mutual assured destruction is a probably a more sure fire way of preemptively eliminating the possibility of our collective demise at the hands of any intergalactic invaders.

My “Snakes on a Pain” award goes to the lancehead pit viper

Canadian scientists have discovered that an enzyme in the common lancehead’s venom can be harnessed to make a type of skin glue that is so effective, it could stop life-threatening bleeding within a minute. As I have always said there’s nothing like a bottle of whiskey and a bag snakes to cure what ails you.

My ”Skin in the Games” award goes to P!nk

The pop superstar P!nk ponies up the money to bail the butts of the Norwegian women’s handball team out after they disgrace themselves, their country, and the women the world over by wearing shorts as opposed to bikini bottoms in competition.

My “Naked Truth” award goes to Climate Change

How bad is it? Even the Dead Sea is dying. More proof that those who want to continue to gamble with our future, risk losing a lot more than their shirts.

My “Not Walking the Talk” award goes to kids these days

ReGretafully, despite all their righteous rhetoric, the Millennials and Zoomers, are also guilty by (a lot more than) association for the state of the world we live in.  Yes we’re all in this together, and Blah, Blah,  Black Friday headlines like ‘I don’t need a new TV, but I’ll probably get one’ are just one symptom of a tsunami of indulgence that continues to sweep their material world. This comedian’s tirade sums it up best, but it’s no laughing matter. Keep talking everyone but let’s start walking (both figuratively and literally) a whole lot more.

My “Best Soccer Mom” award goes to Mother Nature.

She sure kicked up a storm during this dust-up in the world of Bolivian football. Yes, the Beautiful Game got dirty (and whole lot more exciting) after a dust devil touched down during a Bolivian soccer game. They may not have been world-class players, but that was the Best (if not Only) Touchdown Ever in the annals of (what the rest of the world calls) football.

My “Money for Nothing” award goes to PM Justin Trudeau

Justin (because his daddy was a PM) calls a snap election for no apparent reason. Some voices in my head (if not in the know) were  speculating that perhaps he was thinking if he could win a hard bought majority (with his prior handouts of billions and billions of taxpayer’s money) it would be even easier to spend his taxpayer’s money.  Alas, in spite of failing to win that majority, and despite setting a record for the lowest vote share of a party that would go on to form government, Justin (it for some spending money) was upbeat in his victory(?) speech. An why not, even though the election did not effectively change anything, at a cost to Canadian taxpayers of $610 million, Justin (it for all the wrong records) easily set another spending record (at no cost to himself).  Rinse. Repeat.

Runner Up: California Republicans

Unable to win a majority in California, Republicans realize they can still punish the democrats that won’t vote for them as long as they can count on 12% of voters being unhappy with the outcome. That’s right, just when we thought we’ve seen it all in the bizzarro realm of American Politics, we learn that they only need 12% of the electorate to force a new election (a Recall) in California.  Of course they found them, they spent $276 million of their taxpayer’s dollars to execute a Recall on their Governor, they lost again (by a lot), and the Republican loser claimed that, “the vote was rigged before polls even opened.” Rinse. Repeat.

My “Lost Sex Appeal” award goes to Lorne Grabher

The Nova Scotia native WOKE to find that he lost his Sex Appeal when the supreme court of Nova Scotia ruled that the vanity plates bearing his name for the last 30 years were too licentious for NS highways.

My “Stupid Is As Stupid Does” award goes to Evan Neumann

Unhappy with the state of his nation, this American fugitive from last January’s failed coup and poster boy for the Dodder’s vision of democracy and free speech flees to … [wait for it] … Belarus.

My “Another Brick in the Wall” award goes to Lego Underwater Adventures

Saving our oceans may not be as easy as 123, but some scientists in Singapore think the solution to global coral reef destruction could be child’s play. Although their experiment is still in it’s infancy, they have taken their first steps to proving that something as simple as a Lego underwater adventures kit could blossom into a game changer for the world’s Coral Reefs

My “When it Rains, It Pours” award goes to British Columbia.

A “Heat Dome” over Western Canada leads to the highest temperatures ever recorded in Canada. The record set in the village of Lytton, B.C. is broken a day later in that same village which subsequently burns down in one of the 1600 wildfires that raged through the province last year.  Four months later, it’s an extreme example of “be careful what you wish for”  when Mother Nature follows up with an “Atmospheric River” that not only sets daily rainfall records for 20 B.C. cities and towns, but does so over consecutive days.  100km west of Lytton (remember them), this leads to flooding and the evacuation of the entire city of Merritt BC and many other towns and villages in the interior.

My “Get out of Dodge, Dodge” award goes to Texas Senator Ted Cruise

This elected representative of the people (failed to stand) by the people, when he elected to respond to the skull numbing winter chill that was crippling his state and constituents by cutting and running off to a beach in Mexico.

My “Denial is a River in Egypt Texas” award goes to Fox News

Fox Media’s hot-headed hoaxmen (and women) claim that widespread power outages during an unprecedented Artic freeze in Texas was caused by the failure of some Wind Turbines. In fact, most of their lost capacity was attributable to freezing at their non-renewable gas, coal and nuclear power plants.  Unfortunately, all those hotheads melting down over the Texas airways (and everywhere else) failed to raise the mercury with all that bluster and hot air, probably because their arguments were so far off the mark that they were neither warm nor just plain cold…their arguments, in fact, contained absolute zero.

My “Best Little Pick-Me-Up” award goes to Uber

Low riders rejoice, you’re just an Uber away from riding high again. Uber Eats in Ontario hopes to grow its business operations based on their understanding that nothing drives the munchies like a little cannabis.