Duck Pimping

One of my favorite quotes, from Mordecai Richler’s Barney’s Version:

No sooner did I hang up when Irv Nussbaum, United Jewish Appeal capo di tutti capi, phoned. “Seen this morning’s Gazette? Terrific news. Big-time drug lawyer was shot dead in his Jaguar, outside his mansion on Sunnyside last night, and it’s splashed all over the front page. He’s Jewish, thank God. Name’s Larry Bercovich. Today’s going to be a hummer. I’m sitting here going through my pledge cards.”

Now, consider the attention given to Greenpeace “spokesman” Mike Hudema, fresh off his innovative and completely un-idiotic stunt a few days back. You might remember Hudema’s crack team of environmental covert-ops who crashed the premier’s dinner by repelling from the ceiling and unfurling a banner which stated their goal to “stop the tar sands”. If you don’t recall (by either ignorance of the action or your inherent survival instinct’s way of avoiding stupidity), please refer to Rob Breakenridge’s suggestion that we no longer take seriously any further consideration of Greenpeace as a mature and responsible partner in the future of energy production in Canada.

Unfortunately, the Sun Media chain never got the memo. Not only did this venerable media institution prominently and seriously consider Hudema’s demand for an “independent public inquiry” over this catastrophic catastrophe (more than 22,000 people have perished in the Burmese Cyclone to date, by the way), but their top legislative hack in Edmonton goes one step further.

Neil Waugh, while ridiculing the Tory government of “putting a bad spin” on the situation, credits Hudema as a reasonable interested party whose advice we should all heed. He agrees that a public inquiry should be called immediately, even though investigators are still rummaging through the obviously confusing situation. But hold yer horses! Waugh also suggests that the government has failed in its duty because — wait for it — they were “not serious enough to get a search warrant and seize Syncrude documents to determine exactly why the scare guns hadn’t been turned on”.

You read that correctly. Waugh is ridiculing Stelmach for not dispatching government agents to rifle through the drawers of a private corporation as a result of several hundred waterfowl who landed on a tailings pond because someone, somewhere, screwed up. Eliot Ness must be weeping from above.

I would expect Hudema to call for such a measure — the kid’s an enviro-fascist meathead who won’t stop until we’re all driving the latest model of the Red River cart. It’s the “professional” journalists who ought to be embarrassed when they are licking their chops at any further environmental “disaster” which will allow self-righteous pontificating and increased sales of their stories.

For a group of people who spend most of their working hours chiding others about their so-called greed, they are sure making a lot of hay from this stupid little incident.