The same same laugh

Sometimes the political situation in this country feels straight out of the Eddie Murphy movie, The Distinguished Gentleman, where his character plays a candidate who wins because he shares the same name as a dead long time serving congressman. Well in Canada it appears that most of the people who bothered to vote last night (the lowest total ever?) blindly voted for the party colour they have always voted for. True there were some tight races in a few ridings but overall same same. Some of the candidates who won by a landslide, as they were expected to, are hardly ever seen or heard from. I sometimes wonder if are even alive or not?

Thank God we have Rick Mercer to help us laugh at the sheer stupidity that exists here. Yes, none of the candidates are capable to run the country on their own. But between all 5, we might actually have a chance to have a worthy elected government. I have long given up on the idea of having an intelligent government. Right now, I just want one that is competent!!

And then there is Jon Stewart & The Daily Show -- another reason to smile. This NY Times article manages to capture some of the show's spirit.

Here are some great excerpts:

the sometimes somber stories he refers to as his "morning cup of sadness."

What the staff is always looking for, Mr. Stewart said, are "those types of stories that can, almost like the guy in 'The Green Mile' " — the Stephen King story and film in which a character has the apparent ability to heal others by drawing out their ailments and pain — "suck in all the toxins and allow you to do something with it that is palatable."

He's the guy willing to say the emperor has no clothes, to wonder why in Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's "It's 3 a.m." ad no one picks up the phone in the White House before six rings, to ask why a preinvasion meeting in March 2003 between President Bush and his allies took all of an hour — the "time it takes LensCrafters to make you a pair of bifocals" to discuss "a war that could destroy the global order."