The Tuque Souq at 200: Not too old to blow out our own candles

It is gratuitous anniversary day at the Tuque Souq, as this our 200th post of all time coincides with the one-year anniversary of the Great Canadian Putsch of 2008, that startling palace coup de quoi that had great multitudes of our citizenry storming the Parliament Hill rumour mill for a week and scouring Wikipedia for revelatory factoids on a guy called Byng.

For those readers born since, the Great Canadian Putsch started when Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to enact a Machiavellian scheme to tie public funding of political parties to success at the ballot box, a plan that would have bankrupted the Liberals and Bloc on the heels of a costly election season. The PM's ungallant hubris and hypocrisy caused the wax in his wings to melt, as the 3 opposition parties united to unseat him with a confidence motion, a check-mate move that caused Harper to destroy the playing board by introducing a long-lost million-dollar word: Prorogation.

Convincing the Governor General was all it took for Harper to KO the rabble rousers and suspend the government before it could vote him down. Then, supremely satisfied that he had crushed all before him and sounded the final bell of his closest rival, Harper gave himself a seven-week vacation.

In the interim, the united coalition of the Bloc, the NPD and the Grits fell into disrepair, a condition in which it remains to this day.

So what did we learn from all of this, besides the realization that even Canadian politics can be sexy if you cinch up all its parliamentary flab and down a fifth of rye before date night?

Probably nothing. Maybe it's for the best. Politics is too serious a matter to be left to politicians, whose entertainment value returns much higher yields than their integrity.

From the Tuque Souq archives:
Stephen Harper stung by Qaddafi snub
Stephen Harper's Algerian Wine Collection
Israel Lobby to Harper: Do you still love us?
Tories to Jews: Have we got some Nachas for you!

Tuque Souq 100th Birthday

The Tuque Souq happily celebrates today its one-hundredth blog post. We can't believe we made it this far.

To celebrate, we're going to get a bit personal and answer some Tuque Souq fan mail. Here we go...

Q--Hey Tuque Souq, do you have a favourite Tuque? How 'bout a favourite Souq?
Well, I'm personally averse to declaring absolutes, moral or cranial or otherwise. I suppose anyone's favourite to tuque should be that of his favourite hockey team, so of course mine is the tuque celebrating the 2002 Gold medal-winning Canadian Olympic team. (I don't actually have this tuque, however.) Souq? Probably the souq where I could find the aforementioned tuque. Failing that, I'd go with the souq of the Old City of Aleppo.

Q--Prez Obama says he's gonna give a speech from a Muslim city within his first 100 days in office. Where do you think it will be?
Might be Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia where Obama spent some time growing up. But what's going on over there? Nothing. Trip to Israel, then hop over to Cairo or Amman for a speech? Maybe Istanbul? Baghdad is a dark-horse candidate. Tehran? Nah. Kuala Lumpur? Too obscure. Islamabad? Too risky. Dubai? Too ritzy. Tirana? Too cheap. Beirut? Now that would be something. I don't know, but I'll take bets.

Q--Speaking of Israeli elections, who's gonna win?
Netanyahu... it's in the hopper, damn it. And since I have nothing else to say on the matter, here's an article about Ehud Barak taking his campaign into the bathroom.

Q--Any big predictions for 2009 in Middle East politics?
You mean who's gonna keel over? Well, we've got a few candidates just looking at their ages. Hosni Mubarak will be 81 in May. Sheikh al-Sabah of Kuwait turns 80 this year. Tunisia's Ben Ali is 72. Omani Sultan Qaboos is 68. Abdelaziz Bouteflika over in Algeria is 71. No guarantees, but someone's gotta knock off this year.

Q--Can you blog more about Mauritania this year?

You got it.

Q--Which part of a camel is the tastiest?

The neck. Actually, the worst part of a dead camel is better than the best part of a live camel. But of course I don't need camels to live.

Q--Who's gonna win the Stanley Cup this year?

The Habs. It's only right.

Q--Why do you spell Qaddafi with a 'Q' instead of a 'G'?

Cuz I'm a rebel, like he is.

Q--Why do you hate camels?

I have my reasons. Most of them involve saliva and triple-digit decibel shrieks.

Q--Is hummus good brain food?

I eat it everyday. What do you think?

Q--Which religion is the true religion?

Next.

Q--Who do you like in Harper vs Ignatieff?

Harper by TKO in the 9th round. Iggy has stamina but no knockout punch.

Well, that's all for today. Thanks for joining for the last 100 posts. Until a new day.