High Drama in Canada and Killer Advertising

Hibernation continues for me...however, I was scanning the news online yesterday when I stumbled upon a couple of stories that were just begging to be commented on. Even if it meant leaving the warm, musty confines of the man-cave to enter the frigid air of the real world for a couple of hours.

Headline #1...Dick Cheney cancels Toronto trip, says Canada is too Dangerous

I had to read the headline a second time...Canada...dangerous...compared to WHAT, exactly?

I mean, a person could comment on the fact that Mr. Cheney (accidentally) shot a buddy while quail hunting in Texas back in 2006, or throw out statistics all day regarding the differences in gun control and violence between major Canadian and US cities see Wikipedia take on this here , but it would just muddy what the story is about. That particular article, by the way, is by Canada's National Post. It refers to the riot of last September (surprisingly this riot had nothing to do with hockey) when Cheney appeared in Vancouver for a talk at a private club. The story mentions that he was confined to the hotel for several hours while riot police dispersed the crowd outside. Shocking.
This article, by the Globe and Mail, does a better job of giving the background regarding WHY there was a protest in the first place. Organizers believe that Cheney should have been arrested and tried for war crimes regarding his stance on the treatment of prisons (ie. water boarding) at Guantanamo Bay.

Despite which side of the fence your political leaning rest on this, methinks the only danger afoot would be for the protesters...when the riot police arrived on horseback, resplendent in their cool hats and red tunics, and clubbed the protesters senseless (Monty Python could have done a cool skit about THAT). Or perhaps scalding syrup or Timmies coffee would be splashed down upon the crowd from the boiling cauldrons on the roof of the hotel...or even a remote chance of the protesters being skewered by rampant hockey players who, quite frankly, have nothing else to do during the daytime because their games are played in the evening.

The bottom line is...I wasn't going to attend his speech in Toronto anyway. Even if THEY paid ME money to attend (besides, it's a three hour flight from here and the cost of flying off of this island is deadly).

Headline #2...Tide Detergent One of Most Shoplifted Items

You know what...you don't have to put much thought into this one. Just click on the link below to go to the short news story about the high theft rate of Tide detergent (note that the story is out of Washington, so I assume that it's problematic only in the US and not Canada---we apparently don't wash our clothes here, and perhaps that's the REAL reason that Mr. Cheney does not want to visit us).

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/video/world-22186928/tide-detergent-one-of-most-shoplifted-items-28602575.html

My first thought was how on earth does one smuggle a jug of Tide out of a store? I mean, there's the obvious scenario of a woman sticking it up under her sweater and pretending to be pregnant. But...where can a guy stow the thing  *shudders*.

Anyway...a big Thumbs Up to the folks at Tide for this successful (and free) ad campaign.