A very Grimm fairy tale: "The Magic Tar Sands"

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, lived a very stupid king in a world of his own and his evil vizier, the Chain-man. One day it got very cold in the palace, and the king summoned his vizier. "Whassup, biggus Dickus?" said the king. "It's fucking freezing in here!" (The king often talked like that when there were no cameras around.)

His vizier sneered as was his habit, "It's them Messicans, your highness. They say they don't have any pet-ro-leum left. We didn't believe them at first, so we rendered their Oil Minister to Syria. The Syrians say he's telling the truth, and since we trained them we know their interrogation methods are up to snuff (so to speak). So it looks like we won't be getting any more oil from down south. That's why it's a little chilly."

"This will never do!" exclaimed the king. "We'd better make arrangements to get some more. Who else has temporary possession of our oil?"

The vizier frowned and sneered harder, "It's them Gawd-damned Canadians, that's who! They have the Magic Tar Sands, with reserves enough for hundreds of years. We been gettin' some of it back from them, but they're reluctant to give us all we want. They keep complaining about pollution and not having enough natural gas left to heat their homes in the winter. We've told them they need to give more of our oil back, but they're not listening."

"Pollution??? Home heating??? " shrieked the king. "Who gives a fuck what a bunch of seal-clubbing, dogsled-riding Eskimos want? What the hell do they need gas heating for? Don't they live in igloos or something? Now get me back our oil!"

So the vizier consulted with his spies, and told them what he wanted to hear. "Yes, sir, we can do it," they said. "It's a slam-dunk, sir!"

Later that month the spies started to funnel money into lobby groups in the frozen Northern wilderness where the selfish Canadians lived. The lobby groups convinced the Governor of Canada (who was known as Mini-Me) that all his troubles would be solved if he told his subjects to use Diebold boxes for their next election. Money changed hands, and the necessary laws were passed.

In time Mini-Me's minority government fell. His subjects went to the polls and pushed the buttons on their Diebold machines. They pushed them again and again, and each time they did another vote was tallied for Governor(-for-life) Mini-Me. The results were announced, and all the sultans and CEOs in Alberta rejoiced.

The first thing Governor-for-life Mini-Me decreed was that all environmental protections were null and void, in the interests of progress, prosperity and Good International Relations. He further decreed that many nuclear power plants be built in northern Alberta to help make the magic syncrude, and that environmental assessments would not be required. All heating gas was redirected to the syncrude plants in Fort McMurray. When his subjects complained about the cold, they were given old copies of Hansard to burn in trash barrels in their garages, those documents no longer being needed since Parliament had been dissolved (along with some of the Parliamentarians, mostly New Democrats).

And lo, the CEOs and their minions did build many cracking plants, and did buy enormous diggers and trucks, and did lay waste to the landscape. The rivers and the air were filled with noxious wastes and the production of the magic syncrude did soar. Soon the pipelines to the southern kingdom were full to overflowing, as were the tailing ponds near Fort Chipewyan. Fortunately Mini-Me had given special dispensation so that when those ponds did overflow, everyone who worked in the oil patch was held blameless, and the families of Fort Chipewyan received "Tough shit" letters from the government just before they all caught cancer from completely unrelated causes.

Back in the kingdom there was much rejoicing. The vizier turned the palace thermostat up to 85 degrees in celebration, and replaced the royal automobile fleet with armoured Hummers. The king was satisfied. "I create reality!" he said. "I just wish things, and they happen. 'More oil', I said, and here it is. Those Tar Sands really are magic, and I am the magician. I'm going to read that goat story again before bed."

And they all lived happily ever after. Well, except for those dastardly selfish Messicans and Canucks - but they deserved what they got for trying to keep the kingdom's oil for themselves.

:-)

ballot where you put an x beside your candidates name and that is it. Takes 15 minutes to half an hour to hand count those ballots. Please tell me there are no plans for machines in Canada!

SWMBO worked for a time at Elections Canada (which I am convinced is one of our country's greatest institutions) and she reports that they take the paper ballot extremely seriously.

Where they portrayed all the different regions of Canada as different animals? The Americans, of course, were eagles -- "The Chief Eagle (Nixon) has fallen and ruptured himself!" Your terrific fable brought back those memories, of "Peter Waterhole" and the rest of the gang.