Worst of the Week Special Edition: Some guy sends us a hilarious e-mail

Editor’s Note: We get a lot of e-mails in response to our weekly Worst of the Week columns, and we read and enjoy each one (at least, the ones that agree with us). However, last week astute reader Dave Baird sent us an e-mail in response to Dan Meyer’s “Worst of the Week: Oh Canada!” column that was so hilarious it would be a disservice not to reprint it.
So here, for your enjoyment (and so that we can take the day off) we present Dave Baird’s full and complete e-mail response to Dan Meyer’s “Worst of the Week: Oh Canada!” column.
You are so very misinformed on so many fronts in your knowledge of Canada as expressed in your Wurst of the Week column.
Yes, there is a nation to the north called Canada. It’s where the U.S. gets most of its oil, almost all of its cold weather, and with the exception of Sam Adams products, most of its great beers. And the people there are called Canuks, from the British “can” meaning “having the ability to” and the eskimo “uks” meaning “do really disgusting things.” The French thing goes back over a hundred years and nobody remembers how or why it started or really cares anymore.
Canada, contrary to RCR Wireless News hyperbole, is not on a different calendar. It’s way more sophisticated than that. Canada, seeking to get along, wishes to have compatible spectrum with the U.S. That way, should it ever be necessary for Canada to invade the U.S., seeking warmer weather, lower taxes and cheaper Canadian beer, their radios and cellphones will continue to work.
However, the U.S. clearly has no clue as to what they are doing with respect to spectrum. Each auction is preceded by, accompanied by and followed by a flood of litigation and threats of litigation that leads to reversals, counter reversals and counter-counter reversals mingled with years of indecision and “future credits.” All of this is orchestrated by lawyers working on behalf of interested parties, disinterested parties, the Green Party, the “give America back to the Indians” party, other groups large and small, and the financial wing of the American Bar Association, who is the only winner in all of this, regardless of outcome.
Editor’s Note: There’s an “American Bar Association?” Where is it? And what’s on tap?
Canada, having only two full-time lawyers (but a half a million doctors, which is why they are so healthy) does not want to mirror this litigious smorgasbord (look it up), wisely waits on the sidelines until the FCC referees render their decision, the instant replays are over, the bodies littering the field have been removed and the FCC updates the scoreboard with official auction results. Then Industry Canada makes a single pronouncement, “We want what they did,” and leap right to the end game without the fuss and bother that you seem to enjoy so much in the U.S.
And yes, Canadians do say hello to each other, because first there are so few of them most know each other (or their cousins) and second, we only have the one lawyer (the other one works for Industry Canada to provide some balance for the 100,000 FCC lawyers) so the chance of incurring liability through disruption resulting from a spontaneous greeting is much reduced.
Industry Canada does not “handle polar bear attacks.” Polar Bears are being wiped out by global warming, which is caused by Humvee owners (“drive a Humvee, kill a polar bear” bumper stickers are popular). Nor do they de-ice rural highways. Canada has been using a proprietary, solar-powered de-icing technology for over 150 years. It’s a top secret project named “August.” In the other 11 months Canadians revel in the joy of winter, using a unique Canadian contraption called a Ski-Doo (snowmobile to you litigious Yankees).
All of this leaves Industry Canada and their one lawyer free to copy the U.S. end-game without all the interim drama. The $900 million US is about $47 Canadian since Bush trashed the U.S. dollar by running a deficit large enough to stun a yak for eight long years. Consequently the U.S. dollar doesn’t go so far any more.
Red Deer, Moose Jaw (located about 10 feet due North of “Moose Butt”), and Grande Prairie are well-known western metropoli, each famous for their unique names. Not at all like Swift Current, Saskatchewan, or their U.S. sister city, Grand Rapids Mich., where the people are neither… Southern Ontario is famous for great wines, the side of Niagara Falls with the stupendous view, and being in Canada.
As for 6934579 and 6934242, I’m astounded that you did not notice they are only 337 away from a merger, giving controlling interest to a new company, to be named 6934410.5, which will rise to smite down Telus, Rogers and that ponderous giant Bell Canada (who is owned by the Ontario teacher’s union’s pension fund – look it up!) becoming the sole wireless provider to a grateful Canada.
Editor’s Note: We looked it up, but it’s still hard to believe.
You are probably also not aware that Industry Canada is moving beyond metric to hexadecimal. This is for two reasons, first the French invented metric so it must be bad and second it is time to recognize that we live in a digital world. So the new auction will be described as 2bc MHz or as the French Canadians will call it “too bay say” megahertz (Acadamie Francais has not been able to come up with a French equivalent for “megahertz” because they have been in a snit since they figured out that neither Hertz nor Marconi were French). Which is why French Radio operates at DC, making it very long range but spectacularly unsuccessful as a commercial radio due to antenna length issues.
It won’t be 11 years, it will be b years, 84 (hexadecimal) months, or fb1.c days until the 2bc megahertz auction.
Like I said, you were misinformed in so many different ways.
–Dave Baird
As background, I am a fifth-generation Canadian now living very happily in the Midwest. My employer and his/her affiliates have nothing whatsoever to do with this diatribe so please leave them out of it.