Most videos on YouTube are total fiascos, but at least they’re entertaining fiascos. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s debut on YouTube—in which he responded with carefully prepared talking points to carefully screened video questions in a carefully pre-taped appearance—was dull because there was nothing at stake. It was like watching a man walk a tightrope across his own bathtub. But at This Magazine, we bravely suffer so you don’t have to. Here are the semi-notable bits you missed, even though you knew exactly what was going to be asked and what the answers would be. Behold!

Afghan detainees!

Q: Why is the government not more open about the Afghan detainee issue?

A: Yeah, well, first of all it’s important to say I don’t agree with the premise of the question.  First of all, this, you know, this issue has been bandied around now for nearly four years.  And yet we have no evidence that Canadian soldiers have done anything wrong. […] I think our men and women in uniform and other public servants have been doing a, you know, a good job in Afghanistan under extremely difficult conditions.  I think they do deserve our support.

Climate change!

Q: Climate change is obviously affecting the weather here in Canada.  Is your government willing to take the strong measures necessary to adequately deal with climate change?

A: [W]e said we needed a treaty that covers all emissions, and that’s the agreement we got at Copenhagen.  Now, it’s not perfect, but at least for the first time, we have virtually every country in the world saying they will be part of an effort that will include their emissions.  So we’re obviously making commitments under that agreement, and further negotiation will go forward internationally in the next year or so to try and hammer out some more details and that. […] This is, you know, this is not an easy area.  I think what all your viewers should realize is what causes emissions is economic activity.  You know, all emissions virtually are caused by either people heating themselves or moving around or engaged in economic activity of some kind.  So to change our energy use carbon footprint over time requires the development and adaptation of a new generation of technology, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

Childcare!

Q: Offering families $1200 a year for childcare doesn’t even make a dent in the actual cost of childcare, and that plan, to be quite frank, is an insult to any family that actually relies on it.

A: First of all, Canadians want to make their own childcare decisions.  I think probably my own family was not a typical…we used a combination.  You know, sometimes we looked after the kids at home, sometimes we used, or part of the time we used a daycare.  We also used family members or we paid babysitters, so…and I think you’ll actually see that a lot of Canadians have a lot of different childcare needs. […] [W]e had a previous government that promised to create a national childcare system for many years.  They spent billions of dollars.  Canadian parents never saw any of that.

The Demon Weed!

Q: A majority of Canadians, when polled, say they believe marijuana should be legal for adults, just like alcohol. Why don’t you end the war on drugs and focus on violent criminals?

A: I know some people say if you just legalized it, you know, you’d get the money and all would be well.  But I think that rests on the assumption that somehow drugs are bad because they’re illegal. […] The reason drugs are illegal is because they are bad.  And even if these things were legalized, I can predict with a lot of confidence that these would never be respectable businesses run by respectable people.

Here’s the video in full if you’re interested.

[On Wednesday, we introduced the first in our new WTF/FTW series of blog posts. Today we bring you the flipside of Wednesday WTF (bad/crazy/stupid news): Friday FTW (good/awesome/fun news).]

U.S. website Tappening, a project and blog advocating that you ditch bottled water and drink from the tap like a normal person, launched a separate microsite this week, StartALie.com. Operating on the notion that if the bottled water industry lies about its product all the time — that bottled water is healthier, purer, less contaminated, environmentally friendly, etc — StartALie fires back with its own lies about the industry, made up by readers. They include:

• 32% of profits from bottle water are used to support Eastern European art thieves.
• Studies show bottled water causes tooth decay.
• Prolonged consumption of bottled water can cause erectile dysfunction.
• Bottled water caused the mortgage crisis.
• Bottled water creates inane web site posts!

That last one proves to be true; StartALie is now filled with Russian spam, juvenile poop jokes, and assorted other interwebs jetsam. But the project is attention-grabbing and fun, with less of the usual tut-tutting that accompanies many of these awareness-raising campaigns. Tappening’s blog aggregates news and opinion about tap water vs. bottled water, and they sell some smart-looking BPA-free bottles to carry your own tap water wherever you go.

The Goode Family: Putting a cartoon face on P.C. thuggery

At a yuppie-friendly health food supermarket, Helen Goode pushes her shopping cart down the produce aisle. She reaches a mound of green apples reading “Conventionally Harvested $3.99/lb.” Just beside these lies another mound of apples, labeled “Organic $5.49/lb”, followed by a selection of “Sustainably Harvested Organic” apples, then “Locally Grown Sustainably Harvested Organic” apples, then “ Fair Trade Locally Grown Sustainably Harvested Organic” apples, which are priced at $10.99/lb. Helen looks defeated as a seemingly unending selection of green apples looms ahead.

Helen Goode is the matriarch of the forthcoming ABC animated comedy, “The Goode Family,” Mike Judge’s latest offering for the post-“Stuff White People Like” era. Judge is probably best known for his last cartoon sitcom, “King of the Hill,” which spent much of its 13 seasons gently chiding the neurotic tendencies of the self-consciously politically correct left.

Where the Hill family of “ King of the Hill” served as a down-homey foil for the kinds of uppity shenanigans Judge seems to relish in jabbing, the Goodes are both the setup and the punchline. Their dog, named Che, is vegan; their adopted South African son Ubuntu—whom they thought would be black but turned out to be the flaxen-haired son of Afrikaaners—dresses like Queen Latifah circa 1992; gas emissions from excessive driving are forgiven because “what’s important is that you feel guilty about it.”

At a time where political correctness and environmental consciousness have become second nature for many of us, is a show like “The Goode Family” even relevant? For everyone out there who knows someone who’s just a little too obnoxiously upstanding—and we all do—the answer is likely yes.

Hi, This Magazine.
Stephen Harper (pmharper) is now following your updates on Twitter.
Check out Stephen Harper’s profile here:
http://twitter.com/pmharper
Best,
Twitter

I’m not sure, but I have my doubts about whether the PM and This Magazine are going to be BFF’s.
Still, this is a good way to introduce you to This Magazine’s Twitter feed. If you’re not familiar with Twitter, you can find out more about it here. Basically, it’s a very tiny blog: we use it to point you toward interesting news articles throughout the day, and updates to our blog show up there too.
You can see our Twitter page and start following our exploits (140 characters at a time) at twitter.com/thismagazine.

Fox News has launched its own spoof show, The Half Hour News Hour, which only deserves laughs for its sorry attempts at humour. The following clip has received roughly 400,000 views, but judging from the comments its “popularity” must be due to people’s voyeuristic need to see it for themselves. And it truly is awful, with a laugh track complete with a loudly guffawing man and incredibly lame jokes told by a stern-faced anchor. See it for yourself, then thank the heavens we still have The Daily Show.