Unsolicited Advice for Proponents of Keystone

(Photo/huffingtonpost.ca)

Keystone XL pipeline didn't get the needed votes.

Tar sand oil from Canada comes down, by train to boats

In the Gulf of Mexico, for shipment overseas

Which - they say - is dangerous...  The GOP agrees.

If, in fact, that is the case than we should fix the rails;

Update infrastructure now, before the system fails.

If we really want to slow our global climate change

Building something permanent for oil transport is strange.

It won't help when fossil fuel dependence's in our past.

Let's create some other kind of jobs; the kind that last:

High speed rail or better roads - a wind or solar farm.

Let's invest in jobs without environmental harm.

Dear ISIL Girls... Really?

Had a recent spate of random terrorist attacks - 

Soldiers killed in Canada; a nut case with an axe -

ISIL doesn't know their names, and neither do they care;

Without even common ideologies they share.

It sure isn't Islam that these idiots fight for,

Nor is it for territory on some foreign shore,

Nor is it for human rights or common decency;

Only thing in common is barbaric lunacy.

ISIL's p.r. makes their war with Syrians and Kurds

Look as if it might be fun for Call of Duty nerds;

Guys who live in mother's basement and do not have friends,

Open to the nihilistic message ISIL sends.

What I do not understand, however, are the girls.

Knowing that these guys are rapists, murderers, and churls;

Holding females in contempt and selling them as slaves,

Why on earth would women choose to join them in their graves?

Boycotting Burger King

If corporations are people they aren't very patriotic people.

Burger King bought "Timmy" Hortons.  It's Canadian.

Picture Dunkin' Donuts, multiply by Starbucks, then

You will get a good idea of just how big they are...

So Canadian, their founder was a hockey star.

In what's known as "tax inversion" Burger King can claim

They, too, are Canadians.  Although that's pretty lame;

U.S. taxes corporations with headquarters here

On the worldwide profits that those corporations clear.

Other countries tax on profits companies make there.

Now big corporations all buy businesses somewhere

Taxes aren't as high as here. ('though Burger King has said

That is not the reason they've climbed in Tim Hortons' bed...)

Maybe not.  Yet, still, the consequences are the same

And they're just the latest in this tax evasion game.

There are calls to boycott them; their move will make us broker...

But I'd be a hypocrite because I am a smoker.

Here in Massachusetts, cigarettes are twice the price

Of New Hampshire's cigarettes; they take a smaller slice.

Still, at least they get a piece; the Bay State? None at all.

Me boycotting Burger King would take a lot of gall. 

The Russian Example - Watch Your Step Canada

Ukraine.  (Courtesy of/www.vox.com)

Ukraine is preparing for the Russians to invade,

Just like in Crimea - where they "intervened," then stayed.

Ethnic Russian speakers have invited Putin in

Which would start a war that the Ukrainians can't win.

Putin may decide it's worth the cost and go ahead.

There's already fighting in the streets, with people dead.

This provides the pretext that the Russians may yet use,

Having calculated that they don't have much to lose.

Well aware the West won't go to war to save Ukraine,

They're prepared to suffer future, economic pain.

I don't think they realize how bad that pain could get

But I know that sanctions haven't stopped the Russians yet.

Right now it's not money that they're thinking of - it's pride.

Tried to see the situation from the other side;

But, it's like we'd seized Toronto, threatened Montreal,

And planned to take Southern Canada before the Fall.

Toronto's Crack Hack - Rob Ford

Toronto mayor Rob Ford and friends.

I'd believed that U.S. politicians were the worst;

Guess I should have stopped to check our northern neighbor's first.

Even though I've said that Mitch McConnell is a hack,

He, at least, has not been filmed while drunk and smoking crack.

Sadly, that cannot be said about Toronto's mayor.

The police have tape of him inhaling more than air.

He is very sorry but does not intend to quit...

Not his job and not the booze, but he'll decline a hit

Next time someone offers him a crack pipe... 'Thank you, no.'

His approval rating's up with voters, even so.

Plans to run for re-election and he may not lose.

I must say, this does explain a lot about Ted Cruz.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Trump

Ted Cruz gets a rousing introduction from another Tea Party darling...  I wonder if Mrs. Palin can see Canada from her house, too. (Photo/LegalInsurrection.com)

Hoisted on their own petard by Senator Ted Cruz

Who has got some options on which passport he can use.

Where is all the outrage from the Birther movement now?

Why is it that Tea Party supporters wonder how

They can get around what is the inconvenient fact;

All their moral outrage about Kenyans was an act?

President Obama is a U.S. citizen

And yet, Trump was cautious about Cruz's problem when

He was asked if he'd support Ted Cruz for President.

Said he'd have to wait and see exactly how things went.

Cruz has been the darling of the Right Wing loony fringe.

Learning he's Canadian has got to make them cringe.

Born across the border to his mom and Cuban dad,

Cruz cannot be President.  Don't like it?  That's too bad.

U.S. Constitution says he's not allowed to run.

When it comes to passports, Presidents get only one.

Poison Letters

Searching the home of an Elvis impersonator  for evidence of poison. (Photo/news.yahoo.com)

I may wield a poison pen but, ricin in the mail?

Two attempts to kill someone...  Assassination fail. 

President Obama, Roger Wicker... D.C.'s tense.

Sending ricin through the mail's a capital offense.

Terrorism's cowardly, but poison's even worse

(Near as bad as politics expressed in lousy verse)

FBI released the man whose name was on the note;

Someone framed the guy to be a sacrificial goat.

Seems things come in clusters: Boston, Canada - now, this. 

So far we have caught the letters; pray that we don't miss.

'though, from front-row seats inside a Boston neighborhood,

Let me reassure you all - the FBI is good.