We Aren’t Cancelling Your Comedy Show Because You Hurt Our Feelings? What Is this, An Application For A Writing Job?


I’m not going to sit here and say that Paramount is lying when it says that the decision to cancel the Late Show next year was a financial one. The world has changed a lot this century. The entertainment landscape is much more fragmented now than I think a lot of us ever could have imagined, and it’s hit traditional TV extremely hard. There are still a lot of people watching, but that number is getting smaller all the time. Even a well rated show isn’t necessarily going to command the same type of advertising money that it used to, and even though segments from the late night shows often pull in millions of views on YouTube (I’m one of them because I’m old and have to get up in the morning), the economics of that are often quite different, which you can go ahead and read as not as lucrative. So it stands to reason that even a show that appears successful could become a drag on the bottom line, especially when it’s not cheap to produce.

With that said, however, if you think that I think that they’re being completely honest when they go out of their way to say it’s all money and has nothing at all to do with anything going on at Paramount, then I think that you’re nuts.

Stephen Colbert has been going hard after the Trump administration on his show nearly every night for a decade. Paramount, which owns CBS, is itself trying to merge with a company called Skydance Media, which is controlled by Larry and David Ellison, billionaires who count themselves as Trump supporters and who apparently already have plans to make the network more conservative. There is a multi-billion dollar deal in place, but in order for it to be made official, it needs regulatory approval. That approval needs to come from the FCC, which is at present controlled by a Trump supporting lunatic who seems pretty committed to doing whatever dear leader tells him he’s going to do. Dear leader, meanwhile, had filed a lawsuit against CBS during last year’s election campaign accusing the network of deceptively editing an interview that 60 Minutes conducted with Kamala Harris. that lawsuit, according to basically everyone up to and including some of Paramount’s own lawyers, was frivolous as shit. But because corporations are largely soulless entities devoid of principles, instead of putting the merger on hold and using their considerable resources to defend the freedom of news departments everywhere and to hand Trump his ass, they went ahead and settled it for $16 million. On his show last Monday, Colbert called this exactly what it is. “A big fat bribe.” By Thursday, he was being slow walked out the door. If you don’t think the timing there is at least a little suspect, then I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.

I want to believe that this is an isolated incident, but I’m not that naive. If I’m Jimmy Kimmel or Seth Meyers or especially everyone at the Daily Show which is also owned by Paramount, I’m starting to get nervous. ABC, which airs Kimmel, has already settled one of Trump’s other stupid news department lawsuits, so it’s not unthinkable that they wouldn’t go to bat for an expensive Trump hating comedian if they thought it would be advantageous.

No, late night television isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still important, especially now. It’s one of the only places left in the mainstream where you can hear what’s really going on and be told straight up how not normal it all is. If we lose that, especially for the reasons we’ve just lost some of it, I think we lose more than we realize.

Dear Congress: If You Want To Have A Fun Summer, Smoke My Wiener. Signed, Canada

A group of six Republican politicians from Wisconsin and Minnesota took a break from polishing Trump’s knob or whatever it is that Congress does to let the world know that they neither know how the wind works nor that their own country also has forests that sometimes catch on fire, hurting and killing people in the process. They did so in the form of a letter addressed to Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the United States. In it, they chastise Canada for being a bunch of arsonists who don’t know how to keep the woods clean, and more importantly, for ruining their summer with all that damn smoke.

“We write to you today on behalf of our constituents who have had to deal with suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin the summer,” it reads.
“In our neck of the woods, summer months are the best time of the year to spend time outdoors recreating, enjoying time with family, and creating new memories, but this wildfire smoke makes it difficult to do all those things.”

The representatives ask how the federal government plans to mitigate the wildfire smoke, attributing “a lack of active forest management” as a major driver of Canadian wildfires, and suggesting that some of the fires began with arson.
“With all the technology that we have at our disposal, both in preventing and fighting wildfires, this worrisome trend can be reversed if proper action is taken.”

That person is not going to be me, but I do very much hope that someone who is good at data analysis will do a deep dive into these six and report back on how they’ve voted on climate and environmental regulations during their careers. You know, so we can get a sense of how they truly feel about taking “proper action”.

As for mitigating the smoke, maybe we’ll build you a border wall. We promise it’ll work almost as well as that other one. We’ll get started just as soon as you guys stop sending all your sewage up here.

Look, Some Dizziness

When I saw that someone had mashed up “The Look” and “Pour Some Sugar ON Me”, I had the thought I often have when confronted with a combination that doesn’t immediately make sense to me. “Hmmm. Interesting. I wonder how that’s gonna work.”

The answer is that even though on a basic level you can tell that it wants to, in the end it doesn’t. Not one little bit. Not in hands that get way too cute with it, at least. But I think I might know what shrooms or an acid trip feel like now, so I guess there’s that.

Stayin Alive, the Ragtime, Rockabilly, Normal Person Voice Range Edition

I was at a wedding a couple nights ago and someone told me how much he hated the song “Stayin’ Alive”. I don’t know if I’m sheltered or what, but I’m fairly certain that no one had ever said that to me before and I fully expect to live the rest of my life without hearing it again.

I doubt that the person in question would like it any better if it sounded like rockabilly or ragtime rather than disco, but I was certainly entertained by this right here.

Is There A French Word For Epinephrine?

If anything is going to help me get out of yet another posting drought, it’s going to be the need to make Carin aware that hundreds of bees recently attacked a bunch of people and that nobody quite knows why it happened.

Several dozen people were injured – with three rushed to hospital in a critical condition – in an unusual bee attack in a French town, local authorities said.
Twenty-four passersby were hurt when hundreds of bees suddenly attacked people in the central-southern town of Aurillac on Sunday morning. The three in a critical condition are now stable.
According to local media, one of them was a 78-year-old woman who was stung 25 times and had to be resuscitated after a cardiorespiratory arrest.
Police and firefighters fenced off the area and a beekeeper was called in to smoke out the bees – a safe way to calm the insects.
A local woman called Andrée said she witnessed “very panicked people” trying to bat off the bees. “I could tell they were being attacked by something but I couldn’t figure out what,” she told French media.

Depending on who you ask, the blame belongs to a group of threatening Asian hornets taunting the bees, the colony somehow becoming larger than it should have and getting overly active, stress due to a problem with the queen, early blossoming that lead to less food for them later on, or maybe just the weather being up and down.

The bees have been moved to an area outside of town, so I suppose there’s no need to worry about the cause unless you decide to take a walk in the country.

Bless You, Joe!

I have no idea how you replace someone like Joe Bowen, but Rogers has about a year to figure it out. Yes, we’ve hit another day I thought would never come.

After 44 Years of being the Voice of your Toronto Maple Leafs, I have decided that the 2025-26 Season will be my last behind the microphone. I have been totally blessed to be able to do “My Dream Job” for this long, eclipsing the career of my idol Foster Hewitt. I will reach over 3800 games some time this season. Thanks so very much to all who have made this wonderful career possible! Len Bramson and Telemedia Sports for giving a Sudbury native the chance of a lifetime and all who have followed at MLSE and various radio stations who allowed me to continue in this dream job. I have worked with the absolute best at my side in the booth, Harry Neale for 12 seasons, but none better than my partner of 28 years, Jim Ralph. Most of all, thank you to the loyal group know as Leaf Nation, for allowing me to invade your vehicle, family room and hearts over these wonderful years! Your support, and interaction has been what has made this “job” so wonderful! You are the most loyal and demonstrative fans on the face of the earth!! I can not THANK YOU enough!!! I sincerely hope that this will be the “One Before I Am Done” Season for the Leafs as they chase that elusive Cup!

If we were playing word association and you said “Leafs”, there’s a very good chance that my answer would be “Joe Bowen”. More than any player they’ve had in my lifetime, Joe, Bob Cole, Harry Neale and Jim Ralph are the Leafs to me. I’m the same way with Tom Cheek and Jerry Howarth when it comes to the Blue Jays.

He’s been calling their games for about as long as I’ve been alive, and it’s going to be really, really strange when he’s gone. Whoever does replace him, I hope that person has half the energy and passion that Joe does. Seriously, if there’s anyone who puts more of himself into calling a game, I haven’t heard that person.

I guess this is the part where I say HOLY MACKINAW! WHAT A CAREER!

You Should Try The App I Use. It’s Called Blanket

I’m worlds better than I used to be, but I’m still not anything close to what you’d call a champion sleeper. Even now, there are nights when it’s just not happening for me no matter what I do. Sometimes the problem is too much noise outside. Sometimes it’s weird dreams. Sometimes it’s headaches or my plugged nose, which have given me trouble my whole life. And sometimes I have no idea what the matter is.

But you know what the matter has never, ever been? My stupid, overpriced, AI-ridden bed being too cold for comfort because the app isn’t working.

YouTuber Theo “t3.gg” Browne had a bizarre — and hilariously 21st-century — reason for suffering through a sleepless night.
“Woke up because my AI-controlled bed is too cold,” the San Francisco-based content creator wrote in a tweet that has since gone viral.
Browne owns an intelligent mattress cooling system called Pod3, created by sleep tech company Eight Sleep. It boasts a host of sensors that track biometrics, including heart rate and sleep stages. An optional cooling cover cycles cooled or heated water through embedded coils, allowing sleepers to either raise or lower the temperature as needed.

Unsurprisingly, things don’t always go according to plan, especially given the level of technical complexity involved.
“Went to adjust temperature and I can’t because the Eight Sleep app is currently broken,” Browne wrote, seething that the situation was “unacceptable.”
“Now I am stuck in a cold bed,” he added. “This feels dystopian.”

At present, I am grappling with two thoughts. I am, of course, angry that this exists and that someone spent thousands of dollars worth of perfectly good money including a monthly subscription on it instead of doing something helpful like donating to charity. But I also must confess that I might sleep the tiniest bit easier tonight knowing that no matter what might have gone wrong for me today or how badly I may feel about myself because of it, I am far from the dumbest fuck in the world and that a far dumber one is having a more miserable time than I am simply because he is dumb. We spend entirely too much time rewarding dumbfuckery these days especially when it’s rich, so while this is a small victory, I’ll happily take one where I can get one.

How I Learned To Eat Soup, And To Waste Some Dickhead’s Day

It’s been a while, but I’ve finally come across another good use for AI. Building an army of bots and setting it loose on scam call centres!

One person tying up one other person for a while is fine and all, but in the grand scheme,that’s a fight you’re never going to win if the goal is to really disrupt the operation. But if you had, say, 12 or 15 different versions of you that never needed a break, now we’re talking. We’re talking and talking and talking and talking and talking…

Fighting scammers with the world’s first AI call center to disrupt scams!

I’ve been working on this project for over 5 years now and it’s exciting to share it with you all. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me!

Just Send The Money, Ya Arseholes

As a person with a disability, I should probably have strong opinions on the new Canada Disability Benefit. I don’t, really. A couple extra grand a year isn’t going to fix a whole lot of anything if you’re looking at things systemically since disability rates in this country tend towards being so low they ought to be illegal, but on an individual level, it certainly can’t hurt. Anecdotally, I know for absolute certain that there are folks for whom the $200 more each month will make a difference. Maybe they can eat a little better. Maybe they can buy some new clothes. Maybe, over time, those little bumps can translate into bigger and better things for some. But it ain’t going to help anyone suddenly be able to afford expensive, ongoing necessary services or medical treatments that governments have chosen not to cover, so plenty of people are still going to be left with their biggest problems unsolved. Basically, the disabled are going to be right where we’ve always been, but with a few extra sandwiches to show for it. It’s not nothing, but a society as wealthy as ours is capable of so much more.

I guess that’s an opinion.

While I’m having those, here’s the one I originally opened this post for. Why in the world do people have to apply for this thing?

The benefit is available to persons with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 64 who meet several requirements.
Some of these requirements include qualifying for the disability tax credit (DTC), filing a 2024 income tax return with the Canada Revenue Agency, or having a spouse or common-law partner who has also filed their 2024 income tax return, if applicable.

Eligible Canadians can apply starting June 20 online, by phone or in person at a Service Canada office.
Applicants will need a social insurance number (SIN) and direct deposit information.

If I’ve filed my taxes, why should I have to do anything else to get what I’m owed? Why must I fill out an extra form to give the government information it already has? It knows whether I’m claiming the disability tax credit. It knows how much money I made and whether or not that entitles me to something like the GST rebate, which is then automatically applied. It knows whether I’m single or married. It knows whether or not I’m a citizen. It has my SIN number. It knows how to send me direct deposits. That’s how I get my refunds. It’s how I get my carbon rebate, or at least it was until we decided we don’t care about the climate anymore. Long story short, there’s a lot of info in there and the government can do a lot with it without needing any more of my help.

But if you’re still not convinced and would like to argue that an extra application is required, then please make sure that part of your argument contains an explanation for this bit here.

The federal government will also send letters in June to eligible Canadians to apply. The letters will include a unique application code and instructions on how to apply.
According to the program’s website, Canadians who do not receive a letter but believe they are eligible can still apply. To do so, they must provide a mailing address and their net income (line 23600) from their 2024 notice of assessment.

YOU KNOW I’M ELIGIBLE! JUST APPLY ME, DAMMIT!

All of this is silly at best and mean spirited at worst. On my end it feels like an unnecessary hoop, and on the government’s end it sure looks a lot like unnecessary busywork. Instead of having someone sitting there sorting applications, have him sit there with a list of people with valid disability tax credits. If the government is in possession of a database that’s worth a fuck, it should be fairly simple from there to match those people with their tax returns and then sort the yeses and the nos. If you’re actually serious about getting this money into the hands of people who need it, just get it there. Don’t slow walk it and make life that much harder on people for whom things are already plenty hard enough.

Best News Bloopers For May 2025


I’m impressed by the guy on the roller coaster. He read a lot more of those facts than I thought he would. I actually like roller coasters and I don’t think I could do that.

And I kind of want to try those hot wings, too. I’m not what I used to be now that I’m a little older, but I still take leave of my senses now and then and eat something stupidly spicy. I don’t know if anyone reading this remembers Sid’s Sports Pub in Stratford, but had they not discontinued the thing like a week before I decided to try it, I would have been on their hot wing wall of fame. Yes, I did it anyway. Eating the wings was shockingly easy. the worst part was somehow managing to get sauce in my eye while wiping my face. Don’t ever do that.