Your weekend roundup of the pertinent and impertinent

While the universe continues to deteriorate, I have decided that a number of items need to be addressed, at least in a cursory manner. Come to think of it, maybe everything should be addressed cursorily, since we make such a botch of things via in-depth analysis. “Oh, poverty, crime, homelessness, drugs – bad things, those. We should do something about them, sometime.” See, cursorily.

“Onward,” as Mort Sahl used to say. Wow, that dated me.

* The Beijing Olympics have started. For the next while China is officially a ‘nice’ country, rather than a ruthless tyranny.

* I read that Canadian pop-tart Avril Lavigne is going to get her teeth filed down because she is tired of her “fangs”. Hey, hon’, the fangs may be the only distinctive aspect of you. And there are always those future parts in B-pic vampire movies.

*The governmental carbon tax fraud continues in British Columbia. This ‘revenue neutral’ tax grab is nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with the deficit that will arise from the 2010 Olympics and the government-engineered failed forest industry. If everybody in BC quit driving their cars tomorrow, it wouldn’t make a rat’s-ass of difference to global warming.

* Official French bimbo, sorry, First Lady, Carla Bruni is featured on the cover of the latest Vanity Fair. Why? She also fancies herself as a future Jackie Kennedy. Why? Will her Jackie Kennedyness give Sarkozy the right to screw any female who comes within his scope, just like Jackie’s husband did? Come to think of it, that was how Sarky acquired Carla, n’est ce pas?

* No matter how hard I try, I just cannot accept this 'Brangelina' amalgam as being of more value to the planet than the average street cop or trash collector. Sorry.

* And, while I’m trying to care less about the alleged rift in Madonna’s marriage, I think I’ve reached the nadir of uncaringness.

* The Obama family made the cover of People. Somehow the world now seems a little bit safer.

* Paris Hilton’s mom is pissed with McCain for using her daughter as a cheap joke in a speech he recently gave. Since Mrs. Hilton has sunk bucks into the McCain coffers, she wasn’t amused. Why? Did she think her daughter had by this point risen above being a cheap joke? I thought that was Paris’s career plan.

* Boobsified PETA maven and Canada's official slutbunny, Pam Anderson has received the

green light to build a great big property development in her little hometown of Ladysmith on Vancouver Island. Her application was passed without a murmur by flushed-faced town councillors. They’re still finding glitches after four years in a similar application by local developer Joe Schmoe.

* Why can’t the ‘Muppet’ people be put in charge of designing Olympic mascots? At least they’d be cute and funny rather than hideous and borderline scary. If you think the Beijing ones are bad, wait till you see the Vancouver ones. I am also left with the residual question. Since we’re grownups here, why do we need mascots at all? Did the original Greeks have mascots? “Hey, look it’s a little tiny, fuzzy Sophocles!”

There you have it. Just a little pastiche of the world around us all on this particular day in history. Good night and good news.