Friday, June 03, 2005

15 minutes on the phone

Canadian Prime Minister Paulie Librano says he spent 15 minutes on the phone Thursday with U.S. President George Dubya Bush to discuss the Devils Lake project.
That's the project that has some of our Manitoban friends in a snit. (For more details, visit Canoe.ca and do a site search on "Devils Lake".)
Well, our crack research team has acquired a tape of the conversation. They turned it over to our crack translation team in order to convert Librano and Dubya-ese into English.
Here is the transcript:
"White House."
"Yes, this is the Prime Minister of Canada. Is the President available?"
"Hold on, please, Mr. Librano, sir."
(Muzak begins to play the theme from "The Godfather.")
Inside the White House:
"Mr. President."
"Yes, dear."
"There's a gentleman with a funny accent claiming to be the Prime Minister of Canada on the phone. He says he'll put a horsehead inside the visitor's center at Niagara Falls if you don't talk to him."
"Oh, that lying toady. Tell him I'll be right there; I'm in a meeting on Iraq right now. Should be just another minute.... Laura, I told those girls that they should stick to beer if they've got to drink at all!"
(Muzak continues to play as Librano holds the line. The secretary breaks in.)
"Give him just a minute, Mr. Librano."
"Well, all right. I have to attend to a purchase of a very important Parliamentarian. I'll be here, though."
(Muzak plays a very watered down version of "Tell the Truth" by Derek and the Dominos, followed by the first four minutes of "In-a-gadda-da-vida" by Iron Butterfly. Finally, the President picks up the line. Thirteen minutes have passed since the phone first rang.)
"Paulie, how are ya? Need some more of that good Texas bar-b-q?"
"Later, yes. Right now, though, we've got a problem."
"Yeah, I heard about that Gruel guy."
"That's no problem. The problem is Devils Lake."
"Why's a lake in North Dakota bugging you, Paulie?"
"They want to divert the water into the Red River, which flows into Canada."
"So you get more water. What's the problem?"
"Some of our people think it's going to be polluted."
"North Dakota? Polluted? C'mon, Paulie. They haven't even heard of pollution up there yet, never mind know how to do it."
"So you won't be petitioning to block it?"
"When you turn over all the Oil-For-Food stuff, we'll think about it."
"Oh."
(Pause.)
"What about the softwood and the BSE and all the other stuff."
"Paulie, I told you. Oil-For-Food and missile defense or fugetaboudit. That's the deal. Kapish?"
"Oh. See you later, then."
"Bye."