09-06-2005, 12:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-06-2005, 12:40 PM by Lady Vashj.)
from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Presents: Book of the Dumb 2 - buy yourself a copy
We can't say enough about Canada, who even the most jingoistic American will admit is a perfect neighbor. Be that as it may, every once in a while we get an indication that up there in the Great White North, they do things a little differently.
As an example, take the following bit of advice, from the Web site of Elections Canada: "Eating a ballot, not returning it or otherwise destroying or defacing it constitutes a serious breach of the Canada Elections Act." Which led us to ask, in that logical way of ours, well, have Canadians been eating their ballots in numbers large enough to warrant a warning on a government Web site? Sure, you'll always have one or two odd ducks who'll snack on a ballot just because they're pathological paper eaters, but to have the government actually address the issue, there's got to be a bunch of Canadians looking for snacks at their ballot box.
The answer is that indeed there are. The Edible Ballot Society of Canada promotes ballot ingestion as a form of civil disobedience: "Voting is not only useless, it actually undermines genuine democracy by legitimizing an inherently undemocratic process...Check out great dishes such as the Ballot Burger, with a side order of Campaign Literature. Or perhaps you enjoy cheese and would like to try a Ballot Fondue," says the group's Web site (everyone has a Web site these days).
The EBS notes that members of its pulp-loving crew were arrested for eating their ballots in the 1997 and 2000 elections; apparently these incidents caused enough consternation for Elections Canada that they posted a warning. It must have worked, since Canada's 2004 national election was by all indications free of ballot ingestion. We guess this time around, the ballot choices were more palatable than the ballots themselves.
We wonder if the movement would ever catch on here in the United States, although most Americans, confronted with the choices on their ballots are probably less inclined to chuck their ballots down their throats than the opposite maneuver entirely.
Note: I supposed this should have waited at least until October, but it was just too funny.
We can't say enough about Canada, who even the most jingoistic American will admit is a perfect neighbor. Be that as it may, every once in a while we get an indication that up there in the Great White North, they do things a little differently.
As an example, take the following bit of advice, from the Web site of Elections Canada: "Eating a ballot, not returning it or otherwise destroying or defacing it constitutes a serious breach of the Canada Elections Act." Which led us to ask, in that logical way of ours, well, have Canadians been eating their ballots in numbers large enough to warrant a warning on a government Web site? Sure, you'll always have one or two odd ducks who'll snack on a ballot just because they're pathological paper eaters, but to have the government actually address the issue, there's got to be a bunch of Canadians looking for snacks at their ballot box.
The answer is that indeed there are. The Edible Ballot Society of Canada promotes ballot ingestion as a form of civil disobedience: "Voting is not only useless, it actually undermines genuine democracy by legitimizing an inherently undemocratic process...Check out great dishes such as the Ballot Burger, with a side order of Campaign Literature. Or perhaps you enjoy cheese and would like to try a Ballot Fondue," says the group's Web site (everyone has a Web site these days).
The EBS notes that members of its pulp-loving crew were arrested for eating their ballots in the 1997 and 2000 elections; apparently these incidents caused enough consternation for Elections Canada that they posted a warning. It must have worked, since Canada's 2004 national election was by all indications free of ballot ingestion. We guess this time around, the ballot choices were more palatable than the ballots themselves.
We wonder if the movement would ever catch on here in the United States, although most Americans, confronted with the choices on their ballots are probably less inclined to chuck their ballots down their throats than the opposite maneuver entirely.
Note: I supposed this should have waited at least until October, but it was just too funny.
Creator of "The Corrupted Wish Game": Rules revised 06/15/05
"It was a quiet day...the kind of quiet that happens just before the entire Sioux nation comes up over the ridge."
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"It was a quiet day...the kind of quiet that happens just before the entire Sioux nation comes up over the ridge."
Click here for a free iPod!
