Canada intervenes

I just finished reading a hilarious book called America, But Better: The Canada Party Manifesto.  The idea that Canada, which has been watching America go to the dogs, decides to stage an intervention.  As the book puts it:

We’re offering you the chance to kick back for a while and let a trusted friend cook your meals and fluff your pillows, giving you time to do some healing and generally reevaluate your place in the universe. So this is not an invasion; it’s an intervention ... Sure, we’ve had a few rough patches. The War of 1812. Vietnam. Celine Dion. [Again, we are really, really sorry about that.] But we’ve weathered these storms to develop the largest trading partnership, most integrated militaries, and weakest beers in the known universe. Both of our Constitutions are based on the personal liberties outlined in Mom’s Magna Carta, and it is this—our mutual status as beacons of freedom to the rest of the world—that unites us in cause and makes us continental BFFs. Which is why it has been with great sadness, and more than a little nausea, that we’ve witnessed our American brothers and sisters betrayed over the past decade by privately owned politicians who have created franchises out of persecuting the disenfranchised, fetishized ignorance at the expense of reason, deprived citizens of their civil liberties in the name of a very profitable notion of security, and driven up taxpayer debt

Don't worry.  The book is not as serious as all that.  Seriously funny one-liners litter the book.  Here's a sampling:

Exxon and WalMart are now the largest people in the United States. But the average American is catching up.

It’s not like we don’t have our own faults. Our prime minister makes Dick Cheney look like a human-rights crusader. Our oil program is so apocalyptic it was given a “Special Thanks” credit in the book of Revelations.

1789: Pennsylvania ends its prohibition of theatrical performances, allowing the signing of the Constitution and the centuries of drama it would incur. [Although drafted while medicine was theoretical and man-tights all the rage, it is still referenced literally in modern American law.]

1941: America and Canada cooperate to send 133,000 of their citizens to internment camps as part of a Japanese Community Outreach Program.

1972: Canada realizes Richard Nixon is a Dick. 1974: America realizes Richard Nixon is a dick, pretend they noticed first.

Quebec and Boston, two cities where visitors can’t understand the locals

We understand that diabetes affects the eyes, but if you are going to televise our games, we beg you not to add a streaking fireball indicating the puck’s location. It hurts our tummies.

[on not getting on board with the metric system] America is shooting itself in the foot by sitting on its perch, stone-faced, chained to its furlongs and miles, in league with no one, not an ounce of unity, ignoring their backyard neighbors by the pound for reasons we can’t fathom.

Terminally ill patients will have the right to end their lives on their own terms. Religious groups opposing this policy have the right to heal said patients.