Winter's coming and I got nothing but fear and loathing

And that's a radical departure from my usual winter announcement, which typically comes late November or early December, to the effect that, by golly, looks like winter's back... who knew? Yup, the advent of winter reliably takes me by surprise every year. But here's why things have changed. Last winter was an unexpectedly stiff one, as in way cold and way too much snow. Turned out I was completely unprepared, and it was only the kind intervention of my neighbours John Deere and Massey Ferguson, together with their snowblowers, that got me through. Never again! So I've been keeping an eye out for reliable and affordable snow-clearing tech. I saw a nearly new Suzuki quad with a blade for a whisker under 10k. At least that would give me a 4-wheeler when I'm not clearing snow, but it's not what you need when you get an overnight dump of four feet or more, which is known to happen in these parts. So I've been thinking maybe it makes some sense to have the old Ford 4000 diesel refurbished. It's a 53hp unit from about 50 or 60 years ago, and I have a snowblower for it. But I haven't had a diesel since my VW died, what, 15 years ago? I therefore know nothing about diesels and besides, between my shaky hands and fat fingers I struggle to pick up a wrench, let alone turn one. So this job gotta be farmed out, but whereto? As fate would have it, a few of the kids who went through my shop class went on to become all sorts of trades, including diesel mechanics. I happened to run into one of them at a funeral last week. He works at an iron ore mine on Baffin Island, which is somewhere nearby Santa's place. The company flies him up and back for a three-week rotation, and when he's home he wants to spend time with his three teen boys, not with my derelict tractor. Fortunately, he was able to provide the name of a classmate, who had just left a prominent farm equipment dealership and opened his own biz. Perfect! He'll be looking for work! A few days later I drop by the kids place. The kid is now a middle aged man with a family. There's a float dropping off a hydraulic Skyjack unit as I pull up. There's two or three tractors lining either side of the drive to his shop, and there's a massive high-hoe in the middle of all this stretching out its arms to the sky! Ya... I'm pretty sure Jeff ain't looking for work! Anyway, I'm happy the kids are kicking ass. They seem to have survived my tutelage just fine! But winters coming...

Up a stump with Donald Trump

Remember when USA-Israel unleashed a surprise attack on Iran last year, in the midst of alleged peace talks, which utterly obliterated Iran's nuclear program and military? Remember when USA-Israel unleashed another surprise attack this past February, again against the background of more fake peace talks, murdering the Supreme Leader and much of his extended family, and once again totally obliterating Iran's military? Remember when Mafia Don told the world that he personally would appoint the next Supreme Leader? Well, all of that and oh-so-much-more is already down ye olde memory hole. In fact, USA-Israel has since February obliterated the entirety of Iran's military-industrial complex several more times, to the point they have exhausted their ammo and are now awaiting Iranian retaliation. How such a thing is even conceivable after their non-stop obliteration over many months should raise a few questions, the paramount one being just how brazenly over-the-top the Trump regime's nonstop cavalcade of bullshit would have to get before the American people realize it's time to change the channel.

CBC wants you to know 51st state status a tempting option

Just check out their home page right now. Top headline... Oh my God millions of jobs and trillions of dollars will be gone if our fabulous free trade agreement collapses... what to do what to do... well by golly wouldn't it be great to short-circuit all that nasty trade war shit and just be friends? Frankly, by accepting Trumps offer of statehood, we're just making official what's been de-facto reality at least since John Diefenbaker axed the Avro Arrow. We're looking at a most impressive record of Canadian politicians currying favour in DC while pretending not to. Elbows up and all that silly shit! Obviously the unspoken message that screams out is we gotta save trillions of jobs and millions of... oh, whatever! Just a few stories later we read that over 29,000 Canadians have petitioned our government to kick out the US ambassador. I can certainly think of reasons to do that, but defying the deranged occupant of the White House's threats to annex Canada wouldn't be one of them. Contrasting "threats to annex" to the kidnapping or murder of a head of state makes us look a wee bit unserious. It's hard to get revved up about petty side-shows when we're 100% silent on America's role in the Gaza genocide and we support the unprovoked and illegal war on Iran.

Pot-addled pinko blogger beats Toby Lutke to the nitty-gritty by 12 years!

Yup, it's a true fact, that. Well, except it wasn't actually me who beat the Shopify guy to the insight that poor people are superfluous in a proper democracy, it was California hedgie billionaire Tom Perkins. Being a recovered socialist, I immediately posted the following to the web, where perhaps several dozen people may have noticed.********************** neumann's blog Saturday, February 15, 2014 Three cheers for Tom Perkins! Tom Perkins attracted more than a little ridicule a couple weeks ago with his assertion that the super-rich like him are being persecuted in contemporary America just like Jews were persecuted in Nazi Germany. Hold on a minute. Maybe Tom is the canary in the proverbial coalmine. Maybe some of us are just too blind with envy to see what is really happening. Already we see the super-rich being barred from the boards of directors of major corporations. None of the big banks will any longer be publicly associated with billionaires. They are increasingly shunned even by the very media they own! Rumours abound of private jets ferrying planeloads of billionaires to secret camps deep in the woods. We are told these camps are for "economic summits." Of course they are... just like the Jews of Europe were attending "economic summits" at Belsen and Auschwitz. And what of the future for our beleaguered billionaires? Will enough survive these dark days to achieve, someday, a homeland of their own? Luckily, Tom has an idea that may nip this tide of anti-oligarchism in the bud. The fatal flaw in democracy has always been that a lot of lazy stupid people have this so-called "right to vote." This manifestly unfair feature of US democracy has lead us straight to the current crisis of billionaire-bashing. If Tom's net worth is the equivalent of the combined net worth of 150 million poor Americans, why should they get 150 million votes while he gets one? Tom's plan is brilliant in its simplicity. Every dollar paid in tax would entitle the payer to one vote. That way Tom will no longer be punished for working a million times harder than a million lazy stupid poor people. This plan would also increase government revenue by incentivising many billionaires to pay taxes for the first time! So enough with the ridicule already. Let's give Tom's plans a chance! **************** Don't know what to say... either Toby was scrolling through my blog again and found something he liked, or (probably more likely) he happened to be sharing quality time with Tom at Davos or Aspen recently!

Gonzo hypocrisy; zero journalism

The crap that's showing up on CBC of late is beyond fake news, beyond ridiculous, and beyond even a caricature of actual "news." Here's what I believe lies at the root of the problem. As an occupation, the journalism profession has been shrinking for decades. Since the 1980s something like three-quarters of all mainstream journo jobs have disappeared, the kind of jobs with real salaries, benefits, and career paths. While the jobs disappeared, university journalism programs kept pumping out fresh grads - into a zero jobs economy. That's where the government decided taxing Google and Meta would raise the money required to provide at least temp employment to all these budding journalists. And here we are. A news environment dominated entirely by press releases from activist groups, think tanks, corporations, and govt spokepersons. Where's the "journalism?" Whatever happened to "afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted?" Whatever happened to "speaking truth to power?" I'll tell you what happened. When you come out of Carleton or TMU or any of the others with that shiny new degree, or, God forbid, even a Masters and $100k in student loans, what are you gonna do in that bullshit fake job? Speak truth to power? No way! You'll do everything you can to get a pat on the head and get noticed by power, because the only possible hope you have of ever paying down your student loans and having a life is if you get into a rare paying slot at the Globe or the CBC, and "truth to power" ain't gonna take you very far up that road!

Celebrating small victories

There's a story on view at CBC today; " Na-Me-Res opens its doors to a new complex for unhoused men." I guess that's a good-news bad-news story. The good news is they're getting twenty dudes off the street and into proper housing. The bad news is this program is run by an Indigenous charity and is understandably focused on getting their people off the street. What we need to do is replicate this program x1000 and extend it across the country. The one thing I noticed is the program demands 100% abstinence from its former-addict residents. I'm surprised there hasn't been a civil-rights challenge on that. The way things have evolved over recent years makes public inebreation a basic human right. And if your public intoxication, regardless of cause, causes you to defecate in the flowerbeds in front of City Hall, well, everybody gotta shit, so fuck off with your judgementalism! Anyway, while the story headlines a small victory, it mentions in passing that Toronto is decades behind in its affordable housing goals. Now that we've gotta spend gazillions on fighter jets and warships and submarines, we'll be centuries behind!

Large white supremacist meeting shakes residents of Alberta town

That CBC headline caught my eye this morning. The CBC investigative journalism crew really has its finger on the pulse of what's going on in small-town Alberta. Remember a couple of years ago when they had a sudden surge of personal essays on what it's like to be the only Black trans teen in a small prairie town? Well, aside from empathy, there's not much those teens demand of us. Today's expose is an entirely different kettle of fish. We might feel sorry for that loney kid, but we need to be absolutely outraged about these white supremacists who terrorized a small town! The locals were stunned and shellshocked! Except if you actually read the story, they weren't. In fact, apparently nobody in town was even aware this army of 60+ white supremacists had visited until several weeks after the fact, when CBC brought it to their attention. Only then did the alleged "shellshock" set in. According to Grokepedia, the population of that Alberta hamlet is 58. You'd think they'd notice 60+ nazis in their midst, especially when they were waving banners from the overpass over the highway. The cbc quotes the owner of the general store as saying he had no idea. That's where you buy beer in Millarville... we're supposed to believe over five dozen middle-aged racist white goobers, mostly CAF vets, came to town for a week and didn't buy any beer??? We're in get-the-fuck-outta-here territory with that one! Anyway, I see two plausible explanations for this story. Is it possible those small-town Alberta bumpkins are secret fascist symps? The other possibility is that the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, the NGO 100% funded by our federal government, and whose "research" underpins this CBC story, is desperate to have its funding renewed, and is hoping to scare up some scary headlines.