Donald does Dallas

Among the many unprecedented, to say nothing of unpresidential, anomalies in this presidency is the ability of the Commander in Chief to spew utter fantasies as though they were fact, yet continue to find audiences willing to applaud obvious bullshit made up on the spot by one of the greatest bullshit artists of all time. Nevermind Art of the Deal, Donny J has mastered the art of the unreal! That's why I was momentarily cheered by multiple news stories re: Trump's humiliation about empty seats during his speech last night. I thought hey, maybe folks are catching on. I decided to catch his speech tonight just to see those empty seats for myself. From what I could see, the arena was packed. Packed with folks who wildly applauded every innanity that fell from his lips. The usual completely-detached-from-reality rantings about the-world-has-never-seen-anything-like-it epic destruction of Iran over and over again. While they're applauding, Brent and WTI both breached the $100/bbl mark, yet still they can't stop clapping their hands together. How to explain the contrast with last night? Here's my theory. Dallas is deep Bible-belt territory. There's 8 million+ population in the greater Dallas- Fort Worth area. There's at least a million who would describe themselves as Christian Zionists. When that community heard that the Hillary-led communist DNC-controlled lying media was trying to humiliate Israel's bumboy in the Oval Office, they activated their telephone trees and voila; you've got that twenty thousand seat arena packed to the rafters in no time!

Carney goes full retard; signs 100 yr defence pact with Zelensky

Before Zelly's most recent begging-bowl visit, we're already pushing the $30B mark in support for Ukraine. The CBC story announcing this 100 year pact claims there's at least another $B been offered just since Zelly's plane touched down last night. I don't understand how signing this kind of pact with a scandalously corrupt regime that has suspended democracy itself is in Canada's interest. The CBC story, and shame on Murray Brewster for allowing his name on it, is nothing but uncritical paraphrasing of government talking points. One would like to think we get more than that for our annual subsidy to CBC. Just as a for instance, Carney says the war is turning, and that therefore this is the right time to sign this 100 year pact. Two points; 1) if the tide has turned without us tying ourselves to this crooked regime for 100 yrs, why sign it now, and 2) all the evidence on the ground shows Ukraine is being destroyed by Russian artillery, glide bombs, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones, so Ukraine's alleged drone advantage is strictly PR. If CBC were doing journalism, these obvious questions, among many others, would come up.

Canada finally gets noticed in foreign press

That's manna from heaven for the American Empire Loyalists who occuppy the heights of elite opinion in Canada. They hate Donald Trump but love America. The last time we got any international ink was after Carney's Davos speech, which our media were eager to frame as "standing up to Trump" when it was nothing of the sort. There aren't many days I don't run across some claim that Canada is galvanizing the world's anti-Trump resistance, which for some reason is entirely invisible to the rest of the world. Today I happened across this headline from CNBC: "Iran takes aim at Canada for support of US actions in Strait of Hormuz." This American network devotes an entire story to Iranian officials commenting on Canada. The Iranians can't figure out how Canada continues to support the totally illegal US-Israel kinetic war on Iran when it has been so shabbily treated in Trump's tariff war on Canada. Funny how this question never comes up in Canadian media. Well, let me 'splain this for the Towelheads 'o Terror. Vassalage is an ugly thing. Iran has paid a heavy price over decades to resist it. Canada, on the other hand, has absolutely no history or identity outside of being vassals. We've always been a colony, and we're happy to be one. We're already entertaining discussions about joining the EU just in case our era of being an American satrapy comes to an end. At least taking instruction from Brussels would be preferable to going through the hassle of making our own foreign policy after 200 years of taking orders from London or Washington.

About Mark Carney's foolish, unnecessary, and ill-fated power struggle with Donald Trump

I don't understand what PM Carney imagines he might achieve by ramping up a pissing match with Mafia Don. Carney's actions seem particularly bizzare in light of the fact all he had to do was keep his head down and his mouth shut till the mid-terms, and rest easy knowing Trump will be a castrated shadow of his former big bad bully self after November. Instead, he's exposing our relatively inconsequential economy to the prospect of massive retaliation. Donald Trump could certainly use an easy win these days, because most of the world sees the US Empire failing both of the wars it instigated. As a Canadian I'm offended by the video message Carney's office released today. He's giving us the heads up that we should expect hardship and tough times for the forseeable future. Why? Apparently our sovereignty is at stake. We absolutely MUST face down the Orange Ogre or we'll be the 51st state for sure! I have no idea where this "sovereignty" hoax comes from. Every critical industry in Canada, without exception, is controlled by foreign interests, and that includes the oil and gas in the ground, the Canadian steel industry, auto industry, shipbuilding, you name it, and that's been the case since long before Donald was anywhere near the White House. This anti-Trump theatre Carney is putting on is detached from reality. The reality is that we've essentially been a branch-plant economy for the last hundred years, so the idea we now need to endure tough times to assert our independence is beyond rich.

Jiggin' cod and jackin' moose; why Newfoundland will always survive

I'm an English-as-second-language guy to begin with, so it took time to appreciate the nuances of the language. But in the seventy years since I got off the boat, I've lived on the East Coast, the West Coast, and a few spots in between, and I gotta say nothing comes close to the story-telling culture of the Maritimes. I would have to put the Newfs at the top of the heap. I spent two years in the Irving Shipyard in Saint John, working cheek-by-jowl with guys from all over the maritimes. My first few months at the yard were spent outfitting the engine bay on the HMCS Vancouver. As an aside, the Vancouver was referred to as "the love boat" after a couple of British electricians were allegedly caught in a pants-off moment. Anyway, I'm down there with about a dozen other guys, most of whom are Newfoundlanders. We're about six or seven flights of stairs below deck, so we can hear management approaching a long time before they arrive. That is conducive to a very relaxed work environment. I remember writing a letter to my parents from that engine room, and the first line was "from where I'm writing this I can see at least six people sleeping." But when we weren't napping, we did somehow get the ships done, and they're out on the seven seas to this day enforcing freedom of navigation in the strait of Taiwan or somesuch horseshit which has no conceivable link to Canada's national security. Anyway, the Newfs are a garrulous lot. When they weren't napping in that engine room they NEVER stopped talking! The stories I heard! There was a kid from Grand Falls who was my apprentice for a spell who shared the story of the mysterious German who'd settled there after the war. When the old square-head kicked the bucket, Buddy and his pals looted the joint before the morgue crew arrived, and discovered a treasure-trove of Nazi memorabilia! Of course they did! It wouldn't amount to much of a yarn if it was just ya we thought about it but decided against it. And you know for sure that Newfoundlanders will always come down on the side of basic human decency. Then there was other Buddy with the tale of his pal, let's call him Other other Buddy, phoning up to share the good news that he'd liberated several cases of tinned corned beef from a rail siding nearby. I didn't know they ever had trains in Newfoundland, but apparently that part of the story could be true. So Buddy heads over to other Buddy's place, or we might be at Other Other Buddy's place at this point in the story. But back to the original Buddy who's sharing this story in the engine room of the HMCS Vancouver. Other Buddy goes over to (let's keep the Buddy thing simple) his buddy's place, and the first line off is lips is "that's not corned beef, that's fucking dogfood!" But that's not the punchline. Other Buddy comes back with "keep your voice down man, if the kids hear that they won't eat it!" And that just exploded the entire engine room crew into a massive laughing fit. Truth be told, Newfoundlanders have always had their own culture, since long before they joined Canada, and in spite of everything that has transpired since. The reason there's Newfs everywhere from Ontario's industrial heartland to Alberta's oil patch is because these folks routinely uproot their lives to make sure their children eat well. And in a worst-case scenario, there's still the cod and the moose.

The enshitification of everything

The weather, for example. Time was, it was kinda predictable. Now, with untold scientific advances that allow us to declare it's all about climate change, it seems we can't predict much of anything. How much of a heads up did the folks in Cape Breton get for the 1000 years storm that just blew through? The weather also seems more unpredictable on a personal level. Seems to me it used to be the norm that when it's summer you would get out of bed and dress accordingly. Now I find myself changing three times a day. It gets too hot by noon, so you change into shorts, and a few hours later the temp has dropped ten degrees and you change again. It was in the course of the most recent change, back into my Levis, that I made the observation that all the Levis I owned had holes in the knees except the two pair I'd bought in the past year. How is such a thing even possible? There was a time when you could literally get through life with two pairs of pants; your work Levis and your Sunday best Levis, and both would last ten years before the knees blew out. The enshitification of the iconic Levi Strauss brand is but a symptom of a long sad decline that America and her satrapys are trapped in. Somewhere along the way One Nation Under God became a nation that worshipped only one God, the God of Mammon. Greed was good now! The dumbfucks in industry who built stuff to last were seriously deluded. Why in hell would any sane management team allow the manufacture of a washing machine that would last twenty years? I know it's hard to believe, but there was a time not that long ago that building quality products was considered a fundamental American value. Well, has that ever gone out the window! Once we embraced worship of the golden calf it was never again the guy who designed quality who made it to the corner office. It was the guy who designed the washing machine that broke down within months of the three year warranty expiry. The suckers are now having to buy five washing machines in those twenty years instead of one! That's the guy we want to lead the company!

New houses vs. 100 year-old houses

As I was coming in from the stoop an hour ago, it crossed my mind, however briefly, that the kitchen floor might be due for a re-do soon. The hundred-year-old maple floor is starting to show its age. That's not a surprise. Hardwood floors might show some wear and tear after 100 years, but here's what's truly messed up. It's almost impossible to find a new build today that has real hardwood floors. Instead, you are offered a range of options from "engineered hardwood," to, if such an abomination can even be imagined, "luxury vinyl flooring." The modern ed system has so destroyed critical thinking skills that the general public today is convinced engineered hardwood must be vastly superior to non-engineered old-school hardwood. Little do they realize those high-end "engineered hardwood" floors in their million-dollar Mcmansions are gonna need swapped out in ten years max, if you got the high-end "engineered" hardwood, or even sooner if you got the standard contractor grade. On the other hand, if you happen to have the real deal old-school hardwood floors that were put down well over 100 years ago in old farmhouses, and you figure it's time to freshen them up, you can rent a sander at Home Depot and between that and a couple gallons of Varathane you're good for another hundred years!