Monday, March 18, 2024

We have already lost the war with Hamas, and we are losing our allies in the world - retired IDF General

It’s comforting to know not everyone in Israel has completely lost their minds. What’s not comforting is that it may be impossible for the people in charge to change course before things get exponentially worse. Major General Barik was commenting on a recent survey that spelled out what an all-out war with Hezbollah would look like. The conclusions do not bode well for Israel. The main concern is that Israel will be targeted by 2500 to 3000 missiles PER DAY! Iron Dome will be depleted within the first half hour. Unfortunately, IDF and Israeli intelligence sources estimate that Hezbollah can keep up that volume of missile attacks for at least six weeks. Hezbollah missiles are not to be confused with the homemade “rockets” Hamas randomly fires over the Gaza fence. We’re talking serious technology here, the best the “Axis of Resistance” and its allies can come up with. In fact, it is on par with the best US armaments, as the past two years of the Ukraine war have demonstrated. Netanyahu needs to declare victory over the “children of Amalek” and put an end to the ongoing genocide sooner rather than later. Later may be too late.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Canada's "Minister of Mental Health" assaults mental health of Jewish Canadians

Canada's Minister of Mental health, Ya'ara Saks, tagged along with FM Melanie Joly on a recent PR junket to Israel. While in the Holy Land, they made the obligatory side-trip to visit with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. Not only did they visit him, but they released a photo over official government channels of them holding hands with the antisemitic holocaust denier. This has inflicted serious mental anguish on many Jewish Canadians. Isn't Israel at war with the Palestinians even as these air-heads are holding hands with Mahmoud Abbas? Yes, but here's what we're forgetting; Abbas is Israel's man. Every friend of Israel owes Abbas a debt of gratitude for being Israel's faithful Kapo in the West Bank. So relax, Jewish Canadians; you're in good hands with Mahmoud Abbas.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Justin Trudeau's bimbo goes to Holy Land for photo-op; hilarity ensues!

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly went to Israel for no possible reason but to create some PR about how Canada is engaged with the world blah blah blah... Somebody should take Canada aside, give it a kick in the pants, and tell it to shut up and stay out of the way, instead of forever interjecting our virtue-signalling selves into other people's business. Joly was doing OK on her trip till she opened her mouth. I know it's hard to believe anyone can be this stupid, but she used the occassion to announce Canadian support for a program that assists Palestinian victims of sexual violence. The easily predictable (by anyone with a room-temperature IQ) furor hasn't let up. Canada has ditched Israel and sided with the terrorists! Melanie Joly's political career is toast.

Top US Jew demands regime change in Israel

What’s come over Chuck Schumer? Has he had a change of heart re: the Holy Land? Has the daily barrage of dead baby pics from Al Jazeera awakened his conscience? I doubt it. As Madeline Albright so aptly demonstrated with her remarks on dead Iraqi children, there’s no such thing as “too many” dead babies when it comes to furthering the interests of the American Empire. What’s at work here is the Americans are giving the world a bit of political theatre to create the illusion that they’re not the prime enabler and facilitator of the Gaza genocide. Israel is a favored member of the “Nations of Virtue” club led by Uncle Sam, and while dead babies in and of themselves are irrelevant, six months of non-stop slaughter is making it increasingly difficult to present “the West” as the good guys on the world stage. If the US government were serious, they’d pull their ambassador from Israel and halt all military and financial support. Instead, they’ve vetoed every ceasefire proposal at the UN. Yes, they’ve made numerous calls for Israel to permit more aid into Gaza and try harder to avoid killing civilians, but there are no consequences when Israel does the opposite. Ralph Nader published an essay a few days ago which argued convincingly that the true death toll in Gaza is over 200,000. That’s 10% of the population. Mass starvation is just ramping up. How many months will it take to eliminate the other 90%? That’s where things are going. Replacing Netanyahu with Gantz or someone else would make no difference. The public mood in Israel demands vengeance. Schumer’s ploy is a feeble attempt to create the appearance that America tried to prevent the Gaza genocide, when in reality it is Israel’s accomplice and enabler.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

What's important?

Lately there’s been wall-to-wall coverage of the carnage in Ukraine and Gaza. Haiti is slowly coming into focus. But it’s always been the end of the world somewhere. There are several ongoing conflicts in Africa that blow even Gaza’s horrendous casualty counts out of the water. Congo. Sudan. Somalia… and they’ve been going on for decades without us ever obsessing over them like we do with Ukraine or Gaza. Some would say that’s because it’s easier for white middle-class audiences to identify with Ukrainian Christians and Israeli Jews than with Africans. No doubt there’s something to that, but my point is that if we can relegate some foreign conflicts to the back burner, we can leave all of them there. Which brings us to what’s important. As you know, I spend a lot of time on the stoop watching the world go by, and thinking about it. That “thinking about it” part allows me to pass off sloth and inertia as “mindfulness.” What I see in the sky on a clear night is an infinite array of stars from horizon to horizon. What I hear is nature; geese in the marsh, coyotes, and the wind in the trees. Last night I traded my perch on the porch for a room overlooking the 401 highway. All I saw was traffic. All I heard was traffic. No night sky and no nature. When you’re counting uncountable stars, you get a sense of your insignificance. When you’re counting uncountable traffic on the 401, you just want to stop counting and go home to your stoop. But we were on a mission. We’d missed our granddaughter's first birthday due to winter weather, and finally made up for it. On the way home we stopped in for a visit with family. Family. That’s what’s important.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

If you don't need a license to open-carry, why should you need a license to drive a car

Somewhere in my news-junkie meanderings through the www interverse today I saw a story how South Carolina just became the 26th state to permit open-carry of small arms without a permit. Yup, it’s just like the good old days in the old west! Walk in the gun store, pick out your piece, and off you go! Personally, I’m not against gun laws. As a guy with two ex-wives I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be writing these words today if we didn’t have some restrictions on gun purchases. Like maybe background checks and a mandatory gun safety course, and a 30 day “cooling off” period, just in case you come to the realization that the gun was a bad idea in the first place. But that story got me thinking. CBC had an expose the other day about how driving schools are conniving to short-circuit competency requirements in the mandatory driver’s test. Here’s my advice to Premier Doug. Doug, my friend, ( I know we’re not friends but that’s what you always called me when you needed to flatten the curve again and again) you’ve made some good common-sense decisions. Like doing away with license plate stickers. Doug, my friend, think about how many public servants could be made redundant if you eliminated vehicle licensing altogether! And even more than that, Doug, why don’t we do away with driver licensing while we’re at it. Think of the savings, Doug! And now that our free press has revealed that rampant cheating has totally destroyed the integrity of the driver’s test, what’s the point! Do the right thing, Doug.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Kipling's hemi

This is a repost from 2011. Wow! It's been 13 years? Anyway, Kipling is still among us, but instead of a 66 hemi-Charger he's now piloting a 1964 Pontiac sedan with the original six-cylider and three on the tree. Shit happens. neumann's blog Tuesday, August 30, 2011 Kipling's Hemi In 2006 Dodge brought out its new Hemi Charger. For those of us who knew the original from forty years before, it was a sad day indeed. A four door Charger? Please, don't do that on my dear grandmother's grave. What were they thinking? Kipling had one of the originals. It was a brutish nasty piece of work. A silver '66 with the solid-lifter 426 hemi. Two four-barrels. 4:10's in the back. Unreal power. Terrorized the Highway 86 dragstrip that summer. The big-block Chevy guys would pull up beside you at the lights, think about it for a couple of seconds and suddenly remember they had a hair appointment and turn their signal light on. Kipling was an original himself, a nasty piece of work in his own way. Then he had one of those life-altering moments. Woke up after a three day party in the Canadian Club and found himself pissing blood. Decided on the spot to switch from rye and hops to the weed of wisdom. Best decision he ever made. Saved his life. Among the people who are into driving fast cars fast, there's always debate about how high you can rev a motor. Nobody really believes that "factory recommended redline" stuff. That's like an official speed limit; a helpful suggestion but everybody knows you can go faster. Oh, the Chevy small-blocks with hydraulic lifters can be "safely" wound to 6 grand, but with a solid cam you're "safely" good for 7500. Trouble is, you never really know for sure the upper limit of "safely" until it's too late. Kipling is one of those mechanical geniuses with an intuitive understanding about what makes things run and what makes them run faster. Everybody needs somebody like that in their life, at least if your life includes rebuilding engines, replacing clutches, restoring cars. I personally have a vague understanding of how stuff works, but I'm a bit of a lame-ass in the hands-on department. It's somewhat disconcerting to have a handful of screws and bolts and nuts left over after you've done a brake job on your car. That's why I always call on Kipling. Now a repair or a rebuild with Kipling always starts with a trip to the NAPA store. How about we fire up one of these before we go, he'll say. Alrighty, I'll say. So we do. Sit around and chat a bit. Maybe fire up another one. Then we're off to NAPA. By now we're getting a little hungry, so we stop at Tim Hortons, have a few donuts. I'm partial to the apple fritters myself. The fruit explosion muffins are damn tasty too, if you've never tried one. Then we sit around there for awhile, shoot the shit some more, and by God, by the time we hit the parts store the day is half over. By Kipling's calculations the solid lifter hemi should be good for 8,000 rpm, no matter what the factory manuals said. After all, the Nascar guys run them that hard for 500 miles at a time. So we get our shopping list and make it back to the shop, get the job organized. Well goddamn if we didn't forget the whatever! And this! And that! And the gasket sealer... Guess we gotta go back to the NAPA store. But lets fire up one of these first. Alrighty. So a job that should take an afternoon takes three weekends, but it's done, it's done right, and you had a good time doing it. Kipling pulls the hemi up behind the start line at the Highway 86 dragstrip and lets loose a burnout that wouldn't have been out of place in the Pro Stock finals at the Winternationals, ten seconds of screaming hemi at 8,000 rpm with just the nose of the Charger peeking out of a billowing tower of tire smoke a hundred feet high. Suddenly, an eerie silence. Turns out you couldn't "safely" twist the hemi that far after all.