I been thinking, next time I retire, maybe I'll head back to Saint John.
Lived there for a spell back in the early '90s, when I worked at Mr. Irving's shipyard, building those frigates for the Royal Canadian Navy. Ya, that was me. Sure, there was a couple thousand other guys "worked" there, but everybody knew who done all the actual work.
Even though life was somewhat unkind to me during my tenure in Canada's oldest city, I've always had a warm spot in my heart for the old girl. That's why it pains me to see what she's come to.
All those solid shipyard jobs are gone. The main Irving yard is in Halifax now.
A lot of the people are gone too, off in pursuit of greener pastures.
That's led to a situation where Saint John has some of the most affordable real estate in the land. You can get yourself a two-family classic east-coast-style home in the downtown for well under a hundred grand. Rents may be low by Ontario standards, but even if you only got 600 bucks a month for that other unit, you'd pretty much have your own roof taken care of.
This is why Saint John needs Syrian immigrants. Yup, bring on those White Helmets!
Hey, they were making a $150/ month "stipend" in the homeland; even at min wage they'll be pulling down two grand! And nobody dropping barrel bombs on your head... you've made it to paradise!
As for jobs, I just took a tour of the Canada Job Bank and they've got 401 jobs on the board in the Saint John area. True, many of them are going to be out of reach for a new arrival, but plenty of them are not. Landscaping. Entry level restaurant jobs. The kind of jobs traditionally filled by recent immigrants, come to think of it.
Come on White Helmets; now it's time to save Saint John!
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Amazon does not create jobs; it destroys them
Here's a good-news story!
Amazon is bringing 800 jobs to Caledon! They'll be shipping books, electronics, and toys from this "fulfillment centre." (BTW google "working conditions at Amazon warehouses" and you'll get a new appreciation for George Orwell. Fulfilment isn't what fulfillment centres are about.)
Caledon's good-news story follows a mere two months after Ottawa got a similar good-news story. They'll be getting a fulfillment centre too! According to local MP Andrew Leslie, "it will employ approximately 1000 people (in) good middle class jobs..."
God bless Amazon! They're spreading their good middle class jobs all over the place!
The euphoria is almost palpable!
Alas, MP Andrew Leslie apparently has no inkling of what a middle class job looks like. Leslie retired from the Canadian Forces with the rank of Lieutenant General. That's a job that pays over $20 thousand - per month! Between his CF pension and his MP gig (base salary $172,000/yr) the double-dipping Leslie is a bona fide one percenter!
Amazon warehouse employees, on the other hand, are what you'd call the working poor. They're paid a whisker over minimum wage. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos (net worth 143 billion USD) is fiercely anti-union. A substantial portion of his US work-force requires food stamps to get by. This is not what any reasonable person would call a "good middle class job."
Here's another thing to consider; Amazon has twice the revenue per employee as its most efficient bricks-and-mortar competitor, Walmart. That's another way of saying that for every warehouse job Amazon creates, at least two jobs will disappear in the bricks-and-mortar retail sector. Amazon comes not to create jobs, but to destroy them!
Walmart "associate" is not a middle class job either, and I'm under no illusions about Walmart being a workers' paradise, but I've never heard of Walmart employees peeing in bottles because they'll fail to meet their quota if they take a bathroom break, or of ambulances waiting in the parking lot to ferry employees to the hospital as they drop from exhaustion.
But here's even worse news; nowhere in the various mainstream news stories on these new Ontario warehouses, does any reporter (you know, those bold sleuths who pride themselves on speaking truth to power) so much as hint that there might be a dark side to all this good news.
Amazon is bringing 800 jobs to Caledon! They'll be shipping books, electronics, and toys from this "fulfillment centre." (BTW google "working conditions at Amazon warehouses" and you'll get a new appreciation for George Orwell. Fulfilment isn't what fulfillment centres are about.)
Caledon's good-news story follows a mere two months after Ottawa got a similar good-news story. They'll be getting a fulfillment centre too! According to local MP Andrew Leslie, "it will employ approximately 1000 people (in) good middle class jobs..."
God bless Amazon! They're spreading their good middle class jobs all over the place!
The euphoria is almost palpable!
Alas, MP Andrew Leslie apparently has no inkling of what a middle class job looks like. Leslie retired from the Canadian Forces with the rank of Lieutenant General. That's a job that pays over $20 thousand - per month! Between his CF pension and his MP gig (base salary $172,000/yr) the double-dipping Leslie is a bona fide one percenter!
Amazon warehouse employees, on the other hand, are what you'd call the working poor. They're paid a whisker over minimum wage. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos (net worth 143 billion USD) is fiercely anti-union. A substantial portion of his US work-force requires food stamps to get by. This is not what any reasonable person would call a "good middle class job."
Here's another thing to consider; Amazon has twice the revenue per employee as its most efficient bricks-and-mortar competitor, Walmart. That's another way of saying that for every warehouse job Amazon creates, at least two jobs will disappear in the bricks-and-mortar retail sector. Amazon comes not to create jobs, but to destroy them!
Walmart "associate" is not a middle class job either, and I'm under no illusions about Walmart being a workers' paradise, but I've never heard of Walmart employees peeing in bottles because they'll fail to meet their quota if they take a bathroom break, or of ambulances waiting in the parking lot to ferry employees to the hospital as they drop from exhaustion.
But here's even worse news; nowhere in the various mainstream news stories on these new Ontario warehouses, does any reporter (you know, those bold sleuths who pride themselves on speaking truth to power) so much as hint that there might be a dark side to all this good news.
Friday, July 27, 2018
How low interest rates fuel real estate bubbles
As regular readers will know, my folks were DPs who got off the boat at Pier 21 in '56.
Mom took care of the kids, and when the kids were all in school she made a few dollars cleaning the houses of the more posh folks in town.
Dad got a job at Kloepfer Coal, shovelling heating coal with a hand shovel.
As their language skills progressed, they moved on.
By the late '60s Dad was a real estate broker.
Being on the periphery of that business for a long time, I suppose it should be less than a complete surprise that in my woodshed-cleansing adventures I happened across a little tome entitled "Monthly payments for mortgages," put out by the Ontario Real Estate Association.
Probably from the late '80s or early '90s.
Here's what gave me a neck cramp; those tables start at 8% and go to 25%.
They could not even conceive of a mortgage rate under 8%!
The mortgage here at Falling Downs is 2.5%. When it comes up for renewal, I could be looking at three and a half.
Let's put that in perspective.
A hundred grand of mortgage at a rate of 16%, which is where rates went in the early '90s, runs you $1320 bucks a month.
Drop that rate to 12% and you're looking at just over a thousand a month.
At 8% you're under $800 a month.
At two and a half percent, we're at $450 a month.
By and large, folks don't look at the interest rate, they look at the monthly payment.
As the rates came down, the amount of house you could afford with your monthly payment inevitably went up and up and up.
That's why a starter home in a lot of places runs to 400k or more.
But don't worry; as rates go up and up, the price of the house you can afford with your monthly payment will go down and down.
Eventually a starter home will be just $100,000 again!
Mom took care of the kids, and when the kids were all in school she made a few dollars cleaning the houses of the more posh folks in town.
Dad got a job at Kloepfer Coal, shovelling heating coal with a hand shovel.
As their language skills progressed, they moved on.
By the late '60s Dad was a real estate broker.
Being on the periphery of that business for a long time, I suppose it should be less than a complete surprise that in my woodshed-cleansing adventures I happened across a little tome entitled "Monthly payments for mortgages," put out by the Ontario Real Estate Association.
Probably from the late '80s or early '90s.
Here's what gave me a neck cramp; those tables start at 8% and go to 25%.
They could not even conceive of a mortgage rate under 8%!
The mortgage here at Falling Downs is 2.5%. When it comes up for renewal, I could be looking at three and a half.
Let's put that in perspective.
A hundred grand of mortgage at a rate of 16%, which is where rates went in the early '90s, runs you $1320 bucks a month.
Drop that rate to 12% and you're looking at just over a thousand a month.
At 8% you're under $800 a month.
At two and a half percent, we're at $450 a month.
By and large, folks don't look at the interest rate, they look at the monthly payment.
As the rates came down, the amount of house you could afford with your monthly payment inevitably went up and up and up.
That's why a starter home in a lot of places runs to 400k or more.
But don't worry; as rates go up and up, the price of the house you can afford with your monthly payment will go down and down.
Eventually a starter home will be just $100,000 again!
I'm not a hoarder; I just have a lot of stuff
The Farm Manager has been after me for a while now to clear out the woodshed. That includes boxes and boxes of stuff that in some cases have been unopened in twenty five years and three or four moves. Some stuff has been around even longer.
My golf clubs for example. Last round of golf I played was around thirty years ago. But they keep moving with me. I didn't ever play a round of golf when I lived in Calgary, but I had a friend bring them out on an Air Canada flight. Not so much for the clubs, but for the jar of hash oil in the bottom of the bag.
I don't blame the FM for wanting the woodshed cleaned up. After all, we've gone two winters now without heating with wood, so maybe it's time. I used to hand-split the fire wood back there, and over the years, between the wood-chips and the stray bark and the sawdust, a carpet of wood detritus a couple of inches thick had accumulated on the concrete floor.
Chloe and Doublewide like to hang out back there. I'd set out a cat box for them and a little water dish. As I got to shovelling the stuff off the floor and into a wheelbarrow, I realized why we so seldom had to change the cat litter. Apparently they've considered the entire 16 x 20 foot space one giant cat box all along!
Anyway, I wheeled out about ten loads of wood-shavings generously infused with kitty waste. We'll be growing some mighty fine pumpkins in the compost heap next year.
We always get a few pumpkins out of the compost pile. That's because every year after Halloween we toss the jack-o-lantern in the compost. Next year, more pumpkins!
That's my kind of gardening.
Then I had to do triage on some of the shit that's been piling up on the shelves back there, which entails opening those boxes. When I move house, I generally have one box marked "kitchen," one box marked "bathroom," and a couple dozen boxes labelled "miscellaneous."
That's where the walk down memory lane begins. You know when your kid makes a cute drawing at age three and you stick in on the fridge door with a magnet? Well, I've still got every drawing that ever graced the fridge from age two or three till about thirteen, when they got too self-conscious to have their art on display, at least on the fridge door at Dad's place.
And the photographs! Holy nostalgia, Batman!
That's kinda where my clearing out the woodshed project is stuck. All these pictures of when the children were wee toddlers and then a little older and then my daughter got braces and Junior got his hair bleached and before you know it they're all grown up.
It's a happy-sad kinda thing.
There's also the stuff that you're keeping because it doesn't quite work the way it should but you could probably fix it if you got around to it.
The bass amp.
The Poulan chainsaw.
The kerosene heater, the two or three electric heaters, the generator that the dogs chewed the knobs off, the crock-pot... and so on...
Eventually you've got to face the fact that you're never gonna get around to doing anything with this shit.
Like I said, triage.
My golf clubs for example. Last round of golf I played was around thirty years ago. But they keep moving with me. I didn't ever play a round of golf when I lived in Calgary, but I had a friend bring them out on an Air Canada flight. Not so much for the clubs, but for the jar of hash oil in the bottom of the bag.
I don't blame the FM for wanting the woodshed cleaned up. After all, we've gone two winters now without heating with wood, so maybe it's time. I used to hand-split the fire wood back there, and over the years, between the wood-chips and the stray bark and the sawdust, a carpet of wood detritus a couple of inches thick had accumulated on the concrete floor.
Chloe and Doublewide like to hang out back there. I'd set out a cat box for them and a little water dish. As I got to shovelling the stuff off the floor and into a wheelbarrow, I realized why we so seldom had to change the cat litter. Apparently they've considered the entire 16 x 20 foot space one giant cat box all along!
Anyway, I wheeled out about ten loads of wood-shavings generously infused with kitty waste. We'll be growing some mighty fine pumpkins in the compost heap next year.
We always get a few pumpkins out of the compost pile. That's because every year after Halloween we toss the jack-o-lantern in the compost. Next year, more pumpkins!
That's my kind of gardening.
Then I had to do triage on some of the shit that's been piling up on the shelves back there, which entails opening those boxes. When I move house, I generally have one box marked "kitchen," one box marked "bathroom," and a couple dozen boxes labelled "miscellaneous."
That's where the walk down memory lane begins. You know when your kid makes a cute drawing at age three and you stick in on the fridge door with a magnet? Well, I've still got every drawing that ever graced the fridge from age two or three till about thirteen, when they got too self-conscious to have their art on display, at least on the fridge door at Dad's place.
And the photographs! Holy nostalgia, Batman!
That's kinda where my clearing out the woodshed project is stuck. All these pictures of when the children were wee toddlers and then a little older and then my daughter got braces and Junior got his hair bleached and before you know it they're all grown up.
It's a happy-sad kinda thing.
There's also the stuff that you're keeping because it doesn't quite work the way it should but you could probably fix it if you got around to it.
The bass amp.
The Poulan chainsaw.
The kerosene heater, the two or three electric heaters, the generator that the dogs chewed the knobs off, the crock-pot... and so on...
Eventually you've got to face the fact that you're never gonna get around to doing anything with this shit.
Like I said, triage.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Canada; projecting soft power in a hard world
And just how soft is our soft power? Why, softer than a week-old kitten!
Just a couple of weeks ago Bessma Momani was celebrating our great fluffiness in the pages of The Globe and Mail. Yup, we're gifting those Iraqi's something so special that money can't buy it; inclusion and diversity!
No doubt we're doing the same for Mali. Thank God for Canada! Without us, thoughts of inclusion and diversity might never cross the minds of those backward brown folks!
I have a hunch that inclusion and diversity are a long way from top-of-mind in either Mali or Iraq. To make such asinine comments requires the writer to pretend they're not aware of the Canadian Forces ongoing struggles with inclusion and diversity. If the CF can't get their own diversity ducks in a row, how are they to model diversity and inclusion in Mali or Iraq?
Today Mark MacKinnon quoted a Global Affairs spokeswoman to the effect that one reason Canada gives money to the White Helmets is so they can "get more women involved in managing the organization."
Now that's one fluffy exercise in soft power! Think about it for a minute; The White Helmets operate in those areas of Syria controlled by the Islamist "freedom fighters," aka al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS, and so forth. These are extreme Islamic fundamentalists. They're gonna use our money to train more women for leadership positions?
Now THAT'S FLUFFY!
Just a couple of weeks ago Bessma Momani was celebrating our great fluffiness in the pages of The Globe and Mail. Yup, we're gifting those Iraqi's something so special that money can't buy it; inclusion and diversity!
No doubt we're doing the same for Mali. Thank God for Canada! Without us, thoughts of inclusion and diversity might never cross the minds of those backward brown folks!
I have a hunch that inclusion and diversity are a long way from top-of-mind in either Mali or Iraq. To make such asinine comments requires the writer to pretend they're not aware of the Canadian Forces ongoing struggles with inclusion and diversity. If the CF can't get their own diversity ducks in a row, how are they to model diversity and inclusion in Mali or Iraq?
Today Mark MacKinnon quoted a Global Affairs spokeswoman to the effect that one reason Canada gives money to the White Helmets is so they can "get more women involved in managing the organization."
Now that's one fluffy exercise in soft power! Think about it for a minute; The White Helmets operate in those areas of Syria controlled by the Islamist "freedom fighters," aka al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS, and so forth. These are extreme Islamic fundamentalists. They're gonna use our money to train more women for leadership positions?
Now THAT'S FLUFFY!
A sure sign you're reading bullsh@t
Chrystia Freeland loses sleep worrying about the White Helmets.
I hope Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Minister of Border Security Bill Blair are losing sleep too, because they don't seem to have a clue about the can of worms they're opening with this heroic rescue mission of the Syrian White Helmets.
Canada's role in this heroic rescue mission grows with every day that passes. Original foreign news reports of the rescue made no mention of Canada, but Freeland and her department seized the moment and have been busy beavers covering themselves in glory ever since.
Our national newspaper of record is happy to oblige. By today this incident is the greatest triumph for Canadian diplomacy in almost forty years, according to Mark MacKinnon at the Globe and Mail. The last time Canadian diplomacy was this great was when we teamed up with the CIA to spirit a few CIA agents out of Tehran in 1980.
Really?
When you see that kind of over-the-top exaggeration, its a sure sign you're reading bullshit. Surely our diplomats have done a few notable things in the intervening years?
One of the disturbing factors about our government's position and the reporting of the Globe is that both rely entirely on the White Helmets for news about the White Helmets. Whatever that is, it's not journalism. When I was writing about the rescue the other day I linked to Scott Ritter and Robert Fisk as two credible journalists who don't buy the White Helmets' propaganda. Here's a few more names: Sy Hersh, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Parry, Max Blumenthal, Philip Giraldi... can they all have morphed in Assad-Putin stooges?
That would indeed make a far-fetched conspiracy theory.
Here's another puzzle. How does it take over 100 million dollars to fund a band of volunteers? Turns out they're not volunteers at all; each "volunteer" gets $150/month. That is indeed a tidy take-home pay in war-torn Syria, where a soldier in Assad's army makes less than half of that.
Of course, that math leads to another question. If the White Helmets have, since 2014, received $100 million plus from countries wanting to overthrow Assad, where's the rest of the money going? Three thousand paid volunteers on the ground at 150 per, runs to five million a year. That's twenty millions in the past four years.
Where's the missing $80,000,000?
A good place to start looking might be in this story. The name of James Le Mesurier pops up again and again. Seems the lion's share of the funding goes through his Mayday Rescue NGO. Maybe he could answer that question.
By the way, another clue that you're dealing with bullshit is when the Non Government Organizations you're talking about get their funding from government.
Consider that a tip, Mr. Senior International Correspondent for the Globe and Mail. Get out there and ask a few questions instead of waiting for the next White Helmets press release.
I hope Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Minister of Border Security Bill Blair are losing sleep too, because they don't seem to have a clue about the can of worms they're opening with this heroic rescue mission of the Syrian White Helmets.
Canada's role in this heroic rescue mission grows with every day that passes. Original foreign news reports of the rescue made no mention of Canada, but Freeland and her department seized the moment and have been busy beavers covering themselves in glory ever since.
Our national newspaper of record is happy to oblige. By today this incident is the greatest triumph for Canadian diplomacy in almost forty years, according to Mark MacKinnon at the Globe and Mail. The last time Canadian diplomacy was this great was when we teamed up with the CIA to spirit a few CIA agents out of Tehran in 1980.
Really?
When you see that kind of over-the-top exaggeration, its a sure sign you're reading bullshit. Surely our diplomats have done a few notable things in the intervening years?
One of the disturbing factors about our government's position and the reporting of the Globe is that both rely entirely on the White Helmets for news about the White Helmets. Whatever that is, it's not journalism. When I was writing about the rescue the other day I linked to Scott Ritter and Robert Fisk as two credible journalists who don't buy the White Helmets' propaganda. Here's a few more names: Sy Hersh, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Parry, Max Blumenthal, Philip Giraldi... can they all have morphed in Assad-Putin stooges?
That would indeed make a far-fetched conspiracy theory.
Here's another puzzle. How does it take over 100 million dollars to fund a band of volunteers? Turns out they're not volunteers at all; each "volunteer" gets $150/month. That is indeed a tidy take-home pay in war-torn Syria, where a soldier in Assad's army makes less than half of that.
Of course, that math leads to another question. If the White Helmets have, since 2014, received $100 million plus from countries wanting to overthrow Assad, where's the rest of the money going? Three thousand paid volunteers on the ground at 150 per, runs to five million a year. That's twenty millions in the past four years.
Where's the missing $80,000,000?
A good place to start looking might be in this story. The name of James Le Mesurier pops up again and again. Seems the lion's share of the funding goes through his Mayday Rescue NGO. Maybe he could answer that question.
By the way, another clue that you're dealing with bullshit is when the Non Government Organizations you're talking about get their funding from government.
Consider that a tip, Mr. Senior International Correspondent for the Globe and Mail. Get out there and ask a few questions instead of waiting for the next White Helmets press release.
TRUMP TREASON REVEALED!!!
And it wasn't the Mueller investigation that revealed it; it was the Entous investigation.
Adam Entous, formerly of the Washington Post and the WSJ, has a fifteen page expose in the June 18 issue of The New Yorker detailing the Trump team's collusion with several foreign powers. Seems that Mueller's been looking at the wrong foreign power. His year and a half investigation has thus far served up some woefully thin gruel from which to make a case for Russian meddling in America's sacred democracy.
Instead of Russia, it seems he should have focused on Saudi Arabia, UAE, and, especially, Israel. Entous' investigation reveals collusion between agents of those foreign powers and the Trump team virtually 24/7 throughout the lead-up to the 2016 election. This collusion occurred at the highest levels, including between the future President and the heads of state of these foreign entities.
Entous' story has been out for well over a month now, so I'm surprised there's been no outrage in our major media about this foreign meddling. Surely somebody's going to be calling for sanctions on these rogue states any day now!
Sunday, July 22, 2018
The Oxenden Pachanga
Back in the day, when I lived on one of the prime streets in Guelph, my next-door neighbours, both professors of philosophy at the U of G, had a go-to weekend place up here near Oxenden.
I drive through Oxenden pretty much every day now.
If you come up the Old Mill Road from the east, and then make a turn at your first right, you'll notice what I believe to be a 23' Pachanga on a trailer.
Right behind that house on the corner.
And this is all within the town limits of Oxenden, such as they are...
I drive by there all the time.
I'm guessing that Pachanga's a single big-block.
No matter. Any Pachanga is a classic in the annals of hi-performance boating!
On the other hand, even a wee minimalist small-block Pachanga is gonna run you five hundred bucks to fill up the gas tank.
Fuck that!
I'm signed up for sailing lessons at the Lake of Bays sailing club starting Monday.
I drive through Oxenden pretty much every day now.
If you come up the Old Mill Road from the east, and then make a turn at your first right, you'll notice what I believe to be a 23' Pachanga on a trailer.
Right behind that house on the corner.
And this is all within the town limits of Oxenden, such as they are...
I drive by there all the time.
I'm guessing that Pachanga's a single big-block.
No matter. Any Pachanga is a classic in the annals of hi-performance boating!
On the other hand, even a wee minimalist small-block Pachanga is gonna run you five hundred bucks to fill up the gas tank.
Fuck that!
I'm signed up for sailing lessons at the Lake of Bays sailing club starting Monday.
Canada rolls out red carpet for White Helmets
According to this story at CBC, Canada is poised to accept 250 White Helmet civil volunteers from Syria, plus their (no-doubt very extended) families.
Depending on how closely you follow current events, you may or may not be familiar with the rather dodgy history of this bold brotherhood of "civil defence volunteers."
They are routinely portrayed as heroes in our mainstream media. They worked exclusively in areas of Syria under the control of the most virulent Islamic radicals. That so many young fighting-age males would be allowed to operate in such areas without pledging allegiance to the ISIS head-choppers or picking up a gun is but the first of many mysteries.
They even won an Oscar for their heroics!
Another mystery concerns their status as "volunteers." My understanding of the word "volunteer" is that a volunteer is someone who gives freely of their time to further some cause that is worthwhile, at least in their own mind.
If these White Helmet guys were volunteers, why did they get tens of millions of dollars per year in funding from the very cabal of nations committed to over-throwing the Assad administration?
The CBC story mentions that the White Helmets were founded by a "retired" British SAS operative by the name of James Le Mesurier. Google that name and see what comes up.
Here's a story from Scott Ritter, the former US weapons inspector, that includes a lengthy discussion of the White Helmets.
Here's a Robert Fisk story that raises a few questions about the heroic White Helmets. Fisk is one of the most respected Middle-East reporters published in mainstream media.
I'm a guy who tries to keep an open mind. I'm an immigrant. I come from a family that once had refugee status.
Maybe Scott Ritter is full of shit.
Maybe Robert Fisk is full of shit.
I want to welcome refugees.
But maybe, just maybe, we're opening the door to 250 hard-core ISIS militants.
Something to think about...
Depending on how closely you follow current events, you may or may not be familiar with the rather dodgy history of this bold brotherhood of "civil defence volunteers."
They are routinely portrayed as heroes in our mainstream media. They worked exclusively in areas of Syria under the control of the most virulent Islamic radicals. That so many young fighting-age males would be allowed to operate in such areas without pledging allegiance to the ISIS head-choppers or picking up a gun is but the first of many mysteries.
They even won an Oscar for their heroics!
Another mystery concerns their status as "volunteers." My understanding of the word "volunteer" is that a volunteer is someone who gives freely of their time to further some cause that is worthwhile, at least in their own mind.
If these White Helmet guys were volunteers, why did they get tens of millions of dollars per year in funding from the very cabal of nations committed to over-throwing the Assad administration?
The CBC story mentions that the White Helmets were founded by a "retired" British SAS operative by the name of James Le Mesurier. Google that name and see what comes up.
Here's a story from Scott Ritter, the former US weapons inspector, that includes a lengthy discussion of the White Helmets.
Here's a Robert Fisk story that raises a few questions about the heroic White Helmets. Fisk is one of the most respected Middle-East reporters published in mainstream media.
I'm a guy who tries to keep an open mind. I'm an immigrant. I come from a family that once had refugee status.
Maybe Scott Ritter is full of shit.
Maybe Robert Fisk is full of shit.
I want to welcome refugees.
But maybe, just maybe, we're opening the door to 250 hard-core ISIS militants.
Something to think about...
Camping, bullshit, welding, Hangin' Hank, and the Irving shipyard
This is from the archives, one of the first posts.
Made good time getting up here.
Eleven hundred and some clicks in twelve hours. That included an hour for lunch at a lovely spot overlooking the north channel in Thessalon, and an unscheduled stop shortly thereafter while a semi-literate cop took forever to write me a speeding ticket.
I used to think that would be a great job, cop. I even applied once, the City of Guelph Police Department. On the application there was a question, "have you ever been arrested?" and then they left a two-line space. I wasn't sure the best way to handle this, so in the space I wrote "see over."
Not that I was ever much of a criminal, but there was a fair bit of your normal late adolescent alcohol-inspired assholery.
I remember the first time I stood in front of Hangin' Hank, infamous local judge and bon vivant down at the country club.
I learned a lesson that day that Conrad Black still hasn't figured out; while you might well be the smartest guy in the room, when you're standing in front of a judge isn't the time to let the room know it.
Subsequent visits to Hangin' Hanks workplace went a lot smoother, and I think eventually, as my adolescence dragged on, we grew to have a grudging mutual respect. It wasn't till years later, when I got to know one of the bartenders at the country club, that I learned Hangin' Hank was also known in some circles as Hammered Hank, and was on most work days as shit-faced sitting there on the bench as I was when I did the stupid stuff that led to my visits there.
So the cop thing didn't work out and I was forced, more or less by default, to continue my welding career. Welding is where you take something called an electrode, made of an exotic blend of alloys than I can neither spell nor pronounce, fry it up with a few hundred amps of electricity, and in the process join other metal things together.
What also happens in the process is that giant clouds of toxic smoke are created, which were then inhaled by everyone in the shop for the rest of the eight or ten or twelve hour shift. It was the norm in a place like the General Electric plant for the toxic fog to be so thick you couldn't see from one end of the shop to the other.
In the midst of that fog you'd see guys welding away, a little cigar-hole cut in the front of their welding helmets, cheerfully puffing away on a stogie. The health and safety do-gooders eventually put an end to smoking on the job, but they haven't figured out how to make non-toxic welding rods yet.
The best welding jobs, to my mind, were always the ones that involved the least welding. Back in the early eighties I was doing maintenance welding in sawmills on Vancouver Island. Most of the mills are closed now, but it was a great gig at the time.
You'd usually have hours of planning, fitting, re-fitting, head-scratching and general dinking around before you finally got to a five minute weld. And unlike a lot of jobs; judging, teaching, politicking, writing, stock market analysis, to name a few; you can't bullshit welding.
Which is not to say you can't do the job while half in the bag. Apparently there were times when Hammered Hank had to be carried from the bench to the judges chambers after the courtroom was cleared.
There was a guy I worked with at the drydock in Saint John who coulda give old Hank a run for his money. We worked the afternoon shift together, and Buddy would already have a good glow on when he turned up.
The first half of any shift at the shipyard was always a bit of a lost cause. We were working on the Canadian Patrol Frigate program and everything was top secret, which meant the guys on the day shift had to turn in all the blueprints before the end of their shift, and then the afternoon shift foremen had to go around handing them out again. That could often take till lunchtime, so a bit of a glow when you arrived at work was neither here nor there.
One of the perks of the shipyard was the Royal Canadian Legion located in the parking lot. How that came to be there is a long story.
Over the years, as the Irving family bought and then relentlessly expanded the yards, they picked up all the properties around. The Legion refused to sell. Eventually you had this huge parking lot with the Legion right there smack dab in the middle. Needless to say this was the spot to go for lunch. We'd all be honorary Legionnaires for half an hour and most guys would have two, maybe three beers.
Not Buddy. Three triples and three beer chasers for lunch. Every day.
Now for me, that's not the time I want to be welding anything that matters. With Buddy it wasn't like that. His eye got keener, his hand steadier. He was famous for it. If there was a tough job anywhere in the yard they'd radio over to our section, and Buddy, well past three sheets as far as I was concerned, would be dispatched to get it done. Best welder I ever knew.
You can't bullshit welding.
And now, apparently, you can't find welders. Welders in Alberta typically make anywhere from $25 to $50 an hour. There's lots of guys, and some women too, around Fort McMurray making well over a hundred grand a year. And the job isn't nearly as dirty as it used to be.
So what are we doing to retrain our dispossessed mill-workers to take those jobs? Right next to nothing, that's what.
Instead, what the employers in Alberta are doing is lobbying the government to bring in foreign workers by the tens of thousands.
Now that's bullshit.
The bar tender told me that when Hammered Hank was ready to drive home after an eight hour shift at the country club, he'd call the cops. Two cruisers would show up. One would lead the way and one would follow behind as Hank drove home.
Never had an accident.
Made good time getting up here.
Eleven hundred and some clicks in twelve hours. That included an hour for lunch at a lovely spot overlooking the north channel in Thessalon, and an unscheduled stop shortly thereafter while a semi-literate cop took forever to write me a speeding ticket.
I used to think that would be a great job, cop. I even applied once, the City of Guelph Police Department. On the application there was a question, "have you ever been arrested?" and then they left a two-line space. I wasn't sure the best way to handle this, so in the space I wrote "see over."
Not that I was ever much of a criminal, but there was a fair bit of your normal late adolescent alcohol-inspired assholery.
I remember the first time I stood in front of Hangin' Hank, infamous local judge and bon vivant down at the country club.
I learned a lesson that day that Conrad Black still hasn't figured out; while you might well be the smartest guy in the room, when you're standing in front of a judge isn't the time to let the room know it.
Subsequent visits to Hangin' Hanks workplace went a lot smoother, and I think eventually, as my adolescence dragged on, we grew to have a grudging mutual respect. It wasn't till years later, when I got to know one of the bartenders at the country club, that I learned Hangin' Hank was also known in some circles as Hammered Hank, and was on most work days as shit-faced sitting there on the bench as I was when I did the stupid stuff that led to my visits there.
So the cop thing didn't work out and I was forced, more or less by default, to continue my welding career. Welding is where you take something called an electrode, made of an exotic blend of alloys than I can neither spell nor pronounce, fry it up with a few hundred amps of electricity, and in the process join other metal things together.
What also happens in the process is that giant clouds of toxic smoke are created, which were then inhaled by everyone in the shop for the rest of the eight or ten or twelve hour shift. It was the norm in a place like the General Electric plant for the toxic fog to be so thick you couldn't see from one end of the shop to the other.
In the midst of that fog you'd see guys welding away, a little cigar-hole cut in the front of their welding helmets, cheerfully puffing away on a stogie. The health and safety do-gooders eventually put an end to smoking on the job, but they haven't figured out how to make non-toxic welding rods yet.
The best welding jobs, to my mind, were always the ones that involved the least welding. Back in the early eighties I was doing maintenance welding in sawmills on Vancouver Island. Most of the mills are closed now, but it was a great gig at the time.
You'd usually have hours of planning, fitting, re-fitting, head-scratching and general dinking around before you finally got to a five minute weld. And unlike a lot of jobs; judging, teaching, politicking, writing, stock market analysis, to name a few; you can't bullshit welding.
Which is not to say you can't do the job while half in the bag. Apparently there were times when Hammered Hank had to be carried from the bench to the judges chambers after the courtroom was cleared.
There was a guy I worked with at the drydock in Saint John who coulda give old Hank a run for his money. We worked the afternoon shift together, and Buddy would already have a good glow on when he turned up.
The first half of any shift at the shipyard was always a bit of a lost cause. We were working on the Canadian Patrol Frigate program and everything was top secret, which meant the guys on the day shift had to turn in all the blueprints before the end of their shift, and then the afternoon shift foremen had to go around handing them out again. That could often take till lunchtime, so a bit of a glow when you arrived at work was neither here nor there.
One of the perks of the shipyard was the Royal Canadian Legion located in the parking lot. How that came to be there is a long story.
Over the years, as the Irving family bought and then relentlessly expanded the yards, they picked up all the properties around. The Legion refused to sell. Eventually you had this huge parking lot with the Legion right there smack dab in the middle. Needless to say this was the spot to go for lunch. We'd all be honorary Legionnaires for half an hour and most guys would have two, maybe three beers.
Not Buddy. Three triples and three beer chasers for lunch. Every day.
Now for me, that's not the time I want to be welding anything that matters. With Buddy it wasn't like that. His eye got keener, his hand steadier. He was famous for it. If there was a tough job anywhere in the yard they'd radio over to our section, and Buddy, well past three sheets as far as I was concerned, would be dispatched to get it done. Best welder I ever knew.
You can't bullshit welding.
And now, apparently, you can't find welders. Welders in Alberta typically make anywhere from $25 to $50 an hour. There's lots of guys, and some women too, around Fort McMurray making well over a hundred grand a year. And the job isn't nearly as dirty as it used to be.
So what are we doing to retrain our dispossessed mill-workers to take those jobs? Right next to nothing, that's what.
Instead, what the employers in Alberta are doing is lobbying the government to bring in foreign workers by the tens of thousands.
Now that's bullshit.
The bar tender told me that when Hammered Hank was ready to drive home after an eight hour shift at the country club, he'd call the cops. Two cruisers would show up. One would lead the way and one would follow behind as Hank drove home.
Never had an accident.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Looks like Putin's got democracy on the run
That's according to the Globe & Mail's Mark Mackinnon in a two-pager in today's paper. (Still only $6.30 you know where.)
That Putin chappie must be an absolute genius. There he is, running rings around the cabal of "liberal democracies" who feel oh so threatened by Russia, and he's doing it with a military budget that is one tenth that of the USA!
How is that not genius?
Some very clever person produced a graphic showing just where and how Putin's minions are undermining democracy. I notice that Canada has been the victim of "disinformation."
Is that because we Canadians can, of our own free will, read the news on Sputnik or RT?
Or is it because those propaganda outlets for Putin had the nerve to tell the (true) story of our Foreign Affairs minister's Nazi grampa?
Just for fun, Murat Yukselir should root through the annual reports of the National Endowment for Democracy over the past ten years and produce a graphic showing where the US has been meddling.
This entire narrative of feigned horror at Russia's undermining of democracy is a bit over-ripe in my opinion.
Nobody, but nobody, interferes in other nations on the scale that the US does.
That Putin chappie must be an absolute genius. There he is, running rings around the cabal of "liberal democracies" who feel oh so threatened by Russia, and he's doing it with a military budget that is one tenth that of the USA!
How is that not genius?
Some very clever person produced a graphic showing just where and how Putin's minions are undermining democracy. I notice that Canada has been the victim of "disinformation."
Is that because we Canadians can, of our own free will, read the news on Sputnik or RT?
Or is it because those propaganda outlets for Putin had the nerve to tell the (true) story of our Foreign Affairs minister's Nazi grampa?
Just for fun, Murat Yukselir should root through the annual reports of the National Endowment for Democracy over the past ten years and produce a graphic showing where the US has been meddling.
This entire narrative of feigned horror at Russia's undermining of democracy is a bit over-ripe in my opinion.
Nobody, but nobody, interferes in other nations on the scale that the US does.
I don't get hot tubs
Occasionally the Farm Manager and I fantasize about moving south so we can be closer to our children. To that end we will spend a few hours now and again perusing the real estate listings that would facilitate such proximity.
This tends to end badly. No sane person would trade a hundred acres up here in the Bruce for a fifty foot lot in Guelph or a 500 square foot condo on the waterfront in Toronto. All three are in approximately the same price range.
What's been enlightening about these property searches though is the frequency with which one finds homes for sale that feature a hot tub, and it is invariably considered a "feature."
I blame Rodney Dangerfield for that.
Sure, that looks like loads of fun, but think about this; I've seen, on more than a few occasions, folks sitting in hot tubs for hours on end. They'll consume multiple beverages in that time, but THEY NEVER GET OUT TO PEE!
Ponder that for a moment. What do you think is happening?
I'll tell you whats happening; they're pissing in the hot tub, that's what!
Kinda takes the magic out of that Dangerfield scene, doesn't it?
This tends to end badly. No sane person would trade a hundred acres up here in the Bruce for a fifty foot lot in Guelph or a 500 square foot condo on the waterfront in Toronto. All three are in approximately the same price range.
What's been enlightening about these property searches though is the frequency with which one finds homes for sale that feature a hot tub, and it is invariably considered a "feature."
I blame Rodney Dangerfield for that.
Sure, that looks like loads of fun, but think about this; I've seen, on more than a few occasions, folks sitting in hot tubs for hours on end. They'll consume multiple beverages in that time, but THEY NEVER GET OUT TO PEE!
Ponder that for a moment. What do you think is happening?
I'll tell you whats happening; they're pissing in the hot tub, that's what!
Kinda takes the magic out of that Dangerfield scene, doesn't it?
Friday, July 20, 2018
Israel contemplates suicide
There's plenty of speculation out there that a full-on IDF attack on Gaza is imminent.
The think tank here at Falling Downs figures it won't happen.
Why?
Because the upper echelon of IDF leadership fully understand the idea is retarded.
Sure, it makes great talking points for a lot of hate-mongering politicians, but the serious people at the pointy end fully understand that a ground attack on Gaza would be a nightmare.
It's one thing to send fighter jets to drop Hellfire missiles and Paveways on people with no air defences.
It's quite another to fight block to block and house to house in Gaza City.
To say nothing of the carnage that will ensue if such a war expands to include the Hezbollah rocketeers in southern Lebanon.
So I figure, political grandstanding aside, there's nothing to worry about.
But I could be wrong.
The think tank here at Falling Downs figures it won't happen.
Why?
Because the upper echelon of IDF leadership fully understand the idea is retarded.
Sure, it makes great talking points for a lot of hate-mongering politicians, but the serious people at the pointy end fully understand that a ground attack on Gaza would be a nightmare.
It's one thing to send fighter jets to drop Hellfire missiles and Paveways on people with no air defences.
It's quite another to fight block to block and house to house in Gaza City.
To say nothing of the carnage that will ensue if such a war expands to include the Hezbollah rocketeers in southern Lebanon.
So I figure, political grandstanding aside, there's nothing to worry about.
But I could be wrong.
Making homophobia cool again
Gay-bashing and fag jokes seem to be making a comeback. Is the tide of political correctitude finally receding?
Polite society has overtly shunned homophobia for at least a quarter century now, but apparently if you really really despise someone, well, it's once again OK to call them a fag.
I've noted this tendency before. How do intelligent people like Colbert and others justify queer slurs to get an easy laugh? It's enough to put me off watching their stuff, and if they're doing it and their audience finds it amusing, then maybe we haven't made the kind of progress these past few decades that we thought.
That ultimate bastion of mainstream liberalism, the New York Times, is now in on the gay-bashing.
Oh, look how clever we are!... we called out Trump and Putin as gay lovers!!! Aren't we just sooo witty!
Well no, you're not, actually.
Do you seriously think garbage like this hurts Trump or Putin? No, but it helps make life more difficult for innumerable young people who may be struggling with their identity. They've got more than enough on their plates without the NYT legitimizing their ostracization.
What's next?
Perhaps the n-word will make a comeback?
Polite society has overtly shunned homophobia for at least a quarter century now, but apparently if you really really despise someone, well, it's once again OK to call them a fag.
I've noted this tendency before. How do intelligent people like Colbert and others justify queer slurs to get an easy laugh? It's enough to put me off watching their stuff, and if they're doing it and their audience finds it amusing, then maybe we haven't made the kind of progress these past few decades that we thought.
That ultimate bastion of mainstream liberalism, the New York Times, is now in on the gay-bashing.
Oh, look how clever we are!... we called out Trump and Putin as gay lovers!!! Aren't we just sooo witty!
Well no, you're not, actually.
Do you seriously think garbage like this hurts Trump or Putin? No, but it helps make life more difficult for innumerable young people who may be struggling with their identity. They've got more than enough on their plates without the NYT legitimizing their ostracization.
What's next?
Perhaps the n-word will make a comeback?
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Trudeau's tune-up
On 16 May Justin Trudeau made a public statement condemning the use of excessive force by the IDF at the Gaza containment fence and calling for an independent inquiry into the matter.
The next day I wrote a blog post remarking on how quickly that story had vanished from the major news aggregators.
But, life goes on, and there are always new outrages to get revved up about, and so I never actually followed up that story.
Until today.
Seems that on the very day that I was writing that post, Justin got a phone call from Bibi. They had a heart to heart about how tough it is being the only democracy in the Middle East and how Israel has a right to defend her borders etc.
On the following day, Trudeau's government abstained on a vote at the UN that called for... wait for it... an independent inquiry into excessive IDF violence at the Gaza containment fence!
Little Fluffy's having quite the learning curve, ain't he!?
The next day I wrote a blog post remarking on how quickly that story had vanished from the major news aggregators.
But, life goes on, and there are always new outrages to get revved up about, and so I never actually followed up that story.
Until today.
Seems that on the very day that I was writing that post, Justin got a phone call from Bibi. They had a heart to heart about how tough it is being the only democracy in the Middle East and how Israel has a right to defend her borders etc.
On the following day, Trudeau's government abstained on a vote at the UN that called for... wait for it... an independent inquiry into excessive IDF violence at the Gaza containment fence!
Little Fluffy's having quite the learning curve, ain't he!?
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
Globe and Mail apoplectic over Putin-Trump confab in Helsinki
There's been shit-hemorrages galore at the Globe since Trump failed to win the release of Putin's Crimean hostages yesterday.
Both Mark MacKinnon and Adrian Morrow lard their front page news stories with plenty of anti-Trump editorializing. Doug Saunders picks up the baton in a quarter page op-ed castigating Trump for failing the people of Syria, Ukraine, and Britain, all of whom were apparently waiting for the US to save them from Putin's aggression.
The paper's main editorial starts out with this fair and balanced assessment of the Trump-Putin meeting;
Donald Trump covered himself with disgrace on Monday, giving another surreal and disturbing performance on the world stage that should fill lovers of peace and democracy with dread.
I certainly love peace and democracy, but what fills me with dread is that there are still folks like the Globe's op-ed crew in positions of influence who think that the USA is the standard-bearer for peace and democracy. That's been a demonstrably false proposition since at least August of 1945.
America bombs other nations for peace and over-throws elected democracies for democracy?
But the Globe and Mail's home-grown Trumpaphobes have nothing on guest hyperventilator Jared Yates Sexton.
Jared turned on his TV just in time for the Trump-Putin news conference and saw the leader of the free world, the President of the Exceptional Nation, "licking the boots of a murderous dictator." According to Jared, this is an even greater outrage than the Singapore summit a few weeks ago with that fat kid from North Korea, where "people are slaughtered, imprisoned, and denied basic human dignity."
I thought he was talking about his own country for a minute, because the description certainly fits, but apparently it's even worse in North Korea, if such a thing can be imagined. Anyway, Trump committed an outrage by attending a conference in Singapore that "put the American flag on an equal footing with that of North Korea."
Who can even imagine such a thing? The Stars and Stripes just another flag alongside a flag that belongs to slanty-eyed brownish folks who have been giving Uncle Sam the finger since 1950?
The horror!
Jared rants along in that vein for a few hundred words. Obviously Trump is a grave threat to the US-dominated world order. That's what I've hoped for all along; that the world will finally wake up and see "American leadership" of the global order for what it is, and it's certainly not been about peace and democracy in my lifetime.
Jared's not giving up hope for American Exceptionalism though. Apparently Mueller has some "concrete evidence" of something that will restore dignity to American politics, although neither Jared or Mueller are forthcoming about what that might be.
If Mueller doesn't deliver, Jared figures Trump needs to be "removed for the good of the country." How or by whom Trump should be removed isn't something Jared elaborates on. I'm assuming he's talking about the democratic process whereby the resistance can put paid to the Orange Ogre at the ballot box two years hence.
If he's talking about something else, I guess we'll find out soon enough if President John Brennan and his Sec of State Michael Moore are up to restoring America's image in the post-Trump world. I'm sceptical.
As for Putin's hostages in Crimea, it seems that a solid majority are quite content to face the future as Russians instead of Ukrainians.
People who value peace and democracy should respect their wishes.
Both Mark MacKinnon and Adrian Morrow lard their front page news stories with plenty of anti-Trump editorializing. Doug Saunders picks up the baton in a quarter page op-ed castigating Trump for failing the people of Syria, Ukraine, and Britain, all of whom were apparently waiting for the US to save them from Putin's aggression.
The paper's main editorial starts out with this fair and balanced assessment of the Trump-Putin meeting;
Donald Trump covered himself with disgrace on Monday, giving another surreal and disturbing performance on the world stage that should fill lovers of peace and democracy with dread.
I certainly love peace and democracy, but what fills me with dread is that there are still folks like the Globe's op-ed crew in positions of influence who think that the USA is the standard-bearer for peace and democracy. That's been a demonstrably false proposition since at least August of 1945.
America bombs other nations for peace and over-throws elected democracies for democracy?
But the Globe and Mail's home-grown Trumpaphobes have nothing on guest hyperventilator Jared Yates Sexton.
Jared turned on his TV just in time for the Trump-Putin news conference and saw the leader of the free world, the President of the Exceptional Nation, "licking the boots of a murderous dictator." According to Jared, this is an even greater outrage than the Singapore summit a few weeks ago with that fat kid from North Korea, where "people are slaughtered, imprisoned, and denied basic human dignity."
I thought he was talking about his own country for a minute, because the description certainly fits, but apparently it's even worse in North Korea, if such a thing can be imagined. Anyway, Trump committed an outrage by attending a conference in Singapore that "put the American flag on an equal footing with that of North Korea."
Who can even imagine such a thing? The Stars and Stripes just another flag alongside a flag that belongs to slanty-eyed brownish folks who have been giving Uncle Sam the finger since 1950?
The horror!
Jared rants along in that vein for a few hundred words. Obviously Trump is a grave threat to the US-dominated world order. That's what I've hoped for all along; that the world will finally wake up and see "American leadership" of the global order for what it is, and it's certainly not been about peace and democracy in my lifetime.
Jared's not giving up hope for American Exceptionalism though. Apparently Mueller has some "concrete evidence" of something that will restore dignity to American politics, although neither Jared or Mueller are forthcoming about what that might be.
If Mueller doesn't deliver, Jared figures Trump needs to be "removed for the good of the country." How or by whom Trump should be removed isn't something Jared elaborates on. I'm assuming he's talking about the democratic process whereby the resistance can put paid to the Orange Ogre at the ballot box two years hence.
If he's talking about something else, I guess we'll find out soon enough if President John Brennan and his Sec of State Michael Moore are up to restoring America's image in the post-Trump world. I'm sceptical.
As for Putin's hostages in Crimea, it seems that a solid majority are quite content to face the future as Russians instead of Ukrainians.
People who value peace and democracy should respect their wishes.
Monday, July 16, 2018
Beseeching the mercy of God
If you're like me you don't think about God too often.
In fact, you can forget about (and far be it from me to wonder about God's chosen pronoun) Him/Her for years at a time.
Until you're in a jam. Like that time I was climbing the cliffs at the Elora Quarry and it was late autumn and the water was really cold and I was not even half-way to the top and I felt my strength ebbing away...
"Please God..."
At least that's when I remember God.
But I did make it to the top.
It was probably another twenty years or so before I called on God again.
I was driving up the Elora Road with my kids in the car, a Friday ritual we observed religiously every other weekend for years and years.
We're in my baffed out Subaru wagon, and we're driving into what looks like a nasty storm.
The farther we went the nastier the storm got.
It got so bad that just a couple miles south of Mildmay I couldn't in good conscience keep driving. The rain was coming not down, but completely sideways. You couldn't see two feet in front of you! I pulled over and parked by the side of the highway at the bottom of a hill.
I didn't pull the parking brake, and next thing I know, the same wind that's making the rain go horizontal is pushing my Subaru back up the hill.
That's around the time my son, the younger one, burst into tears.
My daughter wasn't long in following.
So what do you do in this situation? My gut instinct was to just join in the crying and hope for the best.
BUT!!... I'm the parent here!
It's up to me to show some leadership!
So we had an impromptu prayer meeting. We all joined hands and bowed our heads, and yours truly had his first chat with the Lord since that time he was stuck on the wall of the Elora Quarry.
Long story short, we made it safely home to my little shack in Mildmay, but that was the storm that poisoned the municipal water wells in Walkerton and put the Walkerton water crisis on the map.
People died because of that.
I've never actually asked God for anything since.
But I make a point of thanking God every day for the completely unwarranted good fortune that I continue to enjoy, and God willing, will enjoy for years to come.
In fact, you can forget about (and far be it from me to wonder about God's chosen pronoun) Him/Her for years at a time.
Until you're in a jam. Like that time I was climbing the cliffs at the Elora Quarry and it was late autumn and the water was really cold and I was not even half-way to the top and I felt my strength ebbing away...
"Please God..."
At least that's when I remember God.
But I did make it to the top.
It was probably another twenty years or so before I called on God again.
I was driving up the Elora Road with my kids in the car, a Friday ritual we observed religiously every other weekend for years and years.
We're in my baffed out Subaru wagon, and we're driving into what looks like a nasty storm.
The farther we went the nastier the storm got.
It got so bad that just a couple miles south of Mildmay I couldn't in good conscience keep driving. The rain was coming not down, but completely sideways. You couldn't see two feet in front of you! I pulled over and parked by the side of the highway at the bottom of a hill.
I didn't pull the parking brake, and next thing I know, the same wind that's making the rain go horizontal is pushing my Subaru back up the hill.
That's around the time my son, the younger one, burst into tears.
My daughter wasn't long in following.
So what do you do in this situation? My gut instinct was to just join in the crying and hope for the best.
BUT!!... I'm the parent here!
It's up to me to show some leadership!
So we had an impromptu prayer meeting. We all joined hands and bowed our heads, and yours truly had his first chat with the Lord since that time he was stuck on the wall of the Elora Quarry.
Long story short, we made it safely home to my little shack in Mildmay, but that was the storm that poisoned the municipal water wells in Walkerton and put the Walkerton water crisis on the map.
People died because of that.
I've never actually asked God for anything since.
But I make a point of thanking God every day for the completely unwarranted good fortune that I continue to enjoy, and God willing, will enjoy for years to come.
Canadian military mission to bring diversity and inclusion to Iraq
I personally couldn't make up something that stupid. Read it for yourself at The Globe and Mail.
Professor Momani makes some dubious claims.
"We are seen as positive examples of how diversity and inclusion work in practice."
We are? By whom?
Perhaps we are a model of diversity and inclusion because our Minister of Defence sports a turban. Not only that, but Justin himself has reassured us many times that "diversity is our strength." Alas, a quick turn on the Googlator would seem to suggest that's mostly bullshit.
How are those class-action lawsuits coming along, the ones that accuse the Canadian Forces of systemic racism and misogyny?
And check this out; Racism and discrimination rampant throughout ranks...
And here's a heart-warming paean to diversity and inclusion. Yup, that's Defence Minister Sajjan a mere three months ago, promising a "crackdown on the growing number of racist and misogynist comments on the Canadian Forces official Facebook page."
So, either Mr. Sajjan has turned around the Canadian Forces' deep-rooted culture of racism and misogyny in only three months, or Ms. Momani's op-ed is an exercise in wishful thinking.
Some would call that "fake news."
I just call it bullshit.
Professor Momani makes some dubious claims.
"We are seen as positive examples of how diversity and inclusion work in practice."
We are? By whom?
Perhaps we are a model of diversity and inclusion because our Minister of Defence sports a turban. Not only that, but Justin himself has reassured us many times that "diversity is our strength." Alas, a quick turn on the Googlator would seem to suggest that's mostly bullshit.
How are those class-action lawsuits coming along, the ones that accuse the Canadian Forces of systemic racism and misogyny?
And check this out; Racism and discrimination rampant throughout ranks...
And here's a heart-warming paean to diversity and inclusion. Yup, that's Defence Minister Sajjan a mere three months ago, promising a "crackdown on the growing number of racist and misogynist comments on the Canadian Forces official Facebook page."
So, either Mr. Sajjan has turned around the Canadian Forces' deep-rooted culture of racism and misogyny in only three months, or Ms. Momani's op-ed is an exercise in wishful thinking.
Some would call that "fake news."
I just call it bullshit.
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Hurricane Hanna
Hanna showed up at Falling Downs last week.
We're still tidying up the wreckage.
The Farm Manager can't figure out how it takes four spatulas to cook one egg.
I didn't even realize we owned four spatulas!
But I don't care.
Hanna's a one-of-a-kind in our wonderfully dysfunctional blended family.
I'm gonna pick up a couple more spatulas just so she can REALLY go nuts on her next visit.
Thanks Hanna, and hope to see you soon!
It's summertime, and the beach living is breezy
Regular readers (hi mom, hi dad!) will recall summers when the pot-addled hillbilly liked to drop in on friends and relatives who have the good fortune to own waterfront vacation property.
Alas, my cousin Johnny lost his waterfront cottage in a nasty divorce.
And my old pal Tom gave up his island in Lake of Bays.
True, I've still got waterfront on Bass Lake in the spring, when the water is high, but that doesn't count for much in July.
Especially this July. We've been having a serious drought in these parts.
That's a good news-bad news story.
The good news is that a dead lawn requires no grass-cutting.
The bad news is that the local beef farmers haven't been able to get enough hay off the land to see their cattle through next winter. That's gonna be a problem.
Be that as it may be, I was able to slip away and spend a few days at the family "cottage." It's not a "cottage" cottage. It's a hundred acre farm near Lake Huron where my dear father had a rather impressive pond built so we could enjoy waterfront without actually leaving the place.
Dad's getting on in years, and he's facing some challenges. Just recently he got himself a new truck with all the internet-era bells and whistles.
So he tells this hilarious story about how the damned radio in his new truck was blaring full blast, and no matter what buttons he pushed on that expansive dashboard, he couldn't figure out how to turn it down.
He goes through the Timmies drive-thru like that, having to shout into the speaker so they can hear him over the radio.
Long story short, and he figured this out just before he was gonna take the truck back to the dealership and unleash the biggest lawsuit they'd ever seen, the radio wasn't even on! No, his Bluetooth compatible hearing aid was inadvertently picking up a music stream from his iPhone!
That's my Dad!
On the other hand, he's putting emojis in his emails now...
He's way ahead of me!
Alas, my cousin Johnny lost his waterfront cottage in a nasty divorce.
And my old pal Tom gave up his island in Lake of Bays.
True, I've still got waterfront on Bass Lake in the spring, when the water is high, but that doesn't count for much in July.
Especially this July. We've been having a serious drought in these parts.
That's a good news-bad news story.
The good news is that a dead lawn requires no grass-cutting.
The bad news is that the local beef farmers haven't been able to get enough hay off the land to see their cattle through next winter. That's gonna be a problem.
Be that as it may be, I was able to slip away and spend a few days at the family "cottage." It's not a "cottage" cottage. It's a hundred acre farm near Lake Huron where my dear father had a rather impressive pond built so we could enjoy waterfront without actually leaving the place.
Dad's getting on in years, and he's facing some challenges. Just recently he got himself a new truck with all the internet-era bells and whistles.
So he tells this hilarious story about how the damned radio in his new truck was blaring full blast, and no matter what buttons he pushed on that expansive dashboard, he couldn't figure out how to turn it down.
He goes through the Timmies drive-thru like that, having to shout into the speaker so they can hear him over the radio.
Long story short, and he figured this out just before he was gonna take the truck back to the dealership and unleash the biggest lawsuit they'd ever seen, the radio wasn't even on! No, his Bluetooth compatible hearing aid was inadvertently picking up a music stream from his iPhone!
That's my Dad!
On the other hand, he's putting emojis in his emails now...
He's way ahead of me!
Axis of Evil redux
Whatever else David Frum accomplishes in his charmed life, he will be forever remembered for coining the phrase "axis of evil."
The son of a Toronto dentist who gave up pulling teeth for a far more lucrative career developing strip malls, Frum has become a leading Republican NeverTrumper. Can't say I blame him. After all, there's a new Axis of Evil loose in the world today, and Donald Trump is its quarterback. His go-to receivers are MBS and Bibi.
This is a far more toxic axis of evil than the Iran-Iraq-North Korea combine Frum was talking about. Two out of three have nuclear weapons and the other one has more money than God, a fact both Trump and Netanyahu fully appreciate.
It's hard to believe that any serious person imagines any good could possibly come from such an alliance, yet I don't see a lot of calling-out in our mainstream media. No, MBS is cast as a "reformer,"and when IDF snipers pick off unarmed Palestinians at the Gaza containment fence, we are solemnly reminded that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. As such, we must never impair her ability to "defend" herself by shooting dead unarmed protesters.
Any criticism of Israel is of course antisemitism, and no right-thinking journo who values their career is gonna go there.
And for all the splashy protests the NeverTrump resistance has pulled off, there's been not the slightest sign of a course correction from the White House, nor has the anti-Trump crowd offered any genuine critique of the over-arching arc of US foreign policy, which by far pre-dates Trump.
Instead, we see all manner of hand-wringing over the fact that America, under Trump, can no longer be relied on to lead and protect Europe!
Well, it's about time!
Europeans are a remarkably stupid people. Except for a few voices on the fringes of polite society, they haven't figured out that their "refugee crisis" is the direct result of US foreign policy. Instead, they natter about Trump being twelve minutes late for his date with the Queen.
Seriously?
Get the f@ck outta here!
A few years ago I set up a petition on one of those petition websites to get Canada out of NATO. Unfortunately, I was somewhat into my cups at the time, and I could never recall the password I used, so I was unable to check on its progress.
But I think we're at another crossroads where the time may be ripe for a lot of NATO members to ask themselves who they're following and where they're headed.
By the way, all the big US military contractors (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, etc) enjoyed a nice spike in their share prices last week after Mafia Don suggested NATO members aim for spending 4% of GDP on defence instead of 2%. If you want to know who Trump is really representing, look no further.
The son of a Toronto dentist who gave up pulling teeth for a far more lucrative career developing strip malls, Frum has become a leading Republican NeverTrumper. Can't say I blame him. After all, there's a new Axis of Evil loose in the world today, and Donald Trump is its quarterback. His go-to receivers are MBS and Bibi.
This is a far more toxic axis of evil than the Iran-Iraq-North Korea combine Frum was talking about. Two out of three have nuclear weapons and the other one has more money than God, a fact both Trump and Netanyahu fully appreciate.
It's hard to believe that any serious person imagines any good could possibly come from such an alliance, yet I don't see a lot of calling-out in our mainstream media. No, MBS is cast as a "reformer,"and when IDF snipers pick off unarmed Palestinians at the Gaza containment fence, we are solemnly reminded that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. As such, we must never impair her ability to "defend" herself by shooting dead unarmed protesters.
Any criticism of Israel is of course antisemitism, and no right-thinking journo who values their career is gonna go there.
And for all the splashy protests the NeverTrump resistance has pulled off, there's been not the slightest sign of a course correction from the White House, nor has the anti-Trump crowd offered any genuine critique of the over-arching arc of US foreign policy, which by far pre-dates Trump.
Instead, we see all manner of hand-wringing over the fact that America, under Trump, can no longer be relied on to lead and protect Europe!
Well, it's about time!
Europeans are a remarkably stupid people. Except for a few voices on the fringes of polite society, they haven't figured out that their "refugee crisis" is the direct result of US foreign policy. Instead, they natter about Trump being twelve minutes late for his date with the Queen.
Seriously?
Get the f@ck outta here!
A few years ago I set up a petition on one of those petition websites to get Canada out of NATO. Unfortunately, I was somewhat into my cups at the time, and I could never recall the password I used, so I was unable to check on its progress.
But I think we're at another crossroads where the time may be ripe for a lot of NATO members to ask themselves who they're following and where they're headed.
By the way, all the big US military contractors (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, etc) enjoyed a nice spike in their share prices last week after Mafia Don suggested NATO members aim for spending 4% of GDP on defence instead of 2%. If you want to know who Trump is really representing, look no further.
Thursday, July 12, 2018
All the news that fits
How about that Thai soccer team, eh!
Is that a feel good story or what? For almost three weeks there wasn't room for any other news aside from the World Cup and, of course, the latest analyses of Trump's Twitter feed.
When one story elbows so much else off the front page, I can't help but wonder what we're missing.
Has anything happened in Gaza these past three weeks? How many unarmed protesters were shot down while we followed, spellbound, the rescue of twelve juvenile soccer players and their coach?
Is Nantes still burning?
Anything new in Haiti? I've heard rumours that things have gone a little wonky since the puppet government tried to impose the latest round of IMF-dictated austerity on the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.
How are things proceeding with the US sponsored regime change operations in Nicaragua and Venezuela?
And what up with that Eritrea - Ethiopia rapprochement?
While I share the joy over that successful rescue operation in Thailand, I have to wonder what I've been missing.
Is that a feel good story or what? For almost three weeks there wasn't room for any other news aside from the World Cup and, of course, the latest analyses of Trump's Twitter feed.
When one story elbows so much else off the front page, I can't help but wonder what we're missing.
Has anything happened in Gaza these past three weeks? How many unarmed protesters were shot down while we followed, spellbound, the rescue of twelve juvenile soccer players and their coach?
Is Nantes still burning?
Anything new in Haiti? I've heard rumours that things have gone a little wonky since the puppet government tried to impose the latest round of IMF-dictated austerity on the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere.
How are things proceeding with the US sponsored regime change operations in Nicaragua and Venezuela?
And what up with that Eritrea - Ethiopia rapprochement?
While I share the joy over that successful rescue operation in Thailand, I have to wonder what I've been missing.
Sunday, July 8, 2018
Macron the Magnificent promises more opportunities for youth... in Africa!
While there are plenty of naysayers who claim that France has "helped" Africa way too much over the last 500 years or so, that's not holding back the great Macron.
Here he is in Nigeria the other day, shaking his booty in a local club and promising hope for the youth of Africa.
Seriously?
Meanwhile, as he offers hope to the youth of Africa, the youth of the French banlieues are once again rioting in the streets, as they seem to do on a regular basis.
Why are they so pissed off?
They want hope!
They want opportunities!
Macron presides over an economy with 25% youth unemployment overall, and double that in the "migrant ghettos," the banlieues where the brown folks live.
Except they're not migrants. They're more often born in France and therefore, in theory, every bit as French as Mr. Macron himself.
They are the legacy of French colonialism in Africa.
So do Africa a favour, Mr. Macron; shut-up and go home.
Do something for the youth of France instead.
France has done enough for Africa.
Here he is in Nigeria the other day, shaking his booty in a local club and promising hope for the youth of Africa.
Seriously?
Meanwhile, as he offers hope to the youth of Africa, the youth of the French banlieues are once again rioting in the streets, as they seem to do on a regular basis.
Why are they so pissed off?
They want hope!
They want opportunities!
Macron presides over an economy with 25% youth unemployment overall, and double that in the "migrant ghettos," the banlieues where the brown folks live.
Except they're not migrants. They're more often born in France and therefore, in theory, every bit as French as Mr. Macron himself.
They are the legacy of French colonialism in Africa.
So do Africa a favour, Mr. Macron; shut-up and go home.
Do something for the youth of France instead.
France has done enough for Africa.
Good news Canada! We can work with...
...John Bolton!
Yup, Trump might be a lost cause, but John Bolton is a stand-up guy Canada can work with! That's according to Michael Byers in yesterday's Globe and Mail.
And why not? He's smart, organized, tenacious, ambitious, and has been relentlessly advocating for war on Iran ever since the Mullahs threw over the Shah's liberal democracy back in '79.
That's our kinda guy!
Elsewhere in the countdown to Trumpageddon, I see where The Guardian's bed-wetter-at-large Simon Tisdall has figured out that Trump is in Putin's pocket, and is bent on "undermining the post-Salisbury western consensus."
What?
That's a thing?... there's a post-Salisbury consensus?
I think the general consensus outside the big-media echo-chamber is that the entire Skripal charade was stage managed by British spook agencies in a lame attempt to throw shade on Putin's party at the World Cup, but whatever. As for the imminent demise of NATO, Uncle Sam's me-too club, that can't come soon enough for anyone pining for a more peaceful world.
And look on the bright side; it'll get those allies off the hook from buying all that over-priced American military hardware that's constantly being foisted on them in the name of "interoperability."
Like the F-35 that so many of the me-too imbeciles have signed up for.
Hard to see a downside. I guess the sparkly new $1.5 billion NATO HQ will be sitting vacant, but maybe Brussels can convert it to housing for some of those migrants who have been fleeing the NATO success stories in Libya and Afghanistan in their millions.
Finally, it looks like Trump's plan to make coal great again isn't going that great. Apparently there's a coal-fired generating plant closing every fifteen days on average since Putin put Trump in the Oval Office.
This too is a good thing!
Just goes to show you should judge politicians by their results, not by their rhetoric.
Yup, Trump might be a lost cause, but John Bolton is a stand-up guy Canada can work with! That's according to Michael Byers in yesterday's Globe and Mail.
And why not? He's smart, organized, tenacious, ambitious, and has been relentlessly advocating for war on Iran ever since the Mullahs threw over the Shah's liberal democracy back in '79.
That's our kinda guy!
Elsewhere in the countdown to Trumpageddon, I see where The Guardian's bed-wetter-at-large Simon Tisdall has figured out that Trump is in Putin's pocket, and is bent on "undermining the post-Salisbury western consensus."
What?
That's a thing?... there's a post-Salisbury consensus?
I think the general consensus outside the big-media echo-chamber is that the entire Skripal charade was stage managed by British spook agencies in a lame attempt to throw shade on Putin's party at the World Cup, but whatever. As for the imminent demise of NATO, Uncle Sam's me-too club, that can't come soon enough for anyone pining for a more peaceful world.
And look on the bright side; it'll get those allies off the hook from buying all that over-priced American military hardware that's constantly being foisted on them in the name of "interoperability."
Like the F-35 that so many of the me-too imbeciles have signed up for.
Hard to see a downside. I guess the sparkly new $1.5 billion NATO HQ will be sitting vacant, but maybe Brussels can convert it to housing for some of those migrants who have been fleeing the NATO success stories in Libya and Afghanistan in their millions.
Finally, it looks like Trump's plan to make coal great again isn't going that great. Apparently there's a coal-fired generating plant closing every fifteen days on average since Putin put Trump in the Oval Office.
This too is a good thing!
Just goes to show you should judge politicians by their results, not by their rhetoric.
Friday, July 6, 2018
Trudeau to Trump; come and get some, you fat dotard!
Whenever Bad Vlad pulls off one of his shirtless publicity stunts we're treated to endless speculation about how he's projecting a macho image to strike fear into whatever little neighbouring country he's planning to annex next.
So what do you think Justin's trying to tell Donny J with this shirtless publicity stunt?
"Hey Trump, don't mess with us, we won't be pushed around, you fat dotard!..."
That's pretty much the tone of this story at Maclean's, a magazine so patriotic they use a maple leaf for an apostrophe. Yup, Canadians are "embracing a volatile anti-Trump movement" in droves!
'Cause if Trump's gonna keep trash-talking us, we're gonna... we're gonna... we're gonna do what, exactly?
Not take our kids to Disney World?
Boycott American NHL teams?
Stop sending their refineries our Alberta bitumen?
Better wake up, Mr. Trump, we're not kidding around!
By the way, Justin's daily jogs must cost Canadian taxpayers a fortune. I counted half a dozen black SUVs in the security detail following him. Add in the salaries of all the people in them, plus the cost of the helicopter no doubt shadowing this little parade, and we're talking some mighty expensive exercise here!
Now if this jog was just about exercise, I figure Justin could throw on a shirt and some dark glasses and he'd could jog all day long with no security whatsoever and no one would be the wiser.
Alas, what would be the point of that?
So what do you think Justin's trying to tell Donny J with this shirtless publicity stunt?
"Hey Trump, don't mess with us, we won't be pushed around, you fat dotard!..."
That's pretty much the tone of this story at Maclean's, a magazine so patriotic they use a maple leaf for an apostrophe. Yup, Canadians are "embracing a volatile anti-Trump movement" in droves!
'Cause if Trump's gonna keep trash-talking us, we're gonna... we're gonna... we're gonna do what, exactly?
Not take our kids to Disney World?
Boycott American NHL teams?
Stop sending their refineries our Alberta bitumen?
Better wake up, Mr. Trump, we're not kidding around!
By the way, Justin's daily jogs must cost Canadian taxpayers a fortune. I counted half a dozen black SUVs in the security detail following him. Add in the salaries of all the people in them, plus the cost of the helicopter no doubt shadowing this little parade, and we're talking some mighty expensive exercise here!
Now if this jog was just about exercise, I figure Justin could throw on a shirt and some dark glasses and he'd could jog all day long with no security whatsoever and no one would be the wiser.
Alas, what would be the point of that?
Here's a big ole scoop 'o irony for ya
Clicked on Google News this morning and found these two headlines in close proximity:
From the National Post, Conrad Black: Thirty years of climate hysterics being proven wrong over and over again, and just an inch or so away, we get this from CTV News; Amid extreme heat, 33 die in Quebec.
Which I think proves that artificial intelligence, as manifest in the Google News algorithms that create their home page, has both an appreciation for irony and a mischievous sense of fun!
There you go; artificial intelligence is nothing to be afraid of!
From the National Post, Conrad Black: Thirty years of climate hysterics being proven wrong over and over again, and just an inch or so away, we get this from CTV News; Amid extreme heat, 33 die in Quebec.
Which I think proves that artificial intelligence, as manifest in the Google News algorithms that create their home page, has both an appreciation for irony and a mischievous sense of fun!
There you go; artificial intelligence is nothing to be afraid of!
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
The bogus hysterics over America's "migrant crisis"
Stripped of all superfluous hyperbole about human rights, sovereignty, and America's image on the world stage, there is one and only one reason that the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of history can't manage her borders.
They don't want to.
"Undocumented migrants" have the lowest rank in that "reserve army of the poor" old Karl Marx was scribbling about 150 years ago. As such, they provide a valuable service to the elite capitalist class who have been managing the affairs of The Republic since the time of the founding fathers.
They are absolutely essential in ensuring that real-life working Americans never get too uppity. After all, the lads at Paramount Landscaping in Bergen County won't be getting too boisterous in their demands for a living wage as long as their boss can assure them that there's plenty of hard-working Guatemalans around just waiting for a chance to do their $12/hr jobs for $6/hr.
Landscapers and roofing contractors and farmers and others who employ this lowest rank of the working class are hardly the "capitalist elite" of course. But trickle-up immiseration works way better than trickle-down prosperity. Downward mobility has trumped upward mobility in America since long before Donald Trump.
Just look around you.
The fact that an ersatz billionaire reality TV star promised to build a wall at the Mexican border speaks only to the calibre of his image-management team... as in he really cares about American workers and that wall is gonna make America great again!
Of course it is!
You don't imagine for two seconds that Donny J is interested in ensuring that all the grounds-keepers at his various properties actually take home a living wage, do you?
And if you thought Hillary cared more, you're an even bigger idiot.
Happy 4th of July, neighbours!
They don't want to.
"Undocumented migrants" have the lowest rank in that "reserve army of the poor" old Karl Marx was scribbling about 150 years ago. As such, they provide a valuable service to the elite capitalist class who have been managing the affairs of The Republic since the time of the founding fathers.
They are absolutely essential in ensuring that real-life working Americans never get too uppity. After all, the lads at Paramount Landscaping in Bergen County won't be getting too boisterous in their demands for a living wage as long as their boss can assure them that there's plenty of hard-working Guatemalans around just waiting for a chance to do their $12/hr jobs for $6/hr.
Landscapers and roofing contractors and farmers and others who employ this lowest rank of the working class are hardly the "capitalist elite" of course. But trickle-up immiseration works way better than trickle-down prosperity. Downward mobility has trumped upward mobility in America since long before Donald Trump.
Just look around you.
The fact that an ersatz billionaire reality TV star promised to build a wall at the Mexican border speaks only to the calibre of his image-management team... as in he really cares about American workers and that wall is gonna make America great again!
Of course it is!
You don't imagine for two seconds that Donny J is interested in ensuring that all the grounds-keepers at his various properties actually take home a living wage, do you?
And if you thought Hillary cared more, you're an even bigger idiot.
Happy 4th of July, neighbours!
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
The view from Dorcas Bay
From time to time me and the Farm Manager get to pondering about cashing out of Falling Downs and getting a place on the water up the Peninsula.
We saw a place today that would be economically feasible. On the Lake Huron side, not too far from Dorcas Bay. Bit of sand, bit of rock, perfect spot for grandchildren to come and spend the summer.
Then the FM messes it all up by pointing out that we have no grandchildren.
She's got a point there.
Where did we go wrong?
We saw a place today that would be economically feasible. On the Lake Huron side, not too far from Dorcas Bay. Bit of sand, bit of rock, perfect spot for grandchildren to come and spend the summer.
Then the FM messes it all up by pointing out that we have no grandchildren.
She's got a point there.
Where did we go wrong?
United States of Empathy decides families belong together
Not all families of course. If you're a young American man from Compton looking at life in prison on a three-strikes count, nobody is suggesting you be allowed to keep your family together. And quite frankly, nobody in the media or across the punditocracy much gives a shit.
If, on the other hand, you're a young woman from Honduras arrested for entering the US illegally, Americans will rise up in their hundreds of thousands to march for your right to keep your family together.
What gives? A whole lot of politicking, that's what.
The anti-Trump media are ecstatic to have discovered a fresh beatin' stick with which to pummel the Orange Ogre. Yup, Trump's ICE goons are tearing families apart... the barbarity, the horror!!!
The humanitarian prerogative of keeping families together is a very recent discovery on the part of America's opinion makers. It's a rather selective empathy. It doesn't apply to those millions of marginalized Americans ensnared in the prison-happy judicial system, nor does it apply retroactively to anything that may have happened in the Before Trump era. Here's a recent story at VOX (hardly a pro-Trump media outlet) comparing immigration policy today with the Obama era, when Americans of good conscience neither knew nor cared about what happened at the border.
And let's never forget former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's profoundly compassionate insights into the deaths of half a million Iraqi children back in the Clinton era. I suppose that's different; those children have long been reunited with their families in Paradise.
Speaking of Albright, here's her acceptance speech at the Atlantic Council's 2018 Freedom Awards
gala last week, where she was honoured for her lifetime achievements for "liberal democracy" and Empire. Truly an inspirational porridge of sanctimony and bafflegab!
But it does prove that a few thousand, or a few hundred thousand children are no big whoop one way or the other in the over-arching sweep of American Exceptionalism.
Unless of course their narrative can be harnessed in the cause of "the resistance."
If, on the other hand, you're a young woman from Honduras arrested for entering the US illegally, Americans will rise up in their hundreds of thousands to march for your right to keep your family together.
What gives? A whole lot of politicking, that's what.
The anti-Trump media are ecstatic to have discovered a fresh beatin' stick with which to pummel the Orange Ogre. Yup, Trump's ICE goons are tearing families apart... the barbarity, the horror!!!
The humanitarian prerogative of keeping families together is a very recent discovery on the part of America's opinion makers. It's a rather selective empathy. It doesn't apply to those millions of marginalized Americans ensnared in the prison-happy judicial system, nor does it apply retroactively to anything that may have happened in the Before Trump era. Here's a recent story at VOX (hardly a pro-Trump media outlet) comparing immigration policy today with the Obama era, when Americans of good conscience neither knew nor cared about what happened at the border.
And let's never forget former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's profoundly compassionate insights into the deaths of half a million Iraqi children back in the Clinton era. I suppose that's different; those children have long been reunited with their families in Paradise.
Speaking of Albright, here's her acceptance speech at the Atlantic Council's 2018 Freedom Awards
gala last week, where she was honoured for her lifetime achievements for "liberal democracy" and Empire. Truly an inspirational porridge of sanctimony and bafflegab!
But it does prove that a few thousand, or a few hundred thousand children are no big whoop one way or the other in the over-arching sweep of American Exceptionalism.
Unless of course their narrative can be harnessed in the cause of "the resistance."
Sunday, July 1, 2018
Pot-addled hillbilly thrilled to report Bentley sighting on the Bruce
I ran into a Bentley SUV in Wiarton today. Well, I didn't actually collide with it... God forbid! Their deductible is probably twice what my entire fleet is worth.
You didn't know Bentley makes a SUV? They sure do! I think it's called the Bentley Bendover, as in bend over while we bone you for three hundred grand.
It's a pretty enough machine though. All the utility of my aging Pontiac Torment without the stigma of low price. Who can walk away from that?
I used to think that a BMW SUV pretty much screamed "I'm a twat" louder than anything else on the road.
I was wrong.
The Bentley screams it way louder.
You didn't know Bentley makes a SUV? They sure do! I think it's called the Bentley Bendover, as in bend over while we bone you for three hundred grand.
It's a pretty enough machine though. All the utility of my aging Pontiac Torment without the stigma of low price. Who can walk away from that?
I used to think that a BMW SUV pretty much screamed "I'm a twat" louder than anything else on the road.
I was wrong.
The Bentley screams it way louder.
Helmet laws
I'm pretty sure we've got helmet laws here in Ontario. True, I prefer not to wear one myself, but I'm just putting around back roads in the neighborhood, where there's little chance of a) needing one, and b) getting caught without one. That wind-in-the-hair thing is worth the risk, and I plan to chase that thrill as long as I've got any hair left.
I raise the question because yesterday, as I was coming back from Wiarton with my Saturday Globe and Mail, a guy on a very loud Harley goes thundering past with his helmet dangling from his elbow! Technically, I guess he was wearing a helmet, but isn't there something in the law to specify that it must be worn on the head?
As for the Globe, (still $6.30 at the Korean extortionist) I have to say there's not much in it this week. Wente seems to think that Justin's "we won't get pushed around" bravado was perhaps ill-advised, and I'm inclined to agree with her. It is true though that, at least in the short term, Trump's antics have done wonders in bringing Canadians together.
Doug's got a sure-fire plan for how the Democrats can derail the Trump Train in the mid-terms and in 2020. They can outflank the GOP on the left AND on the right... at the same time! As evidence for this novel theory he cites the recent victories of Conor Lamb and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I'm not so sure. While there remain some authentically progressive voices in Dem circles, and Ocasio-Cortez is certainly one of them, I don't see a long term home for them in the donkey tent.
Unless of course the Bernie crowd succeeds in overthrowing the Dem party establishment and rebuilding the party from the grassroots up. Until that happens the Democrats will just be the other Wall Street Party.
Guest self-promoter Jared Yates Sexton caught my eye with a headline informing me that "now, more than ever, we need to rally around the media, not denounce them."
Sexton was a literary type toiling in well-deserved obscurity until he branched out into political commentary just as the Trump Tide was beginning to rise, and that uncanny timing has led to him becoming a leading voice of "the resistance." The gist of his opinion piece is that Trump bears responsibility for the mass shooting at the Capital Gazette, and not only that; he has single-handedly "inspired a virulent hatred that's led to harassment and death threats."
Really? I think he's giving Trump rather too much credit. Sure, Trump the politician has always been contemptuous of the media, but for at least forty years that same media slobbered all over the guy, giving him the profile that allowed him to go into politics in the first place, and also sowing the seeds for his well-founded contempt for the journalism profession.
The idea of bold journos speaking truth to power might have rang true in some bygone era, but the journalists of today are generally more interested in sleeping with power than speaking truth to it.
Other than that, there was a lot of aren't-we-great pap in keeping with our Canada Day celebration today.
And you know what?
For all the problems, all the challenges, and in spite of everything that's not quite right or could be better, there's no place on this earth I'd rather live.
Happy Canada Day!
I raise the question because yesterday, as I was coming back from Wiarton with my Saturday Globe and Mail, a guy on a very loud Harley goes thundering past with his helmet dangling from his elbow! Technically, I guess he was wearing a helmet, but isn't there something in the law to specify that it must be worn on the head?
As for the Globe, (still $6.30 at the Korean extortionist) I have to say there's not much in it this week. Wente seems to think that Justin's "we won't get pushed around" bravado was perhaps ill-advised, and I'm inclined to agree with her. It is true though that, at least in the short term, Trump's antics have done wonders in bringing Canadians together.
Doug's got a sure-fire plan for how the Democrats can derail the Trump Train in the mid-terms and in 2020. They can outflank the GOP on the left AND on the right... at the same time! As evidence for this novel theory he cites the recent victories of Conor Lamb and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I'm not so sure. While there remain some authentically progressive voices in Dem circles, and Ocasio-Cortez is certainly one of them, I don't see a long term home for them in the donkey tent.
Unless of course the Bernie crowd succeeds in overthrowing the Dem party establishment and rebuilding the party from the grassroots up. Until that happens the Democrats will just be the other Wall Street Party.
Guest self-promoter Jared Yates Sexton caught my eye with a headline informing me that "now, more than ever, we need to rally around the media, not denounce them."
Sexton was a literary type toiling in well-deserved obscurity until he branched out into political commentary just as the Trump Tide was beginning to rise, and that uncanny timing has led to him becoming a leading voice of "the resistance." The gist of his opinion piece is that Trump bears responsibility for the mass shooting at the Capital Gazette, and not only that; he has single-handedly "inspired a virulent hatred that's led to harassment and death threats."
Really? I think he's giving Trump rather too much credit. Sure, Trump the politician has always been contemptuous of the media, but for at least forty years that same media slobbered all over the guy, giving him the profile that allowed him to go into politics in the first place, and also sowing the seeds for his well-founded contempt for the journalism profession.
The idea of bold journos speaking truth to power might have rang true in some bygone era, but the journalists of today are generally more interested in sleeping with power than speaking truth to it.
Other than that, there was a lot of aren't-we-great pap in keeping with our Canada Day celebration today.
And you know what?
For all the problems, all the challenges, and in spite of everything that's not quite right or could be better, there's no place on this earth I'd rather live.
Happy Canada Day!
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