There we were, thinking we'd beat winter. The meadows were more brown than white, and the weather forecasts were promising.
Then, this.
Woke up this morning, looked out the bedroom window, and everything was white. It snowed last night, and it's been snowing all day long. By golly, I think the kids might be enjoying another "snow day" on Monday, if this keeps up.
That would be snow day number sixteen for this winter, if my count is anywhere near accurate.
That'll create quite the conundrum for the school board. Not that they actually give a shit, but they're quite concerned about giving the appearance that they do.
According to the latest "sunshine list," the plagiarist in charge of the local school board pulled down a cool $230,000+ last year. That's some sweet coin for a moron who can't figure out where one idea ends and another begins, especially when she's plagiarising.
Plagiarism aside, the school board rallies to the banner of "credit integrity" whenever they get cornered on the fact that winter weather can cause students to lose almost 20% of their classroom time. Nevermind the fact that they routinely issue high school diplomas to eighteen and nineteen and twenty year old kids who need a calculator to do grade three arithmetic and have grade four literacy skills, if that.
They actually put forward an initiative to "end the culture of snow days" a few years back.
Ya, like they're gonna control the weather?
Fortunately for the students in this school district, snow days are called by the down-to-earth folks who run the school buses, and not by the morons who run the school board.
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Canadian military announces "Operation Absence"
Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan announced yesterday that our peacekeeping mission to Mali, Operation Presence, will continue indefinitely.
The mission, begun a year ago, saw 250 CF personnel and Canada's entire fleet of eight helicopters in the African country to deliver peace, development, and prosperity.
CF spokesperson Colonel Wanda Dunkelwasser elaborated on Sajjan's announcement in a media backgrounder; "Our analysts have determined that over the past year, our contribution to bringing peace, development, and prosperity to Mali has been precisely zilch. Nada. Bupkis. We subsequently further determined that we could find considerable efficiencies in our peacekeeping mission by withdrawing our personnel and our helicopters. Going forward, our peacekeeping mission will be known as Operation Absence."
On the same day that Minister Sajjan was updating the public on our peacekeeping mission, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland shocked the UN by revealing that "Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, 'incels,' nativists, and radical anti-globalists" threaten the stability of the civilized world.
Alas, she was not referring to those smelly, basement-dwelling, maladapted, twenty-somethings playing kill-em-all video games eighteen hours a day. In her leadership role with the Lima Group, working to free Venezuelan women and girls and resources from the grip of their elected dictator, Ms. Freeland has gained invaluable insights into the psyches of white supremacists like her good friends, Mikes Pence and Pompeo.
When Freeland talks Neo-Nazis, we'd do well to pay attention.
The mission, begun a year ago, saw 250 CF personnel and Canada's entire fleet of eight helicopters in the African country to deliver peace, development, and prosperity.
CF spokesperson Colonel Wanda Dunkelwasser elaborated on Sajjan's announcement in a media backgrounder; "Our analysts have determined that over the past year, our contribution to bringing peace, development, and prosperity to Mali has been precisely zilch. Nada. Bupkis. We subsequently further determined that we could find considerable efficiencies in our peacekeeping mission by withdrawing our personnel and our helicopters. Going forward, our peacekeeping mission will be known as Operation Absence."
On the same day that Minister Sajjan was updating the public on our peacekeeping mission, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland shocked the UN by revealing that "Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, 'incels,' nativists, and radical anti-globalists" threaten the stability of the civilized world.
Alas, she was not referring to those smelly, basement-dwelling, maladapted, twenty-somethings playing kill-em-all video games eighteen hours a day. In her leadership role with the Lima Group, working to free Venezuelan women and girls and resources from the grip of their elected dictator, Ms. Freeland has gained invaluable insights into the psyches of white supremacists like her good friends, Mikes Pence and Pompeo.
When Freeland talks Neo-Nazis, we'd do well to pay attention.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Trudeau's "new politics" looks like the same old slime
So how are things looking for PM Sunny Daze' sunny ways, my friends?
Me and the Farm Manager spent five hours in the car today, to take in Horst Packull's funeral. We had the state broadcaster on most of the way. We learned that Canada is marshalling some top scientists to explain to the Chinese that there's really nothing wrong with our canola or our soybeans.
Well, that's nice, but I think most Canadians are probably smart enough to get that our problems in the China market have nothing to do with canola or soybeans, so why bother trotting out such a misleading story? China's ban on Canadian soy product and canola has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with politics.
Indeed, most Canadians fully understand that our current difficulties stem from our arrest, at Uncle Sam's behest, of Meng Wanzhou. Her crime? The company she works for has allegedly violated US sanctions against Iran.
To consider that a crime, one has to buy the argument that the US has a right to unilaterally dictate to other nations, allegedly sovereign states, who they can and cannot do business with. These Iran sanctions do not originate with the UN or any other international body. In fact, they originate in that country whose name we dare not speak.
Be that as it may, you can't do business with Iran because Uncle Sam says so.
Period.
PM Fluffy and his government obviously buy in.
But here's the thing. Anyone with a first year poly-sci grasp of geopolitics could pay lip service to the US sanctions while still avoiding a showdown with China. After receiving the arrest request from Washington, Canada had any number of options in terms of quietly signalling Huawei that travel plans had best take this contingency into consideration. That's what would have happened under Harper, or Chretien, or Mulroney.
That's just big-boy politics.
What Justin's social justice warriors are doing is virtue-signalling their moral superiority over Trump in the foreground, while furiously working to appease Trump behind the scenes, and the Canadian public is catching on.
Trudeau came to office promising a whole new way of doing politics. And his government has certainly taken virtue-signalling to new heights. He's got a "feminist" government, don't you know! And nosiree, we won't be kow-towing to Mr. Trump! In fact, we welcome the world's huddled masses even while the Orange Ogre is banning Muslims!
The reason Canadians are in jail in China, and our agriculture products are no longer welcome there, is because the Chinese are calling Trudeau's virtue-signalling bullshit.
They're telling us that kow-towing to Mr. Trump has a cost.
Who knew?
Obviously, neither Justin nor his completely in-over-her-head Minister of Foreign Affairs could see this coming. We haven't even had an ambassador in China since January, because the highly respected John McCallum had to be fired, because he did see it coming. The decision to fire McCallum was a victory of virtue-signalling over common sense.
Thanks to the SNC scandal, we've recently been treated to a peek behind the scenes in the Sunny Ways government, and it ain't pretty. Seems the government that strictly observes the "rule of law" on the Huawei file has no problems elbowing the rule of law aside to do some bare-knuckle politicking on behalf of SNC.
Seems the "feminist" PM expects his female cabinet ministers to obey orders.
Seems the Prime Minister of Native Reconciliation doesn't have any qualms about putting the boots to a Native woman who calls him on his shilling for a corporate scofflaw.
Seems to me that politics in the age of PM Sunny Daze are as slimy as they've ever been.
Me and the Farm Manager spent five hours in the car today, to take in Horst Packull's funeral. We had the state broadcaster on most of the way. We learned that Canada is marshalling some top scientists to explain to the Chinese that there's really nothing wrong with our canola or our soybeans.
Well, that's nice, but I think most Canadians are probably smart enough to get that our problems in the China market have nothing to do with canola or soybeans, so why bother trotting out such a misleading story? China's ban on Canadian soy product and canola has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with politics.
Indeed, most Canadians fully understand that our current difficulties stem from our arrest, at Uncle Sam's behest, of Meng Wanzhou. Her crime? The company she works for has allegedly violated US sanctions against Iran.
To consider that a crime, one has to buy the argument that the US has a right to unilaterally dictate to other nations, allegedly sovereign states, who they can and cannot do business with. These Iran sanctions do not originate with the UN or any other international body. In fact, they originate in that country whose name we dare not speak.
Be that as it may, you can't do business with Iran because Uncle Sam says so.
Period.
PM Fluffy and his government obviously buy in.
But here's the thing. Anyone with a first year poly-sci grasp of geopolitics could pay lip service to the US sanctions while still avoiding a showdown with China. After receiving the arrest request from Washington, Canada had any number of options in terms of quietly signalling Huawei that travel plans had best take this contingency into consideration. That's what would have happened under Harper, or Chretien, or Mulroney.
That's just big-boy politics.
What Justin's social justice warriors are doing is virtue-signalling their moral superiority over Trump in the foreground, while furiously working to appease Trump behind the scenes, and the Canadian public is catching on.
Trudeau came to office promising a whole new way of doing politics. And his government has certainly taken virtue-signalling to new heights. He's got a "feminist" government, don't you know! And nosiree, we won't be kow-towing to Mr. Trump! In fact, we welcome the world's huddled masses even while the Orange Ogre is banning Muslims!
The reason Canadians are in jail in China, and our agriculture products are no longer welcome there, is because the Chinese are calling Trudeau's virtue-signalling bullshit.
They're telling us that kow-towing to Mr. Trump has a cost.
Who knew?
Obviously, neither Justin nor his completely in-over-her-head Minister of Foreign Affairs could see this coming. We haven't even had an ambassador in China since January, because the highly respected John McCallum had to be fired, because he did see it coming. The decision to fire McCallum was a victory of virtue-signalling over common sense.
Thanks to the SNC scandal, we've recently been treated to a peek behind the scenes in the Sunny Ways government, and it ain't pretty. Seems the government that strictly observes the "rule of law" on the Huawei file has no problems elbowing the rule of law aside to do some bare-knuckle politicking on behalf of SNC.
Seems the "feminist" PM expects his female cabinet ministers to obey orders.
Seems the Prime Minister of Native Reconciliation doesn't have any qualms about putting the boots to a Native woman who calls him on his shilling for a corporate scofflaw.
Seems to me that politics in the age of PM Sunny Daze are as slimy as they've ever been.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
A new fascism for a new century
One thing easy to miss during the last two years, as our "free press" was incessantly waving the Russiagate hoax at the public, is how the purveyors of fake news are incrementally shutting down our ability to access news that comes from alternative sources.
The Washington Post gave acres of free publicity to an outfit called PropOrNot in late 2016. PropOrNot claims to be working diligently to ferret out "Russian propaganda" on the internet. They compiled a handy list of websites to shun if one wishes to avoid having one's thoughts contaminated by "fake news." I'm a regular visitor to a number of those sites, and I like to think I'm intelligent enough and sufficiently well read to decide for myself when I'm reading bullshit.
PropOrNot would prefer that I not imbibe the propaganda to be found on sites like Global Research or truthdig. Frankly, my bullshit detector has to work a lot harder when I'm reading the Washington Post than when I'm reading those sites.
Similarly, the Integrity Initiative was a UK government effort to steer the public away from "fake news." It is beyond ironic that the fakery of the Integrity Initiative was exposed by one of those fake news sites we're supposed to avoid.
That concept of a "network of networks" detailed in the RT story clarifies a lot of things. It goes a long way to explaining the White Helmets' journey from al Qaeda auxiliary to Hollywood, and eight-year-old Bana al-Abed's journey from Aleppo to the Oscars.
Unfortunately, the powers that be are working overtime to make those alternative news sources harder and harder to find. Our tech overlords are joining with governments and the corporate media to restrict our access to information that might be upsetting to the establishment narrative. The Facebook-Twitter-Google crowd are all-in for making sure that your delicate sensitivities will be spared inconvenient facts.
It's all for your own good, of course.
In Albert Speer's Spandau prison memoir, the former Hitler deputy observed that if the Nazis had had television, they would have been unstoppable.
The new fascists have way more than television.
The Washington Post gave acres of free publicity to an outfit called PropOrNot in late 2016. PropOrNot claims to be working diligently to ferret out "Russian propaganda" on the internet. They compiled a handy list of websites to shun if one wishes to avoid having one's thoughts contaminated by "fake news." I'm a regular visitor to a number of those sites, and I like to think I'm intelligent enough and sufficiently well read to decide for myself when I'm reading bullshit.
PropOrNot would prefer that I not imbibe the propaganda to be found on sites like Global Research or truthdig. Frankly, my bullshit detector has to work a lot harder when I'm reading the Washington Post than when I'm reading those sites.
Similarly, the Integrity Initiative was a UK government effort to steer the public away from "fake news." It is beyond ironic that the fakery of the Integrity Initiative was exposed by one of those fake news sites we're supposed to avoid.
That concept of a "network of networks" detailed in the RT story clarifies a lot of things. It goes a long way to explaining the White Helmets' journey from al Qaeda auxiliary to Hollywood, and eight-year-old Bana al-Abed's journey from Aleppo to the Oscars.
Unfortunately, the powers that be are working overtime to make those alternative news sources harder and harder to find. Our tech overlords are joining with governments and the corporate media to restrict our access to information that might be upsetting to the establishment narrative. The Facebook-Twitter-Google crowd are all-in for making sure that your delicate sensitivities will be spared inconvenient facts.
It's all for your own good, of course.
In Albert Speer's Spandau prison memoir, the former Hitler deputy observed that if the Nazis had had television, they would have been unstoppable.
The new fascists have way more than television.
Monday, March 25, 2019
Israeli leadership candidate vows to reject US military aid
The think tank here at Falling Downs has had Moshe Feiglin on the radar since that crop circle incident five years ago.
In the interval, Feiglin has fired up more than his bong; he's fired up a new political party too. To say the man brings some intriguing ideas to the election is an understatement of epic proportions.
He wants to privatize health care. Then Israel will presumably have health outcomes more aligned with the US, which has the most expensive health care system in the world with outcomes that barely rise to mediocre.
And by all means, lets privatize education too! Haiti boasts an education system 90% in private hands and provides an inspirational model.
Paying Palestinians to leave isn't exactly an original idea, and while it would no doubt draw the wrath of the human rights hand-wringers, it would be vastly preferable, at least in PR terms, to shooting them down at the Gaza fence.
Nor is annexing the West Bank an original idea. It needs to be fleshed out a little, though. Do you annex before you pay them to leave? Or do you pay them to leave first? What if they take the money and don't leave? Clearly this needs a little more thought.
But where Feiglin's genius shines through is in his vow to never take another penny in American military aid. This is going to be enormously disruptive to US politics, where for many years political careers have been made and unmade on the basis of who can promise to lavish the most free stuff on Israel.
Obviously, Moshe has not thought this through. Is it really his intention to give succour to the new wave of anti-Semites infiltrating the Democratic Party?
I'm sure Ilhan Omar would love this idea.
In the interval, Feiglin has fired up more than his bong; he's fired up a new political party too. To say the man brings some intriguing ideas to the election is an understatement of epic proportions.
He wants to privatize health care. Then Israel will presumably have health outcomes more aligned with the US, which has the most expensive health care system in the world with outcomes that barely rise to mediocre.
And by all means, lets privatize education too! Haiti boasts an education system 90% in private hands and provides an inspirational model.
Paying Palestinians to leave isn't exactly an original idea, and while it would no doubt draw the wrath of the human rights hand-wringers, it would be vastly preferable, at least in PR terms, to shooting them down at the Gaza fence.
Nor is annexing the West Bank an original idea. It needs to be fleshed out a little, though. Do you annex before you pay them to leave? Or do you pay them to leave first? What if they take the money and don't leave? Clearly this needs a little more thought.
But where Feiglin's genius shines through is in his vow to never take another penny in American military aid. This is going to be enormously disruptive to US politics, where for many years political careers have been made and unmade on the basis of who can promise to lavish the most free stuff on Israel.
Obviously, Moshe has not thought this through. Is it really his intention to give succour to the new wave of anti-Semites infiltrating the Democratic Party?
I'm sure Ilhan Omar would love this idea.
Sunday, March 24, 2019
Doug Ford's freedom agenda
As you know, Doug wants you to have more freedom.
Especially freedom from government regulation.
That's a win-win. You deep-six a bunch of government regulations and regulators, and you save a pile of money, right?!
There's a story in my Sunday Star by Rob Ferguson today that horks up for the umpteenth time the virtues of having booze on sale at your corner store.
Because that "gives consumers more choice and convenience, while giving businesses more opportunities."
F@ck off already!
I'm with Brian Patterson, the guy from the "Ontario Safety League," whatever that is. I've never found beer hard to find either.
Here's a couple of things to think about. Do you know of any corner store employees making more than the minimum wage?
I didn't think so.
Here's a link to the latest contract between OPSEU and the LCBO. You'll find that even the most expendable hired-for-the-Christmas-rush employees are a couple of bucks over min wage. And they're on a track that could reasonably be expected to see them making more in the future.
That doesn't happen in your corner store.
So what our dear Doug is doing, is turning liquor store jobs that used to offer some prospects, into corner store jobs that don't.
Because he's a man of the people, after all...
Especially freedom from government regulation.
That's a win-win. You deep-six a bunch of government regulations and regulators, and you save a pile of money, right?!
There's a story in my Sunday Star by Rob Ferguson today that horks up for the umpteenth time the virtues of having booze on sale at your corner store.
Because that "gives consumers more choice and convenience, while giving businesses more opportunities."
F@ck off already!
I'm with Brian Patterson, the guy from the "Ontario Safety League," whatever that is. I've never found beer hard to find either.
Here's a couple of things to think about. Do you know of any corner store employees making more than the minimum wage?
I didn't think so.
Here's a link to the latest contract between OPSEU and the LCBO. You'll find that even the most expendable hired-for-the-Christmas-rush employees are a couple of bucks over min wage. And they're on a track that could reasonably be expected to see them making more in the future.
That doesn't happen in your corner store.
So what our dear Doug is doing, is turning liquor store jobs that used to offer some prospects, into corner store jobs that don't.
Because he's a man of the people, after all...
Remembering Onkel Horst
Woke up to find an email from my mother this morning, informing me that her brother Horst had passed.
While the extended family had already sent a few emissaries to America, Horst was the first to make it to Canada, in 1955. Trained as a millwright, he found himself at the newly opened General Electric transformer plant in Guelph, which was at the time known as "Generous Electric."
Most of my early memories of Horst and his family go back to Elora, when our families shared that big old pile of yellow bricks just south of the train tracks. The house is still there, although the train tracks are long gone. The Packulls had the upstairs, the Neumanns lived downstairs, and the gigantic garden in back was a joint effort.
Onkel Horst was a great story teller. There was always garden-related work to be done that lent itself to the enslavement of child labour. I remember sitting under the giant pines in front of the house, around an enormous heap of peas that needed to be shelled. Horst would press us kids into service, and then regale us with tales from "Die Flucht." I was always spellbound. I'd actually wish there were more peas to shell because I didn't want the stories to end!
For a couple of years he tried his hand at running a welding shop in the garage behind the house. I remember him fabbing up a crop sprayer for a local farmer. To my six-year-old eye it looked more like something the Wright brothers might have come up with. I asked him years later why he'd given up that side business. He said he enjoyed the welding aspect, but was spending more time chasing people to pay their bills, which he hated.
The Packulls were a little quicker than we were in embracing the benefits of modernity. They had a TV many years before we did, and we were therefore regular visitors upstairs, especially when the NHL playoffs rolled around.
In some ways they were more the traditionalists, though. I'd marvel at their Christmas tree, a floor to ceiling spruce festooned with real candles, the kind you light with a match! Us downstairs folks stuck to a string of electric lights instead.
Onkel Horst was very generous in using his position at GE to get a whole lot of the extended family in the door there, starting with his brother Werner. By the time he "put in a word" for me it wasn't known as Generous Electric anymore, but it was still a great gig compared to what's out there for the working class today. In those days a GE paycheque meant you could afford a house, a car, and you could raise a family.
He had been a welding inspector there, but somewhere along the line he went into supervision. I can vouch for the fact that he didn't cut me any slack on account of being family. Getting called into his office for a "chat" was known on the shop floor as "getting a load of Horst-shit." Years later, when I became a welding inspector at Frankel Steel, I made a point of thanking him for getting me into the trade.
Horst stayed in that plant until he retired. Along the way he and Gisela raised three kids who by now have made him a great-grandfather several times over. He was a good man, a solid working-class guy who you could count on.
He'll be missed. Mach's gut, lieber Onkel!
While the extended family had already sent a few emissaries to America, Horst was the first to make it to Canada, in 1955. Trained as a millwright, he found himself at the newly opened General Electric transformer plant in Guelph, which was at the time known as "Generous Electric."
Most of my early memories of Horst and his family go back to Elora, when our families shared that big old pile of yellow bricks just south of the train tracks. The house is still there, although the train tracks are long gone. The Packulls had the upstairs, the Neumanns lived downstairs, and the gigantic garden in back was a joint effort.
Onkel Horst was a great story teller. There was always garden-related work to be done that lent itself to the enslavement of child labour. I remember sitting under the giant pines in front of the house, around an enormous heap of peas that needed to be shelled. Horst would press us kids into service, and then regale us with tales from "Die Flucht." I was always spellbound. I'd actually wish there were more peas to shell because I didn't want the stories to end!
For a couple of years he tried his hand at running a welding shop in the garage behind the house. I remember him fabbing up a crop sprayer for a local farmer. To my six-year-old eye it looked more like something the Wright brothers might have come up with. I asked him years later why he'd given up that side business. He said he enjoyed the welding aspect, but was spending more time chasing people to pay their bills, which he hated.
The Packulls were a little quicker than we were in embracing the benefits of modernity. They had a TV many years before we did, and we were therefore regular visitors upstairs, especially when the NHL playoffs rolled around.
In some ways they were more the traditionalists, though. I'd marvel at their Christmas tree, a floor to ceiling spruce festooned with real candles, the kind you light with a match! Us downstairs folks stuck to a string of electric lights instead.
Onkel Horst was very generous in using his position at GE to get a whole lot of the extended family in the door there, starting with his brother Werner. By the time he "put in a word" for me it wasn't known as Generous Electric anymore, but it was still a great gig compared to what's out there for the working class today. In those days a GE paycheque meant you could afford a house, a car, and you could raise a family.
He had been a welding inspector there, but somewhere along the line he went into supervision. I can vouch for the fact that he didn't cut me any slack on account of being family. Getting called into his office for a "chat" was known on the shop floor as "getting a load of Horst-shit." Years later, when I became a welding inspector at Frankel Steel, I made a point of thanking him for getting me into the trade.
Horst stayed in that plant until he retired. Along the way he and Gisela raised three kids who by now have made him a great-grandfather several times over. He was a good man, a solid working-class guy who you could count on.
He'll be missed. Mach's gut, lieber Onkel!
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Trump's brazen interference in the Israeli election
Trump's gifting of the Golan to Israel on Thursday was a present meant to give Netanyahu's election campaign a boost, nothing else.
Bibi finds himself bedevilled by various corruption probes and up against the toughest competition of his political career since Ariel Sharon. The race between Netanyahu and Benny Gantz is so close that this could tip the balance.
This move can only be seen as a provocation by Arab states in the region, and provoking Arabs and Palestinians has long been a feature of Netanyahu's electioneering.
And you can't deny that it works.
Unfortunately, it comes at a time when there is a growing rift between the ever more right-wing tilt of Israeli politics and the attitudes of Jews in the US, especially the younger generation. As an example, consider that in recent memory any aspiring US political leader found it expedient to show up and speechify at the annual AIPAC convention.
This year, almost half of the Dems who have declared for the 2020 presidential race are taking a pass. This is a big deal. The Democrats are in the early stages of a generational sea-change. The momentum is clearly with the OAC-Ilhan Omar contingent. Last century Dem bigs like Pelosi and Schumer will still show up at the AIPAC shindig, of course, but anyone who wants to be perceived as progressive will give it a wide berth.
American policy in the Middle East has been an unmitigated disaster for at least fifty years. Legitimising Israel's theft of the Golan just makes it worse.
Bibi finds himself bedevilled by various corruption probes and up against the toughest competition of his political career since Ariel Sharon. The race between Netanyahu and Benny Gantz is so close that this could tip the balance.
This move can only be seen as a provocation by Arab states in the region, and provoking Arabs and Palestinians has long been a feature of Netanyahu's electioneering.
And you can't deny that it works.
Unfortunately, it comes at a time when there is a growing rift between the ever more right-wing tilt of Israeli politics and the attitudes of Jews in the US, especially the younger generation. As an example, consider that in recent memory any aspiring US political leader found it expedient to show up and speechify at the annual AIPAC convention.
This year, almost half of the Dems who have declared for the 2020 presidential race are taking a pass. This is a big deal. The Democrats are in the early stages of a generational sea-change. The momentum is clearly with the OAC-Ilhan Omar contingent. Last century Dem bigs like Pelosi and Schumer will still show up at the AIPAC shindig, of course, but anyone who wants to be perceived as progressive will give it a wide berth.
American policy in the Middle East has been an unmitigated disaster for at least fifty years. Legitimising Israel's theft of the Golan just makes it worse.
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Future wars of the American Empire
One thing the apologists for Trump are always happy to report, is that so far, he hasn't started any new wars yet.
Yet.
Yet, sanctions on both Iran and Venezuela are escalating.
And with war-mongering buffoons like Bolton, Pompeo, and Abrams in the inner circle, you know it's only a matter of time.
Bolton has already made it clear that American oil majors need to rejuvenate Venezuela's oil industry.
He's also opined on the necessity of ridding Venezuela of Cuban oppression.
So you know Cuba and Venezuela are in the cross-hairs.
And today Pompeo was in Israel informing Bibi that America recognises Israel's sovereignty over Syria's Golan. Israel has occupied the Golan since the Six Day War. The international consensus is that Israel's occupation of the Golan is contrary to international law.
But there's been rich oil and gas discoveries made there, and let's not forget the water, so who gives a shit about international law!
When you're the bully on the world stage, the actor with the most guns and the most bombs and the most nuclear missiles... hey, you just do whatever you want!
... and that's how things work.
Yet.
Yet, sanctions on both Iran and Venezuela are escalating.
And with war-mongering buffoons like Bolton, Pompeo, and Abrams in the inner circle, you know it's only a matter of time.
Bolton has already made it clear that American oil majors need to rejuvenate Venezuela's oil industry.
He's also opined on the necessity of ridding Venezuela of Cuban oppression.
So you know Cuba and Venezuela are in the cross-hairs.
And today Pompeo was in Israel informing Bibi that America recognises Israel's sovereignty over Syria's Golan. Israel has occupied the Golan since the Six Day War. The international consensus is that Israel's occupation of the Golan is contrary to international law.
But there's been rich oil and gas discoveries made there, and let's not forget the water, so who gives a shit about international law!
When you're the bully on the world stage, the actor with the most guns and the most bombs and the most nuclear missiles... hey, you just do whatever you want!
... and that's how things work.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Trump as tool of America's "deep state"
How are things going for the guy who was going to drain the swamp?
My hunch is that Trump's enthusiasm for draining the swamp waned mightily once he realized he had become the boss 'gator in that swamp.
As things stand, he's surrounded by deep-swamp creatures like Bolton and Pompeo. That tells me that whatever "drainage" he may have once envisioned has come to naught.
Instead, he's going with the neolib flow.
Not that he has much choice.
It's interesting to see how our mainstream press, the same folks who literally created Trump as a media celebrity, turned on him once he became prez. It's not Trump who changed; it's the way he's treated by the same media that fawned all over him from the early '80s till 2016.
Also interesting is how that same media is currently renovating the reputations of some of those names in the news that they used to uniformly deplore.
Pre-Trump, national security institutions like the FBI and CIA were widely considered not to be trusted. This scarcely requires elaboration. Yet since Trump found himself in the Oval Office, those institutions have been recast as honourable truth-tellers.
What's also being recast is the toxic legacy of the Bush family. CNN has an ongoing Bush rehabilitation series that works overtime to show the war criminals in a favourable light. Here's today's effort.
From where I'm watching, it looks like the apostles of American Exceptionalism are singing out of the same hymnal, whether their name is Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama, or Trump.
The names may change, but the song remains the same.
My hunch is that Trump's enthusiasm for draining the swamp waned mightily once he realized he had become the boss 'gator in that swamp.
As things stand, he's surrounded by deep-swamp creatures like Bolton and Pompeo. That tells me that whatever "drainage" he may have once envisioned has come to naught.
Instead, he's going with the neolib flow.
Not that he has much choice.
It's interesting to see how our mainstream press, the same folks who literally created Trump as a media celebrity, turned on him once he became prez. It's not Trump who changed; it's the way he's treated by the same media that fawned all over him from the early '80s till 2016.
Also interesting is how that same media is currently renovating the reputations of some of those names in the news that they used to uniformly deplore.
Pre-Trump, national security institutions like the FBI and CIA were widely considered not to be trusted. This scarcely requires elaboration. Yet since Trump found himself in the Oval Office, those institutions have been recast as honourable truth-tellers.
What's also being recast is the toxic legacy of the Bush family. CNN has an ongoing Bush rehabilitation series that works overtime to show the war criminals in a favourable light. Here's today's effort.
From where I'm watching, it looks like the apostles of American Exceptionalism are singing out of the same hymnal, whether their name is Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama, or Trump.
The names may change, but the song remains the same.
Monday, March 18, 2019
The super-rich are destroying democracy
Democracy... what a concept!
Yup, one person, one vote! What could be more egalitarian than that?
If you're one of those unfortunate Americans toiling at the official minimum wage, you're going to toil well into your eighties before you've made a million bucks.
A billionaire, on the other hand, has made that million at least a thousand times over.
Now, it's not my place to say that's not right. Maybe that billionaire is a thousand times smarter than the schmuck drawing down the min wage. Maybe that billionaire works a thousand times harder... who knows?
But I think we can all agree that this situation threatens democracy. One person, one vote?...
To my way of thinking, the Citizens United case of 2010 put the final nail in the coffin of America's "democracy." True, it may have been in trouble before, but it's long gone by now.
Here's a little nugget from the Washington Post; Eleven donors have plowed a billion dollars into superPACS...
And here's a rundown of what billionaires spent on the 2018 midterms.
And, according to the New York Times, the Koch brothers political network had almost 900 millions to spread around for the 2016 presidential election.
Bear in mind that Putin threw the 2016 election with just a few Facebook adverts. Imagine what 900 millions could do!
Ya, you'll get the occasional aberration, like Tom Steyer talking about a $15 min wage, or Richard Uihlein tossing some spare change to AOC's campaign, but that doesn't change the fact that billionaires look out for their own interests first.
Plutocracy is not democracy.
Yup, one person, one vote! What could be more egalitarian than that?
If you're one of those unfortunate Americans toiling at the official minimum wage, you're going to toil well into your eighties before you've made a million bucks.
A billionaire, on the other hand, has made that million at least a thousand times over.
Now, it's not my place to say that's not right. Maybe that billionaire is a thousand times smarter than the schmuck drawing down the min wage. Maybe that billionaire works a thousand times harder... who knows?
But I think we can all agree that this situation threatens democracy. One person, one vote?...
To my way of thinking, the Citizens United case of 2010 put the final nail in the coffin of America's "democracy." True, it may have been in trouble before, but it's long gone by now.
Here's a little nugget from the Washington Post; Eleven donors have plowed a billion dollars into superPACS...
And here's a rundown of what billionaires spent on the 2018 midterms.
And, according to the New York Times, the Koch brothers political network had almost 900 millions to spread around for the 2016 presidential election.
Bear in mind that Putin threw the 2016 election with just a few Facebook adverts. Imagine what 900 millions could do!
Ya, you'll get the occasional aberration, like Tom Steyer talking about a $15 min wage, or Richard Uihlein tossing some spare change to AOC's campaign, but that doesn't change the fact that billionaires look out for their own interests first.
Plutocracy is not democracy.
High tide at Falling Downs
We've been having some screwy weather in these parts. Could that be a symptom of "climate change?"
There's no doubt winter is lingering. We woke up to -10 C this morning, and spring officially arrives this week. Last week we had a couple of days of rain. That washed out the Burgess Sideroad and also brought Indian Creek up four or five feet. For a few hours on Saturday afternoon the water was actually going over our bridge instead of under it, which we've only seen once before in the ten years we've been here.
I remain what might be called a climate change skeptic. According to the experts, ten or twelve thousand years ago Falling Downs would have been under a mile and a half of ice and snow. Obviously a lot of climate change happened long before humanity went wild with the fossil fuels. Climate is constantly changing whether we burn fossil fuels or not.
Which is not to say we shouldn't be trying to minimize our carbon footprint. Tread lightly on the earth, and leave things better than you found them has always been my mantra. But when you see outfits like Goldman Sachs promoting carbon tax solutions to our alleged climate crisis... that's always struck me as the equivalent of an obese person paying an anorexic not to eat.
I think there's a certain amount of unacknowledged hubris involved in the climate change debate.
"We are the master species and we can kill off all life on earth."
Well, I doubt it. I don't think Mother Nature gives a shit one way or the other if our species survives or not. Here at Falling Downs we've got pre-historic snapping turtles climbing out of the marsh every spring to lay their eggs in our driveway. They were doing that a million years ago and they'll be doing that a million years after we humanoids drive ourselves to extinction. They've survived cataclysmic volcanic eruptions and asteroid strikes. They roamed the earth in the age of dinosaurs and they're still here.
My favourite environmentalist isn't Rachel Carson or David Suzuki. It's Wiebo Ludwig.
Wiebo was what you might call a "direct action" kind of environmentalist. He was also a fundamentalist Christian. Oddly enough, neither Christians nor environmentalists have ever embraced the guy.
So we had the water going over the bridge and then the rain turned to snow and things got colder. The water level dropped over the course of Sunday. By late Sunday night, when I went out on the stoop for a breath of fresh air, you could hear the ice sheet cracking and collapsing all through the marsh and down to Bass Lake. It's an eerie sensation. A dead quiet night punctuated with the groans of fracturing ice and sudden crashes.
But, it's forecast to warm up this week. Another couple of weeks and I'll be able to put the canoe in across the way and paddle down to Bass Lake.
By then, the snappers should be digging their way out of the marsh again.
There's no doubt winter is lingering. We woke up to -10 C this morning, and spring officially arrives this week. Last week we had a couple of days of rain. That washed out the Burgess Sideroad and also brought Indian Creek up four or five feet. For a few hours on Saturday afternoon the water was actually going over our bridge instead of under it, which we've only seen once before in the ten years we've been here.
I remain what might be called a climate change skeptic. According to the experts, ten or twelve thousand years ago Falling Downs would have been under a mile and a half of ice and snow. Obviously a lot of climate change happened long before humanity went wild with the fossil fuels. Climate is constantly changing whether we burn fossil fuels or not.
Which is not to say we shouldn't be trying to minimize our carbon footprint. Tread lightly on the earth, and leave things better than you found them has always been my mantra. But when you see outfits like Goldman Sachs promoting carbon tax solutions to our alleged climate crisis... that's always struck me as the equivalent of an obese person paying an anorexic not to eat.
I think there's a certain amount of unacknowledged hubris involved in the climate change debate.
"We are the master species and we can kill off all life on earth."
Well, I doubt it. I don't think Mother Nature gives a shit one way or the other if our species survives or not. Here at Falling Downs we've got pre-historic snapping turtles climbing out of the marsh every spring to lay their eggs in our driveway. They were doing that a million years ago and they'll be doing that a million years after we humanoids drive ourselves to extinction. They've survived cataclysmic volcanic eruptions and asteroid strikes. They roamed the earth in the age of dinosaurs and they're still here.
My favourite environmentalist isn't Rachel Carson or David Suzuki. It's Wiebo Ludwig.
Wiebo was what you might call a "direct action" kind of environmentalist. He was also a fundamentalist Christian. Oddly enough, neither Christians nor environmentalists have ever embraced the guy.
So we had the water going over the bridge and then the rain turned to snow and things got colder. The water level dropped over the course of Sunday. By late Sunday night, when I went out on the stoop for a breath of fresh air, you could hear the ice sheet cracking and collapsing all through the marsh and down to Bass Lake. It's an eerie sensation. A dead quiet night punctuated with the groans of fracturing ice and sudden crashes.
But, it's forecast to warm up this week. Another couple of weeks and I'll be able to put the canoe in across the way and paddle down to Bass Lake.
By then, the snappers should be digging their way out of the marsh again.
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Immigrants and assimilation
I think the question of assimilation never really came up back in the day when my clan got off the boat. Of course you were going to assimilate! What else were you gonna do?
Mind you, some of the older folks never really managed. There were enough Italian businesses and Italian people around Guelph that you could get by without speaking English. That was also true of German speakers in Kitchener, just down the road.
But that was pretty much just a few folks who were already on in years when they got here. If you were of working age you kinda had to learn the language by default. There weren't any ESL lessons on offer either; you were on your own.
There are many more supports in place for immigrants in this day and age, yet ironically, some recent immigrants seem to struggle more.
I think a big part of the reason is that immigration policy has been divorced from labour market needs and the availability of affordable housing. Our current government has a target of 350,000 immigrants per year. What they don't have is any plan for where these people are going to live and where they're going to work.
That's a problem.
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Immigrants made America great
I absently googled the name of a cousin and found he'd established quite the internet presence. He's got a TV show and a book coming out. He's not somebody I'm tight with, but I see him at the occasional family reunion. That got me thinking about how us immigrants and children of immigrants have fared in the new land(s).
He and I have a common great-grandmother. She had the good luck of making it to the USA before the WW II. She gave birth twelve times, but only three of her kids made it to adulthood; Lotte, Amelia, and Hilda.
Amelia followed her to the US. Lotte and Hilda ended up in Canada.
The next generation produced the first university graduates, an engineer and a Ph.D. in history who became a professor.
Then came my generation. More university grads. My cousin Tommy had the distinction of bringing the first brown baby to the family picnic. What was a novelty thirty years ago doesn't even raise an eyebrow these days. The Aryan offspring of my dear great grandmother have proven themselves willing and able to copulate with all creeds and all races, which I find rather a happy thing.
By the time the next generation rolled around, a university degree was the norm. We've got chefs and trades guys too, but we've also got a smattering of millionaire business folks and that Mexican kid with the Italian name.
That's the family tree of my extended immigrant family.
The guy who did my cataract surgery was a Muslim. My doctor is a Jew. The doctor who saved my son's life during a difficult childbirth was a black dude from Ethiopia...
So, what exactly is the problem with immigrants?...
He and I have a common great-grandmother. She had the good luck of making it to the USA before the WW II. She gave birth twelve times, but only three of her kids made it to adulthood; Lotte, Amelia, and Hilda.
Amelia followed her to the US. Lotte and Hilda ended up in Canada.
The next generation produced the first university graduates, an engineer and a Ph.D. in history who became a professor.
Then came my generation. More university grads. My cousin Tommy had the distinction of bringing the first brown baby to the family picnic. What was a novelty thirty years ago doesn't even raise an eyebrow these days. The Aryan offspring of my dear great grandmother have proven themselves willing and able to copulate with all creeds and all races, which I find rather a happy thing.
By the time the next generation rolled around, a university degree was the norm. We've got chefs and trades guys too, but we've also got a smattering of millionaire business folks and that Mexican kid with the Italian name.
That's the family tree of my extended immigrant family.
The guy who did my cataract surgery was a Muslim. My doctor is a Jew. The doctor who saved my son's life during a difficult childbirth was a black dude from Ethiopia...
So, what exactly is the problem with immigrants?...
Friday, March 15, 2019
Stop glorifying killers
There's no such thing as bad publicity for someone determined to be famous/infamous.
The person(s) behind today's outrage in NZ explicitly referenced the Quebec City mosque shooter and Norway's mass murderer by name.
Every news outlet on the planet has a feature window right now along the lines of "what we know about the Christchurch killer."
I already know everything I need to know about the Christchurch killer. Only a madman takes a gun into a place of worship and kills unarmed people.
And that's all I need to know. I don't need to know their name and I don't need to know their back story and I don't need to know their delusions.
Giving a platform to the madman's delusions accomplishes what?
Aside from egging on other would-be madmen with delusions who realize they too can become world famous in fifteen minutes, it accomplishes nothing.
Stop glorifying mass murderers!
The person(s) behind today's outrage in NZ explicitly referenced the Quebec City mosque shooter and Norway's mass murderer by name.
Every news outlet on the planet has a feature window right now along the lines of "what we know about the Christchurch killer."
I already know everything I need to know about the Christchurch killer. Only a madman takes a gun into a place of worship and kills unarmed people.
And that's all I need to know. I don't need to know their name and I don't need to know their back story and I don't need to know their delusions.
Giving a platform to the madman's delusions accomplishes what?
Aside from egging on other would-be madmen with delusions who realize they too can become world famous in fifteen minutes, it accomplishes nothing.
Stop glorifying mass murderers!
Killing Muslims; the right way and the wrong way
What's wrong with those white racists who go freelance in the killing of Muslims?
The civilized world is aghast this morning at the carnage in Christchurch. Another freelance racist goes on a spree...
What's the matter with these people? Don't they know there are many socially approved ways of killing Muslims?
There's no doubt that the racist(s) responsible for the latest outrage would have found a welcome in the armed services of many Western nations. The US military, for example, has been killing Muslims on an industrial scale for decades. Where is the outrage?
Bombing wedding parties in Muslim lands is a time honoured strategy of the US military, to the point where many of these attacks even have their own Wikipedia entries.
The Mukaradeeb wedding party massacre.
The Haska Meyna wedding party airstrike.
The Wech Baghtu wedding party airstrike...
Indeed, the US military affords the aspiring Muslim-killer many legitimate opportunities.
The racist skill-set would be more than welcome in the IDF as well. If dropping bombs seems a little impersonal, the most moral army in the world provides opportunities for snipers to kill Muslim children while looking them in the eye through a telescope.
Even here in Canada, where diversity is our strength, the wannabe Muslim-killers need not go rogue. Almost a thousand brave Canadians got medals for bombing Muslims in Libya back in 2011.
Therefore, it is inexcusable for these racists to embark on their independent killing sprees. Western countries provide many socially acceptable avenues for killing Muslims.
The civilized world is aghast this morning at the carnage in Christchurch. Another freelance racist goes on a spree...
What's the matter with these people? Don't they know there are many socially approved ways of killing Muslims?
There's no doubt that the racist(s) responsible for the latest outrage would have found a welcome in the armed services of many Western nations. The US military, for example, has been killing Muslims on an industrial scale for decades. Where is the outrage?
Bombing wedding parties in Muslim lands is a time honoured strategy of the US military, to the point where many of these attacks even have their own Wikipedia entries.
The Mukaradeeb wedding party massacre.
The Haska Meyna wedding party airstrike.
The Wech Baghtu wedding party airstrike...
Indeed, the US military affords the aspiring Muslim-killer many legitimate opportunities.
The racist skill-set would be more than welcome in the IDF as well. If dropping bombs seems a little impersonal, the most moral army in the world provides opportunities for snipers to kill Muslim children while looking them in the eye through a telescope.
Even here in Canada, where diversity is our strength, the wannabe Muslim-killers need not go rogue. Almost a thousand brave Canadians got medals for bombing Muslims in Libya back in 2011.
Therefore, it is inexcusable for these racists to embark on their independent killing sprees. Western countries provide many socially acceptable avenues for killing Muslims.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Todt Hill and all that Mafia jazz
Check out CNN or Fox or MSNBC and you'll see a good old story about a Mafia Don (not the one in the White House) who got... ventilated?... on Staten Island yesterday.
That's some crazy shit!... a scene right outta the Godfather, or so Fox and CNN and MSNBC would have us think.
Apparently the prestigious Todt Hill hood, with the best views on the Eastern Seaboard south of Maine, is just a-flush with big-time mafioso...
So, being a naive Canadian lefty whack-job, I thought I'd take a look at real estate in the Todt Hill neighbourhood.
Here's what a million and a half (US$) gets you on Staten Island, home of Mafia Central Command.
That's a pretty sweet spot, is it not? Five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a quarter acre lot twenty minutes drive from midtown Manhattan?
Here's what a million and a half (US$) gets you in Toronto. A raised bungalow on a fifty foot lot, twenty minutes drive from Bay and Front.
Looks to me like the City of Toronto should be trying to recruit Mafia bosses instead of Amazon, if affordable housing is the goal.
That's some crazy shit!... a scene right outta the Godfather, or so Fox and CNN and MSNBC would have us think.
Apparently the prestigious Todt Hill hood, with the best views on the Eastern Seaboard south of Maine, is just a-flush with big-time mafioso...
So, being a naive Canadian lefty whack-job, I thought I'd take a look at real estate in the Todt Hill neighbourhood.
Here's what a million and a half (US$) gets you on Staten Island, home of Mafia Central Command.
That's a pretty sweet spot, is it not? Five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a quarter acre lot twenty minutes drive from midtown Manhattan?
Here's what a million and a half (US$) gets you in Toronto. A raised bungalow on a fifty foot lot, twenty minutes drive from Bay and Front.
Looks to me like the City of Toronto should be trying to recruit Mafia bosses instead of Amazon, if affordable housing is the goal.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
I've got the pedal to the metal...
Which is not at all the same as having the petal to the medal, which is when CF vets who got their Libya medal pin a couple of rose petals to their "operation Unified Protector" medal just to say they're sorry.
Sorry for destroying Libya.
Ya, sometimes when you're spreading freedom and democracy, bad shit happens.
But I digress...
I'm turning onto the Alzheimer Highway and I've got nothing but clear lanes ahead of me.
Put the pedal to the metal!..
And so I did.
The best place to figure out the top speed of your car, back in the day, was out on the Hanlon Expressway. At least before the Hanlon Expressway was a through road.
You'd have to pull off at Clair Road, but before you got there you had a two or three mile run of four-lane straitaway.
That was always an opportunity to keep the pedal to the metal for a couple of minutes, instead of the usual fifteen seconds or so...
I owned a few vehicles that made the best of that stretch of the Hanlon.
How about a 1967 Chrysler New Yorker with a 440 4bbl having enough time to get up to 5000 rpm, which was about 140 miles per hour.
Four thousand and eight hundred pounds of sheet metal and brocade upholstery hurtling down the Hanlon at 140 mph?
Why not?
I had a couple of 340 cars that easily topped 140.
The most memorable trip was when my old pal Kipling and his wife of the time were having a marital dispute in my 340 Dart just as the speedometer touched 150.
That was nasty... all I could think of was the fact that I'd not got around to new tires yet... the latest round of legal bills had put the kibosh on that.
So there we were, Kipling and the Missus having a fist-fight in the back seat, while I've got the pedal to the metal, touching nearly 160 mph on that stretch of the Hanlon, with the steel cords peeking out of those fibreglass radials.
Ya, I know. That's some crazy shit.
Luckily, after she delivered the knock-out blow, I was able to get off the gas a bit.
But it's way later now...
There's no hurry.
You can drive as fast as you want...
Or, you can slow down and enjoy the scenery...
Sorry for destroying Libya.
Ya, sometimes when you're spreading freedom and democracy, bad shit happens.
But I digress...
I'm turning onto the Alzheimer Highway and I've got nothing but clear lanes ahead of me.
Put the pedal to the metal!..
And so I did.
The best place to figure out the top speed of your car, back in the day, was out on the Hanlon Expressway. At least before the Hanlon Expressway was a through road.
You'd have to pull off at Clair Road, but before you got there you had a two or three mile run of four-lane straitaway.
That was always an opportunity to keep the pedal to the metal for a couple of minutes, instead of the usual fifteen seconds or so...
I owned a few vehicles that made the best of that stretch of the Hanlon.
How about a 1967 Chrysler New Yorker with a 440 4bbl having enough time to get up to 5000 rpm, which was about 140 miles per hour.
Four thousand and eight hundred pounds of sheet metal and brocade upholstery hurtling down the Hanlon at 140 mph?
Why not?
I had a couple of 340 cars that easily topped 140.
The most memorable trip was when my old pal Kipling and his wife of the time were having a marital dispute in my 340 Dart just as the speedometer touched 150.
That was nasty... all I could think of was the fact that I'd not got around to new tires yet... the latest round of legal bills had put the kibosh on that.
So there we were, Kipling and the Missus having a fist-fight in the back seat, while I've got the pedal to the metal, touching nearly 160 mph on that stretch of the Hanlon, with the steel cords peeking out of those fibreglass radials.
Ya, I know. That's some crazy shit.
Luckily, after she delivered the knock-out blow, I was able to get off the gas a bit.
But it's way later now...
There's no hurry.
You can drive as fast as you want...
Or, you can slow down and enjoy the scenery...
Canada leads world keeping faith in Boeing
I love those "Canada leads the world" stories!
According to our ruling class, both under PM Fluffy and Big Steve before him, we have variously lead the world in standing up to Putin, saving women and girls, standing with the only democracy in the Middle East, standing up for LGBQT rights, standing up to the ayatollahs, standing aside on Saudi human rights abuses, and standing down on the rule of law vis-a-vis Venezuela.
And now, we lead the world on keeping the Boeing 737 Max 8 in the skies after most of our weak-kneed allies have buckled to common sense and grounded the state-of-the-art aircraft after two inexplicable air disasters within a span of five months.
Transport Minister Marc Garneau says he's not about to follow the herd on this one. You'll remember Marc as one of Canada's pioneering astronauts.
Canada's pioneering astronauts did their pioneer astronauting aboard various US spacecraft, many of them Boeing products, and Garneau would have had intimate dealings with Boeing during his years as President of the Canadian Space Agency.
That's why he knows those Boeing Max 8 passenger jets are SAFE, DAMMIT!... and those pussies at Air China, LOT Polish Airlines, Aeromexico, Iceland Air, Turkish Airlines, and two dozen others who have grounded the jets are just... well, pussies!
As are all those EU countries who have closed their airspace to the plane!
Once again, Canada is a world leader!
According to our ruling class, both under PM Fluffy and Big Steve before him, we have variously lead the world in standing up to Putin, saving women and girls, standing with the only democracy in the Middle East, standing up for LGBQT rights, standing up to the ayatollahs, standing aside on Saudi human rights abuses, and standing down on the rule of law vis-a-vis Venezuela.
And now, we lead the world on keeping the Boeing 737 Max 8 in the skies after most of our weak-kneed allies have buckled to common sense and grounded the state-of-the-art aircraft after two inexplicable air disasters within a span of five months.
Transport Minister Marc Garneau says he's not about to follow the herd on this one. You'll remember Marc as one of Canada's pioneering astronauts.
Canada's pioneering astronauts did their pioneer astronauting aboard various US spacecraft, many of them Boeing products, and Garneau would have had intimate dealings with Boeing during his years as President of the Canadian Space Agency.
That's why he knows those Boeing Max 8 passenger jets are SAFE, DAMMIT!... and those pussies at Air China, LOT Polish Airlines, Aeromexico, Iceland Air, Turkish Airlines, and two dozen others who have grounded the jets are just... well, pussies!
As are all those EU countries who have closed their airspace to the plane!
Once again, Canada is a world leader!
Saturday, March 9, 2019
Frackenlooper 2020
I see where Colorado Governor Hickenlooper has declared for the 2020 race.
This is a clear case of not only the Gov, but the entire team around him, failing to notice which way the wind is blowing.
The winds of the zeitgeist are filling the sails of those youthful upstarts, AOC and Ilhan.
A guy bought and paid for by the fracking industry thinks he should be the Democratic Party's candidate in 2020?!
Get the f@ck outta here!
This is a clear case of not only the Gov, but the entire team around him, failing to notice which way the wind is blowing.
The winds of the zeitgeist are filling the sails of those youthful upstarts, AOC and Ilhan.
A guy bought and paid for by the fracking industry thinks he should be the Democratic Party's candidate in 2020?!
Get the f@ck outta here!
Friday, March 8, 2019
Black Guns Matter
I've just cottoned on to this dude in the last couple of days, and I don't know anything about his back story, but I love this guy.
He's absolutely right about gun law literacy. There literally are tons of black dudes doing heavy prison time for the simple reason that they didn't do the paperwork and spend twenty bucks on a gun permit.
And probably more than a few white ones too.
Get busted with a bag of weed?
You got some trouble.
Get busted with a bag of weed while in possession of an unregistered firearm?
You're fucked.
For life.
Good on Maj Toure for taking this on.
He's absolutely right about gun law literacy. There literally are tons of black dudes doing heavy prison time for the simple reason that they didn't do the paperwork and spend twenty bucks on a gun permit.
And probably more than a few white ones too.
Get busted with a bag of weed?
You got some trouble.
Get busted with a bag of weed while in possession of an unregistered firearm?
You're fucked.
For life.
Good on Maj Toure for taking this on.
Why fix the problem when you can just wait fifty years and apologize?
The Apologizer-in-Chief was up in Nunavut today, apologizing for the racism inflicted on the Inuit population during a tuberculosis epidemic from the 1940s till the 1960s.
It was ugly. It was racist. It was colonialism. PM Trudeau is so very sorry...
On the same day he's in Nunavut apologizing, a story comes out about how the TB rate in Nunavut is 290 times higher than the rate for TB in non-Indigenous populations in the rest of Canada.
Not fifty or sixty years ago, but today. Right now, even as PM Fluffy stands before the locals crying crocodile tears for past abuses.
According to the experts cited in the story, the Nunavut TB epidemic of today would be much ameliorated by ensuring food security, adequate housing, and access to proper health care.
Unfortunately for the Inuit, that would cost Ottawa some money.
It's fiscally far more prudent to just wait another fifty years and then send the PM of the day up there to apologize again.
It was ugly. It was racist. It was colonialism. PM Trudeau is so very sorry...
On the same day he's in Nunavut apologizing, a story comes out about how the TB rate in Nunavut is 290 times higher than the rate for TB in non-Indigenous populations in the rest of Canada.
Not fifty or sixty years ago, but today. Right now, even as PM Fluffy stands before the locals crying crocodile tears for past abuses.
According to the experts cited in the story, the Nunavut TB epidemic of today would be much ameliorated by ensuring food security, adequate housing, and access to proper health care.
Unfortunately for the Inuit, that would cost Ottawa some money.
It's fiscally far more prudent to just wait another fifty years and then send the PM of the day up there to apologize again.
"Objective" journalism and the OCCRP
There's an old folk proverb to the effect that "he who pays the piper calls the tune." There's a lot of truth in that.
Mark MacKinnon's byline appears above a story in yesterday's Globe and Mail that was passed along by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, with perhaps a little help from Bill Browder. The story attempts to link Canada's Bombardier to payments allegedly made by shady organized crime figures supposedly in Putin's orbit, a topic on which Browder regards himself the world's leading expert.
The OCCRP home page includes the logos of its sponsors; USAID, Open Society Foundations, ICFJ, and the Global Investigative Journalism Network.
USAID is the "humanitarian" arm of the US government and as such, is used as a tool to advance US interests world-wide.
Open Society Foundations is a George Soros philanthropy. Soros' "philanthropic" interests tend to overlap to a remarkable degree with the interests of the US State Department.
The International Center For Journalists is funded by US government "ngo" National Endowment for Democracy as well as Soros' Open Society Institute, among other foundations.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network gets its money from Google and the Open Society Foundations, among others.
With respect to paying the piper, I think it's rather obvious why the OCCRP fights corruption primarily where and when said corruption can be pinned on America's "adversaries," such as Russia and Venezuela.
I'm not claiming the corruption being investigated by OCCRP isn't real. What I am saying is OCCRP is first and foremost a political tool deployed against perceived enemies of the US ruling class.
That's why they'll never investigate American corruption... or Bill Browder.
Mark MacKinnon's byline appears above a story in yesterday's Globe and Mail that was passed along by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, with perhaps a little help from Bill Browder. The story attempts to link Canada's Bombardier to payments allegedly made by shady organized crime figures supposedly in Putin's orbit, a topic on which Browder regards himself the world's leading expert.
The OCCRP home page includes the logos of its sponsors; USAID, Open Society Foundations, ICFJ, and the Global Investigative Journalism Network.
USAID is the "humanitarian" arm of the US government and as such, is used as a tool to advance US interests world-wide.
Open Society Foundations is a George Soros philanthropy. Soros' "philanthropic" interests tend to overlap to a remarkable degree with the interests of the US State Department.
The International Center For Journalists is funded by US government "ngo" National Endowment for Democracy as well as Soros' Open Society Institute, among other foundations.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network gets its money from Google and the Open Society Foundations, among others.
With respect to paying the piper, I think it's rather obvious why the OCCRP fights corruption primarily where and when said corruption can be pinned on America's "adversaries," such as Russia and Venezuela.
I'm not claiming the corruption being investigated by OCCRP isn't real. What I am saying is OCCRP is first and foremost a political tool deployed against perceived enemies of the US ruling class.
That's why they'll never investigate American corruption... or Bill Browder.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
The totalitarian adventures of Fuhrer Doug Ford
The first thing Doug Ford did on becoming Ontario Preem last year was downsize Toronto city council. That was widely seen as a "f@ck you Toronto" move, payback for Toronto's failure to elect him mayor.
He's since moved on to "streamlining" the approval process for the big real estate developers, scrapping the basic income pilot project, capping funding for autistic children, and revamping health care delivery with a view to opening opportunities for privatisation.
Having fixed municipal government, the development process, and health care delivery, and shut down those whining parents of autistic children, Doug set his sights on restoring order in the chaotic Ontario Provincial Police. Fortunately, he knew just the man for the job; his good pal Ron Taverner, a seventy-two-year-old Toronto police inspector.
Ford had the search criteria for a new OPP commissioner re-jigged so Taverner would appear qualified, but then another problem cropped up. The number two guy at the OPP began raising a stink. So Ford had him fired.
Not that he personally fired him. Doug would never do that... No, the Deputy Commissioner of the OPP was fired by Deputy Minister of Community Safety, Mario Di Tommaso, another pal of both Ford and Taverner, who was made Deputy Minister by... Doug Ford!
Today it comes out that Taverner had been scheduled to testify at the sexual harassment hearing for a Toronto policewoman who claimed she suffered relentlessly while serving under his command. Heather McWilliam has been waiting for this hearing for five years, and just as things were finally getting under way, the hearing adjudicator quits!
What are the odds?!
When you're cutting down a forest, there's gonna be some sawdust... I think Stalin said that. Look for lots more sawdust, especially when the teacher union contracts come up for renewal in September.
Fuhrer Ford is just getting started!
He's since moved on to "streamlining" the approval process for the big real estate developers, scrapping the basic income pilot project, capping funding for autistic children, and revamping health care delivery with a view to opening opportunities for privatisation.
Having fixed municipal government, the development process, and health care delivery, and shut down those whining parents of autistic children, Doug set his sights on restoring order in the chaotic Ontario Provincial Police. Fortunately, he knew just the man for the job; his good pal Ron Taverner, a seventy-two-year-old Toronto police inspector.
Ford had the search criteria for a new OPP commissioner re-jigged so Taverner would appear qualified, but then another problem cropped up. The number two guy at the OPP began raising a stink. So Ford had him fired.
Not that he personally fired him. Doug would never do that... No, the Deputy Commissioner of the OPP was fired by Deputy Minister of Community Safety, Mario Di Tommaso, another pal of both Ford and Taverner, who was made Deputy Minister by... Doug Ford!
Today it comes out that Taverner had been scheduled to testify at the sexual harassment hearing for a Toronto policewoman who claimed she suffered relentlessly while serving under his command. Heather McWilliam has been waiting for this hearing for five years, and just as things were finally getting under way, the hearing adjudicator quits!
What are the odds?!
When you're cutting down a forest, there's gonna be some sawdust... I think Stalin said that. Look for lots more sawdust, especially when the teacher union contracts come up for renewal in September.
Fuhrer Ford is just getting started!
Monday, March 4, 2019
The wheels are wobbling on Uncle Sam's Glory Train
I see where Ilhan Omar stands accused of vile antisemitism for suggesting that one can be a patriotic American without being an Israel-firster.
That's got the establishment Dems in quite a flap.
But Omar has a point. Check out this video of Chuck Schumer grovelling before the AIPAC annual meeting.
Meanwhile back in the Holy Land, the Greatest Leader Since Moses is hitching the Kahane crowd to his electoral wagon. Those are the folks so far out there in their racism and hatred that even AIPAC are saying hey, hold the phone, we got a problem here.
Back in Exceptionalistan, after Mueller spent two years and fifty million getting to the bottom of Trump's collusion with Russia and not finding any, the Dems are promising to spend way more time and way more money REALLY getting to the bottom of things...
Because this will keep the populace distracted and discombobulated?
All this rabid anti-Trump frenzy is a hoax. Would the broad outlines of America's foreign and domestic disasters be one iota different if we had, say, a President Pence? A President Hillary?
No.
That's got the establishment Dems in quite a flap.
But Omar has a point. Check out this video of Chuck Schumer grovelling before the AIPAC annual meeting.
Meanwhile back in the Holy Land, the Greatest Leader Since Moses is hitching the Kahane crowd to his electoral wagon. Those are the folks so far out there in their racism and hatred that even AIPAC are saying hey, hold the phone, we got a problem here.
Back in Exceptionalistan, after Mueller spent two years and fifty million getting to the bottom of Trump's collusion with Russia and not finding any, the Dems are promising to spend way more time and way more money REALLY getting to the bottom of things...
Because this will keep the populace distracted and discombobulated?
All this rabid anti-Trump frenzy is a hoax. Would the broad outlines of America's foreign and domestic disasters be one iota different if we had, say, a President Pence? A President Hillary?
No.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Go Danielle Todd!
Danielle Todd is a Nashville country singer from Guelph. She's doing a tour of radio stations in Canada at the moment trying to get a little buzz going over her music.
She's a good pal of my dear son Jake, who is an interesting musician in his own right. He's pretty good on the production end too. He's done some production work for a few folks who are right next to famous.
He's also the guy who cooked up your calamari if you've had calamari at the most highly recommended restaurant in Guelph in the last couple of years.
That's the thing about our young artists, isn't it? These are obviously very talented kids, and they've got absolutely zero support. Danielle made a lot of sacrifices in her life in order to pursue her dream with that Nashville free-lancing gig.
And it's a well overworked cliche that the restaurant business is staffed by folks who are brilliant musicians, actors, writers, and artists, just trying to pay the bills till fame knocks on their door.
Meanwhile, I know plenty of middle aged and older folks who are prepared to budget a thousand bucks for the Rolling Stones concert that's coming our way this summer.
Here's a thought.
Think this through. An evening at the local pub that has live music is going to cost you what?
Maybe five or ten bucks for the cover. Let's assume you pull out the stops and have a few drinks at ten bucks each. Twenty bucks for the cab ride home.
You could have that priceless evening five or six times for the price on one Rolling Stones concert.
Here's the thing. The Rolling Stones don't need your money or your attention. I love the lads. They've done great and they've made some great tunes. But they're rich and famous and don't need my money.
Instead, go to your local live music venue and support the up and coming kids who are desperately trying to make a career out of their talent.
Danielle and Jake and a thousand other struggling young musicians will appreciate it.
She's a good pal of my dear son Jake, who is an interesting musician in his own right. He's pretty good on the production end too. He's done some production work for a few folks who are right next to famous.
He's also the guy who cooked up your calamari if you've had calamari at the most highly recommended restaurant in Guelph in the last couple of years.
That's the thing about our young artists, isn't it? These are obviously very talented kids, and they've got absolutely zero support. Danielle made a lot of sacrifices in her life in order to pursue her dream with that Nashville free-lancing gig.
And it's a well overworked cliche that the restaurant business is staffed by folks who are brilliant musicians, actors, writers, and artists, just trying to pay the bills till fame knocks on their door.
Meanwhile, I know plenty of middle aged and older folks who are prepared to budget a thousand bucks for the Rolling Stones concert that's coming our way this summer.
Here's a thought.
Think this through. An evening at the local pub that has live music is going to cost you what?
Maybe five or ten bucks for the cover. Let's assume you pull out the stops and have a few drinks at ten bucks each. Twenty bucks for the cab ride home.
You could have that priceless evening five or six times for the price on one Rolling Stones concert.
Here's the thing. The Rolling Stones don't need your money or your attention. I love the lads. They've done great and they've made some great tunes. But they're rich and famous and don't need my money.
Instead, go to your local live music venue and support the up and coming kids who are desperately trying to make a career out of their talent.
Danielle and Jake and a thousand other struggling young musicians will appreciate it.
Rise Up Toronto!
Here's a dismal headline from a couple months back: Average cost of a one bedroom rental in Toronto hits $2,260.
With that in mind, it's interesting to see the new Doug Ford installed board of directors for Waterfront Toronto, the agency tasked with developing 350 acres in the Port Lands; four white male millionaires reporting to a white male real estate billionaire.
Yup, that sounds like the crew you'd want in place to make sure there's a good mix of affordable housing included in those 350 acres! The headline in the Star announces "Expert disappointed new members all men." I'm no expert, but I'm more disappointed that there's no anti-poverty activists, no affordable housing advocates, and no one from academia, be they male, female, or genderfluid.
Toronto has a housing affordability crisis. This is not news and doesn't require any studying or debating. It needs shovels in the ground and cement trucks pouring concrete. Government controls the land and the approval process. What is the rationale for handing development to the same billionaire class of real estate moguls who are largely responsible for creating the affordability crisis in the first place?
It's time for a different approach!
With that in mind, it's interesting to see the new Doug Ford installed board of directors for Waterfront Toronto, the agency tasked with developing 350 acres in the Port Lands; four white male millionaires reporting to a white male real estate billionaire.
Yup, that sounds like the crew you'd want in place to make sure there's a good mix of affordable housing included in those 350 acres! The headline in the Star announces "Expert disappointed new members all men." I'm no expert, but I'm more disappointed that there's no anti-poverty activists, no affordable housing advocates, and no one from academia, be they male, female, or genderfluid.
Toronto has a housing affordability crisis. This is not news and doesn't require any studying or debating. It needs shovels in the ground and cement trucks pouring concrete. Government controls the land and the approval process. What is the rationale for handing development to the same billionaire class of real estate moguls who are largely responsible for creating the affordability crisis in the first place?
It's time for a different approach!
After Venezuela, we must bring democracy to Cuba, Nicaragua
Looks like Canada's state broadcaster is floating the idea that after the Abrams-Bolton-Pompeo "axis of virtue" succeeds in restoring democracy to Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua will be next. In fact, Evan Dyer's article aligns perfectly with public statements already made by Bolton, Pompeo, and anti-Castro superhawks like Marco Rubio.
The rhetoric of Foreign Minister Freeland also aligns perfectly with the US goal of regime change in all three countries. The so-called Lima Group is little more than a fig-leaf designed to provide a facade of widespread regional support for American machinations, and Canada's participation is intended to put a happy face on what is otherwise a cabal of extreme right-wing regimes.
Relying on the expertise of "historian and democracy activist" Michael Lima Cuadra is telling. I'm not sure what makes him a historian; there is no record I can find of scholarly articles, books, or teaching posts that would justify the label.
Cuadra's "democracy activism," however, is on display at his twitter account @ngotranslations. He obviously remains nostalgic for the setback freedom suffered at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. That CIA initiative was one of the few regime change operations in Latin America since WWII that didn't achieve its objective.
Almost sixty years later, it's still business as usual.
The rhetoric of Foreign Minister Freeland also aligns perfectly with the US goal of regime change in all three countries. The so-called Lima Group is little more than a fig-leaf designed to provide a facade of widespread regional support for American machinations, and Canada's participation is intended to put a happy face on what is otherwise a cabal of extreme right-wing regimes.
Relying on the expertise of "historian and democracy activist" Michael Lima Cuadra is telling. I'm not sure what makes him a historian; there is no record I can find of scholarly articles, books, or teaching posts that would justify the label.
Cuadra's "democracy activism," however, is on display at his twitter account @ngotranslations. He obviously remains nostalgic for the setback freedom suffered at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. That CIA initiative was one of the few regime change operations in Latin America since WWII that didn't achieve its objective.
Almost sixty years later, it's still business as usual.
Saturday, March 2, 2019
That time I got stuck in the ceiling of the Shriner's Hall in Toledo
When I was sixteen my dear father took the whole family back to the old country for what was, I guess, a victory tour of sorts. As far as I recall, it was his first trip back to the land he'd left fifteen years before, with nothing in his pockets except an IOU to the Government of Canada obliging him to repay the ship fare for him and me and my pregnant mother.
I had just hit the age when I really noticed girls, and I fell for one on that trip. Hanging out with her and her friends, I hooked up with a bunch of Christian hippie types from Indiana and Ohio who were free-loading their way around Europe... in fact, you could almost say I briefly joined their cult.
Once I got back to Guelph I would send them money from my gas-pumping job where I happily worked eighty hours a week to support the work of the Lord...
Ya, I know. A lot of shit looks different in the rear-view.
Anyway, the thing with the girl didn't work out. But a few years later, those people I was sending money to had saved enough to mount a "Christian Musical" and tour it through the USA. They were even coming to Toledo, which I can get to in about four hours of driving. They sent me tickets for the show at the Toledo Shriner's Hall.
So I get to Toledo and have a few hours to kill before the show. Unfortunately, by that stage in my life, I'd developed some rather counter-productive time-killing strategies that mostly revolved around liquor and drugs.
Longish story short, I had climbed into the rafters in the roof of the hall. Liquor and drugs will do that. Some folks, it makes violent.
Me? I just wanted to climb stuff. I climbed all the way up to the eighth floor of an apartment building in Ancaster once to rejoin the party I'd been kicked out of. It's amazing what people keep on their balconies... summer tires, BBQ's, bicycles.... I tidied all their balconies on my way up...
But that's another story. I'm stuck in the ceiling of the Shriner's Hall and it's pitch dark and I can't find my way out. I'm not quite ready to panic, but when I hear voices down below, where I guess they were starting a sound check or something, I shout out that I'd like some lights turned.
The lights came on, I found my way out a service entrance at the back, and walked around the building just as three police cruisers were screeching to a halt in front.
Apparently there'd been a report of someone stuck in the ceiling.
I had just hit the age when I really noticed girls, and I fell for one on that trip. Hanging out with her and her friends, I hooked up with a bunch of Christian hippie types from Indiana and Ohio who were free-loading their way around Europe... in fact, you could almost say I briefly joined their cult.
Once I got back to Guelph I would send them money from my gas-pumping job where I happily worked eighty hours a week to support the work of the Lord...
Ya, I know. A lot of shit looks different in the rear-view.
Anyway, the thing with the girl didn't work out. But a few years later, those people I was sending money to had saved enough to mount a "Christian Musical" and tour it through the USA. They were even coming to Toledo, which I can get to in about four hours of driving. They sent me tickets for the show at the Toledo Shriner's Hall.
So I get to Toledo and have a few hours to kill before the show. Unfortunately, by that stage in my life, I'd developed some rather counter-productive time-killing strategies that mostly revolved around liquor and drugs.
Longish story short, I had climbed into the rafters in the roof of the hall. Liquor and drugs will do that. Some folks, it makes violent.
Me? I just wanted to climb stuff. I climbed all the way up to the eighth floor of an apartment building in Ancaster once to rejoin the party I'd been kicked out of. It's amazing what people keep on their balconies... summer tires, BBQ's, bicycles.... I tidied all their balconies on my way up...
But that's another story. I'm stuck in the ceiling of the Shriner's Hall and it's pitch dark and I can't find my way out. I'm not quite ready to panic, but when I hear voices down below, where I guess they were starting a sound check or something, I shout out that I'd like some lights turned.
The lights came on, I found my way out a service entrance at the back, and walked around the building just as three police cruisers were screeching to a halt in front.
Apparently there'd been a report of someone stuck in the ceiling.
Friday, March 1, 2019
Here's the problem with the internet and all that stuff
Grand Funk Railroad.
When I was in grade 9 that song and the album (remember those?) it came from were killer.
There was a kid in my class by the name of Mike Becker who could play the GFR guitar solos pretty much like they sounded on the record. I remember to this day, him telling me that, as we were gazing out the window of our third floor cell at the GCVI.
I fucking hated him.
But I did something he never did. One day, when Ms. Stonehouse was out of the room for a moment, I dropped a desk out the window!
How many people can say they done that?
When I was in grade 9 that song and the album (remember those?) it came from were killer.
There was a kid in my class by the name of Mike Becker who could play the GFR guitar solos pretty much like they sounded on the record. I remember to this day, him telling me that, as we were gazing out the window of our third floor cell at the GCVI.
I fucking hated him.
But I did something he never did. One day, when Ms. Stonehouse was out of the room for a moment, I dropped a desk out the window!
How many people can say they done that?
The coyote hunt
Country folks never "hunted" coyotes back in the day. If you had one come too close, you'd shoot it, but it wasn't considered a hunting thing.
But times have changed. Coyote hunting is a thing now, and I'll tell you what it looks like around here.
Seems to me it's mostly local farmers, who have, at least in some cases, legit cause for wanting to cull the coyote population. So here's how they go about it.
First of all, you don't just go out and shoot a coyote. No, you need a crew.
From what I can tell, you need at least four to eight hunters, each with their own truck.
And that truck should be a full-size, late-model 4x4 that retails in the 50-75 thousand range.
And they need a walkie-talkie system that'll let them communicate amongst one another.
And of course somebody better bring a pack of hunting dogs.
And you gotta outfit the dogs with GPS, and the hunters all have their GPS trackers, and you can do that on your cell now...
I haven't even mentioned the shooting hardware...
So that hunting crew is now equipped to the tune of half a million bucks or so, which means they're cash croppers or maybe dairy farmers.
They're definitely not beef guys.
In the course of the season that hunting crew might bring down three or four coyotes... and you still get the hundred dollar bounty here.
In terms of return on investment, it's not that great.
But times have changed. Coyote hunting is a thing now, and I'll tell you what it looks like around here.
Seems to me it's mostly local farmers, who have, at least in some cases, legit cause for wanting to cull the coyote population. So here's how they go about it.
First of all, you don't just go out and shoot a coyote. No, you need a crew.
From what I can tell, you need at least four to eight hunters, each with their own truck.
And that truck should be a full-size, late-model 4x4 that retails in the 50-75 thousand range.
And they need a walkie-talkie system that'll let them communicate amongst one another.
And of course somebody better bring a pack of hunting dogs.
And you gotta outfit the dogs with GPS, and the hunters all have their GPS trackers, and you can do that on your cell now...
I haven't even mentioned the shooting hardware...
So that hunting crew is now equipped to the tune of half a million bucks or so, which means they're cash croppers or maybe dairy farmers.
They're definitely not beef guys.
In the course of the season that hunting crew might bring down three or four coyotes... and you still get the hundred dollar bounty here.
In terms of return on investment, it's not that great.
Justin, Donny J, 5G, Huawei, and the rule of law...
Here's a fucked up thing.
When you ask folks what 5G is, most of them seem to know it's the next best thing coming down the Highway of Progress.
If you ask them if there's anything controversial about 5G, some of them might bring up Huawei.
Huawei is the world leader in 5G technology. But it's a Chinese company. You know... commies!
If we buy their stuff, they'll use it to spy on us!
And then there's the fantastic sidebar story about the Huawei founder's daughter being arrested in Canada, where the "rule of law" government of Justin Trudeau will of course have no option other than turning her over to Uncle Sam.
That's all great flashy headline-worthy stuff!
In fact, it's so flashy that nobody notices a far more important controversy; 5G grows brain cancer cells in lab rats exponentially faster than anything that's come before.
Why aren't we talking about that?
When you ask folks what 5G is, most of them seem to know it's the next best thing coming down the Highway of Progress.
If you ask them if there's anything controversial about 5G, some of them might bring up Huawei.
Huawei is the world leader in 5G technology. But it's a Chinese company. You know... commies!
If we buy their stuff, they'll use it to spy on us!
And then there's the fantastic sidebar story about the Huawei founder's daughter being arrested in Canada, where the "rule of law" government of Justin Trudeau will of course have no option other than turning her over to Uncle Sam.
That's all great flashy headline-worthy stuff!
In fact, it's so flashy that nobody notices a far more important controversy; 5G grows brain cancer cells in lab rats exponentially faster than anything that's come before.
Why aren't we talking about that?
Justin Trudeau; Prime Minister or corporate lobbyist?
That's a trick question.
He's obviously both the PM and a corporate lobbyist simultaneously. Yes, it's totally possible to wear both those hats at the same time!
In fact, not only is it possible, it's more or less the norm. Name me a Canadian PM in the last hundred years who wasn't rewarded with corporate sinecures for their service. There are none. If it's not lucrative corporate directorships or starting up a "consultant" shop, or both at once, it's being a top-shelf guy at a blueblood law firm, drawing down a seven number pay packet for the ability to open doors and get access to important decision makers.
Even the folks who weren't rich before they went into politics get rich after they leave.
Makes you wonder how committed any of these people ever were to looking out for the interests of us regular folks.
He's obviously both the PM and a corporate lobbyist simultaneously. Yes, it's totally possible to wear both those hats at the same time!
In fact, not only is it possible, it's more or less the norm. Name me a Canadian PM in the last hundred years who wasn't rewarded with corporate sinecures for their service. There are none. If it's not lucrative corporate directorships or starting up a "consultant" shop, or both at once, it's being a top-shelf guy at a blueblood law firm, drawing down a seven number pay packet for the ability to open doors and get access to important decision makers.
Even the folks who weren't rich before they went into politics get rich after they leave.
Makes you wonder how committed any of these people ever were to looking out for the interests of us regular folks.
JWR and the Indian problem
Jody Wilson-Raybould proved something the other day.
On the face of it, you'd think JWR has been successfully assimilated. She's ticked all the right boxes on the way up the ladder in the settlers' world.
Good solid professional education in the settlers' education system?
Check.
Stellar career in the law profession?
Check.
Success in settler politics?
Check.
Elevated to the highest ranks of the settler government?
Check...
So you'd think that she had successfully internalized settler values... but you'd be wrong!
For all those checked boxes, JWR obviously has failed to fully internalize settler values. When it came to the crunch, she insisted on putting honour and integrity above careerism and the interests of the corporate greedbags, even when relentlessly hounded by the most powerful men in the land!
More settlers should wake up to the fact that she is exactly the kind of leader we all desperately need.
On the face of it, you'd think JWR has been successfully assimilated. She's ticked all the right boxes on the way up the ladder in the settlers' world.
Good solid professional education in the settlers' education system?
Check.
Stellar career in the law profession?
Check.
Success in settler politics?
Check.
Elevated to the highest ranks of the settler government?
Check...
So you'd think that she had successfully internalized settler values... but you'd be wrong!
For all those checked boxes, JWR obviously has failed to fully internalize settler values. When it came to the crunch, she insisted on putting honour and integrity above careerism and the interests of the corporate greedbags, even when relentlessly hounded by the most powerful men in the land!
More settlers should wake up to the fact that she is exactly the kind of leader we all desperately need.
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