The Golden Pear remedy

For many years, when I come down with a rare flu or serious cold, I'd reach for the Golden Pear remedy.

Golden Pear is a pear-based liqueur from Hungary. It's sickly sweet and very syrupy, kinda gross actually.

But you come down with that cold or that flu, Golden Pear's scientifically proven combo of alcohol and vitamin C will put you on the mend in no time.

Or at least it used to. I felt myself coming down with something three or four days ago. Picked up a bottle of my secret weapon.

Next day, not only did I have the flu, I had a hangover on top of it.


Bummer...

The carbon tax hoax

The folks who look after this stuff have made "carbon tax" something controversial. They've manoeuvred it into a place where it's a wedge issue, designed to polarize the populace.

Depending on where you are in Canada, every time you fill your gas tank you are paying between thirty and forty cents of tax for every litre.

Nobody seems to have much of a problem with that. But, try to add a few more pennies, call it a "carbon tax," and all hell breaks loose!

That's just another example of how we are manipulated by our information providers. 

What are they teaching at journalism school these days?

I feel sorry for kids who waste four years of their lives getting a journalism degree. For what? So they can work in advertising or PR?

Consider this headline on view at the CBC right now; Social media users voiced fears about election manipulation during 2019 campaign, says Elections Canada.

Sounds ominous, doesn't it? And we all know who likes to meddle in elections, don't we?

In the old days, you might have a story if some authoritative voice made that claim. Who's making the claim here?

Some "social media users."

WTF is that? Damn near every teen on the planet is a social media user. There are no known barriers to entry to the elite club of social media users. No minimum requirements for education, intelligence, mental stability, or anything else.

And yet the fact that "some" of those folks imagined they saw election manipulation merits a lengthy story on CBC?

Some of those folks think Trump was sent by God to save Israel.

Some of those folks think Trump and Putin are gay lovers.

Some of those folks think all sorts of batshit crazy stuff, but where oh where does that become the basis for a "news" story?

Whatever that is, it's not journalism.

The coronavirus hoax

This alleged coronavirus epidemic has hogged the headlines for about a week now. The first four or five minutes of every CBC news report is coronaviruscoronaviriscoronavirus.

Then you'll inevitably meet one or two experts between the hourly newscasts whose job it is to fan the flames of this alleged epidemic. This afternoon they had a guy on who mentioned that the coronavirus doesn't seem any more infectious or deadly than your standard flu.

Hmm... well, we don't consider your standard flu newsworthy. Why not? According to stats from the Center for Disease Control, your regular garden variety flu which comes around every year in "flu season," has killed between 12,000 and 80,000 people, just in the US, every year since 2010.

So far coronavirus has claimed just over a hundred people, all in China. How does that rank as a global health emergency?

We're told that this is the deadliest outbreak since SARS, which at least got Toronto a Stones concert. That too was a massively over-hyped media confection.

Total deaths worldwide from SARS? Under a thousand.

So relax, folks!

emails to heaven

Some of the elders in the extended clan are getting perilously close to their rewards.

That's kind of the way it works, isn't it? You get old and then you die. At least if you're one of the lucky ones who manage part A of that equation before hitting the other part.

How can anyone pretend to be surprised by this revelation?

There's been a bit of gossipy chatter about one of the aunties, who's been caught red-handed sending emails to her husband on her iPad.

Which would be fine, except for the fact that he passed 19 years ago.

That caused a certain amount of sanctimonious tut-tutting...


Till one of the elders says, how do you know he didn't get the emails?

BoJo grows a pair

Well, this was unexpected.

I fully expected the other four eyes to roll over for Trump's order to keep Huawei out of their 5G networks. The Kiwis and the Aussies caved immediately. I've long predicted that Canada will eventually follow suit, and I truly believed the UK would as well, especially after Boris became PM and Brexit becomes a reality. On the face of things, Boris needs some stuff from Trump, like a trade deal, that I would have thought ensures that he locks Huawei out of UK 5G.

So why does he appear to be giving Trump the finger?

I've always been of the belief that the Huawei ban is more about commerce than it is about security. The security claims, that Huawei will hand over all the secrets of the West to the Communist Party of China, seems dubious at best. In the real world of cyber-espionage, all the major players will infiltrate each others 5G networks, regardless of where the hardware is sourced. Huawei is widely regarded as being a generation ahead of Western technology. A ban would secure market share for Western companies.

Note what Boris has done. He's not banned Huawei outright, but he's capped their market share at 35%. I'm guessing there was some back and forth between Boris and Donny J, and that Trump signalled he could live with this deal before Boris made the announcement.

What's in this for BoJo? He just "defied" Trump. That's got to count for something in the polling numbers.


This has ramifications for Canada. If Trudeau follows Boris, and instead of an outright ban on Huawei imposes a market cap, he wins in at least two ways. Firstly, it gives him a chance to pose as something other than a Trump toady. That's a political win for him.

Secondly, it could open up a path to unwinding the Meng Wanzhou logjam. That would be an even bigger political win.

The think tank here at Falling Downs used to predict with 99% certainty that Canada would institute a full ban on Huawei. Now the odds are we'll take the opening Boris just gave us.

It's ok for Canada to interfere in Venezuela's politics

Check out this up-beat report on Random Guy-do's visit to Ottawa today.

This is the jerk-off the US State Department has democratically anointed as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Oddly enough, the masses of freedom-starved Venezuelans have failed to rally to the Yankee puppet.

A fact that doesn't deter Justin and company from giving him a warm welcome and a vow of support.

This is an embarrassment to Canada on multiple levels. We are plainly doing Washington's bidding with our Venezuela policy. This is obvious to the entire world, and pretty much neuters any goodwill we may have stirred up as we lobby for a UN Security Council seat.

The entire Lima Group farce brings shame on Canada and shows the world we are nothing more than America's poodle.

This will be noted in all those capitals where Justin has been lobbying governments to support our UNSC bid.

All those leaders aren't stupid. They realize Canada would just sheep-dog the US agenda.

Why give DC another seat at the table?

Death by sled

First guy I knew who died by sled was an up-and-coming Italian dude down in Guelph. Had a lot of stuff going on. He was an electrician, if I remember correctly, and he was branching out from wiring houses to building them.

Had just built a house for himself out on Victoria Road, overlooking the city. Lovely views. Also had a 640 Ski-Doo TNT, in an era when a 440 TNT was a fast sled.

I don't remember the details. All I remember is that he went out on his sled and then he was dead.

Guys used to take their sleds out on the lake all the time. You can let her rip out there. You should really get off-shore a bit for those high-speed runs. Get too close to shore and you never know when there's a rock outcrop hidden under the next snowdrift that you're gonna hit at 100mph.

But you don't want to get too far out there. Lake Huron never freezes over. Sooner or later you're gonna run into open water, ie the water is open, having no ice cover, and you and your sled are gonna sink to the bottom...

Then there was the kid who pegged the throttle on a side-road nearby. Didn't even see the truck parked on the shoulder till he hit the back of it. "At high speed," the news story informed us.


Yup, I should definitely be shopping for another sled.



Or not.

Pinocchio Pete rides again

Peter "Pinocchio" MacKay announced today that he's going to take another crack at the top job in the PC party. What would a Canada under PM MacKay look like?

Toadying to the US, something the Liberals prefer to downplay, would be openly celebrated. Under Trudeau we're a little embarrassed to be Uncle Sam's water boys. Under MacKay, we'll stand proud to be water boys to the Exceptional Nation.

Our anti-Iran and pro-Israel rhetoric will ramp up. There'll be more chest-thumping declarations about freedom and democracy and human rights and our commitment to stand with our allies as we stare down the scourge of Putinism.

Hundreds of billions in new defense spending will be announced. The only comfort a rational person will find in this is that both the Libs and the PCs are fond of making announcements but not too concerned with following through. Think Sea King, F-18 replacement, icebreakers...

Doing nothing saves a lot of money.

It sucks to be Babak

Sad story on view at the CBC about a trucker who is no longer allowed admittance to the US of A. Seems Babak has a problem because his last name is Soleimani, same as the Iranian dude the Yanks knocked off in Iraq a couple weeks ago.

If the dumb-ass US border guards have their way, Babak can kiss his trucking job goodbye.

But that's the least of his worries.

A far bigger one would be wondering if his coordinates were being fed into the guidance system of a Hellfire missile on a US drone base somewhere.

To whose benefit is 5G?

Mass media treat the 5G roll-out as a forgone conclusion. It's taken for granted that every sentient person must be thrilled at the extra connectivity it'll bring us.

But hang on a minute. Does anybody really need more "connectivity?" Don't we have plenty already?

Perhaps even more than enough?

So why do we need more of it?


From the admittedly limited reading I've done on the matter, 5G will primarily benefit that sector of the economy that has figured out how to make your personal information into a commodity. It's called data, and apparently it's worth money!

Not to you or me, who you would have thought should be the beneficiaries of any value our data might have, but to the owners of the data infrastructure, your googlefacebookyoutube crowd.

They're the ones who want 5G because they're the folks who'll be reaping the rewards. So much more data to harvest, process, package, and sell.


And please notice that I didn't even bring up any scary stuff about brain cancer.

Mysteries of the blogosphere

From time to time innocent bystanders accidentally happen upon this blog.

Who are these people?

Are they the folks who scroll past the first page of results when they do a Google search?

Must be...


I'm also curious about the correlation between my click count and certain porn platforms that appear to originate in Ukraine.

Like onlinenow.top.

Why would they be sending traffic to this blog?

Perhaps this is the digital era's version of buying Playboy Magazine to read the articles?

The sleds are out

It's pretty much a sure thing that three or four unfortunate souls are gonna expire in snowmobile accidents this weekend.

We've been seeing heavy snow since yesterday afternoon. There's more on the ground now than we've had all year. That brings the sleds out.

Sledding is one of those recreational activities that's going the way of the passenger pigeon if Greta Thunberg has her way. You gotta admit there's not a lot to be said in its defence.

"It's a fuckin' blast" doesn't count.


And it is a blast. Trouble is, we rarely get more than six weeks of sledding weather in a year. The low end of the market for a new sled is pretty close to ten thou. For ten thousand dollars your gonna have a maximum of six weeks of rip-roaring fun.

A new sled depreciates like crazy. That ten grand sled might give you back five in three years, if you've kept it up. You paid five thou in depreciation for eighteen weeks of sledding. That's on top of your actual running costs, insurance, trail pass, and so on.

Do the math. You can rent a new sled for a couple of hundred dollars per day, all in. Do that three or four times a season, and you've got your sledding itch under control.

But no, there's guys all over this county who have high end sleds in the garage, way over that ten grand threshold. They get a good blanket of snow, and off they go.

Nevermind that the trails aren't officially open. Nevermind that they're running in the first zero-visibility blizzard of the season.


I can hear the sleds from the front porch, fast and furious...

Censorship by omission

Gary Mason has a scary op-ed on A5 of today's Globe on Canada's troubles with China.

To hear Mason tell the tale, little rule-of-law Canada was diligently following the rule of law when Uncle Sam sent over an extradition request for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Being the rule-of-law nebbishes that we are, we of course immediately acquiesced to the American request, because... well, rule of law, don't ya know!

So now we're being bullied by the cowardly Chinese, who bully us because they fear the actual real bully in the schoolyard, Uncle Sam.

While Mason has a point about who the real bully is in this scenario, he says not a word about the foundational issue behind this controversy, ie the alleged crimes committed by Meng. According to Washington's interpretation of "rule of law," they get to make up laws unilaterally and can then prosecute anyone on the planet for violating them. In this case, they claim that Meng's employer, a Chinese company, violated US law by doing business with Iran, contrary to US sanctions.

This is an aspect of the case seldom mentioned in the Globe and Mail's many stories on the matter; the legality and morality of the American sanctions on Iran. It is blithely assumed that it's 100% hunky-dory for the Trump regime to make stuff up and expect the rest of the world to cave to its demands, and watch out if they don't!

Folks who fail to fall in line are at risk of being apprehended at a Canadian airport, because in Canada, we're all about the rule of law.

Rudy Giuliani lives the impossible dream!

WTF is up with Rudy?

See what I mean? This dude has name recognition, big time. All you have to do is say one word, "Rudy," and the whole world knows exactly who you're talking about.

Just like Elvis!

Or Hillary.

Sting.

Bono...

I never followed NYC politics close enough to appreciate the nuances of Rudy's rise to power. I always figured he was just a holdover from the ward-heeler era.

But by god, this is the twitternet era, and Rudy is more than holding his own! Look at Rudy now, globe-trotting secret agent for the Trump presidency!

Wow!!!

That's bigger than being 007!


I wonder if he has the proverbial "license to kill?"

Mali; the gift that keeps on giving

Seven years ago this month the Communications Minister of Mali was confidently predicting that the war against the evil-doers in Mali would be over in a matter of days. Manga Dembele's burst of overconfidence was due to the fact that Mali's colonial overlords had recently committed to ridding the country of the Islamists and separatists then running amok.

In the words of renowned French "public intellectual" BHL, the Mali adventure was going to give Hollande the Conqueror an opportunity to "earn his spurs."

The spurless Hollande has long ridden into the sunset, and now it's the new Emperor's turn. We read of Macron "reading the riot act"  to his African vassals.


"Buck up, Homies, we can't go on bringing you freedom and democracy forever... "


Left unsaid is that the French are in Africa mainly to do the job Ghadaffi used to do for us, namely keeping the African masses in Africa. We fixed that too, with a goodly dose of freedom, human rights, and democracy...

Former PM Harper calls for regime change in Iran

As a made member of the Alliance Church mafia, Stephen Harper subscribes to the same world-view as the two Mikes, Pence and Pompeo; the Israelites are God's chosen people and it's the duty of all good Christians to promote the interests of the Netanyahu government. God's long-term plan for his chosen people may not be pretty, but that's between Him and them and not for us to question.

In the meantime, it is every Christian's duty to support Israel.

It's a world-view that, once fully internalized, permits the holder to conclude that it is the religious fanaticism and regional imperialism of Iran that is the cause of turmoil in the region, whereas the historical record suggests rather strongly that it is in fact the religious fanaticism and regional imperialism of the chosen people themselves that lies behind most of that regional turmoil.

This is of course a truth that is not welcomed in public discourse. We are instead indoctrinated into a bogus ideology of Western virtue. Our hearts are pure. We want only freedom and human rights and democracy for all in the region. Those who resist our altruistic initiatives are by definition "evil-doers," who must be crushed.

Having restored democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the Nations of Virtue are now focusing on Iran.

Michael McCain strays off the reservation

This is bound to raise a stink.

Why does a corporate CEO have to say what Justin should be saying?

It's an interesting spectacle to see the ruling elite undercut one of their own so openly. They usually do their back-stabbing behind the scenes.

Something urban dwellers never hear anymore

Every once in a while I have to tear myself away from the screen and step out on the porch for a breath of fresh air.

It's ten o'clock on a Sunday night, and there is absolute silence. The air is still, there are no wind sounds. The winds are always beautiful but often overpower everything else.

A far away dog barking breaks the silence, barely. Even farther away, a coyote clan answers back.

Then there's a cracking of the ice sheet from across the way. Sounds a lot like a gunshot, but has a tone of its own.

Other than that, no traffic sounds, no planes in the sky...


Of all the things city folks never hear anymore, silence is the most precious.

What's next in Iran?

For a few precious days it looked like the Soleimani execution had done the unthinkable; unite the people of Iran behind their government.

Thankfully, fate intervened as the ayatollahs immediately gifted their opponents the propaganda coup of PS752. The Iranian people are once again in the streets, this time united against their government.

This is the moment for the Nations of Virtue to pile on. If there's any way to up "maximum pressure," it must be found. We want chaos in the streets of Tehran. We want Iran to be ungovernable. Trump is already doing his part with his Twitter account.

Iran is scheduled to hold elections in six weeks. If they are not cancelled outright, expect various American-sponsored voices to howl in outrage about how the elections were "stolen." America, followed immediately by the me-too nations, will declare the results null and void and will recognize some "alternative" government, perhaps made up of MEK operatives, whom Pompeo has already referred to as Iran's "government in exile."

That's a strategy that worked perfectly in Bolivia, not so much in Venezuela. Worst case scenario, Iran descends into civil war...


Not such a happy outcome for the people of Iran, perhaps, but certainly something they can live with in Tel Aviv, Washington, and the other capitals in the Nations of Virtue.

Trump brings "moral clarity" to Middle East

Ya, I know what you're thinking; the pot-addled hillbilly must be smoking some especially dangerous shit today.

But it's not me commending Trump on his moral clarity, it's this op-ed in the Jerusalem Post. Writer Mike Evans is a prominent American "Christian Zionist," fellow traveller with the likes of Pompeo and Pence. The fact that the JPost finds space to publish this paean to Donald Trump's moral virtue shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, Trump has been very good to Israel.

He recognized Jerusalem as the capital.

He gave them The Golan.

He solved their Soleimani problem.


That's a lot of moral clarity under the bridge, and there's sure to be plenty more to come...

After Iran takes full responsibility for PS752, Trudeau demands Iran take full responsibility for PS752

It's embarrassing to see how hard Justin is working to score a few political brownie points on the back of the PS752 tragedy. I've read the statements from Khamenei and President Rouhani,  and a more abject expression of regret from senior political leaders anywhere would be hard to imagine.

Perhaps Justin is upset that the Iranians, even in taking responsibility, have the audacity to link this accident to the Soleimani execution. Remember, Justin condemned the Iranian response to that act of war, but not the American act of war itself. The Iranians are 100% correct in making that link.

Toadying to the Americans didn't start with Justin, of course. Before Mackenzie King became Canada's longest serving Prime Minister, he worked as PR consultant to John D. Rockefeller, tasked with selling oligarchy to the rubes. John Diefenbaker caved to American pressure when he killed the Avro Arrow.

Ironically, it was the father of the current PM who showed the most backbone in dealing with the Americans. Pierre was unafraid to take positions on a range of matters that he knew would piss off the Yanks, but he took them anyway.


Obviously, that particular character trait didn't find its way to Justin.

Stage Three Hybrid

Just like the Stage Three Buick hotrods that the dullest of GM divisions was putting out there in the early seventies, Stage Three Hybrid is over the top.

Which is a manifestation of that big old wheel 'o karma doing its thing.

The guy I got this Stage Three Hybrid from also owned one of those Buicks.

What are the odds?

It was a 1970 GS 455, if I'm not mistaken. He found it somewhere on his travels and towed it home for a thousand bucks.

She was a little rusty and showed well over a hundred thousand miles on the clock. He took it to the nearest NHRA-sanctioned 1/4 mile drag strip and ripped forth a 12.4 on his first run.


After test-driving the Stage Three weed I figure it might take me twelve point four hours to get up the stairs...

Who are the evildoers?

Evildoers.

George W didn't invent the term, but he popularised it for the modern era.

In a nutshell, the evildoers are the folks who resist the dictates of the American Empire.

Cuba.

Venezuela.

Iran.

Russia.

China.

Those are the nations in which we in the West obsess over freedom and democracy and human rights.

No country allied with Uncle Sam could ever be an evildoer, by definition.


Which is why it's so important for America to remain the undisputed arbiter of definitions.

Zelensky 45 - 1 Trudeau

I was listening to some serious types on the CBC this afternoon griping about how Iran has issued only one visa to Canadian air-crash investigators, while issuing forty-five visas for Ukraine.

Maybe that's because today Zelensky said it was too early to cast blame.

Yesterday Trudeau announced that he already knew where to cast the blame.


The most obvious explanation for the PS752 tragedy is that it was a tragic accident. The Iranians had just shot their symbolic missiles into American bases in Iraq, in response to the Soleimani hit job. They would obviously have been on the highest level of pins and needles waiting for the US response.

Taking out a guy of Soleimani's stature was an act of war.



Shit happens in war.


Isn't it embarrassing that the PM of Ukraine is miles ahead of the PM of Canada in grasping the nuances of diplomacy?

Another great reason to get out of NATO now!

This morning the US State Department issued this release, in response to the demand of the Iraq government that all US military leave the country. Please have a close read.

America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue the fight against ISIS and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting Americans, Iraqis, and our coalition partners. We have been unambiguous regarding how crucial our D-ISIS mission is in Iraq. At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership—not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East. Today, a NATO delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO’s role in Iraq, in line with the President’s desire for burden sharing in all of our collective defense efforts. There does, however, need to be a conversation between the U.S. and Iraqi governments not just regarding security, but about our financial, economic, and diplomatic partnership. We want to be a friend and partner to a sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq.


That first sentence should scare the hell out of any sentient reader. "America is a force for good in the Middle East."

Truly! 

I guess it all comes down to how you define "good." If you think destroyed societies, tens of millions displaced, and millions dead and maimed are all symptoms of something good, you won't have any problem with following the NATO herd as Trump and Pompeo arm-twist the NATO me-too states into the quagmire the US has created.

Bringing freedom, human rights, and democracy to Iraq and the rest of the ME ingrates is quite burdensome, and Messers Trump and Pompeo would like to see a little more burden sharing among the allies.


By the way, whenever you see politicians, or learned persons from the Munk School of Global Affairs or the Balsillie School of International Affairs talking about "standing with our allies" in the pages of the Globe and Mail or on the CBC, what they're actually signalling is that they're comfortable having the Trump/Pompeo combine determine Canada's foreign policy.

At least so long as we're part of "our allies," ie NATO.


That strikes me as a very compelling reason for getting out of NATO.


Now!

How does it feel to wake up and find out your entire family is dead?

That pretty much sums up the first four minutes of CBC News World Report at 8 o'clock this morning.

I think that sort of reporting is grossly invasive of the privacy of their interview subjects. These people are obviously in shock. They wouldn't be anything else. What is the "news" value of having one interviewee after another break into sobs?

This is a disgusting excuse for journalism. Grief porn.

Smarten up, CBC!

You're better than this.

Theory #2

Here's a slightly more cheerful scenario. Trump doesn't retaliate against the retaliation. He is lauded as a peacemaker. The Persians have done their symbolic retaliation. Trump quietly lifts some sanctions. Just before November they miraculously agree to a new nuke treaty...

Trump and Rouhani share the Nobel Peace Prize. Bibi gets a majority either in this election or the next one, and kicks that criminal indictment down the road for a few more years.


Is that too much to hope for?...

The Israel-firsters around Trump have manoeuvred him into war with Iran

The Iranians have called Trump's bluff and sent a few missiles over the border into Iraq, aimed at US bases there.

After all the huffing and puffing he's done over the past few days, it's hard to imagine Trump doing a graceful come-down.

It's either go big or go home for the Americans.

The problem with going big, in a nutshell, are the Hezbollah missiles in southern Lebanon. Here's Gilad Erdan speculating about the number; 200,000. Granted, he was lobbying for more money for interceptor systems at the time, so maybe he was inflating the threat a bit.

The problem is that what the Americans started here could very easily spin out of control. Iran has been an obsession with the Israeli military since the fall of the Shah. They game war on Iran constantly. There'll be plenty of experts telling Trump to go big.


Right now this is a bigger existential threat than the climate crisis. Any thoughts on that, Greta?

Venezuela now has three presidents

Slide over, Juan Guido, and make room for another usurper. It's been almost a year since the "Lima Group" elected Juan Guaido to the presidency in a free and fair election that, unfortunately, didn't involve the voters of Venezuela.

They had already elected the incumbent, Maduro, to the office. That's not the sort of technicality to deter the freedom fighters in the Lima Group, so for the past year the world has seen the spectacle of two presidents claiming to represent the country.

If that's not confusing enough, today a third contender declared himself president. Luis Parra was inspired by Guaido's example. Guaido showed that anyone can rise to president just by declaring themselves so.

It's not that simple, of course. Declaring yourself president won't get any traction unless you can get some big endorsements from Washington and its flunkies. In Guaido's case, not even that was enough. By this time, Washington is probably just as tired of Guaido's posturing as are the Venezuelan people. We'll find out soon enough if DC is willing to swap out Guaido for Parra. If so, look for Juan to land in a cushy think tank role in the US sooner rather than later.

As for the "Lima Group," it's been a rather flat year. Not only have they failed in their goal to overthrow Maduro, the internal human-rights challenges of many of the member states have revealed them to be every bit as corrupt and anti-democratic as Venezuela, if not more so.


Big picture: Uncle Sam's gonna be focused on democracy in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. Venezuela will have to wait.

Mondo Gelato

So Kipling calls me up today to say something along the line of, hey moron, I told you five times it was the Gelato that makes you want to tidy up your shop.

Well, truth be told, I've had a charge of Gelato in the vape all evening, and haven't once felt the slightest motivation to get off the couch.

Not even once.

Mind you, I did manage to compose a couple of posts on Middle East stuff that look reasonably coherent. Maybe I just have to re-direct my energy from writing to tidying...

Neocons finally get their Iran war!

I've been predicting the Iran war regularly for almost nine years. You know I have to be right eventually! Just like Apple shares are going to go south eventually. It's not that I'm wrong; I'm just ahead of my time.

The time for the long-anticipated Iran war is at hand. The strategy seems to be to bait the Iranians into some retaliatory gesture over Soleimani's assassination. That will be the justification for a massive US/UK/Israel bombing campaign on a sufficient scale as to completely destroy Iran's defensive capabilities within the first 24 hours.

Things will, as they say, go for a shit. War on Iran also means war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The top level guys at the IDF have said there's hundreds of thousands of missiles hidden in the mountains of south Lebanon.

I can't believe those guys would be in favour of taking out Soleimani, but the advisers around both Netanyahu and Trump would be, because they're playing political games. They're banking on a short sharp war that will enable regime change in Iran.


It may even work, but I think the odds are against it.

When lies don't work, lie harder...

...and eventually you shall prevail!

That's what the mainstream media has been up to, according to Craig Murray.  Murray is a guy well worth reading. He was high up in the ranks of the British Foreign Service at one time, but disgraced himself with an outbreak of integrity.

You can see the point he makes. Take for example Trudeau's declaring a climate emergency on a Monday and approving a pipeline on Tuesday. That should make people's heads explode, but Trudeau just brazened it through. A complicit media plays along in helping inconvenient narratives disappear.

Like what's happening with Assange. Julian Assange is being hounded to death for the crime of exposing American war crimes. I'm with the guy who exposed the war crimes. The CBC and the Globe and Mail and every other platform for alleged journalism are on the side of the war criminals insofar as they refuse to stand up for Assange. Same goes for Chelsea Manning.

And where's the coverage of the OPCW scandal? That should be front page news, but it's invisible. Of course, once you open that rat's nest, you're knee-deep into another Hollywood fabrication, the White Helmets.

Best to just brazen through and ignore the questions.

The brazen lying has just begun around the execution of Qasem Soleimani. A couple of your regular Globe pundits floated the theory that Trump's using this to take our eyes off his impeachment. That's too easy.

Trump is surrounded by pro-Israel advisers, all of them pals of Trump and Kushner family friend Benyamin Netanyahu. Read up on his legal troubles and you'll figure out who it is that needs a distraction.

But that's not a discussion we'll see in our media, which have a uniformly high regard for the only democracy in the Middle East, to the point where they refuse to report anything critical. While that may not sound like an exercise in free speech, that's how it goes.

The Deep-State string-pullers behind Trump have pulled off a perfect operation. They took out a guy they've been wanting to get rid of for years in an outrageously provocative attack.

Nobody knows yet what the blow-back is going to look like, but you know who's going to take the fall.

Trump is entirely expendable, of course.


The real culprits will just brazen it through.

White Alien

Do you ever wonder how pot gets named? Like, who came up with "white alien," and why?

Why "white" alien?

Why not a "brown" alien?

Were the name inventors secret racists?

Or were they intimidated by the forces of political correctitude?

I'm asking these questions because my old pal Kipling, a highly accomplished herbalist, gifted me a few varieties from this years crop. Thanks pal!

To me, weed is weed. Sure, some weed hits you different than other weed, but that's part of the whole weed adventure, to my way of thinking. You're never quite sure where things might go.

Nowadays there's a bizillione different names for pot, and at this very moment I'll bet millions of pot-heads are inventing ever more.

It's good marketing too, now that pot is gone mainstream in more and more places.

So he's got jar of some kinda kush, something called Canuck, and the aforementioned white alien.

He tells me this one will make you want to tidy up your shop, this other one will make you want to listen to opera, and the last one just puts you on your ass.

I was hoping to get a good start on tidying up the shop. Like why do I have two snowblowers? Unfortunately, I can't remember which was which, but I'm pretty sure the white alien I'm sampling wasn't the one that motivates you to clean your shop, or do much of anything else, for that matter.


Then again, isn't that the point of smoking a joint?

What Champagne should have added to his statement about the Soleimani assassination

Here's FM Champagne's statement released by Global Affairs;

“Canada is in contact with our international partners. The safety and well-being of Canadians in Iraq and the region, including our troops and diplomats, is our paramount concern.

“We call on all sides to exercise restraint and pursue de-escalation. Our goal is and remains a united and stable Iraq.

“Canada has long been concerned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Qods Force, led by Qasem Soleimani, whose aggressive actions have had a destabilizing effect in the region and beyond.”

What I would have added is this;

Furthermore, we are alarmed at the aggressive US provocations that threaten to engulf the entire region in war, and urge an immediate withdrawal of American forces from the region.

Unfortunately, only a country with an independent foreign policy could make such a statement.

Trudeau plays oil cowboys against Indians

I don't know who does page layout at the Globe and Mail these days. Maybe that's a function that's been out-sourced to some sweatshop in India by now. For "efficiencies," of course...

Regardless, I often get the impression that whoever it is has a more nuanced appreciation of current events than the nabobs who make the big calls at the Globe.

Take the front page of Report on Business today, for example. Note the clever juxtaposing of two stories re: Canada's fossil fuel dependency. You've got Brent Jang's story on Coastal GasLink above the fold, and Jeffrey Jones' story about orphan wells right under it.

Jang's story is all about the colonists running rough-shod over the natives. Sure, you people had your "hereditary Chiefs" and all, but fuck that, you're gonna be democratic now, so we'll only deal with the democratically elected Chiefs.

Apparently most of the elected Chiefs recognized by the Colonists are all in for the Colonist's plans to push pipelines through unceded native territory. What a surprise!

That's the end of "nation to nation" dialogue in my book.

Then Jones has a story about orphan wells. That's what's left when a well's got nothing left to give. Sometimes they get orphaned before they even gave anything! Other times they're orphaned after giving their owners millions of barrels of oil.

When the well is done giving, the entrepreneurs who own it fob it off to some undercapitalised fringe outfit that milks the last few millions out of it and walks away, leaving the cleanup to guess who?

Meanwhile, our government, in the spirit of reconciliation, has effectively criminalized any Wet'suwet'en resistance against pipelines pushed through unceded native territory.


That's just wrong.

She's my little rock and roll

All tits and ass and soul.

Here's what I can't figure out.

There's guys having their careers gutted all over the place because they touched somebody's ass at the staff Christmas party twenty years ago.

Mainwhile, the biggest rock band in the history of rock bands is allowed a paean to the tits and butts and souls of underage girls.

How does that work?

Technology is bringing it all home to me

Unlike my reader Ken, I never had the opportunity to see my heroes live. I read up on Led Zep religiously in the rock mags of the era. I can't really recall what those were, although the name Lester Bangs and something called Creem come to mind.

Fast forward from my teens to my seeyalaters, and now you can pretty much dial up any concert experience you might have missed on the first go-round.

Like Freddie Mercury tying your mother down.

I love watching the old pre-rock shit, like Sister Rosetta Sharp.


But nothing brings it back home like this.


All the best for the twenties, Ken.

Pot pains

I'm not talking about the pain you pot stock investors are feeling. You were no doubt duped by the Globe and Mail's relentless cheerleading of the legal weed biz.

I was ahead of that story, but I've been having my own pot pains. I switched to a vape a few years ago, and overall I have to say that was a happy thing. My pot would last way longer, and I was doing a lot less coughing.

There's a lot to be said for that. Then my vaporiser expired. I replaced it with a state of the art unit that cost twice as much and worked half as well.

Then one fateful day, as I was reloading it, I lost the screen for that new vape. That drove me right back to rolling joints with a Players paper.

Since then I've been occasionally using the vape without the screen, which is doable but demands it's own technique, and twisting doobs.

My pot doesn't last as long, and I cough more.

I thought maybe I'd try out a bong just to get away from those throat-searing doobies.

Have you ever noticed that all the Korean variety stores have a nice selection of bongs on offer? What the fuck is up with that?

Then again, the Korean Extortionist charges me exactly $4.20 for a weekday Globe. Is he in on the scam?

Either way, he was happy enough to sell me a little bong for ten bucks.

I didn't sport a stache the last time I used a bong, so getting a "little" one was probably a mistake.

Nevertheless, in spite of a few singed stache hairs, I've had a great time burning the vape tailings I've saved up over the years. I was taken aback when Junior informed me that after I'd vaped on the same load of pot three or four times, I could then smoke it...

That just sounded too good to be true.


Turns out he was right.

It's Morning in The Shwa

Took an early morning tour around The Shwa today. That's Oshawa for those who aren't aware that 'The Shwa' is a thing now.

Oshawa should be in mourning. It's lights out at the GM plant since a couple weeks before Christmas. Picked up a coffee at the Timmies that overlooks the giant empty parking lots, where the guys who built the GM trucks parked the GM vehicles they drove to work.

They don't anymore, but fear not, dear consumer. You can still buy that same truck at a GM or Chevrolet dealer near you.

You won't even notice the difference.

The difference is that instead of being built in Oshawa by workers earning $34/hr., they are now built in Mexico by workers earning $3/hr.

That's the beauty of NAFTA!

That's the beauty of "free trade."

That's the beauty of the USMCA free trade agreement that Chrystia just hammered out for us...


You might not notice, but Oshawa does.