Canada first to recognize Navalny as legitimate leader of the Russian people

Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland, widely acknowledged as Justin's brain, announced today that effective immediately, Canada would recognize Alexy Navalny, and not Vladimir Putin, as the legit leader of Russia.

"With the success of our Juan Guaido initiative in Venezuela, the Lima Group has expanded its mandate to include the illegitimate regime of the dictator Putin. Going forward, we will deal only with Navalny, and Putin and his cronies can expect to have their asses seized by our comprehensive Magnitsky laws."

The Deputy went on to declare that the free world would not be intimidated by Putin's aggression, and that we would stand with our allies, the USA, Ukraine, Latvia, and the Marshal Islands, in facing down the Russian threat.

Anonymous sources in Ottawa have reported a buzz around a pending Freedom Summit to be held imminently, hosted by DPM Freeland, most likely at the Chateau Laurier Hotel, to include Hong Kong activist Josh Wong, Juan Guaido, Navalny, and Little Bana from Syria.

The Freedom Summit will be held 1 April, according to sources.

White Helmets are on standby in the event the event is targeted by right-wing extremists.

Paranoid fantasies of the ruling class

For over a hundred years after the publication of Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, America's oligarchs viewed communism as their greatest existential threat. 

That was mostly bullshit from the get-go. From the very beginnings of the Bolshevik revolution, Yankee carpet-baggers like Armand Hammer were doing brisk capitalisky business with the Bolshies. In fact, it was the commies more than the oil fields that eventually catapulted Hammer into the ranks of the billionaires.

Be that as it may, the threat of communism was a useful construct, at least until the collapse of the USSR in '91. Since then, the billionaire class, (which, oddly enough, has a very robust membership in formerly "communist" countries) has been a little hard up for a convenient catch-all excuse for their abuse and exploitation of the rest of us. 

We used to go along with the bullshit, because after all, the only option was totalitarian communism. Now that's been debunked, you'd think the abuse and exploitation might be called out.

No such luck. Although communism is no longer a threat, there is a new, even more odious threat; right-wing extremism. 

You know. White supremacists who swear allegiance to Enrique Tarrio, the Afro-Cuban "chairman of the board" of the (mostly fictional) Proud Boys. And of course, don't forget the Grand Wizard of the KKK (digital edition), Donny J. 

Yup, the new nazis are targeting America's democracy. And its capitalism too, because you can't have the one without the other. And it's just a matter of time till it is revealed that the GameStop bros and the Bernie bros were secret Trumpkins all along, and we certainly need to keep them away from the internet, where they spread dangerous conspiracy theories, like America is rigged in favor of the rich, because that's how the rich rigged it, and other such subversive terrorist right-wing crackpot lunatic theories.

And now, the GameStop bros have upped the ante in the domestic terror sweep-stakes. They have launched an unprovoked terror attack on the very beating heart of everything America stands for.

Billionaires.

Pushing back against the billionaires

The web is full of ominous warnings about what could transpire in the markets this week. The whole damned rotten enchilada could come crashing down, dontcha know! That's according to various learned emissaries from the likes of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

Seems the fact a couple of hedgies  just took involuntary and substantial haircuts has got the attention of the billionaire class. If a bunch of jerk-offs with laptops can pool their stimmy cheques and raise hell, OMG, what's the world coming to?

We need some regulation!

This cannot be allowed to stand!

It's no secret that America's hallowed "democracy" works for the rich and not for the masses. The billionaires require protection from rogue traders with Robinhood accounts? You can bet they'll get it, and soon!

Money for nothing is a sacred space reserved for billionaire hedge fund managers; how dare the unwashed masses encroach on their turf.

Meanwhile, if you look around, there's plenty of evidence around the world that a lot of regular folks are fed up with the status quo. There have been massive street protests of late in many "capitalist democracies." Right now they've got activists in the streets of France railing against a new Amazon warehouse.

Brilliant! Hit the unctuous greedbag who runs the joint right where it counts. Stop the expansion of the job-killing behemoth. Every job Amazon "creates" eliminates from two to five bricks and mortar retail jobs.

Amazon comes not to create jobs, but to destroy them.

When politicians like Justin Trudeau praise Amazon for creating good middle class jobs, they are signalling that they're with the billionaires.

We need politicians who will push back against the billionaires, and promote the interests of the people instead.

Covid has killed 20,000 Canadians

That's the top headline at CBC right now. That's an appropriately plump number to splash around as the over-hyped second wave gradually fades away.

What they don't tell you is that 96.4% of those fatalities have been among the 60 and up cohort. In other words, although the pandemic has claimed 20,000 lives, only 693 of those lives have been people under the age of 60. In the overall scheme of things, that's right next to statistically irrelevant. 

So, unless you're old and infirm, COVID-19 is nothing to worry about... except maybe they'll run out of vaccine, or there's a new more deadly mutation, or, or, or....

That means those 300 or so billions we've added to the deficit was largely accrued to extend the lives of we the elderly. 

While I for one appreciate the effort, I'm also wondering if perhaps those hundreds of billions could have been spent on more productive pursuits.

Don't let him near the vegetarian lasagna

What? That's vegan lasagna? 

No worries... no self-respecting dog of mine is ever gonna go near the... CRASH!!!

Oops. The vegetarian lasagna just hit the floor. 

Bruno's counter surfing takes another victim!

Bruno slinks into the room and assumes the submissive position at my feet. As if to plead innocence. As in he has no idea how the lasagna hit the floor. 

Let's give Bruno the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he just dumped the vegetarian lasagna on the floor because he disapproves of vegetarian lasagna!?

Good boy, Bruno!

Delivering good governance at gunpoint

By far the most insulting story in today's Globe and Mail is the "Shared Interest" op-ed by Madeline Albright et al. The et al consists of Canadian busybody at large Lloyd Axworthy, his faithful sidekick, Ottawa academic Fen Osler Hampson, and one-time Foreign Minister in the extreme-right Arena government in El Salvador, Maria Brizuela De Avila.

Ms. Albright is of course the first woman to serve as US Secretary of State, thereby inspiring millions of girls and young women to seek political power themselves. She is most famous for stating that the deaths of half a million Iraqi children under US sanctions was a price worth paying for the democratic utopia we gifted them. She certainly set a high bar for the millions of girls and young women she empowered!

The sub-head claims "Canada and the US must collaborate on resettling Central Americans and sending a strong message to the Maduro regime in Venezuela." Unfortunately, most of the words that follow are recycled "Lima Group" propaganda that Axworthy and Hampson spent the past four years flogging. In other words, now that there's a normal guy in the White House, let's go full speed ahead with America's normal regime-change antics! 

 And what's with the rubbish about America's "forceful defence of democracy and human rights in Haiti, Peru, Guatemala, and Paraguay in the 1990s?" Who knew that training, arming, and financing right-wing death squads counts as defence of democracy and human rights? As for Haiti, we know the claim must be true, as the US invasion of the country in 1992 (who remembers that?) was officially called "Operation Uphold Democracy." Who can argue with that?

There is something profoundly embarrassing about prominent Canadians shilling for American Exceptionalism. 

Save the Greedbags!

Here's a telling headline from the front page of today's Globe and Mail, "Wall Street hits back, limiting trades on stocks pushed skyward by amateur online investors."

The gist of the story is that within two weeks of an online mob of Reddit nerds inflicting a little pain on some hedge-fund greedbags, the "professional investors" have circled the wagons and are hoping to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Two weeks! 

Where was the outrage when hedge fund manager Bill Ackman destroyed 6,000 great jobs for regular folks at CP Rail?

Where was the outcry when hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert systematically looted Sears Canada, driving it into bankruptcy and destroying the pensions of 16,000 Canadian workers?

Needless to say, there's never howls of indignation in the business press when billionaire hedge fund managers are busy destroying lives and livelihoods. It's what they do, after all... it's their job!

Democracy comes to Wall Street

When I was twelve years old, my dear Daddy took me to this stock-broker joint just on the edge of St. George's Square, right in the beating heart of Guelph.

In hindsight, what's really messed about this memory, is that at the time, my dad was still working in a factory.

Say what? Factory guys on the night shift spend their days watching the ticker? How fucked up is that?

But I saw it with my own eyes, and I've kinda followed the stock markets ever since. Yup, made a lot of money over the years... and yup, lost pretty much the same amount... maybe a bit more.

Point being, I still follow that shit, and never since I was twelve years old have I ever seen the crazy shit I'm seeing now.

Right now, Tesla, the manufacturer of exploding EVs, is worth two or three times more than all other car companies combined, including those companies that have been building cars for 120 years...

A couple of serious hedgies have just taken a gazillion dollar haircut betting against the millennial hordes who have recently besieged on-line brokerages with their stimulus cheques. The masses have discovered the market!

Democracy has come to Wall Street!

Alas, this too will end in tears.

When fascism arrives, will we recognize it?

One of the more popular fantasies making the rounds these days is that America narrowly dodged a fascist takeover on Jan 6.

Allow me to share my thoughts on what I've been watching with bemusement and dread over the past four years.

America elected a president in 2016, a guy who was born rich and parlayed that into general media adulation. That's not unexpected in a society that worships wealth. It was the media who made him a household name.

Once he became president, the same media turned on him. They suddenly discovered his xenophobia and his homophobia and his racism and nativism and transphobia... indeed, after a good four decade run of glorifying Trump, mainstream media suddenly came to the realization that he'd been an obnoxious a-hole all along.

That's because Donald had strayed from his lane. Politics is for politicians. Washington is full of them. They have immense power. They decide who sinks and who swims. Donald was a silver-spoon wanker who loved media attention.

He was not a politician.

By the time President Trump's raucous tenure came to an end, it was beyond obvious that the office of the most powerful man in the world didn't mean diddly anymore. Anonymous fact-checkers at Facebook and Twitter showed the world they had the power to silence the most powerful man in the world.

And America cheered.  

I've argued for a long time that America has become a fascistic oligarchy. President Eisenhower gave us the blueprint in that famous speech on leaving office. Albert Speer, in his voluminous Spandau memoirs, speculated what the Nazis could have achieved had they been able to access television technology for their propaganda efforts. 

Nevermind TV; Speer, in his wildest and wettest dreams, could never have imagined the power of Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the 800 ton tech gorillas.

I think full spectrum fascism is right here right now.

  

Proud Boys boss exposed as FBI informant

Check this out. Not only is the leader of the feared "white supremacist" militia the Proud Boys a Black man, he's also got an impressive track record as a police informant!

Most US news platforms have at least dropped the white supremacist nonsense since Tarrio was arrested in Washington on Jan 4. Now they stick with some iteration of "domestic far-right terrorist extemists" when hyperventilating about the group, as even your typical 'merican tard finds it a little much to believe that a bunch of supposed white supremacists would allow themselves to be led by a Black man.

The CBC has no such reservations. If Bill Blair and Jagmeet Singh call them white supremacists, well, alrighty then! Besides, the entire House of Commons voted unanimously to label them a terrorist group, so they are obviously a serious threat to Canada's democratic values...

The real threat to our values will come further down the road. If we follow the US lead and call anti-government groups domestic terrorists, we'll soon be employing the same tactics of surveillance, deceit, and entrapment that we used against so-called Muslim terrorists. That's what's a threat to a free society, not a bunch of yahoos walking around in camo. 

PM Fluffy boots Brown Supremacist out of Liberal caucus

The crowds were out in force last night chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, racist Ramesh got to go!" They got their wish; Ramesh Sangha got the heave-ho and is now sitting as an independent.

His crime? Making baseless and dangerous accusations and spreading conspiracy theories about some of his Sikh colleagues in parliament. 

What was the nature of those conspiracy theories? It is alleged that Mr Sangha alleged that some of his Sikh colleagues allegedly are sympathetic to the concept of a Sikh homeland.

Huh? What is remotely conspiratorial about that? Canada is home to one of the major Sikh diasporas in the world. Of course lots of folks in that community would be highly sympathetic to the idea of a homeland. Who isn't? The Jews got one. Why not the Sikhs? After all, there's way more Sikhs than Jews.

Anyway, sensible people would have left this alone and allowed the Indo-Canadian community to sort out their shit, but the white virtue signallers who dominate Canadian politics want to make sure that no possibly derogatory words are ever aimed at a brown person, even by another brown person.

As of 22 Jan. 205 Canadians under 50 have succumbed to the pandemic

That's in the entire country, since the beginning of the pandemic.

Add in the 441 deaths in the 50-60 cohort, and the 1335 from 60-70, and we're still shy of 2000 deaths, which is fewer than we'd see in a normal flu season. 

Where the virus is deadly is among those aged 70 and up. Virtually anywhere you look, nursing homes are hotbeds of contagion. That was true when this thing started, it's true today, almost a year on, and it's been true throughout, regardless of how much we try to shut down society at large.

Canada has seen overall case numbers decline since 9 January, yet the news headlines are still at max hysteria levels. Today a 19 year old in London died from covid. A tragedy, to be sure, but he is only the fourth death of an under 20 in the entire country. Oddly enough, he worked as a cleaner in a nursing home.

There are also scary new projections in the headlines, based on computer modelling by the usual experts, clearly designed to scare the crap out of everyone. The various "new strains" provide a blank canvas for unbridled speculation. 

I think part of the problem with how this pandemic has been reported lies in the changing role of journalism. Not that long ago, journalists generally reported what was going on. Sure, there was always a spin in one direction or another, but at least all the serious players pretended they were dishing just the facts, in as objective manner as possible.

That's all gone out the window. Journalists today imagine themselves the vanguard of some vague social justice revolution. The unlettered masses are not to be trusted with just the facts; they need a little direction, a little guidance, a little nudging away from wrong thoughts and encouragement to embrace the correct ones.

And in the case of the virus, they have certainly made it clear what the correct thoughts are. Every expert who disagrees with the official experts is effectively silenced. 

That is no longer journalism.

Picture of a Porsche in Winter

 Check this out.

That Porsche lives on the shores of Georgian Bay. It's a rare high performance very high dollar model. This is the first year we've ever seen it outside in winter.

Insofar as a picture may or may not be worth a thousand words, what words would go with that picture? 

Coming soon; a Porsche powered ice fishing hut?

Bruno Report; one month in

The Farm Manager just remarked that this rescue find is the meant-to-be dog of her life.

And although I totally feel the same way, I must point out that she's said the same about every dog that's ever crossed our path. This pretty boy is different, and here's why.

First off, he's not really "new" to us. We see characteristics of every dog we've ever had in Bruno. We especially see a lot of Phil, the pocket mastiff we lost two years ago, under the wheels of the neighbour's pickup truck, but that's another story.

So Phil came back in a body twice his former size, with a dick, and a silver-brindle coat instead of the former carmel beige. We even had some of Phil's old toys to present him now that we call him Bruno.

Ya, it's a crazy thing.

But Bruno is growing into his post-shelter life. He's a lot better about coming when I call him. That's a necessary prerequisite to being off-leash. The first time I walked him to the end of the Burgess sideroad, a couple of weeks ago, I'd let him off, and then a car came along. He was maybe fifty feet ahead, I called, he stopped and looked at me for a moment.

Then he looked up the road, and then back to me, and I called him again, and he took off up the road. He repeated this four or five times while the neighbour idled their car and checked their facebook, while I risked a heart attack chasing the asshole dog up the hill. He didn't stop till he got to Bella's place, where there are abundant dog-piss sniffing spots.

Recently we've been turning off the Burgess sideroad onto the Kinch sideroad. That stretches our walk from five to eight kilometers, and affords way more off-leash time. He loves the snow, he loves the walk, and he's getting very good at coming to me when I call him.

We said goodbye to Boomer at Thanksgiving, and welcomed Bruno at Christmas. We are absolutely delighted to have him!

Switzerland goes full anti-semite

 Who can even imagine such a thing? A court in Switzerland, still considered in mainstream circles a "civilized" nation, has ordered the detention of famed Israeli philanthropist Beny Steinmetz. This is the most odious attack yet in this most recent wave of anti-semitism that has been rolling over Europe.

Beny has given so many hundreds of millions to charity, (primarily his Agnes and Beny Steinmetz Foundation) that a mere 50 to 80 millions remain in his personal accounts. The authorities have not specified whether those sums are in shekels, USD, or British Pounds.

To say nothing of his mentoring role in the careers of so many freedom fighters and social justice warriors. Beny was the juice behind Bill Browder's civilizing mission to Russia back in the '90s. Likewise, he helped springboard Dan Gertler's ambitions to bring light unto the deepest darkest heart of the Dark Continent.

Such a man, who has done so much for so many, they want to eliminate in Switzerland. To silence him for five years. Well, not "silence" silence; he's still got Twitter, but you know what I mean. And not only that, but also pluck clean his remaining accounts, just to rub salt in the wounds.

I will be arranging a GoFundMe account to assist in Beny's defence. You can fight anti-Semitism in Switzerland and help out a great philanthropist in his time of need.

Details coming soon.

Motor City Madman no fascist

But you could fairly accuse him of being a domestic terrorist since he first picked up a guitar. That hopelessly confused "diversity tent" metaphor made me a little dizzy. So, although we can disagree with his politics, Ted's no fascist.

Ted is in fact a pretty interesting cat. He is an authentic outdoorsman who will sit in a tree for hours in the dead of winter, bow in hand, waiting for the deer that's gonna be dinner. That says a lot about a person.

Back when Ted first became a really big deal he was very popular in my circle, which consisted of young blue-collar types mostly. He had an edge about him. He was supposedly against drugs and booze, but that didn't seem to hurt his popularity. He was seen as something of an anti-authoritarian.

It is therefore somewhat discomforting to see him slinging those old familiar riffs at GOP fundraisers. He's certainly not the first schmuck who made good and forgot where he came from. 

Anyway, he's a musician, not a public intellectual, and certainly not a fascist.

 

Wang Dang Sweet Poontang !!!

Terrible Ted pretty much had it figured out from the get-go; the polite and sensitive folks were never gonna invite Ted into the Big Diversity Tent.

Which is a crying shame. 

But today's "diversity tent" hides a lot of reactionary politics.

Ted has, as far as I can see, come down hard on the side of the reactionaries...

Which, I suppose, is a nice way of saying fascists have to feed their kids too...

Where's Barry Sherman when you need him?

Well, unfortunately, he's dead.

But he came to mind as I was reading this pathetic tale of our prime minister grovelling for more vaccine from the CEO of Pfizer. 

I thought, what would Barry do? Barry would ramp up production to full speed ahead, tread all over whatever patents might be infringed along the way, and worry about the lawsuits later. That was Barry's way. It worked then, it would work today...

If Barry was still at the wheel of Apotex, Canada would be drowning in covid vaccine by now, and we'd be exporting to the world. 

Some thoughts on the outgoing GG

This is something of a departure for me, since my overall opinion about the office is that it serves no purpose other than to invest our relationship with our former colonial master with more gravitas than it deserves. Who gives a shit about "the Queen's representative" in 2021? It's a posh sinecure inevitably awarded to establishment faves as a reward for their service to the establishment. All in, it costs we the taxpayers hundreds of millions and has zero value outside the realm of symbolism.

Then there's Ms. Payette, now tagged a raging harpy who made her underlings cry. Yes, tears flowed daily among the hundreds of unionized civil servants assigned to attend to the GG's every whim.

That's the problem right there. The Julie Payette "controversy" is what happens when you put a no-nonsense, high-performance go-getter into a palace staffed by people who take a stress leave when their boss hurts their feelings. And more power to them... no way does the employer have a right to hurt your feelings! Let the grievances fly!

Unfortunately for them, Payette comes from a world where nobody gives a shit about your feelings. Engineering? Astronaut School? Senior management positions? Sorry, these are all fields where those who prosper don't give a shit about anyone else's feelings.

What we have here is a clash of cultures. High achievers like Julie Payette just aren't in fashion anymore.

Putin prepares billion dollar love nest for his heart-throb

Informed insiders with intimate knowledge of the former president's finances, like his estranged niece Mary, speculate that Trump will soon be homeless and indigent. 

That's why his "good friend" Vladimir Putin has put up a billion dollar holiday home for his use on the Russian Riviera. In fact, reports indicate that a Russian submarine is lurking in the waters off Mar-a-Lago even as I type these words, ready to whisk the disgraced former president to safety when the raging mobs of tolerance-seeking unifiers descend on his 'hood.

He will be safe in Russia. His new digs, nicknamed "Caviar-a-Lago" by locals, is surrounded by concentric rings of the infamous S 400 missile systems. As well, the ten thousand room palace will house, in addition to Trump and his immediate family, a division of Putin's feared SBP presidential guards. 

Sources in the US intelligence community reveal they are closely monitoring the former president's movements and will intervene when the Russians make their move to spirit their asset to freedom.

(With additional reporting by Rachel Maddow.)

Deep State celebrates inauguration of 1000 year reign of wokeness

America has turned the page!

President Biden made a rousing speech promising to unify the nation - except for those 74 million domestic terrorists who voted for Trump. After four years of unbridled bombast, Biden's evident humility is certainly a breath of fresh air. Then again, humility comes easily to a career politician who has accomplished nothing in fifty years in politics, at least nothing that improved the lives of the "regular folks" who so overwhelmingly voted for him.

The "poet laureate" was even more inspirational than Sleepy Joe. Her poem, "The Hill We Climb," stands as a personal coda to what can be achieved in America. The twenty-something overcame the hardships of being raised by a single mom, and survived the ignominy of being forced to attend a $40k/yr private school to get to where she stood today. She has already mooted her own White House run for 2036, so perhaps she'll stand there again someday.

Anything is possible in America... if only we believe!

As Joe stood at the podium heralding the triumph of truth, the master of lies was slinking off to his Florida bunker, no doubt to await the Russian submarine that is on its way to the Lake Worth Lagoon for an imminent exfiltration mission.

Happy trails, Mr. Trump!

 

Discovering Black Whiteness

Recall my confusion a couple weeks back when I discovered that the leader of White Supremacist militia the Proud Boys was actually a Black man?  Professor Cristina Beltran of NYU clarifies things for us with this helpful explainer in the Washington Post.

BIPOC voters too often voted for the allegedly white supremacist Trump because he offers them Multi-racial Whiteness!

Seemed like a crock of you-know-what, till I got to the nub of the matter well into the piece; the "whiteness" we're talking about is not a skin colour, but a "political color."

Got it? That explains how a Black man can lead a White supremacist organization. By extension, that must mean that the majority White members of the group must also believe that Whiteness is about political colur rather than skin tone.

Puts a whole new spin on "White Supremacy," doesn't it!?

Ken Hill

Never met the man, but it feels like he was my teaching assistant for a few years.

I had an English class at the time, sort of a Hail Mary class; a last chance credit course for kids who had already failed the literacy test twice. I was constantly on the look-out for stories that might engage them, and these were tough kids to engage.

That's how I happened upon Mr. Hill. I found a story in the Toronto Sun about a court case. A woman had taken her ex-husband to court to have her child support increased. Nothing much engaging so far, but get this; she was already getting $30 thou a month from Ken Hill!

I got teen moms in the class who can't fathom such sums. I got kids from single parent homes who can't fathom such sums. That's gonna get their attention!

It gets better. The protagonist, the dead-beat dad who is only paying $30k per month, is an Indigenous guy! That's gotta pique the interest of my FN students.

Turns out Mr. Hill had other kids with other gals. Apparently all of them were generously provided for.

That story was the gift that kept on giving. I used it for several years. It brought up loads of opportunities for discussion around parental responsibility, what it means to be a father, gender and racial stereotypes, and all kinds of other stuff. The kids loved reading about a FN  entrepreneur who shattered so many stereotypes, partied with Snoop Dog, and did the right thing for his children. What a mensch!

So while I never met the man, I introduced him to a couple hundred students over the years. Thanks for the help, Mr. Hill!

America; where everybody has a gun and nobody has a chance

Rather a macabre scenario playing itself out down there in the exceptional nation, wouldn't you agree?

I mean, what do they do with those 74 millions who just voted for white supremacy? Re-education camps? Sensitivity training? Critical Race Theory tutorials?

How about a three-strikes law. If the Trumpkins still haven't seen the light after all of the above, what then? Three strikes, and then... a final solution?

Anyway, let's not forget all those dickwads have guns, and lots of 'em. Oh, and everybody else has lots of guns too! In fact, nowhere on the planet do people fetishise guns the way Americans do... it all goes back to that Second Amendment Moses brought down from the mountain.

Or something.

The bread lines grow exponentially. But they're not breadlines per se. It's people in late model vehicles lined up at drive-through food banks. They line up for miles. They line up in forty thousand dollar cars they bought with no money down back when that seemed like a good idea. 

They park their Hondas and Fords and Ram trucks in front of tents by the underpass these days. Nothing left but the car payments and the gun. Oh, and the phone.

They're wondering where this will end...

Thank God they have Joe Biden stepping up to the plate in a couple of days!

Second wave Ontario: cases up 600%, deaths about the same

We in Ontario have been deluged with scary stories about the second wave of COVID-19. I spent a leisurely morning perusing the government's own pandemic website.

Some salient facts:

- during the first wave, Ontario processed approx 15,000 tests per day

- daily case counts peaked approx 550

- daily test numbers have trended steadily higher. 

- Dec 10 was first time over 60,000 were processed. 

- Jan 1 was first time over 70,000 tests were processed

- daily case counts now approx 3500, increase of 600% +

- daily deaths @ peak of first wave: 60

- avg daily deaths past seven days (Jan 9 - 16): 60

Draw your own conclusions.

One night in Maine

One summer night in Bar Harbor, and we're going back thirty years here, me and the family were having dinner in a restaurant in the tourist district. That pretty much encompasses all of Bah Hubba, as far as I can recall.

It was an absolutely fabulous dinner. Bar Harbor had some great food joints at the time. Maybe they still do. Ain't seen the place since '92 or so. I'd have to get a fucking passport before I can have dinner in Bah Hubba again...

Anyway, the family consisted of my two beautiful children and their mom, my wife at the time. We found ourselves dining in Maine due to our move to New Brunswick, where I had scored a gig at Irvings shipyard, building warships. 

We're in this place, and the children are being their rambunctious selves. Which is to say, they're well enough behaved, but they feel free to express themselves. When my wee daughter scampered away and I nabbed her and hoisted her aloft by the straps of her Oshkosh overalls, we got a round of applause. 

At the time, it paid to have a weekend in Maine if you lived in New Brunswick. If you stayed over for two nights, you could pretty much bring two cartons of smokes and a jug of liquor back duty free. Not to mention what you had stuffed in the bottom of the diaper bag. That paid for your weekend in Bar Harbor, at least in the off season. 

So it's Mr. Bill time, and the waitress says the guy in the cowboy hat got your tab. How cool is that!

We get out to the parking lot, and there's the guy in the cowboy hat, pissing on the back tire of a Cadillac Eldorado with Texas plates.

"You have a beautiful family, Suh," he says as he zips up and gets in his car.

I like how he calls me "sir" even though he's at least fifty years my senior. Kinda like every waitress south of the Ohio River automatically calls you "honey."

That's America... those are Americans.

Baseless conspiracy theories without a shred of evidence

As a life-long news junkie, I've noticed that there has been a recent trend in many supposed news stories to include some version of this heading embedded either in the title or the body of the story. This is particularly noticeable in coverage of Team Trump's various challenges to the November election and also in reportage of competing pandemic narratives. In both cases there is an official narrative, and any deviation therefrom is inevitably "baseless conspiracy theory without a shred of evidence."

This marks an evolution in how news is presented. Where were the "without a shred of evidence" disclaimers when our "legitimate" news outlets were regaling us with yarns about Saddam's nukes or Qaddafi's rape squads? Perhaps a note of caution injected into those scary stories could have slowed the march to war on those countries.

Likewise, our truth-tellers in the mainstream media never asterisked four years of Russiagate hysteria with that disclaimer. Any anonymous leak from the "intelligence community" that served to obstruct Trump was presented as gospel, when in reality they actually were baseless conspiracy theories without a shred of evidence.

I ran into the phrase this morning in this CBC story about billionaire and Clinton crony Frank Giustra, one of the biggest donors to various Clinton "philanthropies." Unpaid intern Jason Proctor lays it out in his opening sentence;

West Vancouver billionaire Frank Giustra has been given the go-ahead to sue Twitter in a B.C. courtroom over the social media giant's publication of a series of tweets tying him to baseless conspiracy theories involving pedophile rings and Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Hmm... "...tying him to baseless conspiracy theories involving pedophile rings..."

Sorry, what ties Giustra to those baseless conspiracy theories are stories like this one from The Guardian, and this from CNBC. 

Seems there was this sociopathic pedophile named Jeffrey Epstein. He was an actual convicted pedophile who cultivated the who's who of America's political elite. He is believed to have continued both his diddling and his cultivating until ending it all in a spasm of remorse in a NYC prison last year.

There's an old folk maxim we're all familiar with; you are judged by the company you keep. That Giustra kept company with folks who ran with Epstein doesn't prove him guilty of anything, of course.

But the "pedos in high places" story would seem a long way from "baseless conspiracy theory."

Trump makes history

Yup! First president in the history of USA to be impeached TWICE!

To what end? We're a week away from the hand off. What is the point of this?

The point is to rub salt in whatever wounds 74 million Americans might be suffering right now. Sleepy Joe comes not to heal, but to inflame.

The overwhelming majority of US voters know that the status quo is not working for them. Some of those put their faith in Bernie, only to be thwarted by the DNC.

Many others put their faith in Trump, only to be thwarted by the DNC.

Someday soon, an anti-status-quo candidate will rise up with a third party that appeals to that majority of the population who believe their elites have failed them.

Democracy will come to the USA, eventually.

Cannibal salami

There was a joke going around Guelph back in the day. I don't want to get into the particulars, but it suggested a link between Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance and the fact that there were several thriving salami makers in town at the time. By today's standards it would be considered, among other things, an egregious  ethnic slur.

I'd mentioned the joke to the Farm Manager recently, because we'd watched the latest Hoffa movie, which was very good. That plot has a lot more plausibility than the salami story. But somehow we got into a discussion about cannibalism and stereotypes.

I took the view that one reason the salami story has no cred is because everybody knows Italians are too European to indulge in such barbarity. The only place you'd ever find such a thing is among some African tribes, I ventured.

The FM called me on that stereotype, as she should, but it got us interested enough to mount a google search. What an eye-opener! Yup, they indeed had cannibalism in the heart of Africa, but damn near everywhere else at one time or another, including the heart of Europe!

Obviously, the taboo against cannibalism is a social construct, and like all social constructs, is by definition a tool of the oppressor. 

As we await the Great Reset, that rapture wherein Klaus and the Billionaires free us from capitalism, let's hope we are also set free from this archaic taboo.

We demand freedom!

WE DEMAND CANNIBAL SALAMI!!!

Sheldon Adelson dies of broken heart

Sheldon Adelson, the global casino magnate with a penchant for collecting politicians, has gone to the great back-room in the sky.

These past four years were to have been the pinnacle of his political hobby. His boys, Doni and Bibi, held the top jobs in Israel and the US. It had cost him hundreds of millions in political donations, but finally, Sheldon had the clout to impact history, or so he thought.

Instead, nothing but headwinds, set-backs, scandals, and disappointments. Bibi with his three tries (number four coming up) at a majority. Trump with his... let's not even go there. Complete imbeciles, the both of them.

What heartache!

But at least they managed to move the embassy to Jerusalem.

Remember when we used to call the US president the "most powerful man in the world?"

That's been more or less bullshit since at least the time of JFK, but the Trump era should by now have put paid to such a quaint fantasy once and for all. Over the past four years it's become clear that this president's actual influence doesn't go much beyond whether to have KFC or McDonalds for lunch.

In the event that presidential whims coincide with the will of the ruling elite, things do indeed get done.  So if we're talking bombs on Muslims or giving away the store to Israel, there's no problem. Likewise with tax cuts for the billionaire class. 

Ending America's endless wars, or easing tensions with adversaries, is another kettle of fish entirely. Trump would make an announcement, and whoopsie, the opposite would happen! US troops out of Syria? Not so fast, Buckaroo... we gotta protect those Syrian oilfields!

By now it's beyond obvious that even anonymous "fact checkers" at Twitter and Facebook have more power than the POTUS. 

That should alarm anyone who claims to be for "freedom of speech." 

The America I once loved has sunk to incomprehensible levels of stupidity

When I was a kid, the US of A was a happening deal. 

I used to have a little GE radio at my bedside. It picked up radio stations in Chicago. WLS and WCFL, if I remember correctly. I can recall their jingles. It's amazing what kinda shit gets stuck in the deep memory channels of your mind.

In the America I once loved we sorta glossed over the SE Asia thing. Viet Nam never really happened, or Laos or Cambodia or Mai Lai. Instead, we focused on what new power-train combos might be available in the Dodge lineup come September.

Which was way more interesting. Who cares about war when you can get a hemi-cuda convertible right off the local Plymouth dealer's lot?

I suppose we were on the path to maximum stupidity even then. We just didn't see the warning signs.

While the (take your pick: ruling elite, overlords, oligarchs, Deep State, establishment, etc) extol us to celebrate our hunky-dory paradise of diversity and social justice,  the USA that once dazzled me has gone down the drain.

No nation on the planet sells more lethal weapons and stirs up more shit all over the globe so that more nations will buy their lethal weapons.

It's a veritable perpetual motion machine!

Be that as it may, America's purchase on moral superiority has clearly gone for a shit. You can't entirely pin this on Trump, because that's been the trajectory of US history for at least the last 70 years.

In the past, I recall a robust culture of resistance to the machinations of the ruling establishment.

Today, John Brennan is a hero of the anti-Trump resistance. The former CIA boss is a champion of "the left"

Incomprehensible!

More fun with covid stats

Here's a fun fact to ponder. At the peak of first wave back in the spring, Canada was reporting about 1700 new covid cases per day. As of right now, the seven day moving average of new cases is around 8800. That's a 500%+ increase in cases.

Deaths, meanwhile, peaked at 176 per day in the spring. The seven day moving average stands at 157 as of right now. That's an increase of what?

What does that tell us about the pandemic?

And no, I don't believe that can be attributed to any alleged learning curve in how to deal with the virus. When you look at the slap-dash way the "experts" have been fashioning policy, such a claim beggars belief.

Speaking of experts, isn't it funny how many of them seem to believe that the rules they make for us do not apply to themselves? Maybe they know something we don't?

Anyway, the die is cast. More and tighter lock-downs are on the way. We gotta wrestle this demon to the ground don't you know...

Fat chance. The only way to beat this thing is if we all stop breathing for a couple of weeks. Anything less is bound to fail.

As of 8 January, a total of 584 Canadians under 60 have died with COVID-19

Add the 60-70 cohort into the mix, and the death toll comes in at 1771. Keeping in mind that by the CDC's own estimates, only 6% of COVID-19 deaths occurred without co-morbidities, we can extrapolate that the virus has killed about 100 people under 70. That's in the entire country of 35 million, since the first death in a BC nursing home last March. (Stats here.)

Is our response to the pandemic commensurate with the threat it poses? The hundreds of billions squandered, a generation of children's lives scarred, all in the name of preserving the lives of a relative handful of seniors? 

Remember, this is a country that can't afford pharma-care, universal child care, dental care. We can't afford to address our housing crisis, nor are we capable of providing adequate health care, education, or potable water to First Nations.

But we can bankrupt the nation to prolong the lives of the elderly?

PM Fluffy puckers up for Biden

After four solid years of kissing Trump's ass while pretending he's not, Justin Trudeau is prepping for a new set of presidential buttocks to kiss. Yup, with twelve days to go in the Trump regime, and after the Orange Ogre has given up on his election challenges, our feisty PM has come out as a stalwart of the resistance!

Trump incited an attack on democracy! 

Usually, when you look at where the USA has worked to undermine democracy, you see a lot more than goobers in Viking helmets. Trump's domestic storm-troopers have a long way to go before they're in the big-leagues. They need to take some lessons from the goons America routinely sponsors in countries around the world, whenever electors in those countries make choices not approved by Washington. 

Coming from the democratically elected Prime Minister of Canada, who volunteered his country for leadership of the Trump regime's "Lima Group," empty prattle about our concern for "democracy" is just that; empty prattle signifying nothing other than continuing subservience to Washington.

Washington announces "Peace Summit" with Venezuela

A State Department spokesperson announced today that President Triden has agreed to a meeting with Venezuela's President Guaduro to discuss bilateral relations. The talks are to be held in Havana, Cuba, in early March.

Talks are expected to focus on Venezuela's boycott of US food and medicine, and Venezuela's seizure of US oil company Citgo. As well, the Presidents will discuss strategies to enhance democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

US democracy; the greatest show on earth

I guess that was the "Trump coup." A few over-heated Trump fans barged into the Capitol. One of them was shot by a Capitol cop, thereby making this a "deadly" riot. Then their President told them to go home and cut it out, and they seem to be doing that.

But holy shit, did this "coup" (get serious!) ever unleash a tsunami of over-the-top bullshit about the sanctity of America's God-ordained democracy which is a light unto the nations, at least the ones they're not bombing or sanctioning into oblivion.

The crass stinking hypocrisy of those commentators who applaud every Maidan and Tahrir engineered by the USA now feign horror at a little public unrest in DC. We spend billions getting this kind of shit started in capitals all over the world. What continues to amaze me is how the wizards of narrative management bamboozle tens of millions into believing, quite passionately in many cases, that it makes one iota of difference who sits in the Oval Office. 

A substantial majority of the American populace knows the status quo ain't working for them. Sooner or later, democracy is coming to the USA.

Some health care workers more essential than others

We've heard a lot of talk over the past ten months about our woefully inadequate standard of care in long term care homes. Many commentators and several official reports have noted the many ways in which we dropped the ball on eldercare in the "first wave." 

The result of that hand-wringing and soul searching has been... absolutely nothing! We're repeating the same mistakes now that we're in the midst of the "second wave" eight months later. Part-time PSW staff still attend to clusters of patients in multiple facilities. Many residents remain in dormitory housing. LTC homes still account for the overwhelming majority of deaths.

I would like to see some research into how efficiently health care resources are employed. We spend a lot of money on health care, but are we spending it in the right places? The ranks of health care workers resemble a caste system. At the Dalit end of the spectrum, you've got your personal support workers (PSWs). At the Brahmin end, you've got folks like Dr. Tom Stewart.

The median wage for PSWs in Ontario is $18/hr. About 40% of all PSWs are part-time with no benefits. These are the people who stitch together multiple part-time jobs in order to make ends meet, thereby carrying the virus from one facility to the next. This is still happening today, ten months into the pandemic.

Generally speaking, PSWs are socio-economically among the working poor. As such, at least we know they'll be on the job, and not lying on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean. The working poor have neither time nor disposable income for Caribbean vacations.

The Brahmins, on the other hand, are showered with cash. Very few PSWs make in a year what Dr. Stewart makes in a month. His annual salary of $630,000 would pay for at least twenty full-time PSWs.  (Or perhaps ten if they were properly compensated.)

Here's a modest suggestion. Health care systems are far more dependent on the Dalits than the Brahmins, especially when the Brahmin is backed up by a phalanx of Brahmin-in-training also making six-number pay packets. Why can't we cut back on the number of Brahmins, and their compensation, and provide more resources where they're truly needed?

 

Black dude takes over White Supremacist outfit

Here's a quote from a Guardian story about the Proud Boys, published Oct 1, 2020;

Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacists during the debate, and his suggestion that the Proud Boys “stand by” during the current 2020 election campaign sent shockwaves through American politics. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the Proud Boys a hate group.

That's typical of the reportage about the group over the last several years. White supremacists are working with Trump to undermine America's smiley-face democracy, and create a thousand year Trumpian Reich!

So imagine my relief when I saw the headlines informing me that the leader of this vile band of proto-fascists had been taken into custody in Washington this morning. 

Whew! 

Maybe now that his feared street-fighting militia has been decapitated, Trump will finally throw in the towel, I hoped.

Anyway, the name of the arrested "Chairman of the Board" caught my eye; Enrique Tarrio. Hmm... sounds like a Mexican, I thought, but you don't want to jump to conclusions. Besides, how is it possible that a Mexican would be the leader of a "White Supremacist" group?

So I google the guy, and guess what? It's even better than that! Looks to me like the leader of America's most feared gang of white supremacists is black! Here's Enrique's photo from his Wikipedia page.

Enrique describes himself as "Afro-Cuban," and I see no reason to quibble with his self-assessment. He's certainly not any shade of "white" that I've ever seen.

White supremacy just ain't what it used to be.

Bruno Briefing: Week 2

 The big boy is making himself at home. 

Still not keen on getting in the car. I suspect that's because his limited car rides have ended badly, as in being dropped off and abandoned. As he grows to understand that every car ride ends at home, I'm optimistic that his reluctance will diminish.

He's getting comfortable on our walks. We've made it to the end of the Burgess side-road a few times now, which is my normal 5k route. Along the way, she's met some neighbourhood dogs. A couple of Aussie sheep-dogs who come out to bark, but keep their distance. Then Bella, who used to join me on my walks even when I had the entire gang with me, Lucy, Gus, and Boomer, and then Phil too. Bella would be the optional hound who joined our pack whenever we walked by her place.

Even after the last survivor, dear Boomer, went to her reward, Bella, if she was outside, would join me on my walk. She's a spitting image of the family dog we had way back when my folks first got their place in Elora, or more precisely, just on the other side of the railroad tracks that defined the Elora boundary. Husso was his name. I think of him every time Bella joins us for a walk.

Anyway, Bella has come out to see big Bruno, but hasn't joined us yet. Towards the end of the road Bruno has met Sophie a couple of times. Sophie is a rescue dog just like him, and she belongs to my old pal Harvard, who got his handle after dropping out of said institution to become an obscure high-school teacher in this woebegone backwater. 

Since the first Bruno report, I've gained some clarity re the jogger Bruno took after last week. I'd correctly assumed he couldn't be a local. His parents have a place at the end of the Burgess side-road, and he's been hiding out there for the lockdown. He's got New Brunswick plates on his car and I hear he's a doctor or something, but that's the kind of weirdo who'll jog by your isolated country home in the dark.

According to the Farm Manager, Bruno snores louder than I do. This has caused her to bail the conjugal bed in favour of one of our numerous spare bedrooms on more than one occasion. As much as I love the dog, he's not who I want to share my bed with.

Right now, he's snoozing in front of the fireplace. We've done our 5k for the day, and that's pretty much all a mastiff is gonna give ya. We'll do it again tomorrow!

Trump and Assange, the ultimate litmus test

 It's on Monday next that a court in UK will decide if Julian Assange will be shipped off to a prison in the US.

Assange is hated by the American state for outing their crimes against innocent Iraqi civilians. 

Trump has been busy showering  his deep-state acolytes with pardons lately. Can he extend his generosity to enemies of the swamp he once promised to drain?

My hunch is he won't. Trump has done his part in the great American democracy charade, and faux establishment outrage aside, he and his clan will be well looked after going forward. 

A pardon for Assange would throw all that over the side.

Reality TV and the triumph of dreck

In terms of the triumph of dreck, which in my view is not a good thing, the advent of "reality tv" marked a sea change. Any time Hollywood can get more eyeballs on shit that costs less to make, you know that's where things are gonna go.

Which pretty much explains Donnald J. Trump. 

Elected to be the president of the most powerful nation on earth, Donald had zero political experience, but according to the New York Times, made somewhere near half a BILLION DOLLARS off that reality show, which had little or nothing to do with any reality you or I would ever know.

Dreck rules!

The triumph of dreck

If you look up some archival street photography of American life in the 50's and 60's, you find a curious thing. At the beginning of the 50's, folks still had a "Sunday best" view of themselves. If somebody was taking pictures for posterity, you'd want to be remembered, for posterity, in your Sunday best.

By the end of the sixties, that was over, collateral damage in the triumph of dreck. There was no "Sunday best" anymore because Sunday wasn't there anymore. 

We never appreciated how much we lost when we lost Sunday. From a day of peace and grace to a day of jest and madness and business as usual. Why force shops to close on Sunday? Because the min wage retail workers don't deserve weekend time with family?

But that's a mere symptom of our descent into the pit of dreck. 

Dreck demands that the lowest common denominator prevail everywhere at all times, and especially on the screens you're addicted to 24/7.

Dreck addiction is what propels "entertainers" with no apparent attributes other than a top-shelf management team to the very pinnacle of pop success.

Dreck has triumphed.

DRECK RULES!

Once you're acclimatised to dreckwelt, everything kinda makes sense, don't it?