Over half of new Covid cases in York Region are in the fully vaxxed

That’s a stat buried deep in this story about the unfortunate beer league hockey player who got covid and died after a game where a whack of fully vaccinated guys managed to give one another the virus. Notice how they bury that tidbit so far into the story few will ever get to it.

The actual number is 54.2 %. 

But not to worry. That doesn’t mean the vaccines are ineffective.

Sure, you can still get covid, but it won’t be as bad. You can still pass it to others, but they won’t get as sick. And you can still die from it…

But you won’t be as dead.

Fear and loathing at the dog park

I take Bruno to the park about quarter aught eight this morning. It's a cold drizzly shitty morning, and there's nobody there.

On account of the weather, which is only predicted to worsen, I figure my 5k lap up the sideroad might be scrubbed today. The drizzle could turn to rain by then. I decided we'd do a few turns around the empty dog-park.

On about our third turn I notice that the mom of the super-poofy poodle and the wee terrier-doodle is bringing her kids in.

I'd assumed she had also reciprocally noted the presence of me and the Big Boy. Apparently that was not the case.

She didn't notice till both her dogs had their noses on Bruno's nether regions. And he on theirs. It's what dogs do.

Then they began to romp... and poodle-doodle mama panics. 

The dogs are chasing each other, and she's chasing the dogs wailing Koko Koko Koko!!!

I assume that was the name of her little Doodle.

She finally corrals Koko, puts her other pup on the leash, and off they go.

No more dog park for her kids.

She doesn't even realize Koko scared Bruno way more than he scared her.

What if a super-rich super villain bought up global shipping capacity...

... and let most of it sit idle, "waiting to unload," while stock mysteriously continues to appear in the supply chains he owns?

I think we're on the cusp of a great conspiracy theory here!

Think about it...

What if some uber-capitalist got his tentacles so deep into the retail infrastructure that he had a near monopoly on the retail trade. Since the retail trade, at least beyond the grocery stores, is entirely dependant on throw-away junk manufactured in China, gaining control of the shipping lanes would allow him to cut off inventory to his rivals, thereby securing an even greater market share!

Genius!

Entirely evil, but genius!

And don't worry about the grocery angle. There's another evil genius is the biggest farmland owner in America now. I'm sure they'll be able to work something out.

As for you, get used to paying plenty more for substantially less.

UFC announces cage match between Dave Chappelle and Robin D'Angelo

This could be big.

This could totally blow up.

This could be bigger in pay-per-view than Mayweather- Pacquiao, and that payday ran into the hundreds of millions.

The combatants are standing in for the two sides in America's civil war. 

Robin is the Great White Hope of Wokeism in America.

Dave Chappelle is a Black dude who ain't woke. Or maybe too woke...

My money's on the Black dude.

The death Douala

Back in my U of G days, (nothing but steers and queers down there, a guidance counsellor warned me) I made friends with a gal who was something of a feminist radical at the time.

Maybe we just bonded over our mutual love for long hours at the campus pub.

But she had one helluva career trajectory.

Had a dream to work on a west coast fishing boat. Which she did.

Had a job many years as the camp cook for a couple of gold prospectors who had a 100 acre stake in Yukon, where they panned just enough gold to do it again next year.

The fishing gig ends her up in Alaska.

Next news I hear about my old pal comes from a neighbour I never talked to before.

I'm out walking the hounds one morning, and this old-timer local pulls over, lowers the window, and shuts off the ignition.

I just came back from a camping trip up to Alaska. I'm at the border coming back to Canada, and the border girl saw my address, and wondered if I knew the guy walking his dogs all over town.

Well, holy shit!

There you go!

It's a small world no matter how far you run to get away from it!

My old pal went from border guard to midwife to Douala. 

Last I heard, she was a Death Douala.

That's quite a progression, isn't it?

Perhaps we'll meet again...

Let's go Brandon!

These past eighteen months have been fraught times in America. From the racial reckoning to the Afghanistan humiliation to the deadly pandemic, Americans have been ripping each other apart and tearing their country to pieces.

It’s beyond obvious that America needs a great unifier. Someone who can bring a divided nation together. Someone who can heal the many self-inflicted wounds that once-great nation is staggering under. Someone who can, forgive the phrase, but America needs someone to rally around and make America great again.

A lot of folks had put their faith in Donald Trump, but he proved a false messiah.

When Joe Biden took America by storm in the greatest triumph in the history of US democracy, the people’s hopes were raised again…

Alas, those hopes are fading even faster than old Joe himself.

But hope arises anew, and from the most unlikely of places; a NASCAR track! A humble race-car driver by the name of Brandon Brown is bringing Americans together like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

From young Black rappers to fat old honkies and everything in between, young Brandon is the unifier in America’s hour of need!

Let's go Brandon!

Nothing but fun at Hydro One

"Hydro One" is the bastardized product of one of those neolib experiments in utility privatization.

As these privatization adventures go, this one hasn't worked out too badly for the workers, at least not yet.

At the pre-privatized Ontario Hydro, the place was known far and wide as a good gig. Wages were roughly double what they were in the local economy for the same trades. They were a union shop in the sweet spot, like cops and teachers, where your job couldn't be sent to Mexico or China.

There's been a crew working on the sideroad this week, pruning back the trees growing under the power lines. Not only are they well paid, these folks know how to have fun at work.

Yesterday I was astonished to see, from my perch on the porch, that the bucket truck had it's boom in the fully extended position. There's a Hydro One employee in that bucket, making that happen. He's about 30 feet above the actual power lines, and his job is to cut back the brush growing under those lines!

Today me and Bruno took a walk by the crew. They were taking a break, as chance would have it, so I had a opportunity to engage them in conversation.

Turns out the boom on that bucket has a reach of 55'. 

Where it's mounted on the truck is already 13' off the ground.

Buddy was surveying the scenery from a height of 68'!

Can you see Georgian Bay from there?

Oh Ya!

So now we know, all we have to do is build a six-storey addition to get that water view we've always wanted.

Life is shorter than you think. Go fishing now

Guy I know had a really good run of decent luck.

Like me, he dropped out of high school and graduated into an economy of unionized factory jobs where a high school drop-out could make more money than the teachers in the high school we just dropped out of.

We thought that was the natural order of things.

But things changed.

Buddy was one of the guys who managed to hang on to a quality union factory job in the only factory that didn’t shutter and move to Mexico or China. That’s because it was the only factory in town with Japanese ownership, and apparently they have some crazy-ass management theory that puts long term objectives ahead of quarterly results.

So he enjoys a nice ride into the sunset, having spent forty years assembling giant Hitachi off-road trucks, and wouldn’t you know it, within six months of retirement he comes down with health issues.

Buddy had always been an avid fisherman. Them’s the guys who’d rather go fishing than go home. I used to think that’s because they had a shitty home life, but I’ve come to appreciate there’s folks who just seriously love fishing.

He was one of those.

He’s been fishing out of make-do boats all his life, because, after all, there are priorities. Mortgage, child support… all the usual stuff.

When he retires, he sells his house, takes an apartment, and splashes out 50 big ones for the fishing boat of his dreams. An 18 footer with a 135 Merc and a 15 hp kicker.

A week later he starts dialysis.

Now he’s got the boat of his dreams, and he’s so worn down by his health issues he doesn’t have the strength to launch the boat. Needs a fishing buddy bad.

Haven’t talked to him in thirty years, but maybe I’ll give him a call.

You know you're in the 9th inning when you set aside the flyer from the discount cremation service

And if you're a pensioner, you should set that flyer aside, or at least get going with some plan that acknowledges you won't live forever.

Lets not sugar-coat it; you could drop dead any minute. In these days of pestilence, the odds are even better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it.

But here's why I'm of two minds.

On the one hand, once you've dropped dead, you're past giving a shit about any inconvenience that may have inflicted on those you left, so who cares?

On the other hand, you're not dead yet, and if you're any kind of a mensch at all, you do care.

So look after that stuff, before it's too late. Prepay that cremation now, and spare your survivors the ordeal of "making arrangements" in their moment of grief.

As for me, I'm looking forward to extra innings.

Stats suggest tobacco use increases lifespan

According to the World Health Organization, Canada ranks 16th in life expectancy among all countries. The countries in which you can expect to live longer are: Iceland, Sweden, Luxemburg, France, Norway, Israel, Italy, Australia, Cyprus, Spain, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, and Japan.

Here's the WHO stat that caught my attention. With the exception of Australia, Iceland, and Singapore, all those countries have higher rates of cigarette smoking than Canada, sometimes wildly so. In Canada, 17.5% of the adult population smoked in 2018. (wonder if that went up during lockdown?) In France it's double; 34.6%, and in Cyprus it's even higher!

Proving yet again that stats will trump lies, even big lies, every time!

Best thing about the days getting shorter - they'll be getting longer soon!

I didn't pay attention to the seasons before I became a pensioner. Now that I've become a pensioner who does nothing but sit on the stoop all day, I notice them a lot more.

I've learned they're cyclical. One follows the other, and then comes the next. This goes on season after season, year after year. 

Who knew!?

Not that I didn't notice the seasons. If the heating bill jumped 500%, it was winter. If you had to cut the lawn, it was summer. Simple as that.

Now I'm seeing the geese ramp up their practice flights every autumn. That's roughly when the bats vacate their attic apartment to make for their winter digs in the caves along the escarpment, not more than five miles away. I don't understand why they bother moving.

That's one of the things you come to realize when you're watching the seasons roll by; how much you don't understand.

But they'll keep rolling by, whether you understand it or not.

 

Prostate exam? There's an app for that

I gotta say my doctor has really taken to these tele-health long-distance check-ups we've been doing since the pandemic descended.

But, sooner or later, I'm gonna have to go in for the dreaded prostrate grope.

And that, dear reader, is how necessity becomes the mother of invention. You're getting all your health care over some combination of internet-telecom anyway...

Why can't there be an app for that?

I'm working on it. It's gonna be called the Procto 500.

Sounds sorta racy, eh? Everybody's heard about the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500, right?

Why not the Procto 500?

Once you've downloaded the app, all you have to do is stick your cellphone up your ass for 8 and a half minutes, and you just spared yourself the inconvenience of a commute to the doctor's office and the indignity of having a person you're having a mutually respectful professional relationship with stick his finger up your butt.

Within another few minutes the secret algorithms within the app will have sent a complete summary of your prostate condition to the doctor.

If you think you may have more going on than mere prostate issues, you can upgrade, at a small extra charge, to the Procto Le Mans Edition. That'll give you a read-out on everything between your ankles and your collar bones. The only drawback is, once you stick that iPhone where the sun don't shine, you gotta leave it there 24 hours.

Is that a boffo concept or what?! I'll be heading Silicone Valley way shortly to rustle up some venture capital.

In the meantime, if you want to get in on the ground floor, send your moneygram to this blog.

F@ck science; just shut-up and obey the rules

If you find yourself with some free time, compare covid stats between locales that had very extensive mask mandates and those that had loose or no mask mandates. As for the masks themselves, it’s generally acknowledged in the literature, although not in the news headlines, that unless you’ve got a N-95 or better, there’s not much point.

So what to make of this story? A teacher in Ontario isn’t happy with the standard surgical masks issued by his school board. So he stocks up N-95s out of his own pocket, just to up the safety quotient.

Admin hauls him in and threatens to suspend him if he’s not using the proscribed and useless surgical masks.

How is this about anything other than the raw flexing of bureaucratic muscle?

That used to be called “fascism.” 

I spent 25 years teaching in Ontario. It was my experience that a system that never tires of proclaiming it's progressive bona fides and boasting about how they inculcate critical thinking doesn't do any thinking whatsoever.  

What you have instead, is a leadership class across the system consisting, with rare exceptions, of trend-following dullards who hate students and love shitting on the teachers they left behind on their climb up the career ladder.

Plumbing the depths of idiocy

Blogger is the biggest blog host in the world. I've been on it for ten years plus.

I posted a little something a couple of hours ago. It has yet to attract a view.

Meanwhile, the same post already found it's way to Before It's News, where it's had over a dozen.

Ya, I know that's bupkiss in the overall scheme of things, but how does it leak to Before It's News while still showing zero traffic at Blogger?

And seriously, why does anything I'll ever have to say need to be censored?

It's not as if I'm some sort of fired-up revolutionary.

The folks who study these matters seem to largely agree that the happiness factor is highest in Nordic nations with high taxes and a social-democratic tradition in politics. No need to guillotine the billionaires if you tax them enough on the way up to ensure they don't get there.

I shall crush your skulls

That's me playing "Lord of the Flies" out on the stoop with my fly-swatter.

Except I'm not lording it over the flies.

On this beautiful summer day in October, I'm dealing with a ladybug infestation on the front porch.

I've done my research. Apparently a ladybug is actually a "Coccenillidae."

Quite possibly concocted in the same Wuhan lab where they invented you-know-what.

No matter.

I wield my swatter in anger. Once you're getting up my nose and down my pants at the same time, enough is enough...

I shall crush your skulls!

Lockdown Anxiety Syndrome

It's a new thing. I just made it up, although I haven't done a google search.

It's there, it's real, and therefore there's a good possibility somebody, or many, noticed it before I did.

Lockdown Anxiety Syndrome, or LAS, is when you're plunged into perpetual anxiety over if and when the next restrictions are declared and what they're gonna look like.

The lockdown itself, once you're in the clutches of this syndrome, comes to be experienced as relief from the anxiety. 

You see it all around you. 

It's the reason you see folks walking down the street in masks when their town hasn't had a covid death in six months. They truly believe the reason their town hasn't had a covid death in six months is because they're walking around in a mask.

They're afraid to take it off lest they inadvertently kill someone.

That's a terrible burden on a populace that was already suffering unprecedented levels of mental illness before all this started.

Bruno Report; dog park edition

If you've followed the Bruno Reports, you'll know there've been some issues. Like his penchant for wanting to kill other dogs.

We flagged that as a nasty character trait early on. I've been dutifully taking him to the Owen Sound off-leash dog park for months now, hoping he picks up some social skills.

I've had mixed results, but we seem to be trending in the right direction. He left a poor first impression on a dog park regular, Lilly, on his very first visit.

Lilly is, I think, mostly a standard poodle. She used to, in the aftermath of that first encounter, bark for the entire time Bruno was in the park, and wouldn't get anywhere near him.

That eventually got whittled down to a welcome bark, mutual butt-sniffs, and sauntering around the park together.

So I know we're making progress.

Today we arrive at the park and there's nobody there but an old dude with a "rat-terrier cross."

Penny.

I had no idea there was such a creature. Looks like a terrier, but it's the size of a rat. It's half the size of our cat, Doublewide.

I've got the big boy on leash, and I'm holding on tight, because this could turn real ugly real fast. 

Penny wouldn't be more than a mouthful for Bruno.

Buddy doesn't seem concerned.

"Let him off, just let him off! She'll tune him up in no time."

So I did.

And so she did.

She, half the size of an average cat, bared her teeth and growled at my 150 pound mastiff. Whereupon he immediately fell to the ground in total submission.

Obviously, she doesn't know she's little, and he doesn't know he's twenty times bigger.

And then they embarked on the most enthusiastic romp Bruno has ever had at the dog park!

Good old times with Jimmy Walker

Remember the show Good Times? There was a tall skinny Black kid starring in it, Jimmy Walker.

I saw an interview with Jimmy on Fox today. I'd link you to it but Google algorithms have pulled my linking privileges. They quizzed Jimmy on how he felt about cancel culture etc.

Well, you already know Jimmy wouldn't be on Fox if he was going to promote the PC point of view, so no surprises there. 

Jimmy's not a fan.

But here's what made my head explode.

In the intro, they tell us Jimmy Walker, that skinny teenager you saw on TV when you were a teenager, is now 74 years old!?!?

How the fuck did that happen to the poor devil?

Progress

Check out the pretty highway tractors at the website Cabover Kings. I'd link you to it but I've had my linking privileges lifted by Google algorithms.

There's diesel trucks there that used to haul freight of all kinds from coast to coast. Coast to coast means through the Rocky Mountains, through the Appalachians, and everywhere in between.

Here's what's fucky, to my way of thinking.

Pretty much any truck you see there has less horsepower and less torque than you'll find in a typical V-8 pickup truck at your local Ford, GM, or Dodge dealer.

Around here, that power is generally used to get one guy or gal to their job.

Fifty years ago, that power got 20 tons of freight through a mountain pass in the Rockies.

That's progress for you!

How to tell the difference between a fart and a Justin Trudeau apology

When you think about it, farts and apologies have a lot in common. I fart, you fart, everybody farts.

Just like everybody apologizes for something sooner or later. Sometimes we even apologize for our farts!

Justin's apologies strike me as more fart-like than the typical run-of-the-mill apology.

First off, they have about the same amount of thought put into them. Like none. Trudeau can squeeze out apologies the way mere mortals pass gas. 

And Justin's apologies are delivered with about the same level of sincerity as mere mortals would put into delivering a fart.

Like none.

So here's how you tell the difference.

Any random fart doesn't stink as much as a Justin Trudeau apology.

 

The slippery slope

In my opinion, sometimes it's best to just stay put.

Whether that's on the couch watching TV or on the stoop watching the world go by is up to you.

Because mark my words, if you succumb to the siren call of "using your time productively," you're gonna regret it.

The problem is, one thing leads to another. For example, today I was sitting out on the porch, enjoying a profound moment of satisfaction with life. The fall colours are peaking all around. There's geese honking and cows bellowing. I've got a full belly and a roof over my head, and all the kids are out of jail and off welfare.

Life is beautiful!

And then, right there in the midst of all that bliss, it occurs to me to turn off the water to the outside tap. Pretty sure the Farm Manager won't be doing any more watering this season.

A few years ago I forgot that chore and ended up with a water-pipe that froze so solid it turned a brass casting into a work of art. I was able to rectify the matter without calling a professional plumber, saving several thousand dollars. 

Point is, there's no need to have a repeat of that disaster.

So I roust myself off the stoop and make my way to the basement.

Water shut off, I look around...

Gott im Himmel!!!

There's so much to be done down here. I really should use my time more productively....

That's the red flag right there.

Whenever you tell yourself that one, give your head a shake and resume your meditation on the porch.

I'd been busy trying to get rid of the stuff that can accumulate in basements, and there was plenty more to go. So I busied myself tossing old pallets up into the woodshed and from there out the back, where I soon had a great heap of them. We used to have them on the floor so the firewood wouldn't be sitting on the cement.

Not really sure what the science is on firewood sitting on cement. Is that bad for firewood? Maybe that's just a local superstition. In any case, we had a whack of 'em, and I piled on some cardboard and a stack of Globe and Mails and lit a match to it.

Then I returned to the basement to muck out where the wood had been stored. That stuff won't burn, but it makes a decent potting soil.

Next thing I know, I'm hearing some crackling and popping.

I check out the back... and whoopsie! The fire found some dry grass and is licking at the base of the splendid laundry-hanging platform I put in a few years ago, when the FM got tired of standing on the picnic table to hang the wash.

I run for the garden hose, and... nothing!

Because I just turned the water off!

There you go. Had all sorts of destructive hormones rushing through my frail blood vessels for a good fifteen minutes, simply because I had that urge to do something useful with my time.

If you're happy on the front stoop of life, stay put.

Don't go down that slippery slope.

Workin' steady while gettin' nuthin done

Last week the neighbour up the hill gave me a hand re-arranging my fleet of parts vehicles, primarily to facilitate the tow truck that was coming to take half the fleet for scrap. One of the keepers, at least for now, is the F-150 that once belonged to my Dad.

It was on axle stands at one time, but one had collapsed and the front end was sitting in the dirt on the disc brakes. In my efforts to jack it up I ended with my jack stuck under the truck.

I went to Canadian Tire and bought a second jack so I could retrieve the first one. Before I could get around to it, four straight days of rain descended upon us.

So I focused on indoor jobs, number one at this time of year being to rodent-proof the house. We don't want a repeat of last winter, when the chipmunks would give you a nod as they nonchalantly strolled through the living room.

I'd used spray-foam insulation generously a year ago to seal off where I thought they might get in, but now I want to get those spots I missed, and they're mostly in the 100+ year old stone foundation. While I'm down there, and having three more days of rain in the forecast, I get to thinking this would be a good time to de-clutter some of the shit that's accumulated down there.

That worked out ok for what I could just stuff in garbage bags. Then I got to the old Cascade 40 water heater. By rights I should have had the plumber take it out when he installed the new one, but you're so grateful to even get a plumber to make a house call you don't want to burden them with extra demands.

I'd forgotten all about it, but there's a back stairwell out the basement into the woodshed that I wanted to seal in my anti-chipmunk campaign. I open the door, and there it is!

In my prime I'm sure I could have muscled that tank out of the stairwell onto the woodshed floor, but I'm more cautious these days. After all, if you can blow a retina straining to take a dump, what havoc might you wreak on your body tossing a hot water heater around?

No thanks!

Then I had a brain-wave! I could use the new hydraulic jack to lift the tank high enough that I could tip it into the woodshed! 

Brilliant!

Lucky for me, the previous and only other owners of Falling Downs had left a stack of bricks down there from the original construction. I got the jack under the tank and began to lift it. Unfortunately, the jack only has about 6" of lift. I could lift it enough to get a couple of bricks under it. Then I'd remove the jack, put a couple of bricks under it, and repeat.

That stairwell had a cement floor at one time, but when we used to heat with wood we'd toss the firewood down there. Between woodchips and bark, the floor is now a bed of mulch. The higher I got that water heater, the more wobbly the entire edifice got. 

By the time I had it two feet off the ground the operation was looking pretty dodgy, and I had another two feet or so to go before I hit the tipping point.

As I'm dinking around with the jack under this tottering water heater in virtual darkness, it occurs to me that I wouldn't see the tank falling till it crushed my skull.

Time for Plan B!

Fuck it!

Would Jesus get jabbed?

If the link function on this site still worked, I would hook you up with a dude in Canada who is mightily pissed that persons of the cloth are tolerating vaccine hesitancy.

You'll find the story soon enough if you care to venture to the CBC News website.

Dude makes the case that Jesus was a healer. Therefore, because Pfizer heals covid, Pfizer is just like Jesus.

That's the intellectual level of our CBC these days.

How many billions do they get out of our wallets each year to promulgate such idiocy?

A Chinese kid called Abe

Let the stereotypes fly!

Abe is of course short for Abraham.

This story is courtesy of an elementary school teacher in the predominately Asian reaches of North York.

First day of school, between classes, he notices there's a kid attracting quite a crowd around his locker. He moves in to investigate, and finds Abraham Wang is handing out free candy.

I week later, he's patrolling his section of hallway at recess, and by golly, there's still a big crowd around Abe's locker - but now Abe is charging money!

Our intrepid educator is now faced with a dilemma. He's just witnessed the old "the first one is free" scam in the hallway right outside his classroom. Does he call Abe on it?

After much to-ing and fro-ing, and even some prevaricating, he decides he must.

It's just the right thing to do.

As fate would have it, Abe Wang is the first student in class next morning. 

"Abe, I've been meaning to talk to you about your candy business..."

Abe is a half-beat ahead.

"Ya, sorry about that. I've decided to shut down my business. Didn't think it was right to distract the other kids from why they're in school."

That's a kid in grade six...

Abe Wang is going places!