Horny teenage hockey players bump Pope out of top slot at CBC News

Which is a remarkable achievement, because His Holiness has completely obliterated any Ukraine news over the past couple of weeks. Nobody even remembers Ukraine anymore at CBC, thanks to the Pope's Tour of Atonement or whatever they branded it as. For a few days we had 24/7 coverage of Papal mea culpas etc., and then the narrative was hijacked by the faction who were pissed off that His Holiness hadn't apologized hard enough, or enthusiastically enough, or comprehensively enough, or something, but Brady Fenlon's wokesters at CBC soon realized this wasn't going anywhere... and OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE SEX SCANDAL AT HOCKEY CANADA!!! I had no idea public money, ie my tax dollars, even went to Hockey Canada! Why? And even more bizzare, how is it the fault of Hockey Canada's executives in Toronto, if a teenager playing hockey in Kamloops commits a sex crime? If you want to blame culture instead of the guy who done it, why blame hockey culture? Isn't "hockey culture" just a reflection of the culture at large? But anyway, I'm trying to focus on how fickle our news gate-keepers are. Ukraine is passe, the Pope has had his day... look for horny teenage hockey players to be over in a few days, to be replaced by the next newsworthy crisis that will take your mind off the fact that the Ukraine war grinds on, Papal apologies don't provide clean drinking water to Indigenous communities, and horny teenage hockey players committing sex crimes will be over after today's Cross-Country Check-Up.

Zelensky PR team tries a lighter touch

Hero of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky finally got his long-overdue Vogue cover. His PR team obviously felt a need to show the softer side of the greatest war-time leader since Winston Churchill. After all, endless pictures of the Z-man marching purposefully from one photo-op to the next in his green T-shirt have become more than a little repetitive. By way of an homage of sorts, Vogue even got American celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz out of cold storage at the cryogenics lab to do the shoot. As you recall, Leibovitz’s famous photo essay of Winston and Mrs. Churchill in the darkest days of the London blitz is credited with turning the tide in England’s favour during WWII. Hopefully she retains her magic touch! Elsewhere in war news, I see where the Z-man has fired both his Defense Minister and Attorney General. Apparently both departments are riddled top to bottom with collaborators. It’s gotta suck when you’re trying to lead your country to victory and the only people you can trust are your foreign advisers.

Eight bagels + one loaf of bread = $30

That's the price of going gluten-free. The Boon Bakery in town specializes in gluten-free baking. The Farm Manager asked me to drop by and pick up a few bagels and a loaf of bread. Grocery shopping is normally her department. I've heard rumours about food inflation, apparently caused by Putin, but I wasn't prepared for thirty bucks! For that kind of money I'd expect the bagels to come with the cream cheese and lox already on. Seems to me that since gluten sensitivity is a health issue, doctors should be able to write prescriptions for gluten-free foods. Then our prescription plan would cover groceries, or at least the gluten-free component. Another brilliant idea from the Think Tank at Falling Downs!

Catholic Indians

Here's a head-scratcher. In spite of the fact that some perverted priests raped them and their children for generations, many Indigenous people remain devout Catholics. It's mainly for them that the Holy Father is taking his tour of Canada this week. They're calling it a tour of penitence. His Holiness is atoning for the depredations visited on Native children by the priesthood, mostly in the "residential school" system. There was an item in the news a few years ago, about the funeral for a priest who had ministered to a Native community in Saskatchewan all his life. They loved him. Apparently not all priests were predatory perverts. Indians attended his funeral in their hundreds, from all over the province. But today we're not allowed to hear about the good priests who were loved in their communities. It's the mantra of our age; cling tight to grievance and nurture it with your last drop of energy. The Pope brings a potential antidote to bitterness, recrimination, and multi-generational trauma. Forgiveness.

Shoulda opened a junk shop...

God knows I have the inventory. Or at least I had it. Most of my inventory is now in the big green bin (from bin there dump that owen sound, in case you guys want to give me a break on the fee for the mention). Yup, 12 cubic yards of mostly useful stuff you might need someday. And what's really f'd up, is I GOTTA PAY TO GET IT OUTTA HERE! There's two perfectly good tents in there. A couple of duct tape patches here and there, but there's refugees all over the world who would see them as an improvement over what they got now. And the cables! Internet ethernet computer to modem to this and that and everything under the sun, there's gotta be at least a mile of cable in there. Remember when you went and paid real money for cable? I remember my old pal Lippert, may he rest in peace, a very down to earth sort, demanding we stop at Staples so he could spent $24 on a critical piece of some sort of cable so his new computer would work. Dude, if you bought a vacuum cleaner or a power saw, would you pay extra for the cord? No! Of course everything these days is cordless. Surprisingly, this old luddite owns a cordless drill he's had for at least 25 years. I was an early adapter of new technology, or at least still somewhat newish. Truth is, I only bought it because it was on sale. That's another pitfall - buying shit just because it's on sale. There's a lot of that in the bin. Shelf brackets, usually two bucks each, on sale for forty-nine cents a pop, so you load up, cause you never know when you might need a shelf bracket. Anyway, the goal of this operation was to open up some space so I can do a little work-shoppy stuff in there. Still need to get rid of the 88 Mustang LX 5.0. Actually quicker than the GT because it didn't have the extra weight of the non-functioning scoops and ground skirts, although I'll admit the GT looks way sexier. There you go. I should have started a junk shop and used car dealership... both things I always wanted to do. That's what happens when you realize you're running out of time.

Tossing your life into a big green dumpster

I'm stunned by how much crap a person can accumulate over the course of a lifetime. The Farm Manager once joked there was 20 dump runs in that garage. She may have been on the low side. I've got some theories about why folks become hoarders. We tend to have been deeply propagandized into the "waste not want not" way of thinking.So if you grew up at the hands of folks who survived The Depression, The War, camps etc, that was a damned good maxim to live by if you were to survive. But that was then; this is now. Now, nobody thinks like that. We've become a Walmart-to-landful economy, and I'm doing my share with this dumpster. I'm tossing out tons of stuff that I might need someday. Or somebody might. Someday. But I'm not tossing everything. Once the nostalia gland is triggered, I want to keep every toy my kids ever got with a Happy Meal. I'm getting better though. I threw out all the kids' Happy Meal toys except for a couple of special ones. Speaking of memory lane, how's this grab you; I found a stash of letters addressed to me in Edmonton. Edmonton! That was in the 70's! I barely remember living there, let alone who might have been writing me. I suppose I could read them and find out, but nah... in the bin they go! Well, some of them anyway. I held a few back just in case I change my mind.

There's a big green dumpster sitting in front of my garage

I'm guessing that's 'cause I ordered up a big green dumpster. In hindsight, I should have ordered the 20 yd bin, but hoaders, like addicts, prefer to minimize their addiction. So I got busy. I figured I should just take a peek in every box I was throwing out. That's how I happened upon that WW1 German Army horse-hair boot-brush. A distant ancestor had left his initials carved in the handle. So of course I have to keep anything with nostalgic value... Which pretty much means I'm gonna have to send that bin back empty!

CIA to keep you safe from disinfo

Here's a fun thing to do if you're having a boring day at the keyboard. Google NewsGuard and see what comes up. NewsGuard is one of these many "fact-checking" outfits that have sprung up over the last few years. They supposedly sort the shit from the shinola in your news feeds, but when you look a little closer, they're usually owned by the very same folks spreading the shit. NewsGuard is no exception. Scroll down to their "Advisory Board" and you'll see what I mean. When you've got a former CIA Director, a former Homeland Security boss, and a former Sec-Gen of NATO on your Board of Advisors, for damn sure you'll be speaking the truth and nothing but the truth! How retarded do you have to be to fall for this shit?

Dead babies shouldn't write foreign policy

The First Lady of Ukraine was in DC the other day, pleading for more war and more weapons. She had some pics of dead babies in her powerpoint presentation, because there’s nothing like a dead baby to roust the Free World from its slumber. Yup, if we don’t quadruple down, and then some, to boost Ukraine, we are standing with PUTIN THE BABY-KILLER!!! WE NEED WEAPONS demanded the First Lady of Ukraine. The truth of the matter is the Nations of Virtue, ie the NATO/US/EU combine, are pretty much tapped out for weapons. The Russians are blowing this stuff up faster than we can build more of it, and by a rather wide margin. It is past time to acknowlege Ukraine has lost this war. It was essentially lost in the first 48 hours. All that our “support” has done is ensured the deaths of tens of thousands of people, mostly Ukrainian. A tear-jerking PR stunt by the First Lady should not be allowed to divert our attention from the reality of this war. These are the best of times for American arms manufacturers. They are the worst of time for the people of Ukraine.

Biden's surreal "shared values" tour of middle east

Joe Biden is off to the ME, ostensibly to cement US alliances in the region, but mostly to suck up to the Saudis and beg for more oil. The double-funny on that is the Saudis are actually buying Russian oil these days, so selling it on to the idiots who started all this “sanctions from hell” shit is beyond rich. Sleepy Joe likes to invoke “shared values” as he’s speechifying in Tel Aviv and Riyadh. You gotta wonder what those “shared values” might look like. The way Biden frames it, it’s all about freedom and human rights and democracy. Ya, right! If you want to find shared values amongst Israel, KSA, USA, good luck finding it there! Here’s a shared value that really exists in America and these two client states (although their loyalty to the Empire is in both cases highly dubious at this point); silencing dissent. That’s why the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia silenced Jamal Kashoggi. That’s why Israel silenced Shireen Abu Akleh. That’s why America silenced Julian Assange.

What would Jesus do?

When she's not busy bossing me, the Farm Manager still has her day gig at the local school board, where she tends to the lowest of the low, the unfortunates who need help not just in the classroom, but in the bathroom as well. Those kids can grow on you, and you want to do what you can to help them. The one who’s grown on the FM the last few years is a kid from a Syrian family the Canadian government plucked out of a refugee camp in Lebanon a few years ago. I don’t know what the criteria are for who we deem fit for entry, but if “will depend on government support in perpetuity” is one of them, this family scored a home run. Little Buddy has diabetes, a development delay, a speech impediment (in both English and Arabic), and is confined to a wheelchair. How can you not fall in love with a kid like that?! The FM comes up with the idea that we should take the lad out for an afternoon just to give the long-suffering family a break. So we did. After man-handling Little Buddy and his assorted paraphernalia (wheelchair, turner, medical emergency kit, etc.) into and out of the car, I was beat and my back hurt. There is money available to compensate helpful folks like us for our efforts. The money goes to the family. The family. Since they generally can’t work and make income, they need every dollar and every cent they get their hands on. How can I even think about compensation in a situation like this? What would Jesus do?

We'll "stand with Ukraine" till we don't

Remember when then PM Big Steve Harper used to remind the world on a regular basis that “Canadians are not the sort to cut and run” from war? That was after our top army boss had boasted about how we were going to run the Taliban, those murdering scumbags, out of Afghanistan. Canada cut and ran, and the murdering scumbags now run the place. I’m sure the rest of the world, to say nothing of the Afghans, remember the value of our promises. It's not just Canada. Bloomberg has a story up about the behind-the-scenes bickering in the EU. If Putin can drag this war out another six months, both EU and NATO will be riven with discord. That's good news for Putin. Not so good for the imbeciles in Washington who still believe that God's master plan requires them to be masters of the planet. Full scale dominance, here we come! Maybe it's time for a reality check.

Canadians rush to get newly approved baby vaccine

Great news, Canada! You can finally get your infant vaccinated for the Covid! Obviously, the lack of a safe and effective vaccine for the under five crowd was allowing the virus to grow and prosper! Now we've finally closed the door, and the great pandemic will wither away. As long as we have 100% uptake on the vaccine, that is. And we're not even there in your other age brackets. What's the matter with these people? Haven't they heard the vaccines are safe and effective? I'm sure they have. After all, they've been told over and over and over again. But still they dither. No doubt these anti-vaxxers will find reasons to poo-pooh the newly approved safe and effective baby vaccine. "Oh, my little bundle of joy has a statistically zero chance of dying by Covid," they'll say. Sure, but why take a chance? Those are the kinda people who supported those truckers with their unacceptable thoughts. "My baby don't need no damned vax" is just another unacceptable thought for these people. It's time Justin got tough with them!

How to survive total war

It's been an idylic afternoon here at Falling Downs. Not too hot, not too cool, lots of sunshine and fluffy white clouds. But there's a storm a-brewing just at the edge of your peripheral vision. Now that our plucky Ukrainian allies have beating back the Rooskies for five months, don't you wonder why their country keeps shrinking? Remember, this isn't about Ukraine, this is America's proxy war designed to ensure they remain The Big Dog. Ukraine is just collateral damage. America cannot afford to lose. Look for escalation and then more escalation. This will escalate until America regains "full spectrum dominance." Or not. In which case we'll all be up a rather unpleasant stump. Here's my tip for your survival. Settle nearby an Amish or Mennonite community while there's still time. Those folks still have the seeds and the technology to keep feeding themselves long after modern agri-biz is a distant memory. If you're a good neighbour, maybe they'll feed you too.

Trudeau folds to German pressure, pisses off powerful Ukraine lobby

Justin has called down the wrath of the Ukranian Canadian Congress over his decision to send those Siemens turbines back to Germany. Think of it as a game of hot potatoe. Now it's on the Germans if they choose to violate sanctions and send that stuff back to Russia. Which I'm thinking they will. As much as every square-head longs in every fibre of his or her or their being to stand with Ukraine, they'll be rioting in the streets before they burn their furniture for heat next winter. Which goes for the rest of Europe as well. The average folks on the streets of the old world are getting wise to what it means to be collateral damage in America's war on Russia. It's too late for Ukraine, but the rest of the continent still has time to save their ass. It will be interesting to see how NATO/EU/USA "solidarity" survives the coming winter.

BoJo - a turd spewed to the top by a geyser of sewage

That’s a quote from former British diplomat Craig Murray, writing at Consortium News. That’s one of the non-MSM news sites I like to check out on a daily basis, and I suggest you do too. It’ll expand your horizons if you’re accustomed to a steady diet of CBC or CNN, or, Lord have mercy, CBCNN. Yes, there really is such an aberation. Murray pins the demise of the UK, and “western civilization” generally, on the triumph of neocon ideology since the Thatcher-Reagan era. I largely agree with him. The only value that matters anymore is the size of your bank account. The plumper your finances, the more you are held in esteem in polite MSM-curated society. Those with no finances are left with no voice. That’s why across “Western civilization” we celebrate billionaires while children starve. And that’s also why former insiders like Craig Murray are excomunicated from mainstream media and smeared as pro-Putin propagandists. Which, to my way of thinking, makes it even more important to add a sprinkle of Consortium News to your daily diet of MSNBCFOXCBCNN…

Putin crashes Canada internet and cell service

At least if you're a Rogers captive. And even if you're not, apparently all the big banks are, so good luck getting your debit card to work today! Shows you how dependent you are on these electronic grids, grids wide open to hanky-panky by you-know-who. You don't imagine it's mere coincidence this outage comes on the very day Tamara Lich, that Freedom Convoy witch,was ordered to remain in jail till her trial, do you? As we all know, thanks to the brilliant journalism of the CBC, Lich is a white supremacist funded by Putin. Today's cyber-attack is Putin's revenge.

Canadian Armed Forces lets men wear skirts

Check out this story at CBC. Not only can a dude wear a skirt, but he can spice up his look with a little hair dye and some facial tattoos! According to acting CAF boss General Wayne Eyre, the only senior officer not implicated in a sex scandal, yet, the new dress code reflects the commitment to diveristy, inclusion, and equity. That’s all very nice in a nice Canadian sort of way, but are we not missing the big picture here? At the end of the day, “armed forces” have but one purpose, and it isn’t promoting social fads. It’s to kill people, people who you see as a threat to your country. According to the latest propaganda assault, the people we should be killing are the evil Russians, and possibly by next week the evil Chinese and Iranians too. I’m skeptical about how our diversity & inclusion obsessed armed forces will do against the armed forces of our adversaries, who were trained to kill the enemy. On the other hand, it’s possible to see the upside. Some of the boldest warriors in the history of Canada were the immigrants from Scotland. Those dudes wore skirts all the time. Think of this as kilts making a comeback.

That was a close call

I was motoring down to Teviotdale this morning for a breakfast appointment with my old pal Kipling. I'd been behind a white VW Atlas for at least twenty kilometers. He'd felt the need to overtake me on the passing lane just south of Durham. Then he got stuck behind a pickup moseying along at 85 or so, and he stayed there... and stayed, and stayed. Thanks to my years of experience driving a first gen VW diesel, I plan my passes carefully. After noticing nimrod hadn't passed that pickup in half a dozen road-wide-open opportunities, I made my move. Into the oncoming lane, signal light on, gaining fast, the dolt must have had a good ten seconds to see me coming. Just as I'm drawing alongside, the oblivious imbecile pulls out to pass! Wellington County Road 6 doesn't have much of a shoulder, and then drops off steeply. I've got two wheels on the shoulder and two in the ditch, there's a hydro-pole coming at me fast, I feel the car going over, cut to the left of the pole and regain the roadway in a giant dust-cloud. Nimrod was long gone, but the pickup driver was so impressed with my masterful wheelsmanship he gave me a big thumbs-up. Wheelsmanship my ass; it was sheer dumb luck I didn't barrel-roll through that pole and cut my Toyota in half. My immediate impulse was to catch up to Atlas boy and share my thoughts while the adrenalin was still pumping, but on second thought, the irony of having a heart-attack while beating the crap out of the guy who just ran me off the road would have been too rich. Ten minutes later I slide into my booth at the truck stop, only to learn my breakfast appointment was the second Monday of the month, not the first.

Ukraine celebrates victory!

Battlefield victories have become few and far between in recent weeks for our plucky Ukrainian allies. But that is not to say they are without victories. Check out this BBC story for example. Even as things go from worse to even worser in the war with Russia, Ukrainians have won a major symbolic victory. The Ukrainian comfort food “borscht” had been added to the UNESCO index of endangered national dishes. Isn’t that something to celebrate! As we savour this victory in the borscht war, let's take a moment to re-evaluate that other war. How about we call it quits now and start saving 1000 Ukrainians per day by abandoning the US Empire’s plans to weaken Russia by sacraficing every last living Ukrainian.

You can't dance at two weddings with one bum

That was one of the truisms my dear mother-in-law left behind. That was her way of saying "don't over-extend yourself." So I don't. In fact, there are those who claim that not only do I never over-extend myself, I don't do anything else either. They wouldn't be that wrong. Now that I'm retired, I don't do much of anything. Not that I did that much of anything before, but at least I had a job. Funny how when you take the "job" away, there's lots of folks left with nothing. Work defines us. Retirement erases us.