Is Paul Kagame the "house negro" of the democratic world?

As every schoolchild knows, the world is divided into Good Guys and Bad Guys. The Bad Guys are led by an axis of evil comprised of Russia, China, and Iran. They are all autocratic dictatorships ruled by ruthless autocratic dictators. Then there's the Good Guys. The Nations of Virtue. NATO/USA/EU and G7. We believe in democracy and human rights and rule of law and blah blah blah... if you're reading this blog you already know the song and dance. What's got my dander up at the moment is this. Throughout that Globe story I was analyzing in my previous post, Rwanda was repeatedly portrayed as being an enemy. They were the baddies behind the bad guys, because if Canada is fighting them, they must be... But hold the phone! Rwanda's Prez is an all-time favorite of the UK-US lords of the universe. He just closed a deal with Britain's first brown PM to ship brown migrants to Rwanda from UK! Imagine the poor shit who spends his life's savings on smugglers to get him and his family from Lagos or Nairobi into the UK, only to get busted and returned to... fucking Rwanda? That's gotta sting! But not to worry. The British tax-payer is lavishing Kagame with hundreds of millions of pounds to take this problem off Rishi's guilty brown hands. We have no probem hurling abuse at the likes of Putin or Lukashenko when they win allegedly rigged elections with numbers in the 70s and 80s. Yet Kagame, who won his last election with 99% of the votes, is still welcome under the Democracy Big Top?! Get the fuck outta here!

Did you know Canada has troops in Africa?

This headline at the Globe and Mail caught my eye this morning; Canadian Peacekeepers plot strategy to defend Congolese city from rebels. Say what? We have peacekeepers in the DRP? (Democratic Republic of Congo, not to be confused with Dan’s Republic of Congo, named after Dan Gertler, which operates in the same general neighborhood.) Who knew? I didn’t, and I pride myself on keeping up with all the latest developments in Canada’s global battle for freedom and democracy. Geoffrey York moseys along for 14 meandering paragraphs before we meet the nine (9) Canadian officers working with the UN mission there. “In their staff officer positions…CAF members are playing a key role…” Of course they are! They are bringing Canada’s key strengths to the battle against the M23 rebels, including “leading joint planning sessions.” I assume this means sorting out who brings the weed and who brings the rolling papers, because if it means much more than that, the Congolese are truly screwed. Who in their right mind would expect the Canadian military, who have a decades long track record of failing to plan the timely replacement of everything from Sea Kings to frigates to submarines to fighter jets, to come up with a timely and effective plan to stymie the M23 rebels? What have these people been smoking? And if that’s not embarrassing enough, York drops another truth bomb a few paragraphs along. “Despite the small size of the Canadian contingent in Congo, it is the second largest of Canada’s handful of remaining units in UN peacekeeping forces.” Lester Pearson must be spinning in his grave.

Christmas is a bummer when they're bombing Bethlehem

You must admit “Western Values” are taking a shit-kicking over there in the Holy Land. Remember, the bombs come from America. Israel is just the delivery boy. It was October 9 when The Greatest Leader since Moses and his side-kick Defence Minister Gallant announced their intention, to world media, to unleash “a mighty vengeance” on the Palestinian people. They literally announced their war crimes in advance, and by golly they haven’t let us down. Collective punishment? Check! Ethnic cleansing? Check! No fuel no food no water… check check check! Bombing hospitals, schools, refugee camps; dropping 2,000 lb “bunker busters” on residential flats… there is no red line that can’t be bombed to oblivion. In these bleak times, it’s refreshing to find a ray of hope. I find Mesarvot Network to be one such ray. Mesarvot Network supports IDF reservists who refuse to serve in the current genocidal war against the Palestinians. They are the most courageous soldiers in Israel. Please support the Mesarvot Network if you can.

Why it's important to inspect your nuts

Here’s a shocking headline; Boeing Urges Airlines to Inspect 737 Max for "loose bolt" in rudder system. Imagine you’re in line to board a plane, and that headline comes across your news feed. That would be somewhat unnerving, would it not? Check out that second paragraph. Yup, it’s true; a bolt ain’t holding nothing to nothing if it lost its nut. And if there’s no nuts securing the bolts securing the rudder section to the rest of the aero-plane, you gonna be in a real big heap ‘o shit real soon! You’re shuffling towards the boarding ramp when you look out the window and see you’re about to board a 737 Max… Destination certain doom! You’d be waving your phone in the air and shouting at non-existent airline “customer humiliation agents:” WAIT! WAIT! HAVE YOU SEEN THIS!?!? HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR NUTS??? Of course, such an outburst would just get you arrested and shuffled off to a psychiatric facility for observation. The good news is at least you’re not on the next 737 Max that’ll fall out of the sky!

Canadian war hero gets medal for attacking mosque

Just one more thing about "the first African-Canadian" to win the Victoria Cross, William Hall. As I've pointed out before, I'm not sure how "Canadian" Hall was, given that he was born 38 years before the country now known as Canada. Canadians are desperate for war heroes, especially if they're Black. It shows the world we're doing diversity and inclusion right! Be that as it may, Hall joined the Royal British Navy and found himself fighting for the British Empire to put down an uprising among the Empire's ungrateful subjects in India. Here's a brief exerpt from his Wikipedia entry; "...the naval gun crew with which he was serving came under heavy fire as they attacked a mosque." Oh dear! 150 years ago that got you a Victoria Cross? Now it would get you life in prison! Canadian values sure have changed... but he still gets a new Arctic Patrol Vessel named after him, so maybe our values haven't changed as much as we like to pretend.

Canada still building imaginary naval fleet. Allies not impressed

Last week the Globe had a story about Canada’s participation in Operation Prosperity Guardian. While I had mocked our pathetic attempt to ingratiate ourselves with Uncle Sam by participating in a naval operation without contributing any ships, the unpaid intern writing at the Globe clarified that while we didn’t have the right hardware right now, it was “in production.” The confusion over what’s been built and when reminded me of the premature naming ceremony for HMCS William Hall. The following stories are from 2015. The RCN took possession of the ship this past August, eight years after that splashy PR stunt by the Harper government. "Canada names another imaginary Arctic Patrol Vessel" If you're keeping track, HMCS William Hall is the fourth of the new Arctic Patrol Vessels to be named by the Government of Canada. Assistant Defence Minister Julian Fantino was at the Africville Museum in Halifax yesterday to announce the good news. The bad news is that there isn't actually a ship to which the Royal Canadian Navy can affix that lovely name. First announced in 2007, Canada's Arctic fleet has been the subject of numerous photo-ops and good-news announcements since, although no ships have been built! That may be about to change, however. Apparently Public Works Minister Diane Finley is so fed up with the lack of progress that she barged into the Irving yards in Halifaxlast week, rolled up her sleeves, fired up a cutting torch, pulled down her goggles, and personally began cutting steel for the first of the patrol ships! Or maybe that was just another photo-op? "About the CBC and that African-Canadian war hero from 1857" HMCS William Hall named after first African Canadian to win Victoria Cross declares the headline at the CBC. It's all part of the Harper gang's program to reinvent Canada as a "warrior nation" by celebrating war heroes of the distant past. We are celebrating Mr. Hall's exploits in 1857 by attaching his name to a not yet built ice-breaking vessel in the many-times-announced but not yet begun Arctic Patrol Vessel program. His name is to go on ship number four. Whether the Arctic Patrol Vessel program ever builds four ships is a matter of conjecture, but there's no denying that the selection of an "African Canadian" certainly underlines the fact that Canada is not only a Warrior Nation, but a diverse and inclusive one. Whether it's kosher to call a man born 38 years before Confederation an "African Canadian" is a minor quibble at this remove. Seems to me there couldn't have been "Canadians" of any ethnicity before there was a Canada; we were just subjects of the British Empire; but let's get back to our Warrior Nation past... 1857 was a tense and trying time for the British Empire. Here in British North America the colonial government introduced the Civilization of Indian Tribes Act, the precursor to the Indian Act and the entire project of assimilation that was recently labelled cultural genocide by the Chief Justice of Canada's Supreme Court. At the same time, in another part of the British Empire, those other Indians rose up against their colonial masters in what has become known as the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The uprising was ruthlessly suppressed by the colonial masters, and India remained a British colony for another 90 years. It was in the context of suppressing that mutiny of the Indian people against their colonial oppressors that William Hall, an Able Seaman in the Royal Navy, was awarded the Victoria Cross. That may say rather more about our glorious warrior past than the Harper clique intended.

New York Times exposes Canada's Foreign Student scam

It can’t be a secret anymore if the New York Times is writing about it. Many Canadian post-secondary institutions have become de-facto fast-tracks to Canadian residency and the prospect of citizenship. That’s because chronic government under-funding has made colleges and universities dependent on the extortionate fees they charge foreign students. Schools like Northern College hire agents to recruit foreign students. These agents scour the Indian countryside looking for prospective students willing and able to fork over the tens of thousands of dollars required for a diploma in “culinary arts” or “early childhood education,” which qualify the graduates to work in two of the lowest paying occupations in Canada. The recruiters work on commission. What they’re selling isn’t education, but access to a student visa, and hence to Canada. There are hundreds of thousands of student visas issued every year, and all those foreign students need somewhere to live in a country with a chronic and ever-worsening housing affordability crisis. Nobody’s getting much of an education, but the colleges get to stay in business, the recruiters can get rich, and the students get a back door to Canadian residency! What’s not to like?

Sh!t happens... life goes on

Me and the Farm Manager were discussing the situation in Gaza. She's got extended family in Israel, so it's a topic she's invested in. Fortunately, all those relations have multiple passports and can catch a flight to Montreal or New Jersey if things go south. That appears to be happening. I read somewhere, and I can't personally vouch for the source, that almost half a million Israelis have left the country since 10/7. But enough about relatives... which brings to mind an anecdote about the New Brunswick born Hollywood mogul, Louis B Mayer. Long ensconced amongst Hollywood's Jewish elite, Mayer had occassion to have Albert Einstein as a dinner guest. Upon hearing that Albert had concocted something called "the theory of relativity," Mayer is alleged to have replied that he had a theory about his relatives too. A lot of big names in Jewish culture were never fully on-board with the Zionist agenda. Mayer and Einstein were two of them. Edgar Bronfman was another. Bronfman was head of the World Jewish Congress for decades. He was a staunch advocate for Palestinian rights. Unfortunately, the WJC was more interested in his money than his advice. History is full of make-up stories. Folks who inflicted assorted war crimes on one another, like the Germans and the French, for example, were inter-marrying and signing trade deals a generation later. Shit happens. It's often ugly shit. It's almost always being manipulated by hate-mongers who seek to profit from division and despair. Here's my advice; leave the shit behind and get on with life.

Ukraine and Gaza are two fronts in the same war

That's Uncle Sam's war to keep the US empire at the top of the international geopolitical dogpile. In Ukraine, we were gonna teach the Rooskies a lesson. How's that going? By my reading, it's going way better for Team Putin than it is for Team USA/NATO. In Gaza, the American (and hence EU/NATO etc) policy is to support Israel's genocidal campaign against the Palestinians while having their UN ambassador shed crocodile tears in front of the cameras over how heartbreaking it is to see pictures of dead Palestinians children in the rubble created by US munitions. That shit fools nobody outside the USA, where popstars and sports by far eclipse important news from around the world. As in Ukraine, nothing about the Gaza war has done anything to burnish America's claim to a leadership role in the community of nations. Quite the opposite, in fact!

Why some dead babies count more than others

Yesterday, the 75th day of the Israel-Hamas war, Immigration Minister Marc Miller introduced special measures to support temporary residence for extended family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents living in Gaza. 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced and over 20,000 civilians slaughtered before we extended this humanitarian gesture. By contrast, a mere 28 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Canada introduced the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET). Compare the two and it’s immediately apparent that the Ukrainians fleeing Russian aggression get a much more generous offer than the Palestinians. For one thing, our Gaza “special measures” are restricted to those with family connections in Canada, whereas CUAET applies to all Ukrainians, regardless of whether they already have family in Canada or not. How to account for our glaring hypocrisy? After all, Israel has killed twice as many civilians in Gaza in two months than Putin’s barbaric hordes have killed in Ukraine in almost two years. I believe it’s a combination of factors. Firstly, our media ecosystem is saturated with anti-Russian propaganda. Putin is a brutal dictator who hates democracy. An irrational megalomaniac, he is capable of any atrocity imaginable. Russia is bad. Similarly, Israel is consistently portrayed as a peace-seeking democracy that has long tried in vain to live peaceably alongside its hate-crazed Palestinian neighbors. No matter how many UN resolutions they ignore and how many women and children succumb to their relentless onslaught, at the end of the day we must respect Israel’s right to defend itself. Israel is good. Finally, let’s not rule out good old-fashioned racism. It’s just so much easier to open our hearts to white Christians than to non-white Muslims. Our hypocrisy stinks.

Canada hits all-time high for immigration

Here’s some good news for the Century Canada crowd; Canada welcomed 430,000 would-be Canadians to these shores from June to September. That’s over 140,000 per month! Meanwhile, housing starts were bumping along at roughly 20,000 per. You can shut down every Air B&B in the country and it won’t make a dent in the housing catastrophe the Ottawankers are creating for us. How the hell are we still on this path when everybody and anybody who knows anything about real estate has been waving red flags for years? Hilliard MacBeth wrote a book about it - eight friggin’ years ago! But, let’s look on the bright side. All our new Canadians are coming from places where they’re accustomed to far larger households than we are. Like double and up. All those nattily attired Nigerians you saw crossing at Roxham Road with their designer luggage? They’re coming from a place where seven to ten under a roof is the norm. Putting up one new build for every seven new Canadians sounds just about right!

US gets sucked in deeper - now commits to keeping Red Sea open

Operation Prosperity Guardian is the latest bullshit endeavor to make it look like Uncle Sam still matters. Seems some terrorists in Yemen are trying to support their fellow terrorists in Gaza by impeding shipping through the Red Sea/Suez Canal. That’s all to put pressure on Israel, home of God’s Chosen People and the only democracy in the Middle East. And you gotta admit those Yemeni terrorists have some serious leverage. Denied passage through the Suez, a containership enroute to Europe from China will require an extra ten days to make port with its cargo of absolutely everything Europe needs to survive. Does Western Civilization have the wherewithal to weather such a crisis? Well, we do now! Canada has just announced we will be part of Operation Prosperity Guardian! That’s a US-led (what else?) operation to keep the sea lanes open for the cheap shit from China that makes modern life possible! Fortunately, Canada is not committing any actual ships, because our fleet may not be up to snuff by current standards, but we’ll have a battalion of paper-shufflers in head-office standing with Israel for as long as it takes… oh sorry, that was Ukraine…

Toronto renames Yonge-Dundas Square in honor of slave-dealing African tribe

Yonge-Dundas Square is the wannabe Times Square of Toronto. Alas, the Wokies discovered some alleged links between the slave trade and Henry Dundas, the Square's namesake. Sankofa Square is the new name for Yonge-Dundas Square. “Sankofa” is allegedly a reference to the folk wisdom of the Akan people in what is now Ghana, and means, according to the experts behind this decision, learning from history to facilitate a better future. From the Wikipedia entry for the Akan people: “The Akan waged war on neighboring states in their geographic area to capture people and sell them as slaves to Europeans…” Eat your heart out, Henry Dundas! But hey, they were Black slavers, so I guess it’s OK!

Other species feces

There's a proud Irishman I run into at the dog park who has the mixed blessing of owning an English Lab. It's a mixed blessing largely because the English have always let down the Irish. Every character flaw that Lab manifests is automatically assumed to be the result of its "English" origins. Like the fact that this otherwise loveable Lab likes to eat dog poo. That's obviously the English side coming out. If there was such a thing as an Irish Lab you can bet it would be too proud to eat dogshit. So I tell the guy about my issues with Bruno Big-Lips, our Italian mastiff. Bruno is too proud to eat dogshit, but he often confuses the cat's litter-box with an orderve tray. The proud Irishman sees his opening... "Well, at least my dog doesn't eat other species feces." Other species feces? I figure add a bass line and some turntable scratching and we could have the next hip-hop chart-topper!

When did underwear become outerwear?

When did pajamas become something you wore to the mall? Or to school? The decline in decorum seems to mirror the decline of our society in general. Have to admit I was an early adopter of de-formalizing dress codes. The only time in my teaching career I ever wore a tie was the couple of years a yahoo down the hall was coming in sporting ripped track pants and rubber boots. That was taking "de-formalizing the dress code" to places it didn't need to go, in my opinion. The Farm Manager maintains her Ed Assistant job at the local highschool. Whereas there once was a "dress code," the dress code today is, so long as genitals and nipples are covered up, anything goes. I see it on the streets around the school. A sports bra up top and short shorts below, with some jewelry and perhaps a little ink in between, tells the world this teen gal is... what? Gullible? Suggestible? Vulnerable?

Hamas is winning the PR war with Israel in most of the world

In the misty recesses of my memory banks I recall running with a gang of hippy-dippy types who were on the way to the Holy Land, there to groove and weed vegetables on some hippy-dippy kibutz. That was a pilgrimage much in vogue amongst the youthful idealists of the time. Fast forward fifty years. Ain’t no youthful idealists heading to Israel anymore. In fact, Israel’s own home-grown youthful idealists have been leaving the country for years. And that was before October 7th. Suddenly, the most genocidal hate speech became acceptable in Western media, which is wildly pro-Israel in all things. Palestinians (and let’s not kid ourselves; they are Hamas supporting Jew-haters every one), are animals, savages, blood-thirsty monsters, the Children of Darkness and Seed of Amalek… There’s a lot that’s dodgy about the 10/7 narrative. The attack was a complete surprise but Mossad and IDF intelligence had the plans in hand at least a year beforehand. But Israel was completely taken by surprise? I think not. I think it more likely that a certain politician who is preoccupied with keeping his ass out of jail thought it a perfect distraction. And so far, the plan is going great! If he can wrap this up in the next couple of weeks or so, he will go down in history as Bibi The Avenger, The Greatest Leader Since Moses! Gaza will simply be D-9ed into the Sinai. Unfortunately, there are signs of danger ahead. Bibi made very dramatic promises to eliminate every last terrorist. That means all Hamas has to do after Bibi declares victory is fire off one rocket, and Hamas has won in the eyes of the world. The campaign of “mighty vengeance,” daily war crimes Netanyahu and Gallant announced two months ago, continues apace. We’re fast closing in on 20,000 Palestinian dead, mostly women and children. Meanwhile, Hamas uploads videos every day of lightly armed fighters blowing up Merkava tanks in the ruble of Gaza City. Youthful idealists around the world today are more likely to volunteer for Hamas than for Israel.

The perfect soundtrack for the mindful life

The perfect soundtrack for the mindful life is an endless loop of my mastiff snoring. Bruno's snoring wordlessly sums up this travesty we call "the human condition." That's not a road you want to take if you value your mental health. I mean the road of making sense of the present moment. You can't. But when you have a 150 lb mastiff curling up next to you, snoring, the wise man will take solace in the snoring, and forgo making sense of the present moment. At least for now.

US slaps sanctions on Israel

Remember the tsunami of sanctions unleashed against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine? Washington actually declared its first sanctions three days before the invasion. Within three weeks most of the “free and democratic world,” as America’s vassal states like to think of themselves, were solidly aboard. The haste of our response to Putin’s aggression stands in sharp contrast to our response to Israel’s far bloodier invasion of Gaza. Israel has killed more Palestinian civilians in eight weeks than Russia has managed in Ukraine in almost two years. The contrast was starting to get uncomfortable; our glaring hypocrisy an embarrassment. Today Washington took action; a visa ban has been imposed on “several dozen” extremist settlers who have been terrorizing Palestinians in the West Bank! There you go! Don’t say America doesn’t care about civilian lives! Meanwhile, we will ramp up the delivery of 2,000 lb Bunker Busters to facilitate the IDF’s continuing surgical strikes against terrorists in Gaza. Israel has a right to defend itself.

The darkest time

These few weeks, from when the clocks go back, to the winter solstice, are the darkest time of the year. If you're at all prone to depression even on the longest sun-kissed days of summer, you're really struggling now. Not that I'm struggling all that much. I've been getting into "mindfullness" since early Covid days. That was when everything was locked down and you had nothing to do. Ergo, lots of time to think about nothing! Pure mindfullness! I am 100% focused on what's going on in my mind... which is nothing! But thank God, in just a few weeks the universe will shift gears, and the days will get longer again! Hope will send up fresh green shoots. The birds will come back from their winter holidays... The darkest time will birth spring, again.