What if they had a news network called Spinco?

Ya, I know what you’re thinking; the Geriatric Ranter, given as he is to paranoia and conspiracy theories, sparked a fattie and came up with some mildly amusing speculations. But no! There’s actually a whole gaggle of ivy leaguers embedded in greed-bag hedge-funds who are doing this right now! It all goes back to the Comcast takeover of NBC Universal. The combined company was one of the bigs in global media. Alas, shit happens and times change, and big brand news titles aren’t what they used to be. Although Rachel Maddow, Queen of Prog News, still makes 25 million a year to be determinedly, proudly, and ostentatiously wrong about almost everything, the MBAs at the top of the mainstream media food chain plan to ditch most of their news properties. They’re spinning them off to a subsidiary they’re calling "Spinco." There’s something refreshingly honest about that!

Trudeau, the self-proclaimed "feminist," leaves a trail of battered women in his political wake

The Globe and Mail is all over it; folks are beginning to question Justin’s “feminist” bona fides. The special irony in this is, just three days ago. he drew massive attention to himself by mocking Americans for having elected Donald Trump over a woman. Twice! And now the woman who was variously known as Agent Frida, Justin’s brain, or the Ukrainian ambassador, has had enough. While I’m generally no fan of Agent Frida, I’ll tip my cap to her for turning her back on the little twerp. It’s embarrassing enough that we have to live with this government; it even more embarrassing when Fox News and BBC splash our suffering all over the world. From Jakarta to Mumbai to Shanghai people are scratching their heads, asking “what happened to Canada?” I think, at this point, Fluffy’s goose is pretty much cooked. Mind you, he did show us his authoritarian side with that Emergency Powers hanky panky, so you never know. What is most disturbing is I see nothing on the political horizon that would be much of an improvement. The Greens have no relevance at all, the other three parties are Original Neolib, Neolib Light, and Neolib Extra Strength. So why bother voting? The Neolibs have it in the bag regardless, and we’ll keep wobbling down the same path. The homeless population will continue to grow, governments will continue to study the problem, military spending must grow so we can stand with our allies in defending our values, and we must all tighten our belts for the sake of freedom and human rights. This will of course entail some cutbacks in some of the bells and whistles we’ve become used to. Like health care and education, just to pick a couple out of the air. But, if we truly believe in Democracy, if we are patriotic Canadians, we will rise to the occasion, and make the sacrifices we have to make, just as our forefathers did in Passchendaele over 100 years ago… Or not!

Will your hourly wage buy a case of beer?

Here’s something well worth reading. Charles Hugh-Smith makes a convincing case against the common mantra that “we’ve never had it so good.” How many times have you heard that? That writer is a serious pundit, whereas I’m just the pot-addled hillbilly blogger, but I have made similar observations, using different metrics. Can I buy an ounce of weed with my hourly pay? Or a carton of smokes? Or a case of beer? To be honest, I’m a pensioner with the good fortune to actually have a pension. The “hourly wage” thing does not apply. Frankly, there was never a time in my working life that an hour’s pay bought an ounce of weed. Maybe a quarter ounce at best. But a carton of smokes or a case of beer? Absolutely! Today a case of 24 tall cans runs sixty bucks or more. The tobacco addicts not patronizing the smoke shops at their local Indian reservation are spending well over a hundred for a carton! So Mr. Smith is 100% on the money. After 75 years of capitalist prosperity, only the rich can afford to indulge the basic vices.

MSM believes you're retarded

They being legacy media, and crap being the shit they fob off as “news.” They’re telling me there’s a struggle for freedom and democracy going on in Georgia (the country, not the state, although there’ve been some issues in the state too). Georgia, being a former Soviet state, is a prime target for meddling from the usual suspects in Washington. Recently, the government passed a law requiring foreign funded entities, like all the NGOs funded by Endowment for Democracy and USAID, to register as foreign agents. This is alleged to be the result of Russian interference in Georgia, because Russia passed similar measure a few years ago. Needless to say, all those entities in Georgia bankrolled by the West immediately took to the streets in outrage! Looking at this from Canada, it’s quite ironic; our media have spent the past couple of years blowing up that “China is meddling in our democracy” nothingburger into an urgent plea for a foreign agent registry… just like Russia! Just like Georgia! And just like that font of Freedom and Democracy south of us has had in place since 1938! But in the world ‘o whoppers mainstream news has become, that’s nothing. How about that al-Jolani chappie who just made Syria safe for democracy and Pride parades. Check out his Wikipedia page. We’ve been hunting down this savage terrorist for pretty much as long as we’ve been fighting the Global War on Terror. He has cycled through Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, and ISIS before emerging as… the savior of Syria?! REALLY??? Do they really think we’re that retarded? Anyway, trouble in Ukraine or Georgia or Syria is incidental compared to the tribulations currently being endured by the long-suffering Chosen People over there in the Holy Land. The Greatest Leader Since Moses has told us repeatedly that his war on Gaza is the front line in the war of Civilization against Barbarism. Wait a minute… how is it possible that the guy leading the fight for civilization is wanted for war crimes? I’ve watched enough Al Jazeera in the last 14 months to know the civilization he’s fighting for, using the tools of mass starvation and indiscriminate bombing of women and children, isn’t a civilization I want to be a part of. Barbarism can’t be any worse than that. Nevertheless, the smart folks who decide what’s on your news will no doubt continue to blame “Russian disinformation” for the fact they have lost all credibility.

They tore down my childhood home to put up a McDonalds

We lived there from when I was a toddler till I was on the cusp of adolescence. It was a two-storey pile of yellow bricks my folks bought around ‘58, the first house they were able to buy after getting off the boat at Pier 21. They rented the upstairs to Mom’s brother and his family. It was across the traintracks from the railroad station. Sometimes in summer the railroad men would hop the fence, throw a blanket on our lawn, and spend their lunch hour playing cards. It came with two acres, which included a small barn and a couple of chicken coops. My parents were able to recreate the peasant lifestyle they’d known in Prussia before they were evacuated to refugee camps in Denmark in the dying months of the war. We had a couple of cows for milk and cream, pigs, and eggs from the chickens until they were layed out, at which time they found their way into the roasting pan. Mom would whack their heads off with an axe, causing me to learn early on where the expression “running around like chickens with their heads cut off” comes from. The rest of the process was a family activity. I didn’t know what the pigs were for until Dad and a couple of uncles slaughtered one right there in the barnyard. It was a large beast, and not at all copacetic with their plans. The sight of these guys chasing a pig around the yard with sledge-hammers and axes wasn’t something children needed to see, but at least we knew where our food came from. The place was a bit of a fixer-upper. The first project was indoor plumbing and a septic bed, but not until we’d spent the first winter with a hand-pump and an outhouse. Mom and my grandmother used to keep amazing gardens. From kohlrabi to carrots to beets to peas to potatoes, they had it all going on. There was even a pear tree, and to this day I recall what a thrill it was to open a jar of pears in the dead of winter. When I heard the sad news that we were moving, I made a map of that garden, hoping to recreate it somewhere else sometime in the future. It’s never happened, and by now I’ve lost that map… Another dream bites the dust! To bulldoze that house, with its rich history, and pave over those gardens, to put up a fast food restaurant, is utter sacrilege. If you happen by the Elora McDonalds and see an elderly gentleman parked in the back corner, eating pickled beets out of a jar, with tears streaming down his face… I figure that’s about where my room used to be. Feel free to say hello.

Your money or your life, or both; health care in America

The murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson has ignited a whole lot of debate everywhere. I had some driving to do today, and I generally keep the CBC on the car radio. Elamin Abdelmahmoud’s half hour show “Commotion” came on. The producers have upped their game since that program debuted. I found the first few episodes way woke and too Toronto-centric. Today, Elamin had top-shelf writers on, from Vox and Rolling Stone, and they had some insightful observations about media response to Luigi’s first shot in the new class war. They danced around the conundrum all writers in mainstream media are facing. The internet is saturated with thumbs-up emojis on the matter, yet nobody on any mainstream platform is gonna go there. Getting a slot on CBC or Rolling Stone or Vox is way too big a prize. Nobody’s going to screw up their career by being honest about how they really feel about Luigi and Brian. They did mange to foreground a salient point in spite of that; if health insurance is such a major issue for Americans, why was it almost totally absent from the recent election campaign? They know why, they just can’t talk about it. Kamala had over 80 billionaire donors behind her campaign. Trump had about 50. Billionaires in America enjoy gold-plated health care. It’s not an issue for them. Therefore, it’s not an election issue. That’s the way the cookie crumbles when you’ve sold your democracy to the highest bidder.

Luigi Mangione is the Robin Hood of the 21st century

So a dude pissed off at how big med gets away with fucking everyday people, takes the plunge into direct action. That’s officially known as first degree murder. Generally speaking, the masses do not approve of murder, especially premeditated in the first degree. But by golly, it looks like the masses are willing to cut you some slack if you murder the CEO of a corporate entity that has gorged on the suffering of ordinary people. Luigi Mangione just became a superhero of the resistance to predatory capitalism. That should be a wake-up call to predatory capitalists. Luigi is everywhere.

War vibes

When FM Joly introduced Canada’s new and improved Arctic Foreign Policy, her preamble provided the rationale. Russian aggression. That’s right! Make no mistake; Putin is bent on world domination. He’s not going to stop at Ukraine. No! After Ukraine, all of Europe is in his cross-hairs. Once his army has made it to the English Channel, his greedy imperialist gaze will turn north, to what used to be the Canadian Arctic, now the North American Arctic, or just the “American Arctic” for short. That’s why we have to be ready. Let’s unpack this. In three years, Russia’s invasion has captured about 20% of Ukraine. Simple arithmetic says it’ll be another 12 years to make it to the Polish border. We’re in 2036 now. Then, the 84 year old Putin, assuming he’s still in the big chair, will have to fight his way through Poland and Germany. No offence to the Ukrainians, but I figure if it took Putin 15 years to subdue Ukraine, Poland and Germany will take at least 30 years each. Then he’s gonna set his sites on Canada’s… I mean America’s Arctic. That brings us to 2096. Putin is 144 years old. I figure by then our new fleet of warships, first announced in 2008, will be mostly if not fully operational. So bring it on, Putin! We’re not afraid of you!

Moderate rebels take Syria - Democracy and Pride parades coming soon!

Finally! There’s a whole lotta gloatin’ goin’ on today in certain circles. Washington, the Pentagon, Langley… What I’ve read at the JPost today is a little more nuanced. Yes, it’s a happy day in some ways, but… and there’s the rub. While it’s good that Assad has been vanquished, the Israelis know the “moderate rebels” better than anyone. Remember a few years ago when Canada rescued about 100 of those brave Syrian White Helmets that were trapped by Assad’s forces? Chrystia Freeland was even honored as an “Honorary White Helmet” by the White Helmets themselves! The White Helmets were first responders who worked exclusively in rebel held areas of Syria. That’s because they were rebels! And how moderate were those rebels? Moderate enough for Canada, but not nearly moderate enough for Israel. Although those humanitarian White Helmets escaped Syria via Israel, Israel was adamant that not a single one remain there. That’s because they know the truth, and the truth is, today’s moderate rebels are just the latest rebranding of the ISIS head-choppers and the Al Qaeda terrorists who allegedly brought down the twin towers. To my complete shock, CNN aired an interview with the HTS (latest acronym after AQ and ISIS for the usual head-choppers) leader that actually broached this subject! The CNN interviewer quizzed al-Julani on his remarkable path from terrorist Al Qaeda operative to ISIS leader to moderate rebel leader celebrated by CNN. It’s a stunning exercise in narrative management and well worth a look. She even brought up the fact that HTS is listed as a terrorist entity by the USA and its vassals, and brought up the $10 million bounty the FBI has on him. We’re supposed to believe all his terrorist activity was just youthful indiscretions, the Islamic fundamentalist version of an Amish kid out on their “rumspringa.” Sure… What we know for sure is Israel is now rid of Assad, and instead, has a collection of Islamic fundamentalist whackos next door. Good luck with that!

Canada to give Canadian Arctic to Trump in return for privilege of becoming 51st state

There’s a certain apprehension when our dimwitted foreign minister unveils a project she’s been “working on for a year.” And here is the result of her long year of intellectual labour. I’ll give you the nitty-gritty, the Coles Notes version, if you will; the Canadian Arctic has been rebranded the North American Arctic! WTF, you say? Calm down… the rebranding just reflects the reality that the previous nomenclature missed, ie that the north coast of the North American land mass is actually the north coast of (and here’s another joly Jolyism) something I’d never heard of before; the North American Homeland! Homeland? That’s another one of those trigger words, like motherland or fatherland, that unleash a powerful urge to break out in goose-stepping around the kitchen table. Really? Of course, this is all because of our pending show-down with Russia and China. Working more closely with our allies, especially the USA, will be essential going forward. To that end, we’re gonna appoint an Arctic Ambassador, who will be an indigenous resident. That’s a bummer of a diplomatic appointment. I mean, it’s not exactly like being posted to London or Paris or New York, is it? I suppose the bright spot is it won’t cost nine million to build an igloo for the official residence. That’s it in a nut-shell. We’re still Canada, but our former Arctic is now the North American Arctic. And we’re now part of a Homeland. Is it just my paranoia, or does anyone else find it suspicious they drop this on us just a week after Fluffy’s pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, where Trump suggested we’d make a fine 51st state?

The ongoing live-streamed genocide we're not allowed to talk about

Never again? There’s been a genocide ongoing in Gaza for well over a year. Recall this; In historical first, Israel announces its genocide in advance. Bibi didn’t let me down. They’ve carried out their promised genocide with shocking enthusiasm. There is no hospital or school or mosque or church or “safe zone” that is immune to Israel’s US-supplied F-35s dropping US-supplied bombs. That’s because every single hospital or school or mosque or church is actually built atop a terrorist command post! How convenient! Don’t blame Israel for starving those starving children in Gaza. Israel keeps trying to send oodles of food aid to the starving Palestinians, but those diabolical terrorists keep stealing it… And of course, anyone who dares question that narrative is an antisemite! That accusation is enough to silence criticism in most of the “Western world,” ie the world that, obfuscations and bullshit aside, is enabling this 21st century genocide. It was most gratifying to me to see Jewish anti-genocide activists occupy some real estate in Ottawa for a few hours the other day. Unfortunately, few news outlets bothered to mention these were Jews against Israel’s genocide. Anti-genocide protesters are typically portrayed as “Hamas fans,” antisemites, or just confused millennials. It’s beyond time to hold our media and our politicians to account. There is a genocide going on in front of our eyes. What will we do about it?

Screwing Workers 101

There are a million and one ways to screw workers, but the flat-out best way is to call them “contractors.” The other day I had the CBC on, and there was a learned professor explicating how postal workers are doomed. This was in the context of the current postal strike. When you see a Canada Post vehicle on the road, the all-in costs are about $65/ hr. A FedEx or UPS van is on the road for $45/hr. And the independent contractors delivering your on-line purchases are at $25/hr. I’m thinking, holy shit, those Amazon delivery dudes (while he didn’t say those words, we knew who he was talking about) gotta be working for next to nothing! That’s why they show up in twenty year old Dodge vans with squealing brakes and noisy mufflers. His point was, in a free enterprise economy, the future belongs to the contractors. They have an insurmountable advantage over those corporate employees who drive for UPS and FedEx. Couple of days later, this story shows up in the Globe and Mail, about how ride-share drivers (think Uber, Lyft, and the food apps are no different) make an average net of six bucks an hour. Yup! They’re contractors! Independent businessmen! Minimum wage laws do not apply to independent businessmen! Pity, that… one of the richest companies in the world, owned by one of the richest men in the world, can pay his delivery drivers one third of the official minimum wage because they are contractors!? Get the fuck outta here! It’s an absolute outrage that we continue to allow such a brazen assault on working people.

Small talk at the dog park

I’ve been taking Big Lips Bruno to the dog park almost every day for four years. Bruno is a grey and silver brindle mastiff with floppy ears and a cropped tail. From time to time we’ll meet up with a black and bronze mastiff with cropped ears and a long floppy tail. I’ve never had more than a passing “how ya doin’” with that other mastiff’s dad, until today. He used to deliver his pooch to the dog park in an orange Audi RS3. I was a car guy and I notice stuff like that. In the past week I notice Buddy has been bringing his brindle in a new RS7. That caught my attention. That’s a serious car. Over 600 horsepower out of a 4.0 litre V8. It’ll beat a Dodge Hellcat in a drag race. I’m not somebody who strikes up conversations with strangers, but I couldn’t help myself. “I see you got yourself a new winter-beater.” “Ha ha! No, I traded in the RS3 for its big brother.” So we get to chatting about his 1980 Corvette and my 1973 Trans Am SD, and about how messed up it is that the Germans can get more out of a four litre V8 than the Americans can get out of a supercharged 6.2 litre hemi. He had no idea we were talking about the demise of the American Empire.

Why are so many Canadians too lazy to work?

I am, for better or worse, getting to an age where I can remember a time fifty years ago. What I remember is that fifty years ago very few Canadians were too lazy to work. Whether you were a first or a tenth generation Canadian, the prevailing ethos stipulated that if you didn’t have a job, you were looking for one. Even when you took a trip on the pogey train, you knew that was a temporary vacation; you’d be back to the grind soon enough. Most everybody worked. In those days young people worked mainly to get out of their parent’s house and start an independent life. If you were still in mom’s basement at age 25, it was because you were working and saving for a place of your own, not because you were addicted to video games. Today, you can still be in mom’s basement in your 40’s, playing video games, and the world forgives you if you haven’t found a job yet that “agrees” with you. Which is why employers are “forced” to bring in temporary foreign workers. The Globe had a story the other day about the enterprising consultants who get rich off bringing TFWs into the country to do the jobs “Canadians don’t want to do.” The two iconic Canadian brands mentioned as relying on TFWs were Tim Hortons and Canadian Tire. No wonder. I’m a fan of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Living Wage Project, and I can guarantee you no job filled by TFWs at either of those companies meet the living wage standard. That’s why Canadians don’t want to do them. Those companies need to up their pay, not import foreign workers. But today I happened across this story; Halifax is worried they’ll have a bus driver shortage if their foreign workers can’t get their work permits extended. That didn’t sound right. I dug up the collective agreement between Halifax Transit and the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union, Local 508. I know driving a city bus may not agree with some people. The split shifts are a bitch until you have enough seniority to avoid them, and you’ll no doubt meet your share of obnoxious a-holes, but even the starting wage pretty much meets the CCPA living wage standard, and after three years you’re about $4/hr ahead of it. So why do we need foreign workers to drive city buses in Halifax? I’m aware of the argument that there’s no point because you’ll never afford your own place anyway, so might as well stay in mom’s basement and beat the latest Call of Duty. And a universal basic income would be great because then you could slip mom a little rent money. Pass the Doritos. I don’t buy it. Check out this starter in Dartmouth. Ten percent down and you’re looking at a mortgage of under two grand a month - cheaper than an apartment and well within a bus drivers reach! Sure, it needs a little work, but back in the day we expected our first home to be a fixer-upper. In fact, I’m still living in one today! Local 508 is heading into contract negotiations soon. While I hope they score a decent contract - 25% over four years would be decent, I don’t believe that will end the reliance on foreign workers. Far too many Canadians just can’t be bothered anymore.

Fentanyl is China's revenge for the Opium Wars

I’m guessing the vast majority of Americans know absolutely fuck-all about the Opium Wars. Those wars were imposed on China to force her to permit Chinese citizens access to British opium. Yes, the British Empire ran the global opium empire at the time. China lost those wars, leading to another historical marker 99% of Americans are ignorant of; the century of humiliation. I love a plausible conspiracy theory, and when Donny J fingered China for the fentanyl flood the other day, I thought, holy moly, we got us a good one here! Once, we held the whip, and we humiliated China for 100 years. Apparently, at least according to Trump, it’s China that holds the whip today… I figure we’re in for about another 90 years of humiliation.

The blessings of watching refugee immigrants embracing Canadian values

While I was never a refugee myself, I was an immigrant, and both my parents spent years in refugee camps in Denmark after the WW 2. From what I’ve heard, that was a tough gig. For example, the communal toilets were a trench in the ground with a log laid the length of it. That log was where you parked your butt-cheeks to take a dump. Although the sanitary arrangements may have been primitive in some respects, they were quite forward looking in others. Those were totally inclusive toilet facilities; all ages and all genders used the same trench. What bathroom the trans residents used was a non-issue! And although the refugee camps had barbed-wire and armed guards, they were undoubtedly a soft touch compared to the refugee camps one might find in the Middle East today, where the refugee camps need to be bombed regularly to ferret out the terrorists who can’t help themselves from setting up command posts therein. So I was keen to get to know a refugee family that found their way to our community from there a few years ago. Like all refugees, including my clan, they were extremely grateful to make it to this beautiful, peaceful, polite, and imminently tolerant society. Those are our values, after all. And they were determined to work hard and fit in. They arrived eight or nine years ago, the parents with their five children. They’ve had an arduous road. Here’s an update. The family of seven is now a family of twelve with another one on the way. That’s because the older son married at 19. He and his wife have been very productive. Some of the kids have taken stabs at gainful employment, but nothing seems to stick. That virile eldest worked fast food for a few months, but it didn’t agree with him. Then he took a shot at construction, but that didn’t agree with him either. So here we are. Nobody works and they all live in public housing. The eldest has found the time and money to do his pilgrimage to Mecca, so at least he’s good with his God. Perhaps becoming an Imam would agree with him. But here’s my point. Let’s not blame these refugee immigrants. These people had absolutely no knowledge of sloth or entitlement until they arrived in Canada. They’re merely internalizing Canadian values in the modern era. I’m pleased to report that all of them are polite and tolerant.

Local lad makes good

I got the news today that Morgan Robins has been promoted to Superintendent at the Vancouver Golf Club. That’s the kind of place where it costs $100k to join, and then a thousand a month ever after. Plus, you’ll still pay for every round. Needless to say, that’s not where I’d be golfing. It’s not something I’ve done in about 40 years, but when I used to do it, it was mostly at the “executive” course at the Victoria Road Golf Course. Executive means short. The DeCorsos were an Italian family that had purchased a plot of land on the outskirts of Guelph way back when. They had a longer course on the other side of Victoria Road, which I think remains a going concern. The short course has long since become townhouses. But I digress. Morgan’s mom and I used to work at the same school. Being parents, we’d often swap news about our kids. I was somewhat taken aback to learn that her young lad was enrolling in something called “turf management” at the University of Guelph. I have an undergrad degree from UG and spent some time around the place, and I gotta say you didn’t hear a lot about the Turf Sciences Institute, or whatever it was called. Turf Sciences? Really? I grew up with a lawn around the house, and never did it occur to me that studying that lawn might be construed a science. Not only that, but studying that lawn could land you a university degree! But it didn’t end there. Fast forward a couple years, and young Morgan is off to U Penn for, get this, a masters degree in turf management! I mean, that’s a serious university! All along, at the back of my mind, I’m thinking Morgan is one of those poor kids whose parents are pushing him into university when he’d rather just… play golf or go skiing? So the kid ends up in a career where he pulls down six numbers for rubbing elbows all day long with the kind of people who can afford membership at an elite golf course! Not only that, but in the off season the downhill junkie is a hop and a skip from multiple world-class ski hills! Well played, Morgan!

US demands more young Ukrainians die to save the US Empire

Reuters trotted out a story the other day citing an unnamed US official calling for Ukraine to lower the draft age. Let’s face it; that US official is right. What’s going on with a draft age of 25? By then the testosterone is diminishing and common sense is beginning to set in. That why you see all those videos of potential recruits resisting the recruiters. Here’s another fact to face; if the only reason you’re in the army is because the recruiters snatched you off the street and beat the crap out of you, your motivation is probably not up to snuff. That’s why it’s so important to get ‘em while they’re young and dumb. Drop the draft age to 18 already! Sixteen would be even better, but we’re probably veering awfully close to child soldier territory here, so maybe not. The Ukrainian side had what I thought was a witty rejoinder; “ we can’t even outfit the recruits we’ve got, because our partners never come through with what they promise us.” So what’s the point of dropping the draft age if you, the people who promised whatever it takes for as long as it takes, don’t live up to your promises? You gotta admit they have a point too. At the end of the day, there’s gonna be a lot of Ukrainians who are at least as pissed off at NATO as they are at Putin. I see blowback ahead.

Trump farts, world swoons

Monday evening, after a day of eating junk food and washing it down with Diet Coke, Trump was lounging about down in Mar-a-Lago when he came up with a thought. Tariffs! I’ll scare the panties off that Sheinbaum commie… tell her I’m gonna nail Mexico till they stop with the refugee convoys bringing in all the fentanyl. Come to think of it, I should tariff Canada too. Not that they have much to do with fentanyl or migrants - I just can’t stand that slippery little turd Trudeau. Trump tilts back his gold-plated La-Z-Boy and fires off a text on his Truth Social. Trudeau was apparently on the phone within minutes. Who would have thought he follows Truth Social? Claudia Sheinbaum fired off a snippy letter threatening repercussions. Trump’s tariff threats have been the top story in Canada all day. In Mexico too. Global news sites that rarely mention Canada talked about us today. I say, calm down folks! The man is still two months from office… that’s plenty of time for him to have multiple brain farts that will make you forget all about this one. Let’s wait and see what happens.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar is dead, but PM Fluffy keeps tripping over his corpse

A brief timeline of the Nijjar saga. The long-time pro-Khalistan activist is shot dead on June 18, 2023 in Surrey, British Columbia. Three days later Indian PM Modi arrives in Washington for a highly anticipated state visit. The Biden admin pulls out all the stops and lays on the full red carpet treatment. The stakes are high. India continues to defy US sanctions on Russia, buying huge quantities of Russian oil and refusing to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here’s a chance to convince Modi of the error of his ways. A lavish state dinner, and two additional private dinners with The Big Guy over three days. Three months later, India continues business as usual with Russia, and suddenly Trudeau drops his diplomatic stink-bomb; Canada accuses India in Nijjar murder. Yup, when you have “credible allegations,” as Trudeau put it, it’s obviously a slam dunk, especially when they come from the US! Fast forward to July 2024. Not only has Modi refused to mend his ways, now he’s on a state visit to Moscow! He and Bad Vlad embrace in a warm bro-hug that triggers a collective shit-hemorrhage in the corridors of power in DC. Cue the barking chihuahua from the Great White North for round two. Now it’s more than just an isolated murder and “credible allegations;” this time the RCMP has got the goods! Modi’s agents are behind a crime wave clear across the land! Buckets of outrage are splashed across the infosphere! Six Indian diplomats are promptly sent packing. You know how this ends. After November 5th, punishing Modi is no longer a priority in Washington. Zelensky can fend for himself because we’ve got war with Iran on the horizon, and as much as we’d like to stand with Ukraine, Israel is calling! So where does this leave Trudeau? Check out this story from India; Trudeau blames criminals in his own government for leaking fake report.

Canada admits no evidence against India in murder of Sikh activist

Remember back in September ‘23 when PM Fluffy wowed the diplomatic world with his claim that India was behind the murder of a Sikh activist in Canada? “Wowed,” because that’s generally not the kind of language used in diplomatic circles, even if the claim is true. That smear on Modi has ping-ponged its way through multiple other news stories, including the official inquiry into foreign interference in our democracy. Imagine my shock when I ran across this headline today; Canada denies linking Modi to criminal plot." Huh? How is that possible? I’ve read many times in the Globe & Mail and the CBC that Modi is the mastermind behind this political violence in Canada. Every political leader across the spectrum has denounced the Modi government for interfering in our democracy, blah blah blah…. Aha! I’ve got it! I’m reading the story on a Russian propaganda site. They’re obviously making stuff up just to make our free press look bad. The Government of Canada has not stated, nor is it aware of evidence, linking Prime Minister Modi, Minister Jaishankar, or NSA Doval to serious criminal activity within Canada,” according to a statement issued on Friday by Nathalie Drouin, the national security and intelligence adviser to the prime minister. I couldn’t believe it, so I googled Nathalie Drouin, who I’d never heard of. Turns out she’s legit; Statement from the Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council and National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister, Nathalie G. Drouin The Government of Canada has not stated, nor is it aware of evidence, linking Prime Minister Modi, Minister Jaishankar, or NSA Doval to the serious criminal activity within Canada. Any suggestion to the contrary is both speculative and inaccurate.” What? The Globe and Mail has been pushing speculative and inaccurate bullshit my way for over a year? And I find out about it by reading a Russian news site? And they wonder why the public doesn’t trust mainstream media?

Have the goyim been bamboozled?

Back in July I speculated that between them, Netanyahu and Zelensky would bring down the American Empire. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Most of the world would erupt in celebration. But here’s a thought; much of America would too! Tip for president elect; you can lose the empire and still Make America Great Again! In fact, I would suggest that losing the empire is the first and essential step in doing exactly that. As I expected, both Zelly and Bibi keep escalating their wars, in the hope that they can draw the Americans into active fighting. After all, that’s the only way either of their wars have a chance. And indeed, America seems to be inching in that direction. This has caused a lot of debate amongst your conspiratorial types about whether or to what extent “the Jews” are in charge of US foreign policy. The old “wag the dog” theory. I don’t put a lot of stock in that. Sure, Jews are way over-represented at the State Department, but they’re over-represented at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra too, so let’s not get too excited. Here’s another take. The Americans know they cannot militarily defeat either Russia or Iran, let alone both at once. But what they can do, is continue to hide behind their proxies while goading them on. They do that by providing just enough help to keep the Ukraine war alive, and in the case of Israel, by vetoing one UN resolution after another that would restrain Israel’s suicidal war against the Arab world. At the end of the day, Ukraine will be left on its own to make peace with Russia. And Israel will be left on its own to make peace with its Arab neighbors. And America, free of its obligations to empire, will free up hundreds of billions of dollars annually to make America greatagain for the people who live there.

Trump takes the Democracy Circus to the next level

You have to admit Trump’s cabinet picks have created a whole new side-show in the Democracy Circus! Doctor Oz? Get outta here! Looks to me like I might have been on to something when I pegged the election as a referendum on wokery. Well before the election, a slew of big-name corporations were back-tracking on their DEI commitments. Progressive icon OAC quietly retreated from her pronoun policy. MSNBC Trump-haters, Joe and his sidekick, the daughter of the grand neocon chessmaster, got an audience with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and came away convinced Hitler isn’t such a bad guy after all. We live in interesting times… let’s pray to God we survive them!

Globe & Mail once again bullshitting us about Ukraine disaster

One of the top knobs at the Globe brain trust offers a masterpiece of revisionist history in his Saturday op-ed; Toxic myths about Ukraine are poisoning its future. Here are the toxic myths, or “three malicious fictions about 2014,” as Doug Saunders puts it. There was a coup in 2014 The coup involved NATO The United States and its officials interfered You need to read the whole thing yourself to fully appreciate Doug’s nuanced grasp of geopolitics, but here’s his concluding paragraph, just to give you a taste; Talk of Ukraine joining NATO, and of significant Western support, didn’t really begin until after Mr. Putin’s second invasion in 2022. A decade ago, the Americans and NATO both wanted to stay away from Ukraine. Far from the “Western expansion” fictions, the fate of Ukraine was left to Ukrainians. Oddly enough, NATO itself contradicts Doug’s nonsense. Check out Relations with Ukraine on their website. Here’s a quote; In response to Ukraine’s aspirations for NATO membership, Allies agreed at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. According to Doug, 2008 was the year NATO made it “clear they did not want Kyiv in the alliance!” I don’t want to rush to judgement, but it looks like the Globe is publishing bullshit again. Here’s the text of my letter to the editor. To: Letters The historical record reveals Mr. Saunders' "three malicious fictions" are themselves toxic myths.  Saunders claims that the infamous Nuland-Pyatt recordings, widely interpreted as America choosing the next government, was made after Yanukovych "stepped down," and was merely "expressing her wish that more democratic candidates would prevail -as one would hope any diplomat would." In fact, the tape was released on February 4th, Yanukovych "stepped down" on February 21st, and the candidate favored by Nuland and Pyatt was president by the end of the month. Nuland also claimed in 2014 that the US had invested over $5 billion in "promoting democracy" in Ukraine since 1991. The claim that "talk of joining NATO didn't really begin until 2022" is equally spurious. The Globe and Mail archives reveal an abundance of stories and op-eds that focused on exactly that, going back at least as far as the early days of the Harper government. It is relentless American interference(with the enthusiastic support of Canada) in the internal politics of Ukraine that has poisoned its future. Dieter Neumann

Maybe Israel is committing genocide after all?

The following is an op-ed from the Israeli news platform Haaretz on 12 November. The writer concludes that yes, Israel is unequivocally guilty of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. I find it ironic that this article could never be published in any major Canadian news site because it would be condemned as antisemitic hate speech. *********** Maybe Israel is committing genocide after all? People tend to believe that in order to commit genocide, you have to murder an entire nation. Well, no. You don't have to try so hard. You can earn the designation more easily. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide," worked tirelessly to have it recognized as a crime under international law and given special status. Thanks in no small part to his efforts, an international convention was drawn up designed to fight genocide and to punish its perpetrators and their abettors. The treaty also includes a list of what acts a state or people must commit to be considered perpetrators of genocide. Article 2 of the convention lists five acts that make up the definition of genocide. In order to determine whether or not Israel is committing genocide, it's worthwhile examining all five criteria and see how many of them Israel is committing in the Gaza Strip. Here they are, word for word. Article 2a: "Killing members of the group." No problem. We easily meet the criteria for this section. Although the convention does not specify a required number of dead, 43,000 is surely enough. You can put a checkmark on this one. Article 2b: "Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group." Who would ever deny that we have successfully met the requirements of this section as well. We have bombed day and night; hundreds of limbs have been amputated; we ruined the lives of tens of thousands of children and their parents; we have torn them apart with bodily and mental injuries. Definitely put a checkmark. Article 2c: "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." The hunger and thirst, delays in humanitarian aid, endless torture and deportation from place to place, the systematic destruction of residential areas, houses of prayer, schools, thousands of people buried under the rubble, the employment of demolition contractors to flatten the city of Rafah (partial list). More than enough to meet the requirements section 3. I am proud to check it off. 4: "Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group." The destruction of almost all of Gaza's hospitals including delivery rooms, emergency rooms, neonatal and maternity wards, preventing shipments of medical equipment, killing medical personnel... Is there any doubt that Israel would look favorably upon the crash of the Palestinian birthrate in Gaza? Put a checkmark with honors. 5: "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." Finally, something that Israel has not done. A pity. Maybe taking some children out of the hell we created for them would have saved their lives. But it doesn't get a checkmark. Of the five criteria for genocide, we have performed four exemplarily. That's a fine score. Especially when the execution of one of the five sections, it doesn't matter which one, is enough to be considered a perpetrator. Bravo. Warning: Feigning innocence will not be admissible as a defense. No one will believe that we did all this in good faith, or purely for reasons of self-defense. Nor will public displays of misery and weeping be of any use this time. And above all, it is not worth relying as we do on the Holocaust as a defense. It may provoke comparisons. The treaty, by the way, also refers to those who incite genocide and those who conspire to commit it, and states that they will be punished. In other words, all ministers and members of the coalition. As far as I'm concerned, issuing international arrest warrants for everyone is enough. Their forced respite from roaming abroad at the public expense, due to the very possible threat of arrest, would be a more bitter punishment than death. How nice.

Democracy is dead, but the show must go on

Well, the Orange Ogre pulled it off. Against all odds, or at least against the expectations of the punditocracy and their favorite pollsters, he done kicked the crazed cackler to the curb. This has of course greatly agitated the “Trump is Hitler” crowd, who apparently are all getting their affairs in order so they can migrate to Canada. Democracy is dead, after all… wonder what they’re gonna think about Democracy once they realize they’ll have a choice between PP and Fluffy! Ya! You thought your democracy sucks! Today a good friend sent me this video that’s going around on her Facebook feed. That’s none other than future president Donny J singing on stage at the 2005 Emmy Awards! How soon we forget! What is Facebook doing, normalizing a guy they hated only a week ago? Democracy may be dead, but the show must go on!

What Canada Post could have been

Once again Canada Post is in the headlines. Contract time with CUPW, so we get the predictable sob-fest about how Canada Post loses gazillions of dollars every day and therefore can’t afford to pay its workers a living wage. Over the decades that we’ve been watching the never-ending death-spiral, I think the government missed a couple of key opportunities to make Canada Post into something far more relevant. Canada Post has a mandate to provide mail service to every community in the country. That’s a high bar, and an expensive one. The government-appointed CEO has a different mandate; cut costs. That conflict in mandates led to some hilarious moments. Deepak Chopra was CEO when “Community mailboxes” were being brought in as a cost-cutting measure. Instead of having mail delivered to your door, you could walk to wherever Canada Post planted your community mailbox. That might be half a block away or ten blocks away. Needless to say, this initiative was way more popular with Deepak’s political bosses than with his customers. Nevertheless, Deepak claimed he was inundated with calls from grateful seniors, delighted to be given a reason to walk a few blocks and get some exercise! But I digress. What were those opportunities that might have changed the trajectory of Canada Post? In the first place, in the course of bringing postal service to every community in the land, why could Canada Post not have also provided banking services to all those places too? It’s a well established fact that smaller, out-of-the way communities in rural Canada lack adequate banking. It’s an equally well established fact that poor neighborhoods lack banking facilities. Of course they do! How is a bank gonna make a buck in a poor neighborhood? Instead, the “banking” has been replaced by predatory cheque-cashing joints. Pairing mail service with banking services is hardly a new idea, it’s been the norm in many countries for decades. Secondly, consider the totally inept way legal cannabis was rolled out. In my opinion, the entire exercise was a massive boondoggle designed to throw the biz to Bay Street. Why could they not have made Post Offices the official pot retailers? After all, there’s already a Post Office (and bank) in every community! Once you’ve got the Post Office, bank, and pot dispensary, you’ve got the makings of a community hub! That would have worked wonders for community cohesion. Alas, that would have required political will on a scale not seen since we build a trans-continental railroad. Those days are gone. People who had vision and could get things done have long since given way to management apparatchiks like Deepak Chopra, who are fully convinced that providing shittier service at a lower cost is something to celebrate. After all, that’s the key to their annual bonus and their next promotion.

Move over Uncle Sam; here comes Dudley Do-Right

Globe and Mail star pontificator Doug Saunders had an alarming op-ed in the paper today. Given that the ignorant masses in the USA have just elected a fascist president, the Free and Democratic World obviously needs fresh leadership, and it’s time for us Canadians “and our allies” to step up. Yessiree, the future of democracy depends on us! And our allies… You know; Germany, France, UK… Looks to me like our allies are all having existential crises. Olaf the liver sausage’s government just collapsed. Macron is barely hanging on, mainly via procedural chicanery, and the UK, of all the Nations of Virtue, is clearly winning the race to failed-state status. Which leaves us Canadians to shoulder the burden of leadership of the Free and Democratic World. Doug admits that’s gonna be expensive. But he assures us it’s a worthwhile endeavor. After all, there is nothing more important than ramping up our military capability so we can fight those evil-doers who threaten the Free and Democratic World. Like Russian and China and Iran and North Korea… Yup, we and our allies have no greater challenge than whupping the bad guys on the battlefield! So full speed ahead on hundreds of billions in spending on F-35s and warships and rockets and missiles and bombs! Ya, we’ll have to make some sacrifices, but health care, education, and housing aren’t worth shit if you don’t have Freedom.

Democracy Theater lays an egg

You have to feel for those folks gathered at Howard on the evening of the 5th, imagining they were there for Kamala’s victory party. They were pumped to celebrate the victory of Democracy over Fascism. Diversity over white supremacy. Compassion and empathy over boorish self interest… Alas, it was not to be. Even though Kamala had more billionaires on her team (over eighty, as opposed to a mere four dozen or so for Trump), Trump had the biggest billionaire of all in his corner. Elon. Isn’t it odd that our deep-state-adjacent media can’t acknowledge that no billionaire is more deep-state-adjacent than Elon Musk? No! We’re supposed to believe he’s some sort of rogue actor posing a threat to our “democratic norms!” As if! And here’s another oddity. If you take a tour of foreign, ie non-Western news platforms, they all talk about this crazy conspiracy theory that there’s a genocide going on in Gaza. We in the Nations of Virtue, thanks to our free press, are fully aware that what the antisemites call “genocide” is just Israel defending itself. And it’s obviously true, because how else could Kamala, with her 83 billionaire backers, and Trump with his 50 or so, and the Billionaire of Billionaires, Elon himself, all come to the same conclusion?

How Trump can stop two wars on Day One

I did a little research and found out Trump's pad there in Florida has 126 rooms. Surely he can spare a few rooms for a couple of world leaders on the lam. Just about the only obstacle to ending the carnage in the Middle East is the Greatest Leader Since Moses. He needs to keep the war going. Otherwise, emergency powers would end, he'd be forced to call an election, and would have to face the multiple corruption charges that await him. Let's make it easy for him; a suite of rooms at Mar-a-Lago. No trial ever! And the beach is right out the front door, with the added bonus that it's out of range of terrorist drones, unlike his place in Caesarea. Just about the only obstacle to ending the carnage in Ukraine is Winston Mandela Zellensky. He can't negotiate with Putin because his Azov pals would hang him from the nearest lamp post. Send in the Marines and whisk the poor sod outta there. Another suite of rooms for Zelly and the misses, and, no matter how you look at it, Trump's still got at least 100+ rooms for his clan. Sure, having those whiners hanging around would get tired fast, but let's face it. It's a small price to pay for peace.

Bibi wastes no time sucking up to Trump

Netanyahu believes he won the US election, which is highly ironic, because he certainly couldn’t win one in Israel these days! I hope Donald doesn’t get roped in by the flattery in that arse-kissy congratulatory social media post Bibi put out this morning for all the world to see. Time for Donny J to get in touch with his inner mafia boss; remember when Bibi back-stabbed you by being the first to congratulate Sleepy Joe when he stole 2020 from you? Ya, and now that you’re (quite unexpectedly) back, he’s already smothering your butt-cheeks with kisses. Don’t fall for it! Tell him, Donald, “YOU’RE FIRED!” After all, Netanyahu is the most hated man in Israel these days, or at least the most hated Jew. IDF troops are dying every day so Bibi can keep his ass out of jail. Thousands have been injured in the ground invasion of Lebanon which is hardly a month old. The Litani river is farther away than ever. If it was up to Gallant, there would have been a ceasefire last Christmas and not only that, the hostages would be home. Alas, that would be the end of Netanyahu’s political career, so ixnay on that! Gallant was against the ground invasion, as were many in the upper echelon of the IDF. Many senior IDF people would rally around a plan to rid their country of Bibi. You’re the Boss of Bosses now, Donald. Make it happen!

A Trump victory would endanger your freedom to jerk off! Vote for Kamala!

Right after Kamala was anointed heir to the throne by the Dem party bigs, ie the senior party worthies and their billionaire donors, we saw the “mainstream media” erupt in a geyser of pro-Kamala euphoria. Kamala was “brat,” whatever that means. The brat thing lasted about three days, and by then Kamala had the “joy” thing going on. One thing is as authentic as the next, I suppose… I’ve been struggling to figure out what differences there might be if the forces of light happen to steal another election from the Trumpian forces of darkness. In terms of foreign policy, can’t say I see any daylight between them. Ya, I see the Dems still pretending they’re with Zelensky with “whatever it takes for as long as it takes.” Even Zelly is realizing his allies don’t have what it takes in the first place, let alone for as long as it takes. The Dems are happy enough to pin this catastrophic collapse of US prestige on the GOP. Meanwhile, in the other existential crisis, the donkey and the elephant have both sworn ironclad allegiance to Israel. Whatever it takes for as long as it takes, and this time we’re not joking around. So the only differences that can possibly matter are found in domestic politics. What are the differences in domestic policies? Well, one party dares to stand up for the gender confused, while the other party mocks them. One party advocates for the rights of women with wieners, while the other party mocks them. One party advocates for reparations for… just about everything, while the other party mocks them. Then there’s those “White dudes for Harris,” the cringiest election ads of all time. How about that white dude having a wank under the sheets, with no idea Kamala’s film crew were in the room, and even more shockingly, no idea that a Trump government would outlaw masturbation and confine the Onanists to prison camps! Oh my God! This is truly the most consequential election ever! Vote Kamala!

What if there's no "happy ending?"

One thing we generally take for granted here in the Nations of Virtue, is that the story always culminates in a “happy ending.” At least a happy ending for us. No matter how many towelheads die, as long as we killed more of them than they of us, it’s a happy ending! Unfortunately, reality is kicking the shit out of our ‘happy ending’ fantasies. No matter how hard establishment twats like Timothy Snyder try to paint the Ukrainian pig with lipstick, the fact remains that, almost three years in, NATO is losing its proxy war on Russia, Too bad half a million Ukrainians had to die to prove NATO’s ineptitude and incompetence. To say nothing of another million or so crippled either physically or mentally in this disastrous war we pushed Ukraine into. And then there’s the Holy Land front in America’s desperate attempt to keep top spot in the world order. The perennial favorite of American largesse, the only democracy in the middle east, isn’t winning in Gaza, isn’t winning in the West Bank, and isn’t winning in Lebanon. How much “not winning” do you acknowledge before you admit you’re losing? It gets harder by the day to imagine a happy ending...

Have you heard Trump is the new Hitler?

I’ll bet you have, and I’ll further bet you’ll hear it plenty more in this last week, as America’s Democracy Theatre approaches its denouement. At least till ‘28, but don’t worry, the campaigning for the next election will begin before all the votes are counted for this one. Democracy is not only a sacred trust and a gift from God; it is a cash cow, a viable industry in its own right. Just think of how many people would be out of work if we didn’t have a 10 billion dollar election every four years! If Trump wins and cancels all future elections, whatever will those hordes of election consultants do? Well, here is the beauty of Trump’s plan, and I’m sure Hitler would approve. While he’s cancelling all future elections, Trump will simultaneously deport millions of illegal alien agricultural workers. All those freshly unemployed social science grads who used to make the wheels of democracy go round, will now be picking your fruits and vegetables! Nevermind Hitler; this page is straight outta Mao’s Little Red Book, the page where he sent the intelligentsia to the hinterlands to… pick fruits and vegetables! And also to learn some humility. Truth be told, those who survived their re-education were stronger for it, proving again the old adage; “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” So rest easy, all you hand-wringing, pearl-clutching American yuppie liberals; if Trump don’t kill ya, you’ll come out stronger! Stay strong!

Stop blaming Israel for the genocide in Gaza

The Israel of Netanyahu today can be likened to a mad dog terrorizing its neighborhood. As any responsible dog owner can tell you, dogs are not inherently vicious. They are made to be vicious by the actions of their irresponsible masters. It should surprise no one that reports of antisemitism worldwide have spiked in the year since Israel launched its rampage. What baffles me is the absence of a corresponding spike in anti-Americanism. America is, after all, the master of this mad dog terrorizing the Middle East. It provisions the bombs and the bullets, the money and the political cover that enable the ongoing genocide. America could, if it so chose, put its attack-dog back on the leash. Instead, we have watched for over a year as they play a pathetic charade of pretending to work, tirelessly, “night and day,” to secure an ever-elusive ceasefire. Everybody from UN ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to Kamala to Blinken to Genocide Joe himself have assured us over and over again how their hearts break over all those dead babies in Gaza. Bullshit! It’s time for people of goodwill to stop yelling at the dog and take the matter up with its owner.

You can't bullshit welding

Like you can a lot of professions. I spent 25 years as an "educator." Bullshit can take you a long way in that arena! Not so with welding. That trailer hitch you welded to the frame of somebodies pick-up is either gonna stay put or cause a bad headline in the local paper. With that in mind, let's take a trip down memory lane. From the archives: Hermeneutics of the welding shop We finally got Bubby into a home.Just temporarily though. She's recovering from a broken wrist on account of her last fall.That's just one of the shit-sucking side-dramas of getting older. You fall. You break stuff.You're in a home.So a couple years ago my old pal Tom had a tree fall and break the roof of his cabin on an island in the middle of a lake out in the Muskokas. Tom and I go way back to when he was an up-and-coming young academic and I was accidentally parked in a fourth year sociology course at the U of G.In fact, we go back even further than that.When I was an up and coming welder-fitter at Kearney National in Guelph, I'd often see Tom handing out commie propaganda at the plant gates. That was common around Guelph in the middle '70s. After all, the Communist Party of Canada got its start in a barn off the Silvercreek Road just behind the General Electric plant.One thing I profoundly respect about the Bubbinator is that all her clan, at least the ones who managed to dodge the death camps in the WW II, came away dyed-in-the-wool commies. Then they washed up on these shores and became entrepreneurs.Capitalists.It's a crazy fucked-up thing, but when you talk to elderly Jews you'll find a lot of heart-felt respect for socialist ideals, no matter how rich their families got playing the entrepreneurship game in the New World.The reason so many got into the entrepreneur game was because that was the most viable path open to them, especially if you arrived here from Russia or Poland without the benefit of a serious education. Interestingly enough, most of your Jewish entrepreneurs who made it big in the New World came from Eastern Europe where they were denied education opportunities.By contrast, up till the Nazi era, German Jews were, as a class, the most educated Jews and the most educated Germans in all of Europe.But I digress.Tom was in a bit of a flap about fixing the roof of his shack out there on his island in the middle of the Muskokas. He was ready to call in a contractor.Here's something you might want to know about contractors in the Muskokas.First of all, they assume anyone who has property in the Muskokas is filthy rich, and they therefore price their work accordingly.My pal Tom is a humble university professor, rather "poor" by Muskoka standards. He is not seen as a lucrative target to the local contractor community.But he still needs the roof of his cabin fixed. The tree that fell on it fractured a couple of the roof trusses. It wasn't hard to see what the local contractors would recommend; peel off the roof, replace the trusses, replace the roof... you'd get out of that for maybe twenty grand, probably closer to fifty.I got up there and eye-balled the situation. Looked to me like we could jack up the roof, and then through-bolt a couple of pieces of angle iron on the fractured trusses. That would be a "temporary" fix, but "temporary" might mean twenty years.We headed into town to fetch some angle iron.I spent my working years, or at least a goodly percentage of them, working in welding shops large and small, from Saint John Shipbuilding on the east coast to Harjim Machinery Works on Vancouver Island. One thing I know is that you can't bullshit welding. Nor can you bullshit a roof repair on an island in the Muskokas.That roof's gonna stay up or it's gonna fall down.No amount of bullshit will keep it up if the fundamentals of physics say it's gotta fall...Kearney National was a good place to fine-tune my chops. I still remember to this day the lads I learned from and worked with.Dudley. Magician with the pipe bending machine.Cheech Contini. Me and him did some serious boozing in the back shop on the afternoon shift. He taught me how to cover my tracks.Manny in shipping...So me and Tom end up at this little fab shop in Gravenhurst, looking for a few lengths of 1/4 x 3 angle iron with the holes knocked in just so. It's a fab shop that looks just like every other small-town welding joint; everybody who works there looks like they're outlaw bikers waiting for their probation to end.We just wandered in the back door and helped ourselves to the chop-saw and the iron-worker. Buddy at the front desk when we checked out enquired sarcastically whether my flip-flops had steel toes. Ministry of Labour rules or some such horse-shit.I told him ya for sure...Tom got the roof of his cabin fixed for a couple hundred bucks instead of fifty thousand. Last I heard, that roof is still keeping the warm in and the weather out.

Joy leaking out of Harris-Walz campaign fast

That didn’t take long! Seems like just a few weeks ago, when the DNC Star Chamber of billionaire donors anointed Kamala as “the chosen one,” she and Timmy were off on a tear. The mainstream media had a collective orgasm. The Trumpists were fascist weirdos, and were gonna be buried under a landslide Democratic Party triumph powered by Black Joy and unicorn farts. Well, that was then… Now we’ve seen, on that same mainstream media, several weeks worth of both Kamala and her chosen VP exposing themselves as shallow and vacuous. Perhaps there’s a redundancy there; can one be shallow without being vacuous? Or vacuous without being shallow? For instance, if you’re going to invite reporters along on a fake hunting trip, and your media pals expose you as a phony dorkshit who doesn’t even know how to reload his shotgun, does that make you vacuous, shallow, or just fucking stupid? I don’t know, but if you put the problem to a venn diagram, I suspect there’d be a whole lotta overlap amongst all three categories. And how about Kamala! I’ve watched one friendly interview after another, from Oprah three weeks ago to Anderson Cooper last night, and she’s managed to fuck up every single one of them! These are softball interviews with friendlies who want her to win! Kamala truly is the empty vessel those billionaire donors hoped for, but holy shit, not even they could have realized how empty that vessel is. The woman is a moron. Meanwhile, Trump stages a PR stunt at a shut down McDonalds, featuring fake customers, and manages to make it look like the most authentic moment in the entire election campaign. Which it probably was! And that’s the crazy thing in these end days of Empire. The entire world is fully aware of America and her acolytes’ ineptitude, our hypocrisy, our Machiavellian double and triple-dealing. But in our minds, we remain the Nations of Virtue, here to spread US-style freedom and democracy and human rights to the other 4/5ths of the planet, whether they want it or not.

Peace Prize winner demands more war

Of course she does! The Peace Prize winner is none other than Anne Applebaum, professional Putin critic and wife of Poland’s rabidly Russophobic foreign minister. The peace prize she won came from the German Booksellers Association, not the Nobel committee, so I think this story is maybe a bit of an oversell. Nevertheless, it’s interesting that you can gather a group of German elites who applaud the concept of war with Russia. These are the same people who can’t figure out why the “far right” is on the rise. Every anti-war party in Europe is automatically branded “far right.” That way the elites and their subservient media can dismiss them out of hand. They overlook the underlying reality that war fever among the voters of Europe was never acute and is fading fast. Obviously, that can only lead to more “far right” election victories. That’s why the same German elite who applaud the warmongering Applebaum are keen to outlaw the AfD. After all, you can’t have all those far-right Putin-appeasing voters hi-jacking democracy.

America is losing the war

Back in December, I wrote "Ukraine and Gaza are two fronts in the same war." That's the war to cement America's thousand year Reich for another 925 years. The war to preserve American hegemoney. The war for the American Empire. It is increasingly clear that America is losing on both fronts. On the Ukraine front, you've got sad-sack Zelly plugging his completely unhinged "Victory Plan." All that's required to achieve victory is immediate entre into NATO, and NATO boots on the ground! That is beyond delusional. On the other front, after a year of raining thousands of tons of American high exposives on Gaza, the Gaza rocketeers can still shoot back. IDF reservists are dying every day in a futile ground war. Not content to be losing in Gaza, Netanyahu has embarked on a ground invasion of Lebanon. That's gained virtually zero ground and caused multiple IDF casualties every day. Today Hezbollah hit the PMs house in Ceasarea with a drone. That doesn't happen when you're winning. Both Netanyahu and Zellensky are proxies for the American Empire. What lesson is the rest of world taking from this unfolding debacle?

Israel has lost the war

When Netanyahu and Gallant announced their plans to genocide the Palestinian people at a press conference on 9 October of last year, I figured that was 90% rah-rah rhetoric, and we’d see a few days, or maybe a week or two, of heavy-handed retaliation. The terrorists would get a sharp slap, a few thousands of Palestinians would die, and then we’d be back to the status quo. Not in my wildest imaginings could I have imagined that, one year on, Hamas is still able to shoot rockets out of their devastated enclave. Not in my wildest imaginings could I have imagined that, one year on, IDF reservists would be dying daily in a doomed ground invasion of Gaza. Not in my wildest imaginings would I have imagined that while failing in Gaza, The Greatest Leader Since Moses would take on Hezbollah as well. Today Hezbollah delivered a drone to the PMs house in Caesarea. What’s that tell you about Israel’s technological advantage over it’s enemies? Wouldn’t you expect that Bibi’s place would be protected by the best-of-the-best air defence in the world? I’m sure it is. The terrorists just demonstrated, again, that they can defeat the best AD in the world. Bibi immediately goes on TV and professes outrage that Hezbollah would dare try assassinate him. They obviously weren’t - they were just sending a message - that they could if they wanted to. They just figure the time isn’t right. Let Netanyahu dig the country into an even deeper hole for a few more months, and by then a majority of Israelis will cheer the assassination of Netanyahu. That could be the beginning of peace in the Middle East.

Breakfast in Killarney

We took a Thanksgiving break and toured up to Killarney for the weekend. Last time I was there was about 25 years ago, when I took my kids camping at the nearby Killarney Provincial Park. It’s fair to say Killarney is a bit off the beaten path. It’s a good 75 kilometers off the main highway between Toronto and Sudbury. In fact, from Toronto, it’s actually further away than Sudbury itself. But if you want to spend some time in a quiet, out-of-the-way coastal community, it’s well worth it. Mind you, it’s probably not all that quiet during peak tourist season. I don’t recall the Killarney Mountain Lodge being there 25 years ago. That looks like a first-class joint. You can dock your yacht at one of their many berths, or have your float plane hauled out of the water onto a convenient concrete pad, right handy to their water-front $1,400/night Douglas fir cabins. Alas, they don’t take dogs, and we don’t go anywhere without Big-lips Bruno, so we ended up at the Sportsman’s Inn a ten minute walk away. I suspect most tourists without yachts or float planes find themselves at the Sportsman’s. We got into town late Saturday afternoon, and immediately met Phil and Brett. That’s because they stood chatting in the middle of the street in front of the Killarney General Store. When our car approached, they didn’t stop chatting, nor did they move out of the way. I stop and roll down the window. They keep chatting. Finally one of them turns to my open window. “Are you lost?” I immediately thought maybe they’re doing an anti-tourist protest, like they have in Naples and Barcelona these days. “Not lost, just wondering why you guys are standing in the middle of the road. Are you collecting money or something? Is there a toll?” Turns out there was no protest and no toll. Just two guys standing in the middle of the road having a chat. Phil grew up in Killarney but now lives in Manitoba. Came home for the weekend to visit his childhood pal Brett, who has lived in Killarney all his life. Killarney was established early in the 19th century by a guy who had his fur-trading post nearby burn down. We’re way back in pre-Confederation history here, when trading posts were a thing. It was strictly a water-access community for the first 140 years of its life. There was no road to Killarney until the 1960s. But there were people. There was a school. The teacher was dropped off in September and lived in a cabin next to the school. If the students needed education beyond grade eight, they took the same boat that brought in the teacher back to Owen Sound, where they spent the entire school year. There was also a commercial fishing industry in the latter half of the 19th century, which was decimated along with all great lakes fisheries when the sea lamprey showed up in the early 20th century. Today the main industry is tourism. There’s not enough locals to staff the resorts, so they’re brimming with young people from a variety of countries who come as temp workers. Gives the place a bit of a cosmopolitan flavour. On Sunday morning we had a fabulous breakfast at the Gateway Bakery & Restaurant. Right on the water, with window views of the multiple marinas that line the shore. After breakfast I’m sitting outside in the sun with Bruno, while the Farm Manager is picking out a Killarney souvenir hoodie in the gift shop, when who do I see heading my way? It’s Steve, who I vaguely know from the Owen Sound dog park. Turns out he’s got a place in Killarney. Why would you have a place in Killarney when you live in Owen Sound? There’s no shortage of water or waterfront, after all. Steve invited us to his place for the afternoon. Bruno and Rosie had only ever met at the dog park, and both were mystified and delighted by this unexpected rendezvous in Killarney. Steve and his wife Brenda have been coming to Killarney since the 1960s, first got a place there in the ‘80s, and have been making the nine hour round trip ever since. I asked him, what’s the draw? “It’s got community like no place else. You can’t open your toolbox in the driveway without somebody stopping to ask if they can help.” Steve’s got a 24 foot Sea Ray. Does he do any fishing? “No. I get so much free fish from the locals there’s no point.” That’s quite something, considering fishing is what originally brought him up here. That’s Killarney. Come for the fishing. Stay for the community.

Where to shit when you're homeless

There's a lot of focus on the shitting habits of homeless folks these days. Check out here and here. That's about San Francisco. There's some really good reasons why the homeless are homeless in San Fran. Sure, mental illness and addiction take their toll, but what about that winner-take-all hyper-capitalist culture that causes so much of the stress that causes the addiction and the mental illness in the first place? So here's a thought. Instead of shitting in the streets, why don't the homeless pitch their tents and void their bowels on the lawns of the tech millionaires and billionaires? Same goes in other parts of the country. Anybody homeless in the Northeast should head for Connecticut, and the miles of verdant lawns surrounding the estates of all those top-drawer hedgies domiciled there. If you're homeless a little further south on the eastern seaboard, setting up camp and a field toilet at a Trump golf resort would be a great idea! Not only would taking a crap on a fairway at Bedminster be far more aesthetically rewarding than taking a dump in the street, shitting in THEIR back yard would allow the plutocrats to become better acquainted with the fruits of their labour.

Uncle Sam's got Fluffy by the balls

Justin Trudeau is a lame duck PM. Trailing the charmless weasel Pierre Poilievre by 20 points in the latest polls. Facing down an uprising among his own caucus. Why doesn’t he just go away? While Justin didn’t inherit his dear daddy’s charisma, brains, or political savvy, he did get a generous dollop of the famous Trudeau arrogance. That’s what keeps him from making the smart decision, both for himself and the country. In late 2023, in response to a steady stream of leaks out of CSIS about election interference by China (remember those Chinese police stations in major Canadian cities!), he struck the Foreign Interference Commission to get to the bottom of things, or at least make it look like he cared. Meanwhile, our esteemed ally the USA, has developed a major hate for India, the world’s most populous democracy. Why? Because when Uncle Sam told the Free World to sanction Russia to death in February 2022, India’s PM Modi blew him off. Modi needs to be taught a lesson. So right in the middle of those foreign interference hearings, which were going nowhere fast, our US allies leaked some nasty intel to CSIS about how Modi’s agents were deep into harassing and murdering Canadians! The “Canadians” they were harassing and murdering were the militant Sikh separatists who murdered PM Indira Ghandi and blew up that Air India flight back in 1985. India understandably labels them terrorists. Overnight, the inquiry into Chinese election interference became all about India! In the big picture, Sikhs are less than two percent of India’s population, so not a serious threat to Modi. But in Canada they represent a good chunk of our ethnic vote, enough that our politicians find it worthwhile to pander to them. Canada is home to the largest Sikh population outside India. There are ten times as many Sikhs in Canada than the US. The DC brain-trust figured they can use Canada to antagonize India… and here we are! Canada has for years been routinely cast as a NATO free rider for not meeting our military spending obligations. Desperate to curry favour in Washington, Justin saw turning on India as his least bad option. Hell of a jam to be in, but totally predictable when you refuse to pursue an independent foreign policy and instead commit to vassalage to Washington.

Facts prove USA is smartest country in the world!

As we all know, the very pinnacle of academic achievement is the Ph. D., or the “Doctor Phil” as it is known in the UK. Bearing in mind the maxim of the famous Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz that war is just the continuation of politics by other means, I got to thinking, it’s not necessarily the side with the most guns and bombs that will win, unless they also have the most brain-power. After doing a little google research, I am pleased to report that the good-guys in the coming war, America and her NATO allies, have way more brain-power than the current axis of evil. On the list of Ph. Ds graduated by country, USA is first, with five NATO allies ranking in the top ten. Russia comes in at 14th, and Putin’s partners in the Axis of Evil don’t even make the list! That looks like a slam-dunk to me! A no-brainer! Suck on that, Putin! But hold the victory parade. After all, we in the civilized world have a lot of highly educated folks who’s education may not bring much to the game once politics continues by other means. Maybe we should use a different metric… how about global distribution of STEM degrees, on the off-chance that science, technology, engineering, and math might be more relevant than a PhD in sociology or political science. Whoa! Check out that chart! China may lag in producing social scientists discovering new genders, but holy heck, China alone has almost four times as many STEM grads as the USA! Toss Russia and Iran into the mix and the Axis of Evil has a five-fold advantage over the Nations of Virtue! Maybe we should think twice about rushing into a war with them.

Artificial Intelligence is dumber than you are

Why not try a hands-free search and use your voice to chat with our AI bot! That’s a prompt that’s been coming up as I’m logging into my laptop. I have yet to have that chat, as I have zero desire to converse with an AI chatbot. I do dozens of searches every day, and dumb non-AI platforms are perfectly adequate for my needs. Besides, I’d feel like a complete dorkshit sitting here talking to my computer. If you have to have a conversation, that’s what people are for, not chatbots. Then there’s the matter of the extravagant energy consumption of Artificial Intelligence applications. A simple question, such as “how did Canada vote at the UN today?” can use 30 times the energy as your standard non-AI search. And the non-AI search will be more reliable because it’s not smart enough to make stuff up. If you think 30 times next to nothing is still nothing, you’d be wrong. All the big players are trying to find long term deals for cheap electricity. Alberta is offering cheap energy and tax breaks specifically to lure the industry to that province. This is a massive increase on the demand side, at the same time as we’re hoping to transition to electric vehicles. We have nowhere near the generating capacity or the grid to make either one of those dreams into reality, let alone both at the same time! In my view, reducing carbon emissions is a greater good than talking to chatbots.

A hundred pictures of Jesus and a stash of gay porn

A hundred pictures of Jesus and a stash of gay porn; Grampa's secrets revealed. Grampa Bernie was a big deal at the Knights of Columbus. He was such a devoted catholic he must have had at least a hundred pictures of Jesus hanging from every wall in every room of that downtown two-storey red brick he and his wife had bought new back in the... thirties? Forties? The dude's been dead for 30 years, so where-ever he reads this blog I'm sure he's having a good laugh.We're loading up my truck with basement detritus when one of the cousins comes out with a stack of magazines. "I didn't know they had naked wrestling in the Olympics."I took a look.Whoa! They might call it wrestling, honey, but that ain't the Olympics...I've never been much of a porn consumer, gay or otherwise, but I'm guessing nude wrestling magazines from the 40's and 50's would attract a decent dollar in the collector market. Way more than the old Time and Life magazines.Crazy how you can walk through the remnants of an up-standing citizen's life when they're gone and discover that they were way more than you thought. Bernie was indeed a respected and upstanding citizen. He was also a gay porn aficionado. And somebody in that house had a very healthy appetite for pills and booze...But enough about that.Bernie comes alive in that nursing home. In fact, it took mere weeks to find a new love! That revelation was initially received with good humour by the extended family. "Oh how lovely that he has some companionship in his twilight years" and all that sort of thing.Then he bought the bitch a thousand dollar fur coat!..WELL HOLY THUNDERIN' JEEZUS IF THAT WASN'T THE END OF THE WORLD!!!She was obviously a tramp and a gold-digger and by God if this was gonna be the way he carries on there would not be a red cent left over for anybody when the old coot kicked the bucket!Unfortunately the last months of Grampa Bernie's life were consumed with frantic family desperately running interference between him and the gold-digger.He dropped dead half way through a Leafs game on CBC one Saturday night.As many of us wish we could when the Leafs are playing on Saturday night.I suppose you could say his dreams came true!In spite of the machinations of his heirs, the new gal got to keep the coat.

The solidarity among living things

The main thing I saw today was many thousands of sandhill cranes heading south. They came by in batches of several dozen at a time. The hummingbirds have departed as of a week or two ago. We’ve still got the buzzards hanging around, at least some of them. They’re like the geese; some migrate and some don’t. I suspect that as the climate continues to warm up, the population of migratory birds will diminish. After all, why fly two or four or six thousand miles each way if you don’t have to? Here’s another thing I saw - a fly crawling into my Mott’s Caesar. Then again, I’m not sure if I actually “saw” it, or just thought I saw it. Once you’ve had a couple Caesars and a toke, it’s hard to tell. I did a visual inspection and then took a cautious sip, and concluded there was in fact no fly in my drink. So imagine my surprise when, a half hour later, a thoroughly Caesar-soaked fly crawled out of the can! I helped it along a little; after all, it’s a living thing and, insofar as possible, it’s my duty as a fellow living thing to do what I can to facilitate its living longer. Last I saw, it was test-buzzing its wings in preparation to fly again. Solidarity of living things!

Mysteries of the "deep state"

As you know, the folks who run America’s democracy theatre have a big event coming up in a few weeks; the election. You know the main characters; in the red corner, the Black Hat, Donald J Trump. And in the blue corner, the White Hat, Kamala. Due to the limited intelligence of the average American voter, the script-writers like to keep things simple enough that your typical WWE enthusiast can follow the action. Polls tell us the race is too close to call. In order to shake things up, the brain trust running the White Hat’s campaign sent her out on a media blitz recently. I’ve seen the Opra interview, the 60 Minutes interview, and her appearances on Colbert and The View. Sending Kamala out to meet the people has been, in my opinion, a tragic mistake. The woman has exposed herself as a complete airhead. “So what will be your policy priorities, Kamala?” “Well… before I address that, I just want to say how much I love the American people. I grew up in a middle class home, and you know, ambition and work ethic! I love the American people because we have dreams… we have aspirations… we work hard… we have dreams…” Other than that, and badmouthing Trump, she ain’t got nuthin! Meanwhile, what’s the Black Hat up to? As we know, Trump is a bad guy who can’t wait to end democracy in America. What do you expect from a Putin fanboy? And he’s ready to stab Ukraine in the back! Who can even imagine such an outrage? Ukraine, the plucky little country fighting Putin so democracy can survive, not just in Ukraine, but all over the world! And Trump wants to pull the plug on our support for this bravest of all democratic nations! And let’s not forget that Trump’s number one backer is the odious Elon Musk, the world’s richest man! The man who bought liberal, freedom-loving Twitter, and turned it into a hate-spewing fascist propaganda organ! There you have the broad outlines of the narrative, the plot, so to speak, for the Big Show. Now let me step back for a moment and play theatre critic. Aside from being the world’s richest man, and an enthusiastic promoter of far-right conspiracy theories, who is Elon Musk? Why, he’s the beneficiary of $hundreds of billions in financial support from the US government for his various deep-state-adjacent enterprises. Like Space-X. If you suspect NASA was privatized and Elon ended up with it, you wouldn’t be wrong. Which brings me to the Atlantic Council. That’s the “intellectual” think-tank arm of NATO. It is funded by the US government and a gaggle of defence contractors. It is 100% committed to the doctrine of American exceptionalism and is a “deep state” creature through and through. Every year, on the occasion of the UNGA shindig in NYC, the Atlantic Council celebrates a few world leaders for their service to Empire by bestowing upon them the “Global Citizen Award.” This year, one of the recipients of the Global Citizen Award was PM of Italy, Georgia Meloni. If you recall, when she was elected, the mainstream media couldn’t give you enough scare stories about how she was the reincarnation of Mussolini! Pro-Putin and anti-American! Fortunately, on winning the election, she came to her senses and soon embraced the urgency of standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes. And who presented her the award? None other than that anti-establishment rebel, Elon Musk! Yup, the same guy bankrolling Donald Trump, the anti-establishment once-and-future swamp-drainer! Wow! Well, clearly this two-horse race could go either way. Luckily for freedom, democracy, and human rights, these two diametrically opposed candidates can agree on one crucial thing; they both 100% support Israel, no matter what.

US-NATO betrayal of Ukraine will bring serious blowback

Zelensky has unveiled his secret "Victory Plan." Here it is folks… drum roll please! Lot’s more billions and lots more weapons and also a few hundred thousand volunteers, ‘cause he’s pretty much out of Ukrainians. We’ve been hearing this tune for two and a half years. Victory is always just beyond reach. With a few more months and a few more billions, victory is assured! Rinse & repeat. Unfortunately for Zelly, his pleas to his handlers in DC will fall on deaf ears. The entire Washington establishment has written off the Ukraine gambit now that the Holy Land is in play. They won’t come right out and say so, but everybody sees what’s going on. Zelly has joined the ranks of those the esteemed war criminal Henry Kissinger was talking about when he candidly opined that being America’s enemy was dangerous, but being America’s friend was deadly. Noriega. Saddam. Kaddafi. Shame about those half million dead Ukrainians and their destroyed country. But we gave you two and a half years and you blew it. We got bigger fish to fry, and Iran is a big fish! I have a hunch there’ll be blowback over the betrayal of Ukraine.

Indian Summer

Not sure if “Indian summer” is a phrase you’re still allowed in the age of Woke. Regardless, we had the perfect Indian summer Saturday in these parts today. Sunshine all day and T-shirt and shorts temperatures. First weekend in October means it’s Pumpkinfest in Port Elgin. That’s only a hop and a skip from Falling Downs, plus we get to stop off at Tuggies on the Rez for cheap gas and cheap smokes. The Pumpkinfest is allegedly about the giant vegetables that arrive at what was originally the Port Elgin fall fair. Fall fairs are a big deal in rural Ontario. Every two-bit hick-town has one. Even former two-bit hick-towns that have long since become suburbs of Toronto still have them. I’m looking at you, Orangeville and Shelburne. But I digress. We don’t go to Port Elgin for the two-ton pumpkins. We go for the car show. It comes two or three weeks after the Concours at Cobble Beach. That one is ten minutes down the road, and we’ve been a few times. Fifty bucks to get in the gate. A lot of world-class stuff that arrived in hundred thousand dollar trailers with quarter million tow vehicles. Who doesn’t want to spend fifty bucks to see an actual original Bugatti? The Pumpkinfest car show, on the other hand, is all stuff the owners drove there. The town blocks off a few blocks of the downtown for a day. You won’t see any Bugattis, but you’ve got the entire catalogue of North American iron, plus a good sampling of European stuff. And it’s absolutely free! So we wander around downtown Port Elgin for an hour and a half, with Bruno in tow. You can’t imagine how many people want to stop and tell you how beautiful this runt Italian mastiff is. It’s non stop. When Bruno had his fill of strangers wanting to touch him, we motored down the Lake Huron shore to Kincardine, for lunch at the Erie Belle, where they promote themselves as the “House of Fish & Chips.” I was a fan long before the gluten thing reared its ugly head, and I am happy to report the Erie Belle has gluten-free fish & chips that will rival anything you ever had. We’re on the patio with Bruno catching the shade under the table, when a gaggle of millennials comes in and settles into the far end of the patio. There’s eight of them, and they’re engaged in a quite lively conversation. This has no bearing on us whatsoever. We’re at least forty feet away. But about ten minutes in, the Farm Manager remarks that none of them appear to have their phones out. What? How is such a thing even conceivable? I was seated with my back to them, but as we were leaving I went over to check them out. I thought at least a few might have their phones flat on the table in front of them, but no! Who can imagine such a thing?! Eight millennials gathered round a table on a restaurant patio, and not a phone in sight? There is hope for humanity!

The American Empire circles the drain... make America great again!

America is the exceptional nation. The indispensable nation. The country destined to lead the world, as both Kamala and Donald will tell you. Not that they’re telling you. You probably don’t give a shit if America “leads the world,” as long as you’ve got a job that pays your bills and gives you a half-decent life. No, they’re not talking to you. They’re talking to their billionaire donors. Those are the people who matter, and it matters to them that America remains the Big Dog. A lot of the things that matter to you - affordable housing, health care, education and groceries, simply aren’t a problem for the rich. But it matters to them that their wealth remains secure. That’s why America’s cred has always hinged, at the end of the day, on the US military. When push comes to shove, the Empire is the Empire because it can muscle any and all rivals out of the way. While that’s been a dubious proposition since at least the fall of Saigon, recent events make that proposition ever more dubious. The fall of Kabul was Saigon 2.0 - just with different Asians falling to their deaths. We’re well on our way to the final curtain for the Empire. In 2014 America engineered the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine, paving the way for a regime of ultra-nationalist Russophobes eager to curry favour in Washington by antagonizing Russia. And curry favour they did! We goaded Zelensky into a hot war with Russia with the promise of NATO membership and the solid guarantee that we would provide whatever it takes for as long as it takes to crush Putin. Meanwhile, America has given Israel a blank cheque to bully any and all possible rivals since at least the Six Day War. The Israelis are even more in thrall to their exceptionalism than the Americans, as frightening as that may be to contemplate. The decades of indulgence have brought us to the current abyss. Between the hundreds of billions in cash and weapons, and the ever-ready veto at the UN, the ruling clique in Israel is convinced it is above all laws and completely unaccountable, not even to its enablers in Washington. Furthermore, they have now painted themselves into a corner and assume Uncle Sam is coming to the rescue. From the bipartisan noises coming from DC, it looks like America will stand with Israel with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes. The good news is this. Once the American Empire has collapsed, it will be possible to make America great again for ordinary Americans who couldn’t care less about leading the world, but just want a job that provides a decent life.

America's democracy theatre; the show must go on!

I watched the first half hour of the Walz-Vance debate before succumbing to terminal ennui. I thought both VPs have more going on than their respective presidents, but who cares? What does it matter? The first topic was, given the events of the day, America’s loyalty to Israel. Both candidates promised unquestioned fealty. More “whatever it takes for as long as it takes.” Where have we heard that before? And how’s that going? The CBS moderators and both candidates celebrated the joint USA/IDF defeat of the dastardly Iranian missile attack. In fact, that was the only story you heard on mainstream media. Meanwhile, the internet was abuzz with video of Iranian missiles exploding on Israeli air bases. I said at least ten years ago Iron Dome was bullshit. There is no “missile shield.” The next topic was the devastating hurricane in the southeast. The VPs went back and forth on that one. They bickered about climate change and greenhouse gasses and fracking. Nobody mentioned the bipartisan neglect of infrastructure over the last half century. Of course they didn’t! That would cost money to fix! Money we need to support our many wars. Do you want the next billion in deficit spending to build public housing, or to finance Israel’s wars? The bipartisan consensus is a no-brainer. That’s why there’s a housing crisis in America, but Israel has unlimited 2,000 lb. ‘bunker-busters’ to preserve peace and democracy in the Middle East. Great to see the VP debate unify a divided country! We have bipartisan agreement that the interests of the genocidal psychopaths steering the ship of state in Israel take priority over the interests of the American people! Democracy rocks!

Doug Ford and the politics of wishful thinking

There’s a half-page advert on p. 3 of Saturday’s Globe. The picture shows a clearly delighted Ontario dad plugging in his EV while his young son watches in awe. The text reads; Powering economic growth through clean, affordable nuclear energy. Ontario’s new small modular reactors are creating jobs and will contribute billions to the economy, while providing clean and affordable energy. It’s all happening here. Paid for by the Government of Ontario. This is a project at Darlington that’s been featured in numerous advertisements and press releases for several years now, so I was curious how close that father and son might actually be to plugging into that clean and affordable energy. Turns out not that close. Here’s some good news from a few months ago; First phase of site preparation completed. That only took two years. We’re now heading into the “main” phase of site preparation, which will include excavation and “shoring walls.” In other words, the only jobs created thus far have gone to a handful of heavy equipment operators and the copywriters at Doug’s ad agency! According to Doug’s spin doctors, this revolutionary project will make Ontario a world leader in small modular reactors. Maybe it will, but according to Wikipedia, Russia and China are the only countries that have successfully built SMRs. To my way of thinking, that makes them the world leaders. Here’s a Bloomberg interview with Professor of nuclear engineering Kirk Atkinson at Ontario Tech University. I daresay the interviewer sounds a tad skeptical. In the event everything pans out, we may eventually have a SMR that could power 300,000 homes - or one Google data centre! Given the history of nuclear construction cost over-runs and missed deadlines, the awestruck kid in that ad will be plugging in his own EV by the time that happens. And have you heard about the 70km tunnel under the 401?...

Koreans promise to stop eating your pets

South Korea has been under US occupation for over 70 years, so I’m surprised that more American values haven’t rubbed off on them. They do well with the boy bands, and it’s hard to believe the country that gave us Gangnam Style still engages in such barbarity, but they eat dogs in Korea. That’s right! It’s not just Haitians hunting your pets! Thankfully, this horror is coming to an end. No doubt spurred on by Trump’s vile insinuations re the Haitian guest-workers in Springfield Ohio, the government of SK is taking steps to outlaw dog farming. Yup, apparently dog farming is a thing in our democratic ally South Korea! Or it was. The government is promising an end to dog farming by 2027. Luckily, the dog farmers are to be compensated to the tune of $450USD per animal. Believe it or not, the dog farmers think that isn’t enough! Really? I guess it depends on the dog, but I find it hard to believe even a big boy like our Italian mastiff would yield that much in dog-steaks and dog-chops. Just goes to prove yet again protein is where you find it. One man’s Lassie is another man’s sausage on a bun.

Greatest Leader Since Moses elects to go down gambling

In choosing to escalate against Hezbollah, Bibi is making a double bet. In the first place, he is betting that America will jump in and save his ass when he embarks on a war Israel cannot win. Retired IDF generals have been for years regaling us with exposes on how many hundreds of thousands of missiles the baddies have squirreled away in the hills and valleys of Lebanon. Enough to fire a thousand a day for months on end. Iron Dome will be exhausted by noon on day one. Then what? In Bibi’s fevered imagination, then Uncle Sam swoops in to make it all good. How could he not? The applause from those 58 standing ovations is still ringing in his ears. He’s probably right. After all, Biden-Harris, Trump, and RFK Jr are each and every one 100% in the tank for Israel, World Court be damned. Genocide? What genocide? You’d have to go down ballot all the way to Jill Stein before you find a candidate averse to enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza. She’s polling under 2% as I write this. So it’s entirely plausible that Bibi’s gambit in luring the US into the war will pay off. But here’s the thing. The greatest fighting force in the history of history don’t got the mojo no more. Uncle Sam waves a big stick and talks a big game, but those Afghans falling off the last USAF flights out of Kabul tell a different story. Netanyahu, just like Zelensky, is betting on the support of a military empire that is a pathetic shadow of its former self. This new Lebanon front is going to become a war of attrition. Think about it. Israel is in a war of attrition with a people who have been accustomed to periodically living in caves just to survive the latest onslaught. How many Israelis in Haifa or Tel Aviv are gonna live in caves for more than two weeks before they seek refuge in Berlin or New York or Toronto? Bibi’s run is just about done. He will go down in history not as the greatest leader since Moses, but as the man who destroyed Israel.

Art critic destroys million dollar masterpiece

And I don’t mean he “destroyed” it metaphorically in a thumbs-down review. No, he literally smashed it into a thousand shards right there on the floor of the gallery! The piece was a porcelain sculpture celebrating, you guessed it, the great Ai Weiwei himself! Apparently he’s trying to figure out who he is after all these years. I’ve always been skeptical about Ai Weiwei and his greatness. When you listen to his interviews, he’s more likely to be mistaken for Chance the gardener than Confucius. He tipped his hand with that bullshit “Straight” exhibition around 2013. He and his team salvaged 90 or 120 or 150 tons of rebar from collapsed school buildings after an earthquake in China, chipped off the concrete, straightened them, and voila!.. a profound statement about… I was never sure what. Earthquakes? Building codes? I don’t know much about art, but I’m fairly knowledgeable about rebar. One thing I know for sure is salvaged rebar from a collapsed building is never ever gonna be straightened. Oh, you might get it straight enough to reuse it again, as rebar. But not as an art exhibit! Ever! Yet, that art exhibit travelled the world. Clearly, they ordered a fresh batch of rebar in every city they landed in! Nobody shleps 50 tons of rebar around the world for the sake of art! He followed that up with the ultra-cringe Alan Kurdi artwork, wherein he pretended to be a drowned refugee toddler. Because how would the world ever know there was a refugee crisis if the great Ai Weiwei didn’t attach his name to it? I gotta tip my cap to that Italian art critic. Enough with Ai Weiwei already.