Russia is winning, NATO is losing, Ukraine is paying the price

The “counter-offensive” is approaching its one month anniversary. The Ukrainian casualty count is approaching 100,00 killed and wounded in that time. We are told this is a “success” because Ukraine has “liberated” several hundred square kilometers of occupied territory. We know this to be true because we regularly see pictures of Ukrainian troops hoisting their flag over formerly occupied villages. What we are not told by CBC or The Globe and Mail is that these villages are in the no-man’s-land well outside the forward Russian defensive line. In almost a month of counter-offensive, the Ukrainian forces have failed to reach that line, let alone breach it. The counter-offensive has been a catastrophic failure. It’s time to walk away from the ludicrous “whatever it takes for as long as it takes” rhetoric that has marked Canada’s approach to this war. While our military support has been largely irrelevant, the $8Billion + financial commitment has only served to prolong it. The further we help prolong it, the more Ukrainian conscripts are slaughtered. We are part of the problem that is breathing life into the cliché that NATO intends to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. This policy is costing Ukrainian lives by the thousands. Our NATO game-changing weaponry is being revealed as not fit for purpose. Russia is winning. NATO is losing. Ukrainians are paying the price. Stop the slaughter now!

I almost had to deliver a calf today

Key word is almost. Let me give you some context. This is cattle country. There's not a politician who gets elected in these parts whithout bragging up how many times they delivered a calf by pulling it out of the cow with a necktie. Bill Murdoch would be a prime example. Bill was our MPP for a few hundred years, and he was a lawyer. He was also a beef farmer. To get elected again and again he downplayed the lawyer part and focussed on the many times he had to pull a calf out with his necktie. So I'm sitting on the stoop this afternoon. On the other side of the fence there's fourteen cows, and only four have had their babies. That means there's ten cows gonna pop any day. I've had a couple of beers and fired up the vape for my daily vacation, and I'm hearing all sorts of bawling and moaning and carrying on. That moaning and bawling gets under your skin after a while. Makes it hard to enjoy the vacation. I'm thinking, there's a cow giving birth and she's in distress. I gotta see if I can help out. I know this could be an ugly business. I don't have a necktie handy, so I brace myself for the possibility I may have to reach up a cow's arse, grab whatever I can get hold of, and help it into this world. I climb the fence, and wobble down to the creek in flip-flops and shorts, determined to find the source of all that bawling and moaning. Just before the bridge there's four cows and two calves lying in the shade. No bawling. No moaning. I make my way upstream. I can still hear the ruckus. It's getting louder. I'm getting closer! Finally I spot her, the source of all that bawling and moaning. She's on the other side of the creek. I almost lose my sandals on the treacherous trek over. Oh my god, what's that hanging from her hind end? Wait a minute... that's not a cow... it's a bull! There's something hanging allright; testicles! I walked a quarter mile up the creek to help a bull birth a calf? Needless to say, he didn't need any help. All that bawling and moaning was just a horny bull looking for his next target.

Coup in Russia!

Hearts across Natostan were aflutter this morning at the news that Prigozhin had pulled his Wagner forces out of Ukraine and was marching on Moscow! Let the gloating begin! Unfortunately, we are now advised that, thanks to the intervention of well-known peace-maker Belarus pres Lukashenko, Priggy decided not to take Moscow after all... Putin is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief! I don't know what to think. Prigozhin taking on Moscow is akin to Erik Prince taking on Washington, ie highly unlikely. But one thing is 100% certain; Priggy's alleged coup sure took our minds off the catastrophic failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. I'm sure there's much more to come.

Long bamboozled by their own bullshit, Uncle Sam's bumboys in Ottawa shocked at China developments

For how long has Canada’s foreign policy been a reflexive “me too” as we ape whatever Washington deems the priority of the moment? From the liberation of Libya to the democratization of Afghanistan, when our DC masters say “jump” we ask only “how high?” We haven’t had a whiff of independent foreign policy since Jean Chretien declined the invitation to join the shock and awe campaign against Iraq. Nowhere have we been keener to follow US dictats than in America’s attempts to provoke war with China. If US-funded NGOs tell us human rights violations are rampant in China, we’ll take their word for it. If Uncle Sam tells us to abduct the CFO of China’s premier telecom company, we don’t even think about asking questions even after the two Michaels get abducted in response. If the US sends Nancy Pelosi and other establishment worthies to Taiwan to piss off China, well, we’re eager to send our own parliamentary delegation just to stand with our allies. If the US insists on sending warships through the Taiwan Strait on “freedom of navigation” missions, the least we can do is send along one of our obsolete frigates. We’ve been doing everything in our obviously limited power to poke China in the eye, because we stand with the Empire of Virtue against the forces of darkness, or something… So it must be quite a shock for the me-too crowd in Ottawa to see Blinken emerge from a brief meeting with Xi and announce that the US isn’t for Taiwan independence after all! Makes me wonder what Xi might have said to the unctuous twat. I’m guessing it was something along the lines of “if you insist on this nonsense we’ll start freedom of navigation missions between Cuba and Florida.” Kinda leaves the ass-kissers in Ottawa up a stump, doesn’t it?

Animals I've seen from the stoop

We have multiple bird-feeders hanging nearby the stoop, so we see birds galore. We get the big boys too, the ones who don't bother with the feeders. Like buzzards, herons, and sandhill cranes. Ducks and geese are so common they're just background noise. Cows, of course. The cow-calf pairs show up in May, and migrate back to their home barn come October. Saw a black bear gamboling along the creek one year. Crossed the road and went into the other pasture where the aforementioned cows were grazing with their babies. That was a sight to behold! The Mama cows split into two groups when Mr. Bear climbed over the fence. One group gathered up the calves while the rest put the run to the bear. Squirrels and chipmunks are a daily occurrence. I think there's also a rat that tries to blend in with them, but the skinny tail gives him away. And never mind seeing raccoons - they've come right up on the stoop to keep me company! Most years you don't see the snapping turtles from here, but every three or four years or so you'll get one burying her eggs right there at the end of the driveway. Usually it doesn't take long for the raccoons to dig them up. But the one thing I've never seen until tonight is a rabbit. I see them often on my daily walks, but I've never actually had one right by the house, but there he was. Which reminds me... it's been a long time since I've seen a coyote.

Blinky goes to China to offer unconditional surrender

Think about it. Is there anyone on Planet Earth who imagines we are negotiating with China from a position of strength? Hell no! If there's one thing the past year of our Ukraine fiasco makes plain, it's that threats from Washington can be ignored. Ya, Uncle Sam's gonna bust your ass and kill your kids if you don't dance to his tune... and while we're still good at killing kids and bombing wedding parties, the reputation of US arms and US power has taken a shit-kicking this past year. There's more and more renegade nations saying "nein danke" to Empire. Now the "free world," aka "the Nations of Virtue," aka EU/US/NATO, aka "Uncle Sam's bumboys," are up a stump. US/NATO training, guidance, and hardware are clearly not up to the job. They've been revealed as worthless for all the world to see. So what's Blinken imagine he might be negotiating, other than surrender?

The best decision my father ever made

When my dad was a boy not yet ten years old, his father had been conscripted into the Wehrmacht and German tanks were heading east through Ukraine. That adventure didn't end well for the German army or for my grandfather, who spent the next five years as a POW. At least he came back alive, which perhaps inspired a maxim my father is still fond of trotting out; things are never so bad that they couldn't be worse. By the end of the war, Germany was a smouldering ruin and Dad was a displaced person (DP) living in a refugee camp in Denmark. That's where he first met my mother. Her father had also been conscripted. He went to the Eastern front and never came home. In the mid 1950's they were married and had a son, me. They had been repatriated to a Germany quite foreign to them, and were considering emigrating to improve their (and my) prospects. At the time, the US Army still had conscription. Canada did not. Having had more than a "Schnauze voll" of all things military, they wisely chose Canada. Thanks, Dad! Happy Father's Day!