RIP Johnny Hirtle

They say somewhere inside anybody celebrating their 70th birthday, there's a 17 year old wondering what the hell happened. You gotta admit that it's really hard to deny your age when it starts with the number seven. As it happened, it was just a few months after my 70th I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and it was just a few months before his 70th that Johnny was diagnosed with lung cancer. Almost seems like our meters are running down about the same rate. Which should not come as a surprise. We are, after all, descended from the same hardy Prussian gene pool. Technically, we were second cousins, his family emmigrating from the same Bavarian village a year or two after mine (if your wondering how Prussians ended up in Bavaria you've got some reading to do). For the first year or two we all shared the same roof, first on Derry Street, and then on Neeve Street in the Ward. The Derry place was a rental, and new immigrants had to do what they do to this day; stall the landlord at the front door while spiriting a dozen non-existent guests out the back door whenever he stops by for a look around! In due course the Hirtles found themselves out of the Ward and in a new house in the northern 'burbs. My family became the country bumpkins, or at least that's what I thought, whereas my cousins were sophisticated urbanites! When we all hit driving age it was only natural I'd be hanging out in town more. In the first few years I spent many winter hours playing pick-up hockey at the rink behind the local school. It was nothing for Johnny to spend eight hours a day with his skates on in those years. Of course, playing hockey on an outdoor rink past midnight wasn't the only urban temptation city life offered. Wasn't long before Johnny and his peer group were eagerly experimenting with the cornucopia of new recreational drugs that were flooding the market. In fact, John and Tim McIvor were my tour guides on my first-ever LSD trip! You cannot imagine a more loving pair of shepherds helping a neophyte through an entire night of utterly bonkers halucinations. Ya right... anyway, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. As we outgrew the worst excesses of our youth, Johnny and I got married aound the same age, bought houses around the same time, started families around the same time, and suffered marital collapse around the same time. By that time life had taken us in radically different directions. Johnny stuck with GE-Westinghouse-ABB till the bitter end, and it was bitter alright. I, on the other hand, had the dumb luck to transfer to a teaching career. I figured it would be awhile before they could move teaching jobs to Mexico, whereas most of our industrial base was already gone. Ironically, I recently read an article about the difficulties facing America's re-shoring of heavy transformer production, because the dumbfucks have realized Mexico and China cannot be relied on. One of the critical bottlenecks is the absence of skilled core-winders. Imagine that! An entire craft tossed in the trash as redundant, and then back in high demand when it's too late. That was a workforce that had been under threat for so long I think many convinced themselves it would never happen. Just months before the shit hit the fan I recall Johnny telling me he'd switched to steady day shift so he could spend more time with Kellan and Kari. He was planning his life around the employer right till the employer destroyed his livelihood. I know it's pointless to go over the might-have-beens once somebody's gone, but my late father, who spent way too much time haunting any arena where his sons might be playing, to the point where he was almost an unofficial hockey scout, often saw John play, and opined regularly that Johnny could have gone places. Indeed, Johnny played until his 50's in a Guelph beer league packed with guys who had played Jr. A or professionally, so who knows? Till well into his 50's Johnny was more than holding his own against ex-Jr A guys half his age. That all ended with a detached retina, and at least I can admit he beat me to that milestone by about ten years! I'd only seen John intermittently in recent years, usually on the rare occassion when he attended a family get together. I was shocked when I was forwarded an email from his sister Reg last September announcing John could be in hospice in a matter of days. The last time I saw Johnny was a few days after I got that email. I arrived unannouned and rang the buzzer a dozen times, to no avail. I go knock on his patio door. "Oh Dieter! Come on in!" The guy who was hospice bound was remarkably cheerful. He was busy changing the bandages on his legs. He was looking forward... to the Blue Jays game that night, to the Jays maybe in the World Series, to the Raptors season, to the Leafs, to tomorrow's cross-word puzzle in the Globe, because he'd already done that day's... I left him that afternoon convinced a guy with so much to look forward to had a few years left, for sure. Sorry I was wrong. Happy trails to ya, Johnny! I'm hoping someday we'll get together again with a 500 horsepower SuperBee and a straight stretch of road. Love you, bro!

How CBC fuels the residential school denialism they pretend to fight

A headline at the CBC's Front Burner program this morning asks the rhetorical question;"What's fueling residential school denialism?" The story leads off with a photo of the Kamloops Residential School. The caption under the photo repeats the same brazen lie CBC first broadcast to the world in May of 2021; "The remains of 215 children were discovered buried near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School." That's the sort of slovenly reportage that gets skeptics asking why taxpayers are subsidizing this nonsense to the tune of $1.4 billion per year. The original whopper had an element of plausibiliy about it, but more than five years on, surely everone in Canada knows exactly zero remains of any children have been found. Recycling old lies won't win the anti-denialist activists many allies.

Putin doomed, public support collapses, regime change imminent

That was the gist of a story I ran across at the Ukraine Today website this morning. Like most Ukrainian news outlets, they are kept alive only by the generosity of taxpayers in the West who have fully embraced Zelly's pivotal role in saving Western Civ from the predations of Bad Vlad. Unfortunately, all of them exhibit a marked tendency to slant things a certain way.Imagine my disappointment when I realized that the only evidence presented for a "catastrophic collapse" was in Putin's polling numbers. Yup, it's a disaster alright; Putin's approval rating has catastrophically collapsed... from 74%... all the way down to 69%. Wow! Vlad might as well pack his bags! Meanwhile, the EU's got the three dorkshits, Stormer, Schmertz, and Micron, spearheading what's left of the "whatever it takes for as long as it takes" crowd. Every one of these champions of democracy is labouring with approval ratings in the teens! Starmer's already been deposed and the other two won't survive their next elections. Every one of them will be replaced by politicians who put their own country's interests before those of Ukraine and NATO. So it looks to me like the odds against Ukraine surviving until their Western sponsors have rebuilt their indusrial capacity to begin fulfilling the empty promises they've been making these past four+ years are getting slimmer by the day. That's why we're being absolutely inundated with bullshit stories about how "the tide has turned" and "Putin is on the back foot." We've been seeing plenty of this crap in Canadian media. Today CBC informs us that "some Russians are turning against Putin." Then the sub-head; " 'Not only are they not winning, but the war is coming closer', says Pulitzer-prize winner Anne Applebaum." That's fairly typical. What they're studiously avoiding is any reference to what's actually happening on the ground, which is that for the past two weeks the Russian army has over-run the last of the "fortress cities" that were holding out in Donbas. We mocked Putin when he demanded Ukraine hand over the last Donbas real estate. What? He can't take it from us, so he expects us to give it away! OK then... now he's taken it. Are you happy? The CBC of course neglects to mention that Anne Applebaum is a one-trick pony who has literally built her entire career on Putin-bashing. Nor did they mention her husband, the rabid Russophobe Sikorsky, Polands former Defence Minister, who famously held up a sign reading "Thank-you USA" in the Polish parliament the day after the Nordstream pipeline mysteriously blew up. The only other "expert" CBC quotes in their story is a guy named Michael Kimmage, a historian at the Catholic University of America. I'd never heard of it, but they are in fact a real school, rated 169th in university rankings. While I'm not familiar with Professor Kimmage, he appears to be another academic who's built his entire career around Bad Vlad. Of course, just because I've never heard of the guy or his school doesn't mean he isn't a font of profound insights into the Ukraine war. Maybe. On the other hand, guys like Jeffrey Sachs (Harvard, ranked number 1) and John Mearsheimer (U of Chicago, ranked no. 6) argue convincingly that Ukraine doesn't have a hope in hell. That opinion guarantees you'll never see them on mainstream media again. Finally, let me point out yet again what a fool-hardy trajectory my country, Canada, is on. Since assuming office a little over a year ago, Carney has either confirmed or approved new military purchases that will add at least 500 billions to our deficit, because every penny comes from money we must borrow. This spending spree is justified because it is, according to Carney, essential to meeting our NATO commitments, preserving our freedom, etc. Sounds good, but it's mostly bullshit. We're spending this money because Donald Trump told us to, and we wouldn't want to upset him, elbows up or not. What is the real deal? A hard-nosed assessment would conclude that most of these purchases are for obsolete technology. With the possible exception of ice-breakers, everything else is being replaced by drones. We're making a multigenerational financial commitment to obsolete junk. The F-35 is a prime example. We're absolutely desperate to replace our 40 year old fleet of CF-18s. The availability of these antiques for missions ("ready rate") has sunk to an unacceptable 40%. Thank God we got those brand-spankin'-new F-35s on their way to save us from Putin. Paying $40,000/hr operating costs, as opposed to the Swedish Gripen at $12,000/hr, is a small price to pay to preserve our way of life. Except for one thing... according to USAF, the ready rate for F-35s is... 25%!

A solitary buzzard's been circling overhead for days...

Seems to be keeping an eye on me. Normally, you don't see these guys flying solo. Where there's one, the rest of the gang is never too far away. Here's my theory. The crew spotted me long ago while out on their daily hunting trips. No, they're not "hunting" in the conventional sense, they're just hunting for roadkill or a reasonable facsimile. That's how I came to their attention. I'm obviously not roadkill, but I'm only 150 feet off the road, and I'm sure they've noticed me inert in my lawnchair on the stoop often enough they may have thought I was ready for dinner! I figure this solo scout's job is to keep an eye on me and, when I finally do expire, to sound the dinner bell for the rest of the gang. Then they'll be eating like kings for at least a week!

Keeping your elbows up while your pants are down

Mark Carney has garnered much favorable PR since he embarked on his mission to push back against Trump's bullying. "Elbows up" and all that good stuff. Then back in January, he hit the proverbial home run with his speech at Davos. PM Carney made headlines around the world with his claim that "powerful nations" defied international law whenever it suited them, and that middle powers need to work together to prevent the world collapsing into a dystopia where might makes right. Fast forward a few months. Most of the middle powers Carney has been consulting are even more beholden to Trump than he is. These are people who refer to Trump as "Daddy," for fucks sakes! So when the USA together with Israel launched a war on Iran, a war completely in violation of any concievable aspect of international law, all the so-called middle powers raised their voices in praise of this war crime! I think we can forget about any of these losers ever standing up to Uncle Sam. If you saw them at the G7 you got a sense of their subservience. Trump strolled in an hour late, and the first words out of his mouth were; "I'm the boss."

Moments that restore faith in humanity

I was coming back from town this morning, and just as I'm rounding the last curve before my driveway, a woman jumps out on the road in front of me. She's parked her Audi sedan on the other side of the road with the four-way flashers on, and she's blocking traffic on this side, wildly gesticulating with what appears to be a golf club in one hand, maybe a 3-iron by the looks of it. I was obviously going to stop anyway, but as I pulled over I realized what she was so excited about. This well-dressed, well-turned-out gal who tools around with a set of golf clubs in the trunk of her high-end foreign car, was shepherding a mamma snapper across the street. It's that time of the year when the snapping turtles come out of the marsh to lay their eggs. There must be something in their DNA that makes them have to cross at least one road before they can lay their eggs, because helping them across the street is pretty much a local past-time. I pulled into my drive and walked back out with my snow shovel, still leaning against the stoop even though snow's been gone for two months. I tell the woman this shovel has ferried many a snapper across the road. Between the 3-iron and the snow shovel we got mamma snapper safely to the other side. I find it a beautiful thing that random strangers passing by will make an effort! Snapping turtles are awesome. They can live well over a century, and the females are still laying eggs where they've layed them the last fifty or sixty years. A mamma will drop a dozen or more eggs and bury them. Generally, the 'coons have dug them up and eaten them by morning. But, if you're dropping a dozen eggs a year for 75 years, a few will always get through. They successfully keep the species alive. I told her my neighbour, an ex-army guy, just picks them up and carries them over. I won't try that for the same reason I'm not an ex-army guy; fear! Those snapping turtles are a vicious piece of work. There's reasons they survived pre-history when nothing else did. They'll survive the coming Nuclear Winter too.

Trump declares "peace in our time" for 39th time in three months

Donny J is working on the premise that if you repeat utter bullshit often enough, eventually it becomes reality. Or at least seems realistic enough to much of his fan base that they go along with it. I can see how that happens. I just spent ten minutes watching Larry Kudlow interview Gen. Jack Keane at Fox. Aside from being a retired General and the boss of the Institute for the Promotion of War, Keane is always keen, in every appearance on screen, which is multiple times per day, to remind the Fox audience that Trump's tenure as Commander-in-Chief has cemented America's status as World Hegemon. The reality of things of course points entirely in the opposite direction. In the first year-and-a-bit of Donny's second term, the wheels are falling off the Empire's bandwagon everywhere you look. No matter the extravagant lengths the narrative managers go to divert our attention, it's hard to come to any other conclusion than non-nuke Iran has fought two nuke powers to a stalemate. I predicted months ago that America didn't have the resources to crush Iran, and that once US power in the 'hood was throttled, Israel as we know it is doomed. That's not a bad thing. The Israel that every Christian kid who ever went to Sunday School was taught to revere, has long since morphed into a racist apartheid state committing mass murder on an industrial scale. The end of the US empire that facilitates and fully pays for Israel's atrocities can only be welcomed by the entire Middle East.