Now that cruise ships are news again, check this out

No matter the horror stories that come out on a regular basis, cruise tourism remains a multi-billion$ business. Today it's an exotic virus from wherever. At least the shit isn't running down the walls yet. From a few years ago.***************************** neumann's blog Tuesday, July 14, 2020 Pot-addled hillbilly spots cruise-ship dangers years before pandemic Why anyone in their right mind would want to go on a cruise, even in the best of times, is something I don't get. Nevertheless lots of folks do it. I hear bookings are up for the winter season, even after the Diamond Princess fiasco and numerous others. That particular disaster even led to some scientific research. I guess if you're taking a cruise to further science, that's a good thing.... Otherwise, you deserve what you get. Carnival of Fecal Matter There's a few thousand folks out on a Caribbean cruise having second thoughts tonight. But it's too late. They're on the cruise from hell. The Carnival Triumph set sail from Texas a few days ago. Then the onboard generators quit. No lights, no running water, no air-conditioning, and the toilets don't flush. There's urine and fecal matter all over the floors and running down the walls. That's piss and shit in layman's terms. From time to time well-meaning friends and relations give me the pep-talk about what a great thing it is to go on a cruise. At the best of times this strikes me as being trapped in a really big Super 8 for a week with three thousand strangers, except the rooms are way smaller and you can't hop in your car and get away from those three thousand strangers. People talk about cruises being a "good deal," but I swear if I ever won a cruise I'd pay someone to take it off my hands. And that's before the generators quit and the shit starts running down the walls. No thanks!

Happy Mother's Day, Liebe Mutti!

Got in the car this morning for the two+ hour drive to visit my dear mother. The older she gets, the more important it becomes in my mind not to miss it. The old gal is 91, still lives independently in her own place, and just bought herself a new car. I stopped at the Korean's for a fifty-dollar hanging basket on the way out of town. I'm sure they'll be on for half that tomorrow! So I get down there, and Mom has just got home from church. She attends an outfit that is overtly protestant and vaguely related to the Quaker-Hutterite tradition, and as such, are the antithesis of the anti-Christian "Christian Zionist" faction exemplified by US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. She tells me today's lesson came from the Old Testament book of Habakkuk. That Old Testament reference is usually a red flag. That's where Bibi goes to justify genocide; Jehova has commanded us to slay the Amaleks and that sort of thing. But no, the prophet Habakkuk was off on another tangent altogether. He was warning the Chosen People that if they didn't mend their ways the Lord would cover them in filth, "for the violence done to Lebanon shall cover thee." That was predicted almost 3,000 years ago. Anyway, I thank God I'm still able to enjoy my dear mother, and am doubly grateful she's a partisan for a Christianity of Peace instead of the brand promoted by Huckabee and Pompeo. Happy Mother's Day, Liebe Mutti!

Shitlandistan

That's quite a spectacle the DC clown show is putting on in front of the entire world. How do these imbeciles imagine they retain any credibility anywhere? If the China visit goes off at all, the only thing Trump should expect is a sound spanking. All the big talk, the over-the-top bluster, will be demolished in short order once talks turn to the nitty-gritty of who needs what and who produces what, critical resources wise. The greatest dealmaker in human history is being exposed as an utter charlatan. Don't expect Xi to help Donny J out of his Iran conundrum. An unprovoked attack on Iran, in the midst of fake peace negotiations, instigated entirely by Israel, is gonna be a tough one to sweep under the rug. Polls are showing popular support for Israel is collapsing across all demographics in the US. Apparently Americans aren't quite as committed to the mass murder of children as our allies in the Holy Land. Eventually this revulsion will translate into action... hello BDS!

Remember when drugs were illegal and homosexuality was a vice?

The good old days! I got turned on to the weed 'o wisdom in my mid teens by Bernie Marquardt and Brian Vollet, when we were all pumping gas at John's Supertest, out on Waterloo Ave in Guelph. For most of the half century and then some that has passed us by since, I've been on the side of drug legalization. In principle, I'm still there, but in reality, what I'm seeing on the streets today is so far beyond hopeless that we gotta snap back to some sort of common sense right smartly, and fast, or we are seriously fucked! The other learning experience that sprouted outta my John's Supertest years was my introduction to gay culture. We were a gas station in Guelph, circa 1970, and we were selling gay porn! Turned out Brian's older brother was a locally famous poofer, and he offered his personal collection of hard-core gay porn for resale right there alongside the 10w40 and the windshield-washer fluid in our front room at John's Supertest. The drugs thing has gone totally out of control. I was happy enough that they stopped weed possession being a criminal offence, but I was very dissappointed that Justin gave the entire game over to his, or more accurately, his advisors' Bay Street pals. As for the so-called revolution in gay rights, I'm not sure if the rights gained compensate for what's lost. There was a time homosexuality was considered at least mildly subversive. Gay rights crusaders worked tirelessly to normalize homosexuality. And they largely succeeded. Nobody bats an eye at gay marriage anymore, and why should they?... On the other hand, nobody bats an eye when alleged homophobe DJT surrounds himself with Zionist billionaire advisors living in same-sex relationships... and why should they...

The John Goobie Boogie Woogie

As an old guy with nothing much to do other than wander the various overgrown pathways of memory... not so much overgrown as forgotten, I just came off a bit of a blues bender. Yup, I got Smokestack Lightening coming through the headphones right now! You know how it goes... a toke or two and a coupla shots with beer chasers, and before you know it, you're... having a fucking nap! Be that as it may, I had a very pleasant afternoon with Clarence Gatemouth Brown and ZZ Top. No, they weren't in the same music video, but they shoulda been. I was looking for some live footage of a ZZ track from the '70s, and while I never found that exact tune, I got a shitload of related stuff that set aflame the memory banks. For about five or six years of my childhood I was forced to take piano lessons. I had zero desire, interest, or aptitude, but my mother, having come of age in a refugee camp in Denmark post WW2 where she was denied the opportunity for piano lessons, was determined to provide me with the opportunities she had missed. My piano teacher was a dude originally from Newfoundland (I think) who had a bronze bust of Ludwig v Beethoven in his studio along with two pianos, one for him and one for his unsuspecting victims. My half-hour a week piano lesson was an exercise in utter boredom. The highlight was reading the Punch magazines he had in the anteroom. I mean, John mighta hailed from Newfoundland, but Punch was high-brow Brit Lit. Anyway, as I worked my way through the various lesson books, we eventually came to one titled "Jigs, Reels, and Boogie Woogie." I'd been practicing my first boogie lesson for a couple of weeks, and my teacher was getting a little pissy. He was shaking his head and muttering no, no... finally he cuts me off. Then he tears into a boogie tirade that woulda had ZZ struggling to keep up. Holy Jumpin' Jehosaphat, as we used to say... John pretty much set the piano on fire! That John Goobie boogie woogie rocked out like nothing I've heard before or since! Too bad he limited himself to giving piano lessons to no-talent dorkshits like me... he coulda been a somebody!

Happy May Day!

Traditionally, May Day was a day widely presumed to celebrate the working class. In North America May Day was seen as a little too sympathetic to European-style democratic socialism, which is why the powers that were soon cancelled May Day and gave us Labour Day instead. This May Day I scrolled through a few of my usual daily news sites, including CBC, CNN, and Fox, and found not so much as a passing reference to May Day. Even more shocking, most of my usual alt-news sites didn't have anything either! Pretty much had to wait till I got to the WSWS before I found out that millions had taken over the streets and capitalism was on its last legs for sure... Ya, I don't know what's become of the working class. It ain't what it used to be, that's for sure. When my father's generation got off the boat they knew who they were; the working class. They say your personality is fixed in the first five years of life by what you saw your parents doing. My father had one of the best jobs in the factory when I was a kid. All I ever aspired to, as a working class kid, is the best job in the factory! Of course, that all went for a shit when Dad ditched his own working class roots and embraced the manifold opportunities afforded by this great country we'd landed in. Suddenly, the "best job in the factory" wasn't good enough anymore... and for good reason. Between when we disembarked at Pier 21 in the 1950s and what the working class looks like today, things aren't looking great... but they've been worse! Happy May Day!

Canada's new "sovereign wealth fund" lacks key ingredient - wealth!

In theory, a sovereign wealth fund husbands a country's financial surplus for a future rainy day. The problem with the Canada Strong fund Carney just announced is that, lacking any financial surplus whatsoever, the entirety of the $25 billions in seed money has to be borrowed. Poilievre is correct when he says it would more appropriately be called a "sovereign debt fund." This continues Carney's string of headline-grabbing announcements which don't withstand a second glance, let alone close scrutiny. Carney gifted us the Major Projects Office, the mandate of which is to announce major projects, not to build them. He's gifted us a new Defence Investment Agency, stacked atop the existing bureaucracy, because everybody knows the Canadian Forces procurement challenges are due to a lack of management personnel. And don't forget Build Canada Homes. That new bureaucracy was intended to build new housing at scale, but actual housing starts are either stagnant or in decline since the inititive made big headlines almost a year ago. Maybe Mark can't find the necessary trades... oh-oh... here comes the next wave of TFWs!