So this is how it ends...

2018, that is.

The Farm Manager and our one kid who couldn't come up with a better plan for New Years Eve are watching a doc about the life of Polish artist and all-round wack job Stanislaw Szukalski.

I'm on the internet, boat shopping.

Almost bought one this year. A '92 Doral with under 500 hours on the Merc big block. I was pumped till I figured out it was gonna run five hundred bucks to fill the gas tank. No matter how good the deal appears to be, that's not something I can justify when I've got kids paying off student loans.

Maybe 2019 will be the year of the boat.

Around the home hearth it was a good year. Aside from our dear Lucy, everyone came through with good health. In fact, the fourteen year old dog and the twenty year old cat are perkier than they were a year ago. Amazing what they're doing in vet medicine!

And thanks to an Arab immigrant and our lovely public health care system, I can see like I've never seen before!

Hope it was a good year for you too.

The outside world is a little fucked, though. Mainstream media throughout the Western World has become a 24/7 Trump reality show. If they hate the guy as much as they claim to, why do they keep on with the free publicity? As near as I can tell, this president has one accomplishment to his credit. He gave America's one percenters a nice tax break.

Here in Canada we're celebrating the legalization of the weed 'o wisdom... and what a shit-show that's been. PM Fluffy managed to hand the entire industry to the Bay Street greedbags instead of the folks who have been successfully cultivating the stuff forever. Nice job, Justin!

How sadly ironic that guys like former Toronto police boss Bill Blair have jumped into the business, when guys he put behind bars are still... behind bars, and in some cases will be for years to come.

It's a fucked up world...


Anyway, my reminiscences were interrupted by a call from my old pal Kipling. Like me, he's at once pleased and befuddled by the fact that guys like us are still here, guys once voted as most likely to die before 30 in the high school yearbook. He's spending the New Years Eve working on his VW van out in his shop. It's a mere ninety thousand clicks shy of turning three million kilometres on the odometer. You need to spend a lot of time in your shop to make that happen.

We're gonna have breakfast at the Teviotdale Truck Stop next year. Like on Wednesday.

Continuity is good...

Errors, omissions, and bullshit

I'm not sure the bean-counters at the Globe and Mail are getting full value for whatever they pay Mark MacKinnon to traipse around the world digging up his "scoops." Take today's boffo epic, "Searching for Boris," wherein "a curious tip about Trump Tower sends Mark MacKinnon travelling across the globe" to get the low-down on international man of mystery Boris Birshtein.

I've read the entire four page feature several times and there's little of consequence in the story that you can't find on the internet in a matter of minutes, so why does this take months of international sleuthing on Mackinnon's part?

That was his modus operandi a couple of years ago with his scoop about the the graffiti artists who sparked the Syrian civil war. Mark claimed to have spent years tracking down a story that was readily available on the internet the whole time.

Anyway, about half way through today's effort it becomes clear that what we're after is the elusive Trump-Russia link. Maybe Birshtein is the missing link that Mueller's been looking for for the past two years?

As everybody supposedly knows, Trump was forced to cosy up to dodgy Russian financiers because he couldn't find conventional financing for the Trump Tower in Toronto. The only problem with this theory is that Trump hasn't built any Trump Towers in years, and he therefore does not require financing. He just gets paid for the use of the Trump name, which apparently some people are or were willing to pay millions for.

Go figure!

What the Russian emigres behind the Trump Tower in Toronto didn't realize is that the Trump brand was never going to fly in Canada.

Here's a year old story from the Toronto Star spelling out how Trump made millions on the Toronto tower even as it went bankrupt. Incidentally, the Star had numerous stories about mystery man Birshtein as long as fifteen years ago!

Post Soviet Russia was a veritable gold-rush for opportunists of all stripes attracted by the smell of easy money. Birshtein was one of them. So was Bill Browder. Both of them had connections to organized crime networks in Russia and Israel, as well as the intelligence services of various countries.

Elsewhere in the Globe we've got the obligatory good-news story about how the White Helmets we brought to Canada are faring. Ironically enough, there was a hearing about those folks at the UN this month, but you won't hear about it in Canada's newspaper of record. They'll stick to the official narrative; Israel, Canada, and a few other Nations of Virtue heroically saved these heroes from the clutches of the evil Assad.

Anything else is Putinist propaganda.

The inexorable slide into decrepitude

As 2018 hobbles towards its ignominious end, it's once again time for a stock-taking of sorts.

The Farm Manager thinks Wiarton might make a nice retirement venue. I was absently driving around the place this morning. There's lots of folks out walking those poofy little dogs that retired people get themselves for company. They've probably got family somewhere, but you know how it goes these days; the younger generations are way too busy clawing their way forward in this cutthroat world to make time for their elders. Besides, it's a long drive to Wiarton no matter where you are.

They could fly in, I suppose. The "Wiarton International Airport" is an actual thing, after all. An international airport with exactly zero scheduled flights arriving and departing on any given day. So they'd have to charter a plane, and unfortunately none of the next generation of my acquaintance have thus far clawed themselves forward sufficiently for such an undertaking.

Retirement. I'm not sure it's for me. I try to picture what a day in the life of me (retired) might look like.

Six a.m. - Wake up. Take morning meds. Take poofy dog for walk.  Pick up Globe and Mail at Korean Extortionist's place on way home.

Seven-thirty to tenish - Read Globe and Mail.

Ten till noon - Compose and post pithy rejoinders to whatever twattery I found most objectionable in the Globe. There's almost always something.

Afternoon - The empty hours are upon me. Too soon to visit the liquor store. Too early for a toke, at least if you're harbouring any illusions about doing something useful before nightfall. How many useful things need doing in Wiarton is an open question. There's already a guy wandering around town collecting empties out of recycling bins. There's probably not enough empties to make that worthwhile for both of us. Besides, is that actually "retirement?"

Evening - time to get comfortably numb and reflect on the day. What did I accomplish? I walked the dog and wrote a blog.


Nah!... don't think I'm ready.

Welcome to Canada: bring your own tent

I notice that in his Yuletide address PM Trudeau gives himself a pat on the back for "putting the first ever National Housing Strategy into action."

Not so fast, Fluffy! What do you mean by "action?" So far the only thing that's been put into action in the year+ since this alleged strategy was introduced is this spiffy website called A place to call home.

Dude, a website is not a roof!

There's some interesting stuff in there though. That "Canada Housing Benefit" will subsidize your rent by up to $200 bucks a month! Unfortunately, you have to have a roof before you can get the subsidy. How does that help the homeless?

The other tricky thing is it doesn't kick in till well after the next election. As such it's one of those vote-buying shenanigans not unlike the previous Ontario government's $15 min wage; the only way to get the goodies is to vote the incumbent in again.

Another red flag should be the discrepancy between the headlines ballyhooing the $40B price tag for this program and what the government is actually committing. You have to read the fine print to find out that's not actual program money. That's "joint investment" money, over ten years.

Joint means Fed money, the dollars Trudeau presumably has some control over, plus provincial, plus municipal, plus non-profit, plus private sector. In other words, this is a joint venture by five parties. Trudeau speaks for one of them. To my way of thinking, until the other 4/5ths of the partnership make some solid financial commitments, there is in effect no actual National Housing Strategy.

So let's call it what it is, Mr Trudeau. It's not a National Housing Strategy; it's a "talking about a National Housing Strategy" strategy.


There's a difference.

A Christmas Miracle

I've got a second cousin, Achim, and we've been tight since we were in diapers. Way more brothers than second cousins.

We used to work in the same place. We loved fast cars. We got married around the same time. We got drunk together, high together, and our lives fell apart around the same time. I had a nasty divorce.

His was way worse. Financially, it ruined him. But worse than that, as the divorce ran its course he became increasingly estranged from the two children he loved dearly.

The divorce is long in the rear-view by now, but he hasn't talked to his kids in 15 years.

A couple of days before Christmas, he talked to them for an hour on the phone.


That's what I call a Christmas Miracle.

Jesus possibly a crappy carpenter

I was sitting around with a couple of youngsters from the Jewish side of the family, and I don't even remember how we got on the topic, other than it's that time of year etc.

We all acknowledge that Jesus was a carpenter, and I wondered aloud why there is no biblical record of what kind of carpenter he was.

Was he a framing guy or a finish carpenter? Was his work any good? Did the contractors book him well ahead and dangle bonuses in front of him?

According to the biblical record, the answers to those questions are who knows? who knows? and who knows?

Well, take a moment to think about it.


We tossed this back and forth for a good half hour and the consensus we arrived at was, if he was a half decent carpenter, he would have been way too busy to ever be a prophet.

Trump is toast

The only thing that can save Trump's ass in the immediate future is if the folks driving the Dump Trump agenda have serious second thoughts about what happens next.

President Pence?

I think not.

The story picking up steam is that Mad Dog Mattis is leaving the cabinet because he's at odds with the US withdrawal from Syria. This supposedly shocking development is something Trump has promised since the campaign. How can it possibly be a shock?

But our mainstream media are already trotting out the experts who see the next betrayal coming... leaving Afghanistan!

Eighteen years and a trillion dollars for what, exactly?

The propaganda engines of our free press are already revving with speculation that Trump is doing Putin's bidding here. No doubt Mueller will get to the bottom of things any day now...

And then what?

That garage probably has twenty dump runs in it

Me and the Farm Manager were weighing the pros and cons of getting a new (or at least newer) vehicle. For the moment the old Subaru is starting up every day and getting us where we need to go, but it's at that stage of its life where it's probably not wise to pour a whole lot of fresh cash into it.

We just had a $1,600 brake job, and the brakes are still spongy.

The power steering is iffy.

The clutch is dodgy.

It's a 2003 or thereabout.

The fact that it's our daily driver tells you something about the state of the rest of the fleet.

The Escape was something I only bought because I got a deal on it. It served well as a wood gathering vehicle between the house and the woodlot for a couple of years, but it's overdue for car heaven. I was gonna have the guy come and pick it up for scrap last summer, when I realized there were wasp nests in various rusty body panels. Buddy would have got stung to death trying to cinch that to the deck of his truck.

The Pontiac Torment has various issues, and it too has come to the point when you can't justify the next repair. Ditto the F-150.

So we were kinda debating around the issue of should we get a truck or is a SUV ok, when the FM says, "we really need a truck because that garage probably has twenty dump runs in it."


Whoa!

What's in the garage?

A near-mint Mustang 5.0 covered in birdshit.

A Kawi Ninja 500 also covered in birdshit.

A beauty oak table top put together for me by Rodney at McGregor's Fine Furniture twenty years ago, which I never got around to building a base for because we have way too many tables already. Oddly enough, there's not a speck of birdshit on it.

An old drum kit, a couple of snowblowers that could readily be rendered operable again, a couple of generators, various chainsaws etc...  sorry, I'd be hard pressed to come up with ONE dump run, never-mind twenty.


So maybe a truck isn't a good idea...

Canadians tangled in web of hypocrisy

Latest twist in the General Dynamics "Canadian" $15B armoured vehicle sale to the KSA is that we're trying to get out of it.

There's a couple of salient features about Canada's ruling class that you should take note of as this fake drama unfolds.

Trudeau's gradual seeing of the light, that this deal has stunk to the heavens all along, is purely a response to the bad PR the story is generating. Trudeau wants to win an election next year. He has to balance the negative PR of dis-employing 2,000 General Dynamics workers in London, with the possibly even more negative PR of following through on the deal. Either way, his image is drowning in negativity just as he's coming up for re-election.

Desperate measures are surely called for.

Let's take a look at what was, at the time, ballyhooed as our biggest export "win" in history! The Harper Gang were pee-your-pants euphoric over what they'd achieved!

Canada didn't actually sell Saudi Arabia anything. This is a commercial deal between the US defence contractor General Dynamics and the government of Saudi Arabia. All Canada did was approve the deal, as it was expected to do, because the particular plant where those vehicles are assembled happens to be a GD branch plant in Canada.

Any attempt to abrogate the deal now will be horrendously expensive, and not just in the billions of dollars.

We have the rule of law in this country, as PM Fluffy has been reminding every TV camera in sight ever since the Huawei debacle hit the headlines. We can't go meddling around in stuff for purely political reasons...


Oops!

Let's not forget that the decision to render Canada a branch plant economy was taken by Canada's political class, who saw their personal interests more closely aligned with those of their betters in Washington than with working people in Canada. We've been paying the price for that since the days of the Avro Arrow.

Poor Fluffy is doubly flumoxed because this drama is unfolding against a backdrop of severe instability in the KSA. It's a power struggle between the old guard and the "reformer" MBS.  Washington's deep state are with the old guard. Better the devil you know...

Whereas Trump is backing, at least so far, this young whippersnapper who is a little "off the leash," as they say, not unlike Trump himself.

There's no happy ending possible here.


I wouldn't want to be Justin.

Fake news before Donald Trump

Remember Saddam's weapons of mass destruction?

Of course you do. And when the mass media in our vaunted democracies climb aboard a patently false and deliberately promoted narrative, bad shit happens. The fact that the bad shit mostly happens somewhere else just helps us downplay the consequences.

Simon Houpt has an interview with former Guardian ed in chief Alan Rusbridger in yesterday's Globe. The article oozes gravitas.  We've got one journalist interviewing another, and both are convinced that it is primarily their profession that stands between the light of civilization and the darkness lurking just out of view... that darkness in which democracy shall surely perish.

In the hysteria leading up to the Iraq war the Guardian was just as guilty as everyone else in the newsbiz big leagues of pushing the war agenda being promoted by London and Washington. To Rusbridger's credit, they were one of the first major brands to climb down from that, apologizing as early as 2004 for having mislead their readership.

Houpt interviewed Rusbridger for this article on November 29. Two days prior, Rusbridger's former paper had a notable scoop on view, and quite a salacious one at that. According to the Guardian, disgraced former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret meetings with Julian Assange right there in the Ecuadorian embassy in early 2016!

And what a scoop that would be! The disgraced Trump underling and the evil Assange huddling up together, plotting god knows what!?

If there were the slightest chance that this story had anything to it other than wishful thinking, we would have heard a lot more about it, but it's kind of drifted away, hasn't it? The Ecuadorian embassy is probably the most heavily surveilled piece of real estate on earth. There would be evidence galore.

Alas, the story seems to be nothing more or less than fake news.

If the people in charge of our reputable news outlets are seriously concerned that Donald Trump is undermining their credibility with his constant cries of "fake news," their first order of business should be to make sure they're not promulgating fake news.

Hey four-eyes!...

I used to hear that a lot after I got glasses in the eighth grade.

Hey four-eyes! That was always the prelude to the inevitable bullying that followed. It followed me for a couple of years into high school, and then it mysteriously stopped.

That wasn't really a mystery. I'd got two feet taller and put on seventy-five pounds. I distinctly remember meeting one of my tormentors in the street when I was about seventeen or so.

Hey, Buddy, it's me! Four-eyes! Thwack thwack, thump thump, and Buddy the bully was flat on his ass right there on Suffolk Street.

And all of a sudden I was the bully.


World stage bullying isn't that much different than high school bullying when you think about it. There's a bully on the world stage and we all know his name. But we pretend it's not bullying.

The bully on the world stage has a special gang of sycophants now known, ironically enough from my point of view, as "the Five Eyes."

Canada is pleased to be part of this gang.

We the Fab Five will be first to proclaim the virtues of the Bully's bullying.

If Boss Bully proclaims an elected president in Ukraine unfit for office, we're 100% with the bully.

If Boss Bully proclaims that Assad is unfit to breathe air on this planet, we're 100% behind him.

If Boss Bully sanctions Iran or China or Russia for the crime of being uppity, we're 100% in the camp of the bully.

The Boss Bully has decreed that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, contra international law and innumerable UN resolutions.

And the me-too minions in Boss Bully's gang are starting to fall in line.


It's just a matter of time before we fall in line.

Pot-addled hillbilly blogger kicked off Twitter

I'll admit up front that I don't get Twitter.

Other than the fact that Justin Bieber, the Kardashians, and Donald Trump are big deals there, I really don't understand the point of it. I think at the max my twitter account had ten or twelve "followers."

A few years ago I started a Twitter account, @Bolshevikbruce. Every now and then I'd use it to send a blog post to twits (tweeters?) who have been tweeting about whatever topic that blog post was about. Generally speaking that didn't get much in the way of results, but from time to time it did give the page view numbers a goodly squirt in an upward direction.

Thought I'd do that today with my brilliant take-down of the Globe and Mail's ass-kissing (and that would be Uncle Sam's ass) approach to the Huawei stinkfest.

Alas, Bolshevikbruce has been suspended from Twitter!

Jeffrey Sachs reads this blog!

Well, I have no actual proof of that; it just seems mighty suspicious that the esteemed Professor is out there parroting the talking points that the think tank here at Falling Downs has elaborated on.

It seems obvious to us, it seems obvious to Professor Sachs, it seems obvious to thinking people far and wide that the Freeland-Trudeau combine is playing waterboy for Team Trump while simultaneously virtue-signalling their staunch anti-Trumpism.


But the obvious seems to elude the editorial committee at Canada's national newspaper of record.


No less an observer of the human condition than the Orange Ogre himself had PM Fluffy pegged six months ago.


Dishonest and weak.

The Globe and Mail as propaganda organ

The Globe and Mail brain trust deserve a smidgen of credit for their smidgenly attempt to inject a little balance into their coverage of the Huawei affair; a single opinion piece by Michael Byers in which he correctly concludes that this imbroglio was entirely avoidable, and is primarily the result of the staggering ineptitude of the Trudeau-Freeland team.

Reportorial balance dispensed with, we are elsewhere in today's paper treated to:

• a half page news story on A3 informing us that the US vows to fight for the Canadians detained in China in the wake of the Meng Wanzhou arrest
• two thirds of page O2 given to long-time China critic and cheerleader for American exceptionalism Brahma Chellaney, who implores us to stand firm against Chinese bullying
• the lead editorial slagging China and celebrating our close relationship with the US
• seven of eight letters to the editor on the topic being stridently anti-Chinese.

Yes, China is a bully, whereas the US, in the words of Mike Pompeo, tirelessly lobbies for "...every citizen unlawfully detained around the world..."

That's a head-spinning bit of sophistry, that is. Every citizen of the world unless they happen to be unlawfully detained in Gitmo, or in prisons in al-Sisi's Egypt, in Israel, in Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, or even in Incarceration Nation itself.

Yes, aside from all those and many more, the US remains the shining city on a hill, tirelessly advocating for the downtrodden and oppressed, at least in that handful of countries reluctant to take direction from Washington.

As Canada's national newspaper of record, I'd like to see the Globe and Mail go a little further in promoting an independent foreign policy for Canada, and rein in the glaringly obvious toadying to American interests.

Another sterling day for democracy!

Democracy is alive and well in the USA!

Did you see the eye-gouging hair-pulling showdown between billionaire-puppets Trump, Schumer, and Pelosi? Boo-ya!...


What a farce!

Meanwhile, north of the 49th, we may not be that democratic, but by golly, are we ever sticklers for the rule of law! After a three-day bail hearing Meng Wanzhou get's sprung on $10,000,000 bail! Any number of seasoned US war criminals (Kissinger, Clinton, Bush) can waltz in and out of here with no worries, but hot damn, if'n yer Daddy's company done broke some US sanctions on Iran, we suddenly become hogtied by this thing called the "rule of law."

Yup, that's Canuckistan... we're not fancy, but we have the rule of law.


Ask black folks in Toronto about our rule of law... you know, those Canadians twenty times more likely to be shot by a cop than the white ones.

Now that's gotta be an epic PR fail for the self-righteous politically correct twats in Ottawa!

Give me a break...

My dear son-in-law Charlie broke his humeris in a skiing accident the other day. Humeris? I think that's commonly known as your "funny bone" or something.

That's not the kinda break I'm talking about. I think Charlie's gonna pull through, and that his gig at that start-up will not be impacted by this minor setback.

Hope not.

Kipling rings me up today to complain that I haven't had a word to say about the demise of George HW.

Give me a break dude! I'm trying to cope with eye surgery and such... oh, that's the other thing he was on about. He's contemplating the same operation and wanted the low-down.

Well, when they put that drill into your eyeball to break up that fucked up lens that Mama Nature gave you...

All I hear on the other end is STOPSTOPSTOP!!!!


Apparently people don't like to be told what their eye surgery is gonna look like.

Ya, you can actually see the tools entering your eyeball...

And you can feel that tiny little drill spinning around in there...


But enough of that.

Lets's focus on George HW for a moment or two.

The reason I haven't said a word about the passing of Papa Bush is because I like to keep to the old saw that if you got nothing good to say, keep yer fuckin' trap shut.

So I have. Till now.

George HW Bush was a blood-soaked war criminal who should have spent his golden years in a cell at the ICC.

Panama? How many innocent people were slaughtered without mercy when Bush decided his CIA stooge Noriega had outlived his usefulness?

His son W may have got the US into the Afghan war, but it was Daddy who got the ball rolling with the original Gulf war to restore democracy in... Kuwait?

Google "Highway of Death" and see what comes up. Machine-gunning the enemy from airplanes in their tens of thousands after they've surrendered is a war crime no matter how you look at it. That's the legacy of HW Bush.


It's a complete embarrassment to see Toronto Star stalwarts Robin Sears and Jaime Watt gushing over the dear departed in their Star opinion pieces today.


Give me a break...

Trudeau more dangerous than Trump - professor

Professor Hamid Dabashi doesn't hold back in this take-down of PM Fluffy. Trudeau's pseudo-progressive fakery is possibly more damaging than the buffoonery of Trump, he says. You'd almost think he's been reading this blog!

Every other day another apology... but what changes? What gets done?

Precious little, that's what.

Trudeau is the perfect pol for the modern era. All optics, no substance. What with our Feminist Foreign Policy, our newfound commitment to Native Rights and Oil Pipelines, and our obsequious toadying to Uncle Sam, we are one Nation from Sea to Sunny Sea, labouring under an utterly massive case of cognitive dissonance.

Called out on the arrest of the Huawei CFO by Canadian officials, Trudeau responds with a load of hokum on how this nation has an independent judiciary, blahblahblah, and oh yes, he did happen to know about it three days before it happened, but what the heck, just because it's independent doesn't mean it ain't leaky!...

This is the response of the leader of a supposedly independent country which just made an arrest on behalf of the US, because a Chinese company isn't obeying America's orders that they refrain from doing business with Iran.

How is it America's business to dictate to China who they do business with?


As an aside, Trudeau is lying when he says no decision has been made about whether Huawei will be part of Canada's next generation internet.

The decision HAS been made, and no, Huawei will NOT be a part of it. That decision about Canada's future was made in Washington, not Ottawa.

If Trump picks fights with Iran or China we need to stay out of it

Here's a prime example of Canadian "sovereignty" in action.

Trump has been screwing big-time with the economies of Iran and China. Iran and China are well-known bad guys on the planet, and as everyone knows, Uncle Sam is the good sheriff.

And plucky Canada, punching above our weight as always, although we're never quite sure what we're punching at, we're happy as pie to play faithful Deputy Dawg to Sheriff Trump.

Any quarrel between Trumplandia and Iran and China doesn't need to concern us.


Especially in this day and age, it might be wise if we would chart our own course.

Are the Koch brothers looting Alberta's tar sands?

I'm speculating here, but bear with me.

As is well known, the Koch brothers are amongst the biggest players in Alberta's bitumen patch.

As is also well known, the Koch brothers operate refineries in the US, where we want that bitumen to go, because it is apparently impossible for us to figure out how to refine the stuff ourselves.

So, about that price differential in the US vs. Canadian oil price. I was reading just the other day this discount is costing the Canadian economy 80-100 million dollars per day.

Per DAY!

Hmm... if we're losing, who do you suppose might be winning?


Where can you find a decent investigative reporter when you need one?

Israeli police press for corruption charges against... OH MY GOD LOOK AT THOSE HEZBOLLAH ATTACK TUNNELS!!!

The greatest leader since Moses has done it again! Within hours of the revelation that police want Netanyahu charged with corruption, bribery, and fraud in relation to "Case 4000" (the other 3,999 corruption cases being held in abeyance for the moment), the IDF miraculously discovers a network of Hezbollah attack tunnels snaking under the northern border!

What are the odds?!

We know the drill, don't we?

Israel faces multiple existential threats.

Israel needs a seasoned strong-man at the top in these dangerous times. Not some untested youngster. Not some Russian nutter who makes Washington nervous...

No, a seasoned veteran who has triumphed over the foe again and again and again, not to mention he speaks proper American English and doesn't frighten people when he's on Fox and CNN.

Only one man has that CV... the Greatest Leader since Moses!

Google knows me better than I do

I was doing a memory lane thing in the company of Jimmy Page and Slash and a bunch of the old stalwarts, and I needed a break from all that heavy metal virtuosity, so I asked YouTube for a nice mellow cello thing.

I got it. Something from the Brahms catalogue. When it was over, before I'd even made a decision about what's next, Google was loading a Glenn Gould piece for me.

And it was the perfect choice!

How did they know?

And what's really fucked up is that when Glenn was done, they teed up the Bach Harpsichord Concerto no. 1 in D minor without me even asking for it!


Ya, that was nice, but I'm feeling better now, and ready for a little rock and roll.

Gonna while away what's left of the evening with Sister Rosie.


'night.

Led Zeppelin at the Kennedy Center

Time.

Time was, I knew Led Zeppelin was for me when my dear daddy told me he wouldn't have that music under his roof.

Dad could be a bit stiff in his ways at times. Like the time he dumped out the bar I kept in my bedroom closet. Had all the essentials in there. A bottle of bourbon, a bottle of scotch, and a bottle of top shelf Canadian rye.

Dumped it all out, apparently unaware that the liquor store would be happy enough to replenish my supply, even if I had to relocate my bar.

Which I did.

Wonder what Dad would say if he saw Led Zeppelin at the Kennedy Center?

But there is a larger question here, and it has nothing to do with my dear father...

When the anti-establishment rebels of yesterday are feted at the Kennedy Center, the center of the establishment universe, are they still anti-establishment?


Or is this just more evidence that I'm getting too old?

Royal Canadian Air Farce sends bomber fleet to Ukraine to repel Putin

http://theviewfromfallingdowns.blogspot.com/2014/03/canadian-air-force-sends-strategic.html

There'll always be an England, even after Brexit

The "Iron Lady" was the spearhead of the neoliberal revolution that overtook the Nations of Virtue from the 1980s on. She was Ronald Reagan's muse.

Fuck the workers. There is no God but Mammon.

Let the working classes drink themselves to death if they must; there is a brave new world in front of us. It is ours for the taking...

One of life's little ironies is that Maggie Thatcher has been rotting in the grave for some years now, while Arthur Scargill remains out and about.

Hey Scargill, how about you come back to the political stage?! You've got way more political capital than you realize!

You gotta love that Brixton Academy Pistols show.

All races, all creeds...


Now more than ever workers everywhere need to just say NO to the politicians who want to rule by turning us against one another.

Dreams sometimes do come true

I can't tell you how many times I've walked in to Howell's for a piece of smoked whitefish only to be told they just sold out.

Dammit!

I've always told myself, don't worry, someday YOU will get the last piece of smoked whitefish...

Well, today was the day!

I'd been up to Lion's Head to see their Santa Claus parade, and, almost as an afterthought, I popped into Howell's on the way home. There in the glass display case were three pieces of smoked whitefish.

I took them all!

True, that was a little more fish than I had in mind, but no matter. I'm the guy who got the last smoked whitefish out of Howell's this week!


Life is not too bad after all!

Putin against the world

Our corporate media had a good week of it moaning about Putin's latest aggression against the hapless Ukrainians, so anything I read in Doug Saunders me-too column in the Globe today I'd already read several times. I guess Doug is down to one weekend column due to his employer finding efficiencies. Don't sweat it, Doug, the new Amazon warehouse in Vaughn will be hiring soon!

You'll be fine.

Anyway, taking a break from sowing generic chaos and instability around the world, Putin has once again gone out of his way to pay special attention to the immediate threat on Russia's doorstep, Poroshenko's model democracy next door. That's because he's afraid that the Russian people will sooner or later realize that life is so much better there, and they too will demand a Nuland/Payette democratic transfer of power to someone more amenable to taking direction from Washington than the habitually recalcitrant Putin.

Then life will be good!

This line of reasoning, and it is certainly not original to Doug Saunders, as his contemporaries in other major media outlets have been beating this drum all week and Doug had to wait for his weekend slot, contains an inherent contradiction that the apologists for American exceptionalism tend to avoid addressing, which is this; if Putin is indeed "weak and isolated," as we are continuously led to believe, then how does he manage to sow all that global chaos and instability? And not only that, he manages to sow world-wide mayhem with a war chest not 10% of the USA military budget!

Clearly, the man is a genius!


Either that, or our mainstream pundits are full of shit.

The crux of Saunders' imaginary thesis is that Putin is at his most dangerous when cornered, as he is now. How do we know we've got Putin cornered? His approval rating is down to 60%.

Let's apply that logic to the cornered career criminals in the Nations of Virtue. Macron and Merkel are under 30%. The greatest leader since Moses is in the high 30s. Trump is in the low 40s. Our own PM Fluffy is barely over 50%.


But Putin is on the brink because he's only got a 60% approval rating?