Street racing then and now

I've occasionally taken a run down memory lane to revisit the glory days of street racing. Oh, those were glorious days alright! We thought we were the coolest cats in town, melting the polyglas tires off our 340 Dusters (275 hp) and 396 Novas (375 hp).

Over the years my cohort has shed a lot of tears bemoaning the fact that the "younger generations" don't have the interest to keep the sport of driving fast cars fast alive...

What were we thinking?

In the old days, something that made an honest 500 hp was considered a scary ride. Nowadays half a dozen manufacturers will happily sell you over 700 hp off the showroom floor. The youngsters tuning the twin-turbo Vipers and 1000 hp Mustangs today would consider the twelve second rocketships of my era embarrassingly slow.

The "tuning" is different too. It used to involve screwdrivers and feeler gauges. Now it seems to involve plugging in a laptop. Sounds simple enough, but I haven't a clue what they're actually doing with the computer technology. My computer know-how is pretty much maxed out when I watch these videos, never mind tuning a 1600 hp engine from my laptop.

And the speeds they're hitting these days are incomprehensible by 1970 standards. These guys are dipping into the sevens at speeds approaching 200 mph. Those would have been funny-car times back in the day. Now they're doing that with cars that have power steering and air-conditioning!

So, apologies to the younger generations - you've obviously kept the flame alive!

But here's what I find sad. Back in the day, any goober with a job could get into the game. I don't think that's the case anymore. Driving fast cars fast has become a rich kid's pastime.

Pity!

Meet Mickey Two-Traps

Into a world short of heroes, a new legend is born; Mickey Two-Traps.

Mickey's adventures in the pantry have gone viral in Mouseworld. Many have ventured into the pantry. Few have lived to tell the tale.

And what a tale Mickey has to tell! 

"The morons who own the joint have gone in for those laughable Victor "quick-set" traps. Right away the odds of surviving go from zero to fifty-fifty. That maybe led me to let my guard down a little, but I wasn't ready for what happened next. Thinking I'd caught a whiff of peanut butter, I went into the corner to investigate, and... WHAM!

When I came to, I tried to shake the damn trap loose, but I couldn't see anything, and next thing I know, I back right into another trap! 

SNAP! 

Now I got one trap on my head and another one stuck on my ass and I'm starting to think I might not make it home... 

And then, a miracle! The dorkshit who set the traps gives me a lift out to the compost heap and let's me go free!"

Yup, it's all true. They're raising pints in Mickey's honour all over Mouseworld. He has become a living legend. 

Enjoy the glory while you can, Mr. Two-Traps. I've set up an old-school Victor "original" in the pantry, just for you.

Come back any time you like.

Greasing the skids for war on China

The Yellow Peril demonization pogrom continues apace in Canadian national media. At the Globe and Mail it fell to Campbell Clark to carry the can today; "Canada must embrace Biden's China alliance."

There's an obvious typo in the title; it's an anti-China alliance Biden is crafting, and he's hot to trot. In fact, in his first call with Justin after the election, and apparently Campbell was on the line, Biden was "effusive about working with allies."

How effusive was he? Not effusive enough. Mr. Clark suggests we "should be pushing" Biden in the right direction lest he waver in his resolve to confront the Yellow Peril, "we" being the allies who have shivered through four years of darkness waiting for the light of freedom to shine again in Biden's City on a Hill.

Meanwhile, over at the CBC, Evan Dyer wants us to follow Australia's lead and ramp up the Yellow Peril rhetoric. Perhaps if we join Australia in pushing back against Chinese aggression it'll stiffen Biden's spine? That's a somewhat unlikely scenario. Canada and Australia together spend about 7% of what the US spends on "security" every year. Fortunately, the prospects of pipsqueak me-too nations like Canada and Australia bringing China to heel are purely imaginary.

After four years in the shadow of the Orange Ogre, The Nations of Virtue are uniting again behind the leadership of the Exceptional and Indispensable Nation, the nation with the most powerful military machine in history.

Be afraid.

Best of times for Amazon and Walmart; worst of times for independent retail

As Toronto re-enters lockdown on account of the "second wave," there's umbrage in the air over the fact that Walmart and some other big chains will remain open, while independent retailers are forced to close.

Independent retail has been up against it for a long time, long before the pandemic. In a nutshell, the reason is this; people would rather save a few cents shopping at Amazon or Walmart, than to pay a little more and keep their local independents in business. 

The pandemic is the final nail in the coffin for a wide swath of independent businesses. We'll be happy enough to blame the virus for their demise, when the truth is that everyone who's ever shopped Walmart, Costco, or Amazon deserves a share of the blame. 

When we are conditioned to measure our lives by how much crap we consume, a retail model that optimizes crap-per-dollar will inevitably prevail.

Shame on all of us.

The worst of times; the best of times

Have you noticed that all the folks telling you you gotta stay home have cushy jobs where they can work from home?

While this plague is the worst of times, it's the best of times for folks who know how to make hay under the pandemic sun. Check out this headline; How billionaires got $637 billion richer during pandemic.

And it's not just billionaires. 

This pandemic summer has been the busiest in memory for building contractors around here. Real estate is booming. Folks who can afford it aren't shy about building new homes.

And don't cry too many tears for the front-line workers. Any nurse who's been working double shifts for the last six months is having paydays like never before in their careers. They're buying those new builds.

There's a Harley dealership in Pennsylvania having its best year ever. Seems every other yokel in the county signed over their covid check as a down payment back in the spring. Most of those purchasers were operating on the "we're fucked anyway" premise. The world is going for a shit anyway, so I might as well get a couple of months tooling around on the Harley of my dreams.

By the fall, most of these customers had defaulted on their loans, and now the dealer gets paid by the lenders to repo all those bikes. 

Business has never been better!

Enjoy those winter driving blues, Parker

 My nephew Parker is about to set out on his first cross-country solo drive. Good on ya, kid! I repost this "Winter Blues" missive from a few years ago in your honour!

Winter Blues

Back when I toiled in the Budd plant in Kitchener there was a shorthand used to refer to your co-workers.

We worked among Rastamen and Polskies and Ukes and Newfs and Frenchies and Krauts.

Every Portugese guy was known as Goose or Magellan or Vasco de Gamma.

One night after second shift let out we headed for the all-night liquor store in Stratford. A couple of home boys and a couple of Rastas in Frenchy's Javelin, with Frenchy driving.

I don't know to this day whether there actually was an all-night liquor store in Stratford, but we almost died trying to find out.

I do recall there was a 24 hour beer store in Toronto. We did make it there one night.

But Frenchy's Javelin ended up in the ditch on its roof that winter night, with five thirsty guys just getting thirstier.

Winter blues.

There's something about winter that makes desperation more desperate.

Me and Kipling headed out west to make our fortune in the dead of one winter. Went in the ditch 50 miles east of Winnipeg. Went in the ditch at a high rate of speed while I was both napping and driving simultaneously. 

Winter blues.

If you're watching this at home, kids, don't drive and nap simultaneously.

It's not a happy thing.

There was a Neil Young song popular at the time that glorified going to Alberta. I think most of us were just going to Alberta because Neil Young had sung a song about it...

Years later me and Terry ran out to Calgary in the dead of winter. Lost a wheel bearing somewhere around Bumfuck Manitoba in the middle of the night when it was -40 degrees outside.

You can't fix a wheel bearing without going outside.

-40 is really fucking cold!

Winter blues.

Winter adventures.

The Kid still swears that the best day of his life, and he's had an awful pile of great ones, was the day I picked him up at the hospital in Vegreville, in the dead of winter, and we toured all the way into the foothills and beyond, all the way to Mount Robson, him with his bottle of pills and me with my case of beer, and we ended up in Edmonton totally fucked up and just in time for a Triumph concert.

In the dead of winter.

Winter blues.

********

Happy trails, Parker!

China threatens to "poke out eyes" of Uncle Sam's chorus girls

Well, here's some nasty trash talk from the Yellow Peril!

Seems the commies have their knickers in a twist over this joint statement released yesterday by the foreign ministers of the US and their toadies in the "Five Eyes" club. That's a mighty impressive finger wag on freedom of speech, coming from a cartel of America's most obsequious ass-kissers. The Five Eyes are devoted to free speech so long as it's aimed at the enemies of Empire. If, perchance, free speech is wielded by the likes of Julian Assange, these stalwarts of free speech and rule of law don't hesitate to run roughshod over the law to stifle freedom of speech.

You'd think the junior members of the Five Eyes club would take a moment to survey the battleground they are preparing. They are hitching their little me-too wagons to the exceptional, indispensable nation, the nation that hasn't won a war since 1945 in spite of having started so many (ok,ok... they whupped Grenada fair and square).

What could go wrong?

Will Biden claw back Trump's lavish gifts to Israel?

It's hard to make a case for Trump having made America "great" again over these past four years, but there is no question he has made Israel greater than ever (not to be confused with more secure than ever).

From moving the embassy, to ceding the Golan to Israel, to greenlighting unlimited settlement on the occupied territories, to the "Deal of the Century," to ditching the Iran deal, to dispatching Soleimani, to the Abraham Accords, the last four years have been truly golden for Israel's extremist ruling coalition.

And the happy days aren't over yet. Just yesterday, America's Jesus-loving Secretary of State promised Netanyahu that the US would henceforth get tough on the legions of American Jew-haters who try to disguise their antisemitism as "legitimate" criticism of Israel's seventy-plus years of genocidal anti-Palestinian policies. Furthermore, rumours abound that Trump is toying with a parting gift for his fan club in the Knesset; a direct military attack on Iran.

Does any serious person imagine that Biden finds Trump's pro-Israel moves objectionable?

No. Unquestioning Israel boosterism is Washington's most successful example of bipartisanship.

Unfortunately, while this blind allegiance to the Likudniks has been good for the ruling clique in the Holy Land, it's not, in the long run, good for Israel or for peace in the region. Many times we have heard top IDF boffins speculate aloud about how many hundreds of thousands of missiles Hezbollah has squirrelled away in the hills of southern Lebanon. A direct attack on Iran would in short order provide some clarity on this question... but by then it will be too late to matter.

In the long term, the most serious existential threat to Israel comes from their Christian Zionist cheerleaders in Washington.

The last four years were about Russiagate - will the next four be about Hunter's laptop?

The swells who own the global information infrastructure have done a great job making Hunter's laptop disappear from the news cycle - for three weeks. It would be folly to assume it will stay buried. Once the euphoria of Papa Joe's victory wears off, as it inevitably must, Hunter's laptop and the secrets thereof will be discovered anew. 

In the meantime, it's intriguing to see that every story in the Globe and Mail or on CBC about Trump's challenge to the election results contains multiple warnings that his allegations lack any shred of evidence. I don't recall any such warnings when they were regaling us with Russiagate yarns for four years running.

There's a disturbing trend afoot to "other" the 73 million Americans who voted for Trump. That's ten million more than voted for Trump four years ago. Not only that, but the greatest racist of all time also increased his share of Black and Hispanic votes, presumably because black and brown voters truly aren't smart enough to know a racist demagogue when they see one.

The narrative being spun is that since Trump is a lying racist moron, only racist morons would support him. The first guest on CBC's "The Current" on Nov 4 informed me that the election was a referendum on white supremacy. If that's the case, might as well toss the fake healing and reconciliation out the window now...

Send the racist white trash back to Europe where it came from!

Latest numbers reveal lethality of COVID-19 down exponentially from first wave

When we compare covid case counts between the first and second waves of the pandemic, the (first wave) seven day moving average peaked at 1754 during the first week of May. Today it's at 4554.

While daily case numbers are up over 250%, daily deaths have dropped from a first wave seven day moving average peak of 176, to 58 today, a drop of 67% in absolute numbers.

Put another way, the case fatality rate has plunged from .1 during the first wave, to .01 today. That would seem to undermine the scary headlines about alarm bells and runaway trains we're treated to every day by those whose mission it is to frighten the populace.

_________________

For readers who want to double-check my math, (which is a good idea), I get the stats here and here.

If Trump had half a brain

 If Trump had half a brain he'd get the hell out of that White House and give Joe a "all the best" pat on the back on the way out.

Let Joe take the fall for the next million covid deaths.

Let Joe deal with the fallout when Israel attacks Iran.

Let Joe rise to the occasion as various vassal states in Africa and the Middle East and the Balkans break into open conflict with one another. Let Joe explain why America typically sells arms to all sides. (But don't worry, the F-35 we sell Israel is not the F-35 we sell the Arabs...)

If Trump had half a brain, he'd bow out gracefully now, and bide his time. 

2024 is closer than you think. 

Rising water level wipes out walking trail on Georgian Bay

 Check this out. The broken pavement in foreground is the trail where I used to walk the hounds every morning. The bench is half buried in beach detritus. If this continues the Best Western will become a boat-in destination!

I thought I smelled chipmunk farts...

I'm sitting in the lounge area at Baywest Toyota, because every few months the car tells me it needs maintenance. 

The assistant service manager comes out carrying the air filter that allegedly cleanses the cabin air in my car. He's holding it out in front like he made some kind of exotic discovery.

"I think maybe you got squirrels or something building a nest here."

It's the damned chipmunks. Even though Doublewide dispatched half a dozen of the little bastards over the summer, there's plenty left. I often see them duck under the car, and they'll sit on top of the tires keeping an eye on the cat, me, and the bird-feeders. 

When the coast is clear they'll make a dash for the peanuts we put out for the woodpeckers and blue-jays. 

After a hearty lunch, I suppose they retire to my air cleaner for a leisurely nap.

Here's what I'm wondering. If AI is so smart, instead of the car telling me it "needs maintenance," why can't it tell me there's chipmunks living in it?

Even better would be if that artificial intelligence could get them to move somewhere else.

World welcomes USA to 20th century!

Kamala Harris is but a heart-beat away from the Oval Office! Let the gushing and swooning begin!

Women are finally reaching the ultimate glass ceiling in the dispirited states of America. Just heard an over-the-top CBC commentator gushing and swooning at the same time, which can be problematic for one's undergarments, but not unexpected; the CBC doesn't really think anything happens in the world unless it involves the US.

Just to put Kamala's achievement into perspective, here's a list of countries where women have already been head of state or head of government. Many of these countries have done so more than once, and most of them were doing it last century.

Argentina

Australia

Austria

Bangladesh

Barbados

Belgium

Bolivia

Brazil

Bulgaria

Burundi

Central African Republic

Canada

Chile

Croatia

China

Costa Rica

Denmark

Dominica

East Germany (DDR)

Ethiopia

Estonia

France

Finland

Germany

Gabon

Greece

Guyana

Guinea Bissau

Haiti

Indonesia

Ireland

Israel

India

Iceland

Jamaica

Kosovo

Lithuania

Liberia

Latvia

Malta

Mali

Malawi

Mozambique

Mongolia

Myanmar

Namibia

Norway

Nicaragua

Pakistan

Panama

Peru

Philippines

Portugal

Poland

Rwanda

Romania

Senegal

Singapore

Slovakia

South Korea

Sri Lanka

Taiwan

Thailand

Trinidad and Tobago

Turkey

Ukraine

UK

Yugoslavia

I may have missed a few, but you get the point. Most of the world got to this milestone half a century ago. It's nice to see the Exceptional Nation catching up!

Maybe in another fifty years they'll take a crack at public health care!

 

Blow off your worries with a walk in the woods

We're getting a touch of Indian Summer in November in these parts. Doesn't happen every year.

Between Trump, Biden, covid, and a collapsed economy, most everyone has plenty to worry about. So it was that I decided to get away from it all with a hike in the woods yesterday.

They've re-jigged the Bruce Trail a bit lately, and one of their official side-trails now cuts through the farm next door. I picked up the trail there and headed up towards what is variously known around here as Kemble Mountain, Kemble Rock, or, among the jaded, the Kemble Bump.

Four hours hiking through fresh air and warm temperatures and composting leaves. I had a drink from a stream cascading from higher up. At one point, a sign; "Caution: bear in Area." We're a few days into deer season but not a hunter seen or heard. Just leaves (leafs?) rustling in a middling breeze, bird-song, the scolding of squirrels. I ventured off the Bruce Trail in favour of over-grown logging roads and ATV trails, and for a few kilometres went off-piste altogether. 

Rotting stumps of oaks felled 150 years ago when the first settlers cleared the land. Old stone fence-lines that once marked cleared fields long overgrown again. Every stone of tens and hundreds of thousands in these fence-lines placed there by human hands. Much of this geography was only briefly conquered. Nature is taking the pastures back. Forests felled long ago are growing in again.

Four hours later, all the shit is still shit, and it's still there... but you've gained a whole new perspective on it.

Give it a try.

Trump loses; decorum and decency prevail

There's a reason decency and decorum are held in such high regard by America's permanent ruling class. When you're the world's leading purveyor of murder and mayhem, it's important to have a well-spoken suit as your public face on the world stage. Obama was brilliant in that regard, as were Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. 

Then there's Trump, spewing venom at allies and adversaries alike, in a most indecent and indecorous assault on the norms of diplomatic conduct. His fans considered that "telling it like it is." 

Alas, "telling it like it is" isn't something approved of by the ruling class. After many decades of strutting about the globe, assassinating an unapproved leader here and toppling an hostile regime there, always in the name of human rights and freedom, along comes loose-lips Trump talking about "securing the oil."

No, Donald! It's NOT about the oil, not ever!

It's about freedom! It's about human rights!

If you take a look at the most severe humanitarian crises in the world today, from Afghanistan to Somalia to Syria to Yemen, you'll inevitably find that America's championing of "freedom and human rights" has been an integral factor in driving these catastrophes. When your campaign to spread freedom and human rights requires you to starve children in Iran and Syria and Venezuela, well, to paraphrase Madeliene Albright, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

America's ruling class, after four cringe-worthy years, can breathe easy at last. President Harris will bring back decorum and decency.

It's not likely that the starving children of Syria or Iran or Venezuela will notice or care.

A troubling question for our masters

For the past four years a near unanimous chorus of media voices across broadcast, print, and digital platforms have relentlessly pushed an anti-Trump agenda. From the Access Hollywood gotcha tape, to two years plus of "walls closing in" and "the noose tightening" during the Mueller investigation, to the New York Times making fag-bashing fashionable again, to the plainly absurd Ukie-gate impeachment charade, to the orchestrated attempt by the social media giants to disappear the Hunter Biden laptop story, it's been wall-to-wall anti-Trump hysteria since Trump won the GOP nomination in July 2016.

The question is this; how is it possible, that after a four year saturation influencing operation by the biggest names in news media and the most powerful social media platforms, Donald Trump gets ten million MORE votes in 2020 than he got in 2016?

The gold medal for unhinged hyperbole goes to...

 I've been reading a wide variety of exhortations aimed at getting folks off the couch and out to a voting booth, although with mail-in I suppose you can pretty much stay put. Point is, this is the most important election of your lifetime. Or my lifetime... somebody's lifetime.

Or possibly since the WWII, which possibly could be even longer than a lifetime.

In fact, there are claims that this could be the most consequential election since 1864, or maybe even in the entire history of the USA!

Why is it so important?

For about half the population, it's the last chance to prevent Biden and Harris from turning these United States into the United Soviets of America.

For the other half, it's the last chance to prevent Trump and Pence from turning America into a fascist dictatorship.

So you can see why it's absolutely essential to get out there and exercise your democratic franchise, because one way or the other, this is likely to be the last election in US history! That's in addition to being the most important, and from what I've seen of turnout numbers, there's a lot of folks who don't want to miss this twofer. 

Which is good, because not only is it the most important election in history, it's (and here's the gold medal line) about the next 4000 years!

The gold goes to Bill McKibben at The Guardian.

Lady Gaga ridin' with Biden

To which the only worthwhile response is, get the fuck outta here!

This reminds me of the frantic final 48 hours on Hillary's campaign, when suddenly a bunch of A-list pop culture icons popped up for a desperate hail Mary PR extravaganza.

LeBron. Katy Perry. Madonna...

It didn't work then. It ain't gonna work now.

I've got loads of respect for Lady Gaga. She's done a hell of a lot for her "Little Monster" fan base, ie insecure teens trying to figure out their shit. She's not doing her fan base any favours with this Biden endorsement. 

Lady Gaga has lots of cred in lots of out-there communities, and for her to waste her political capital in an endorsement for a sclerotic establishment douche-bag is a disappointment for many.

Do better, kid.