Israel and the wars to come

As the calendar rolls over, national media are hyping up anti-China, anti-Russia, and anti-Iran hysteria. 

We shouldn't roll over for the propaganda.

If you've been paying attention, you'll know that our mainstream media has been busy getting us to see the nations of the world as the Good Guys and the Bad Guys.

The Good Guys are the Anglo-American Empire, its colonies and camp followers. The EU. NATO. The Nations of Virtue and the Axis of Kindness. We are led by the Light unto the Nations, City on a Hill, the Greatest Democracy and Military and all the usual claptrap ad infinitum.

The Bad Guys are those nations who have notions of freedom from US dominance.

And, led by Xi and Putin, the Bad Guys have been getting way too uppity. They've been making demands and threats all over the place.

Uncle Sam needs to put his foot down, and soon!

Which brings us to Israel, a charter member of the Nations of Virtue.

As everyone knows, Israel has outsize influence in the corridors of power throughout the Anglo-American empire. Israel is by far the biggest recipient of US "foreign aid," which aid generally comes in the form of bombs and bullets.

At the same time, Israel also has cosy relations with two out of three members of the Troika of Tyranny, as the erstwhile warmonger John Bolton has framed it.

When the current cold war with Russia turns hot, it will be interesting to see what US allies do. The recent NATO add-ons in Eastern Europe will be howling for US/NATO involvement, as will the Western world's legacy media.

With the exception of Boris' UK, there isn't a lot of enthusiasm for escalation in the original NATO bloc.

Open warfare with Russia will split NATO. When that war goes south for the Good Guys, the second tier allies like Canada and Australia will melt away.

The fascinating question is, what will Israel do?

As much as the Israelis would like to see Iran obliterated, Israel is up a stump. There have been way too many retired IDF brass speculating in public how many rockets and missiles Iran's regional allies have for Israel to consider an attack on Iran, and Iran has various bilateral mutual support agreements with Russia and China.

When push comes to shove, and American hubris and over-reach leads to the end of the American Empire, I don't think the Israelis will be pitching in for the losing side.

Canada keen to follow USA over the cliff

There has been a very long debate among political scientists and such as to how much information a democratic government can keep from its electorate and still be considered democratic. The self anointed leader of the democratic world operates on the assumption that virtually anything the government does is none of the public’s business. 

That’s why Assange must die.

Ironically, that was also the approach taken by another Joe, Stalin.

Joseph Stalin famously proclaimed that power is exercised by those who govern, not by those who elect.

Although we have adopted Stalin’s interpretation of democratic governance, the leaders of the Nations of Virtue are very concerned about the current leadership in Russia, which has become unacceptably authoritarian.

We have therefore followed a long-term plan to topple that government and install one that is more democratic. This long-term plan has by now brought the Axis of Kindness to the very borders of Russia.

The national newspaper of record today featured an op-ed by three veterans of think tanks sponsored by military contractors. The topic was government secrecy. They believe in Stalin too. Government secrecy is sacrosanct.

Any weakening would put Canada at a severe disadvantage. Our most important intelligence relationship - with the United States, would be gravely undermined by any loss of confidence in the government’s ability to safeguard its sensitive information.

That’s the default position across all legacy media in Canada; we absolutely MUST loyally follow Uncle Sam’s dictats. That’s the reason we need to commit to hundreds of billions in military spending. We gotta stand with our allies when Putin gets too big for his authoritarian britches.

We're the good guys, after all.

It's a shame the opinion pages are so cluttered with writers shilling for the US armaments industry. 

Comfort and joy and pet therapy

Are you the kind of pet owner who gets your cat or dog a Christmas present?

I don't. I figure the scraps from Christmas dinner will be present enough. Not that we would ever do that.

But I'm sitting here in front of the fire, laptop on my lap, of all places, and old Doublewide is purring away right beside me. I'm running my fingers through her thinning fur, and she's enjoying it.

So am I. 

We're obviously enjoying one another's company.

Doublewide has been with us for approximately 8-11 years. We're not exactly sure.

You see, Doublewide arrived at a time when we had a deluge of stray cats congregating in our barn. We were new to Falling Downs, and a friend in town had a cat that just kept having kittens. Instead of advising her to research some possible methods of kitten prevention, we took 'em in.

Well, it's a farm in the country... the coyotes took it from there.

Doublewide well knows what it means to be a survivor.

Bella made my day

Bella lives a kilometre down the side-road where I take my daily walk. 

Back in the day, as I walked by her house with the dog-pack, she would often join us. Bella was a mid-size girl, with collie looks but shepherd markings. She always reminded me of Husso, the first dog I remember having as a kid.

The old pack is long gone by now. Instead, we have Bruno. 

When he's in the mood, I take the mastiff. When he's not in the mood, I don't. And he made a very bad first impression on Bella. I wouldn't quite call it attempted murder, but close.

So today, Bruno opted to stay home with mom, and Bella, for the first time in many months, came out and joined me down to the end of the side-road.

She's definitely getting old. She'll often come out to say hello, but usually turns back after a few hundred feet or so.

Which made today special.

Thanks, Bella!

A fresh start

Turns out the folks next door moved last week, and left their dogs behind.

That would explain why their aggression has been ramping up, to the point where by yesterday, they were standing in front of the house barking, for hours on end. Poor Bruno was afraid to go out for a crap.

We’ve watched the long-term disintegration of the folks next door, so their moving does not come as a surprise. But it pains me to see those beautiful German shepherds suffering because their owners made poor life choices, and there’s no way around it; fentanyl is always a poor life choice.

So yesterday we started making phone calls. We soon discovered it’s not as simple as looking up “dog-catcher” in the phone book.

I called the township. They’ve contracted their dog-catching out to a local shelter. They won’t come and catch the dog, but if you catch it, they’ll come pick it up.

Angry, frightened, and hungry shepherds rushing me with their fangs bared?

No thanks!

I called the OPP. At least they were well acquainted with the neighbours. Alas, they got way more on their plate than barking dogs, but an officer was thoughtful enough to call back a couple times to see if they were still barking.

Late last night, after many hours of barking, I put out a dish of kibble for them. I know that’s not a great strategy for getting rid of hungry dogs, but at least it let them settle down for a few hours.

By 4 a.m. they were ready for breakfast, and the barking started up again. The Farm Manager got on the phone and made another half dozen calls before noon.

Early this afternoon I happened to be standing at the window and witnessed their apprehension.

A white 4 door Jeep drove slowly through the slush and came to a stop. The dogs were already on the road, tails wagging. The driver’s door opened and a hand reached out to pet the dogs. They haven’t barked since the guy stopped. He gets out and puts a leash on one of them and guides it into the back of the Jeep. The other dog follows.

This dude is a serious dog whisperer!

I would have thought these dogs had a bleak future, but after witnessing this interaction I felt hopeful. Get them in a shelter, clean them up and feed them properly, and for the right owner, they would make affable canine companions.

Which is a much better outcome than getting shot!

I’m hoping they get a new start. They’ve earned it.

You know things are bad when the pot-addled hillbilly calls the cops on the neighbours

Because they're fucked up on drugs!

I don't call cops, period.

But I did tonight.

Those poor animals next door have been barking in front of my house for hours. I don't feel particularly threatened, but the big boy only got out for a pee when the shepherds went to bark in front of the neighbour on the other side for ten minutes.

But they're back now.

Constable Priestley, if I got his name right, told me he had got in touch with the neighbour, and while the neighbour wasn't home, someone would come by to coral the dogs.

That was two hours ago, and the dogs are still barking outside my house. 

Who the fuck isn't home while their dogs are out roaming the 'hood?

That does not compute in my world.

But I don't blame the dogs.

In fact, just moments ago, the Farm Manager opined that perhaps we should invite them in the house and feed them.

To which I rejoindered, don't be retarded.

I think the douche-bag next door has moved on and left his dogs behind.

PS.  Almost midnight; after writing the above I put out a bowl of kibble for them. Ya... that'll keep 'em away from the place!

Guns, dogs, and the addicts next door

The addicts next door let their dogs out for days at a time. I assume those are days when the dog owners are off on a dope jag.

Their dogs are a beautiful pair of shepherds, and it's not their fault that their owners are drug-addled assholes.

Nevertheless, after a couple of days of the non-stop barking they do in front of my house, I'm mightily inclined to just get it over with and shoot them.

That's well within my rights according to the country living code of conduct.

At the same time, buddy next door has way more firepower than me. I've got the Cooey .22 single shot I bought at Canadian Tire, back when you could buy guns at Canadian Tire.

The addict next door has the "Don't tread on me" gun rights banner draped over his stoop.

I'm not about to fuck with whatever that might mean.

About that blockbuster bestseller you're not supposed to read

Here’s a great interview with the author, a guy with a famous last name.

That book is apparently the number one bestseller across the USA these days, but if you get all your news from CBC, odds are you’ve never heard of it.

The book has been out for about a month. Here’s what baffles me.

The author utterly destroys the reputation of a guy who has been made into a secular idol by legacy media.

So where are the law suits?

-------

I look in on Jimmy Dore from time to time. Apparently he was an actual B-list actor/comedian before covid, but frankly, I'd never heard of him till he started the current show out of his garage.

He's a little over the top at times, but it's one of the few places us old-school lefties feel at home. I'm a Tommy Douglas and pro-union kinda guy and always was, but I don't seem to have a lot of common ground with what's "left" today.

With respect to the pandemic, I was shocked at how many of my friends made "trust the drug companies" their default position.

What?

Really?

Since when?

Where the coyotes sing Christmas carols

I stepped out on the stoop for a breath of fresh air a few minutes ago, and the hills were alive with the sound of music.

Indeed, the coyote choir was in full throat, and they were belting out Good King Wenceslas, or so it sounded like to me. At the chorus the dogs up the hill, the German shepherds next door, and even Bruno joined in!

Take that, pandemic!

We're not going to let a virus ruin Christmas!

Not again!

We've been bent, but we're not broken after two years of fighting the virus.

And just to prove it, I'm heading back out to sing a few more Christmas carols with the coyotes.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The beer shortage

I knew that would get your attention.

I've been a beer-drinker since my mid-teens. I used to like the heavier stuff, especially the saftig European brands. 

After a few decades of enjoying full-bodied beer, I realize one day that it had been at least ten years since I had last seen my dick whilst in the shower. 

I was fat!

That's when I realized drastic measures were required.

Time to cut back on those random trips through Mickey Dee's drive-through. Now that I do two Big Macs a year instead of two a week, I appreciate a Big Mac much more.

There's way more home-cooking with fresh local ingredients in my diet these days.

I also had to get serious about exercise. I'm not a go-to-the-gym kinda guy. Way too much spandex. So my walk-in-the-woods became my religion. I've been worshipping for about 30 kilometres a week for quite a few years, and almost always with one or more canine companions.

And then there was the beer. I had to ditch the heavy beer.

I settled on what is perhaps one of the blandest brews on the market; Busch Light. But only in the tall cans. It doesn't feel the same in bottles or the wee cans. Sure, that's a come-down for the taste-buds, but at long last, I can see my genitals again.

So here's where my healthy lifestyle gets run over by the current supply-chain crisis; there's been a shortage of Busch Light tallboys!

I've been using the shortage as an excuse. Instead of coming home with the usual, I've been coming home with a six-pack of Lowenbrau, which, at two bucks a pop, is probably the best deal on the market right now, and has allegedly been brewed from the same recipe for over 700 years!

Fat City beckons...

All dressed up and... oops! Here's another lockdown!

Thought we might get the family Christmas party going this year. It's been a family tradition to get together Christmas eve. 

Covid put the kibosh on that last year, but this time around, we figured we were good to go. Plans were made. 

Arrangements were arranged. 

Whoo-hoo!!!

We'll party double hard to make up for last year! Slip an extra mickey into the festive punch and see what happens! 

Oh Ya!

And then...

Omicron!

Oh well... maybe next year.

The sky is always falling somewhere

For the last two years they've done a pretty good job of scaring the shit out of everybody, at least in what is known as the "developed world."

Everybody I know sits around talking about covid and vaccines and whether they should go to the family Christmas party.

That's a First World problem.

Do you think the people in the slums of Lagos or Mumbai or Gaza City are sitting around worried about that?

Oh, they might have some concerns about Christmas dinner all right, but I'm pretty sure those are not covid concerns.

Probably more concerned about starvation or a rocket coming through the roof.

We are herded from one great fear to the next. 

This week it's Omicron, at least in places where they don't have bigger fish to fry.

Which is a revealing metaphor. If you follow this kind of stuff, you'll know declining fish stocks represent an existential threat to communities from the great inland lakes of Africa to the North Sea to the South Pacific and beyond.

Fortunately for us, the pharmaceutical industry gives us plenty of options to deal with the anxieties of life in this age of pandemic.

First World problems deserve First World solutions.

Whether it's a deadly pandemic or a deadly depression, Big Pharma's got your back!

Hope stirs as days grow longer

Another winter solstice in the tank. The days grow longer from here on in.

I find that a hopeful thing. 

Not that you see much reason for hope when you look around...

But that's not true either. It depends on where you are when you look around.

If you're looking around from your perch in an urban homeless encampment, ya, probably not much reason for hope.

When you follow the news, which I do to a clinically pathological extent, it's easy to think there's no hope in the world whatsoever. 

Putin's on the brink of starting a nuclear war over Ukraine.

China's on the brink of annexing Taiwan, and possibly Australia.

And while all those existential threats are threatening you, you're also being existentially threatened by a certain deadly virus that's gosh-darn sure to terminate your existence pronto if you don't get booster shot 17...

That's a shit-load of existential threats, and I understand why it weighs heavily on everyone, and why one-time sensible people line up for booster dose 22 of the safe and effective vaccine.

Then again, when I turn off the screen and look around me, I realize I'm not living on the street, not homeless, not hungry, not existentially threatened in any way whatsoever.

That's because I'm a country bumpkin who lives among farmers. There's food growing all over the place in these parts.

There's also a deer season. And a local fishing industry. Let's not forget the wild leeks and the fiddle-heads. Crisp and delicious apples, one of nature's most perfect foods, fall in the ditch and rot by the ton on the country roads around here.

Maybe that makes it easier to be hopeful.

When the woke warriors of the new US Army carry the Pride Flag into battle against Putin's hordes...

Hilarity is guaranteed to ensue!

First off, the traditional bugle call to action, which dates back to the earliest days of the US Cavalry, is going to have to be updated.

As it stands, it's got way too much structure. It sounds the same every time a competent trumpet player sounds it, and I suspect the notes have been written down somewhere.

Structure is the enemy of inclusion, and note-reading, even more than alphabet reading, is a tool of the oppressor.

Nope, we need more of a free jazz battle call, one that's gonna be fresh and surprising every time. One that is open to buglers of varied abilities. One that embraces, rather than excludes.

Secondly, if the Rooskies don't die laughing at that, we'll hit them with our Inalienable Pronoun Protocol. Even when the commies want to surrender, we won't let them till they sign off. No point in fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights if we don't get them to sign off on the Pronoun Protocol.

Finally, when the oppressed gays throughout the Russian Empire rise up in support of our triumphant invasion, we will install them as our occupation authority throughout that long-suffering land. We'll put in a Paul Bremer, (or even the Paul Bremer if he's gone gay) in our Provisional Rainbow Governing Authority of our Russian Territories.

Our conquest of Russia will be Gay Liberation like you've never seen it before!

On the other hand, if it doesn't work out, maybe the Americans will finally go home, leave the world at peace, and get their own house in order.

Whatever happened to Lackie Brothers?

I served time at the Lackie Brothers shop in Kitchener back in the day.

We were in the International Brotherhood of Iron-workers, Shopmen's Division.

That "Shopmen's Division" was often referred to as the "n-word Division," although at the time, folks actually said the word.

Not that there were any people of colour in the shop, but we considered ourselves n-words because we got about half the hourly rate of the glamour guys who went out on the high steel.

Lackie Brothers was a going concern, and they had big contracts moving machinery into the Bruce Nuclear complex near Tiverton. They did all kinds of millwrighting work and machinery moving. It was actually not a bad gig.

They had a few old Germans on the shop floor. These were guys who learned the trade in the old country. They also learned subservience to authority in the old country. I saw an old dude in tears because he'd asked for time off to attend his grand-daughter's birthday party, and was told no.

Anybody brought up here wouldn't even think about asking permission. You'd just call in sick.

The shop steward was an affable dude. He had a cream job building the heavy-haul floats that Lackie Brothers built in-house. He'd be hours with the rose-bud on those I-beams trying to get the right arc into them. At the time, that was more art than science, and you could pretty much fandangle the process out indefinitely. So Buddy the union boss wrote his own overtime ticket and made out like a bandit.

Which probably made him less than enthusiastic when I came whining about an outside guy working in the shop.

They needed some columns for a project ASAP, and sent a Ironworker from the job site to get the job done. I'm welding the connector plates to one end, and the outside guy is welding them to the other end.

The "Shopmens Local" Ironworker is welding his end of the column for $12/hr.

The regular Ironworker at the other end of the column is doing the same job for $20/hr.

Anyway, it was a decent gig. But they seem to be gone...

Whatever happened to Lackie Brothers?

Adopting Bruno

We had, with great sadness, put down our faithful 16-yr-old Boomer around Thanksgiving last year.

For the first time in many years we were completely unencumbered by dogs.

That felt liberating for about a half hour. Then we just missed Boomer. We knew we'd need another best friend.

The Farm Manager was dialled into a website where they show you dogs available for adoption all over North America. Every other day she'd demand I come and view a new candidate on her screen. Sure, all of them had attributes, but what do you really know about a dog in Texas or Colorado?

Then one day, that website features a dog at the rescue place, R&R, which is like a two minute drive down the road!

Right away you know this is gonna be different.

The dog is a Neapolitan mastiff. The FM had a mastiff before, and loves the big dogs. Needless to say, we had to have a look right away.

We get there and we're in the yard, and they let the big boy out. The big boy rears up on his hind legs to lick the FM's face... and he towers over her when he does that.

She flattens the dog with a ju-jitsu move I had no idea was in her. I figure, well, she just guaranteed we'd never get this dog. Beating up the dog you want to adopt would seem to disqualify you, to my way of thinking.

But I was wrong.

Demonstrating that you can control a dog that's bigger than you is an asset, not a liability.

And that's how Bruno joined our family.

 

The future of beef farming

When I was in my early teens, I spent a couple summers working for the farmer across the way. He made his livelihood via 150 acres and a cow-calf operation of roughly 30 cow-calf pairs.

I remember he got a "Century Farm" plaque in '67. That was an attempt to honour the pioneers who settled this land we stole from the Indians, to mark Canada's centenary. Anyway, his modest beef operation generated enough income that he had a summer place up on Colpoys Bay.

Imagine that; a farmer with a holiday cottage. 

That was a fun job for me. I was barely 14 years old and I got to drive tractors, a combine, and the farm truck.

My summer job included dinner with the farmer and his two spinster sisters. After dinner, the boss would take a nap, which gave me a certain amount of licence in my field activities.

Like trying to get the speedometer on the farm truck to touch 100mph on my foray to the back corn field. I never got it to 100, but I passed 80 on a couple of occasions. 

130 kilometres an hour in a cornfield when you're 14 years old really opens your eyes to life's possibilities...

Fast forward (and in hindsight, it was way too fast) half a century.

This neck of the woods is known for beef farming. That's probably due to the fact the soil is often too boulder-strewn to be viable for cash cropping, thanks to the glaciers dropping random boulders all over the place 10,000 years ago.

But it makes good grazing land.

Beef operations around here are old-school. The cows and their babies walk around in the sunshine, eating grass. Yes, they're being farmed as eventual protein, but in the meantime, they've got a good life.

Problem is, for that kind of farming, you're pretty much limited to a dozen or so cow-calf pairs per hundred acres. When you sell off the calves at 1000 pounds and deduct the $400 it cost to keep the cow over the year, you're left with a profit of roughly $600, or $7,200 for your 100 acres.

Any random 100 acre farm around here typically sells for over a million now. Obviously, nobody spends a million to get a return of seven grand. It's not farmers buying the farms anymore.

Like my boss fifty years ago, beef farmers are in beef farming only because they inherited the farm. Once this generation dies off, it'll be the end of grass-fed beef in Canada.

Unless the folks who raise those animals humanely get a much bigger slice of the retail price. The farmer gets two bucks a pound for something that turns into $12/lb at the meat counter at Foodland. Failing that, you're doomed to feedlot beef going forward. 

And that's where the guilty pleasure of beef becomes all guilt, no pleasure.

More COVID hysteria

Check out this headline, on view at CBC right now; Ontario reports 3,301 new COVID cases on Saturday highest 1 day total since early May.

Highest daily case count since early May?

OH MY GOD!!!

Quick, shut er down again OR WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

Oddly enough, those climbing case counts coincide perfectly with rising test numbers. For the past three days, Ontario has processed over 50,000 tests per day. We haven’t done over 50,000 tests per day since… early May!

What an amazing coincidence!

The addicts next door

The dogs will be out for 36 hours straight.

Then we won't see the dogs for three days.

Sounds about right for a decent dope jag.

Tonight they got the car stuck in the driveway again. That happens a lot. Those bald all-season radials don't do well in the winter.

We marvel at how it's possible to keep getting your car stuck in the driveway, but then again, these are folks who haven't figured out how to cut their lawn the last two summers.

And I hate being a judgemental prick. After all, I've had my moments too.

But there comes a time when you just have to let things take their course.

Commander Ford rallies Team Ontario one last time and girds his loins for battle

And for sure it's the last time. Doug said so himself. 

"Roll up your sleeves for one last booster," he said. 

Ya, right!

We're two years into this shit-show. Surely he doesn't imagine "one last time" has any effect other than inducing maniacal laughter throughout the ranks of Team Ontario?

This is of course fallout from the dreaded Omnicon variant, first officially discovered in South Africa two weeks ago. Our media have told us hundreds of times in these past two weeks that this variant is hyper contagious. 

What they haven't been repeating hundreds of times is that the same lab that found the virus also told us, two weeks ago, that it appears to be significantly less deadly. 

So we're staring into the maw of a highly contagious virus that doesn't make anybody particularly sick.

Sound a lot like the common cold to me.

Flying beagles at the dog park

Weather permitting, I've been taking Bruno to the dog park for a spell every day. He's figuring out how to be a dog, after spending the first year of his life mostly in a crate.

He's made a pack of friends. There's Dexter the golden doodle. Buster the miniature terrier. Cooper and Lilly. And a couple of beagles, Tilley and Grover.

The beagles aren't a quarter of Bruno's size, and they are super fast. They delight in getting the big boy to chase them, and then deke him out at the last second. When he gets his 120 pounds to full speed, he's not very agile in the corners. This can lead to ass-over-teakettle tumbles.

After about fifteen minutes of non-stop romping, he'd had enough. He flopped, exhausted, on his side.

Whereupon Grover flopped right in front of him, nose to nose, pawing his snout, goading him into another run.

Meanwhile, Tilley circles wide, comes at them full tilt, and launches over the both of them. She must have caught a good four feet of air and cleared the two of them with room to spare.

I briefly owned a beagle, Nellie. She too was a rescue. She was a loyal and faithful dog... until it caught a scent. Then she was gone. We rented a cabin one year up on the French River. She disappeared the first day. 

We put up signs and asked around. She'd found her way to Port Loring, a good fifty miles away, where she spent a couple of days in the cab of a high-hoe, whose operator had found her at the boat launch near our cabin.

From there she found her way to an island resort. We were at the dock when a load of folks from Ohio disembarked. She'd been the toast of the resort for the past three days. They had re-christened her "Peaches."

So I was well acquainted with Beagle wiles. But I had never seen one fly until today.

Assange is the ultimate litmus test

It's a done deal across all media in the Nations of Virtue, that Julian Assange is a bad dude.

His crime?

Exposing the war crimes of the "Exceptional Nation," that "City on a Hill" so determined to spread her democratic values all over the world, regardless of how many Muslim prisoners they had to sodomize in 

Abu Ghraib.

But America truly does really love Muslims, and our support for East Turkestan proves it.

Yup, America loves them Uyghur Muslims, so that collateral damage video Assange and Manning released, where the US good guys were yukking it up while machine-gunning unarmed Muslims, well, that's just... PROPAGANDA!!!

Assange is the guy primarily responsible for speaking that ugly truth to power.

That's why Assange must die.

It is disgusting how many so-called journalists have turned their backs on Assange just to keep their pay-cheques.

And that's because the billionaires who own our media aren't about to bite the hand that feeds them.

Oh, that holy union of state and corporate sector! 

Where freedom is home, where the billionaires roam, and the skies are not cloudy all day...

By now I think it's too late.

Fascism has overtaken America.

Julian Assange is all the proof you need.

Chain race at Varney Speedway

Here's the epilogue to my epic saga about the Chevette's I have owned.

When their useful days were done, I sold those 'vettes on to a student of mine, a chap who was active in the stock-car racing sport.

Varney Speedway, the nearest stock-car track, and we're talking a few levels below Nascar here, used to have a novelty called the "chain race." That's where a couple of actual race cars did battle while towing two other vehicles on chains. Those other vehicles had been stripped of propulsion and brakes. The idiots who volunteered to "drive" them had a steering wheel and nothing else.

My enterprising student stripped the 'vettes of their drive trains. Those were good running motors, so I think he made his money back right there. Then he hooked them up to his race car, which, if I recall, was a mid-80s Monte Carlo. 

Chain races are filler, but they're crowd pleasers. Buddy had the two 'vettes hooked up to his racer and went all the way to the finals. When you chain a couple of cars without brakes to a race car, all sorts of hilarity ensues!

Alas, he didn't quite win the championship. On the last lap of the last race, the last 'vette in the chain went over the embankment right after the first turn, tumbled over a few times, and ended our trophy run.

But the thousand bucks he got for losing still gave him a 100% return on what he put into my Chevettes.

The serpent and the menorah

Remember the Chevette? 

One time I’m at a gas station and a wise-ass kid on a bicycle shouts out “nice ‘vette.” I didn’t come up with the right comeback till I was ten miles down the road.

“Nice Harley, kid.”

For a couple of years one of my ‘vettes drove my kids from my place in the country to their mom’s place in town. It was about an hour each way. One time, at the Teviotdale lights, before they put in the round about, I pulled up at the red in the right-turn lane, thinking I’d easily get a hole-shot on the tractor-trailer unit in the other lane.

My strategy might have worked, it not for the jerk making a right turn in front of me. He apparently hadn’t heard the news that you can make a right turn on a red. Then, when the light changed, he took another five seconds to get going.

By that time the transport truck was across the intersection, but not to worry. I’ll just stand on it and let those 88 horsepower work their magic in that 300 yards of merge lane ahead of me.

The abject humiliation of losing a drag race to a Freightliner haunts me to this day.

But by and large, those Chevettes were cheap to run, cheap to buy, and cheap to maintain. Those are the kind of cars the automakers kill, because there’s a certain segment of the consumer public that won’t buy a new car if the old one still works.

One of my Chevettes ferried me back and forth to Guelph every Wednesday night, where I would have dinner and spend a few hours with my children. After dropping them off at their mom’s, I’d meet up with my old pal Robert and his wife, “The Dean,” at the Albion for a couple pitchers of beer.

At the time, I was the welding instructor at a high school 100km up the road. I had a sideline of building metal artsy-facts; furniture, sculpture, bondage accessories. Robert and his wife loved my stuff and have a nice collection to this day. So I took them the hand-crafted menorah to admire.

But during my visit with my children, my dear daughter handed me a box.

“Take good care of it, Dad. It’s the biggest garter snake I’ve ever seen. Keep it till the weekend and I’ll set it free in the garden.”

Sure thing, kid.

So I had a jovial visit with my friends, menorah on our table at the Albion, and when we come out I gotta show them the snake.

I hand the snake box to The Dean, and the snake falls out the box and goes slithering down the street, at midnight, in downtown Guelph.

With my dear daughter’s admonition to take good care of the snake ringing in my ears, I chase the snake down the street…

I got the snake, but I should have noted right there that this would be a stressful evening…

I’m heading home with the menorah and the snake sharing the Chevette. Just as we’re passing the cemetery between Elora and Salem, the headlights go out!

Holy heck! I’ve got another hour to drive… without headlights?

Better to turn back.

I wheel around and take the back roads with the four-way flashers on. I’m half way back to Guelph, when, wonder of wonders, the lights come on!

I stop, say a prayer of gratitude, wheel the ‘vette around and head home again.

I shit you not; we’re heading north again on County Road 7, and just as we pass that same cemetery, THE LIGHTS GO OFF AGAIN!

OK.

Now I got a problem. There’s voodoo going on in my car.

I got the menorah back there.

I got the fucking snake back there.

I got bad mojo happening right here in my Chevette!?!?

I pulled in the lot at the the tractor place just past the gas station in Salem.

I’ve got the forces of Good and the forces of Evil wrestling in existential rage in the back of my car, and I just want to get home and go to sleep!

Obviously, the universe will not allow me to get home. I must decide. Do I ditch the snake?

Or do I ditch the menorah?

If I ditch the snake, I’ll never find it again, breaking my daughter’s heart.

But if I ditch the menorah… it ain’t going anywhere. I could easily retrieve it on my next trip!

But… do you toss the menorah and keep the snake? In the overall scheme of things, that doesn’t sound kosher to me.

I sat there pondering the possibilities for a good ten minutes.

Then I started the car, and… the lights came on!

Made it all the way home!

Next day I called a mechanic. He told me the ‘vettes were famous for a defective electrical relay that caused the lights to go out under certain conditions.

So I guess it wasn’t the epochal battle between Satan and the angels after all…

Why old people smell funny

Bear with me. As a dude who recently got old and retired, I might have some insights.

First off, when you don't have to go to work every day, what's the point of the morning shower? And if there's no point to the morning shower on Monday, what are the odds things are gonna change over the course of the week?

See where this is going?

And since you don't go anywhere or do anything anyway, you probably don't need your old laundry schedule either. 

I've been wearing the same Fred Rogers-style sweater every day for three months now. I do it because I can set the heat to 64 instead of 68 with that sweater.

But by golly, you can see why old people might smell funny.

Everybody's got a crazy uncle

I'm not sure if that's a trope or a meme, but it's definitely a thing.

In my family, amongst the first generation to get off the boat, the crazy uncle was the guy who went to university.

What went wrong? Did he just get too big for his Lederhosen?

That was early years. 

By now, pretty much the entire clan has got their third generation enrolled in post-grad programs of one sort or another. They're doing their Doctor Phils in the most esoteric fields of study. Climatology? Public health? Library science? 

What is this stuff?

Here's what's a little f'd up; a lot of these kids see me as the crazy uncle!

Putin prepared to pounce?

Media are chock-full of speculation that Bad Vlad is about to annex the Ukraine.

This strikes me as dubious. Ukraine is for all intents and purposes a failed state. The US-managed "Revolution of Dignity" didn't deliver much in the way of dignity, or anything else.

Why would Putin want to take on that mess?

There's a larger agenda in play. America is an empire in decline. It gets harder over time to play world hegemon when you haven't won a war since 1945. Many nations in the "Western" bloc continue to take instructions from Washington, but the obvious rot within the "City on a Hill" makes it an increasingly unappealing role model.

Contrast that to our adversaries, ie those nations not willing to take directions from DC. 

China's momentum is going in the opposite direction from America's. Unless we do something drastic soon, China is bound to prevail.

Russia has been a threat to American interests in looting Russia ever since Putin came in and put the run to hyenas like Bill Browder. Unfortunately, Russia also, by all accounts, is a decade ahead of us in hypersonic missile technology. Russia's trajectory also seems to be going in the opposite direction.

When a failing empire is gasping for breath, bad shit is bound to happen.

If we can just goad the Russians and/or the Chinese into reacting to one of our provocations, we'll be fully justified to hit 'em hard with all we got.

The freedom of the world depends on it...

Armageddon is coming sooner than you think.

My Palestinian hashish connection

Back in the day, my pal Abbie was a reliable source of Bekaa blonde. Abbie, short for Abdul, was a Palestinian from the West Bank.

Abbie had a dream, and it wasn't a dream about a Palestinian homeland.

He was of a more practical bent.

Abbie's dream was to have a variety store of his own. 

This was back before the big chains took over the variety store space. There was a time when an enterprising family could open a snack-bar/variety store in their front room. You had one of those every few blocks in every neighbourhood. If you ran a successful operation, responding to the needs of the community, you'd make a decent living. Plus, the real estate you were paying off would be your retirement nest-egg.

Circumstances intervened, and I didn't see Abbie for a few years. I'd been out and about making my mark in the world. Or not, but eventually I came back to the home town. One day I randomly walk into one those old-school variety stores for a pack of smokes, and there's Abbie!

Sure enough, he owned the business and he owned the real estate!

Fate had smiled on Abbie in the most unlikely way. 

Fate had cause a grape to fall from the produce shelf at Zehrs.

Fate then led Abbie into that Zehrs, where he slipped on that grape, sprained his neck, and got a concussion.

The only down side was he had to wear a neck-brace, at least in public, till the court case came up.

Long story short, Zehrs bought him a nice variety store, on a corner lot, with more than adequate living quarters, and Abbie and his extended family lived happily ever after!

Dream globally, live locally

Me and the Farm Manager were marvelling about the many happy news stories we've heard in these dark days of fear and panic.

The monarch butterflies are making a come-back. The FM speculates that could be because the shut-down of air travel made the air better for them. Could be, but I thought the fact there's been more milkweed in the fields was responsible. Of course, those factors could be related.

And apparently those coral reefs in the south pacific are making a come-back too. The FM figures that's because the cruise ships were grounded. She could be onto something there.

At any given moment, pre-Covid, there were hundreds of cruise ships out and about, from the high seas to the great rivers of Europe to the coast of Alaska. At any given moment, there's over half a million people living on those ships.

Celebration of gluttony is one of the features of holiday cruises. There's half a million packaged vacation consumers out on the high seas, spending every waking moment at the all you can eat buffet, at least when they're not at the all you can drink bar.

That's a lot of shit and piss that's gotta go somewhere. Have those people do their eating, drinking, shitting, and pissing at home for a year and a half... the coral reefs are back!

The technocrats and billionaires who meet regularly at COP shindigs or at Davos, are more the problem than the solution. They're wedded to an economic model of perpetual expansion of consumerism. We'll be in good shape so long as everybody keeps buying more and more shit.

No, we won't. And we don't need the permission of the billionaires and their host of lackeys to take a different tack.

Just slow down on the consumption. Let's see if we can make the economy shrink rather than grow. Less plastic in the oceans. Less garbage in the landfill. 

Let's make all you can eat and drink vacation packages as stigmatising as smoking in the grocery store.

Let's grow more of our food in our own gardens.

Let's see how well we can dine while eschewing anything that arrived via air cargo. I miss shrimp rings, but local smoked whitefish is pretty good too, and there's the feel-good factor of knowing there's no slave labour in the supply chain.

Buy less.

Live more.

7 World Trade Center and Frankel Steel

Long before I was a high school teacher or a house-builder or a ship-yard worker, I served a spell at the Frankel Steel fab shop in Milton, Ontario.

During my tenure, that shop did the structural steel for a Trump casino in Atlantic City, an addition to the Toyota plant in Cambridge, and various towers in New York City.

One of those towers was 7 World Trade Center, which would get famous almost twenty years later.

Quite aside from the fame, that project was memorable because some of the structural columns were far from ordinary. Apparently the building was going up over a subway station or power station or something, and you had some really interesting stuff to figure out to make that happen. As a fitter-welder, I had to do math I’d never imagined before, just to get the angles on the connector plates right.

About a year into my stay at Frankel, an opening came up in the QC department for a welding inspector. I wrote a CWB exam and got a Level 2 Welding Inspector ticket and had the job.

I was relatively young and naive, and liked the job, and therefore tried to do it better than anyone had ever done it before.

Big mistake. To be honest, I should have known better. By that point I was well acquainted with shop-floor culture.

Doing a bang-up job resulted in me doing 3X the inspections of the guy on the opposite shift, who’d been an inspector for twenty years. Inspector was a bargaining unit job, and you simply don’t make your union brothers look bad.

That was the shop-floor code.

The head of QC, while not in the bargaining unit, may have been getting nervous that this keener was just a little too keen.

I was in the habit of leaving well-written and highly entertaining reports for the head of QC. He seemed to enjoy them. One night I left a note recommending he get lawn chairs for the welders, so they could stay out of my way while I’m doing inspections.

When I got to work at 4 pm next day, every welder on the shop floor had a copy of that hilarious note. None of them found it amusing.

I did the only honourable thing I could do at that point; fall on my sword. That was my last day at Frankel Steel.

It only occurred to me recently that there may have been more than shop-floor etiquette in play.

During my brief tenure as an inspector, I had flagged three columns in the shipping yard that were fabricated on lower grade H-beams than what the specs called for. If the engineers specify a certain sheer strength in the steel there’s probably a reason.

Those cheaper H-beams saved a lot of money. Maybe I had to go because using lower grade steel was more than an innocent mistake? 

Make the billionaires pay

How much is too much?

That’s not a question a lot of people are asking, but why not? When we’ve got more people than ever in poverty, how is it possible we have more people than ever with fortunes in the tens and even hundreds of billions?

Could there be a connection?

Of course! In case you haven’t noticed, politics has become all about the money. When the billionaire class have bought and paid for the political order, why is it considered radical to suggest they tilt the field in favour of their self interest?

And let’s face it, if we cut back a multi-billionaire to a net worth of $900 million, it’s not as if they’ll be deprived of anything. You can have a nice country estate off Airport Road, and luxury condos in Whistler and Florida, and a modest Learjet to get around, and still have $850 million to leave to your kids.

What they’ll be deprived of is the ability to drop billions into political causes.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, somebody making $15/hr is barely gonna make it to a million bucks over the course of their working life. In a political system where money = power, how much power do they have?

On the one hand, there’s nothing like capitalism to motivate you to put in 90 hour weeks in order to make your business grow. Been there, done that. We don’t want to destroy the incentive to work.

On the other, it’s impossible to deny that back in the days of the 90% marginal income tax rate, when unions still had some schlep and before multi-billionaires roamed the earth, life was better.

We need to find a fair balance.

The addicts next door

The farm next door has a little cottage on the property that the original farmer built for his son. The current owner of the place is a dentist who lives far away, and lets out both the farmhouse and the cottage.

A few years ago a new couple moved into the cottage. They pretty much kept to themselves. I respect that. It's why folks move to the country; to enjoy some peace and tranquillity.

They owned two beautiful German shepherds. In the early years those dogs and our dogs wore a trail into the hayfield chasing each other back and forth across the quarter mile or so that separates us.

But things changed. The woman left. Police were involved. Things went downhill. The dude hasn't cut his lawn the last two summers.

There's a new woman, but we seldom see her. We seldom see the dogs. They'll be out for 18 hours straight, and then we don't see them for days at a time. They are seriously neglected, and I feel sorry for them.

Word is, it's fentanyl. Makes sense. You're off on a trip and who cares if the dogs shit in the house?

I always had a pretty loose attitude towards drugs in general, but what I'm seeing here gives me pause. These people have more or less ceased to function in society, save whatever social interactions are required to get more drugs. The dentist is trying to get them out because they can't pay rent. But they can afford to be completely messed up on drugs for days at a time.

We know how this ends. I just worry for the dogs.

World braces for Trump come-back

These are bleak times for Canada. From wildfires to catastrophic floods, the truth of climate change is making us pay attention. On top of that, we’ve spent almost two years and over 200 billions fighting the killer virus that’s still killing us, only to learn there’s an even deadlier variant on the way.

So you can imagine my reaction when I opened my Globe and Mail today and read this headline; “Canada must prepare for a Trump revival.”

OMG!!!

Haven’t we suffered enough? Besides, I was under the impression the Orange Ogre had been democratically deposed a year ago.

But experts whose thoughts the Globe brain trust see fit to publish are deeply concerned. For some reason, the worst president in history remains enormously popular, (which is, among other things, a searing indictment of America’s education system.)

The experts seem to think President Biden doesn’t have a hope in hell to win in ‘24. Based on his first ten months, they may be right.

Then Trump “would renew the awful menace the world barely survived the first time. As before, he would imperil world peace, give cover to authoritarians everywhere and destabilize the rules-based international legal order.”

Luckily, the experts see a way out, and Canada can play a leading role. The world needs a new coalition of democracies that could serve as the political wing of NATO. Current international institutions like the UN are no good, because they allow non-democracies to participate.

Our new coalition will employ the same all-for-one and one-for-all strategy used by NATO. We will reward countries who play democratic ball, together. We will punish those who don’t, together.

Sounds like the “experts” are trying to breathe fresh life into the American Empire!

Another black eye for Canada's "feminist foreign policy"

As far as I could tell from the news stories, parents of school-age children across Canada were thrilled and delighted to finally be able to have their wee ones vaccinated against the covid virus as of yesterday.

As luck would have it, yesterday also marked the release of the World Health Organization’s Interim Statement on COVID-19 Vaccination for Children and Adolescents. The document weighs the various pros and cons associated with child vaccination and points out that globally, the sum total of deaths in under - 25s amounts to .5% of all covid deaths.

It also points out that the vaccines would be far more useful if, instead of being used on a low-risk group in rich countries, they were applied to high-risk groups in poor countries. The following paragraph comes from the conclusion.

As a matter of global equity, as long as many parts of the world are facing extreme vaccine shortages, countries that have achieved high vaccine coverage in their high-risk populations should prioritize global sharing of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX facility before proceeding to vaccination of children and adolescents who are at low risk for severe disease.

Here in one of the richest of the rich countries, once we realized Moderna had higher risk factors than Pfizer, we quickly donated our 10 million dose stock-pile of Moderna vaccines to COVAX, and, our consciences assuaged, went full speed ahead with the roll-out of Pfizer’s children’s vaccine!

While that falls short of the spirit of the WHO recommendation, who cares?!

The thinking in Ottawa seems to be, feminist foreign policy aside, those poor countries should be grateful for whatever we give them, so too bad for their at-risk women and children.

That's how we roll here in the cradle of the world's first "feminist foreign policy."

Falling in the campfire while drunk

I long believed the world could be divided into two types of people; those who have fallen into the campfire while drunk, and those who have not.

But as the numbers on the odometer of life spin by, I've come to see that binary interpretation of reality as somewhat of an over-simplification.

For instance, there is no consideration whatsoever of those who fell into the campfire while sober.

Nor is there any consideration of those who may have been drunk, but fell into the outhouse or off the balcony instead.

I suspect that by the end of the day, Darwin will have separated the wheat from the chaff, as it were.

Which kinda brings us back to the binary, I suppose. 

In which case, we need to delve further and drill down deeper, and circle around the drain for awhile, something that used to be called "participatory sociology," before it was called something else. No "science" is as desperate as the social sciences to freshen up with some jargon shuffling.

But no matter. Where others see gratuitous preening, I see opportunity. Clearly, the question of campfire drinking requires more in the way of rigorous academic inquiry. And clearly, with my in-depth knowledge of and experience in both drinking and campfires, I'm the guy for the job.

Luckily, I have recently entered that stage of life called "retirement," and faced with multiple unpleasant options, have decided this might be the time for that graduate degree in Soc. To that end, I'm looking around for a school that would have me.

I was thinking Ryerson, because they're pretty open to fresh ideas. Mind you, they seem pretty open to completely stupid ideas too, but that doesn't necessarily hurt my case.

So I'm working on a thesis proposal and also preparing multiple grant applications, so I can hit the ground running. If I can pull this off, I should be able to get enough money to study campfire drunkeness as a participant observer for at least the next three or four years.

See you round the campfire!

Only in America

The true believers still think of America as "the city on a hill."

The light unto the nations, and all that shit.

Only in America can a 17 year old kid (legally) arm himself with an assault rifle and deputize himself as a custodian of law and order.

Only in America can random miscreants arm themselves and have the full support of major media in their campaign to right historical wrongs by looting and rioting.

Only in America could the ensuing clash of moral imperatives result in a media melt-down and… more looting and rioting?

Sometimes it’s way better to live in the city down the hill.

Make Canada Great Again

One of the thought leaders at Canada’s newspaper of record has some tips today on how we can regain the swagger he imagines we once had on the world stage. Seems our allies are sniggering behind our backs at our failure to stand up to the Yellow Peril, and we desperately need to get back in their good graces.

Firstly, we need to stand strong with Taiwan, the former province of China now under threat of invasion.

That’s easy to say, but what will that look like in real life? Is there any reason to believe it’ll look better than how we stood with the people of Afghanistan against the Taliban? We and our allies were run out of that benighted land by a gaggle of semi-organized illiterate religious fanatics wielding WW2 era weaponry. The People’s Liberation Army is two million strong and is a generation ahead of us in military tech.

Secondly, we need to make “a big push to turn the QUAD - the strategic partnership among the US, India, Japan, and Australia - into QUINT, with Canada the fifth member.”

The QUAD is another of those confections baked up in Uncle Sam’s regime change kitchen. There is zero evidence that any QUAD actions or proclamations over the past few years has made any difference to Chinese policy, but for some reason our joining this ineffective coalition will get their attention? I think not.

And since we’re gonna be standing with our allies, we better stand with them in AUKUS too. When the commies realize we Canucks just turned AUKUS into CAUKUS, they’ll no doubt abandon their claims to Taiwan in short order.

Finally, and this can’t be over-emphasized, we gotta spend some serious money on our military. Look at those plucky Australians -spending 50% more of their GDP on “defence” than we do!

Oh, the searing shame of our neglectful defence spending! If only we had big cajones like the Aussies, we too could commit hundreds of billions to a made-in-USA nuclear submarine fleet…

That would no doubt make our feminist foreign policy the envy of our allies once and for all!

What are we waiting for? Let’s snuggle up closer to Uncle Sam and make Canada great again!

The guys who flunk terrorist training

There's a story in the news today about a terrorist attack in Kampala. Three suicide bombers blew themselves up and took out three people.

I don't imagine that 1:1 kill ratio is considered anything to be proud of in terrorist circles. Pretty sure that ain't gonna get you the 77 virgins. That's too bad, because these poor guys aren't gonna get another chance at the Terrorist Hall of Fame, are they?

Nobody on any side is gonna want to have anything to do with these losers in the afterlife.

Whenever they bust one of these terror cells, there's always talk about financing and training. Disrupting the finance networks is gonna strangle these terror cells, they tell us.

But seriously, how much training can it possibly take to get a dim-witted Muslim kid to put on a vest and push a button? And the finance requirements would be minimal too.

So three terrorists take out three random people somewhere over there. So what. We see stories all the time about one strategically placed suicide bomber taking out dozens, even hundreds. Those are the guys who get the 77 virgins!

The reason this is news is because it happened in Uganda, a pet protectorate of the Nations of Virtue. Seems this sort of stuff has been spreading in Africa, especially after we dispatched Wacky Ghadaffy.

Wasn't he the butt of every anti-Arab joke for 100 years. We toyed with him, ridiculed him, and eventually killed him. Along the way we forgot he was the guy who kept African migrants out of the Mediterranean, and thus out of Europe.

Ten years later, we profess shock that the chaos we brought to Libya has spread far beyond...

Wacky Ghadaffy's revenge!

There better be a stinkin' wiener in my chili dog today

A few weeks ago I wrote about a guy who retired and bought the fishing boat of his dreams, just as he found out he was facing kidney failure and also required heart surgery. I hinted Buddy would welcome a fishing buddy to help with the little things, like hooking up the trailer, launching the boat, helping him into the boat, baiting the line, landing the fish, etc...

I haven't volunteered my services yet, but a mutual acquaintance did.

Alas, the fishing trip almost ran aground on a chili dog scandal. Buddy's had a favourite greasy spoon joint up near Huntsville for decades.  No trip up north is complete without a quick stop to pick up a chili dog. Buddy orders other buddy to stop and grab them a couple of chili dogs to go.

They're heading on up the highway. As Buddy unwraps his much anticipated treat, a look of horror falls across his face.

There's.

No.

Stinkin'.

Wiener.

On.

My.

Stinkin'.

Dog!

And there wasn't. The would-be fishing buddy had erroneously ordered chili on a bun instead of chili dogs. That almost put the kibosh on the trip right there, but the cooler head prevailed. 

Next day they're heading back home. Buddy orders his assistant to stop at the chili joint again, glares at him, and in a voice brimming with menace, declares, "there better be a stinkin' wiener in my chili dog today."

Read this before taking a crap in the woods

I was out walking The Big Boy this morning. As the weather cools he's been going a little further. A couple of times I've already had him to the end of the side-road, and that hasn't happened since May. Once there's snow on the ground he'll be happily galumpping right to the end every day.

The guy across the way came by with a round bale on the front of his John Deere, heading out to the pasture where he's grazing a couple of dozen head. Ya, I know that doesn't make sense. If they're grazing, why do you have to bring them hay? Always happens the last few weeks of the season. Once the snow flies they'll drive them back to the home farm to winter.

He stops in the middle of the road and shuts off the motor, and we catch up on what's new. Last week was deer season and I wondered how he'd fared out. Pretty good, it seems. His party got three, including a 12 point swamp buck.

Not being a hunter, that doesn't mean much to me, but he seemed quite chuffed.

"I've seen it on my trail cam, but I never thought we'd get it."

Trailcam?

"Ya, a little solar-powered camera. You just spike it to a tree and you're good. I can watch it on my phone. I've seen him in the marsh across from your place, and down by Bass Lake."

So you move that camera around?

"Hell no. I got a dozen of 'em. Got them everywhere. I can see all the pastures right there on my phone, and all the deer yards too. By God, one time down where the Bruce Trail meets the north pasture, some hiker takes a crap right in front of the camera. That's way more than you need to see when your checking on your cattle, I tell ya. What an asshole. Next time somebody does that to me I'm gonna put them on the internet."

All vaccines perfectly safe, but some safer than others

As the entire world knows, Canada under PM Fluffy sports one of the most progressive foreign policies in the world. It is so progressive that it is known far and wide as "Canada's Feminist Foreign Policy."

Just to prove it, Ottawa announced multiple times in recent weeks that we're donating 10 million doses of the Moderna vaccine to poor countries, because women and girls...

Why Moderna?

Well, although all vaccines are perfectly safe, when they're not, they're more likely to be Moderna. In fact, they're so much more likely to be Moderna that at least 16 EU countries as well as Japan have discontinued the use of the Moderna vaccine!

So, what to do with our 10 million perfectly-safe-but-not-as-safe-as-the-other shots we have in storage?

Why, we'll donate them to poor countries, garner some headlines, and bask in the refracted glow of our virtue!

That's how we roll here in the land of the Feminist Foreign Policy.

Guns and ammo will trump the pandemic

True story.

Guy I know from way back drives a delivery van back and forth across the border.

Getting across that border has been dicey for the last almost couple of years.

In fact, that border’s been closed for most of the last almost couple of years.

Buddy crosses that border multiple times per week.

He’s never been vaccinated.

He’s allowed to cross that border because the paper-work for his cargo bears the Department of Homeland Security imprimatur.

His cargo?

Guns and bullets.

You wouldn’t want to interfere with the trafficking of guns and bullets just on account of some pesky virus going around, would you?

Immigrants

My parents got off the boat at Pier 21.

Dad’s first job in the promised land was shovelling coal. With a hand shovel, not a power shovel.

It was a fluke we arrived in Canada, but a well thought out fluke.

On Dad’s side, we had multiple family connections in Ohio and Illinois.

On Mom’s side, there were well established aunties and cousins in New York and New Jersey.

But we came to Canada instead.

My parents had lived the WW2 at ground level. They thought Canada would be a better bet.

They’d seen enough of war, and figured their children were less likely to see war themselves if they went to Canada rather than the USA.

And here we are.

Three generations in, the coal shoveller’s progeny are all well-established and productive citizens.

As are the third generation of the extended family on both sides of the family, on both sides of the Canada-US border.

In fact, a startling percentage of the 3rd generation seems to be enrolled in PhD programs in one thing or another.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I’m in favour of generous immigration policies.

That said, there are reasons to quibble with our current immigration regimen.

First and foremost among the quibbles; when there’s not enough affordable housing to go around for the people who already live here, what is the impact of importing ever-higher numbers of immigrants without any policies to address the acute housing crisis these people will be facing?

This policy of not having a housing policy is guaranteed to stoke resentment against immigrants.

Maybe that’s the plan.

Flooding the country with immigrants while providing no housing is a great way to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment.

The people devising these plans are keen on keeping working folks divided. 

As long as the mice are at each other's throats they'll never make common cause against the fat cats.

Blowing smoke in Glasgow

Well, time for another climate conference. This is apparently the twenty-sixth kick at the cat. 

The big dogs were all in attendance. 400 private jets, if such a thing can be imagined. There wasn't enough jet parking at Glasgow airport, so after the first few dozen, the rest had to drop their passengers and then fly empty to anywhere that had surplus jet parking available.

That's gotta be a bitch on CO2 emissions. 

And then there was roughly 25,000 wannabees, mostly hoping to tell their grandchildren they were at COP26, kinda like their own grandparents told them about seeing Elvis on TV for the first time.

The same politicians who have talked up a storm in previous climate summits were back to talk some more. Big Joe Biden popped over from the Vatican, where'd he'd just dropped in on His Holiness, arriving in a convoy of seven dozen gas-guzzling climate killing petrol-burners.

That's gotta be a bitch too.

And our own PM Fluffy was given a two-minute time slot to address the cognoscenti. Looking like a serious person in a blue business suit, he solemnly announced a cap on growth in emissions, which is almost universally being reported as a cap on emissions.

Don't forget; this is the guy who thinks you're stupid enough to believe we have to export more bitumen to fight climate change.

He's so serious about fighting global whatever, he even bought us a pipeline! 

I'm starting to think that deal was a twofer. Get a couple of billionaires out of a pickle (with an eye on future board appointments) on the one hand, and then just shut-er-down, thereby gaining a few points with the Greta Thunbergs of the world.

Anyway, what does it matter? The only thing you can be certain of with these climate conferences, is nobody ever meets their commitments.

It's all theatre.

Over half of new Covid cases in York Region are in the fully vaxxed

That’s a stat buried deep in this story about the unfortunate beer league hockey player who got covid and died after a game where a whack of fully vaccinated guys managed to give one another the virus. Notice how they bury that tidbit so far into the story few will ever get to it.

The actual number is 54.2 %. 

But not to worry. That doesn’t mean the vaccines are ineffective.

Sure, you can still get covid, but it won’t be as bad. You can still pass it to others, but they won’t get as sick. And you can still die from it…

But you won’t be as dead.

Fear and loathing at the dog park

I take Bruno to the park about quarter aught eight this morning. It's a cold drizzly shitty morning, and there's nobody there.

On account of the weather, which is only predicted to worsen, I figure my 5k lap up the sideroad might be scrubbed today. The drizzle could turn to rain by then. I decided we'd do a few turns around the empty dog-park.

On about our third turn I notice that the mom of the super-poofy poodle and the wee terrier-doodle is bringing her kids in.

I'd assumed she had also reciprocally noted the presence of me and the Big Boy. Apparently that was not the case.

She didn't notice till both her dogs had their noses on Bruno's nether regions. And he on theirs. It's what dogs do.

Then they began to romp... and poodle-doodle mama panics. 

The dogs are chasing each other, and she's chasing the dogs wailing Koko Koko Koko!!!

I assume that was the name of her little Doodle.

She finally corrals Koko, puts her other pup on the leash, and off they go.

No more dog park for her kids.

She doesn't even realize Koko scared Bruno way more than he scared her.

What if a super-rich super villain bought up global shipping capacity...

... and let most of it sit idle, "waiting to unload," while stock mysteriously continues to appear in the supply chains he owns?

I think we're on the cusp of a great conspiracy theory here!

Think about it...

What if some uber-capitalist got his tentacles so deep into the retail infrastructure that he had a near monopoly on the retail trade. Since the retail trade, at least beyond the grocery stores, is entirely dependant on throw-away junk manufactured in China, gaining control of the shipping lanes would allow him to cut off inventory to his rivals, thereby securing an even greater market share!

Genius!

Entirely evil, but genius!

And don't worry about the grocery angle. There's another evil genius is the biggest farmland owner in America now. I'm sure they'll be able to work something out.

As for you, get used to paying plenty more for substantially less.

UFC announces cage match between Dave Chappelle and Robin D'Angelo

This could be big.

This could totally blow up.

This could be bigger in pay-per-view than Mayweather- Pacquiao, and that payday ran into the hundreds of millions.

The combatants are standing in for the two sides in America's civil war. 

Robin is the Great White Hope of Wokeism in America.

Dave Chappelle is a Black dude who ain't woke. Or maybe too woke...

My money's on the Black dude.

The death Douala

Back in my U of G days, (nothing but steers and queers down there, a guidance counsellor warned me) I made friends with a gal who was something of a feminist radical at the time.

Maybe we just bonded over our mutual love for long hours at the campus pub.

But she had one helluva career trajectory.

Had a dream to work on a west coast fishing boat. Which she did.

Had a job many years as the camp cook for a couple of gold prospectors who had a 100 acre stake in Yukon, where they panned just enough gold to do it again next year.

The fishing gig ends her up in Alaska.

Next news I hear about my old pal comes from a neighbour I never talked to before.

I'm out walking the hounds one morning, and this old-timer local pulls over, lowers the window, and shuts off the ignition.

I just came back from a camping trip up to Alaska. I'm at the border coming back to Canada, and the border girl saw my address, and wondered if I knew the guy walking his dogs all over town.

Well, holy shit!

There you go!

It's a small world no matter how far you run to get away from it!

My old pal went from border guard to midwife to Douala. 

Last I heard, she was a Death Douala.

That's quite a progression, isn't it?

Perhaps we'll meet again...

Let's go Brandon!

These past eighteen months have been fraught times in America. From the racial reckoning to the Afghanistan humiliation to the deadly pandemic, Americans have been ripping each other apart and tearing their country to pieces.

It’s beyond obvious that America needs a great unifier. Someone who can bring a divided nation together. Someone who can heal the many self-inflicted wounds that once-great nation is staggering under. Someone who can, forgive the phrase, but America needs someone to rally around and make America great again.

A lot of folks had put their faith in Donald Trump, but he proved a false messiah.

When Joe Biden took America by storm in the greatest triumph in the history of US democracy, the people’s hopes were raised again…

Alas, those hopes are fading even faster than old Joe himself.

But hope arises anew, and from the most unlikely of places; a NASCAR track! A humble race-car driver by the name of Brandon Brown is bringing Americans together like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

From young Black rappers to fat old honkies and everything in between, young Brandon is the unifier in America’s hour of need!

Let's go Brandon!

Nothing but fun at Hydro One

"Hydro One" is the bastardized product of one of those neolib experiments in utility privatization.

As these privatization adventures go, this one hasn't worked out too badly for the workers, at least not yet.

At the pre-privatized Ontario Hydro, the place was known far and wide as a good gig. Wages were roughly double what they were in the local economy for the same trades. They were a union shop in the sweet spot, like cops and teachers, where your job couldn't be sent to Mexico or China.

There's been a crew working on the sideroad this week, pruning back the trees growing under the power lines. Not only are they well paid, these folks know how to have fun at work.

Yesterday I was astonished to see, from my perch on the porch, that the bucket truck had it's boom in the fully extended position. There's a Hydro One employee in that bucket, making that happen. He's about 30 feet above the actual power lines, and his job is to cut back the brush growing under those lines!

Today me and Bruno took a walk by the crew. They were taking a break, as chance would have it, so I had a opportunity to engage them in conversation.

Turns out the boom on that bucket has a reach of 55'. 

Where it's mounted on the truck is already 13' off the ground.

Buddy was surveying the scenery from a height of 68'!

Can you see Georgian Bay from there?

Oh Ya!

So now we know, all we have to do is build a six-storey addition to get that water view we've always wanted.

Life is shorter than you think. Go fishing now

Guy I know had a really good run of decent luck.

Like me, he dropped out of high school and graduated into an economy of unionized factory jobs where a high school drop-out could make more money than the teachers in the high school we just dropped out of.

We thought that was the natural order of things.

But things changed.

Buddy was one of the guys who managed to hang on to a quality union factory job in the only factory that didn’t shutter and move to Mexico or China. That’s because it was the only factory in town with Japanese ownership, and apparently they have some crazy-ass management theory that puts long term objectives ahead of quarterly results.

So he enjoys a nice ride into the sunset, having spent forty years assembling giant Hitachi off-road trucks, and wouldn’t you know it, within six months of retirement he comes down with health issues.

Buddy had always been an avid fisherman. Them’s the guys who’d rather go fishing than go home. I used to think that’s because they had a shitty home life, but I’ve come to appreciate there’s folks who just seriously love fishing.

He was one of those.

He’s been fishing out of make-do boats all his life, because, after all, there are priorities. Mortgage, child support… all the usual stuff.

When he retires, he sells his house, takes an apartment, and splashes out 50 big ones for the fishing boat of his dreams. An 18 footer with a 135 Merc and a 15 hp kicker.

A week later he starts dialysis.

Now he’s got the boat of his dreams, and he’s so worn down by his health issues he doesn’t have the strength to launch the boat. Needs a fishing buddy bad.

Haven’t talked to him in thirty years, but maybe I’ll give him a call.

You know you're in the 9th inning when you set aside the flyer from the discount cremation service

And if you're a pensioner, you should set that flyer aside, or at least get going with some plan that acknowledges you won't live forever.

Lets not sugar-coat it; you could drop dead any minute. In these days of pestilence, the odds are even better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it.

But here's why I'm of two minds.

On the one hand, once you've dropped dead, you're past giving a shit about any inconvenience that may have inflicted on those you left, so who cares?

On the other hand, you're not dead yet, and if you're any kind of a mensch at all, you do care.

So look after that stuff, before it's too late. Prepay that cremation now, and spare your survivors the ordeal of "making arrangements" in their moment of grief.

As for me, I'm looking forward to extra innings.

Stats suggest tobacco use increases lifespan

According to the World Health Organization, Canada ranks 16th in life expectancy among all countries. The countries in which you can expect to live longer are: Iceland, Sweden, Luxemburg, France, Norway, Israel, Italy, Australia, Cyprus, Spain, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, and Japan.

Here's the WHO stat that caught my attention. With the exception of Australia, Iceland, and Singapore, all those countries have higher rates of cigarette smoking than Canada, sometimes wildly so. In Canada, 17.5% of the adult population smoked in 2018. (wonder if that went up during lockdown?) In France it's double; 34.6%, and in Cyprus it's even higher!

Proving yet again that stats will trump lies, even big lies, every time!

Best thing about the days getting shorter - they'll be getting longer soon!

I didn't pay attention to the seasons before I became a pensioner. Now that I've become a pensioner who does nothing but sit on the stoop all day, I notice them a lot more.

I've learned they're cyclical. One follows the other, and then comes the next. This goes on season after season, year after year. 

Who knew!?

Not that I didn't notice the seasons. If the heating bill jumped 500%, it was winter. If you had to cut the lawn, it was summer. Simple as that.

Now I'm seeing the geese ramp up their practice flights every autumn. That's roughly when the bats vacate their attic apartment to make for their winter digs in the caves along the escarpment, not more than five miles away. I don't understand why they bother moving.

That's one of the things you come to realize when you're watching the seasons roll by; how much you don't understand.

But they'll keep rolling by, whether you understand it or not.

 

Prostate exam? There's an app for that

I gotta say my doctor has really taken to these tele-health long-distance check-ups we've been doing since the pandemic descended.

But, sooner or later, I'm gonna have to go in for the dreaded prostrate grope.

And that, dear reader, is how necessity becomes the mother of invention. You're getting all your health care over some combination of internet-telecom anyway...

Why can't there be an app for that?

I'm working on it. It's gonna be called the Procto 500.

Sounds sorta racy, eh? Everybody's heard about the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500, right?

Why not the Procto 500?

Once you've downloaded the app, all you have to do is stick your cellphone up your ass for 8 and a half minutes, and you just spared yourself the inconvenience of a commute to the doctor's office and the indignity of having a person you're having a mutually respectful professional relationship with stick his finger up your butt.

Within another few minutes the secret algorithms within the app will have sent a complete summary of your prostate condition to the doctor.

If you think you may have more going on than mere prostate issues, you can upgrade, at a small extra charge, to the Procto Le Mans Edition. That'll give you a read-out on everything between your ankles and your collar bones. The only drawback is, once you stick that iPhone where the sun don't shine, you gotta leave it there 24 hours.

Is that a boffo concept or what?! I'll be heading Silicone Valley way shortly to rustle up some venture capital.

In the meantime, if you want to get in on the ground floor, send your moneygram to this blog.

F@ck science; just shut-up and obey the rules

If you find yourself with some free time, compare covid stats between locales that had very extensive mask mandates and those that had loose or no mask mandates. As for the masks themselves, it’s generally acknowledged in the literature, although not in the news headlines, that unless you’ve got a N-95 or better, there’s not much point.

So what to make of this story? A teacher in Ontario isn’t happy with the standard surgical masks issued by his school board. So he stocks up N-95s out of his own pocket, just to up the safety quotient.

Admin hauls him in and threatens to suspend him if he’s not using the proscribed and useless surgical masks.

How is this about anything other than the raw flexing of bureaucratic muscle?

That used to be called “fascism.” 

I spent 25 years teaching in Ontario. It was my experience that a system that never tires of proclaiming it's progressive bona fides and boasting about how they inculcate critical thinking doesn't do any thinking whatsoever.  

What you have instead, is a leadership class across the system consisting, with rare exceptions, of trend-following dullards who hate students and love shitting on the teachers they left behind on their climb up the career ladder.

Plumbing the depths of idiocy

Blogger is the biggest blog host in the world. I've been on it for ten years plus.

I posted a little something a couple of hours ago. It has yet to attract a view.

Meanwhile, the same post already found it's way to Before It's News, where it's had over a dozen.

Ya, I know that's bupkiss in the overall scheme of things, but how does it leak to Before It's News while still showing zero traffic at Blogger?

And seriously, why does anything I'll ever have to say need to be censored?

It's not as if I'm some sort of fired-up revolutionary.

The folks who study these matters seem to largely agree that the happiness factor is highest in Nordic nations with high taxes and a social-democratic tradition in politics. No need to guillotine the billionaires if you tax them enough on the way up to ensure they don't get there.

I shall crush your skulls

That's me playing "Lord of the Flies" out on the stoop with my fly-swatter.

Except I'm not lording it over the flies.

On this beautiful summer day in October, I'm dealing with a ladybug infestation on the front porch.

I've done my research. Apparently a ladybug is actually a "Coccenillidae."

Quite possibly concocted in the same Wuhan lab where they invented you-know-what.

No matter.

I wield my swatter in anger. Once you're getting up my nose and down my pants at the same time, enough is enough...

I shall crush your skulls!