German Army boss spills beans on Ukraine war

There's a great story on view at Reuters titled "Don't underestimate the Russian Military." Sounds like Russian Propaganda to me. General Zorn must be in Putin's pocket. He should immediately be charged with treason. How else to explain his ludicrous pronouncements about Russian capacity to open a second front. (Like in Poland, for instance.) Zorn claims Russia is raining 40 to 60 thousand artillery shells per day on Ukrainian positions. That's 1,600 to 2,500 per hour, 24/7. That's an incoming every couple of seconds, against Ukrainian forces getting off a countershot every half hour. Remember, this insight comes from the top of the German Bundeswehr. So is it remotely conceivable that Ukraine is anywhere "pushing Putin back?"

Putin chaos as Zelensky pushes Russian forces out of Kherson

That's the title of a story on view right now at MSN, sourced from the UK Daily Express. I'd give you a link but Blogger blocked my linking privileges. Our Big Media news sites are reporting disarray on the Russian side and a veritable blitzkrieg on the part of Ukraine. There is fierce fighting all across the south, we are told. The liberation of Crimea is at hand! Just keep sending weapons and money, and Zelensky will save liberal democracy world-wide! Of course, there is another side to the story. Western media report Ukraine sources as utterly truthful, and that's where our mainstream war news comes from. In Russian and Russo-sympathetic media, they're discussing the alleged counter-attack by Ukraine in the past tense already. As in, it didn't gain anything and cost 50 tanks and 1200 men. Our official narrative is that Russia failed to take Kyiv in the first three days, and Ukraine has been pushing back ever since. The world-class PR experts who have been turd-polishing for the Zelensky regime have been winning the propaganda war. But facts on the ground, not only in Uraine, but throughout Europe, tell another story. EU and NATO solidarity are under extreme stress. Without their European satrapies, the American Empire is no more. That would be a good thing for the planet. The world at large would be free of the American yoke, and America would be free to focus on its internal problems. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Why hot tubs are gross

I'm sure you've seen it too. The dude who sits in the hot tub for the entire afternoon, drinking beer, and never gets out for a pee. What do you imagine is going on there? And what do you imagine you'll be sitting in if you get in there... Not only that, but people make out in hot tubs. Think that through. The only way to make a hot tub safe, short of a complete drain and refill, is dumping in a load of chemicals to kill all the potential toxins. So when you climb into that hot tub, you'll either be sitting in a chemical soup, or a stew of human bacteria. Sorry to wreck your fun.

Ukraine launches long-promised Kherson counter-attack

Depending on where you get your news, this counter-attack has been building momentum as far back as May. This morning various Ukraine oriented news sites were reporting the long-awaited counter-attack was actually really finally happening. By the time the evening news came around, the story had all but disappeared. Wonder what happened in between?

Learnings from my Globe and Mail today

I inevitably feel ripped off a couple hours after forking over $7.35 to the Korean Extortionist for a Saturday Globe and Mail. That's because it takes a couple hours to scan the news. No mention of Ukraine on the front page today, and hardly a passing mention anywhere else. Take what lesson you want from that, but I have a hunch there's a pivot going on in the world 'o news. But at least for the moment mainstream news will continue to pretend the sun shines out Zelensky's asshole. Former journo and now famous author Ian Brown got a full page to celebrate the glories of a free press. I read the whole damn thing just out of curiosity, to see if the name "Assange" would come up. It did not. But thank God there was at least one worthwhile story in the paper; the obit for Dorothy Eber. That alone was worth $7.35.

How the Left has changed

When I was coming up, progressive folks had a lot of ideas in common. We were anti-war, anti censorship, pro civil rights, pro feminism and pro gay rights. It was a given in our belief system that we could never ever trust Big Business or Big Media. And never in our lives would it be conceivable to trust the FBI or the CIA. Fast forward fifty years. The "progressive left" today idolizes the FBI and state power. They trust Big Media to tell them the truth, and are cheerleaders for censorship. They trust Big Pharma and line up for their safe and effective experimental vaccines. They rally 'round the Empire they once hated and demand we pursue war with Russia and China. Instead of valorizing women's rights, they demand men with gender dysphoria have access to womens' spaces. Have to say I'm not seeing much progress in the progessive agenda these days.

Experts plot fresh strategy to bankrupt Newfoundland for good

When the Come-by-Chance oil refinerey was built in the early 1970's, a lot of common-sense sort of folks, like Newfoundlanders tend to be, looked askance at the idea of contributing public money into the project. Unfortunately, the developers produced plenty of well-credentialed experts who argued otherwise, and the experts prevailed. The refinerey went bankrupt within three years. It has since seen several resurrections under various investors, venture capitalists, and carpet-baggers, all with their teams of well-credentialed experts, all promising to make a go of it with just a little more public money. The most recent bankruptcy was just last year. The 1980's brought Premier Brian Peckford's plan to turn Newfoundland into a cucumber powerhouse. Hydroponic cucumbers would put Newfoundland on the map. Again, the common-sense folks were skeptical, but the experts prevailed. The tax-payer funded scheme collapsed into bankruptcy after one growing season. Their cukes cost $27.50 apiece to grow, when the market price was fifty cents. Who could have seen that coming? In the '90's the cod fishery collapsed, having been mismanaged into oblivion over decades by the experts at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. From cucumber super-power to hydro-electric super-power, a fresh crop of well-credentialed experts convinced the province to get behind the Muskrat Falls project. Billions in cost over-runs later, Muskrat Falls now produces the most expensive electricity in Canada, subsidized by the Federal government to the tune of billions just so N.L. can afford their electrical bills. Fast foward to 2022, and some well-credentialed experts have come up with a sure-fire winner. All N.L. has to do is sprinkle a few hundred giant windmills across the western Newfoundland landscape, use the electricity to produce hydrogen fuel, which will solve Germany's energy crisis and defeat Putin! The experts claim shipments will commence in 2025. Looks like the long-suffering Newfoundlanders are about to take it up the arse again!

Looming toilet paper shortage threatens Germany

Those poor Germans! Already faced with a ruinous energy shortage that prevents the proper heating of homes and hot water, they will soon have to do without toilet paper as well, according to a story at Zerohedge this morning. No hot showers AND no toilet paper? A trip on the Berlin U-Bahn is gonna be one stinky adventure, isn't it? Oh wait... they'll need to shut down the U-Bahn due to the same energy crisis. At least they'll still be able to use the stations as bomb shelters when Zelensky's war to save liberal democracy and stop Putin comes to Germany. As unpleasant as this scenario may be, I'm confident the vast majority of Germans will agree these are small sacrifices for the sake of standing with Ukraine, although under the circumstances the Ukrainians can't be blamed for not wanting the Germans standing too close! On a related note, why is National Toilet Paper Day on August 26, but World Toilet Day isn't till November 19?

Where's Greta?

Seems like just yesterday you couldn't open a newspaper or a laptop without the obnoxious teen scold Greta Thunberg getting in your face about how your reckless disregard for her climate expertise was destroying the planet. Now, Greta be gone. You can barely find a reference to her on the news anymore, and her glory days of addressing the UN, the US congress, Davos, and sundry parliaments are long over. Is this because the world heeded her wisdom and climate salvation is now assurred? No! In fact, the world at large is going in the opposite direction. Coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, is setting all-time consumption records. In 2021 over 200 new coal-fired generating plants were under construction worldwide, mostly in Asia. So why the radio silence from the most revered climate activist of all time? Here's my theory. The "Mighty Wurlitzer" of global propaganda only has room for one top story at a time, and Greta's time is up. She has been pushed into the shadows by Vlodomyr Zelensky's heroic war to save freedom, democracy, and the "liberal world order." After all, what's more important; saving the planet, or saving the American Empire?

Newfies have insatiable appetite for pie in the sky

When the Come-by-Chance oil refinerey was built in the early 1970's, a lot of common-sense sort of folks, like Newfoundlanders tend to be, looked askance at the idea of contributing public money into the project. Unfortunately, the developers produced plenty of well-credentialed experts who argued otherwise, and the experts prevailed. The refinerey went bankrupt within three years. It has since seen several resurrections under various investors, venture capitalists, and carpet-baggers, all with their teams of well-credentialed experts, all promising to make a go of it with just a little more public money. The most recent bankruptcy was just last year. The 1980's brought Premier Brian Peckford's plan to turn Newfoundland into a cucumber powerhouse. Hydroponic cucumbers would put Newfoundland on the map. Again, the common-sense folks were skeptical, but the experts prevailed. The tax-payer funded scheme collapsed into bankruptcy after one growing season. Their cukes cost $27.50 apiece to grow, when the market price was fifty cents. Who could have seen that coming? In the '90's the cod fishery collapsed, having been mismanaged into oblivion over decades by the experts at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. From cucumber super-power to hydro-electric super-power, a fresh crop of well-credentialed experts convinced the province to get behind the Muskrat Falls project. Billions in cost over-runs later, Muskrat Falls now produces the most expensive electricity in Canada, subsidized by the Federal government to the tune of billions just so N.L. can afford their electrical bills. Fast foward to 2022, and some well-credentialed experts have come up with a sure-fire winner. All N.L. has to do is sprinkle a few hundred giant windmills across the western Newfoundland landscape, use the electricity to produce hydrogen fuel, which will solve Germany's energy crisis and defeat Putin! The experts claim shipments will commence in 2025. Looks like the long-suffering Newfoundlanders are about to take it up the arse again!

Eating ice cream with a fork

That's the kinda wild and crazy guy I have become in my retirement. The Farm Manager has a pint of Haagen-Dazs pine-apple coconut stashed in the freezer, and every once in awhile I avail myself of a spoonful or two. Tonight I found myself sitting on the couch with the tub of ice cream and a FORK! In my pot-addled obliviousness, I had mistakenly pulled a fork out of the untensil drawer instead of a spoon! I was then faced with a conundrum. Do I roust my ass off the sofa to get a spoon? Or do I tuck into that pineapple-coconut with a fork? The "what would Jesus do" litmus test hardly seems appropriate in this circumstance.

If Putin wasn't bluffing we might be screwed

I wrote a post back in January questioning the assumption Putin was bluffing when he issued the December ultimatum. The gist of the ultimatum was that if NATO doesn't back away from our borders, specifically in Ukraine, we will take military-technical measures to solve the problem. NATO/USA briefly ridiculed Putin's ultimatum and then ignored it altogether. Six months and a trillion dollars later, our state media outlets continue to assure us that a Ukrainian victory is just around the corner. The Toronto Star had two full pages of rabid Ukrainian propagana on view today. Ukraine is going to win... They've been winning since they beat back the assault on Kyiv in February. They've been pushing the Russians back ever since. Just a few more billions in long-range missiles and Russia's defeat is assured. Unfortunately, in spite of all that momentum, Ukraine continues to shrink. Is it perhaps time to consider Putin wasn't bluffing? Perhaps it's time to acknowledge that Putin has effectively called our bluff.

Beach etiquette, with dogs

We've been favoring our local cobble stone beach in these heat wave times. Not really much of a heat wave if you ask me. What's 30C when large parts of Europe and Asia are going weeks on end at 40C? But it's all relative. Most of the places running those temps rarely ever see sub-zero, whereas we can get weeks at -20C and think nothing of it. In these parts, 30C is mighty friggin' hot! That's why we've been regulars at a waterfront park twenty minutes distant. But here's the problem. There seems to be more folks ignorant of the basics of beach privacy protocols. Viz. the beach is deserted save for one lonely party camped smack dab in the middle. They obviously got there first, so taking whatever slice of beach they want is their perogative. The right thing to do, if you're the next arrival, is to arrange maximum distance for yourself. You don't put down your beacch umbrella twenty feet from their spot when there's a quarter mile of vacant beach available. Seems logical to me. Instead, we've been inundated with folks who want to make it a day on the beach with three loud kids and two yappy dogs twenty feet from where we and Bruno are trying to pass a peaceful afternoon.

Modern girls have hairy armpits

The topic of gals with hairy armpits has become newsworthy again. At least the wannabe wokelings at The Globe and Mail seem to think so. They give the matter three quarters of a page in what used to be the Arts and Culture section. I'm the first to admit I'm not up on every twist and turn in contemporary culture. According to Tayo Bero, top titles like Vogue and Glamour have been leading the way in destigmatizing women's armpit hair. Breanne Fahs has a book out hoping to capitalize on the trend; Unshaved: Resistance and Revolution in Women's Body Hair Politics. Everything old is new again. As time goes on and the general populace grows ever more stupid, thanks mainly to those devices most of us are addicted to, it becomes child's play to trot out yesterday's news as bold and fresh. I spent some time at a reputable university forty years ago, studying sociology. My old drinking buddy and classmate Karen McWilliam, like many forward looking women of the era, didn't bother shaving her pits. Karen used to joke about braiding her armpit hair if it grew long enough. Forty years later, Vogue and Glamour are fanning an imaginary revolution. Where did American women get the ridiculous idea that they needed to shave their pits in the first place? From America's cosmetics-advertising-industrial complex that finances Vogue and Glamour!

Ukraine weapons trafficking; Polish Mafia to blame

CBS News had a documentary ready to go last week, about how only 30-40% of that military hardware we provide ever makes it to the front lines. They cancelled the doc due to strenuous objections from the Ukraine lobby. Until the last couple of days, such claims were routinely dismissed as "Russian disinformation." I guess that gets harder to do when the disinfo is on a mainstream network like CBS. Perhaps in an effort to get ahead of the bad-news curve, a Ukrainian news site published an expose on corruption in the Urainian Armed Forces. The Kyiv Independent is an on-line news portal financed by the government of Canada and other NATO states. I urge you to look up their story. I'd link it for you but Google's Blogger doesn't afford me that privilege anymore. The main sources for the story are a few Western mercenaries from Canada, US, UK, and Brazil. These were serious ex-military types hoping for a chance to kill Russians. Instead, they were cast into a cesspool of incompetence and corruption. But I don't want to spoil it for you. It's a remarkable admission of corruption at very high levels. The story implies that weapons shipped to Ukraine are in fact diverted to the black market. But it's not the fault of Ukraine... The Polish Mafia is to blame!

Putin is waiting for winter

Looks like the Russian invasion of Ukraine has hit another setback. Those plucky Ukrainians have fought Russia to a standstill. They could be standing still for months. Maybe even till spring! What do you imagine winter will contribute to EU/NATO solidarity? People tend to forget this war is only incidentally about Ukraine. Putin himself has spelled out on numerous occassions the war is about ending the unipolar status quo of US dominance. It's not in Putin's interest to end this war now. Europe needs to experience a heating season without affordable energy. Perhaps they will need to experience several cold winters before they come to their senses. Most countries in EU/NATO are already struggling with mass public discontent. France has had the Yellow Vests for several years now. Populist parties have been making inroads everywhere. One thing they have in common; they are anti-status quo, which by definition means against the US-dominated world order. Look at Germany. Just how long are they prepared to stand with Ukraine, and how many showers are they prepared to skip in the interests of a country that contributed to Germany's greatest shame with unbridled enthusiasm? It is shocking how readily Sholtz has given up German sovereignty. Then again, Germans have been under occupation by the US Army since 1945, so maybe they never had sovereignty to begin with. Regardless, stretching out this war over a winter or two will help focus the minds of those in Europe who wish to take more than one hot shower per week.

Retired football timekeeper admits to rampant cheating

After my illustrious tenure coaching high school sports, they made me the official time keeper for the football team. My coaching career had been something of a bust. Never been a jock, so when they made me coach of the boys soccer team, I had to hustle to the school library to find out the basic rules of the game. Like how many players you can have on the field, which I quickly learned was called the "pitch." I did such a bang-up job with that team, they added the girls soccer team to my coaching duties the next year. Year after, I got girls rugby, and then senior boys basket ball. Like I said; not a jock, and had no clue what I was doing. No team I coached ever had a winning season. We would take comfort in putting something on the scoreboard, nevermind winning a game. Once I had enough seniority at the school board to get out of that shit, the football team honoured me with the job of timekeeper for the home games. This was before we had a big fancy scoreboard at our school. I soon learned that the stopwatch in my pocket had the power to influence the game. If we were up a few points going into the fourth quarter, that quarter might be over in five minutes. If, on the other hand, we were down a few, and had possession and the possibility of a decent drive, the 4th quarter could last a half hour! Needless to say, the opposing coaches were not amused, but in those days, the stopwatch in my pocket was the ultimate arbiter of how many seconds were left in the game. Then one fateful September I went back to school, and lo and behold, we had a brand new TD Bank electronic scoreboard gracing the football field. Complete with time-clock so big they could read the numbers from the balconies of the apartment building three blocks away. That was the end of my career as official timekeeper of the high-school football team.

Betrayed betray the betrayers in Afghan orgy of betrayal

The Globe and Mail had a front page story yesterday on how the Afghan collaborators who sided with our occupation now feel abandoned, left high and dry and at the mercy of the very Taliban we had loudly vowed to run out of the country. They feel betrayed because we actually have betrayed them. 40,000 we were going to take. But then Ukraine happened... Fuck those 40,000 swarthy Muslims; there's a whole lotta blonde, white, and Christian Ukrainians knocking at the door. Today CBC News' Murray Brewster has a story on how we can't help the starving people of Afghanistan because we can't trust their government. Apparently Canadian volunteers gathered up two shipping containers of food but we can't send it because of sanctions insisted on by the US, the leader of the occupation of Afghanistan in the name of freedom and democracy, kites, women's rights, and a partridge in a pear tree. That's right; we're gonna get tough on the Taliban by denying food aid to women and children. That'll teach 'em! Let's not forget the USA is the country that stole $7 billions in foreign reserves from a starving country, out of spite that a bunch of towel-heads in bedsheets and sandals put the run, after 20 years, to the the world's mightiest military. What amazes me is how "journalists" at CBC and The Globe and Mail continue to insist we're the "good guys." I guess they really need those paycheques.

American retardation shocks the world

America is pretty much the only place in the world where allegedly serious people have debates about whether or not "women" with penises belong in the girls' change room. Well, Canada and a few other sturdy America-firsters are on board, but most of the world looks at this shit and shakes its head. It's really hard for them to take America seriously. Look at their southern border. There has never in history been a country that declared itself wide open to all the world's huddled masses, mass terrorists, massive numbers of foreign criminals, and survived for long. And that Ukraine thing is the biggest blessing America's weapon industry has seen since... oh well, maybe Afghanistan, but it's showers of blessings all over the place for those guys. Just imagine the deluge of weapon orders coming up if the Chinese go for the Taiwan honey-pot the way Putin went for Ukraine! But here's the problem. The reason most of the world no longer rallies behind Uncle Sam is they've seen through the myth of American Exceptionalism. Plus, they want their daughters' change rooms to remain penis free.

PM Trudy strikes again

Trudy. That's how they refer to PM Trudeau in certain sectors of the internet. Kinda disrespectful, don't you think? I prefer "Fluffy." But whether he's Fluffy or Trudy, you gotta admit he's one slippery little goober. His non-answers to questions are a master class in Bullshitting 101. It comes out today that the Trudeau gang pulled the pin on the Emergency Act (previously known as the War Measures Act) instantly when they heard a deal to get the truckers off the streets was pending. After all, why have a peacefull resolution to a crisis of your own making when you've got a platform to pose as the tough guy who brought those people with unacceptable opinions to heel? Pretty sure truckers violating Ottawa parking by-laws wasn't top of mind for either the framers of the original War Measures Act or its recent revision. The way I read it, the "crisis" was pretty much brought to a successful resolution by local law enforcement, when the Feds dropped the hammer to provide Fluffy with some sound bites. That's how we roll in the liberal democracies.

Here's why you should stop driving and take transit instead

I'm not out to save the planet. I'm just trying to save your life. Aging has made me risk sensitive, and I have come to realize that driving a motor vehicle is one of the most dangerous things you can do. Here's why. When you're tooling your two-tons of metal & plastic down the highway at 88 feet per second, your well-being is entirely in the hands of others tooling the other way. Their good judgement is all that stands between a good day and four tons of metal colliding in the middle of the highway. What do you know about these people? Nothing! How many are clinically depressed? How many are on prescription drugs? How many are zonked on Xanax? How many are filled with anger, despair, and rage? Why are you on the same road as these people? Ditch the car and take the bus! Save the planet and save your life!

Lord of the flies

A couple months ago we had a family get-together to celebrate the Farm Manager's 60th. A photographer was on hand, and the other day the kids gifted us a framed picture taken on the occassion. I'm the grey-beard seated in the middle, with the gang arranged around me, and for the first time in my life, I felt like a patriarch! I savoured that special feeling. I didn't savour it long, though, because nobody in that picture, including the dog, is particularly interested in anything I have to say. An authentic patriarch would be telling them what to do. Everybody in that picture, including the dog, tells me what to do. I'm a complete fraud and a failure as a patriarch. But I have learned how to compensate. I have become the Lord of the Flies. As regular readers will know, now that I'm retired, I don't actually "do" much of anything other than relax on the stoop, watching the world go by... yes, a very empty life, I know, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Now that we have some summer heat going on, flies are out. House flies, Horse flies, Black flies, and Fruit flies, you name it, they all want to interfere with my stoop mindfulness zen experience. That's when the shit-hammer of death, ie the fly-swatter, sends them to the proverbial better place. I am the Lord of the Flies.

Trump arrest will trigger civil war

Grab your popcorn and gather 'round the big screen, kids! American Democracy Theatre is about to shift into high gear! Actual democracy in the USA is long dead. To my way of thinking, Citizen's United decision in 2010 was the last nail in the coffin for what had been a lengthy and painful demise. Now that democracy is good and dead, the Democracy Show is even more important. As you know, at least if you follow legacy media, there is no greater threat to America's imaginary democracy than Donald Trump. At this moment in time, America is at a critical juncture. Clearly, the "bait Putin into invading Ukraine" gambit hasn't panned out. America's prestige and clout in the Global South has become non-existent. More and more countries are doing trade outside the US dollar. America is screwed. What better way of taking the world's eyes off the US-engineered Ukraine fiasco than sparking a civil war at home.

Manopause

Me and Kipling met at the Budd Automotive plant in Kitchener round about '73 or so. Budd was a going concern at the time, and you could make more money, coming in off the street with no skills, than the teachers at the high school you'd dropped out of. And come in off the streets we did. The day I got hired there was a line at least 100 yards long out the door of the employment office. They came in and they went out just as fast. Most of the new hires quit within the first two weeks. If you had zero skills you started your career on one of the press lines. You stood between two 500 ton presses all day feeding parts from one to the next. It was a dirty, stinking, physically exausting, oil-soaked, steel-sliver inducing job, but if you could handle the pace, you took home a pretty fine paycheque. It was always disconcerting when you came in and one of those presses had amputated the arm of some poor putz who miscalculated his timing when pulling a oily piece of metal out of it. It was even more disoncerting to come in the next day and see the same press up and running with a fresh recruit who still had two arms. Today me and Kipling met at the Teviotdale truck stop. He pulls in behind the wheel of a 58 year old Pontiac sedan, straight six and three on the tree. It was a bargain basement full-size sedan in its day. The folks in the factory that built it could have readily afforded it. We get together periodically to trade notes on aging, and to marvel at the fact we've made it this far. Ya, things get a little dicey, and moreso the further you go. Eye surgery or hand surgery is a pain, but beats the hell out of dropping dead from a heart attack, or even worse, being diagnosed with a terminal disease that'll let you linger incapacitated for months or even years. Naturally, we reflect on how our lives have unfolded. Free Trade was the dagger through the heart of Southern Ontario's industrial economy and the working class who made their living in it. NAFTA hasn't been the only challenge in the last 50 years. It's only with the life experience of decades that you realize the role testosterone had in your life. Once you're crowding 70, let's face it; you're not making all that much of it anymore. What a relief!

While Pentagon was fine-tuning pronoun protocols, Russia was fine-tuning missile technology

Timothy Garton Ash had an op-ed in the Globe yesterday, about how Western democracies must pull up their socks and dig a little deeper if our plucky Ukrainian ally is to prevail in this Russian war we manufactured for them. Professor Garton Ash is a big deal at Oxford, and also at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. That makes him an A-list public intellectual in the Western world. This paragraph in his op-ed caught my eye. Mr. Putin’s cultural and political analysis leads him to believe that time is on his side. In his view, the West is decadent, weakened by multiculturalism, immigration, the post-nationalism of the EU, LGBTQ+ genderism, atheism, pacifism, and democracy. No match, therefore, for carnivorous, martial great powers who still cleave to the old trinity of God, family, and nation. Well, when you put it like that, it’s not hard to see how Putin has arrived at his conclusion. When A-list public intellectuals spew such stupendous stupidity, I’m inclined to agree with him. Notice the binary the good professor sets up; family, God, and country on the one side, but “democracy” bundled with a bushel of wokery on the other. Where would Putin get the idea American culture is “decadent?” Surely Russians too have serious debates about women with wieners on the girls’ swim team, don’t they? I’m sure Moscow’s public libraries have been hosting Drag Queen Story Time since forever. And the West embraces pacifism?! Dear God, professor, what have you been smoking?

Gov't workers don't want to go back to the office? Fire them!

What could be better than a well-paid job with generous benefits, pensions, and paid sick leave? How about a well-paid job with generous benefits, pensions, and paid sick leave that you can do from home in your pajamas? The CBC has a sob story on view about those hordes of government workers in Ottawa who are balking at returning to work. CBC, (where two thirds of their 3600 Ontario employees worked from home) feels their pain. Let’s not forget most of these folks are still reeling from the PTSD they got from those horn-tootin’ Truckers ‘o Terror. It’s no wonder they can’t leave the house! Or change outta their jammies… Wonder how many of those truckers have generous benefits, pensions, and paid sick leave?

I thought pounding out your weaker neighbour was bad?

It's certainly bad when Putin is doing it to Ukraine. So where is the outcry when Israel does it to Gaza? There is none. Silence befalls the media landscape. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, don't ya know. So shut-up. End of discussion. I propose that to show the world they're not a bunch of two-faced hypocrites, US/NATO lend the same support to Gaza as they do Ukraine. Let's fix the underdogs up with thousands of Javelins and Stingers, and what the heck, maybe even a few long-range howitzers and some of those HIMARs. That "democracy" whoo-whoo is pretty funny when you think about it. The democracy in Ukraine is so democratic it required a US-engineered coup in 2014 just to keep it on the democratic path! The Ukrainians are showing their gratitude by willingly sacrificing themselves in America's war with Russia. You wouldn't want to inspect Ukraine's "democracy" bona-fides too closely. The Z-man has banned all political parties except his own, and shut down all not-government news channels. Israel, on the other hand is a real democracy. Americans only get to elect a new leader every four years. Israelis get to elect theirs every few months! Clearly, that makes Israel the most democratic democracy in the world!

Too many health care bosses, not enough front-line workers

They’re in a flap out in Alberta over this story. Seems Covid Queen and media star Dr. Deena Hinshaw trousered a cool almost $600k annual stipend at the height of the pandemic. That’s nothing. Hinshaw is top Doc for an entire province. Check out the stink over the local health boss in these parts. He blew clear through the 600k mark, and he’s only responsible for a couple of backwoods counties, not an entire province! Bear in mind that neither Doctor Hinshaw or Doctor Arra ever see a patient in those ER units that are now shutting down on weekends for lack of funding. No, they’ve got bigger fish to fry. Meanwhile, back on the front lines, we’ve still got the PSW’s stitching two or three minimum wage (or close to it) part-time jobs together hoping to make a thirty-thousand a year annual income. Let’s fire the overpaid paper-shufflers and double the pay of the front-line workers.

Black sheep

How do you know who is the black sheep in your family? It's all relative, I suppose. The Farm Manager has an older brother who joined a biker gang, and a younger brother who became a lawyer. Not hard to guess who got the "black sheep" label there, especially in a Jewish family. Not too many Jewish mothers bragging up "my son the biker." In my family, I would have been the black sheep save for one of my three brothers, the "kid" if you're acquainted with the archives. I gave it my best shot, but when you apply objective criteria like, for example, number of police car rides, or number of ambulance rides, both of which are highly relevant to black sheep status, I gotta admit the "kid" has me beat hands down. Took a tour down south today for some family time. The folks are still spry and have their wits about them, which not everyone has who is knocking on the door of their 9th decade on this earth. Plus, they live independently in their own place. I always come away from these visits with the low-down on my various nieces and nephews. They're an interesting lot. Lots of over-achievers, a few under-achievers, and one particular dude who, as I write these words, is working as a fishing guide at a fly-in fishing resort in northern Canada, somewhere near the Arctic Circle. That's the kind of place rich people spend $10k per week to go fishing. And here's how stupid rich people are; they don't even get to eat the fish! Ten grand for a week of fishing and it's strictly catch and release! How retarded is that? Anyway, when dear nephew chose his post secondary education, he found some obscure college in Colorado that offered a one year diploma in "Outdoor Recreation." So he's a ski-patrol at famous resorts in the winter, and a guide at elite fishing lodges in the summer. His siblings, who took more conventional paths of study, aren't having anywhere near as much fun. Relatively speaking, I guess he's the black sheep...

DC nutters determined to spark WW3

Hard to fathom the thought process, if any, among the Washington heavy hitters. Like Nancy Pelosi, for instance. Joe said please don't go, but she's an independent woman, dammit, or at least was till she became a person who used to lactate and menstruate, or whatever they call those formerly know as women in the Woke Republic. Ain't no POTUS gonna boss Nancy around! Sure thing, Nance! After all, now that your winning team has Iran wrapped and Putin on the run in Ukraine, it's high time we cut Xi down to size. We're on a roll, after all. It took 20 years, but we left Afghanistan a thriving democracy, did we not? Ditto Libya and Iraq, and a few others we've saved from shitholedom. Yessiree! Since we got that Putin agent outta the White House, America has been on fire for freedom and democracy as never before! Meanwhile, back in the real world, even America's purported allies must be wondering who is calling the shots in DC. Team Biden is making America grate again in ways Trump couldn't imagine.

Making sense of it all

Making sense of it all? Get the fuck outta here! No way! There's no way you can get from here to "making sense of it all." I was just in the last post posing some questions about the hockey sex scandal, and news comes out that Clevland Browns QB DeShaun Watson got a six week suspension because 21 women have accused him of inappropriate hanky-panky, or as it is now framed, "sexual assault." This dude is one of the highest paid NFL players of all time. Who are you going to believe? A multi-millionaire NFL star, or a bunch of "illegal immigrant" women working at rub'n tugs in NFL cities across the land? Where men are made deities, rules do not apply. That's as true in Canadian junior hockey as it is in the NFL.